• creativesoul
    11.9k
    The promise is what makes it a moral state of affairs.
    — creativesoul

    But that means that you have a rule that says "promises turn the act that is promised into a moral state of affairs". I think it's a sensible rule, I just don't understand your approach.
    Echarmion

    The act that is promised is part of making a promise. Promising is the moral state of affairs. Promises(to do something) are unlike other sincere claims in that they're the only ones where one voluntarily enters into an obligation to make the world match their words. That's precisely what they mean.

    My approach is that true claims correspond to actual events(what has happened or is happening).

    "There is a cat on the mat" is true if there is a cat on the mat. When one tells another that there is a cat on the mat, if they're speaking sincerely and truthfully, then there ought be a cat on the mat.

    Meaning is important here.
  • creativesoul
    11.9k
    Hm maybe something's off with the subjective versus objective thing.jorndoe

    Indeed.
  • creativesoul
    11.9k
    Morality, as it is conventionally defined, is the rules for acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. These rules are subject to individual particulars(familial, cultural, social, historical, etc.). History and knowledge of all the world's different communities bears witness to this.

    That is a feature of morality, not a flaw. It is true of all morality.

    What's good/moral is discovered through trial and error, and changes in rules reflect changes in moral belief(belief about acceptable/unacceptable thought. belief, and behaviour).
  • Banno
    25k
    If you define morality thus, then morality can be wrong.

    The question: are the rules for acceptable/unacceptable behaviour always good?

    And again, the answer is "no".

    Are you happy to talk of an immoral morality?
  • schopenhauer1
    10.9k
    "...is good" is simple and unanalysable, according to Moore.

    Consider a particular naturalist claim, such as that “x is good” is equivalent to “x is pleasure.” If this claim were true, Moore argued, the judgement “Pleasure is good” would be equivalent to “Pleasure is pleasure,” yet surely someone who asserts the former means to express more than that uninformative tautology. The same argument can be mounted against any other naturalist proposal: even if we have determined that something is what we desire to desire or is more evolved, the question whether it is good remains “open,” in the sense that it is not settled by the meaning of the word “good.”
    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moore-moral/

    Moral judgements, like all judgements, are true, or they are false. This follows from their predicate-subject form.

    Moral propositions imply an action. That is, one ought act in accord with true moral propositions.
    Banno

    Moore thought that the concept "good" could not be defined in a subject-predicate way. In other words, good itself could not be explained with other descriptions without begging the question. What is goodness can never be a closed question for Moore. Somehow he thought we intuited it so he was a brand of intuitionist. However, he thought once we "intuited" it, we can judge the effects of actions, and this could lead to closed questions of which effects works better or which effects have more successful outcomes.
  • Snakes Alive
    743
    There are a couple features of good that are analyzable:

    First, goodness is gradable. Hence the comparative and superlative forms, better and best, and extreme forms like great and excellent, which imply good but not vice-versa.

    Second, goodness might have a scalar structure with a maximal endpoint. Plausibly, this is denoted by words like perfect (i.e., 'that which can't be better'). Of course that doesn't tell us for any particular thing whether it can be perfect, just that goodness in principle can admit of such endpoints.

    Third, goodness is apparently not relativized to anyone in its ordinary uses. So when one person says 'this is good,' and another says 'this is not good,' they can contradict each other, be reported as disagreeing, etc. This is hard to explain if good means good for x and in most such disagreements the value of x differs across the claimants.

    Fourth, goodness can nonetheless be overtly relativized, as in good for him (with something that is good for him perhaps not being good for me).

    Fifth, goodness apparently does not track personal preferences. So there is no contradiction in claiming that something is good, even though one isn't pleased by it, doesn't like it, etc. Claiming that something is good often implies that one approves of it, etc. but apparently this is because we approve of things that are good, not because things are good in virtue of our approving of them.

    Sixth, goodness, whether it can be reduced to any natural property or not, apparently must supervene on such properties. Thus, it is contradictory to take two situations totally identical in their descriptive or natural qualities, and claim that one is good while the other is not. Goodness cannot be a free-floating quality that the exact same descriptive situation can have or fail to have: rather, things must be good in virtue of those qualities.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Moral judgements, like all judgements, are true, or they are false. This follows from their predicate-subject form.Banno

    I'm a noncognitivist, basically an emotivist. Moral utterances are not true or false.

    "good" in a moral sense amounts to the person approving of or preferring the (usually interpersonal) behavior in question, if not directly, then as a means to some other end that they approve of or prefer.
  • Snakes Alive
    743


    Is it possible to approve of something that's not good? Yes.

    Therefore, it cannot be that what is good is what one approves of.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Is it possible to approve of something that's not good? YesSnakes Alive

    Rather, the answer is "No." What it is for x to be good to S, morally, is for S to approve of or prefer x, that is, to approve or prefer the behavior in question (where we're talking about behavior S considers more significant than etiquette).
  • Snakes Alive
    743
    Good to x? Aren't we talking about what's good? Where did the to x come from?
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    "Good to S," some subject. "Good" is subjective. "x" was whatever the S in question is making the judgment about.

    Any x is always good or bad to someone (that is, if anyone is making a judgmen about the x in question). The same x can be good to one person and bad to another.
  • Snakes Alive
    743
    OK, but we're not talking about what's good to S, we're talking about what's good.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    Again, good is always to someone. That's part of what it means for good to be subjective.
  • Snakes Alive
    743
    Says who? We can just say something is good. We don't need to specify a 'to someone.'
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Says who?Snakes Alive

    Says the world. We only find "good" in judgments that individuals make.
  • Snakes Alive
    743
    Why do we say that things are good, then, without specifying for who? Are we all just deluded?
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    Combo of (a) it not being necessary to specify that it's to someone, for the people who understand this--it's redundant if you understand it, and (b) mistaken beliefs about objective morality.

    It's just like not needing to specify "in my opinion" for everything that's someone's opinion. Most people understand that most opinions are opinions without needing to flag it.
  • Snakes Alive
    743
    So what's the evidence that good is always good to some S?
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    So what's the evidence that good is always good to some S?Snakes Alive

    The fact that "good" judgments are found nowhere else but in individual activity.
  • Snakes Alive
    743
    Aren't judgments about anything only found in individual activity?
  • Snakes Alive
    743
    So are you saying that all judgments are only 'to some S?'
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    Yes. Keeping in mind that judgments are a particular sort of activity that we do.
  • Snakes Alive
    743
    So what you're saying is that, for example, it is only raining or not raining, to S?
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    You don't think that everything in the world is a judgment, do you? What definition of judgment are you using?
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Again, judgments are a particular sort of activity that we do. That's not the whole of the world.
  • Snakes Alive
    743
    Let's try again.

    You said things are only good to some S or other.

    When asked why, you said that the reason for believing this is that judgments about what is good are only found in individuals.

    But then I noted that all judgments are only found in individuals.

    If that judgment that something is P is only found in an individual is not a reason for believing that something can be P only to some S, say in the case of whether it's raining, then it equally cannot be a reason for believing this in the case of goodness.

    In other words, the reasoning in the raining and good case are parallel.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    If judgment that something is P is only found in an individual is not[/o] a reason for believing that something can be P only to some S, say in the case of whether it's raining, then it equally cannot be a reason for believing this in the case of goodness.Snakes Alive

    You don't think that propositions and what propositions are about are identical, do you?
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    So, let's try this again indeed: You don't think that everything in the world is a judgment, do you? What definition of judgment are you using?
  • Snakes Alive
    743
    I don't see the relevance of the question.
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