Your point, if there is one, is obscure.

Now you seem to be resiling.from your previous arguments. — Janus

So, you're now saying they were off the mark?

I think you meant to write "Yes" here, so I will assume that you did. — Janus

Ah. yes - fixed.

If something that accords with the most common, cross-cultural feelings of communal life (about what is good, to be explicit here) could nonetheless not be good, then this begs the question as to on what grounds it could fail to be good. — Janus

What's with philosophers misusing "begs the question"?

Of all people, they should know better.

It's not hard to think of a few examples - boats from Indonesia over here; walls over there; Brexit somewhere else.

Actually, I'm the star; you are the antenna. :cool:

Allow me to insert my own ideas here on Janus' behalf (he is circling a point that I'm partial to).

I think we both agree that there is necessarily a relative or subjective component of moral truth (concerning the moral values or principles we use as ethical foundations).

On the whole, this idea of ultimate, universal, and objective moral truth is nonsensical given the breakdown of exclusive/competing values, but when two or more moral agents are trapped in a room together, it does not make sense to talk about the moral implications of the values which they do happen to share? Within that room, they can come to sound moral agreements even if everyone outside of it doesn't share their values.

As we're all somewhat trapped together in our respective families, cities, and nations (and ultimately the planet), the strength and consensus of the moral agreements/statements we can make depend on what values are most prevalent within the relevant sphere of moral consideration. If there are indeed some values which are nearly universally present among all individuals and groups, then they tend to make the most functional and persuasive moral/ethical starting points.

Is this helpful at all?

What's with philosophers misusing "begs the question"? — Banno

Gee, are you suggesting that my use of "begs the question" is not correct?

I realize that "begs the question" usually refers to cases where the truth of the conclusion is assumed in, rather than supported by, the premises. I was using it more in the sense of 'leads to the question' which I think is also a valid transliteration. I think it's also apposite, insofar as you have simply assumed that something could fail to be good even though it accords with the most common, cross-cultural feelings of communal life as to what is good, without showing how such a something could fail to good.

In any case, your response just looks like a smartarse's red herring, flippantly tossed out there in order to avoid answering that important question.

Maybe one of the forms will be a true or false quiz.....

......even if “good” is undefinable, and even if “goodness” is not derivable from naturalistic conditions, can “good” still be an innately sensible quality?

Wow, man, and you claim you never indulge in posturing! :rofl:

Allow me to insert my own ideas here — VagabondSpectre

Of course.

I agree with you, i think; although I might summarise it somewhat briefly as that in the end, it's what we do that counts. And it is "we" not "I".

The smartarse red herring bit was only part of my reply. I regret the loss of a term that was quite useful; that's all.

I did answer your question:

It's not hard to think of a few examples - boats from Indonesia over here; walls over there; Brexit somewhere else. — Banno

Well, the rest of your reply consisted only in examples, the relevance to the question of which I have been unable to discern.

And you don't need to worry: no term has been lost.

......even if “good” is undefinable, and even if “goodness” is not derivable from naturalistic conditions, can “good” still be an innately sensible quality? — Mww

And they all moved away from me on the bench there...

But yes, that's a good point. (He he. I made a pun.)

Overwhelmingly, we agree on what to do. But it is the points of disagreement that get our attention.

I agree with you, i think; although I might summarise it somewhat briefly as that in the end, it's what we do that counts. And it is "we" not "I". — Banno

I like both your focus on "do" and on "we".

My most recent thread attempted to capture the "doing" aspect of any strategic truth (what are moral oughts but strategies/predictions of outcomes?): it's impossible to separate moral [strategic/empirical] soundness from the actual situation and context it is to be employed in.

And the "we" is critical: morality isn't merely asking "what's best for me?", it's asking "What's best for me in an environment filled with others who each want what's best for themselves?". In other words, morality as a practice begins at extending consideration of some kind to others.

OK, let's go back.

Now the Open Question Argument would have us look to this and consider, could something be what accords with the most common, cross-cultural human feelings of communal life, and yet not be good? - Banno

If something that accords with the most common, cross-cultural feelings of communal life (about what is good, to be explicit here) could nonetheless not be good, then this begs the question as to on what grounds it could fail to be good. — Janus

Is it good to turn away asylum seekers? To build walls against immigrants? To fuck your economy? On at least one of these things, you might agree that it isn't, but is considered by at least a large number of folk to be worth doing. If so, we could move on to considering the difference between the most common, cross-cultural human feelings of communal life, and the good.

But what the open question shows, and the point being made, is that good is different from whatever naturalistic qualities you might claim are good.

Agreed! And it's this that can get lost in if folk think morality is subjective.

We was all just wondering if you’d been......rehabilitated.

,,,,from missing the point that practicing morality presupposes its inception. We aren’t going to do anything (the practice) that counts (the good) until we know (the presupposition) what counts.

You wanna know if I rehabilitated myself after reading Moore?

We aren’t going to do anything (the practice) that counts (the good) until we know (the presupposition) what counts. — Mww

They are going to burn women, kids, houses and villages anyway, litterbugs or not. They, and we, have no choice but to act.

Indeed, most moralising is post hoc.

But we both know where to get anything we want.

Arlo's coming for a visit in a couple of months. Comin' in from over the pole.

Is it good to turn away asylum seekers? To build walls against immigrants? To fuck your economy? On at least one of these things, you might agree that it isn't, but is considered by at least a large number of folk to be worth doing. — Banno

They all depend on perspective and what is thought to be desirable. Good for what, in other words?

So, it is not good to turn away asylum seekers if you want to act compassionately towards all people, or it's good if you only want to act compassionately towards your own. Likewise with immigrants, (although building walls might turn out to be an impractical waste of resources). As for your last example, why would anyone want to fuck their own economy?

So, of course a large number of people might think it good to turn away asylum seekers or shut out illegal immigrants, but such attitudes are based, not on what people think is good, simpliciter, but on what they think is the best strategy to achieve what they think is good, for example avoiding over-population (because overpopulation will fuck the economy, perhaps), or avoiding social divisiveness (because they believe that will multi-cultural populations lead to social divisiveness in the form of cultural enclaves, perhaps).

Every policy has its costs and benefits, so these are too nuanced to be used as good examples to support your argument.

Yes... moral contingencies can be traced back to moral fundamentals... and...?

Might be a good time to go read some more of Martha.

You're missing the point here. The point is that the fundamentals are the

most common, cross-cultural feelings of communal life as to what is good, — Janus

So, almost everyone believes that social harmony is good; but people may obviously disagree on how that harmony is to be best achieved; on the "moral contingencies" that is. Does that make it any clearer for you?

You're missing the point here. — Janus

Me?

Again, i would just throw the open question argument back at you.It shows that there is something more fundamental than the most common, cross-cultural feelings of communal life.

But that would be going around the loop yet again.

Sure, and I see that you will not accept the properties I show you, saying that the wrong is not to be found in the broken pup. I point out that blue is not found in the cup, but you insist that it is. — Banno

Because you can't just say "the property is in the broken pup" you have to provide evidence of it being in the broken pup, you have to explain just what property it is, how we can objectively detect it, etc.--anything along those lines.

You talk of subjectivism, yet use "we" and "our".

We spoke before about how we all agree that a broken pup is not A Good Thing.

These things are shared. Yet you claim they are internal.

How do you get around that? — Banno

The subjective/objective distinction has nothing to do with agreement or disagreement.

You feel x way. Joe feels x way. Sue feels x way. Etc.

They agree that they feel x way. Feelings are mental.

you can't just say "the property is in the broken pup" you have to provide evidence of it being in the broken pup, — Terrapin Station

And that's the same as saying "you can't just say that the cup is blue". I can, and indeed we must, in order to explain just what property it is, how we can objectively detect it, etc.--anything along those lines.

Because if we did not know that the cup was blue, we would not have been able to learn that this is the same as emitting those wavelengths.

I think I've answered you on this enough.

And that's the same as saying "you can't just say that the cup is blue" — Banno

And indeed I didn't. I explained what the objective property is, explained how we objectively measure/detect it, etc. You need to do the same to support that moral properties are objective, that they're not simply a way that people feel, preferences they have, etc.

I demonstrated the sort of thing I'm looking for. Are you able to follow suit? If you can, please do so. If you can't, can we at least be honest about admitting this, and then we can think about why we'd not be able to do the same sort of thing for moral whatevers?

All of which is post hoc. It happens after blue.

You need to do the same to support that it's an objective property, — Terrapin Station

Dude, I'm not claiming that it is an objective property.

It's perfectly kosher for you to explain and evidence the objective moral properties post hoc. I couldn't care less about that. I just want you to explain/evidence the objective moral properties. Can you do that now?

Dude, I'm not claiming that it is an objective property. . — Banno

You're disagreeing that it's just preferences, feelings, mental activity of some sort, right?