Yep.

Right. So I'm asking you to provide evidence of that, to explain/evidence the nonmental moral whatevers. Can we finally get to the post where you do that? Post hoc is fine. I just want you to explain and evidence the nonmental moral whatevers now.

It shows that there is something more fundamental than the most common, cross-cultural feelings of communal life. — Banno

I don't agree that it shows any such thing. All it asserts is that good is something indefinable. Even if we were to accept that good is indefinable, that tells us nothing about what is good and why it is good, which would seem to make the notion of an indefinable good being most fundamental pretty much useless.

Perhaps you could lay out an argument that explains just how the open question argument shows that their is something (however indefinable) more fundamental than the most common cross-cultural feelings of communal life. Or if you've already laid out such an account which I missed, then point me to it.

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

(my bolding).

You assume that it is either mental or not mental; that's the same as assuming it is either subjective or objective. But being blue is not only mental; and yet, it is mental.

I'm attacking this underpinning juxtaposition. That's why it looks to you like I am contradicting myself. But a quick look around will show that others can see what I am saying; and I hope you will give me at least some credit for coherence.

Now, how will you make sense of what I have said?

Perhaps you could lay out an argument that explains just how the open question argument shows that their is something (however indefinable) more fundamental than the most common cross-cultural feelings of communal life. — Janus

That's what the open question is. Go read up on it. I gotta go move some straw and clean the chooks.

You assume that it is either mental or not mental; — Banno

I think it's only mental. If you think it's both mental and non (which it would have to be if there's a nonmental component, because obviously it's still mental, too), that's fine. I'm asking for evidence of the nonmental part. Can you provide that now?

I don't think that you're contradicting yourself. I don't think you're being incoherent. I think that you're simply ignoring repeated requests for evidential support of something you're claiming. There are a number of reasons you might be doing that. The most charitable reason would be that you don't understand some aspect of this. Well, or it's just something you accept on faith (I don't mean religious faith, though of course that's a possibility) but you don't want to straightforwardly admit that for some reason.

Re the discussion about blue, I certainly wasn't denying that there's the mental experience of color. That's not at issue. What's at issue is whether there's a nonmental correlate. I explained with blue what the nonmental correlate is, how we objectively detect/test it, etc. So all I'm asking is that you do the same with moral whatever-we-want-to-call-'ems. Nonmentally, the moral whatever is what? How does the property obtain? How would we measure it? Etc.

I'm asking for evidence of the nonmental part. Can you provide that now? — Terrapin Station

Yeah, but I have; the broken pup.

The open question argument as I remember and understand is a purported refutation of the idea that moral goodness could be identical with any non-moral, merely existential property or entity.

So, given that we accept that as true, how does it follow that there is anything more fundamental than the most common cross-cultural feelings of communal life? The argument seems to tell us what moral goodness is not; it doesn't tell us what it is, or even that it is anything.

In any case to say that the idea of moral goodness is a function of moral feeling is not to say that the good is identical to any non-moral, merely existential property or entity. Even to posit the idea of the good is to reify what is merely a feeling. It is a kind of Platonic move. It is like saying that because most people have aesthetic feelings, there is therefore 'the beautiful', and that the beautiful is more fundamental than the moist common cross-cultural aesthetic feelings.

With the broken pup, how does the moral whatever obtain, exactly?

If one person looks at the broken pup and says "the property of moral permissibility is contained in that" and another person says "no, the property of moral prohibition is contained in that," what nonmental aspect of it do we look at, exactly, with what instruments or methods, to see who is right?

I explained this to you re blue. Can you follow suit?

It's easy to explain, re nonmental propeties, how we check whether a dog's bones are broken, whether the dog is alive, etc. If there were a dispute about that, it's a relatively simple matter to describe how we (nonmentally) check who is right.

So let's describe this same sort of thing with respect to the moral properties (or however you want to characterize the moral whatevers--whatever you'd think would best make your case).

I explained this to you re blue. — Terrapin Station

Well, go on, then. But do so with an eye on my reply, which will be to take your explanation and paraphrase it into the discussion of the pup - again.

If someone looks at the cup and says it is not blue, then they are what we in the trade call wrong.

If someone looks at the broken pup and says this is permissible, then they are what we in the trade call wrong.

Well, go on, then — Banno

What?

I'm asking you to do something. Are you capable of doing it?

If there were a dispute about that, it's a relatively simple matter to describe how we check who is right. — Terrapin Station

What's that? And I will drag this argument down to first principles, at which point you will have to make a judgement.

What's that? — Banno

You're asking how we do this? For example, we can take an x-ray.

Now, describe at least one way we would use an instrument to detect anything about moral whatevers.

In the end, this is bad and this is blue both require a judgement. So neither is without mental content.

Let's talk about the non-end part where we detect things with objective instruments. Are you able to do that?

Now, describe at least one way we would use an instrument to detect anything about moral whatevers. — Terrapin Station

You ask me to use an instrument to demonstrate how things should be.

This is a problem of direction of fit, not of subject and object.

You ask me to use an instrument to demonstrate how things should be. — Banno

Didn't you claim that how things should be is a nonmental phenomenon in the broken pup somehow?

If moral problems are mental, will you claim that the broken dog is mental?

Or not part of the problem?

The broken dog is nonmental.

Nonmentally, it's not a moral problem.

See how easy it is to straightforwardly answer a question? Can you try that now?

We are embedded in the world. Claiming that what we ought do is strictly mental, denies this. It's wrong. We have to look around.

Some folk get obsessed with a certain image - subject and object - and find it hard to see that this is a constraint they have forced onto their on thinking. IT's hard to see outside it.

It's hard to see the rabbit for the duck.

Clang. The door slams.

I think we're embedded in the world. I think that "what we ought to do" is only a mental phenomenon. We certainly look around the world we're embedded in to make such judgments, but it's not a judgment--or whatever you want to call it--that occurs nonmentally.

Weren't you disagreeing with me that "what we ought to do" occurs only as a mental phenomenon, and claiming that somehow it also occurs in the world we're embedded in?

Is it dishonesty that's leading you to evade like that or what? I really am curious what's going on in your head.

Look at your post - we are embedded in the world yet our moral judgements do not involve the world?

I never said anything like "Our moral judgments do not involve the world."

I said that moral judgments (again, or whatever someone would want to call the moral things/properties/whatever) do not occur in nonmental things. They're a mental phenomenon. It's like saying (simplifying the possibilities drastically) that paintings do not occur on non-canvas things. That doesn't mean that the paintings are not of non-canvas things, but the painting itself doesn't occur on a non-canvas thing. (And we'd certainly not be saying that paintings aren't embedded in the world.)

Maybe someone would try to claim that a painting of a cow occurs not only on the canvas, but somehow in the cow itself. And then I'd ask them to explain how the painting could occur in the cow itself.

Obviously we make moral judgments about things like broken pups, but we make those judgments. The broken pup doesn't make the judgment. Rocks don't. It's not some physical field, etc.

Obviously we make moral judgments about things like broken pups, but we make those judgments. The broken pup doesn't make the judgment. Rocks don't. It's not some physical field, etc. — Terrapin Station

And how is this different from how we judge the cup to be blue? We look at the cup and judge it to be blue. We look at the broken pup and judge it to be bad. Yep, we make the judgement.

Moral or not.

I never said anything like "Our moral judgments do not involve the world." — Terrapin Station

But would you be wiling to say that our moral judgements involve the world?

Yet how could they not?

And how is this different from how we judge the cup to be blue? — Banno

I'm not asking you about judgments per se. There's no dispute that we make judgments, is there?

There's a dispute about what sort of stuff obtains nonmentally. I say that blue obtains nonmentally. I explained what blue is nonmentally, what it's a property of, how it obtains, how we can nonmentallly detect it with instruments, etc. Supposedly you're claiming the same thing about moral whatevers. But no explanation of what property they are, how they nonmentally obtain, how we nonmentally measure them with instruments etc. is forthcoming.

But would you be wiling to say that our moral judgements involve the world? — Banno

Of course. In many different ways. They're about things we experience in the world, they have an impact on our interactions, etc. It's just that the moral judgments, qua moral judgments, do not obtain in the nonmental world.