It's not an argument ad populum; — Janus

Yes, it is, if you're saying that something is correct because it's statistically common. That's the whole nut of what the argumentum ad populum fallacy is.

Re "healthy," if you're attaching any sort of value judgment to that at all, it's again subjective.

So, you believe that all preferences are possible in an emotionally healthy individual; you don't allow that there might be moral health or sickness just as there can be physical health or sickness?

Implicit here are the absolute standards that... — tim wood

...are a figment of your imagination as far as I can reasonably tell. You're not a philosopher, you're a dogmatist.

Didn't Kant decry dogmatism, by the way?

Janus hasn't said anything about being statistically common being a reason for something valuable. In the posts I've read, they talked in terms of harm or well-being, which is defined on an individual's relation to everyone else.

I don't think it's a good way of explaining it at all. Culinary and moral preferences are not at all of equal consequence to human life. Aesthetic tastes are somewhere in between. — Janus

I am certain that that is not at all what he was doing with the analogy. He has even explicitly stated that moral preferences aren't trivial in the way that other preferences are.

He was showing why it is unreasonable to reach the conclusion from an outside perspective that the one guy thinks - or should think - that his own preference is just as good as the other guy's. It makes no sense.

So, you believe that all preferences are possible in an emotionally healthy individual; you don't allow that there might be moral health or sickness just as there can be physical health or sickness? — Janus

Again, if you're attaching any sort of value judgment of normative (in the "should" sense) to emotional AND physical health, you're engaging in something subjective for which there is no correct answer.

Objectively, there are simply different possible states--having cancer, living to 100 and being able to still run a marathon at that age, thinking that you're the incarnation of Napoleon and drooling all over yourself, being able to foster worldwide peace as a political leader--anything imaginable. Outside of individuals' judgments, none of those states are preferable to other states.

Are there some mental states that would preclude particular preferences? Probably, especially as we could basically set up definitions there so that we'd just be stating tautologies.

But one emotional state compared to another is not objectively preferred, and the fact that 99 or even 100% of everyone we ask says that they prefer mental or physical state A to B doesn't imply that they're correct--that would be an argumentum ad populum.

In the posts I've read, they talked in terms of harm or well-being, which is defined on an individual's relation to everyone else. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Again, if we're attaching any sort of judgment or normative to different objective states (and those terms typically have those sorts of connotations), we're doing something that's only individuals' preferences and that can't be correct or incorrect.

Re "healthy," if you're attaching any sort of value judgment to that at all, it's again subjective. — Terrapin Station

'Healthy' in the social context of subjective interaction, just means 'able to function harmoniously within the context of general subjective moral feeling'. Basically, we all value pretty much the same things. Almost no one thinks murder, rape or torture is a good thing; and someone who thinks those things are good will not be able to function harmoniously in interpersonal relations, if they are honest about their views, which means that their views are subjectively unhealthy.

'Healthy' in the social context of subjective interaction, just means 'able to function harmoniously within the context of general subjective moral feeling'. Basically, we all value pretty much the same things. Almost no one thinks murder, rape or torture is a good thing; and someone who thinks those things are good will not be able to function harmoniously in interpersonal relations, if they are honest about their views, which means that their views are subjectively unhealthy. — Janus

You can just ignore "if you're attaching any sort of value judgment of normative (in the "should" sense) to emotional AND physical health (as well as "harmonious" etc.), you're engaging in something subjective for which there is no correct answer" I suppose.

There's not much I can do about that.

There is no "objectivity" in the context of moral philosophy and you're confusing yourself by thinking there is.

you're engaging in something subjective for which there is no correct answer" I suppose. — Terrapin Station

Here's an example: I'm not saying that there is a "correct" view, an objectively determinable right or wrong answer as there might be with an empirical claim. As I said before, moral philosophy is more an art than a science.

Do you disagree that most people value and dis-value pretty much the same things, and that this is on account of their natural human desire to live harmoniously with their fellows?

There is no "objectivity" in the context of moral philosophy and you're confusing yourself by thinking there is. — Janus

On that, prima facie, we agree, but in general you sure don't type as if you agree with it.

The answer, of course, can't be merely what anyone thinks/feels, because that wouldn't be evidence of anything objective. The answer would have to point to something independent of persons' opinions, the independent thing that their opinions can get right or match, versus get wrong or fail to match. — Terrapin Station

For most things, it is mostly reflex, but not all things. Someone above mentioned boiling babies. Any one care to argue that's just an exercise in relativity. But sometimes thinking is work, and requires a creative aspect. One thing relativists overlook often is the viewpoint of the victim, when there is a victim. That doesn't get factored in. There's my outrage and your complete lack of it. But how does the victim vote?

That implies reason. Many things appear to be neither/nor, but resolve into an either/or at the right level of scrutiny. Under-age sex, smoking, drug use, and a zillion other forms of non-responsibility. Just because a person can't see the wrong in them does not mean that there is no wrong in them.

But reason, however it's worked out, is a powerful guide. it just takes effort and work sometimes

You think that only because you are apparently incapable of reading what I write except through the lens of your own presuppositions, which I don't share.

Anyone who obstinately persists in their own misunderstanding of what the other side is arguing should take a time out and consider the principle of charity. — S

Please educate.

Exactly!

For most things, it is mostly reflex, but not all things. Someone above mentioned boiling babies. Any one care to argue that's just an exercise in relativity? — tim wood

Are you trying to goad moral relativists into defending your own strawmen? Is there a moral relativist here who would say that? That makes it sound trivial, but you know that already, don't you? You're doing that on purpose. Again. It's another example of loaded language. They would much more likely say that it is extremely immoral.

There's my outrage and your complete lack of it. — tim wood

This is getting sillier and sillier. You show very little awareness of your own fallacies.

Implicit here are the absolute standards that...
— tim wood

...are a figment of your imagination as far as I can reasonably tell. You're not a philosopher, you're a dogmatist. — S

Dogmatism in the pursuit of truth is no vice! Relativism for the sake of convenience no virtue.

Do you argue that if I or anyone else tried we could not come up with something you would agree is wrong by any standard? No limits? No boundaries?

You seem akin to those persons who cannot allow a chair to be a chair, because it's atoms, or the like. So nothing can be absolute (because nothing can be absolute). Btw, is that a relative position?

Are you trying to goad moral relativists into defending your own strawmen? Is there a moral relativist here who would say that? That makes it sound trivial. They would much more likely say that it is extremely immoral. — S

Someone else's example. But, "extremely immoral"? Why not just immoral? Or maybe for you it's not immoral, but rather only just "extremely immoral," which could be a way of saying it could be moral.

My only point is that there are absolutes in every moral question. Most aren't worth the trouble of articulating. Some are, and in some cases it can be hard to get to the bone of the matter, for the fat. And sometimes it approaches an art.

The point of morality is the presence of a normative judgement. When we engage in morality, we are identifying a normative meaning to ourselves which is whether or not an action is worthwhile.

In the case of this pyschopath, for example, their lack of care (or at least the actions and motivations which have gone with it in this case) are harmful to both the population at large and the pyschopath themselves. They are the difference between the people in question living in a world of this pain, conflict and strife or not. With any question of morality, it is these "subjective" (i.e. impact on a subject) which are at stake. It's never been about an "objective" command or rule.

Morality is about awareness of the impact of actions and things upon people. And the differences between when one is present or not.

Hence why I tried to clarify just what you were claiming. You explicitly said "No, not per any particular individual's judgement"

The point of morality is the presence of a normative judgement — TheWillowOfDarkness

This isn't to suggest agreement or disagreement, but the point according to whom?

I say "chooses" because while moral relativism may appeal to thirteen-years-old boys, nearly all grow out of it as they approach adulthood; that is, it's a choice for the post-pubescent crowd. — tim wood

I will award a point to whoever can correctly name this fallacy.

Relativism for the sake of convenience no virtue. — tim wood

I bet you thought that that sounded clever, but it is just an uncharitable and irrelevant attack on a person's presumed motive and their character, rather than any reasonable and substantive criticism of moral relativism.

Do you argue that if I or anyone else tried we could not come up with something you would agree is wrong by any standard? No limits? No boundaries? — tim wood

That doesn't even make sense when properly analysed. You know that I'm a moral relativist. Why on earth would you expect me to agree to that? Why don't you just admit that you have no real argument? You don't have to put on a show.

That's because the subjective impact has a logical independent from the desire or wishes of a subject.

I can desire or wish to smoke, but that doesn't mean it lacks harmful effects. I can desire or wish to take heroin all day, it's doesn't take away the harmful effects of heroin on my body or wider harm on people who interact or dependent.

The subjective harm may will be according to no-one at a given time. Everyone might think smoking is harmless. Everyone might think taking heroin all day is great and harmless.

But this doesn't mean the harm isn't there. Much like our beliefs about how the world came to be, our beliefs about what is harmful to ourselves and others can be terribly flawed. People do the equivalent of thinking orange juice will cure their cancer all the time.

This is nonsense. Why would a predictive model become useless just because it is not certain? We are not 'certain' it will be sunny tomorrow, just because the weather forecast said it will be. How does that make weather forecasts "useless". The point I'm arguing against is that you seem to be saying that if the weather forecast says it's going to be sunny tomorrow, anyone carrying an umbrella just in case is morally bankrupt, they should believe wholeheartedly in what the modal tells them and act accordingly. It like talking to a religious fanatic. — Isaac

I was making the point that we have some capacity to predict whether or not FGM is beneficial to a society's subjective moral values, and you went on a tirade about how it's impossible to know whether or not FGM would make a positive or negative difference without god-like knowledge. I haven't brought up moral obligations or called people morally bankrupt, where is this coming from?. I realize you want to defend the humanity of people who carry out FGM, but this discussion isn't the place to do it (I'm attacking values, ideas, and practices, not specific people). I'm not going to back off of FGM as morally errant just because the condemnation is somehow insensitive.

I'm glad you brought up weather models, because they're frightfully uncertain predictive models, but they still have some utility. We cannot be absolutely certain that NOT cutting off a girl's clit won't harm the girl or society (harm their subjective values), but the forecast certainly indicates this (care to make a pragmatic argument for the practice of FGM? Extortion doesn't count, obviously). If the weather forecast is 99% possibility of precipitation, it would be prudent to carry an umbrella. This doesn't mean we're obligated to believe and obey weather forecasts, but it does mean that they can be useful in helping us make decisions, just like how the foreseeable and observed ramifications of FGM are useful in helping us make decisions about whether or not it effectively serves relevant human values, and hence to do it or not.

When it comes to vaccines, statistical examinations of their usage overwhelmingly indicates their safety/health-improving quality (the value they serve). You might not know it, but we're more certain of the measurable benefits of proven vaccines than the weather, which is why if health and well-being are the goals being serviced by taking or not taking vaccines, it is, statistically, (and as far as statistics can be "objective"), objectively, a superior decision to acquire the vaccinations (note: I'm not saying you should be sent to hell for not taking vaccines, I'm in effect saying you're stupid for not taking vaccines, and that you would have fewer health risks if you took vaccines. It only becomes a relevant moral condemnation if we can agree that morality should be concerned with preserving our physical health. Note*: Yes it is a moral condemnation if we agree on basic starting values, but I'm still not calling you morally bankrupt/hell-bound). You can claim ignorance on the matter, and that's fine, but your immune system and the pathogens it fights don't depend on your belief or ignorance; whether or not vaccines benefit or burden the average immune system, and the ratio of risks to rewards to our immune systems, is a question about objective fact. (we cannot access objective facts directly, but we approximate them through experience and observation; a cumulative inductive process.

The point is what could dissuade someone who promotes FGM as moral or morally obligatory because it promotes well-being?. (also, we don't need a "scientific" predictive model to have a useful predictive model, nor do we need "established science" to discriminate between the predictive power of competing models; experience alone can help sort that out). IF someone is practicing FGM because they believe it promotes individual and societal health, that amounts to a predictive model that can be questioned or falsified with reason,evidence, and sufficient experience; and while it is indeed a complex behavior nested in a complex system, we're not roundly incapable of gaining that kind of knowledge. I am interested in the strategic soundness of moral systems with given moral goals, their strategic objectivity, not the inconvenient fact that some people have ridiculous or contrary starting values (we get around this by trying to appeal to more fundamental values that are shared or non-comeptitive, which is essentially to attack the values themselves), or that we can never access "objective and absolute certainty" directly.

Have you really so little idea about how social groups function? There's not a small group of men sat in shed working out what their culture is going to be and then laughing maniacally about how cruel they've managed to make it. Cultures evolve over millenia as a result of thousands of individual choices and the complex interplay of social contracts, there's no one group to blame for it being the way it is. FGM is a result of a long history of bad decisions made under difficult circumstances. It needs to be dismantled with care, respect for the victims (including those who feel pressured into arranging it) and understanding that it is part of an interconnected Web of history of which we too are a part. This "enlightened westerner" telling the backward natives what they're doing wrong" shit is from the 50s, I had hoped we'd moved on from that. — Isaac

Ye Gods...

Some cultural practices are, in fact, morally superior to others in the context of those nearly universal human values which we all share (the desire to go on living, free, and unmolested, etc...). Thems just the breaks. I'm not trying to insult anyone or make people feel bad, I'm just pointing out that from the perspective of basically every human that has ever lived, and will ever live, some social systems/cultural practices/moral laws are more or less desirable than others. How can we hope to make any progress unless we're willing to point out mistakes and problems? FGM is a long history of bad decisions in difficult circumstances; you said it! How can we fix it? By pointing out in what way the decision to do FGM is "bad" and by changing the difficult circumstances that perpetuate it (which happens to be sufficiently wide group belief that FGM is good, for whichever reason, which creates pressure on individuals and families to carry it out).

I used a single word "enlightened", and it colored your perception of me as racist from the get go. So let's go back and look at my actual usage:

"Female genital mutilation (FGM) is practiced for a myriad of confused reasons, and among them is the belief that it will improve the quality of life of victims. Ostensibly it is performed because it is believed to be good, and they don't happen to trust medical authorities who insist otherwise. From our enlightened ad-vantage point, it's clear to us that FGM does not actually improve the lives of victims (hence: "victim".)"

I said that the reasons for FGM are "confused" (is that so objectionable?), and I said "from our enlightened ad-vantage point". I did a kind of pun, you see, our enlightened vantage point (concerning FGM) is the result of circumstantial advantage. I was in-fact trying to be sensitive and nuanced, but I guess it wooshed right over your head... Only because you weren't expecting nuance from a racist of course!

"Enlightened westerner" are your words, not mine...

In any case, "sensitivity" in practical approach to dealing with the moral problem of FGM is neither here nor there, we're supposed to be debating the moral and meta-ethical implications of what it means to say "FGM as a practice is objectively morally inferior to not practicing FGM".

This (and that above it) is patronising bullshit. You started this off with the 'scientific facts' and even then, there's reasonable cause to doubt, but look how quickly it's descended into judgement masquerading as fact. They lack the data about the effects of sexual liberty in society? Are you seriously suggesting that what information we have about the effects of sexual liberty in society amounts to objective fact, like gravity, or the earth being round? — Isaac

Now you're just being obtuse. I remember saying that all or nearly all predictive models are assailable, according to their merit, by science, logic, and evidence, I never said we needed lab-work to make well informed decisions. You're trying to hold me to some ridiculously high standard of certainty where all I'm after are relatively strong inductive arguments.

P.S Applied statistics is a science (or at least highly objective when done well).

We don't like their cultural practices, they think they're for the best. That's all there is to it. I'm more than happy to use whatever rhetorical device works to actually get FGM to stop, including presenting cultural preferences as if they were objective fact. If it works, I'm on board with it. But this is a philosophy forum. We're discussing moral truths, not trying to convince anyone to abandon FGM. — Isaac

But if your beliefs don't make for effective moral suasion, what use is your moral framework? If you have to say things you don't believe are true to get people to behave in ways you believe are moral, what makes you think your moral position is any better than theirs? If it's not any better than theirs, then why try to persuade them to stop in the first place?

I posit that persuasive moral arguments correlate with strong predictive models, and that assuming our starting values are nearly or sufficiently aligned, more persuasive and effective predictive models should eventually bridge any remaining gap of moral disagreement. I don't need to persuade a group practicing FGM using cutting edge science, I just need to make a better argument than their current one which appeals to their fundamental values (while obviously confronting the circumstantial and complex social forces which keep them converged around the practice of FGM).

Really. Had much luck with that? You still haven't answered my first question. What scientific evidence do you intend to present that heaven does not exist? — Isaac

Yes I have had luck with that actually.

To answer your question, I don't need to present any "scientific" evidence because that which is presented without evidence can often be dismissed with only ridicule (it doesn't have to be hurtful ridicule). Using hypothetical analysis alone, and given the right subject, I can do a fine job indeed of making the idea of "god" seem absurd and even detestable (to the point where their doubt exceeds their belief), but unless they're also given some kind of existential (and perhaps moral) replacement framework, it won't stick (happiness and welfare, for instance). Some people are so emotionally dependent on their religious beliefs that they cannot be persuaded by reasonable methods, and to do so would deprive them of too great a part of their identity, possibly leading to depression, and so I don't attempt to disabuse them of their delusions. If this is the kind of person I am confronted with, I'll have to weight my options. What is the moral cost of manipulating or otherwise intervening in the behavior of others versus the cost of not doing so? If a religious person attempted to perform FGM in a country where it is is not culturally enforced, I would physically try to stop them if I could not dissuade or otherwise manipulate them to stop. The point here, I guess, is that we can actually use reason and evidence to engage in moral suasion; it's not one big values craps shoot.

The key word there being 'ultimately' in the case of atheist virtue ethics, that means at the very least several generations away, if not, the end of time. For theist virtue ethicists, 'ultimately' includes the afterlife, so the fact that both systems 'ultimately' are about consequences, is trivial, and meaningless to this discussion. — Isaac

I don't understand what you mean with this end of time stuff. Specific virtues (or even entire virtue frameworks) can be naturally selected over a finite time-span. I realize that if heaven is real then pascal was right, but I don't see how this colors my statement that extant virtue ethics have been selected over long histories for their utility? We're having several discussions, so please be more specific, is this not relevant to my meta-ethical point about what moral frameworks ought to do, based on what they overwhelmingly do? (they are strategies in service of human values, and they tend to serve those nearly universal human values which my use of "utility" approximates).

No, you're not. You're adding a third C) that we in modern Western society actually have that data and anyone who doesn't believe we do, in whatever field we claim to have it, is morally 'wrong'. You missed that. Without this last claim I entirely agree with you. There is a fact of the matter about whether vaccination is in the best long term interests of societal health. There is a fact of the matter about whether FGM is in the best interests of the victims within their current culture. There is a fact of the matter about whether attacking each other with ice picks is the best way to maintain a peaceful society. I'm not disputing that, I'm disputing your fanatical belief that 21st century wester society is in possession of all of those facts with such certainty that anyone who disagrees is just objectively wrong. — Isaac

I think it's obvious enough that the widespread practice of FGM is not beneficial even to the values it purportedly serves. I didn't exactly make this about the "west", I tried to make it about the advantage of being able to learn about many cultures and ways of life, and to compare them, that is afforded individuals in contemporary western society. FGM is the unique result of, as you say, a series of bad decisions and unfortunate circumstances. We don't even know where it originated or why, exactly, with the best guessed being potentially ancient Roman and Egyptian sources where it was likely used to control female slaves.

I don't know why you're demanding a rigorous study of why FGM is not beneficial as a practice. If I were to condemn slavery as objectively immoral per that set of nearly universal human values, would you wonder if sometimes people are or were better off as slaves? Would you say that we cannot possibly know the factual matter of whether slavery is beneficial or harmful as a practice because [insert appeal here]?

Question: if it is indeed true that FGM is detrimental to the victims and the society, or that vaccinations are beneficial to individual and group health, and we happened to know with certainty, would you then feel comfortable stating that FGM and not vaccinating is morally inferior to doing otherwise?

What you don't seem to be getting is that 'reasonable confidence' does not translate to 'objectively right', and that the "soundness" of much scientific enquiry in the less physical sciences (like medicine, sociology, psychology) is justifiably moot. — Isaac

From our perspective, we can never be certain. I've never proposed "objective moral certainty". The kind of objectivity we can have from our perspective is not unlike when a sound preponderance of sufficient evidence strongly indicates one conclusion over another, it would be "objective" to say that one conclusion is much more likely to be true than the other. Hence, from our perspective, all we can do is weigh the options and make the moral decisions we think are superior, more reliable (more likely to be true). This is why we can say with high confidence (highly reasonable confidence), that stabbing each-other with ice-picks as a matter of course is objectively morally inferior to not doing so. In practice it would be so detrimental to our shared values that we would say the ice-pick-stabbing practice is immoral.

Maybe the only miscommunication between us is that you assumed I'm proposing we can have "objective certainty" in the classically slippery sense. I'm not proposing that. Soundness and inductive strength (which is the kind of truth science deals in) is the more usefully persuasive of the two.

but that doesn't mean it lacks harmful effects — TheWillowOfDarkness

Above, when I wrote " if we're attaching any sort of judgment or normative to different objective states (and those terms typically have those sorts of connotations), we're doing something that's only individuals' preferences and that can't be correct or incorrect," what happened when you read that?

Terms like "harmful," "healthy," "harmonious" etc. typically have those sorts of connotations. You can just ignore it, I guess, but that doesn't make the terms not typically have those sorts of connotations, and it doesn't make those states, with those sorts of connotations, obtain independently of an individual's preferences.

Well, I'm saying they are more than just connotations about things people care about.

The harms in question are facts of that subject, whether the subject cares or not. A cancer patient is harmed by using just orange juice as a treatment option, whether they care about it or not. Impact on the subject is not determined by what they want , wish, believe or care about, but how they actually exist and are affected.

Someone else's example. But, "extremely immoral"? Why not just immoral? Or maybe for you it's not immoral, but rather only just "extremely immoral," which could be a way of saying it could be moral. — tim wood

Lol. Do you believe your own bullshit?

My only point is that there are absolutes in every moral question. Most aren't worth the trouble of articulating. Some are, and in some cases it can be hard to get to the bone of the matter, for the fat. And sometimes it approaches an art. — tim wood

That's not an argument. You don't have one, do you?

The harms in question are facts of that subject, whether the subject cares or not. — TheWillowOfDarkness

That's simply contradicting what I wrote. They're not facts of that subject, not insofar as any sort of value judgment or normative is attached to it.

And so we can conclude that morality is a matter of collective (social) preference, can't we? — Pattern-chaser

I have no problem stating it that way as long as we recognize that "collective (social) preference" is not a simple thing. It involves a complex interaction of societal, governmental, religious, and cultural institutions.