Dogmatism in the pursuit of truth is no vice! — tim wood

“....This critical science is not opposed to the dogmatic procedure of reason in pure cognition; for pure cognition must always be dogmatic, that is, must rest on strict demonstration from sure principles a priori...”
(CPR, Bxxxv)

Critical dogmatism, in the pursuit of truth, but dogmatism nonetheless.

Well it is amoral. Let's be clear. Your evaluation is just that. There's no moral value inherent in anything, and your evaluation doesn't magically make it so. There is nothing reasonable in simply saying that something or other is a moral value in any other sense than that it is so relative to a standard, which is in turn relative to feelings. If I don't feel the same way about this standard, then it simply doesn't apply to any moral judgements or evaluations that I make. All you're really telling me is how you feel about something. Good for you? — S

I get what you're saying, but I think amoral isn't the right word. Essentially you're saying that everything is amoral (right?) but that would render the term "moral" useless. I would use the term amoral to describe decisions that fall outside the realm of moral decision making entirely (which do not concern, or consider, extant moral values).

Personal dental health is not of moral value. It's either morally valuable to you or it isn't. And there's nothing meaningful or relevant in saying that something has moral utility. That's not the issue at all. — S

Brushing has sound moral utility given the moral value of dental health. This reflects a major part of the point I have been trying to make.

Okay, so you're a subjective relativist like me. — S

I guess so. I just happen to also think that more often than not it is the matters of fact which drive moral disagreement, not disparate or competing values.

Look at it this way, with something that's less controversially a matter of preferences:

Say that Joe prefers the taste of pizza to the taste of horseradish.

Bob, though, prefers horseradish to pizza.

Is Joe going to say, "From my perspective, Bob's preference is just as good as mine"?

Wouldn't that imply that Joe doesn't actually have a preference between pizza and horseradish? If one preference is just as good to Joe as another from his perspective, then he shouldn't have a preference in the first place. This is pretty wrapped up in how preferences work/what they are. — Terrapin Station

Sorry the delay - real life got in the way

What I would say is joe has no right to make any kind of value judgment about bob preference at all and still hold that he believes in relative food judgements. The minute joe utters any qualitative word at all about joe's relative preference- it is no longer relative. Because all value judgments imply against some standard, and if you are applying them against a standard they are now objective.

Joe can say nothing at all to bob about his presence other than OK.

joe has no right to make any kind of value judgment about bob preference — Rank Amateur

“Right” doesn’t have much to do with it; he is going to make a value judgement because it’s a circumstance calling for him to do it, otherwise he couldn’t think it opposed to his own. But he no right to act on it. He might say, as you did.....OK.
—————————-

any qualitative word at all about (...) relative preference- it is no longer relative. — Rank Amateur

It is still relative, it has merely become a public comparison of preferences. He could have kept it to himself, but he didn’t. Saying OK is itself a relativism.
—————————-

Because all value judgments imply against some standard, and if you are applying them against a standard they are now objective. — Rank Amateur

If the judgements are acted upon the actions are objective manifestations of the value standard. The standard itself remains internal, hence subjective. Even if the culturally-relative value system is instilled, as opposed to, say, chemically enforced, or even if the agent is a deontologist, he still has the choice of adhering to it. What is now objective is the volition judgement has authorized.

You’re doing fine. Tough subject matter, to be sure.

Because all value judgments imply against some standard, and if you are applying them against a standard they are now objective. — Rank Amateur

Let's look at this part first.

So, first off, "I prefer pizza to horseradish" is a value judgment. Comparing and preferring one thing to another is making a judgment about them, and it has a valuation included--"I like A more than B" is valuing A more than B.

So, per your theory above, Joe's value judgment that he prefers the taste of pizza to the taste of horseradish "imply against some standard." What standard would you say it "implies against"?

Let's look at this part first.

So, first off, "I prefer pizza to horseradish" is a value judgment. Comparing and preferring one thing to another is making a judgment about them, and it has a valuation included--"I like A more than B" is valuing A more than B. — Terrapin Station

Which both bob and joe can make individually relative to how they individually feel. They just can't make any value judgments on what anyone else values and still believe in relative food judgments

This point I am trying to communicate is not that hard to grasp. lf you want to have relative morality for yourself, you have to allow relative morality for others.

I can't see how such a thing as that is possible.

Yes, and I maintain that, and also that I am not appealing to populism, in using what most people agree about regarding what is morally right and wrong.

You are muddying the waters by trying to draw an analogy, which is inevitably simplistic and inadequate, between moral values and culinary tastes.

Below is a listing of your most recent replies. No substance, no argument, just toxicity. You get the Kelly Ann Conway award. And the stage.

That's a non sequitur. — S

I think that it is fallacious. And it is doubly so if it is intended to represent what I'm doing. I've done the opposite by emphasising that morality is no less important under moral relativism.
Why wouldn't I care? You're making an illogical connection here.
And I'm not a relativist, I'm a moral relativist. I haven't claimed that everything is relative. — S

What I think about everything else is entirely irrelevant in the context of this discussion. This discussion is about morality, and regarding that, I am a moral relativist. Relativism, more broadly, is a red herring. — S

Kant's categorical imperative is a joke. — S

No, that's the trouble with a poor way of thinking about moral relativism. — S

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.
Now go and sit on the naughty step. — S

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

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. — S

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. — S

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

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. — S

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

...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? — S

I will take a page from @S’s playbook. Anyone who says “that boiling babies is wrong” just means “Ew, I don’t like boiling babies, boo” is a moron.

Sorry if I am a couple days behind.

For example, you don’t boil babies. This is a moral truth, not just mere opinion where individuals feel disgust. — Noah Te Stroete

Uh, oh. I was sure I was right when I said I would boil three babies if the aliens promised not to destroy earth to build their galactic bypass (not sure how boiling 3 babies helped them, but it saved earth!)

The categorical imperative — Noah Te Stroete

What would Kant have concluded on the above situation? It is clearly a wacky scenario, but shows at least one example of that "objective" moral being untrue...is there anything you can come up with that I cannot add "unless under threat of something worse" to? Are they still "objective" morals if they need qualifiers? With enough qualifiers they eventually just become facts, right?

Which leads to...

If morality is based on doing what promotes the flourishing (health and happiness) of a society and all its members, and the basic requirements for such flourishing are established and universally acknowledged, then morality as an "if, then" set of principles can be established and universally acknowledged, and the problems with the "is, ought" divide circumvented. — Janus

This is the only type of objective morality I could ever get behind. However, the series of if-then statements would end up being infinite to account for any situation that could ever exist...right? Does that make it an impractical method?

Frankly I'm flabbergasted that you would try to put up any defense of FGM whatsoever. — VagabondSpectre

Where did someone defend FGM? Saying it is not objective does not mean they are in favor, or even remotely suggest they are in favor.

Uh, oh. I was sure I was right when I said I would boil three babies if the aliens promised not to destroy earth to build their galactic bypass (not sure how boiling 3 babies helped them, but it saved earth!) — ZhouBoTong

Just because you choose the lesser of two evils doesn’t make boiling babies morally right. It is still evil. It is still an objective moral truth. Common sense says you should boil three babies to save humanity from the aliens, as sometimes it may be expedient to choose a lesser evil. That said, I would rather die and take others with me than boil even one baby. Never mind that it is the alien race who are committing an evil act.

That said, I would rather die and take others with me than boil even one baby. Never mind that it is the alien race who are committing an evil act. — Noah Te Stroete

So you are unwilling to sacrifice your spiritual enlightenment (never doing anything "wrong") for the lives of billions? Doesn't seem so moral anymore?

I get what you are saying otherwise.

So you are unwilling to sacrifice your spiritual enlightenment (never doing anything "wrong") for the lives of billions? Doesn't seem so moral anymore? — ZhouBoTong

Just being honest and nothing to do with spiritual enlightenment. I wouldn’t blame others for saving humanity in this way, although it would still be an evil act. I just don’t have the stomach to harm a baby.

never doing anything "wrong" — ZhouBoTong

I do wrong shit all the time. It’s unavoidable in this life. However, I know WHEN I’m doing wrong.

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. — T Clark

You should have a problem stating it that way, unless you're okay with being wrong. My morality need not involve any "complex interaction" with "religious institutions". It need not be about "collective preference". I have no intention of "recognising" your flawed view of what morality is.

You're simply talking about something else and calling that morality. Morality is broader than what would better be called something like social or cultural morality. That Christianity is prominent in the morality of my society is not that it is prominent in my morality. I don't judge right and wrong by thinking about the ethical lessons in the Bible.

I get what you're saying, but I think amoral isn't the right word. Essentially you're saying that everything is amoral (right?) but that would render the term "moral" useless. I would use the term amoral to describe decisions that fall outside the realm of moral decision making entirely (which do not concern, or consider, extant moral values). — VagabondSpectre

Yes, strictly speaking, in a very literal sense, everything is amoral, just like everything is meaningless. But switching back to the ordinary way of speaking, there are things which are moral and immoral, and there are things which are meaningful. A strict interpretation leads to nihilism, but that's not the end point. Nihilism is why you should interpret things pragmatically, like I do. This pragmatic interpretation is why "moral" and "meaningful" are not useless.

Brushing has sound moral utility given the moral value of dental health. This reflects a major part of the point I have been trying to make. — VagabondSpectre

The issue is not about "moral utility", so your point misses the point. You're just saying that it's useful to brush your teeth every day if you value your dental health. Lots of people value their dental health, so generally, brushing your teeth is useful. Who cares? No one is going to disagree with that, and it doesn't effect the wider issue.

I guess so. I just happen to also think that more often than not it is the matters of fact which drive moral disagreement, not disparate or competing values. — VagabondSpectre

If you're a subjective moral relativist, you kind of sound like you're weirdly in denial or something. Morality is subjective and relative, but... !

Cleaning your teeth is objective and matters! It's useful if you value your dental health!

(There's no need for the "but").

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, — VagabondSpectre

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 — VagabondSpectre

the weather forecast is99% possibility of precipitation, it would be prudent to carry an umbrella. This doesn't mean we're obligated to believe and obey weather forecasts, — VagabondSpectre

You see, this is the problem I have with your position. You talk accurately about epistemological when pushed (I've bolded the relevant sections), but then you reveal this authoritarian undercurrent with the likes of...

Some cultural practices are, in fact, morally superior to others in the context of those nearly universal human values which we all share — VagabondSpectre

We're just going round in circles on this one so I don't see the point continuing, you've brought up vacancies again (despite not even a glancing recognition of my arguments as to why people might legitimately doubt the statistics). You keep insisting that the models held by current academic, research, and government institutions in the developed countries are absolutely beyond question. That there are no legitimate grounds to doubt that they are the best models we have.

In order for it to be morally 'right' given shared values about children's health, for a parent to vaccinate a child, they would have to...

1. Trust the pharmaceutical company to have performed their tests accurately and to have used ingredients which are in the best interests of the child.
2. The trust the government agency to accurately test the ingredients against the possibility of long and short term harm.
3. Trust the academics to have properly conducted and properly understood the statistical significance of any epidemiological studies designed to show the net benefits of vaccination.
4. Trust that the epidemiological statistics relate to the particular ingredients they are about to inject their child with, and not some similar but significantly different set.
5. Trust that the widespread agreement on safety and effectiveness is the result of repeated independent analysis and not 'groupthink' and other well-known cognitive biases related to the tendency for ideas to coagulate. And again, trust that any agreement relates to the exact ingredients they are about to inject, not just the general idea.
6. Trust that, given these uncertainties, the statistics showing the risk of not vaccinating relate to their actual child in a statistically significant manner, ie that their child, and that child's environment, are sufficien6tly close to the average for the risk factors to apply to them.

All six of these issues have legitimate, documented and widely agreed upon reasons for doubt.

1. Pharmaceutical companies do not consider the health of their customers above other considerations. It is written in black and white in their company articles that their objective is to increase the value of the company for their shareholders. Its not tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy, it's written in every public companies articles. Not only that, but pharmaceutical have been directly caught manipulating test results to suit product sales.

2. Do I even need to argue the documented cases of collusion, inefficiency and plain incompetence in government agencies? I can prepare you a list if you like, but I might need a whole thread for it.

3. Again, I'm sure I don't need to insult your intelligence by pretending that you do not already know that there is a massive problem with scientists being able to correctly interpret the statistical significance of their data. Most now work with statisticians for this very reason, which has reduced the problem, but it has not by any means eliminated it.

4. Ingredients change all the time as cheaper, or more efficient options become available. A parent has no way of knowing that statistics related to the methods used 40 years ago have any bearing on the safety of the method they are considering.

5. Once more, I can produce evidence if you're really naive enough to not know this already, but when first produced, 90% of research papers wee positive about the effectiveness of type 2 antidepressants. A few years later only 10% supported them, now its up to 60%. Have the effectiveness changed? No, it was simply the 'thing to say' when they were new and exiting, it became more fashionable to dismiss them when they were old, now they're being 'rediscovered'. Scientists are not superhumans, they're prone to the same biases and social pressures as any other human.

6. The average chance of dying in a plane crash is 1 in 14,000,000. But that is not my chance. My chances of dying in a plane crash are zero, because I don't fly. The chances of complications from childhood viruses for the average child are not the same as the chances for a healthy child (in terms of diet and exercise) living in a relatively isolated rural area.

All of this legitimate uncertainty is on top of the fact that you are talking only about the current (and maybe a few future) generations. Who knows how far into the future someone's legitimate values might extend. Is it a good idea to be reliant on private companies to maintain the health of our children? Is it a good idea to steer investment into necessary prophylactic solutions rather than investing in responsive cures? Can we always rely on having the money and resources to deal with the problem this way?

I'm not an anti-vaxxer. I'm too old for it to even be an issue and it just wasn't questioned at the time. I could, just as easily present a similar list of reasons why someone might legitimately not trust any number of models apparently showing the 'objective truth' of the matter. These thing are graded and you're treating them as black and white. I'd think anyone insane if they seriously thought the earth was flat, or that the sea was made of gold, but that's not the kind of data we're dealing with here.

I've posted this particular line of argument separately so that it can be easily deleted if anyone thinks the level of detail is too far off topic. I may be way off the mark with what you are saying, but you keep treating the word of the scientific community as if it were gospel truth and I can't think of any reason why you would do that other than that you are blind to these problems.

Because all value judgments imply against some standard, and if you are applying them against a standard they are now objective. — Rank Amateur

Lol. Unless that standard is subjective, which it is. How about you demonstrate an objective standard? Then I'll begin to take you seriously.

You’re doing fine. — Mww

Encouragement can be good, but he's not doing fine. He's struggling with fundamental flaws in understanding and in reasoning.

Which both bob and joe can make individually relative to how they individually feel. They just can't make any value judgments on what anyone else values and still believe in relative food judgments

This point I am trying to communicate is not that hard to grasp. lf you want to have relative morality for yourself, you have to allow relative morality for others.

I can't see how such a thing as that is possible. — Rank Amateur

Indeed, it is not hard to grasp. Anyone familiar enough with common objections to moral relativism will recognise this. And it is easily refuted. You're making the illogical argument that if you're a moral relativist, then you must be an amoralist. I pointed that out ages out. Sorry, but you're not doing fine. You're still not getting it.

You are muddying the waters by trying to draw an analogy, which is inevitably simplistic and inadequate, between moral values and culinary tastes. — Janus

It didn't muddy the waters for me. You could say a similar thing about my analogy with meaning and an orange, but that would be to massively miss the point. In fact, this actually happened. It is what Banno did. He thought that I was suggesting that meaning is a thing like an orange. "Darling, grab me an orange from the fruit bowl. And whilst you're at it, could you pick me up a meaning? It's in the cupboard on the left". :lol:

So, it turns out that it is "just toxic" to point out logical errors in an argument. That is news to me.

When someone says that it will rain tomorrow, because I like custard, it is "just toxic" to reply that that's a non sequitur.

This is just more silliness from the estimable Tim Wood. He is quoting me out of context to make me look bad. That's another fallacy. Go ahead: quote me saying, "This is just more silliness from the estimable Tim Wood", as if your silliness has nothing to do with it.

I dismissed Tim Wood bringing up the categorical imperative because he merely asserted that it had answered relativism. Hitchen's razor.

I will take a page from S’s playbook. Anyone who says “that boiling babies is wrong” just means “Ew, I don’t like boiling babies, boo” is a moron. — Noah Te Stroete

Your bias is showing. I haven't resorted to simplistic name calling like that. I did call him a dogmatist, but that's in another league from calling him a moron. I wasn't calling him that to insult him, I was calling him that because it seems to me to be an accurate term to describe his position here. It is dogmatic. We must simply accept that there is an absolute moral standard, because Tim Wood says so.

I acknowledge that I have said things which didn't need to be said, but that was very clearly a response to Tim Wood's playbook. He set out to make moral relativists look bad from the very beginning, but you seem to be blind to that because of your antagonism towards me and towards moral relativists in general. You're as bad as him, if not worse.

And these childish attempts to trivialise moral relativism and make it superficially appear to be so obviously wrong are frankly pathetic. And yes, in a sense, I don't need to point out that I think that it is childish and pathetic, and perhaps I shouldn't, but fuck it. I've said it, and I don't regret doing so.

:lol:

I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. I just wasn’t aware you had any.

And these childish attempts to trivialise moral relativism — S

Does your idea of what is morally wrong have anything to do with anything other than personal disgust? If so, then enlighten me please. Perhaps you can persuade me to your way of thinking?

what could dissuade someone who promotes FGM as moral or morally obligatory because it promotes well-being? — VagabondSpectre

Everyone else not doing it. Same thing as persuades most people to do most things. Have you looked at society lately? See much rational decision making going on? The largest ecomony in the world just voted in a clown for a leader because of a wave of 'popular opinion'. Since when has rational argument made any difference?

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. — VagabondSpectre

No, you're not, you're additionally telling us all which ones they are, and telling anyone who disagrees that they are 'objectively wrong'.

As I said before, given similar starting values, there are more or less correct courses of action to achieve them. There are definitely arguments to be had about those courses of action, and those arguments should be had using reason and evidence because I think most people agree these are good thinking techniques. One of the competing arguments may well come out looking so much more reasonable and well-supported than the other, that anyone would have to be stupid to reject it (again, given the same starting values). I don't disagree with any of that.

I disagree with your repeated return to the idea that you can 'objectively' pick any activity you personally approve of (such as vaccination) and claim it to be such an argument, purely on the grounds that it is the model most scientists in the field currently agree on. That is not anywhere near a good enough reason to consider that model to be so far above the others.

You're trying to hold me to some ridiculously high standard of certainty where all I'm after are relatively strong inductive arguments. — VagabondSpectre

Saying that someone is morally wrong requires a high standard of certainty, in my opinion. Maybe this is our sole point of contention. You're happy to throw around accusations of immorality on the basis of a belief that your modal is 'probably' better. I'm not.

But if your beliefs don't make for effective moral suasion, what use is your moral framework? — VagabondSpectre

I don't understand this line of argument. You seem to be suggesting that I should believe something other than what seems to me to be the case, because what I currently believe is not very useful in persuading people to do what I want them to. That seems like a really weird argument. Maybe I've misunderstood so ill wait for some more clarity before going into it.

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. — VagabondSpectre

Yes. That is basically the difference between the class of virtue ethics I'm talking about and utilitarian consequentialism. Virtue ethics does not require a fixed point in the future for its calculus, utilitarianism does. With virtue ethics you are comparing the way actions make you feel about yourself right now. With utilitarianism you are comparing the net utility of actions, but to do so you must use a fixed timescale, otherwise one would advise an action which made the whole population ecstatically happy, but wiped out all future generations (not far off our current attitude). The decision you make will depend on the timescale over which you wish to maintain maximum utility.

I think it's obvious enough that the widespread practice of FGM is not beneficial even to the values it purportedly serves. — VagabondSpectre

Exactly. And you think it's obvious enough that one should vaccinate their child, and you think it's obvious enough that we should brush our teeth, and you think it's obvious enough...

The trouble is, other people disagree, and they do so with perfectly rational arguments of greater or lesser strength. The vaccination issue is exactly the reason why I so strongly disapprove of your approach. It seems to you like it fits right in with not committing FGM, or not killing each other with ice picks, but to me, it stands out a mile as being something which transfers a hell of a lot of trust to organisations which have absolutely shown themselves to be untrustworthy.

This is the problem in a nutshell. If you were arguing for a moral framework which condemned FGM as objectively immoral, for some reason which applied only to those sorts of barbaric actions, then I might well disagree on logical grounds, but I would not have bothered with such an impassioned response. What really bothers me is that you're advocating a system which basically gives moral weight to current scientific opinion with no consideration at all for how vulnerable some fields of science are to fashion, government influence, corporate influence, or plain human greed and bias. You're giving over decisions about what is fundamentally 'right' to a system which has proven itself to be morally questionable at times by the very standards you're using it to uphold.

I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. I just wasn’t aware you had any. — Noah Te Stroete

It's alright, I forgive you, because I'm a good little Christian and I want to get into made-up Heaven.

:lol: When did I ever say anything about a literal Heaven?

When did I ever say anything about Heaven? — Noah Te Stroete

I don't know. I wasn't listening to a word you were saying. :grin: