Too bad we don't have post #s here, but can you give me at least a small text string that I can identify the post by? That way I can quickly search for it.

I have, a few times, in a few forms. but once again- other than in a smoke filled dorm room - near unanimity of a particular view would clearly cause a problem with a view they all reached that conclusion independently and it was just an amazing coincidence - — Rank Amateur

Ah--yeah, I addressed that, but aside from that, do you think that relativism/subjectivism vs objectivism somehow amounts to saying that people arrive at stances arbitrarily, so that it's like rolling dice and it would just have to be a coincidence that they have the same stance?

perfect. would you also agree there is some line, in regard to any issue where they are dichotomous. Good cant ever equal bad, and right can not equal wrong about the same issue.

Ah, let’s see if I can remember. It was something like:

If there were no moral truths, then there would be no need for socialization.

I think I said something like that. I forget now.

would you also agree there is some line, in regard to any issue where they are dichotomous. Good cant ever equal bad, and right can not equal wrong about the same issue. — Rank Amateur

If someone uses the terms in anything like the conventional senses, which we can assume, then sure, if they feel that x is good they're not going to feel that x is bad, and if they feel that x is right they're not going to feel that x is wrong.

“In your view morality is about sentiments? If so, I disagree if that’s all there is to it, and I can see how you would not have socialization as the consequent. I believe in rationalism if by “innate knowledge” one means instinct. I believe in empiricism if one believes that the blank slate is a really complex and convoluted matrix that experience “writes on”. Moral sentiments are more than just feelings, though. One has to learn what one is feeling about. One learns through experience that pain is bad. It may also be instinctual or at least partly? Socialization (reports from elders or peers) teaches us that hitting someone causes pain in them, and this is reinforced when someone hits us and we feel pain. We learn through experience (also part of the socialization process) what pain feels like. In this way, we learn that hitting people unprovoked is bad. Now, you might feel that hitting someone unprovoked is satisfying, but socialization (reports from elders and peers that it causes pain) and experience should tell you it is bad. If with this you still feel that hitting someone unprovoked is good, then you are simply mistaken about a moral truth. It has nothing to do with what makes you feel good. It has everything to do with living in a community and not causing harm where possible. One should not harm community members when we depend on the community for survival, wants, and needs. If one harmed a community member unprovoked, then one should expect to be harmed in return. This is neither good for the individual (pain sucks), nor is it good for the community. One harm can lead to two. Two harms can lead to three, etc. Usually, the loved ones feel through empathy the harm done to the harmed party. This can lead to further aggression, and soon large parts of the community are at strife. This is not good for individuals or the community (remember how individuals rely on the community for survival, wants, and needs) because cooperation soon breaks down and it becomes more difficult to survive and satisfy wants and needs. I would then conclude that harming someone unprovoked is morally wrong. “Objectively” wrong. Whatever “objective” really means.”

Was it this:

If morality came from the individual, then there would be no need for socialization.

Socialization ensures the smooth working of society.

Society is the necessary conclusion of social creatures with shared linguistic meaning and communication.

Followed by:

Society has the goal of survival and flourishing of the community.

In order for this survival and flourishing, moral laws must be formed.

Moral laws are also grounded in moral feeling.

That moral feeling has as its basis the avoidance of pain.

Moral laws dissuade the inflicting of pain, which also helps to ensure the survival and flourishing of society.

If moral laws didn’t exist, then society would not have lasted this long.

Society has lasted.

Hence, MORAL LAWS EXIST.

We'd have to go over that piece by piece.

The first premise seems kind of arbitrary to me. How are you figuring "If morality came from the individual, then there would be no need for socialization" to start?

so then there has to be a near objective understanding of good or bad or right and wrong - for all these subjective judgments to have any meaning.

How does moral relativity deal with the issue that it needs some objective understanding of good or bad right or wrong - for their moral judgments to have any meaning ?

Ah--I'll read what you just pasted above, although I might need to do it in a bit (I need to run out)

enjoy your day

so then there has to be a near objective understanding of good or bad or right and wrong - for all these subjective judgments to have any meaning. — Rank Amateur

On my view neither understanding nor meaning are objective, so obviously I'm going to have a problem with this part.

On my view neither understanding nor meaning are objective, so obviously I'm going to have a problem with this part — Terrapin Station

you just agreed a sec ago that good cant equal bad, and right cant equal wrong on a specific issue - that means they have objective meaning.

Something "just is" if and only if, when I treat it that way, it works. The desk in front of me "just is" solid because when I treat it as such it responds as I expect. In fact, physicists seem to be telling me that the desk is not 'really' solid after all, but, not being a physicist, I don't care.

But "murder is wrong" is not a proposition similar to "this desk is solid" because there's no test I can think of which clarifies it. — Isaac

Exactly! And in its just-is-ness, it is. And in such a way that it is not and never can be not as it is. As to the test for murder, there is such a test: would you consent to be murdered (not would you want to be murdered); do you imagine that everyone would or should consent to be murdered? And then why not?

As to "reason first," I think you confuse temporal with logical priority. A think doesn't have to be first on the clock to be primary. And, word games: you could say that you have to have something to reason about before you can reason, but if so, how do you ever start reasoning?

you just agreed a sec ago that good cant equal bad, and right cant equal wrong on a specific issue - that means they have objective meaning. — Rank Amateur

I said "If someone uses the terms in anything like the conventional senses, which we can assume, then sure, if they feel that x is good they're not going to feel that x is bad, and if they feel that x is right they're not going to feel that x is wrong."

That doesn't imply "objective meaning." I dont believe there is any such thing. I think that's as much of a category error as "objective morality."

Just a question. If, in a future world, some evil genius had arranged things such that torturing an innocent child brought about a harmonious society, would that make torturing the child morally right?
— Isaac

Zero. Not even a little bit. — tim wood

I feel exactly the same way. Good thing this stuff about a harmonious society is a load of codswallop, so we don't ever have to worry about that. Phew!

so you have subjective judgments described by subjective adjectives describing subjective concepts -

Why would anyone care about such a judgement ?

Does not anyone in this thread consider reason? — tim wood

Yes, it's a slave to the passions.

After all, one man's horror is just another man's just stretching out, yes?
— tim wood

Yes, obviously. Hitler clearly was not horrified by what he did, so it's pretty irrefutable that one man's horror is just another man's stretching out. Are you suggesting that Hitler was horrified by what he did? — Isaac

You got him good there.

Not at all. I am suggesting that a relativist had better not be, though, because he defines his view as absent reason and entirely subjective. — tim wood

No, I'm a moral relativist and I don't define my view as absent reason. I for one have explicitly spoken of the role that reason plays.

there has to be a near objective understanding of good or bad or right and wrong - for all these subjective judgments to have any meaning.

How does moral relativity deal with the issue that it needs some objective understanding of good or bad right or wrong - for their moral judgments to have any meaning ? — Rank Amateur

Goodness, in the moral sense, is a feeling, badness is a feeling. I can quite easily say that the pain is bad without any objective measure. I can say this apple tastes good without any objective measure. Why does it suddenly become a problem when describing moral feelings?

As to right and wrong, I understand it's often used as a reasonably well understood shorthand, but it really doesn't make any sense in a rigorous argument. 2+2=4 is 'right' (when following peano axioms), but that's just the same as asserting that 2+2=4. 2+2=5 is 'wrong' (by the same method), but that's just the same as asserting 2+2 does not equal 5. "The cup is blue" is right, if and only if the cup is blue. "Murder is wrong" doesn't make any sense in either of these ways of speaking. We can't say it's the same as asserting "Murder isn't" and if it's like the cup example, the murder is wrong if and only if...what?

We could say that 'good' is just a class of actions, like 'blue' is a class of colours. Then you'd be right to say that if the majority of language users are using the word that way then that's the right way to use it. By that approach we can say that murder is objectively a 'bad' action, because that's what the word 'bad' means in that context, it means "things like murder". But then why shouldn't I do any of the actions in the 'bad' class? You're missing the compulsion to act/avoid which is a part of morality.

We're obviously not simply compelled to act in whatever way the majority want, so from where are you getting the compulsion? How are you getting your 'ought' from your 'is'?

I for one have explicitly spoken of the role that reason plays. — S

You have your tag-line, "reason the slave of the passions." Beyond that, not so much. Why don't you put your sling-shot away and take a little time and make all this clear, including what your tag-line means.

In my view, reason is the slave of reason, nothing else, and not a slave either, but a partner.

Goodness, in the moral sense, is a feeling, badness is a feeling. I can quite easily say that the pain is bad without any objective measure. I can say this apple tastes good without any objective measure. Why does it suddenly become a problem when describing moral feelings? — Isaac

But you can’t bite the apple and tell someone it tastes both good and bad at the same time. In order to communicate your view of the taste of the apple you have to use adjectives with some degree of objective meaning. If we have widely varied subjective views on goodness or badness as it relates to apple taste we can’t effectively communicate. Your view of the apple is now meaningless to me.

Same problem still applies. If the intent is what makes it moral, then what of the situation where you may have to, for example, murder some innocent to save others. Your intent behind committing the murder is to save the others (the harmonious society), but that does not make you undertake the murder with relish, safe in the knowledge that it is best for the community. Something still tells you murder is wrong, even when your intention is purely the best interests of the group. If that something is not morality (because by intention, you've determined this action is, in fact, moral) then what is it? — Isaac

If you murder someone because that action is the lesser of two evils how is that relevant to the point that an act is moral if its intent is to do the least harm possible to social harmony? Of course "something still tells you murder is wrong"; the very fact that you generalize that statement is pointing you away from moral relativism. So, what you say here only seems to support what I have been arguing, against the notion that morality is merely a matter of personal preference.

I don't see how we can do this in the face of such uncertainty, without assigning an ordinal value to each option, we cannot order them, and if are admittedly unclear about the details, how can we be clear about the ordinal value we assign. Throwing out the nonsense, we agree on, the unreasoned and the insane, but all we have left after that is a pool of equally viable options. I don't se any logical reason why, in some areas, one option may not still rise slightly above the others. I see no logical reason why it might not be the case that all the options just happen to be very obviously ordinal. But I cannot see what worldy force would make this the case for all decisions. — Isaac

It's not the case for all decisions... Positive moral claims (claims pertaining to positive moral obligations) are notoriously disagreeable, and there seems to only be a few of them that we're able to coherently conclude upon. Even where we can have these kinds of conclusions, they're at best tentative (they're waiting for something better to come along). The vast majority of our applied moral knowledge takes the form of negative claims (negative moral obligations) because empirically/epistemically, they're low hanging moral fruit.

I'm not saying that we may always access the evidence required for strong induction (or are always capable of interpreting it), I'm saying that in some situations we can do so sufficiently, especially with regard to negative moral claims.

The only difference between us might be our epistemic position. We agree that objectively certain knowledge is incoherent or is a misleading misnomer, where what we're actually doing is using observation and inductive reasoning to approach or approximate truth. The basic principles of the scientific approach, such as falsification and seeking descriptive+predictive power, are the semi-formal guides of induction: when we falsify propositions through sound trials and testing, we can, with very high confidence, eliminate them as a possible truth; but when we positively demonstrate the consistency or predictive power of a given model or proposition (which might always be relative to the predictive power of our next best models), we may still gain some rational confidence for it, but it is never on the same order of magnitude as the confidence we have that "well falsified" claims are indeed false.

We could pretty much divide all human "knowledge" into two categories: things we think are true, and things we think are false. To parallel this in the realm of moral knowledge, we have things we think we should do, and things we think we should not do. With both general and moral knowledge, both our positive and negative propositions have their utility. We can really only (with high epistemic confidence) avoid bad moral outcomes by subscribing only to negative moral propositions; and where morality in practice vaguely drifts from "avoid harm" into "promote good", negative moral claims become less useful while positive moral claims become essential. In practice we cannot avoid forming positive beliefs about the world, uncertain though it we may be; planning for the future can be as much about where we do want to go as where we don't want to go, it might just depend on the risks and the stakes. We're still left with reason and observation as our main tools for treating positive moral claims, and though situational complexity can sometimes give human intuition the advantage, it is woefully under-equipped for many areas of specific decision making. The effectiveness and relative risks of vaccines are an example of something that intuition would have a very hard time accurately guesstimating; the more actual observation and evidence we gather around the subject (the better we model it), the more confidence we can have in our predictions of outcomes. All we necessarily disagree about regarding vaccines is our ability to predict its outcomes with reasonable confidence (either you have a higher bar for reasonable confidence (the intuition beating kind), or you believe that evidence pertaining to the effects of vaccines is too hard to come by, or to interpret (even for teams of preeminent experts) (or a combination of the two, along with other factors such as perverse incentives which pollute the field of knowledge).

Any disagreements with the above?

What CEO in their right mind is going to invest in a drug which only a small number of people will need, to replace a drug they currently sell to everyone? — Isaac

You will almost certainly find this controversial, but Bill and Melinda Gates are under the belief that by delivering basic medicines, including well proven and highly statistically effective vaccines, that they've turned 10 billion dollars of charitable investment into 200 billion dollars of created wealth (wealth created by the saving of lives).

When it comes to big pharma, I really am with you in the "let's not just blindly trust profit chasing corporations" boat (I would really not want to roll the dice with any psychotropic medication, especially anything with a recent patent). But not all vaccines are inherently profit driven, though in many cases we do allow the free market to produce them for us. There's a difference between a seasonal flu shot and a standard MMR vaccine. The flu is deadly in rare cases, but mostly people are just trying to avoid getting sick because of the discomfort. Comparing this to something like an MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) vaccine, the motives are completely different. One product is actually produced and marketed for profit, while the other is made cheap or free because it has been so effective at preventing deaths.

Sometimes the free-market does create philanthropic incentives. Many scientists and researchers in medical fields genuinely are trying to create things to improve life rather than improve corporate profits. Sometimes corporations, even for greedy reasons, do good things. The list of essential vaccines that have saved millions of lives since their inception are among them.

Not entirely, but it still highlights a difference between us. I don't see the point in keeping people alive if they're not going to be happy. It's people's happiness that matters to me. Why do people do risky sports? Because the increase in happiness is worth the reduced life expectancy. So psychology and sociology are important considerations. We can't just presume people want to remain alive for as long as possible at all costs, want to have as much wealth as possible at all costs. Clichéd though it sounds, this is just not the case. — Isaac

Aren't you on some level treating people like children in doing so?

I'm with you about the existential and psychological need for happiness, but what if someone is unhappy because they cannot get their own (ridiculous) way? (Or maybe more to the point, what happens when they're unhappy precisely because they've gotten their own way?). Our expectations do not always conform to reality, and in so far as we can inform our expectations (and hence the way we feel about the related action) with reason and evidence, we can tend toward more accurate and consistent feelings about actions.

We are agreed here, as I think we've now firmly established. Where we disagree is simply over the strength of evidence contradicting one's 'gut' that is required to make one change. For me it is very high, for you it seems to be merely a preponderance. — Isaac

A preponderance of good evidence! Morality is the name; cumulative induction is the game!

All we can ever do is try/continue to improve.

I'd love to reply, but I have almost literally no idea what any of what you've written means in the context of our discussion.

" in its just-is-ness, it is."?

"And in such a way that it is not and never can be not as it is."?

I'm not sure either of those are even sentences.

As to the test for murder, there is such a test: would you consent to be murdered (not would you want to be murdered); do you imagine that everyone would or should consent to be murdered? And then why not? — tim wood

But that is not a test for whether murder is wrong, its a test for whether I'd want it done to me. If 'wrong is just the word we use to describe things we like don't want done to us, then fine, but now why shouldn't I do it?

As to "reason first," I think you confuse temporal with logical priority. A think doesn't have to be first on the clock to be primary. And, word games: you could say that you have to have something to reason about before you can reason, but if so, how do you ever start reasoning? — tim wood

And...back to the word salad again I'm afraid.

That was a VERY good post. It was much better stylistically than your last, and I mostly agreed with it.

I disagree strongly here. I don't see how you can justify that kind of accusation. What does "good faith" even mean in this context, and what types of argument are you identifying as examples of "bad faith" As far as I read the discussion, it started out with Tim simply declaring, without argument, that some things were simply "wrong". Some relativist have tried to make their case and been met with just a repeated assertion that "some things are just wrong". I tried to explain my position with a thought experiment (a perfectly normal, common philosophical tool) and you took the hump and said you weren't engaging anymore.

How is that discussing with an open mind? — Isaac

Good faith means that when you point out inconsistencies or inadequacies in the other's position they provide a cogent argument to show that it is not in fact an inconsistency, or if they can't, then admit that iit is an inconsistency. As I read this thread (and others) Terrapin never does that, but introduces any red herring he can find, or pretends not to comprehend what is being said, that is he dishonestly uses any strategy to avoid admitting that his position is inconsistent, mistaken or explanatorily inadequate. And S, although not as bad as Terrapin, is also tending that way. Sure you might say that is just my opinion, but it is my honest opinion, so I call it as i see it.

An example is that Terrapin will counter any argument that appeals to the prevalence of shared values on the most central moral issues (murder, rape, torture, theft and so on) with the objection that the almost universally cross-culturally prevalent attitudes that condemn those is merely a matter of those attitudes being more "popular", which basically gives them no more inter-subjective weight than personal culinary preferences.

And yet when I say that from the perspective of someone who is morally neutral, who is amoral, assuming moral relativism, all moral stances are equal, and that there is thus no inter-subjective rational warrant to prefer one stance over the other, he claims that no one is in fact morally neutral and that this is demonstrated by statistics involving studying "hundreds, even thousands" of people.

Even if it were accepted that those statistics are accurate and that they reflect what is the case with billions of people, his own position should dismiss it on the basis that it is an appeal to populism. Because there is no objective (on his view of objectivity) reason why people should not be morally neutral, just as some people are indifferent to some foods or art works.

But he says,

moral judgments are judgments that interpersonal behavior (that one considers more significant than etiquette) is morally good bad, right or wrong, etc., that's fine, yes. — Terrapin Station

and the relevant question is 'on what basis could one think that some interpersonal behaviors are "more significant than etiquette"?'. Not just because it is popular to think that way surely?

No, it seems obvious that matters that are considered matters of morality and not matters of mere preference or popularity are 'life and death' matters, and such matters are profoundly important to almost all of us because life and death is profoundly important to almost all of us, and that is the "objective" element of commonality that operates in moral thought and feeling, makes it more than a matter of popularity or mere personal preference, and which moral relativism cannot even begin to explain.

it seems obvious that matters that are considered matters of morality and not matters of mere preference or popularity are 'life and death' matters, and such matters are profoundly important to almost all of us because life and death is profoundly important to almost all of us, and that is the "objective" element of commonality that operates in moral thought and feeling, makes it more than a matter of popularity or mere personal preference, and which moral relativism cannot even begin to explain. — Janus

I agree.

Why would anyone care about such a judgement ? — Rank Amateur

It seems odd to me to ask why someone would care about how they think about things, how they conceptualize things, their feelings, their perceptions, etc. It shouldn't be a surprise that people care about themselves.

But you can’t bite the apple and tell someone it tastes both good and bad at the same time. In order to communicate your view of the taste of the apple you have to use adjectives with some degree of objective meaning. If we have widely varied subjective views on goodness or badness as it relates to apple taste we can’t effectively communicate. Your view of the apple is now meaningless to me. — Rank Amateur

Alternate views of what communication is/how it works are possible, but it would be a huge tangent to get into.