Something original would be a novel correlation. Something new could be a novel correlation to the individual, but it also could have already been made by someone else.

Is that more what you're looking for?

I've no idea what purported sense of 'universal' is being put to use here?

What is universally true of all moralities?

All are originally acquired solely by virtue of being adopted via common language acquisition. Regardless of all individual subject particulars, all original adoption of worldview(language acquisition) requires a pure and unadulterated lack of doubt in what's being learned. Unquestioned trust in the truthfulness of what is being learned.

One cannot doubt unless one already has/holds some pre-existing thought/belief upon which the doubt is grounded. Early on during initial language acquisition, there is no such baseline.

By the way...

Can one of the participants here that is using the notion of moral truth offer a criterion for truth, and then one for a kind of truth called "moral", and then again for a 'universal' and 'moral' truth?

:smile:

We all surely agree on some moral utterances of ought. Universal agreement is neither equivalent nor adequate for truth. So, while it is certainly aim-worthy, it is not truth worthy.

All people deserve to have a certain amount of respect already bestowed upon them prior to actually meeting them, or knowing anything about them.

Sometimes people from all walks of life do things that are not good. One of those things is judging a whole group of people without adequate ground to make that judgment. Not all judging of a group of people is to be avoided. To quite the contrary, sometimes it is necessary.

I do not care that someone is black in any other way that I care that anyone is any 'race'. The scare-quotes are a nod to the guys that argue dna based objections to race. Rather, I care that there are people from all walks of life who are assholes as a result of not giving a fuck about others. Sometimes those not cared for can be other races, religions, ethnicities, families, cultures, etc., as a group.

The fallacy is gross overgeneralization. Sometimes, the product is racism. Sometimes those committing the fallacy of thought about a group of people can wield tremendous power over the very groups that they do not give a fuck about.

That power is governed by the perpetrators moral thought/belief.

How does that happen?

I mean... WTF?

Everything ever written, spoken, and/or otherwise uttered comes through a subject.

All codes of conduct do as well.

What is the term 'objective' doing here aside from putting an utterly inadequate framework to use and creating unnecessary complexity? Not all complexity is admirable.

Go ahead Sapientia.

:wink:

What is it that you keeping referring to? Oh yeah, now I remember. The Oracle.

Please. Mythology?

One's initial worldview includes one's initial morality. Both are subject to the influence of individual particular circumstances. World-views and the morality that they always include are relative.

That's as far as moral relativity can take us.

If yours are constitutive of reason, please advise me as to how. — tim wood

One cannot bring about the desire to maintain social harmony, for example, simply by desiring it. We live in, and interact with, an environment and a diversity of relatively autonomous actors. As such the fulfillment of any desire is going to require significant rational analysis of one's environment to assess how best it can be delivered.

So...can we move on to your response to the rest of my arguments?

Dude, your analysis is praiseworthy and spot on. But is it really worth your time and effort? We're at 47 pages. When is enough enough? — S

Thanks, I appreciate the support. Is it worth it? Probably not to be honest. It's a strange place here, billed as a discussion forum, but very much comes across as a personal blog for a few people to simply declare what they 'reckon' and keep doing so in the face of any contrary position.

I enjoy engaging with people who have a different opinion to me as I find it helps to hone my own arguments, but there's only so many times I can say the same thing in slightly different ways.

But to be honest, the biggest reason I keep reading is that some of the nonsense people write is hilarious...

(By the way, I'm not being notified properly when you tag me, so if I miss anything, apologies in advance.)

the question is whether murder can be a general good, and not merely whether it could be a good for a few psychopaths. — Janus

As I've repeatedly pointed out (with no response, and this goes for @tim wood too) this is only true of any particular level of granularity you choose. Murder is a subset of killing, it is a type of killing. So if you can't say "all killing is OK (you can't generalise the rule" it's OK to kill"), then does that make all killing bad?

Obviously it can't, and having this pre-defined answer in mind you move the goalposts such that you're able to change the question until it matches the answer you were looking for all along.

But why stop there? Killing by psychopaths is a subset of all murder, murder by people called Dave on a Tuesday at 6:00 is a subset of all murdering. Could it be rationally universalised by Dave, that such killing was OK? Yes it certainly could.

And how did Kant get around this problem? He fudged it with some waffle about having to be honest with yourself about what it is you're universalising. Which makes the whole thing subjective again since the satisfaction with one's self-honesty is a subjective judgement.

This is not reasoned debate to the end of learning; it's just a street-fight. You have demonstrated your ignorance of any better way. From now on you're not S., but mere-s. Kant is not a joke, you are, but not a funny one. You're not worth arguing with, because you don't know how. — tim wood

Come on. Just re read your own previous comments. The whole thing has been a street fight from start to finish and you're just as responsible for that state of affairs as anyone else. You've barely presented an argument beyond your own incredulity and you've basically spent more time accusing the other side of being "toxic" and trying to imply that we have no feeling about Hitler, than you have actually addressing any of the points raised.

If you want want to raise the tone of the debate (and God knows it needs raising), then lead by example, not by slander.

For fuck's sake man. You've written twelve posts in a row and none but one of them address anyone here directly by quote. More than half of them are just trivial truths and the rest statements of what I presume you think are 'facts' without any argument to support them.

This is supposed to be a discussion not your personal blog, will you please stop spamming and try to engage with one of the actual threads of discussion going on here.

Hear, hear.

Yes, I believe I've got this exactly, and have had it exactly. — tim wood

If you had it then you wouldn't say that anyone's view amounts to "if S thinks that m isn't wrong, then R says that fact implies that m isn't wrong simpliciter"

You’re right, it’s not impossible, if something new is available.
— Mww

New thought/belief. — creativesoul

Yes, but there is still the question about a possible instantiation for it. If a society is of a certain moral persuasion, and a fully inculcated member is nonetheless subsequently in moral opposition to some part of it, the question is raised as to where the opposition came from. Without experience, without some external influence, he is subject to his own a priori practical reason as the source of his opposition. But where did reason get the idea the societal norm should be opposed in the first place? What enables a subject to declare that whatever some norm might be, he is opposed to it? If it be supposed the opposition arose from mere feeling, for lacking experience reduces the means to nothing else, then it becomes manifest that feelings have the power over reason, which is impossible because feelings have no object until reason cognizes one as belonging to it necessarily.

“This just doesn’t feel right” may be at the attention of conscious awareness of a subject as a relevant feeling, and it should be given he understands both the “this” and the “not right”, otherwise he would have no ground for the feeling to begin with, but that in itself does not enable its negation. The most he is rationally allowed to conclude, is whatever sustains racism, he opposes. Or, which is the same thing, whatever feelings the majority hold in the form of a social norm, he does not. But to declare from that alone that he is in fact a non-racist, without the experience with which to connect the declaration, and without the cognition of some object that belongs necessarily to the feeling he has but the other members do not, he is admitting to an irrational cognition.

In short, one merely saying he is non-racist with respect to an entire society of normalized racists, doesn’t make him so. He may think himself non-racist, but without the experience of being in the proximity of the conditions by which the racism is distinguished, he wouldn’t know whether he was or not.

But here's the difference: for you-all, it's "bad-in-my-opinion, but not only does that not make it bad, it makes it impossible for it to be bad, except in my opinion," & etc. — tim wood

See, here is an example that you do not have it. No one is saying "not only does that not make it bad." What makes something bad morally is that an individual has the disposition that it's bad morally. That's what making something bad morally is. Things are morally good or bad to someone. The only way "does not make it bad" follows from any set of facts is if no one has the disposition that it's morally bad.

trying to imply that we have no feeling about Hitler, — Isaac

I do not know how you get this. The entire point is that's all that you-all will acknowledge, is a feeling. I argue that the monstrousness of these bad actors is bad in itself. You-all apparently need to personally suppose it bad, but do not acknowledge it as badness. More to the point, you-all have stated that inasmuch as (presumably) the bad actors did not think their actions were bad, then it's nonsense to say they were bad.

Question: do you suppose reason and its products to be universalizable? 2+2=4 is an expression of a certain kind of reason. Is it true, or is it true-for-you but not true, or maybe not true at all, but you just go with it? Which, please?

If you had it then you wouldn't say that anyone's view amounts to "if S thinks that m isn't wrong, then R says that fact implies that m isn't wrong simpliciter" — Terrapin Station

Not only did I not say that; I do not even understand it. Near as I can condense this, it appears to me that for you, the bad, and presumably the good and everything in between and on the sides, is a subjective judgment, and 1) if you can't make that, then the thing in question isn't. And if you can, then the thing in question is, but only subjectively for you.

Thought experiment, if you will. Hitler is there. You get to ask him if he did or ordered anything bad. He answers no, that he did not (this is to the judgment, not any factual matter). Question: we know that you think he did bad things. But did he do bad things? The question seems absurd, but it matters because it amounts to the question of what the ground of any standards will be. Your notion? Or some objective standard?

You-all apparently need to personally suppose it bad, but do not acknowledge it as badness — tim wood

We do not agree with "do not acknowledge it as badness," because we say that what badness is is a personal disposition against something.

So the disagreement is over the ontological nature of badness. Just what it is ontologically.

More to the point, you-all have stated that inasmuch as (presumably) the bad actors did not think their actions were bad, then it's nonsense to say they were bad. — tim wood

Which is simply saying that from their perspective, it's not bad if they do not think it's bad.

do you suppose reason and its products to be universalizable? — tim wood

I'm a subjectivist on reason/rationality, too. You know my view on mathematics.

On my view, there's a tendency that people have to project at least aspects of their mental phenomena "into the world at large"--to project it outside of their heads, and figure that it must be present in the outside world just the way that a rock is present in the outside world . . . only they make an even worse move and figure that it must be present in the outside world in some abstract manner, where it doesn't really have a location, but it also doesn't have "no location," and so on. People tend to do this with the things they feel strongest about, that they can't imagine thinking otherwise about, as if, for some reason, their own minds could not be capable of being that firmly convinced of anything--the idea basically amounts to people thinking that the source of the content (moral judgments, principles of reason, etc.) must be something outside of themselves, so that there's basically an implication that brains can't work that way by themselves.

You get to ask him if he did or ordered anything bad. He answers no, that he did not (this is to the judgment, not any factual matter). Question: we know that you think he did bad things. But did he do bad things? — tim wood

"Did he do bad things," then, is necessarily asking for someone's opinion about this. "Bad" is always "to whom"?

it amounts to the question of what the ground of any standards will be. — tim wood

The ground of any standards, for anything, is always persons' preferences.

As I've repeatedly pointed out (with no response, and this goes for tim wood too) this is only true of any particular level of granularity you choose. Murder is a subset of killing, it is a type of killing. So if you can't say "all killing is OK (you can't generalise the rule" it's OK to kill"), then does that make all killing bad?
Obviously it can't, and having this pre-defined answer in mind you move the goalposts such that you're able to change the question until it matches the answer you were looking for all along.
But why stop there? Killing by psychopaths is a subset of all murder, murder by people called Dave on a Tuesday at 6:00 is a subset of all murdering. Could it be rationally universalised by Dave, that such killing was OK? Yes it certainly could.
And how did Kant get around this problem? He fudged it with some waffle about having to be honest with yourself about what it is you're universalising. Which makes the whole thing subjective again since the satisfaction with one's self-honesty is a subjective judgement. — Isaac

Quite a while ago I distinguished between murder and killing; you must have missed that. But here's the question, maybe two. Do you say yes/no murder is bad? And is that just your private subjective view, or do you hold it as being also a general rule that must be true for all persons who understand what murder is?

Your remarks about Kant and generalization simply make clear you have no understanding of his ideas. You, of course, are self-convinced that you do. But for what you write, it appears you make no distinction between reason and opinion. And that was one of the things that Kant was, is, about. .

I've no idea what purported sense of 'universal' is being put to use here? — creativesoul

Ironic, isn’t it, that conceptions or ideas or even mere notions, intended to be so all-inclusive the induction principle cannot falsify them, can only be derived from the reduction to a single instance?

Here, if I ever use the term “universal”, I mean it to stand for a circumstance that would be constant for a rational agent no matter where he is or the conditions under which he finds himself. Otherwise, I don’t think the term should be used at all.

Because sets of criteria can be thought of as being in layers. From a surface you dig down a little, but you can dig more, and more. The goal is to reach a limit.

Agreed. Please, among these historical agreements, demonstrate what objective reality was discovered.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident...". If you're not American and do not know this reference, google the American declaration of independence." That is a time in history when one group made a collective decision that appeals to any type of provable objective code.

Yes, they made an appeal but I asked for provable appeal. Historically, we have always made appeals to objective moral law, this doesn't mean they were successful. It also doesn't mean that the decisions made did not benefit for more social cohesion.

For an objective moral law, you first need to demonstrate that social cohesion is an objective "right" or desire.

It is my guess that most constitutions for government make such appeals. Certainly with respect to many civil movements in history, groups of people have made collective decisions that appeal to objective codes.

You're right, but this is because it's assumed that what people desire is social cohesion. It's convoluted to first consider whether the majority of people desire freedom from pain and misery.

Consulting the relativity of morality doesn't aid the emotive momentum of civil rights movements. People are happy to roll with the prerequisite that murder is "wrong"; Most don't question relativity.

Importantly, (and please acknowledge this point) there is no functionality to an objective morality, even if it exists; We are free to ignore it, should we feel differently.

Some people would dictate that the bible objectively states that homosexuality is wrong. Even if they could (they can't) objectively demonstrate this, it doesn't benefit anyone; We can ignore it, save for the punishment of hellfire, should they be able to prove it (they can't).

That's what making something bad morally is. Things are morally good or bad to someone.

The problem is that, semantically, the terms "morality, right and wrong" have connotations of objectivity.

The problem is that, semantically, the terms "morality, right and wrong" have connotations of objectivity. — Edward

When there are mistaken beliefs about what morality is ontologically, sure.

Yes, which is most of the time, I'd say.

Yes, which is most of the time, I'd say. — Edward

My experience is different, but I don't suppose that I'm interacting with most of the people in the world. :wink:

Just curious if on your experience a lot of people are also objectivists on aesthetic value.

Lucky you!

Perhaps I'm being presumptuous about most of the world, but certainly your average person on the street would be mistaken. Not necessarily mistaken... but ignorant to the concept.

Hmm... I suppose that most wouldn't be objectivists when it comes to aesthetics, but most wouldn't be inclined to draw comparisons between aesthetics and morality.