One can know that they do not accept another's behaviour without judging their behaviour in any robust sense of moral judgment. — creativesoul

That is prejudice - prejudgement. I would attribute that to moral feeling/intuition. Is robustness of sense a requirement?

One can know that they do not accept another's behaviour without judging their behaviour in any robust sense of moral judgment.
— creativesoul

That is prejudice - prejudgement... — Merkwurdichliebe

But not moral judgment.

We need this new reporting to dovetail with the previously established groundwork.
— creativesoul

Not yet... but we are examining internalization and ethical authority, which are variables of societal conditioning — Merkwurdichliebe

Indeed. So the story of societal conditioning goes. What I'm prying into is whether or not the story is worthy of assent.

There are also new criterion being employed that are not quite up to snuff. Our foundation for drawing conclusions is supposed to be based upon a universal criterion. New claims are being levied that are not based upon the same solid ground. — creativesoul

Yes, we are exploring all potentially relevant variables. Only when we measure a variable against the constant can we determined its value.
In such an experiment, misfiring is bound to occur.

We could say, that early on in the development process of ethical indoctrination the roles are distinct. But as the ethical pupil matures, the roles become equivocal. — Merkwurdichliebe

The lines become blurred as they ought in some cases.

The question becomes, when does the individual cease to respond to the judgement of the ethical authority, and come to rely on his own judgement of himself? — Merkwurdichliebe

This is a good question. It is seems to be about one's own self-image though. Such struggles between indoctrination and self-image are common ans well-known. I think that they point to a deficit in the general understanding and/or certain accounts of morality/ethics.

I'm reminded of the outcasts who are such through no fault of their own.

A sentiment of "You're not ok with me, but I certainly am"...

I was just positing the authority of the ethical authority to be absolute in relation to the pupil. That is due to the fact that he judges the ethical pupil, not the other way around. It's not a democracy — Merkwurdichliebe

This conflates power and judgment. The authority has the power to write and enforce the rules of behaviour. There are plenty of examples where pupils morally judge authority despite having no immediately disposable power to write and enforce the rules.

This is what revolutions are made of.

What I'm prying into is whether or not the story is worthy of assent. — creativesoul

I don't know if we've established the plot firmly enough to even begin considering its worthiness for assent.

Anyway, I see it as:
Assessment is a primary function of nonmoral thought/belief. Primitive/nonrational assessment is associated with prelinguistic thought/belief, and intellectual/rational assessment is associated with linguistic thought/belief.

Moral thought/belief is an entirely different mode than nonmoral thought/belief. Its primary function is judgement. Moral thought/belief requires the faculties of conceptualization and abstraction, which only comes after language acquisition and linguistic thought/belief.

Judgment begins with determining right and wrong principles. It moves further to apply moral principles to particulars. This is the essence of moral thought/belief.

Moral thought/belief is an entirely different mode of nonmoral thought/belief. Its primary function is judgement. Moral thought/belief requires the faculties of conceptualization and abstraction, which only come after language acquisition and linguistic thought/belief. — Merkwurdichliebe

It woud only follow from the above that there is no moral thought/belief prior to language. That conclusion is at odds with our criterion for what counts as being "moral", which was arrived at by virtue of what all things moral, and/or called "moral" have in common.

That conclusion is at odds with our criterion for what counts as being "moral", which was arrived at by virtue of what all things moral, and/or called "moral" have in common. — creativesoul

And what is that? A common mode of thought/belief, that I say has a common function: judgement.

That conclusion is at odds with our criterion for what counts as being "moral", which was arrived at by virtue of what all things moral, and/or called "moral" have in common.
— creativesoul

And what is that. A common mode of belief, that I say has a common function: judgement. — Merkwurdichliebe

You're moving the goalposts. The new setting cannot account for uses of "moral" that do not involve judgment. All things moral are about acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour.

Are you rescinding your earlier agreement?

It is in situations such as this that the importance of the groundwork becomes realized.

All things moral are about acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour. — creativesoul

I'm not moving the goalposts. I keep them in view with every comment I make.

I would say: "All things moral are about thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour. Hence, judgement.

Judgment is moral thought/belief. Not all moral thought/belief is judgment.

Drawing and maintaining the distinction must be part and parcel of incorporating the societal aspects. Moral judgment - in the conventional sense - is existentially dependent upon adopting a worldview replete with morality.

It is to voice one's approval/disapproval based upon one's morality. That morality may or may not be the one initially adopted.

Judgment is moral thought/belief. Not all moral thought/belief is judgment. — creativesoul

I disagree. But, if you can present an example of moral thought/belief that does not involve a judgement, I might better understand.

Descriptive accounts of acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour.

The example is this discussion...

Moral judgment - in the conventional sense - is existentially dependent upon adopting a worldview replete with morality. — creativesoul

Yes. It is adopting pre-existing principles that are based on pre-existing nonmoral assessments. The adoption of principle places one in the role of judge. Until it is appropriated as personal morality, principle is a matter of intellectual assessment. We are doing just that in this discussion.

Descriptive accounts of acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour.

The example is this discussion... — creativesoul

We are speaking extemporaneously, meta-ethically. We must be careful not to confuse our descriptive assessments with the variable (in this experiment) of thought/belief that is moral in kind. Our description of morality as moral thought/belief is detached from actual moral thought/belief.

What we do in this discussion should never arrive at the point of discussing morals from a moral perspective (via moral thought/belief).

(One way, we are thinking/believing morally (judging). The other way, we are thinking/believing about moral thought/belief (assessing judgement). We wish to do the latter.)

All thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour are moral - in kind. That is precisely what they all have in common that makes them what they are as opposed to other kinds of thought/belief. — creativesoul

We are doing the other kind of thought/belief in assessing the kind of thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour.

Some moral thought/belief is prior to language acquisition. — creativesoul

I don't think we ever agreed here.

I wouldn't call the common core of all thought/belief 'primitive morality'. Primitive thought/belief? Sure. Not all thought/belief is rightfully called "morality". Rather, morality is codified thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour(thought/belief that is moral in kind).

Morality is codified moral belief. Laws.
— creativesoul

No dispute, here. I just meant to clarify your position. I would say, if there is a primitive morality, it comes well after primitive [prelingustic] thought/belief. Hopefully we can discover approximately where that occurs. — Merkwurdichliebe

By this, I was implying that primitive morality is arrived at during some point in language acquisition.

You never disagreed. And i don't think we ever elaborated more.

@creativesoul

Valuation is something we have not clearly parsed out. Imo, valuation does not imply moral thought/belief. Valuation can be imposed on any nonmoral assessment. That a thing can be assessed as being valuable because it is, say, desirable, does not make it a moral judgement concerning the acceptable/unacceptable.

You've lost the distinction which began this all. Thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief. You've also rescinded the earlier agreement regarding what all things moral have in common. You've arrived at incoherence as a result.

Now you're just repeating conventional mistakes. I've no time at present. I can and will point them out clearly later on if you're interested.

You've lost the distinction which began this all. Thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief. You've also rescinded the earlier agreement regarding what all things moral have in common. You've arrived at incoherence as a result.

Now you're just repeating conventional mistakes. I've no time at present. I can and will point them out clearly later on if you're interested. — creativesoul

I'll be interested to read it.

By the way, based on yesterday's exchange,
I thought the same thing about you: "You've lost the distinction which began this all. Thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief." That's what I was pointing out in my post.

I will point out right now, that we never established that prelinguistic thought/belief is moral in kind. I've considered the the entire discussion that they aren't. Based on that, everything I've said is spot on and mostly coherent. Just reread everything and you'll see.

Consider, that early in life, the infant begins to evaluate the desirable somewhere in the interplay of her nerve stimuli, and her emotional responses. As primitive as it is, this does constitute a valuation, despite the absence of any language skills. The primitive level in which value is imposed on emotional affection does not constitute a proper ethical judgement - it is more like an observation of what seems pleasing to me, rather than a moral choice about what I ought to do.

Then we can think about the toddler who has begun to acquire language. At this point, he is being linguistically conditioned (with some corporal conditioning) so that he can be assimilated into the culture to which he belongs. It is somewhere in this process that the evaluation of his primitive valuations commences; most importantly any evaluations of his primitive valuations are primarily acquired externally from culture, and not internally as a result of primitive valuation.

I hope this takes us one step closer to adequately understanding the source of morals. I could be mistaken, it's a terrible tragedy.
— Merkwurdichliebe

That's not a bad summary of pre linguistic thought/belief as it pertains to morals. — creativesoul

Here you did not object to my point. Let me slightly rephrase it for clarity: the level of prelinguistic thought/belief, at which value is imposed on primitive emotional affection, does not constitute morality - it is an observation of what seems pleasing to me, rather than a moral thought/belief concerning acceptable/unacceptable intention/behavior. You actually seemed to agree.



I consider the function of prelinguistic thought/belief to be primitive assessment; the function of linguistic thought/belief to be intellectual assessment; and, the function of moral thought/belief to be judgement (I'm using the term "judgement" in a very specific way). Each is a mode of thought/belief that we are thinking about (our universal criterion). I propose, while each mode (that we are considering here), is grounded in the former, what actually distinguishes one mode from the other, is how it primarily functions.

In this discussion, it is obvious we are using linguistic thought/belief, not moral thought/belief, to evaluate morality (thought/belief that is moral in kind). How does this not cohere with our framework?

@creativesoul

More on the different modes of thought/belief, and the particular quality of their valuations:

Since morality is primarily concerned with thought/belief about right/wrong intention/behavior, it seems relevant to address how prelinguistic and linguistic thought/belief pertains to intention/behavior.

In both primitive and intellectual assessment we find intention/behavior to be focused on attaining the desirable. The former attains the desirable nonrationally, we could say instinctually/habitually, whereas the latter attains the desirable rationally, by intellectual deliberation. In each mode, the desirable is of ultimate value.

From the perspective of moral thought/belief, the desirable is in view, yet its primary function,
judgement, is concerned with right intention/behavior (not intention/behavior which most effectively attains the desirable). In fact judgement of what is right/wrong can often supersede and suspend what is assessed to be desirable. The principled moral agent will always forgo all that he desires if it means seeing the victory of good in the world. In morality, we could say the only thing that is desirable is what is right, the good is all that is valued.

Nothing I have said here is a moral thought/belief, it is all simply my thought/belief about moral thought/belief.

I will point out right now, that we never established that prelinguistic thought/belief is moral in kind. I've considered the the entire discussion that they aren't. Based on that, everything I've said is spot on and mostly coherent. Just reread everything and you'll see. — Merkwurdichliebe

You may be right here. The only issue, or at least the main one, may be due to our not yet having fully developed the evolution of thought/belief from the pre-linguistic through the metacognitive(deliberately naming and further thinking about pre-existing thought/belief). That interim period between adopting and being able to doubt and/or question what one has adopted is crucial to the question in the OP. This is germane to adopting and/or later questioning principles as well.

The invocation of ethical authority made me a bit uneasy. I didn't and still do not think that that time had come yet.

I still suspect that there's a bit of misunderstanding between us. However, I also suspect that it can be reconciled. That's what I'm aiming for at this time. Stand by...

:smile:

There's far too much that we(seem to) agree upon to abandon the discussion.

There's far too much that we(seem to) agree upon to abandon the discussion. — creativesoul

Yes indeed. Also, our philosophical aptitudes are too great to think we cannot work out our differences. :cool: :nerd:

Aside from times of being silly and/or facetious(which I'm certainly prone to), I typically allow someone else to pay me compliments(tell me how good, or talented, or smart, or whatever they think I am). Around here, compliments are few and far between. That's partly due - I am certain - to my lack of patience at times. I'm also certainly capable of being a dick. In addition, there are many who have much more a vested interest in philosophy than I. Vehemently arguing against my position. The sheer amount of vitriolic rhetoric astounds me...

However, I've also actually had a couple of participants here and elsewhere ask me in pms if I was worried about my ideas being stolen, going as far as to say I ought be. I'm not. I've got more than enough timestamped original material to prove beyond any doubt that these are my ideas that I'm working through the consequences of. Besides that, my sources of income have nothing to do with philosophical endeavors, but everything to do with other critical thinking, problem solving, abstract reasoning, spatial reasoning, systems analysis and/or development, and other such creative endeavors. And yet... I'm a very boring guy, with a very boring life, and that's exactly how I like it. No surprises, no unexpected results...

That said, which is too much, I do appreciate your involvement with me here and thank you for the compliment. Perhaps that helps you to get a better 'feel' for your interlocutor... me!

:wink:

Your welcome. And, the feeling is mutual. :up:

So, it seems we can isolate one primary disagreement and go from there. There's a few that need worked through. It would behoove us both, I think, to work through them carefully beginning with the following...

I hold that moral thought/belief can be prelinguistic on the basis that all things moral are about acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour. This pre-linguistic moral thought/belief would be rudimentary in complexity level, but counts as being moral - in kind - as a result of what it's about(the content of the correlations).

You disagree on the basis that all moral thought/belief is moral judgment.

Does this capture one(primary on my view) disagreement in a nutshell?

Continuing with that same disagreement, the following exchange has been revisited by you and deserves my attention, for it seems to be when misunderstanding grew... slightly it seems, but operative nonetheless...

Consider, that early in life, the infant begins to evaluate the desirable somewhere in the interplay of her nerve stimuli, and her emotional responses. As primitive as it is, this does constitute a valuation, despite the absence of any language skills. The primitive level in which value is imposed on emotional affection does not constitute a proper ethical judgement - it is more like an observation of what seems pleasing to me, rather than a moral choice about what I ought to do. — Merkwurdichliebe

I agree here. The prelinguistic thought/belief that I'm counting as moral - in kind - does not count as being a choice about what I ought do. Rather, it counts as being moral - in kind - as a result of the content of it's correlations. It's about acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief and/or behaviour.

This is at the rudimentary level of complexity, nearly bare-bones, but not quite. This example was invoked earlier by praxis I think anyway, as an equivalent candidate for the emergence and/or origen of moral intuition. I cannot say that I would disagree with that assessment aside from not seeing the need for the notion of "intuition", because it can be properly captured and/or explained in terms of thought/belief. Hence, I invoked Ockham's razor...

Then we can think about the toddler who has begun to acquire language. At this point, he is being linguistically conditioned (with some corporal conditioning) so that he can be assimilated into the culture to which he belongs. It is somewhere in this process that the evaluation of his primitive valuations commences; most importantly any evaluations of his primitive valuations are primarily acquired externally from culture, and not internally as a result of primitive valuation. — Merkwurdichliebe

I agree with this as well. It also poses no coherency issues with what's been set forth heretofore.

On my view, this scenario would be accounted for by noting that language acquisition is necessary for all thinking about thought/belief. The term "necessary" here refers to existential dependency. Thinking about thought/belief(metacognition) is existentially dependent upon something to think about and a means of doing so. Complex language use is more than adequate. We use all sorts of names to refer to mental ongoings. Imagination, reasoning, rational thinking, thought, belief, ideas, etc... On my view, all of these reduce to thought/belief and/or thinking about thought/belief, depending upon the complexity level and whether or not the candidate under consideration is itself existentially dependent upon language.

So, we agree that subsequent intentional deliberate thinking about pre-existing thought/belief(prelinguistic) is primarily acquired from culture(language acquisition and subsequent use). That is to say that one's evaluation of one's own worldview is acquired from and is thus existentially dependent upon the society one is born into. However, there must must be something to think about. So, it is not quite accurate to say that the evaluation is not existentially dependent upon pre-linguistic thought/belief as well.

The main difference it seems is that I hold a minimalist criterion for what counts as being moral - in kind - whereas you hold a more complex notion of what counts as moral thought/belief.

I hope this takes us one step closer to adequately understanding the source of morals. I could be mistaken, it's a terrible tragedy.
— Merkwurdichliebe

That's not a bad summary of pre linguistic thought/belief as it pertains to morals.
— creativesoul

Here you did not object to my point. Let me slightly rephrase it for clarity: the level of prelinguistic thought/belief, at which value is imposed on primitive emotional affection, does not constitute morality - it is an observation of what seems pleasing to me, rather than a moral thought/belief concerning acceptable/unacceptable intention/behavior. You actually seemed to agree. — Merkwurdichliebe

We do agree regarding morality. Morality is codified moral thought/belief. Prelinguistic thought/belief that is moral - in kind - (on my view at least) is inadequate for morality. So one cannot have pre-linguistic morality, but can form pre-linguistic thought/belief - that is moral in kind - as a result of it being about acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour.

I suppose a criticism of my position above could be levied with a simple question:What is the difference between being about thought, belief, and/or behaviour and being about acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour?

Perhaps that is what underwrites your invocation of "valuation"?