I do not see how you are challenging premise 2. Does the machine value anything? No, it is a machine. — Bartricks
I think there are or could be moral rules, but there don't have to be. But rules require a ruler just as values require a valuer. All roads point to a subject. — Bartricks
I know, that's why I pointed out that the arguments are valid and that they have premises that are true beyond a reasonable doubt. That is, they appear to be sound arguments. It doesn't get better than a sound argument.
There's no contradiction. That premise, combined with the premise "If moral values are my valuings then if I value something it is necessarily valuable" entails the conclusion that moral values are not my values. That is consistent with moral values being someone's values (for I am not everyone) — Bartricks
No, a normative rule is a prescription. It tells you to do something. Only a subject can tell you to do something. — Bartricks
Moral norms are prescriptions. That's just what a norm is. Well, it's more of a rag bag than that. Moral philosophers often characterise them as 'favourings'. Doesn't matter. Favourings require a favourer. — Bartricks
I am unclear what your point is. — Bartricks
No, that was my original argument for thinking that moral values, though the valuings of a subject, are not my valuings.
There's nothing incoherent about it. Look, because pain is a feeling then if I feel in pain, necessarily I am in pain, yes? Likewise then, if moral values are my values - that is, if my valuing something thereby makes it morally valuable - then if I value something necessarily it will be morally valuable. Which is isn't, of course. Hence, moral values are thereby demonstrated not to be constituted by my valuings. — Bartricks
Because the subject whose values constitute moral values would be a god. Moral values are not my values or your values, but they are someone's (as the argument demonstrates). And that someone would be a god precisely because their values constitute moral values. — Bartricks
1. If moral values are my valuings then if I value something it is necessarily morally valuable
2. If I value something it is not necessarily morally valuable. — Bartricks
No one. — Bartricks
Well as the argument demonstrates, moral valuations are not the values of you or I, but of another subject. — Bartricks
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