You also say that my argument is confused. Oh is it? No, it isn't - it is deductively valid (so, its conclusion is true if its premises are). So you need to deny a premise. Which one? — Bartricks
So one could consistently maintain that moral norms and values exist outside of humans, but not independently of them. — Bartricks
The word 'value' means the same throughout. — Bartricks
I also did not mention God. The conclusion is that moral values are the values of a subject who is not me or you or any other human. — Bartricks
So, it is necessary for a moral value to exist that there be some valuing going on. — Bartricks
I do not know what you mean when you say that I am equivocating over what it means to be valued by a subject. — Bartricks
I do not see which premise you are seeking to challenge.
When we say 'society values p' do we either mean that the majority of the subjects constituting society value p - in which case no premise is challenged - or we mean that society itself, quite apart from its subjects, values p, in which case we must be supposing that society IS a subject in its own right otherwise the valuing is not being done by anything. And again, in that case no premise is challenged. — Bartricks
I mean, suggesting that the alternatives are limited to one of us or God is a false dichotomy if ever I saw one. — Bartricks
Now, whose values are moral values? Well, the values of a subject. Which subject - who? Well, the subject whose values are moral values. Her. No one else. Her.
Is she God? Possibly - I don't know, the argument hasn't told us. But her values are moral values which, I think, makes her a god of a kind. It is not that she's a god and so her values are moral values - which seems to be how you're construing things. No, no, no. Her values are moral values and so she's a god. It is that way around. — Bartricks
Me: well, I don't see why you're going straight for God - I mean, we're not even sure God exists. We're sure Janet has been killed by someone. — Bartricks
in fact, I'll go one better - I'll refute all views that aren't mine using the Euthyphro. How about that? — Bartricks
LIke I say, you're confusing descriptions with prescriptions. Moral rules, if there are any, are prescriptions. Now, can a machine issue a prescription? No, not literally. Someone can programme a machine to issue prescriptions, but then those prescriptions qualify as prescriptions only because we can trace them to a subject whose attitudes they express. — Bartricks
Having said this though, I think the whole polemic concerning whether morality is objective or subjective is flawed and plagued with category errors, reification and shallow thinking. Subjects are not apart from the world, or apart from the inter-subjective context in which the very idea of morality can become coherent. — Janus
he view I have defended above is subjectivist, not objectivist. I am defending a divine command theory of value - a divine command theorist about value is a subjectivist (in my sense of the term, given above), — Bartricks
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