And you really think I'm going to lift a single finger to cite a source for you? You'd go off in a huff or just change the subject the moment I did. That's obvious. Now, go get an introductory book on ethics and read it. Don't go to a Wikipedia page that your spotty friend down the arcade wrote. A proper introductory book. Read what it says about the Euthyphro.

I mean, why do you think Plato/Socrates made that objection rather than your 'atheism' one? Because they are a) stupid or b) clever?

In reality anyone can value anything without making it morally valuable. — god must be atheist

@Bartricks, I challenge you to show me where my claim is wrong.

In particular, if I value a car, to be worth $5000, I claim I am not making a moral valuation.

Please prove me wrong and I shut up.

Think of it this way: Two blind chickens are pecking at the ground, picking up small pebbles, hoping that one of the pebbles will be an edible piece of grain. One will find grain pieces repeatedly, the other will never find the grain. (Say, within a time period of an hour.) Do the grain exist, and its nutritional value exist? Yes. Does the one chicken that finds it see it justified to believe that the grain and its nutritional value exist? Yes. Does the second one find that? No. Yet the grain exists. — god must be atheist

Your example not good. I improve. Imagine three legged goat at market. Others do not buy goat, for it has three legs not four. But you know that this goat is young and these are its milk legs. It will grow more and bigger legs. You buy goat. Then you discover that goats not have milk legs. So you cut off one of wife legs and strap it to goat. Goat now better than ever, though wife not so good. And this shows something I think, but just my opinions.

In reality anyone can value anything without making it morally valuable.
— god must be atheist

@Bartricks, I challenge you to show me where my claim is wrong.

In particular, if I value a car, to be worth $5000, I claim I am not making a moral valuation.

Please prove me wrong and I shut up.

According to our definitions, which is immediately sufficient for any valuings so determined, to be merely empirically grounded, re: from experience alone. As they must be, in order to prevent some one definition from infringing on another in good standing antecedent to it. Hence, always contingent.

Nevertheless, there must be something necessary, and otherwise irreducible, from which all relevant contingencies arise, that which is a condition for, rather than a definition of, and to which logical syllogisms of empirical ground do not apply.

There is no such thing as morally valuable; there are only contingent values, and those of which are morally conditioned, the volitions which follow from them are thereby morally necessary.

The objection to my objection would be that if Reason sets out what is right, then one ought do as reason proscribes. You remain free to choose not to follow reason, but you ought not. — Banno

Wouldn't that render moral agency sort of redundant, "morals" sort of an extraneous word?

Why would I try and prove you wrong? I agree. If you value your car, it is not necessarily morally valuable.

I agree. That's my view. My view is our values do not constitute moral values. Moral values are the values of a subject. But it is manifestly not us.

I don't think you have followed my argument. None of your valuings - none of them - constitute moral values.

I agree. If you value your car, it is not necessarily morally valuable. — Bartricks

Not only is the car not necessarily morally valuable, but the evaluator -- who is a subject -- is not making a moral valuation.

Do you agree with that, @Bartricks?

yes. Their valuing is not a moral valuing. Only reason can do those.

Note too, 'evaluating' is not the same as 'valuing'. To evaluate is to make a judgement. That's not what I take valuing to involve. We regularly judge things to be morally valuable. My point is that the truth conditions of those judgements - so, that which would make the judgement true - is not our own valuing activity, but the valuing activity of Reason.

My point is that the truth conditions of those judgements - so, that which would make the judgement true - is not our own valuing activity, but the valuing activity of Reason. — Bartricks

Morality is not about empirically observing/testing patterns in the real, physical world and can therefore not possibly be correspondence-theory "true".

Hence, being "true", cannot possibly be a requirement for moral judgments.

All you can require from a moral judgment is that it necessarily follows from the basic rules of your morality. Therefore, a moral judgment would ideally be "provable" from these rules.

Note, however, that "reason" is not capable of discovering what premises to use, nor what conclusion to reach, nor what should be the derivation path between premises and conclusion. — alcontali

One line of reasoning may be used to establish premises for a different line of reasoning. I think you are looking at reason in too linear a fashion; it is more of an infinitely complex web or network. There is no ultimate first point in such a complex. It would be like asking which point is the centre of the universe.

You're just asserting the truth of views that my argument refutes, or else views that are not incompatible with its conclusion.

For example, yes, I agree that morality is not empirically available. Moral values are the values of a subject, Reason. We learn about them via our faculty of reason, not via any sense.

To that extent, then, what you've said is consistent with what I've said. But then you just assert, without any argument at all, that moral judgements do not have truth conditions. Yes they do - the values of Reason. As my argument establishes.

In a way I do agree with you, but I think it is just human, not divine, reason that is in play. For me moral truths are established by fair-minded thinking; that is thinking which is free from bias and prejudice and the idea of privilege. Maybe that is an ideal we cannot reach, but we can move towards it, just as we can in science.

One line of reasoning may be used to establish premises for a different line of reasoning. I think you are looking at reason in too linear a fashion; it is more of an infinitely complex web or network. There is no ultimate first point in such a complex. It would be like asking which point is the centre of the universe. — Janus

The conclusions/theorems in an abstract, Platonic world are necessarily ramified. It is a non-optional requirement that conclusions/theorems can be reduced to a base level represented by a finitary set of unexplained basic rules, i.e. axiomata, i.e. "first principles" (which could internally indeed be circular). An "infinitely complex web or network" is not allowed, because logical inference is not allowed in that kind of web. It would automatically degenerate in infinite regress.

For example, yes, I agree that morality is not empirically available. — Bartricks

In that case, a serious problem occurs because the meaning of "true" defaults to correspondence-theory truth, which is always empirical.

Therefore, what you wrote in "the truth conditions of those judgements - so, that which would make the judgement true" is dangerously ambiguous. What meaning of "true" is it about?

There is also logically "true", but that is an arbitrary symbol in the construction logic of an abstract, Platonic world that allows for logical inference, or at least for basic boolean-aristotelian algebra. It has in principle nothing to do with correspondence-theory "true".

There is nothing magical about the choice of symbols for the values of Boolean algebra. We could rename 0 and 1 to say α and β, and as long as we did so consistently throughout it would still be Boolean algebra, albeit with some obvious cosmetic differences.

So, in the algebra with values V and operators P, i.e. <V={false,true},P=(and,or,not)> the symbol "true" is just whatever you arbitrarily mention in the second position of the algebraic structure <V={_1_,_2_},P=(_3_,_4_,_5_)>.

It is not because a logical inference -- always in an abstract, Platonic world -- ends in a logically true statement, that this statement says anything at all about the real, physical world.

Claiming some kind of definite connection between logical "true" in an abstract, Platonic world and correspondence-theory "true" (always in the real, physical world) is only permissible on the basis of an extensive, experimental test report. In all other cases, liberally associating logical "true" with correspondence-theory "true" is simply spurious.

No, not a clue what you're talking about.

The truth-maker of a judgement such as "Helen values X" is a valuing attitude in Helen. The truth-maker of a judgement such as "Y is morally valuable" is a valuing attitude in Reason.

According to our definitions, which is immediately sufficient for any valuings... — Mww

• What about the value placed upon that which exists in it's entirety prior to all human language?
  
• What about the value placed upon that which exists in it's entirety prior to our awareness of it?
  
• What about the value placed upon that which does not consist of language?
  
• What about the value placed upon that which is not existentially dependent upon language?

If we suppose that our definitions are immediately sufficient, we are saying that they are enough to value all these things mentioned above.

The traditional use of "necessary" is incapable of doing so and remaining coherent.

...not a clue what you're talking about. — Bartricks

The irony.

The truth-maker of a judgement such as "Helen values X" is a valuing attitude in Helen. — Bartricks

Close but no...

Not all Helen's valuing attitudes are valuing X.

So...

Not all valuing attitudes are ones that value X. Some valuing attitudes value Y. Y is not X. Helen valuing Y does not make "Helen values X" true. Helen's valuing Y counts as a valuing attitude in Helen. It does not count as a truth-maker of "Helen values X".

What makes all statements true is correspondence to what's happened and/or is happening. Helen must have a valuing attitude, but not just any one. In order for her attitude to make "Helen values X" true, it must be one in which she values X. She has remarkably many more, none of which make "Helen values X" true.

Nothing ironic there.

Close but no...

Not all Helen's valuing attitudes are valuing X. — creativesoul

er, I said the truth condition of the judgement that Helen values X, is a valuing attitude of Helen's. That's true. Obviously true.

The judgement that "my car is blue" has my blue car as its truthmaker. Pointing out that not all cars are blue is so confused I have to conclude you've recently suffered a head injury.

I said the truth condition of the judgement that Helen values X — Bartricks

No you didn't.

Er, yes I did. Was it a whole hemisphere you lost?

A sure sign of knowing that one is wrong, but needing to save one's own ass anyway, by any means, is to misdirect.

There's a valid objection waiting for it's due attention. I'll wait alongside it.

It's that quantification thing...

:wink:

I said the truth condition of the judgement that Helen values X, is a valuing attitude of Helen's. That's true. Obviously true. — Bartricks

No, you didn't say that at all. Regardless, you're repeating the same mistake. This new claim is not true either. It's false on it's face for the same underlying reason the other was. Only a specific valuing attitude of Helen counts as either the truth conditions or the truthmaker of "Helen values X".

Try this...

Helen's valuing Y counts as a valuing attitude of Helen's. Helen's valuing Y does not count as a truth condition or a truth maker of "Helen values X". It does satisfy the criterion you've set forth for both. So...

The criterion you're using(the standard/definition/conception/idea/notion) for what counts as a truthmaker and/or a truth condition for "Helen values X" is wrong. They're both satisfied by that which is neither.

No. I won't try that. I'll stick to the original. Much thankings.

Suit yourself.

Suit yourself. — creativesoul

Try "Put on your suit".

Your modal suit. The modal suit with the quantification in the buttonhole.

Not good signs...

a judgement such as "Helen values X" — Bartricks

There are two possibilities. Either the judgment is about the real, physical world, or else it is about an abstract, Platonic world.

In the first case, making assumptions about the real, physical world is not allowed. The judgment is necessarily a conclusion. Therefore, you need an extensive, experimental test report as evidence; which is impossible to provide. Therefore, we need to reject such empirical proposition both as a starting point (=assumption) and as an end point (=conclusion) in knowledge.

In the second case, it is about a hypothetical Helen in an abstract, Platonic world. Since the construction logic of living beings is unknown, they cannot be constructed as part of an abstract, Platonic world, of which we always need to have access to the full construction logic. Therefore, logical propositions about a hypothetical living Helen are not allowed in knowledge either.

There may be other, unknown mental faculties -- that are not reason/rationality -- that can take the proposition "Helen values X" as input or produce it as output, but it can never be part of knowledge.