So what would be something that you believe it would be physically impossible to positively or negatively value? — Terrapin Station

I'm not talking about positive or negative values sensu lato, I'm referring to moral values. I'm sorry if I've caused any confusion with sloppy shorthand terms, but I think I specified in a number of cases that I'm talking about moral values.

But to answer your question directly, I'd say it's impossible for an undamaged infant brain to negatively value it's caregiver. Brains just aren't wired that way, we have no examples of it happening (in undamaged brains) and we have sound theories as to both the mechanism which ensures it and the reason such a mechanism may have evolved.

I'd say its impossible to positively value extreme pain. Mild pain may be at a level where other feelings can override the base reaction, but at extreme levels we see autonomous circuits engage which force negative responses. Again, the undamaged brain is simply wired to produce negative responses to extreme pain.

Even flatworms, when placed in a resource-poor environment show a drop in serotonin, which, in humans is somewhat correlated with negative feelings. You'd have to first make a compelling argument for human exceptionalism before asserting that we do not have the same basic mechanisms limiting our range of responses.

Plus, I should add, we're also not talking about 'impossible'. As I said, it's not 'impossible' to ride a neutrino, it just doesn't seem at all likely given our current theories. It's that same basis I'm using here. Psychological theories are considerably less certain than theories of physics, but they are not categorically different, so any change in approach on the basis of that uncertainty would be arbitrary.

Holy moley. You go on with all of this Aspieish crap, and you don't answer one friggin question.

Obviously we're talking about moral values.

And I've been saying OVER AND OVER that I'm talking about whether it's physically possible for there to be something not "able" to be either positively or negatively valued.

I asked you why you were bringing up the idea of "healthy"/"undamaged" (I know why, but I want you to address the crap you're trying to "sneak in"), and you first responded with some oblique nonsense without answering the question, and here you bring it up again.

As I said, it's not 'impossible' to ride a neutrino, — Isaac

Yeah, you said that because you don't know what the fnck you're talking about.

Yeah, whatever. I'm gradually learning I feel much better about my involvement here if I just stop responding when it gets to this kind of crap. "You don't know what you're talking about" is kind of a red flag. Happy to resume when you've calmed down, otherwise not.

I do not need the objections explained to me. When expressed in English, I understand them. And I understand that they are poor.

Maybe stop assuming my argument is invalid and trying to diagnose why. It isn't. It is valid.

The argument - the argument in the OP - makes clear that we're talking about valuing relations.

The argument that everyone is getting their knickers in a twist about, seeks to assess the thesis that moral values - all of them, not just some - are one and the same as my values. That is, the thesis under considering is whether I am morality- whether I am the source of the good.

My argument demonstrates that that thesis is false. And it works for any subset too. It works when you identify all moral values with all of my valuings. It works when you identify all moral values with some subset.

Here it is again with a subset:

1. If moral values are what-I-value-when-I-am-sitting-on-the-toilet, then if I value something when I am sitting on the toilet, necessarily it is morally valuable.

2. If I value something when I am sitting on the toilet it is not necessarily morally valuable

3. Therefore, moral values are not what-I-value-when-I-am-sitting-on-the-toilet.

That is, 'being morally valuable' is not one and the same as being 'valued by me when I am sitting on the toilet".

It is valid.

This argument:

1. If my toilet has depth, then I am sat on it.
2. It is Tuesday
3. Therefore I have wet myself

Is not valid. And it is also nothing like my argument.

Here's an argument. Is it valid? Don't categorise it. Resist the urge to use words like 'modal' and 'transitive'. Stick with proper English - by which I mean English that we would use down the pub. Just say whether you think it is valid or invalid, nothing more:

1. if being loved by Superman is one and the same as being loved by me, then if I love you necessarily Superman loves you
2. If I love you Superman does not necessarily love you
3. therefore being loved by Superman is not one and the same as being loved by me.

Don't, don't, don't, change anything. Don't offer an alternative and tell me your view about the alternative. Don't say 'ah this is a special case - one involving superheros, and there's a special logic for superheros.

Just say whether you think it is valid or invalid.

Here it is again with a subset:

1. If moral values are what-I-value-when-I-am-sitting-on-the-toilet, then if I value something when I am sitting on the toilet, necessarily it is morally valuable.

2. If I value something when I am sitting on the toilet it is not necessarily morally valuable

3. Therefore, moral values are not what-I-value-when-I-am-sitting-on-the-toilet. — Bartricks

Right. You're getting somewhere. But now, with proper account taken of subsets, your premise 2 is far less plausible. It's gone from implying that simply valuing something sensu lato makes it moral (so valuing something like vanilla ice cream makes it moral - obviously ridiculous) to saying only that some specific subset of your values are moral values. Now you've lost the ad absurdum argument. It's quite possible that some subset of your values are moral values. It's quite possible that their apparent categoricity is simply the near unanimity they have because of our shared evolutionary heritage, for example. You might not agree with that position, many don't, but the corrected version of the argument is far less conclusive than you've been presuming.

Not sure why you felt it necessary to bellow 'ITALICS MINE', but then I imagine you bellow things randomly quite a lot. How about addressing my argument - the one in the OP - rather than just talking vaguely of dichotomies. Strut your continental stuff.

If we are a bit charitable about how those "necessarily"s are meant to apply, that looks valid to me.

(That is, if we take it as meaning "It is necessarily the case that if being loved by Superman is one and the same as being loved by me, then if I love you then Superman loves you" and "It is not necessarily the case that If I love you then Superman loves you". A more literal but less charitable interpretation would have those talking about the necessity or lack thereof of Superman loving you, rather than the necessity of the if-then statement as a whole. Compare for example: "if x lives in California then x necessarily lives in California" literally means that anyone who happens in fact to live in California could not possibly have lived or come to live anywhere else, because them living in California is a necessary, immutable truth, somehow. But a more charitable interpretation of that would be the obvious statement "It is necessarily the case that anyone who lives in California lives in California", which has the trivial tautology as the thing that is necessary and immutable, not anything in particular about people in California. This might have been the point others were trying to make by talking about modal logic).

Substituting the stuff about moral valuation in there is still valid too.

But that only disproves individualist moral subjectivism (and I agree that that's false). It doesn't necessarily prove what you're trying to prove with it.

Still meaning to write more on that later but have to go for now...

Oh I'm getting somewhere am I - blimey! You could power a small town with all the patronising condescension you're giving off.

No, I am not getting anywhere at all. The original argument was valid. You - you - are slowly, dimly, starting to see that. Well, no you're not, your own arrogance is going to prevent that. You're going to have to cast it as you taking me - me - on an intellectual journey.

The original argument is valid and you've got nothing to say about it. You actually need to address a premise, but you can't do that. So all you're going to do - and prove me wrong - is keep generating different arguments to mine and saying 'modal' and 'transitive' a lot, words I take to be synonymous with "I don't know what I am talking about, but I'm not letting that stop me".

No, no 'charity', it is just valid. Anyone with basic English language skills understands that "if moral values are my values" or "if moral values are my valuings" (which is how I originally expressed it) doesn't mean "if some moral values are some of my valuings" or "if all moral values are some of my valuings".

So, no charity at all. Just valid. And I haven't put 'necessarily' in the wrong place. You did in your rewrite. The original is fine. Absolutely fine. Valid and sound. The problem is that no-one wants to concede that in its entirety. I have to have made 'some' mistake. I haven't - the argument is find as it is. It is expressed properly. It is valid. It is sound.

Then you point out that all my argument does is refute individual subjectivism.

That's what its bloody purpose was!! I mean, I know!! That's what I was seeking to refute with it.

When you take your car to the garage to be fixed, and they fix it, do you say "well, don't be so proud of yourself, all you've done is fix my car". Or when you go to a baker, do you say "well, I don't know why you've put all these cakes in the window - all you've done is bake some cakes and now you're just trying to sell them".

The purpose of the argument - the argument that is perfectly well expressed and that is valid and sound - was to refute a certain kind of subjectivist view. That is, the view that moral values are one and the same as my valuings (or yours, or some subset). That view. That view was the one being assessed.

I have already established, by means of another equally valid and sound argument, that moral values are the values of some subject or other.

Now I have established that they are not the values of me or you.

Conclusion - they are the values of a subject who is not me or you.

Now, tell me that doesn't follow!

It does.

Moral values are the values of a subject.

Moral values are not the values of me.

So moral values are the values of a subject who is not me.

Moral values are not the values of you.

So moral values are the values of a subject who is not me, not you.

Agree?

I understand that that there's a tense argument that's been going on here for a while but please don't act like I'm attacking you by talking about charity. I'm talking about the principle of charity in rhetoric; I'm saying I'm interpreting you in the way that makes the most sense of what you're saying, but pointing out for clarity the ways that you could be interpreted differently. Natural language is ambiguous like that. That's why formal logic was invented, to help clear up those ambiguities.

Anyway, sidestepping all that stuff about necessity, the form of the argument you gave before soundly proves that "moral values are not the values of me". But you have a separate premise, "moral values are the values of a subject", and that's necessary for the rest of the argument to prove that moral values are the values of a subject other than me. That's where I would disagree, and what I intend to write more about when I get the chance.

And what the hell does

sensu lato — Isaac

mean? Eurgh. Just use English. If you can't express your meaning in that language I will never ever understand you.

You say, in your lofty way, that a 'subset' view may well be plausible. Oh really? Go on then. Let's go out to the car park and sort this one out, shall we?!

Say which subset of your values you want to identify moral values with and we'll take it from there.

And don't use Latin or I'll start throwing in Ukranian phrases and see if that helps things. "Сперечатися з дурнем - це як кричати на корів: спокусливо, але безглуздо" as my mother says.

If moral values have to be held by someone other than you, why not just point to the community you're a part of?

For two reasons, first communities can't value things (only the members of communities can). A community is a community of subjects. But it is not itself a subject.

Second, even granting that communities can value things (and they can't) the same argument applies:

1. If moral values are the values of my community, then if my community values something necessarily it is morally valuable
2. If my community values something it is not necessarily morally valuable
3. therefore moral values are not the values of my community.

Yeah, whatever. I'm gradually learning I feel much better about my involvement here if I just stop responding when it gets to this kind of crap. "You don't know what you're talking about" is kind of a red flag. Happy to resume when you've calmed down, otherwise not. — Isaac

Nothing uncalm about it. Just honest. I'm not going to indulge something ignorant just because you said it.

From here I can't see the connection with God. If reason determines morality why have a god at all? After all reason has the upper hand right?

Isn't this Euthyphro's dilemma?

Does god determine what's right or does reason determine what's right? — TheMadFool

It is you - not I - who keeps mentioning God. My argument leads to the conclusion that moral values are the values of a subject, Reason.

She is a god. Why? Because she's Reason. It's that way around. She's a not a god and so she's Reason. She's Reason and so she's a god. 'A god' not 'God'. Again, it is you - your ears - that are hearing 'God' every time I say 'a god'. It derails things as it invites a discussion of religious matters not relevant to my case.

I am interested in what's true. I am interested in what moral values and prescriptions are. I have simply discovered that they are the values and prescriptions of a person. And because moral prescriptions are just a subset of the prescriptions of Reason, I have discovered that Reason is a person.

That person, precisely because she is the one whose values constitute moral values, and precisely because she is the one whose prescriptions constitute the prescriptions of reason, is a god. I mean, she determines what's morally valuable. We have reason to pursue our own interests because and only because she says so. And what's true seems to be constitutively determined by her as well. For what is truth apart from what Reason asserts to be the case?

So Reason, this agent, this subject who is herself and not anyone else, seems to me to be omnipotent. She can make anything true. She can do anything. So, I think it is beyond dispute that she's a god. But 'God'? Well, I don't know and I don't care. But 'a god' certainly.

And as for the Euthyphro question, well I have started a thread on it as it is the only concern that, in my view, is capable of raising a reasonable doubt about my case's soundness. Ultimately it fails to do this, I think, but for not-immediately-obvious reasons. On its face, then, it seems like a good objection.

The answer to the Euthyphro question is, of course, not open to negotiation - the god determines what's right. I mean, that's just the view.

The 'problem' that this raises is that it means that moral values and prescriptions (and the other prescriptions of Reason) will be variable.

I don't think that is a problem, but I admit that it appears to be.

If my community values something it is not necessarily morally valuable — Bartricks

And you're saying that if reason values something, it is necessarily morally valuable?

Why?

First, moral values are demonstrably - that is, provably - the values of a subject.

If that subject values something, necessarily it will be morally valuable.

Who is this subject? Well, moral values have the same source as moral prescriptions, don't they?

And the same argument applies to them. That is, moral prescriptions are demonstrably the prescriptions of a subject.

And as the source of moral prescriptions must be the same as the source of moral values, it is the same subject who is the source of both.

And moral prescriptions are among the prescriptions of reason, are they not? For instance, if an act is morally prescribed, then we necessarily have some reason to do it, don't we? Well why? Because for an act to be morally prescribed just is for it to be being prescribed by reason, and what it is for us to have reason to do an act is for reason to be prescribing it.

So, if moral prescriptions are the prescriptions of a subject, and moral prescriptions are just a subset of the prescriptions of reason, then the subject is reason. Reason is the subject.

Hence why we virtually all recognise that when it comes to getting insight into what's right and wrong, good and bad, it is to our reason - our faculties of reason, faculties that give us insight into what Reason herself prescribes and values - that we must turn.

Note, if moral values were our values, then it would be by introspection, not reason, that we would gain insight into moral matters.

And if moral values were the values of our community, then it would be by sociological surveys that we would gain insight into moral matters.

But as is clear to all right-thinking folk, it is by rational reflection - not surveys and introspection - that we gain moral insight.

If that were not so, then moral philosophy would not even exist as a subject.

That, then, is why if Reason values something necessarily it is morally valuable. Reason is the subject, a person. And she determines what is good, bad, right wrong, true, false - everything.

And moral prescriptions are among the prescriptions of reason, are they not? For instance, if an act is morally prescribed, then we necessarily have some reason to do it, don't we? Well why? Because for an act to be morally prescribed just is for it to be being prescribed by reason, and what it is for us to have reason to do an act is for reason to be prescribing it. — Bartricks

Your argument suffers from the bare assertion fallacy.

I find that those who just label things fallacies turn out not to know what they're talking about.

So, without invoking a label, say what you mean.

You are asserting that reason is the source of moral prescriptions with no argument to support it.

So, what is the fallacy? Because, like I say, I don't think you even know how to use that word.

I have made arguments. My reply to you contained arguments. You just don't know what an argument is, or what a fallacy is. Yet, bizarrely, you're confident you do. Odd. Are you, by any chance, thick?

You are asserting that reason is the source of moral prescriptions with no argument to support it.

You are asserting that reason is the source of moral prescriptions with no argument to support it. — Rufoid

no, that's false. I am 'concluding' that reason is the source of those things. Now, you don't know things.

What is a fallacy? Say what you understand that word to mean.

You are asserting that reason is the source of moral prescriptions with no argument to support it.

Right. Well now that you've done what you needed to do, know that a 'fallacy' is an error in reasoning.

You don't commit a fallacy just by asserting something. For instance "I want a cake" is not fallacious.

It is an assertion. But it is not a fallacy.

"If I want a cake, then I want some tea. I don't want a cake. therefore I don't want some tea" is a fallacy.

I have not committed any fallacies.

I have argued - using valid arguments, not fallacious ones - that moral values are the values of a single agent, an agent who is reason.

Bye. That was thoroughly unpleasant.

You are asserting that reason is the source of moral prescriptions with no argument to support it.

Again so soon? You'll get a blister.

As Rufoid doesn't know an argument from his armpit, here are the arguments that establish that the subject is reason.

1. Moral values and prescriptions have the same source
2. the source of moral values is a single subject.
3. Therefore, the source of moral values and prescriptions is a single subject
4. if and only if moral prescriptions are prescriptions of reason would it be the case that we would necessarily have reason to do what we are morally prescribed doing.
5. We necessarily have reason to do what we are morally prescribed doing
6. Therefore moral prescriptions are the prescriptions of reason
7. if moral prescriptions are prescriptions of reason and moral prescriptions are prescriptions of a subject, then reason is a subject.
8. therefore reason is a subject

There are more arguments than this - more reasons to think that moral prescriptions are prescriptions of reason, but that will do for now.