Yes, I'm the pope. I have to be nice to losers all day long so I unwind by being really nasty to some on the internet in the evenings. — Bartricks

What a strange mixture of honesty and bitchiness. Philosophy is supposed to be about reality and not just serve as therapy. That's what I've heard. Yet we come anonymously to a place where we can be rude with impunity (which is pretty escapist) to talk about reality.

It's not as crazy as it sounds, because the collision of worldviews is violent. And intellectual types don't really want a physical fight. Their brains are too precious. Their unhatched eggs must be protected from something as vulgar as actual war.

We wear polite masks to pay the bills, and then come for the sublimated violence of a philosophy forum. If it was all logic, a computer could do it for us. If it was all rhetoric, it would be rap battle. We need something simultaneously cruel and respectable.

That's exactly what I'm bloomin' well doing! Literally. Here. Now. I'm presenting the argument in the cold light of day on a philosophy forum to see how it fares. Answer: hasn't even been dented. — Bartricks

But you're the one deciding it hasn't been dented. And you've insulted those who challenge you. That is crankish behavior. If you invented a time machine that worked, I'd understand the arrogance. But it's only a philosophical argument. We already know that people mostly believe what they want to believe. It's power that convinces people more than arguments.

You do deserve some credit for hanging around and debating the point.

As I have explained numerous times, it is valid. Premise 1 says that if moral valuings and my valuings are one and the same. Sheesh. I am not going through this again. If you genuinely can't see why, if being morally valuable and being valued by me are one and the same property, then anything I value must be morally valuable (because, by hypothesis, that's what being morally valuable involves) then I can't continue arguing with you. Premise 1 is not false and the argument is valid and this is completely pointless. I must await a more intelligent opponent.

No, I am not 'deciding it', I am judging it. And you can judge it too.

So, take Superman and Clark Kent. They're one and the same person. Consequently, anywhere Superman is, Clark Kent is, and vice versa. Given that they're one and the same person it is obviously impossible for Superman to be somewhere and Clark Kent not.

Now, imagine someone denies this. I would not 'decide' that the person in question was a total idiot. Rather, I would judge that they were. As, surely, would you - yes? I mean, something has either gone seriously wrong with their ability to reason, or they just don't grasp concepts like 'one and the same'.

If you agree - if you agree that in the above case I would not just be dismissing the critic, but justly deeming them an idiot and their criticism misguided - then consider identical argument.

If being morally valuable and being valued by me are one and the same property, then if I value something it must be morally valuable. Forget the fact they're obviously not the same property - that would be like getting hung up on the fact Superman doesn't actually exist. 'If' they are one and the same property, then obviously anything I value will be morally valuable - why? Because - by hypothesis - that's just what being morally valuable involves. Nothing more, nothing less.

So, now consider this premise:

1. If being morally valuable and being valued by me are one and the same, then if I value something necessarily it is morally valuable.

That's obviously true. Someone who didn't see that it was true is literally as idiotic as someone who doesn't see that this is true:

1. if Superman and Clark Kent are one and the same person, then if Superman is in Texas, necessarily Clark Kent is in Texas.

Yet if you go through the thread above you will find several people - one in our immediate vicinity - denying that this premise is true. And these people have the cheek to represent themselves as knowledgeable about logic and keep telling me I don't know enough of it.

Just consult your own reason though and tell me if you agree with me, or with them. Do you agree with me that if I am the pope, then if the pope is in a brothel I am in a brothel? Or do you agree with them and think that if I am the pope then if the pope is in a brothel I might not be?

Am I just 'deciding' that they are mistaken? Or am I entirely reasonably judging that they are mistaken?

Or take this argument:

1. If P, then Q
2. Not Q
3 Therefore not P.

is that valid or invalid? Well, it is obviously valid. Someone who kept insisting that it was invalid is just a berk, plain and simple. And yet there are many above who have denied that my argument is valid despite it having precisely that form.

Am I just 'deciding' that they are wrong? Doesn't your reason confirm that the above argument is valid?

As I have explained numerous times, it is valid. — Bartricks

Not in the form you posted it again.

Premise 1 says that if moral valuings and my valuings are one and the same. — Bartricks

It doesn't say that. It says:

if I am the subject whose valuings constitute moral valuings — Bartricks

Not the same words and not the same meaning.

If it said: "if moral valuings and my valuings are one and the same."

Then it would be pointless, because that doesn't describe any subjectivist position. It's clearly nonsense to claim that "moral valuings and my valuings are one and the same".

exactly - exactly - the same meaning. Stop being tedious.

Then why use different words? What use is the conclusion that "moral values are not one and the same as my values"?

Because they have the same meaning. I assume basic comprehension skills on the part of others. They all mean exactly the same thing.

Like I say, I am no longer willing to argue with someone who thinks that premise 1 is false or that the argument is invalid, because that's just not going to be worth any of my time or theirs, is it?

Because they have the same meaning. I assume basic comprehension skills on the part of others. They all mean exactly the same thing. — Bartricks

So the two sentences "mammals are animals" and "mammals are one and the same as animals" mean the same thing?

Like I say, I am no longer willing to argue with someone who thinks that premise 1 is false or that the argument is invalid, because that's just not going to be worth any of my time or theirs, is it? — Bartricks

If you are unwilling to have your rational intuitions checked, then why post in the first place?

I don't need my rational intuitions checked by you. That's like an ethics review from Bill Cosby.

I don't need my rational intuitions checked by you. That's like an ethics review from Bill Cosby. — Bartricks

That's fine. By now, the quality of your arguments is obvious to any reasonably intelligent reader either way.

Well that's something we can agree on.

If it said: "if moral valuings and my valuings are one and the same."

Then it would be pointless, because that doesn't describe any subjectivist position. It's clearly nonsense to claim that "moral valuings and my valuings are one and the same". — Echarmion

Do you mean just because of "my"?

I read "If moral valuings and my valuings are one and the same" to amount to "If moral valuings and the valuings of subjects are one and the same." I know that "literally" it's not the same, but I don't figure that anyone is going to literally equate all moral valuings with only their own valuings, unless they're also a solipsist, which is unlikely. So I figure that "my" is a way to say "one's," with a connotation that we're talking about every one.

Do you mean just because of "my"?

I read "If moral valuings and my valuings are one and the same" to amount to "If moral valuings and the valuings of subjects are one and the same." I know that "literally" it's not the same, but I don't figure that anyone is going to literally equate all moral valuings with only their own valuings, unless they're also a solipsist, which is unlikely. So I figure that "my" is a way to say "one's," with a connotation that we're talking about every one. — Terrapin Station

The issue here is with the identity of moral values and values in general. If they are "one and the same", every member of the set "my valuings" is also a member of the set "moral valuings". But that would be an absurd claim.

This all came out of an attempt to right the argument, because in it's original form, without the added stipulation that they are "one and the same", i.e. the sets are identical, the argument is invalid.

The issue here is with the identity of moral values and values in general. If they are "one and the same", every member of the set "my valuings" is also a member of the set "moral valuings". But that would be an absurd claim. — Echarmion

Ah. Wouldn't you normally just assume that "my valuings" is "my (moral) valuings," but where "moral" isn't repeated because that should be clear from context?

I would rather be surprised to learn that someone who wrote that sentence was thinking of "my valuings" in a literal, context-independent way, to refer to every single thing they value, moral or not.

Ah. Wouldn't you normally just assume that "my valuings" is "my (moral) valuings," but where "moral" isn't repeated because that should be clear from context?

I would rather be surprised to learn that someone who wrote that sentence was thinking of "my valuings" in a literal, context-independent way, to refer to every single thing they value, moral or not. — Terrapin Station

One would, but if one does that, the argument no longer works as well, because then Premise 2 becomes:
"My moral valuings are not necessarily moral values", something which I think you wouldn't accept without justification.

"My moral valuings are not necessarily moral values", something which I think you wouldn't accept without justification. — Echarmion

Right. That's the part I disagreed with.

↪TheMadFool No, because to say that something is 'subjective' is to say something about its composition.

Pain is subjective because it is made of states of a subject.

Pain cannot be true or false. Truth and falsity are properties of propositions.

The proposition "Mike is in pain" is true if Mike is in the subjective state constitutive of pain, false if he is not.

So, subjective and objective are terms that I am using to refer to something's composition.

Truth and falsity are properties of propositions. — Bartricks

What makes you think that subjectivity/objectivity isn't also a property of propositions?

Let us suppose that society never spoke of abstract pain, and that it instead invented a unique "pain designation" term for each and every person, that applied only to that particular person. E.g, "Bartrick-ouch", "MadFool-ouch" etc. In such a community, would it make sense to classify utterances of "Bartrick-ouch" as being subjective/objective ?

Recall that we use public criteria for determining whether a verbal report is subjective or objective. In the case of "abstract pain" applied to a particular individual, we use more than the behavioural response of an individual for determining whether "abstract pain" is an appropriate designation of their situation; for the meaning of "abstract pain" is in relation to the average behavioural response of the average individual with respect to the average situation.

Yet in the case of "Bartrick-ouch", we cannot, by definition, compare your behavioural responses to other peoples. As far as we are concerned, if you yell "Bartrick-ouch!", that can only mean bartrick-ouch.

Let us suppose that society never spoke of abstract pain, and that it instead invented a unique "pain designation" term for each and every person, that applied only to that particular person. E.g, "Bartrick-ouch", "MadFool-ouch" etc. In such a community, would it make sense to classify utterances of "Bartrick-ouch" as being subjective/objective ? — sime

We have to get a lot more persnickety than that about what we're referring to.

First, re propositions as the meaning of statements like that, are we saying that the proposition itself is objective? That would amount to saying that meaning is objective (which I don't agree with).

If we're instead talking about "what we're referring to," then it would depend on whether we're referring to a mental state that Barticks, etc. has, or whether we're referring to observable aspects of their behavior and not their mental state.

Do you have values other than moral ones?

Imagine a language-less creature that has just touched fire for the first time. (...) All that is needed is a creature capable of drawing correlations between their own behaviour(the touching) and the pain that immediately ensued. — creativesoul

For the language-less creature, it is sufficient to say his correlations are given from instinct. Is it not an error of equivocation, to suggest that just because a language-less creature, e.g., preserves his well-being instinctively, he is drawing correlations? Isn’t it rather the case we think he must be making correlations because correlation is the only way humans can think anything at all? Including, what it’s like to be a language-less creature merely from his observable reactions.
———————

What we're reporting upon(the thought/belief of a language-less creature) is not existentially dependent upon language. Our report most certainly is. — creativesoul

Any report of ours is existentially dependent on language. That does not grant us authority to report on the thought/belief of language-less creatures. I mean.....what would the report say? That some animal emphatically withdrew from the effect of fire can tell us nothing about his inner workings, except there seems to be a mode of self-preservation that prevented him from NOT withdrawing, but that mode does not in itself suggest a responsible thought/belief process.
——————-

Definition and conception are not required for rudimentary level thought/belief..... — creativesoul

I’m going to wait for expansion on this. I tentatively hold that the only thought/belief possible to say anything about is our own, and in which conception is most certainly required. As to rudimentary level...we’ll see.

Point:

There are no false statements in a sound syllogism. It is impossible to falsify a true statement. — creativesoul

Counterpoint:
Except when the statement was never true in the first place, re: in the case of the time-evolved knowledge that conditions the premises.
——————

Those premisses cannot be verified. Logical possibility alone(argument by definitional fiat) is inadequate ground for belief. Some valid syllogisms predicated solely on rational premisses can most certainly be falsified. — creativesoul

Falsification of valid syllogisms is possible merely by not holding with the conditions in the premises, yes. But a logical construction of a single subject, with his own purely rational premises, is not likely to be merely valid to himself, for the only productive reason to construct a logical argument at all, is to tell himself something with as much certainty as possible, the construction of which should then be conclusively valid. Or.....sound. That is not to say, on the other hand, that he cannot subsequently falsify his own argument, by simply re-thinking the conditionals.
——————

See my critique of the OP's first premiss... — creativesoul

Yeah, I’m aware. Although, your first entry concerning this whole shitshow rejects the 4th minor. I thought you were critiquing from that platform.

What makes you think that subjectivity/objectivity isn't also a property of propositions? — sime

In the OP I explained how I am using the terms 'subjective' and 'objective'. To say that something is 'subjective' is to say something about what it is made of.

To say that a proposition is 'subjective' is therefore to say something about what it is made of. It is not to say anything about its content - what it is 'about' - but about what it, the proposition itself, is composed of.

Now, I actually agree that one can say, perfectly sensibly -and I would say, truthfully - that a proposition is subjective. For I think all propositions are subjective as all propositions are kinds of thought, and thoughts are subjective states.

But propositions have content - that is, they represent something to be the case. And in virtue of this, they can be true or false.

So of any proposition we can ask two quite different questions: what does the proposition say? And what is the proposition made of?

Completely. Different. Questions.

For an analogy: what does the book say? What is the book made of? The answer to the first question is "It says that Napoleon lost Waterloo". The answer to the second is "paper".

Likewise then, in respect of the proposition "I am in pain" we can ask "what does the proposition represent to be the case?" and "what is it made of ?" The answer to the first is obviously "that I am in a certain subjective state - the state constitutive of pain" and the answer to the second is "a thought".

Because propositions represent things to be the case, they can be true or false. Take the proposition "I am in pain". That proposition is true: I just burnt the roof of my mouth because I misjudged the temperature of the coffee. But, given my usage, it is nonsensical to say that it is "subjectively true" or 'objectively true". No, it is just "true".

Note, I am not denying that one can meaningfully ask whether truth is objective or subjective. But that is different from saying of a proposition that it is 'objectively true' or 'subjectively true'.

So, given how I have stipulated these terms are to be used here, a proposition can be true or false, and a proposition can be subjective or objective, but a proposition cannot be subjective true, or objectively true.

I think that in general usage the terms 'subjective' and 'objective' often function expressively, and for the most part when someone says that something is 'objectively true' the word 'objective' is just there to express confidence or something like that.

But anyway, this is all beside the point. Here 'subjective' means 'made of subjective states' and 'objective' means 'not made of subjective states'.

Or take this argument:

1. If P, then Q
2. Not Q
3 Therefore not P.

is that valid or invalid? Well, it is obviously valid. Someone who kept insisting that it was invalid is just a berk, plain and simple. And yet there are many above who have denied that my argument is valid despite it having precisely that form.

Am I just 'deciding' that they are wrong? Doesn't your reason confirm that the above argument is valid? — Bartricks

I agree that the argument in terms of P's and Q's is obviously valid.

If being morally valuable and being valued by me are one and the same property, then if I value something it must be morally valuable. — Bartricks

I agree. But you are asking for trouble with this identification. If you value ice-cream, then ice-cream is morally valuable. It's rhetorically awkward.

I think it would help if you answered my more abstract questions about your motivations. Are you trying to show that a 'true' or 'absolute' morality depends on something like a god?

Applied to moral values: an objectivist believes that moral values - so moral goodness and badness - exist, if they exist, outside of minds. Our minds give us some awareness of moral values, just as our minds give us some awareness of tables and chairs. But the moral values, like the tables and chairs, exist extra-mentally (if they exist at all).

Subjectivists about moral values believe that moral values exist as subjective states, if or when they exist.

I think moral values are demonstrably subjective. Here is my simple argument:

1. For something to be morally valuable is for it to be being valued.
2. Only a subject can value something
3. Therefore, for something to be morally valuable is for it to be being valued by a subject. — Bartricks

I returned to your OP to get an idea of where you are coming from. I agree with the subjectivists in your terminology.

Premise 1 does, however, cast the morality in terms of 'subjective' experience (the experience of value) to begin with. In others words, you are perhaps assuming what you'd like to prove.

To me this is the problem with P's and Q's. Abstract arguments can be checked by a computer. The real problems happen in the meanings of words.

When people say 'murder is wrong,' they don't mean 'I feel that murder is wrong' or even that 'we feel murder is wrong.' They are generally aiming at something beyond mere feeling. One can of course argue that this 'something' they are aiming at isn't really there (that 'murder is wrong' ultimately describes the way that people react to murders. Or might as well be understood that way, since it's hard to make clear sense of that extra something.)

I'm moving our discussion into the thread with our other one. They're much the same and less external distraction there...

I think it would help if you answered my more abstract questions about your motivations. Are you trying to show that a 'true' or 'absolute' morality depends on something like a god? — joshua

I am just trying to figure out what's what. I am not sure what you mean by a 'true' or 'absolute' morality - it implies right at the get go that there are 'moralities'. But there is morality, not moralities. And it is morality that I am interested in understanding.

Premise 1 does, however, cast the morality in terms of 'subjective' experience (the experience of value) to begin with. In others words, you are perhaps assuming what you'd like to prove. — joshua

No, premise 1 says nothing about our 'experience' of moral value. Rather, it says something about what it is to be morally valuable - it says that to be morally valuable is at least to be featuring as the object of a valuing relation.

The basis for it is that we are already familiar with valuing: we ourselves value things, and when we value something we say of it that it is 'valuable to us'. When we talk of non-moral value, then, we are talking of things featuring as objects of our attitudes - our valuing attitudes. What is it for something to be valuable to me? It is for me to be valuing it.

So, when it comes to moral value it is reasonable to assume that being morally valuable also involves featuring as the object of a valuing relation. If someone thinks that is not so - that is, if someone thinks the word 'value' as it features in the expression 'moral value' has a quite different meaning to what it does when it features in 'what I value' then they have the burden of proof.

I do not think that burden can be discharged, for it seems to me that anyone who rejects premise 1 is going to be doing so on no better basis than that accepting it is incompatible with their favourite theory about the nature of morality.

That's the wrong way of doing things. It is, unfortunately, the way most people do things - they start out with a theory, whichever one got into their head first, and they then interpret the data in light of it and will only be persuaded by arguments that support it, or something close to it. When in fact that is quite perverse and is to set oneself up as the source of insight into reality. But we're the ignorant ones otherwise we wouldn't be asking questions and wondering about what morality is. So it is important, then, that we not allow ourselves to intrude and instead just follow reason. Not someone else, not ourselves, but Reason.

Premise 1 together with premise 2 entail moral subjectivism. I have yet to have any evidence presented to me that implies either one of those premises is false, and in the face of it they appear to be true.
But as it appears every bit as obvious - every bit as manifest to reason - that our own values and prescriptions do not constitute moral values and prescriptions, I reach the conclusion that moral values and prescriptions are the values and prescriptions of a single subject who is not me, or you, or anyone apart from herself.

Again, I have yet to be presented with any evidence to the contrary. I do not see how to avoid drawing that conclusion. For the argument is valid - the conclusion really is entailed by those premises - and the premises seem undeniable.

When people say 'murder is wrong,' they don't mean 'I feel that murder is wrong' or even that 'we feel murder is wrong.' They are generally aiming at something beyond mere feeling. — joshua

Yes, I know. That's what I too have argued. When I judge an act to be morally bad I am clearly not judging that I myself disvalue it, or that you do. But I am still judging that it is disvalued. So, moral value is radically external. Our reason tells us this: it tells us that some things are disvalued, full stop. Not disvalued if and only if we happen to disvalue it, but disvalued independently of our disvaluing of it.

That is partly what's distinctive about moral value. But people - in particular, contemporary philosophers - go wrong in concluding too hastily that therefore moral value is 'objective'. No, it is not objective; that thesis makes no real sense at all. Nothing apart from a mind can value things, as is clear upon a moment's reflection. So moral value remains subjective, it is just that the subject is not any one of us, but someone else. Reason. Reason is a subject. So a subject like us, but not one of us. The conclusion is, I am finding, completely unavoidable. Though of course, only those who undertake to listen to reason will reach it. But that's to be expected - if you don't listen to Reason how can Reason tell you who she is?

Er, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Blimey - have you been paying attention at all to anything?
I have been arguing that my values - that is, my valuings of things - do not constitute moral values (same goes for yours). That is, if I value something it is not necessarily morally good.

Note, 'moral goodness' and 'moral value' are interchangeable. I am talking about - this entire thread is about - moral value, that is, morally goodness.

But anyway you have demonstrated time and time again that you cannot follow an argument, not one that has any degree of subtlety whatsoever, so I am not surprised that you have to keep asking these inane questions.