But it's also the case that many of the questions sorrounding the nature of 'true goods' such as real knowledge, virtue, bravery, etc, are often left open - many such questions are explored in the dialogues, but they often end in aporia - they don't present a final definition so much as explore various possibilities. — Wayfarer
It is precisely the absence of that sense in modern and post-modern philosophy that has undermined the background necessary for a so-called 'objective' morality (although the very term 'objective' is problematical, because the relationship that dictates morality in theistic religion is not 'subject-object' but 'I-thou'.) — Wayfarer
Why do moral relativists think of morals at all? It does seem that moral relativism goes against itself because it'll start disproving it's own reasons for why an action was good or bad, sooner or later.
I would like to take a look at the list when it's done if you don't mind sharing it. — Kazuma
Was fascism bad?
"That cannot be known, the good and bad is not absolute, for someone it was bad and for someone it was not." — Kazuma
Can we state whether anything is good or bad with certainty?
Moral relativism would advocate the idea that no moral question can be answered with absolute certainty. — Kazuma
I'm a moral relativist. More specifically, I'm a subjectivist/noncognitivist/basically an emotivist on morality/ethics. In other words, I believe that moral stances are simply ways that individuals "feel" about interpersonal behavior. A la emotivism, it's more or less "yaying" or "booing" behavior. — Terrapin Station
No many moral relativists would answer that way. The problem is that you're seeing relativism from an absolutist/objectivist context. You see it as if relativists are acknowledging that ethics is objective, but we just can't know the answer to ethical questions. That's not what we're saying, however. We're saying that ethics is a matter of how people feel about behavior. So when someone asks "Was fascism bad," they're asking how people feel about fascism, and why they feel that way. — Terrapin Station
If we're talking about certainty in the sense of whether something "can not possibly be incorrect," we'd simply say that's a category error. Moral claims are not correct or incorrect. They're rather reports of how people feel about things. — Terrapin Station
It is precisely the absence of that sense in modern and post-modern philosophy that has undermined the background necessary for a so-called 'objective' morality (although the very term 'objective' is problematical, because the relationship that dictates morality in theistic religion is not 'subject-object' but 'I-thou'.)
— Wayfarer
Did this absence arise because objective morals could not be well defined or because the term objective is problematic? I still don't see a reason to abandon the idea of objective morals. — Kazuma
In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this small attention would subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceived by reason.
I'm a moral relativist. More specifically, I'm a subjectivist/noncognitivist/basically an emotivist on morality/ethics. In other words, I believe that moral stances are simply ways that individuals "feel" about interpersonal behavior. A la emotivism, it's more or less "yaying" or "booing" behavior. — Terrapin Station
That's very anti-philosophical to me. Not using philosophical reflection in order to come to the conclusion of a philosophical problem is just ignorance. There are arguments for the existence of objective morals, yet you try to disprove them by completely ignoring them. — Kazuma
Here’s an argument for objective ethics that doesn’t depend on universals. As example: the goodness of ice-cream flavors.
To whom will the flavors be good or bad? — javra
Now, you’ve also got sand-mixed-in-with-ice-cream flavors and flavors that are not sand-mixed-in-with-ice-cream. More will hold a boo for the first then the second. So we’re approaching an objective yay/boo value, but we’re not there yet. — javra
I'm a moral relativist. More specifically, I'm a subjectivist/noncognitivist/basically an emotivist on morality/ethics. — Terrapin Station
Wait--why are you talking about ice cream flavors being good or bad? That has nothing to do with ethics. — Terrapin Station
"Now we're approaching an objective value" is completely arbitrary there, unless you're equating "objective" with "agreement." Objectivity doesn't have anything to do with agreement. — Terrapin Station
"Objective" refers to it not being a mental phenomenon. — Terrapin Station
Are you trying to say that by being moral relativist you do not oppose moral objectivism? — Kazuma
PS: It's not philosophical to just point out that there is some philosophical theory. I could very say that there is a thesis against the theory that you're proposing. You have to be more specific. — Kazuma
It addresses the metaethics of what good/bad entails, — javra
I’m thinking of objective in the sense of that which is independent of opinion, judgement, etc. — javra
there is an onus to evidence that there are universal properties to all sentience that occur objectively — javra
If “life is to be lived to the fullest” were to be an objective property intrinsic to all life, — javra
I wouldn't say it does if it has nothing to do with ethics. There's a commonality, I suppose, in that we're talking about preferences, but gustatory preferences are very different in quality than feelings about interpersonal behavior. — Terrapin Station
Right, but talking about something where everyone is making the same judgment isn't addressing something that's independent of judgment. — Terrapin Station
I looked up “ethics” on Wikipedia to validate my assumptions; SEP doesn’t have a generalized entry. They there define it in terms of right and wrong conduct. In my brief glance at the entry I didn’t find a necessity for ethics to be about interpersonal behavior. Most, btw, would have an easy time affirming that it is wrong/bad/unethical for a person to choose to ingest razorblades—an awful example when taken seriously, I grant (my apologies for having brought it up)—this having to do with what a living being should and should not do to themselves. — javra
I find this to be the main element that you’re either not accepting or not understanding.
Is there anything ontic about sentience that is there independently of ideas, opinions, or judgments? If there is, it is objectively there: whether or not one has ideas, opinions, or judgments about it. Just like rocks right in front of oneself: they're objective, even though one has judgments about them.
Validating what this might be is another story altogether. Validating what is ontically present to all sentience all the time is yet another--but, if this can be validated, then one can get from what is to what ought to be. All I'm here saying is that it holds potential to be demonstrated. — javra
Wait--you were talking about ice cream flavors being morally good or bad?? — Terrapin Station
Subjectivity is basically "the realm of the mental," so that would include sentience in general. However, even if you were excluding sentience in general, morality necessarily involves judgments.
Re rocks, it's important not to conflate the perception of them with what the perception is of. With moral judgments, there's no evidence of anything external or any reason to believe that we're talking about perception in the first place. — Terrapin Station
I, again, intended to address the metaethics of good and bad--not ethics. What is good and what is bad, in manners that encapsulate both morality and amoral actions, is not at all easy to define in the abstract independently of context—and is of itself different from ethics. Again, meta-ethics. — javra
There's a commonality, I suppose, in that we're talking about preferences, but gustatory preferences are very different in quality than feelings about interpersonal behavior. — Terrapin Station
I could ask things like, “How is “yay” a moral judgment rather than a guttural preference, regardless of what’s addressed?” but I won’t start in so doing. — javra
We previously agreed on what “objective” signifies. Now its being willfully ignored. Also appears you’ve overlooked most of what I wrote. — javra
I’m thinking of objective in the sense of that which is independent of opinion, judgement, etc. — javra
Right, but talking about something where everyone is making the same judgment isn't addressing something that's independent of judgment. — Terrapin Station
"Subjective" refers to something being a mental phenomenon. "Objective" refers to it not being a mental phenomenon. — Terrapin Station
Never once brought up perception. The point was that you judge rocks to be objective, and yet they’re still so despite you holding a subjective judgment about them. — javra
What you address is, in addition, a strawman: I brought up the issue regarding objective properties of sentience … not in regards to particular moral judgments. — javra
Existence of the objective morals & problem of moral relativism
[...] It didn't become apparent until that last post that your earlier "I'm thinking of objective in the sense . . . " was maybe meant to say that only judgments and opinions, and not other sorts of mental phenomena--despite your "etc."--are subjective, so that sentience in general wouldn't be necessarily subjective. [...] — Terrapin Station
all subjects perpetually have the attribute of a capacity to sense psychological pain and pleasure. If this were to be ontically so regardless of what anyone might say about it, then it would be a universal to all sentience that objectively is. … — javra
I also don't even really know what that would amount to claiming. Something about unconscious minds or something? — Terrapin Station
[...] but it wouldn't be objective if objectivity refers to the complement of mental phenomena. — Terrapin Station
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