I am curious that you made a point of highlighting possessions as a key element. — Tom Storm

Thank you. But, what are the first things that the renunciate has to give up? I mean, easy for me to say, in my nice suburban house with cars and pool, but, speaking philosophically....

Thespace baron mykeyboard is sticking and it'sdriving menuts.

Superficially, yeah, but it's like Dawkins. I don't conflate the existence of God with religion. Dawkins does. I'm not atheist. I'm agnostic, because I don't know if God exists or not. Similarly, I'm interested in a lot of the same things as Sam Harris, but there are hugely important, subtle distinctions between my philosophy and his, not least - the moral sense. Sam Harris is a moral realist. I'm not.

I think it's the intuitionist train of thought. If no ethical statements are true, then not only is it not true that murder isn't wrong but also: murder isn't wrong. Something wrong with that. We know it in our bones. Except sometimes people don't. And whose bones to trust? Well, we know that in our bones too.

Whatever makes 2 + 2 equal 4 or true that it does, it doesn't seem to be our hunches. But in both cases we may not be able to find the 'thing that makes it true', if there is such a thing.

We were no longer simply a creature, but a creature who could ask ‘what am I?’, and ‘what is this world I find myself in?’ — Wayfarer

How else to answer his own questions, then to have the conditions for it already resident within himself?

It’s because we became independent arbiters of what is good. — Wayfarer

Yes, but that is not the same as becoming independent arbiters of what good is.

We are no longer merely creatures, we did become independent arbiters, but those evolutionary predicates don’t invalidate the notion of a moral sense as a pre-eminent condition of the human creature.

My two pfennigs....

In light of modern knowledge, morality is clearly a consequence of evolution. — counterpunch

Are you saying that which is natural (e.g., biological evolution) is moral?

Religion, law, philosophy, economics, democratic politics etc - are means by which we agree on moral values, in terms of which objective facts "ought" to be understood. These then become, objective moral facts — counterpunch

Do they agree? There seems to be some agreement but there is conflict and even controversy both between these domains and within.

What is an example of an objective moral fact?

What are facts? There are many theories on the subject, but put in deliberately simple language I'd say the defining characteristic of a "fact" is this:

That it reasserts itself even if you are unaware or even actively opposed to it. — Echarmion

That seems like a fair enough definition. It seems to exclude certain domains such as aesthetics and ethics though. What about a Cartesian fact? Would you not say that it is a fact that you have an experience? Are there not psychological facts obtaining by virtue of the attitudes, beliefs, and feelings you have at this moment?

I think most people define facts similar to the way they define truth: that which comports with reality. There seems to be multiple dimensions to facts (e.g., an ‘existence’ dimension and an ‘independence’ dimension). I think philosophy conventionally subscribes to a correspondence theory of truth and thus takes a realist stance when speaking of facts. I would define facts as:

The objects or entities that form a specific subject matter within an epistemic or alethic domain that are postulated to be true insofar as we can reason from them to draw valid inferences and to make accurate predictions to what else is true.

I think there should be a delineating modalities of facts: logical facts, physical facts, mathematical facts, etc.

Three popular views of the nature of facts according to the SEP

A fact is just a true truth-bearer.

A fact is just an obtaining state of affairs.

A fact is just a sui generis type of entity in which objects exemplify properties or stand in relations. — Kevin Mulligan

This changes only if we view morality as a practical question: not an abstract theory of good and bad, but as a set of practical rules under which an end result - a moral world - is achieved. — Echarmion

But ethics necessarily begins as normative theories and from there we attempt to use the practically within applied ethics. This is what we have been doing. Developing theoretical abstractions such as consequentialism and deontology and applying such principles to practical matters such as abortion or capital punishment. These is a meta ethical inquiry. I'm looking to understand the foundations morality.

Here’s my view of what happened. Of course it’s true that we all passed through the tortuous process of evolution from simian forbears. But what imposes moral necessity on us, is not an instinct, like that by which salmon return to their home stream. It’s because we became independent arbiters of what is good. We could decide, we could judge. We had possessions, things to call our own, and language by which to name it. That is the origin of the moral sense. No doubt, we evolved to the point of developing that sense, but to say it is merely or simply an adaptive necessity is to entirely mistake the existential predicament of the emerging self of h. Sapiens. When we evolved to that point, we also escaped the gravity of biology to some degree. We were no longer simply a creature, but a creature who could ask ‘what am I?’, and ‘what is this world I find myself in?’ — Wayfarer

Says he, against the backdrop of his nice suburban house with cars and pool.
But would you say the above about, for instance, an Eskimo? An African bushman? A factory worker in the textile industry in the early 1800's? How about a worker in a warehouse of a big online company who wears a diaper and pees into it so as to not have to take a toilet break? Those poor sods, eh. Then how about some reality tv star -- would you say the above about them?

Who are the reference group for your description of Homo sapiens? Can you put names and faces to them?

Are you saying that which is natural (e.g., biological evolution) is moral? — Cartesian trigger-puppets

No. I'm saying that evolution imbued human beings with a moral sense - like a sense of humour, or the aesthetic sense. It's not an explicit set of rules - so doesn't constitute a naturalistic fallacy. There's considerable overlap among individuals as to what's funny, or beautiful, or moral - but no naturally occurring, definitive set of moral rules. That so, I'm not saying, as Nietzsche argued, that man in a state of nature was an amoral brute - and therefore, we should be too. I'm saying that evolution has imbued us with a moral sense, that enables us to derive ought from is.

Do they agree? There seems to be some agreement but there is conflict and even controversy both between these domains and within. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Sure, but then we shouldn't expect people to agree completely, about what is moral, and what isn't - because, while nature gives us a moral pre-disposition, nurture defines moral priorities. It's like, children learn language at a rate that cannot be explained in terms of the "tableau rasa" of John Locke. We are pre-disposed to learn language, and learn the language we hear spoken. Similarly, we are moral creatures and adopt the values that are important to others around us.

What is an example of an objective moral fact? — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Religion, law, politics, economics and so on, are objective with respect to individuals, and so are in effect, objective moral facts. Not in the moral realist sense, but in the sense that we agree upon values, via social structures like democratic politics, and invest them with authority.

https://davidhume.org/texts/t/3/1/1 — Banno

Thank you for the reference.

Will you agree with me that your statement,

Hume did not hold that morality proceeded from god. End of discussion. — Banno

which I grant as true without argument because I do not know better or otherwise, is at the same time an invitation to consider whether his argument as presented is of any value beyond your assertion and beyond the mere fact of being his?

After spending some time with it, I cannot find any value at all, and find it instead confused. One example suffices - the rest is tedium:

"It has been observ'd, that nothing is ever present to the mind but its perceptions; and that all the actions of seeing, hearing, judging, loving, hating, and thinking, fall under this denomination. The mind can never exert itself in any action, which we may not comprehend under the term of perception; and consequently that term is no less applicable to those judgments, by which we distinguish moral good and evil, than to every other operation of the mind. To approve of one character, to condemn another, are only so many different perceptions."

Point: all is perception.

"Reason is the discovery of truth or falsehood. Truth or falsehood consists in an agreement or disagreement either to the real relations of ideas, or to real existence and matter of fact."

Question: if all is perception, then what is "real" and what is "real relations of ideas" or "real existence" or "matter of fact"? What is a fact? What are all of these if all is perception? He later speaks of actions: what would they be?

The argument referenced appears to have the same basic flaw of many TPF efforts, which is some form of grant-me-this-and-that-must-be-true, therefore that must be true. If only. But the this is never true in the sense the argument requires, and if taken to be so, renders the argument worthless.

If we argue this, my approach will be to try to work through both what the words mean and what they mean in context, to the end of seeing if the whole actually makes any compelling sense. Not an effort I would look forward to.

I'm not sure that in the case of a moral statements, there is such a thing... — Banno

That makes two of us. I'm not sure if we can even say moral statements are true.

What we can drop is an implicit correspondence theory of truth, such that there is a distinct thing that makes the statement true. — Banno

That is what I was thinking. Correspondence theories seem to be constructed for a realist stance on a matter and that would commit us to some kind of moral ontology. What theory of truth do you suggest? Pragmatic? Coherence? According to the correspondence theory of truth, I'm not sure if 2 + 2 = 4 is a true statement. It is certainly consistent with the rest of arithmetic but I'm not sure if 2 + 2 = 4 would remain true in the absence of mathematical agents (i.e., numerate subjects) because there would then be no one to interpret the statement.

Do statements still have a meaning without interpretation?

I'm saying that evolution has imbued us with a moral sense, that enables us to derive ought from is. — counterpunch

That doesn't follow...

P1. If evolution has imbued humans with a moral sense, then humans are able to derive the way the world ought to be from the way the world is.

P2. Evolution has imbued humans with a moral sense.

Therefore,

C. Humans are able to derive the way the world ought to be from the way the world is.

I agree with P2 but P1 offers no warrant for such an inference. The consequent doesn't follow from antecedent.

Religion, law, politics, economics and so on, are objective with respect to individuals, and so are in effect, objective moral facts. Not in the moral realist sense, but in the sense that we agree upon values, via social structures like democratic politics, and invest them with authority. — counterpunch

I'm not asking for an appeal to a moral authority. I'm asking for an example of an objective moral fact. This would be a moral statement (e.g., genocide is wrong) that is true independent of us. Do you have such an example?

After spending some time with it, I cannot find any value at all, and find it instead confused. — tim wood

Yeah.....about that: all from THN 3.1.1, 1739......

“....It would be tedious to repeat all the arguments, by which I have prov’d, that reason is perfectly inert, and can never either prevent or produce any action or affection....”

.....and four paragraphs later.....

“....It has been observ’d, that reason, in a strict and philosophical sense, can have an influence on our conduct only after two ways: Either when it excites a passion by informing us of the existence of something which is a proper object of it; or when it discovers the connexion of causes and effects, so as to afford us means of exerting any passion....”

.....from which we see how easy it must have been, to be “awakened from my dogmatic slumbers”.

So there must be something about never producing any action, that is different from affording us the means for producing an action. Either way, reason cannot be both inert, and at the same time, influential.

That seems like a fair enough definition. It seems to exclude certain domains such as aesthetics and ethics though. What about a Cartesian fact? Would you not say that it is a fact that you have an experience? Are there not psychological facts obtaining by virtue of the attitudes, beliefs, and feelings you have at this moment?

I think most people define facts similar to the way they define truth: that which comports with reality. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

In lieu of a definition of "fact" set out in the OP, I went with what I consider most close to a layman's understanding of the term. Fact is a common word, and when used usually denotes states of affairs, and what is a fact, as opposed to fiction, is ususally determined empirically.

It seems farily useful to reserve the word "fact" for an empirically determined state of affairs, since for everything else, like what you refer to as Cartesian fact, I feel like simply using the standard "truth" is sufficient. It would seem odd to me, for example to say "it is a fact that I have an experience" because facts are usually part of experience, and so having an experience is true, but not a fact.

That is mostly just semantics though.

I think philosophy conventionally subscribes to a correspondence theory of truth and thus takes a realist stance when speaking of facts. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Eh, maybe, I'm not versed in the sociology of philosophy. But given that this is one of the main topics of contention in philosophy, I wouldn't use it in an assumption, especially not in a discussion of "moral facts", where, by default, correspondence theory must fail / yield an unambigious "no".

The objects or entities that form a specific subject matter within an epistemic or alethic domain that are postulated to be true insofar as we can reason from them to draw valid inferences and to make accurate predictions to what else is true. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Would this definition be any different from your definition of "truth" or a "true statement"?

But ethics necessarily begins as normative theories and from there we attempt to use the practically within applied ethics. This is what we have been doing. Developing theoretical abstractions such as consequentialism and deontology and applying such principles to practical matters such as abortion or capital punishment. These is a meta ethical inquiry. I'm looking to understand the foundations morality. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Well, yes. But then empirical knowledge also begins as a descriptive theory and from there we use experience to determine whether or not the theory is true. I think the question of whether or not there are moral facts, whether there is "objective" morality benefits from a comparison with the field where we are most used to speaking about objectivity and facts: Empirical reality. How do we determine the truth of a claim about the empirical world? We apply a specific method, and if that method does not falsify our claim, it has passed said test. If it passes such tests regularly, we are justified in calling it a fact.

I think Kant was at least on the right track here when he described morality in terms of a method, a test which you could apply to a principle to see if it is falsified. But this requires morality to have a practical goal, just as empirical science has a practical goal (predicting the future).

would you say the above about, for instance, an Eskimo? An African bushman? A factory worker in the textile industry in the early 1800's? How about a worker in a warehouse of a big online company who wears a diaper and pees into it so as to not have to take a toilet break? — baker

That they all face moral problems, and that their evolutionary history doesn't necessarily help them to deal with them.

I have no beef with entomology or evolution, but I refuse to admit that they teach me much about ethics. Consider the fact that human action ranges to the extremes. People can perform extraordinary acts of altruism, including kindness toward other species — or they can utterly fail to be altruistic, even toward their own children. So whatever tendencies we may have inherited leave ample room for variation; our choices will determine which end of the spectrum we approach. This is where ethical discourse comes in — not in explaining how we’re “built,” but in deliberating on our own future acts. Should I cheat on this test? Should I give this stranger a ride? Knowing how my selfish and altruistic feelings evolved doesn’t help me decide at all. Most, though not all, moral codes advise me to cultivate altruism. But since the human race has evolved to be capable of a wide range of both selfish and altruistic behavior, there is no reason to say that altruism is superior to selfishness in any biological sense. — Richard Polt

What theory do you suggest? — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Redundancy.

I'm not sure if we can even say moral statements are true. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

...and yet they are commonly thought to be so. Further, the basic T-sentence structure holds: "One ought do X" is true IFF one ought do X. From a Davidsonian perspective what is missing is any extensional way of analysing "One ought do X".

So I don't think is will do to off-handedly think of moral statements as extended expletives.

But that is the usual approach for those who think moral statements not truth-apt.

I think philosophy conventionally subscribes to a correspondence theory of truth and thus takes a realist stance when speaking of facts.
— Cartesian trigger-puppets

Eh, maybe, I'm not versed in the sociology of philosophy. But given that this is one of the main topics of contention in philosophy, I wouldn't use it in an assumption, especially not in a discussion of "moral facts", where, by default, correspondence theory must fail / yield an unambigious "no". — Echarmion

My statement was that philosophers subscribe to a correspondence theory of truth by convention. You may be surprised to find out how popular the correspondence theory is in philosophy. Consider the empirical data provided by the SEP:

The PhilPapers Survey (conducted in 2009; cf. Bourget and Chalmers 2014), more specifically, the part of the survey targeting all regular faculty members in 99 leading departments of philosophy, reports the following responses to the question: “Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?” Accept or lean toward: correspondence 50.8%; deflationary 24.8%; other 17.5%; epistemic 6.9%. The data suggest that correspondence-type theories may enjoy a weak majority among professional philosophers and that the opposition is divided. This fits with the observation that typically, discussions of the nature of truth take some version of the correspondence theory as the default view, the view to be criticized or to be defended against criticism. — Marian David

Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, Kant, William James, Moore, Hume, Mill, etc, all subscribed to a correspondence account of truth. Furthermore, perhaps the two most influential philosophers of the 20th century, Wittgenstein and Russell, both subscribed to fact-based correspondence accounts of truth.

Would this definition be any different from your definition of "truth" or a "true statement"? — Echarmion

Truth seems to necessitate existence-conditions upon statements whereby the truth of a statement is contingent upon existing; whereas facts can obtain their truth-making relations with a statement whether or not the facts exist. Facts can be a thing that exists in the world, such as an object; or, on the other hand, facts can exist in a subset of possible worlds, such as an abstract entity.

As you said, this is largely semantics.

Well, yes. But then empirical knowledge also begins as a descriptive theory and from there we use experience to determine whether or not the theory is true. I think the question of whether or not there are moral facts, whether there is "objective" morality benefits from a comparison with the field where we are most used to speaking about objectivity and facts: Empirical reality. How do we determine the truth of a claim about the empirical world? We apply a specific method, and if that method does not falsify our claim, it has passed said test. If it passes such tests regularly, we are justified in calling it a fact. — Echarmion

How do you propose we formulate, test, or modify a moral hypotheses? The scientific method would require systematic observations, recorded data from measurements, and drawing inferences for experimentation on an "objective moral value." I can't even to get a statement conveying an example of such.

I'm more and more leaning towards non-cognitivism (more or less being dragged kicking and screaming). What of the view that moral statements are truth-apt and their truth values are always false? Does error theory have a dog in this fight?

I know that error theory entails insane reductios such that the following statement, “To cause infinite suffering upon an infinite number of universes of beings with infinite level of sentience and sensitivity to pain for an eternity is immoral,” is false. But, is it so much better than saying that that same statement is meaningless and thus an irrational, emotional response? Am I just being dramatic by making such an assertion?

Have you been peeking at the SEP article?

I really do not have an answer here. In that regard it is an ongoing issues.

I'm very disinclined to say outright that morals statements do no have a truth value. Consider:

• It is true that lying is wrong.
• Lying is not wrong.
• I wonder whether lying is wrong.
• I believe that lying is wrong.
• Fred believes that lying is wrong.
• If lying is wrong he will be sure to do it.
• If lying is wrong then so is misleading truth-telling.

(Lifted from the article, excluding the question...)

These are surely truth-apt utterances - they are, variously, true or false. But the argument would run something like: these sentences have the same grammatical form as statements, and so superficially we might expect them to be true or false; but this belies a deeper grammatical form, such that they are actually expletives, or compound sentences that include expletives. So "Lying is not wrong" just means "Boo to lying!", "Fred believes that lying is wrong" just means "Fred believes 'Boo! to lying'", and so on.

And "Boo to lying!" is no more truth-apt than "Ouch!".

Now I don't reject this lightly, since it is the view of Wittgenstein, at least in the Tractatus; and I place great trust in his thinking. Nevertheless I thunk it quite acceptable to say that "lying is wrong" is true, and to expect of any reasonable account of ethics that it be able to explain how "lying is wrong" is true.

I wonder whether lying is wrong. — Banno

This statement is truth-apt? I can see it being truth-apt as a declarative statement (it is either true or false that you ‘wonder’ about ‘whether [or not] lying is wrong’. (Period, full stop.) But then you say:

(Lifted from the article, excluding the question...) — Banno

“...including the question...”

A question is a statement in the form of an interrogative sentence. Interrogatives cannot be truth-apt, right? I understand that interrogatives can be loaded with a presupposed declaration or an embedded premise, such as the case with the following, "Have you stopped beating your wife?", but this is a simple, single clause, sentence. It's just the author (as the subject) and the act of wondering if lying is wrong (as the predicate).

So "Lying is not wrong" just means "Boo to lying!", "Fred believes that lying is wrong" just means "Fred believes 'Boo! to lying'", and so on. — Banno

Could they not just be relativized down to the predispositions of the individual subject? Could they be subjective though nonetheless cognitive rather than emotive? Could it not be that the subject is merely expressing her personal attitudes and beliefs and under a misconception of the fundamental nature of morality? Analogous to a false sense of libertarian free will or the notion that perceptions offer direct access to objective reality?

I'm sure that I am wrong here. If you could be so kind as to show me which statements or the inferences in which I'm drawing from the statements are false and share your reasoning with me, I would very much appreciate you for it.

"...including the question..." — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Excluding the question...?

Yes, the question was excluded because interrogatives are not truth-apt.

Could they not just be relativized down to the predispositions of the individual subject? — Cartesian trigger-puppets

SO we'd get something like my satiny lying is wrong should be analysed as

'"Lying is wrong" as uttered by Banno at this time is true iff boo to lying!'?

IS that the sort of thing you are suggesting?

I misread the including/excluding, for sure. But, that wasn't what I was saying. I was saying that the statement, “I wonder whether lying is wrong,” is truth-apt and not an interrogative sentence. It is to say “I” (the grammatical subject) “wonder” (the predicate verb) ...whether lying is wrong”. It is either the case or not the case. And, if I am indeed wondering on the issue of the moral status of lying, then the statement should in some sense be true.

SO we'd get something like my satiny lying is wrong should be analysed as

'"Lying is wrong" as uttered by Banno at this time is true iff boo to lying!'?

IS that the sort of thing you are suggesting? — Banno

Not quite. Beliefs are subjective and can potentially require cognition (sometimes quite a bit). So, perhaps it is similar to the case when we state, “Onions taste awful,” that the syntax is configured in such a way to be making a general statement, when in actuality, we are making a particular subjective statement. It could be the case that we are egotistical enough to hold the notion—at least subconsciously—that our perspective of right and wrong should not only matter to everyone else, but that it is applicable to them as well. The fact lie not in reality but within the subjective states of the individual (an abstract entity). Or perhaps it is a realistic truth and our ideas and beliefs are simply streams of synaptic electrochemical nerve signals lighting up the the apparatus of the brain. We just get to interpret them phenomenologically instead of sociologically.

I classify myself as a moral subjectivist. This is because I do not believe that moral facts (values, duties, behavioral standards, etc,) exist in the objective sense. Nor do I believe that there are universal, absolute, non-contingent, or mind-independent moral facts of the world. I'm not entirely sure if moral facts can be said to 'exist' at all. I'll elaborate more on this problem shortly.

I believe there can be moral facts, but if that commits me to say that moral facts exist, then, I stress, that they only exist in the sense that the individuals who hold them believe that they exist. In other words, to say that moral facts exist is to say that they have a mind-dependent form of existence that is contingent upon an individual's subjective states. This would mean that moral facts are simply declarative sentences expressing a descriptive statement conveying information about the subjective states of the individual who is making an evaluative observation.

I do not believe that moral facts are absolute. This is the objectivist view that values are universal, transcending individual, cultural or societal predispositions. That which is good or bad remains so throughout time, independent of the context or the consequences. I believe conversely, that values are relative to individual predispositions. Furthermore, that such predispositions are imposed upon the individual through the normative structures of their society and culture, and that the emergence and development of these structures were and are imposed upon by the cumulative and collective totality of individual impositions held by the population.

In summary, I believe that morality is based on value judgments which seem subjective insofar as they depend upon the sentience of a conscious, observing subject to make an evaluation. There does not seem to be any universal agreement with a particular value, not to mention a universal set of values and there is no evidence of a morally infallible subject, aside from legend or myth, to which we may base a standard for ethics.

What is more, just as aesthetic values appear to be relative to an individual insofar as they change relative to their experience over time and adapt to relative changes in the social and physical environments, likewise moral values follow similar trajectories with paths that can be predicted to correlate with societal structures and cultural/social trends.

The data of such observations provide grounds for argument in favor of a relative form of subjective morality because the evidence and facts indicate individual and cultural ethical diversity, mind-dependence of value judgments, and total subjective moral fallibility, which warrants support to the claim that morality is subjective and relative rather than objective and/or absolute. Therefore, I have provided sufficient warrant to satisfy my burden of proof, whereas proponents of conventional moral realism who either commit to the existence dimension or who otherwise commit to the independence dimension of moral facts have merely attempted to shift their burden via fallacious appeals to ignorance.

And yet, even with regards to a minimalist commitment to the existence dimension of moral facts, whereby the qualifier for moral facts to exist depends upon the truthmaking relation between a truthmaker "x" (something that exists in the world) and the truthbearer "p" (a moral statement), insofar as "p" is true if and only if it is a representation of the existence of "x", such a commitment requires adherence to semantic realism under realism's alethic modalities to truth.

So to elaborate further on the problem I mentioned in an earlier statement regarding the 'existence' of moral facts. To say that moral facts 'exist,' it seems, may be to commit myself to a minimalist form of moral realism. Such a commitment is problematic insofar as I find the general position of moral realism (moderate to robust delineations) to be untenable at best.

Realism is the philosophical stance that is largely concerned with the 'existence' of the objects or entities that form a specific subject matter. Also, as a secondary concern, realism generally holds that there is an 'independence' to which the objects or entities that form a specific subject matter can be said to exist apart from us (aside from philosophically uninteresting empirical dependencies). So, the two main concerns which realism holds about the objects or entities that form a specific subject matter can be distinguished between an existence dimension (having to do with their literal ontological status as contents of the external world) and an independence dimension (having to do with the anthropologically-independent nature of reality).

The problem arises from the dominant influence that realism has had over philosophy and it's conventional alethic modality over our theories of meaning and subsequently over our theories of truth. Terms such as 'fact,' 'exist,' and 'state of affairs' have been heavily influenced by semantic realism throughout their etymological development in traditional philosophy. Even the notion of truth is traditionally defined by the existence dimension of realism prescribed by correspondence theories of truth. That a truthbearer must comport with the 'facts of the world' or the 'state of affairs' which are substantiated by empirical evidence and thus the criterion for truth is restricted to the alethical standards imposed by realism.

The alethic modality of realism (“the truth in the world”) holds a meaning for truth that is restricted to the domains of naturalism such as physics, chemistry, biology, etc. This, however, undermines the meaning for truth held by domains with epistemic modalities (“the truth in an individual's mind”) such as mathematics, linguistics, ethics, etc.

I classify myself as a moral subjectivist. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Do you? Why? I don't understand the need to categorise and name - doing philosophy as if it were entomology. It's as if one reached a conclusion and only then looked for the arguments...

I'll read the substantive part of your post and try to formulate a response. But are you looking for such a critique?

This may seem out of nowhere, but do you ascribe to the traditional analysis of knowledge? That of justified, true belief?

If so, then I’m not seeing how moral declarations can be considered facts. How are they justified? It seems self-evident that facts must be true in order to be facts. So, if one is to proclaim a specific statement as fact, it also stands to reason that this fact must be believed/known. And if you agree with TAK, then in order for it to be known, it must also be justified. So it seems any moral declaration (boo lying) must be true in order to be factual, and justified in order to be known.

So, perhaps it is similar to the case when we state, “Onions taste awful,” that the syntax is configured in such a way to be making a general statement, when in actuality, we are making a particular subjective statement. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Language affords one many options for expression, including sentences like "I find onions awful", "I don't like onions" and "I think onions taste awful".

So why is it that some people say “Onions taste awful,” and others say "I think onions taste awful"?

Is this the result of a conscious choice?
Do people less or more mindlessly repeat the types of sentences they've learned in primary education?

Or perhaps it is a realistic truth and our ideas and beliefs are simply streams of synaptic electrochemical nerve signals lighting up the the apparatus of the brain. We just get to interpret them phenomenologically instead of sociologically.

But then how do we explain the differences between people? E.g. some like onions and some don't: does this mean that there is something physiologically or otherwise wrong with one of the groups?

If there are moral facts, how can we know them? — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Psychologically and socially, there is potentially a lot at stake in terms of morality. I think that sometimes (often?) it is because of these high stakes that moral statements become artificially elevated to the level of facts.

Of course, if the stakes being high is itself a fact, then the moral statements related to those high stakes should also be facts or inherit that factness.
But it could also be the other way around, and the stakes are high because the moral statements are facts.

But in short, the moral sense is pre-intellectual, as evidence by chimp tribal morality. — counterpunch

If we were to dress up a tribe of humans into chimp costumes and have them act the way humans usually do, but speak a language that the observers don't understand (say, Armenian): Would we be able to distinguish the behavior of humans-dressed-as-chimps from the behavior of the real chimps? By what markers?

My point is that there is a clear observational bias that favors humans in the research of human vs. animal morality, and behavior and cognition in general.

How can we say that animals seek food instinctively, but that humans do it deliberately?
How can we say that animals seek sex instinctively, but that humans do it deliberately?

Does instinct become irrelevant once one lives in a building with indoor plumbing?
How is eating with a fork and knife not instinctual, but eating with the hand is?

My statement was that philosophers subscribe to a correspondence theory of truth by convention. You may be surprised to find out how popular the correspondence theory is in philosophy. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Yeah that's interesting data. Thanks for posting the quote. The percentage of laypeople who (consciously or otherwise) subscribe to some form of correspondence theory is probably even higher. It seem like a very natural assumption to make.

Truth seems to necessitate existence-conditions upon statements whereby the truth of a statement is contingent upon existing; whereas facts can obtain their truth-making relations with a statement whether or not the facts exist. Facts can be a thing that exists in the world, such as an object; or, on the other hand, facts can exist in a subset of possible worlds, such as an abstract entity. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Interesting. I tend to define the two terms more or less the opposite way.

How do you propose we formulate, test, or modify a moral hypotheses? The scientific method would require systematic observations, recorded data from measurements, and drawing inferences for experimentation on an "objective moral value." I can't even to get a statement conveying an example of such. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

So, first I don't think the scientific method "requires" systematic observations. Systematic observations are required to get good evidence, but I lean towards bayesianism in the sense that anything can be evidence (if weak). In my mind, the scientific method tells us how to get evidence, and how to judge the quality of evidence, but there isn't necessarily a lower threshold to the quality.

I think an important conclusion from an analysis of the scientific method is that empirical facts are goal-oriented. The method doesn't just establish rules based on some abstract notion of truth, but on the specific goal of understanding and thereby predicting reality.

Now it may be that this is a special case, and only facts about empirical reality are determined by a goal-driven method. But there is a link here with the correspondence theory of truth in general: Because any correspondence theory needs to decide what truth should correspond to, and that decision must be made a priori. It seems the only way to convincingly make the decision is based on what the goal of the truth value is.

I have no beef with entomology or evolution, but I refuse to admit that they teach me much about ethics. — Richard Polt

He further says:

So why have we been tempted for millenniums to explain humanity away? The culprit, I suggest, is our tendency to forget what Edmund Husserl called the “lifeworld” — the pre-scientific world of normal human experience, where science has its roots. — Richard Polt

I disagree.
The aristocrats and the wannabe aristocrats who have been popularizing "man is an animal" (or "You're just meat") certainly don't apply this to themselves. They apply it to the poor, the blacks, women, children, the Jews, and to anyone else they don't like or whenever they don't like them. "Man is an animal" is first and foremost an ideological statement, used for ideological purposes. Sometimes, it is covered up with a veil of science.

Polt mentions religion in a positive light. Again, I disagree. It's common for religions to dehumanize outsiders and those insiders who fail to live up to the religion's standards. By the standards of some monotheists, for example, you and I are incapable of any genuine and deliberate good deed (because we're not acting with the intention to please God). Or consider the practical application of the anatta doctrine by Buddhists sometimes, the way it translates into indifference and even violence toward others, justified as "You don't really exist, you don't matter (but I do) ".

A similar dehumanization is carried out by psychology/psychiatry, where, once a person is branded with a psychiatric diagnosis, they cease to be relevant as a person and all that matters is that diagnosis, and the doctors and many interested others see that person only through the lens of that diagnosis.

In short, humans display a tendency to explain away the humanity of others, if doing so serves their agenda, but they don't do so in general or in the absolute, even though they might superficially formulate it that way.

Do you? Why? I don't understand the need to categorise and name - doing philosophy as if it were entomology. It's as if one reached a conclusion and only then looked for the arguments...

I'll read the substantive part of your post and try to formulate a response. But are you looking for such a critique? — Banno

I'd be interested in such a critique.

A similar dehumanization is carried out by psychology/psychiatry, where, once a person is branded with a psychiatric diagnosis, they cease to be relevant as a person and all that matters is that diagnosis, and the doctors and many interested others see that person only through the lens of that diagnosis. — baker

baker I don't disagree that this often happens, but is not necessarily the problem of a diagnosis or psychiatry as such, it can be a problem of culture or of particular doctors or systems. I have known many people who, once they have a diagnosis and are in treatment, they claim to not only be the happiest they have ever been, but feel a sense of coherent identity for the first time in their lives. Being diagnosed can also be like a form of empowerment; being known and finally understood.