"Taking candy from a baby is wrong." has the grammar of a proposition, but it does not have the meaning of a proposition. It has the meaning of a command: 'don't do it!' Commands are not true or false, they are obeyed or disobeyed. — unenlightened

How is "taking candy from a baby is wrong" a command? It is implicit in such a statement that one shouldn't do it ("you shouldn't take candy from a baby because it is wrong"), which is a command, but if the proposition isn't true, why ought we obey the command at all (disregarding that we would additionally have to derive an "ought" from an "is", something you would have to do to have a command that ought be obeyed)?

If the command has reason to be obeyed, the proposition "taking candy from a baby is wrong" would have to be true. You purport that it is impossible for the proposition to true. Well, then, we don't have a true proposition and thus no reason to obey the extrinsic moral claim "you shouldn't take candy from a baby because it is wrong". You are committing to (1) from the OP, and that results in an implosion of morality, as there are no longer any grounds for disagreement to be resolved.

Do you know what meta-ethics is?
— ToothyMaw
A mistake. — unenlightened

Meta-ethics is definitely an unlikely mistake, yes.

Some ways of life are better than others, and one of the worst for humans is a life that concerns itself entirely with its own benefit - the proof is in the joy and misery of life, not in the pontifications of logicians. — unenlightened

I didn't know logicians were telling people how to live their lives.

"moral realism" is incoherent (re: assumption that moral statements are empirical propositions)
— 180 Proof

That assumption does not lead to incoherence. — ToothyMaw

:roll: :shade: :point:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/759498

If I promise to plant you a rose garden on Sunday, then on Monday there ought be a rose garden.

Is this correct? Is it a moral claim? Seems to me that the answer is clearly yes to both questions, so some moral claims can be correct.

Would you like to address the points I am making? Or are you going to continue to stick your head in the sand?

How are moral realism and error-theory incoherent in the way they treat moral claims as propositions? Yes, such a claim about the truth-aptness of moral statements is incompatible with your extraneous assumptions, but moral realism and error-theory are internally coherent, nonetheless.

If I promise to plant you a rose garden on Sunday, then on Monday there ought be a rose garden.

Is this correct? Is it a moral claim? Seems to me that the answer is clearly yes to both questions, so some moral claims can be correct. — creativesoul

That usage of "ought" is not the same as the usage of "ought" people incorporate into moral claims. Your usage is vaguely justified because it predicts what is going to happen. The way it is used in morality is to represent a command or instruction, even if the statement into which the "ought" is incorporated can be true or false. You are deriving a "this will probably happen" from a promise. To move from an "is" to an "ought" in terms of moral claims is to derive moral instructions from an "is".

So, that isn't a moral claim, but I agree that moral claims are propositions.

You could say: "if I promise to plant you a rose garden, I ought plant you a rose garden, because people ought follow through on their promises", which would definitely be a moral claim and a proposition.

Norms are useful or not useful for some purpose ...
— 180 Proof

Commands are not true or false, they are obeyed or disobeyed. Morality is not made of claims of fact but commands, demands, exhortations, pleas, advice to act thus and not so. It is not 'truth apt'. — 180 Proof

What, then, is the claim "one ought not double down on shitty arguments"? It is structured in such a way that it could be true or false, and to say that it is merely a command, and that all moral claims like it are merely commands, is to commit to the claim that it is impossible for any moral claims to be true. As I pointed out to unenlightened, this results in a summary implosion of morality, as there are no grounds for resolving disagreements. Furthermore, if moral commands cannot be true or false, we have no real reason to follow any commands.

Would you like it if someone disregarded the commonly held injunction against harming others that one ought not do it and kneecapped you? I mean, we have no reason to believe that the man who disagrees with such a command is wrong, according to you, or that he ought obey any such commands we might impose on him at all. Is that really what you want to commit to?

If I promise to plant you a rose garden on Sunday, then on Monday there ought be a rose garden. — creativesoul

I think I overcomplicated this. Semantically it could be amended to being a moral claim, but it is too simplistic in its current form as it cuts out the necessary step of justifying the claim that one ought actually plant the rose garden.

Would you like to address the points I am making? — ToothyMaw

I have. Derived from incoherent assumptions, your "points" lack merit. Now deal with my counterpoints if you can.

:eyes: More empty rhetoric.

You haven't made any points. You just assert that moral facts don't exist because they just don't.

And what, exactly, is incoherent about my assumptions? Can you actually explain how, without resorting to "because morals are norms"? My only assumption is that moral claims report facts about reality. I'm not even committing to the idea that any of them have to be correct.

So, I ask again: If morality is only a useful set of norms, what reason does anyone have to obey said norms other than because they are useful - "useful" being something that is entirely subjective?

You just assert that moral facts don't exist because they just don't. — ToothyMaw

This is the way of facts. My keys are in my pocket. This is a true fact because my keys are in fact in my pocket, and that is the truth. It is self-evident to anyone who examines my pocket and unprovable to anyone else. If you have some moral facts in your pocket, you can describe them and we might believe you, or we might think you are describing unicorns. I have no argument that unicorns do not exist - they just don't.

However, I am definitely a moral realist. Humans will not long survive without attending to the moral world. You might think of morals as analogous to laws of physics. they do not exist as facts about the world, but describe the way the facts work - ethics as social physics.

{Promises are rather popular with moral realists: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/promises/ }

This is the way of facts. My keys are in my pocket. This is a true fact because my keys are in fact in my pocket, and that is the truth. — unenlightened

First off, the statement you quoted was directed at 180.

Parsing whether or not non-moral claims are or are not facts is to change the subject, as I'm not making a statement about the qualities of truth and falsity in general (or how we know facts to be true). I'm also not claiming I have knowledge of any actual moral facts, but rather that the alternatives and the assumptions they make aren't sound, and that is more reasonable to think that they might exist.

If you have some moral facts in your pocket, you can describe them and we might believe you, or we might think you are describing unicorns. — unenlightened

I don't have to produce moral facts for them to exist, and I'm not even claiming they necessarily do exist. But I am claiming now, in light of yours and 180's comments, that there is nothing incoherent about moral realism and error-theory's treatment of moral statements as facts. Incidentally, there is also nothing incoherent about the claim that unicorns exist.

Doubting the existence of moral facts, as well as unicorns, is of course reasonable, but to rule them out (the moral facts) is not, imo.

First off, the statement you quoted was directed at 180. — ToothyMaw

Were we not discussing together? My apologies for interrupting.

No, we are, I'm just saying the thing you quoted doesn't apply to you, because you didn't claim that moral realism and error-theory are incoherent. Please continue to speak your mind!

Thanks for the link. Looks interesting. I'll check it out. Their article on moral realism is particularly well-written, btw, so I'd advise people to check it out if they haven't already.

This post is nonsense. C'mon, try harder to address what your interlocators are actually saying. Don't waste anybody's time. Read my objections to your OP (and that of others) then try again.

If you think this conversation is a waste of time, then why bother? I'm sure your insights would be appreciated elsewhere.

No doubt.

However, I am definitely a moral realist. Humans will not long survive without attending to the moral world. You might think of morals as analogous to laws of physics. they do not exist as facts about the world, but describe the way the facts work - ethics as social physics. — unenlightened

Okay, so you must have done some reading. I don't think that that is the kind of claim a moral realist would make, but intriguing, nonetheless. They say that moral claims do indeed report facts about the world, which is not merely a claim about how moral facts would work.

What is the standard or criterion you're using in order to say that something counts as a "moral fact?"

It is a fact that if I promise to plant you a rose garden on Sunday, then on Monday there ought be a rose garden. It is a fact because that's exactly what those words mean. They have no other meaningful use. When making such a claim the speaker is voluntarily entering into a commitment to make the world match their words.

That's just what promises are.

What does your last reply have to do with any of that? I do not understand how your response was relevant/valid.

What is the standard or criterion you're using in order to say that something counts as a "moral fact?" — creativesoul

I didn't mention moral facts, but rather that moral claims are propositions, and that the way you used "ought" wasn't the way it is typically used in moral claims. In a moral claim, the object of the "ought" or "ought not" is typically not an inanimate thing, but rather a behavior or action.

If you are saying one has a moral obligation to follow through on a promise, then it could be a moral claim. But you didn't mention that. As it turns out, moral realists actually value promises quite a bit, so you are definitely right to frame promises such that we ought follow through on them.

When making such a claim the speaker is voluntarily entering into a commitment to make the world match their words. — creativesoul

Once again, you have to stipulate that following through on promises is the moral thing to do. If you consider this putative fact to be true, then you could be making a moral claim.

I didn't mention moral facts, but rather that moral claims are propositions, and that the way you used "ought" wasn't the way it is typically used in moral claims. In a moral claim, the object of the "ought" or "ought not" is typically not an inanimate thing, but rather a behavior or action. — ToothyMaw

I'm not following this. Do you take issue with how I used the term "ought"? Is that the basis of your objection?

Yes.

Do you agree with Searle's concept of promises as institutional facts in which oughts are entailed?

Insofar as we humans are a eusocial species, it seems to me that implicit promises e.g. (a) not to harm one another, (b) not to burden-shift / free ride and (c) to help one another constitute our eusociality in practice and that these implicit promises entail that we ought to behave in ways which fulfill them; thus, they are moral facts because, unlike institutional facts (e.g. money, citizenship, marriage) which are explicit constructs (e.g. contracts), these promises are implicit to – habits for – adaptively cohabitating with others in a shared/conflicted commons.

Contrary to the typical conception of "moral realism" which @ToothyMaw is incorrigibly fixated on, isn't it more reasonable to conceive of moral facts as performances, or practices, (i.e. norms / grammars) instead of the objects of propositions (i.e. "claims")? If not, where does my thinking (here) go wrong?

Insofar as we humans are a eusocial species, it seems to me that implicit promises e.g. (a) not to harm one another, (b) not to burden-shift / free ride and (c) to help one another — 180 Proof

Are you saying that promises are implicit in the claims that we ought not harm one another and those other things? Because those things you listed are not themselves implicit promises.

Contrary to the typical conception of "moral realism" — 180 Proof

It is an actual thing. You don't need to put it in quotes.

edit: Thanks, btw, for posting something substantive that lays out your position

Are you saying that promises are implicit in the claims that we ought not harm one another and those other things? — ToothyMaw

No. :roll:

I'm quoting you (re: OP) as the rest of the sentence suggests.

it seems to me that implicit promises e.g. (a) not to harm one another, (b) not to burden-shift / free ride and (c) to help one another constitute our eusociality in practice — 180 Proof

This seems severely reductive. We also have billionaires exploiting their wealth and that contributes to the structure and arrangement of our society, but I wouldn't say that even implicit promises and wealth distribution account for everything.

No. :roll: — 180 Proof

Then what are the promises implicit in if not our moral statements? As stated, they are quite explicit.

As pointed out already, these promises are implications of – implicit in – human eusociality. Tell me how we are eusocial without them in the absence of, or prior to, discursive language.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality