I'll take some solace from the fact that you are talking in terms of conventions, and maybe leave it there. — Banno

Fair enough. Maybe we can revisit someone when I come up with a more apt way of explaining the distinction I see.

Really appreciate the exchange :cheer:

So what is there that is the opposite of "subjective", if we take this as a definition? What could be objective? Because there is nothing we could list here that is not by the very fact that we list it being talked about by people. And that would make everything subjective.

Can you give a better explanation of the distinction between subjective and objective? — Banno

I used the term "subjective" earlier in that particular context. Like I said:
Objectivists and moral realists talk as if it's not they, persons, who talk, but that when they open their mouths, The Absolute, Objective Truth comes out.

There are people to whom sentences like this make perfect sense:
"It's important to make good decisions; this is to say, not to decide merely in favor of that which is subjective, to one's liking, but to decide in line with what is true, what is objective."

Like, IIRC, you said, people tend to think (and wrongly so) that the line between subjective and objective is sharp and easy to demarcate.

I'm not a fan of the terms "subjective" and "objective". I think they are for the most part used for purposes of judging people, and for dismissing some people.
Some pairs come to mind:
good -- bad
righteous --sinful
objective -- subjective
informed -- uninformed
etc.
Depending on one's ideology, one uses the latter word in the pair for dismissing others. When a religious person wants to dismiss someone, they do so by calling the other person "sinful". When a scientist wants to dismiss someone, they do so by calling the other person "subjective". Etc.

Nothing you said actually explains how you can discern a moral fact from a taste. — Bob Ross

Well, that one's easy. Bob prefers Vanilla - that's a question of taste, and might lead to Bob only eating Vanilla ice cream. "Bob prefers Vanilla" and "Bob only eats Vanilla ice cream" are a statement of taste.

But if Bob and his army were to insist that everyone ought eat only vanilla, and that chocolate was evil and the work of the devil, that would be about morals.

Questions of taste re about what the individual should choose. Questions of morality are about what everyone should choose.

but I am failing to see how you would know this in your view. — Bob Ross

Again, I'm not pretending to present you with a handbook to what you ought to do. Others canpretend to that. What we have done over the course of this thread is examine in some detail the grammar around moral language. We have found that there are moral truths, and some examples have been given by myself and others.

Not so far from here is a thread in which folk are doubting the existence of that world around them. Do you think that, though folk can doubt the chair in which they sit, that there is some ethical doctrin that will convince them all?

No.

You will have to do the work yourself.

Within your view, please define 'fact'. For me, it definitely is a 'statement which refers to a stance-independently existing thing'. What world-to-word fit-style definition do you have for fact? — Bob Ross

There is more than one way to use the word. I'm not too fussed which we use, provided that we keep track. The common feature is that "fact" is truth functionally equivalent to "true sentence", and this is how I mostly use the word. As has ben explained previously, problems occur when folk say "facts are only about physical things" but conclude "therefore there are no moral facts", as if this were an argument and not a tautology. The error comes to fruition when this is combined with the claim that "only facts are true" to conclude "there are no moral truths".

This question begging is the generic form of the error in your OP and a few subsequent arguments.

I'm not a fan of the terms "subjective" and "objective". — baker

So we have some agreement.

Objectivists and moral realists talk as if it's not they, persons, who talk, but that when they open their mouths, The Absolute, Objective Truth comes out. — baker

That's one, negative, way to view what is going on. Another more positive way is to see those claims as tentative, looking for common ground, for stuff on which we can agree.

Seems to be a difference of disposition.

It's subjective in the sense that it's people who are talking about its existence.
— baker

I think it goes further. It's subjective in the sense that it is an artificial label upon something that has no conformity to the label other than in the mind of a subject who has accepted the command to apply the label to that plot of land. — AmadeusD

But for a realist, this makes no sense. For a realist, statements with "I think ..." or "From my perspective ..." are, at best, expressions of less-than-truth. A realist will not utter them (other than, perhaps, merely by force of habit).

I think perhaps, I would say, the correct sentence structure (in this particular context) for a realist then, would be "I think xyz about, what I think, is London".

But i do think the force of habit is strong enough to explain why realists talk in those absolutes anyway.

You use "realist" as if realists were a block who all have the one opinion.

Questions of morality are about what everyone should choose. — Banno

Only on the assumption that everyone is equal.

In practice, there are usually multiple standards of morality. E.g. "Members of group A hold it is immoral to kill a member of group A, but not immoral to kill member of group B." "It's wrong to lie, except to outsiders."

Because at the end of the day, they do. It's what makes them realists.

I think perhaps, I would say, the correct sentence structure (in this particular context) for a realist then, would be "I think xyz about, what I think, is London".

But i do think the force of habit is strong enough to explain why realists talk in those absolutes anyway. — AmadeusD

No, the force of habit might make them say "I think", but the absolutism is central to them.

"I think xyz about, what I think, is London" is unintelligible to a realist.

I think you're misunderstanding me.
Those sentences, as you posited, indicate a less-than-truth, to a realist. This is the case with that statement. Which is why it's qualified. I don't see the problem...
I do not understand realists to be unable to make equivocal or less-than-truth statements, but to delineate clearly between those whicih have truth-value and those which do not. Forgive me if im getting that wrong.

That's a pretty dogmatic thing to say.

Only on the assumption that everyone is equal. — baker

You're missing the grammatical point. But then you have a particularly jaded view of humanity. Morality is irrelevant if you don't have some hope.

I think with most Neoplatonism, the divine intellect (of which the human intellect is supposed to be a reflection) is associated with goodness. Evil is just separation or distance from the Nous, sinking into matter. Goodness and truth are essentially the same thing, with evil being a kind of illusion. So you're right that in Neoplatonism one intuits the Good by virtue of the intellect.

Agreed. But, also, there are new strands of neoplatonism, such as atheistic platonism, that get rid of the Nous. In those kinds of views, we just intuit the good, and not because it corresponds with a higher intellect.

But morality is often defined as some sort of code of behavior. It's rules. The Christian take on Neoplatonism isn't about rules. It's about love. "Love and do what you will" as Augustine said.

I am not sure what you mean here. But a lot of Christian philosophers (like William lane craig) will reject platonism because the moral law is impersonal, which I don't really get the big deal with that.

Well, that one's easy. Bob prefers Vanilla - that's a question of taste, and might lead to Bob only eating Vanilla ice cream. "Bob prefers Vanilla" and "Bob only eats Vanilla ice cream" are a statement of taste.

But if Bob and his army were to insist that everyone ought eat only vanilla, and that chocolate was evil and the work of the devil, that would be about morals.

But what distinguishes Bob’s taste that everyone ought to eat only vanilla from the moral fact that everyone ought to eat only vanilla?

Again, I'm not pretending to present you with a handbook to what you ought to do

Fair enough; but I want to clarify that I am not asking you to do that. I am asking “How do you know that any given moral judgment is factual (as opposed to being a taste: non-factual)?”. Saying that a moral fact is a true proposition doesn’t inform me how you come to know that it is true.

What we have done over the course of this thread is examine in some detail the grammar around moral language

It would help me understand, if you could give me an example and demonstrate how you discerned that is was a fact as opposed to a taste.

Do you think that, though folk can doubt the chair in which they sit, that there is some ethical doctrin that will convince them all?

This just seems like a non-sequitur: ethics doesn’t prove the existence or non-existence of non-moral entities, such as standard, ordinary objects.

Now, if you are just noting that we only gain knowledge of the moral facts through trial and error, then that’s fine...but how do you know through trial and error what is more or less a moral fact and what is an error? When we say that we gain scientific knowledge through trial and error, we still note that we are weeding out the errors by empirical tests that either verify or invalidate our hypothesis—how does your moral realism work with this regard?

The common feature is that "fact" is truth functionally equivalent to "true sentence", and this is how I mostly use the word

A true sentence is a statement that corresponds to reality: that’s a word-to-world direction of fit, not world-to-word. I am asking you what world-to-word definition of fact, which you are deploying as a critique to P5, did you have in mind?

As has ben explained previously, problems occur when folk say "facts are only about physical things" but conclude "therefore there are no moral facts", as if this were an argument and not a tautology.

This has nothing to do with the word-to-world direction of fit we were talking about. My definition of a fact (i.e., a statement which corresponds to reality) is not equivalent to “facts are only about physical things”. Afterall, 1+1=2 is not about physical things, but is nevertheless a fact (by my books).

This question begging is the generic form of the error in your OP and a few subsequent arguments.

Here’s a modified version of the previous argument that takes into consideration your objections:

P1: How the world is does not entail how the world should be.
P2: Moral facts are about how the world is such that the world should be.
C: Therefore, moral facts cannot exist.

The idea is that the moral realist has to deny P1, which I find (and I think most people find) really intuitive. The only potential way out of it is to deny word-to-world direction of fit, but I as of yet to hear a fully fleshed out concept of a fact with world-to-word direction of fit. Let me know what you think.

The only potential way out of it is to deny word-to-world direction of fit, but I as of yet to hear a fully fleshed out concept of a fact with world-to-word direction of fit. — Bob Ross

One truth that is no fact are the logical truths, I think. There's no fact that makes "A = A" true. It's not a state of affairs, and I'm not using this "is" statement to set out how the world is as much as I'm setting out how we're going to talk about the world at all.

That is, here is a truth without a direction of fit at all, and since we have to accommodate truth to at least allow for logical truth we must accept that sometimes there are true sentences which do not set out how the world is, that are true regardless of the states of affairs.

I think this is largely in line with the analogy to mathematical reasoning for moral thinking.

Now we note that in a logic the verb is limited to "is", and it's noted that we need some kind of implicature to connect one to the other, such as "if it is raining then you ought bring an umbrella"

Consider "If you ought bring an umbrella you ought to sing a song; You ought to bring an umbrella, and therefore..." : if we render this into a sentential logic then "ought" disappears and you have modus ponens with sentences which at least appear to have a world-to-word direction of fit (since these are actually just examples in a reflection on the question, though, they do not -- that is, I think I'd tie the pragmatics to determining direction of fit)

Which is to note that we need not even derive an ought from an is or an is from an ought; that in terms of our logic or language, at least, that these are metaphysical theses. Consider the verb "to have" in relation here -- if facts are statements with a word-to-world direction of fit then "to have" is, logically speaking, a modification of the copula and fits just fine within sentential logic. So it would go with "ought" -- this is a modification of the One Big Logical Copula, you could say, which includes variations of useage between people, be it setting out a definition, setting out states of affairs, or setting out what we ought to do.


I think that this account is relying upon a deflationary view of truth, as opposed to a correspondence theory of truth, though. So it could very well be considered an anti-realism on that account, if the target is a belief in moral facts to which moral statements correspond.

Switching to newer discussion.

But what distinguishes Bob’s taste that everyone ought to eat only vanilla from the moral fact that everyone ought to eat only vanilla? — Bob Ross

Let's do that again.

It's a question of taste if it only applies to you - Bob likes vanilla.
It's a question of morality if it applies to everyone - Everyone ought like vanilla.

"Bob’s taste that everyone ought to eat only vanilla" just attempts to confuse the two. If it applies to everyone, it's a moral claim.

“How do you know that any given moral judgment is factual (as opposed to being a taste: non-factual)?” — Bob Ross

This amounts to: what should you believe? You should work that out for yourself. Indeed, in questions of ethics, you have no choice but to work it out for yourself.

Saying that a moral fact is a true proposition doesn’t inform me how you come to know that it is true. — Bob Ross

No, it doesn't.

This just seems like a non-sequitur — Bob Ross

Well, no. I'm just pointing out that one can't make someone believe something. there are folk here who claim to doubt the chair they sit on and the people they chat to... Mad, but that's just how it is. So I'm not going to try to convince you that kicking puppies for fun is wrong. I'll just call the RSPCA.

Incidentally, that's pretty much why I haven't participated in your other thread. Your convictions are your concern, no one else's.

Moral facts are about how the world is such that the world should be. — Bob Ross

That just confuses direction of fit. Oh, well. I tried.

That is, here is a truth without a direction of fit at all, and since we have to accommodate truth to at least allow for logical truth we must accept that sometimes there are true sentences which do not set out how the world is, that are true regardless of the states of affairs. — Moliere

Yep.

Indeed, in questions of ethics, you have no choice but to work it out for yourself. — Banno

This seems to be an implicit but quite strong admission of moral subjectivity

Mad, but that's just how it is. So I'm not going to try to convince you that kicking puppies for fun is wrong. I'll just call the RSPCA. — Banno

That seems like giving up the discussion because you hit the crux of the climb…

This seems to be an implicit but quite strong admission of moral subjectivity — AmadeusD

Can you explain your thinking?

A true sentence is a statement that corresponds to reality: that’s a word-to-world direction of fit, not world-to-word — Bob Ross

Right. And word-to-world is what we'd need for moral realism. World-to-word moral truth would just be saying X is wrong because we say it's wrong. That's moral nihilism in a nutshell.

One truth that is no fact are the logical truths, I think. There's no fact that makes "A = A" true. It's not a state of affairs

I disagree: logical and mathematical truths are about how we cognize, which are states-of-affairs in reality; so I reject the notion of directionless fit of facts.

Consider "If you ought bring an umbrella you ought to sing a song; You ought to bring an umbrella, and therefore..." : if we render this into a sentential logic then "ought" disappears and you have modus ponens with sentences which at least appear to have a world-to-word direction of fit

I don’t see it: can you elaborate? That’s just a hypothetical imperative being used to with modus ponens to derive the consequent. Or are you saying it is world-to-word direction of fit because it is hypothetical, since it is subjective? I could get on board with that, but I don’t see how there’s such a thing as a fact which has a world-to-word direction of fit. ‘You ought to bring an umbrella’ (P2) is non-factual (to me).

Let's do that again.

It's a question of taste if it only applies to you - Bob likes vanilla.
It's a question of morality if it applies to everyone - Everyone ought like vanilla.

This is a false dichotomy: I can have a taste such that everyone ought to like vanilla. Unless, are you agreeing that those are not exclusive options?

A taste is just a judgment which stems from someone’s psychology, such as a desire. Are you saying it is impossible for someone to desire for everyone to desire to eat vanilla?

This amounts to: what should you believe? You should work that out for yourself. Indeed, in questions of ethics, you have no choice but to work it out for yourself.

This counts against you theory, because you are not providing any criteria to actual discern facts from non-facts, which implies to me that there is no reason to believe they are facts in the first place. I would rather default to them being purely psychological.

Moral facts are about how the world is such that the world should be. — Bob Ross
That just confuses direction of fit. Oh, well. I tried.

What would it mean for something to have a world-to-word direction of fit and be about a state-of-affairs. It seems to me that you are only a moral realist because you are a moral cognitivist.
You have no means of discerning what is a moral fact and what isn’t, and all you affirm is that there are normative propositions that are true.

I 100% agree, but @Banno thinks that moral facts do have a world-to-word direction of fit, and I am having a hard time getting them to explain (or perhaps I am just not grasping their explanation of) what that would even mean.

100% agree, but Banno thinks that moral facts do have a world-to-word direction of fit, and I am having a hard time getting them to explain (or perhaps I am just not grasping their explanation of) what that would even mean. — Bob Ross

I guess they're saying moral ought statements are true because we say they're true.

P1: If we do not know of any moral facts, then we have no reason to believe them.
P2: We do not know of any moral facts.
C: Therefore, we have no reason to believe them. — Bob Ross

Yep, I think that's a useful revision of the argument. :up:

What do you think about, as a moral realist, this argument:

P1: How the world is does not entail how the world should be.
P2: Moral facts are about how the world is such that it informs us how it should be.
C: Therefore, moral facts cannot exist.

- I think there are plenty of forms of moral realism that do just fine without P2, but as an Aristotelian I am not averse to it.

Now I barely have time to respond to the discussions I am already involved in, so I don't mean to begin new ones, but in general you need to take more time in defending your premises (in prose). An argument almost always requires a defense of one's premises, even if only a sentence or two.

I came into this thread simply to point out that there are moral truths. Like all these discussions, the conversation has gone off in a dozen different directions, making it impossible to work on all the conceptual puzzles. Some have understood direction of fit - probably those who are familiar with Anscombe - others have misunderstood. There's an uncritical presumption of correspondence theories of truth in some posts, and the ill-defined distinction between subject and object popping up in stray places. There's differences of opinion as to what constitutes moral realism, and misunderstandings of the nature of anti-realism. And there's the ubiquitous confusion of "belief" with "truth", together with the related and conceptually fraught "knowledge". And the tendency to argue in terms of "isms" instead of looking at the detail.

And a tendency to make assertions rather than give reasons.

Philosophy is hard. Much harder than most folk suppose. I can't see any further progress being made here.

Another way of saying that there are philosophically interesting ideas relating to the topic, but they are not being discussed here.

I think there are plenty of forms of moral realism that do just fine without P2

I know you said you aren't starting new conversations, but could you provide some examples (so I can research them)?