Merely, that the claim of a ethical naturalist isn't tenable. — AmadeusD

You’re arguing that ethical non-naturalism isn’t tenable because it disagrees with your ethical naturalism. That’s not a rebuttal, it’s begging the question.

Davidson offered an account that tried to account for weakness of the will in an otherwise rational mind, with I think some success. Have you read ‘How is Weakness of the Will Possible?’ — Banno

I’m not sure what it has to do with weakness? I’m questioning the extent to which moral obligations are a sufficient motivator.

You’re arguing that ethical non-naturalism isn’t tenable because it disagrees with your ethical naturalism. That’s not a rebuttal, it’s begging the question. — Michael

1. You've got the positions backwards, but i imagine that was just haste. No guff. Naturalism is what I take issue with.
2. Ok. Suffice to say 'No. That's not the case' and that I can't spend any more time enumerating that moral claims cannot be brute facts, independent of my personal ethical view. But that's what i've done. So i'll leave it there.

All you seem to be saying here is that moral realism is incorrect.

Obviously this is begging the question. — Michael

Aye, you can say that again. And I'm sure you will. :grin:

The question is one about motivation. Knowing that I ought to do something isn't always enough to convince me to do it. Sometimes I do things I know I ought not do.

If it could be proved that I ought eat babies I still wouldn't. — Michael

I'm more with @Banno on this one. Obligation and motivation can't be fully separated. If it were proved to you, then you would eat babies. If you refuse to eat babies, then the argument simply hasn't convinced you, probably because you find your own moral claim more compelling than the argument.

(The "weakness of will" pertains to your first sentence, "Knowing that I ought to do something isn't always enough...")

If it were proved to you, then you would eat babies. If you refuse to eat babies, then the argument simply hasn't convinced you — Leontiskos

How so? I don’t see a problem with knowing that I ought to do one thing but choosing to do another because, say, it’s in my self interest.

1. You've got the positions backwards, but i imagine that was just haste. No guff. Naturalism is what I take issue with. — AmadeusD

And I have been explaining non-naturalism so now I don’t understand the relevance of your comments.

An inapt analogy. Moral non-realists hold the same moral values, feel the same moral feelings. — hypericin

Nah. This fiction is somewhat believable on an individual level, but if you draw out the timeline and look at cultural moral beliefs and cultural moral practices, as well as the way these shift over time, you are plainly wrong. The Aztecs sacrificed children to their god, Tlaloc. Christianity doesn't even permit abortion. The notion that we all act the same regardless of what we believe is a load of nonsense.

How so? I don’t see a problem with knowing that I ought to do one thing but choosing to do another because, say, it’s in my self interest. — Michael

I think oughtness correlates to motivation. So your word 'prove' made me think of the limit correlation: necessary action. But if that's not what you meant I can soften it: if it is "proved" to you that you ought to eat babies, then you will necessarily be less opposed to eating babies than you were prior to the proof. Speaking of personal obligation ("I ought") independently of motivation doesn't make sense to me. If someone really believes they ought to do something, then they are motivated to do it in one way or another, to one degree or another.

The notion that we all act the same regardless of what we believe is a load of nonsense. — Leontiskos

There is no relevant difference in moral behavior between realists and non-realists I am aware of. Non-realists are not morally blind, as your analogy suggests. We just reject your dogma that moral values are objectively true.

Are you making the ludicrous claim that the Aztecs were all moral non-realists?

There is no relevant difference in moral behavior between realists and non-realists I am aware of. — hypericin

And the person in my analogy perceives no difference between himself and those who claim they can see. For those who can see the difference is enormous.

And I have been explaining non-naturalism so now I don’t understand the relevance of your comments. — Michael

Ok, well sorry then.

And the person in my analogy perceives no difference between himself and those who claim they can see. For those who can see the difference is enormous. — Leontiskos

Lol. What is this difference? Keep in mind we are talking about behavior.

Though to be fair, moral realists are the ones who have always committed the moral disgrace of imposing their values by force "because they are true".

Aye, you can say that again. And I'm sure you will. :grin: — Leontiskos

Can you please explain to me, as if i'm five years old what's going on with the following that results in it being question begging?

Position: Moral statements cannot be reduced to deeper facts (i.e are brute)
Rebuttal: Moral statements necessarily rely on deeper facts, whether you engage them or not (i.e they cannot be brute, fundamentally).

Which part begs the question? (I am not being facetious in any way).

Rebuttal: Moral statements necessarily rely on deeper facts, whether you engage them or not (i.e they cannot be brute, fundamentally). — AmadeusD

If the "deeper fact" is itself moral, then this is not a rebuttal. If the "deeper fact" is non-moral, then this is a response to ethical naturalism, which no one here is promoting (ignoratio elenchi).

But more simply, to rebut "moral statements are brute," with, "moral statements cannot be brute," is obviously ad hoc. See , or Monty Python's <The Argument Clinic>.

"It is true that I hold this value" is not moral realism any more than "it is true that I like ice cream" taste realism.

It would be taste realism. Taste anti-realists would say that "hypericin likes ice cream" is not truth-apt.

But you have your foundational principles - that is, you take them to be true. Hence you are a moral realist. — Banno

I've rewritten this several times, just to say that up front. Pick away.

This could be a way of introducing what's important rather than what is true. It's that we have foundational principles at all that makes us count as a moral realist -- but note how this is different from whether or not they are true foundational principles. I'm fine with moral realism as a kind of default position so that one must raise doubts, especially in philosophy (and especially given the unpopularity of ethics). But doubts can be raised, and I hope I've done enough to show that my doubts are not based in a scientism, but rather are what I'd call a rather old fashioned moral doubt: the kind that people refer to when they speak in terms of faith. If Jesus is coming back, then shouldn't he have come here by now? If moral realism is true, then shouldn't we know something about what's good?

I think your division between truth and justification holds with respect to claims on knowledge. So insofar that ethics is a knowledge my doubt would deflate. It's that claim to knowledge which I doubt anyone possesses: if no one knows then we are all ignorant, which would mean that we're all functionally nihilists. In that case morality may sound reasonable, but that doesn't mean it's rational or known.

Maybe someday. But now, while we kill each other for all the various reasons printed in our newspapers? Faith is the only response I can think of as reasonable in such a world as this. The other is that killing is good (sometimes) which is the very claim that causes my doubt. If killing is good (sometimes) then I am the one who knows nothing about goodness, and what I want is to know how it is that killing is good (sometimes). I want a moral justification for violence, given that our entire way of life is based upon violence.

But what I doubt is that our way of life is actually good. Any way of life that depends upon killing others to perpetuate itself seems to have missed the moral lesson, to misunderstand, to be ignorant -- and all presently lived ways of life are ignorant in this exact way.

So, as I said, I'm the one that's the odd-ball out. It's an odd case to think killing is bad, simpliciter. I can make way for necessary evils or some such, but I can never really understand how killing is good, actually or really. I'm no pacifist because that's an unrealistic standard -- but I cannot deny that the pacifist has a handle on moral goodness better than most, if anything true about goodness can be said at all. Most would make excuses, and understandably so given how much we rely upon violence since we live in nation-states, a most violent social-organism -- and note how the instinct to point out how the past is bad kicks up here, as if that would excuse us rather than point out how we're all still the same as we've always been: excusing violence with the language of goodness. And if that's all we do with morality, in its actual effects rather than in the philosophy room, then what worth is there in speaking this way? Why is it important?

["It is true that I like ice cream"] would be taste realism. Taste anti-realists would say that "hypericin likes ice cream" is not truth-apt.. — Banno

Who thinks this is realism? What anti-realist would say that?

@Michael @@Leontiskos
Are you agreeing with this??

Who thinks this is realism? — hypericin

What is it you think moral realism amounts to, if not that there are moral statements that are true or false?

Who thinks this is realism? — hypericin

It's been explained repeatedly that in the context of this thread moral realism is more than truth aptness.

What is it you think moral realism amounts to, if not that there are moral statements that are true or false? — Banno

"It is true that I hold this value" is not a moral statement. It is a statement about my personal values.

Just as "It is true that I believe in evolution" a not a statement about biology. It is a statement about my beliefs.

"I believe in evolutionary theory", "Evolutionary theory is true", are totally different claims, and have independent truth tables.

You can be a realist about the first sort of claim (who isn't), while being anti-realist about the second.

Moral realists are those who think that, in these respects, things should be taken at face value—moral claims do purport to report facts and are true if they get the facts right. Moreover, they hold, at least some moral claims actually are true. That much is the common and more or less defining ground of moral realism — SEP Moral Realism

"It is true that I hold this value" is not a moral statement. It is a statement about my personal values. — hypericin

Yes, I notices you moving the goalposts. It doesn't help you, unless you can show how you hold a value without holding that value to be true, in which case we are entitled to conclude that you think values truth apt.

Who thinks this is realism? What anti-realist would say that?

@Michael @Leontiskos
Are you agreeing with this?? — hypericin

1. Moral propositions are not truth-apt (non-cognitivism)
2. Moral propositions are truth-apt (cognitivism)
2a. All moral propositions are false (error theory)
2b. Some moral propositions are true and these are subjectively true (moral subjectivism)
2c. Some moral propositions are true and these are objectively true (moral realism)

Moral anti-realism encompasses 1, 2a, and 2b.

Right. Moral realists say statements about morality report facts.

The fact we're looking for here is not that people say X is wrong. The fact has to be that X is objectively wrong.

An excellent post. These are the considerations that lead to virtue ethics, to woking on oneself rather than grand moral schemes.

:up:

4. Some moral propositions are objectively true (moral realism) — Michael

My objection would be that "objectively" does nothing here. Hence moral realism is that there are true moral statements.

My objection would be that "objectively" does nothing here. — Banno

That's your personal issue, though. I don't think anyone else has that problem.

My objection would be that "objectively" does nothing here. Hence moral realism is that there are true moral statements. — Banno

It's not as simple as that.

Moral Anti-Realism

Traditionally, to hold a realist position with respect to X is to hold that X exists objectively. On this view, moral anti-realism is the denial of the thesis that moral properties—or facts, objects, relations, events, etc. (whatever categories one is willing to countenance)—exist objectively. This could involve either (1) the denial that moral properties exist at all, or (2) the acceptance that they do exist but this existence is (in the relevant sense) non-objective. There are broadly two ways of endorsing (1): moral noncognitivism and moral error theory. Proponents of (2) may be variously thought of as moral non-objectivists, or idealists, or constructivists. So understood, moral anti-realism is the disjunction of three theses:

a) moral noncognitivism
b) moral error theory
c) moral non-objectivism

...

Moral noncognitivism holds that our moral judgments are not in the business of aiming at truth. So, for example, A.J. Ayer declared that when we say “Stealing money is wrong” we do not express a proposition that can be true or false, but rather it is as if we say “Stealing money!!” with the tone of voice indicating that a special feeling of disapproval is being expressed (Ayer [1936] 1971: 110). Note how the predicate “… is wrong” has disappeared in Ayer’s translation schema; thus the issues of whether the property of wrongness exists, and whether that existence is objective, also disappear.

The moral error theorist thinks that although our moral judgments aim at the truth, they systematically fail to secure it: the world simply doesn’t contain the relevant “stuff” to render our moral judgments true. For a more familiar analogy, compare what an atheist usually claims about religious judgments. On the face of it, religious discourse is cognitivist in nature: it would seem that when someone says “God exists” or “God loves you” they are usually asserting something that purports to be true. However, according to the atheist, the world isn’t furnished with the right kind of stuff (gods, afterlife, miracles, etc.) necessary to render these assertions true. The moral error theorist claims that when we say “Stealing is morally wrong” we are asserting that the act of stealing instantiates the property of moral wrongness, but in fact there is no such property, or at least nothing in the world instantiates it, and thus the utterance is untrue.

Non-objectivism (as it will be called here) allows that moral facts exist but holds that they are non-objective. The slogan version comes from Hamlet: “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” For a quick example of a non-objective fact, consider the different properties that a particular diamond might have. It is true that the diamond is made of carbon, and also true that the diamond is worth $1000, say. But the status of these facts seems different. That the diamond is carbon seems an objective fact: it doesn’t depend on what we think of the matter. (We could all be under the impression that it is not carbon, and all be wrong.) That the diamond is worth $1000, by contrast, seems to depend on us. If we all thought that it was worth more (or less), then it would be worth more (or less).

Even your quote from a different article continued with "... (although some accounts of moral realism see it as involving additional commitments, say to the independence of the moral facts from human thought and practice, or to those facts being objective in some specified way)."