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. — Banno

I'm not moving the goalposts, I never believed this was a moral statement. I can hold a moral value without holding that it is true in the same way I can have a taste preference without holding that the preference is true. I can believe "coffee is better than tea", it is true that "I believe coffee is better than tea", without believing "coffee is better than tea" is a true fact of the objective world.

:grin:

There's an article on moral realism in SEP as well, the one from which my quote came. It doe snot use "objective" in the definition, but notes

...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

I've said before I don't really care what you call it. the interesting bit is that moral statements have a truth value.

I've said before I don't really care what you call it. the interesting bit is that moral statements have a truth value. — Banno

Many in this discussion believe that moral statements have a truth value. The main disagreement seems to be precisely on its objectivity.

Are they true because of social convention, or are they true even if everyone believed and behaved otherwise?

I can hold a moral value without holding that it is true in the same way I can have a taste preference without holding that the preference is true. — hypericin

How is one to make sense of this? You have a preference for Vegemite but don't think "hypericin prefers Vegemite" is true? You think folk ought keep their promises, but don't think "folk ought keep their promises" true? It's incoherent.

Think I've made that point once or twice before.

The main disagreement seems to be precisely on its objectivity. — Michael

I'm not surprised. The term is a pest.

The main motivation against moral realism, especially around here, is the naturalism that takes scientific fact as the only sort of truth worthy of the title. The notion has a strong place in pop science culture, and comes to us mainly from the logical empiricists, Ayer and Carnap and so on. They denigrate moral language as not based on scientific reality, and by extension seek to mark ethical statements as not truth-apt; as being mere opinion or taste or some such, and hence (somewhat inconsistently) as being neither true nor false. — Banno

We can do away with the term and still address the substance of the disagreement. The article I referenced offered an example:

1. The diamond is made of carbon
2. The diamond is worth $1,000

We can all be wrong about (1) but can't all be wrong about (2). (2) is true because of social conventions/intersubjective agreement, etc. whereas (1) is true even if we all believe otherwise.

Are moral truths like (1) or like (2)?

Lol, perhaps I am blind, or perhaps you see things which are not really there....

Imagine a man walks in on a group of people arguing fervently about how far one can throw a square circle. Each person has spent decades upon decades meticulously studying the topic and are presenting their conclusion: the man can hear one say "it is 3 feet, I tell you!", another "nay, it is 50 feet!". The man half-heartedly says "but...there is no such thing as a square circle.", which produces deafening silence. No one knows what to do or what to say to the man: they are at a loss of words. The man leaves and, finally, a person musters up the strength to say "poor man, he is like a blind man...how are we to convince him of the existence of square circles?!?".

:kiss:

Are moral truths like (1) or like (2)? — Michael

Depends on the statement in question. "One ought keep one's promises" is a bit like (2) in that it depends on convention. "One ought not kick puppies for fun" is in some ways not like (1) because the fit is reversed.

Any follow through? Moral statements are many and various.

I’ll phrase it another way:

Some things are true if everyone says so and some things are true even if everyone says otherwise.

Which of these is the case for moral truths?

Which is the case for moral truths? — Michael

There's no single case here. Moral statements are many and varied.

So some moral truths are true even if everyone says otherwise?

All moral truths are true. Are you trying to ask if there are moral truths that are not believed? Sure.

All moral truths are true. — Banno

Yes, but this can be examined in more detail:

1. “One ought not X” is true if everyone says so
2. “One ought not Y” is true even if everyone says otherwise

Is (2) the case for some Y, and if so how do we know? Can it be proved with empirical evidence and/or reasoned argument? Is it an intuition? Is it unknowable?

Or is (2) never the case? Is every moral truth a case of (1)?

All very good questions. Have you any answers?

Does this provide some clear account of objective and subjective?

Is it any different for statements without "ought"?

All moral truths are true. — Banno

"You should kick puppies" is true, and "You should not kick puppies" is true. Something seems wrong here.

Something seems wrong here. — hypericin

For sure :wink:

All very good questions. Have you any answers? — Banno

I don't, but I can set out an argument to properly lay out the options:

If moral sentences are truth-apt then either some moral sentence is true or it is not wrong to eat babies.

If it is wrong to eat babies then either it would not be wrong to eat babies if everyone were to say so or it would be wrong to eat babies even if everyone were to say otherwise.

So we have:

1. Moral sentences are not truth-apt (non-cognitivism), or
2. It is not wrong to eat babies (error theory), or
3. It would not be wrong to eat babies if everyone were to say so (subjectivism), or
4. It would be wrong to eat babies even if everyone were to say otherwise (realism)

There seems to be the presumption that if evidence or reasoning cannot be provided in support of (4) then either (2) or (3) should be accepted by default. I think that this presumption should itself be questioned.

So we have:

1. Moral sentences are not truth-apt (non-cognitivism), or
2. It is not wrong to eat babies (error theory), or
3. It would not be wrong to eat babies if everyone said so (subjectivism), or
4. It would be wrong to eat babies even if everyone said otherwise (realism) — Michael

5. It's a lot more fun to play with babies than to eat them. (emotivism)

that’s pretty convolute.

I'm with @Banno again (doh!). "Subjective truth" is chimerical, and has been a consistent problem in this thread. From what I can tell, only Michael has presented an argument:

1. The diamond is made of carbon
2. The diamond is worth $1,000

We can all be wrong about (1) but can't all be wrong about (2). (2) is true because of social conventions/intersubjective agreement, etc. whereas (1) is true even if we all believe otherwise.

Are moral truths like (1) or like (2)? — Michael

Isn't this like voting? If I vote for Washington then I believe it is true that, "Washington would be the best president." The outcome of the election reflects the opinion of the majority, but it does not make anyone's opinion true or false. It only decides who the president is. A vote and a prediction are two different things.

It seems to me that a similar equivocation occurs with respect to "worth." If we are speaking about worth as market value, then (2) is a form of speculation, and in that case we can all be wrong about (2). If we are speaking about worth in the sense of simple valuation, then the market does not determine worth, and the market value can deviate from worth. If we are speaking about worth in the sense of an offer made during the act of bartering (or a bid at an auction), then we are talking about an offer rather than a simple valuation, and these offers will of course affect the price it fetches. "Worth" is therefore a complex and equivocal concept, but in no case is there a subjective truth. Truths about subjective states, or consensuses, or poll results, or auctions, or agreements, are all objective truths.

I think all such arguments in favor of "subjective truth" fall apart in similar ways. But the other difficulty is that I don't think anyone in this thread has taken morality to be a form of consensus, and this is presumably because we all know that consensus is not per se binding. I still think <"bindingness"> is the better way to think about this subject. Morality is binding; that which is subjective is not binding; therefore that which is subjective is not morality.

Oddly enough, it may be @AmadeusD who is most consistent on this point. His approach is that it is only true that he should not torture babies. Someone might want to call that "moral subjectivism," and if we call it moral subjectivism then I think it is the only coherent form of moral subjectivism in this thread.

If the "deeper fact" is itself moral, then this is not a rebuttal. — Leontiskos

Thank you very much for this. Hmm. Maybe I'm conflating what's being rebutted then and missing that entirely.. because I just reject this entirely as to what i've attempted to do (stick with me, lol).. So: would it make sense of what i've been saying if it were transposed to be a rebuttal to that claim viz.

Claim: "One ought not kick puppies" (as a brute fact, ostensibly supporting the ethical position)
Response: Hey, that is actually not a brute fact (because XYZ underlying facts/data)

would be a rebuttal of that claim, but not the ethical framework? If this is what it appears to be, that would solve any issue i had with the exchange previous.

But more simply, to rebut "moral statements are brute," with, "moral statements cannot be brute," is obviously begging the question. — Leontiskos

showing that they cannot, surpasses this though, surely.
I guess what i mean to say here, is that I am claiming that the position that Moral facts are brute consists in them not being reducible. But if they are necessarily reducible, they are not brute facts.

Assume that's true - Am i just fucking up on applying this to the framework rather than any particular claim?

(im sorry, i've had to put this together between harrowing bits of work. Ill try edit for clarity later if need be but feel free to make what would normally be annoying observations a bout how badly ive worded things)

Thank you very much for this. Hmm. Maybe I'm conflating what's being rebutted then and missing that entirely.. because I just reject this entirely as to what i've attempted to do (stick with me, lol).. So: would it make sense of what i've been saying if it were transposed to be a rebuttal to that claim viz.

Claim: "One ought not kick puppies" (as a brute fact, ostensibly supporting the ethical position)
Response: Hey, that is actually not a brute fact (because XYZ underlying facts/data)

would be a rebuttal of that claim, but not the ethical framework? If this is what it appears to be, that would solve any issue i had with the exchange previous. — AmadeusD

Yes, that's right. The position is not, "Every moral statement cannot be reduced to deeper facts." It is that, "Moral statements cannot be reduced to non-moral facts." See: .

showing that they cannot, surpasses this though, surely.
I guess what i mean to say here, is that I am claiming that the position that Moral facts are brute consists in them not being reducible. But if they are necessarily reducible, they are not brute facts.

Assume that's true - Am i just fucking up on applying this to the framework rather than any particular claim? — AmadeusD

In this thread the anti-realists are misunderstanding the intentions of the realists in a variety of ways. None of us have tried to concretely justify a brute moral fact. The examples are attempting to illustrate the coherence and integrity of moral realism, repelling the arguments which attempt to detract. So if someone tried to justify a brute moral fact, and you showed that it was not brute, then that would be a meaningful objection to the example. But no one has attempted such a thing. In different ways we have all been trying to show that the schema upon which the arguments against moral realism depend is fatally flawed.

Suppose someone asks me to justify some claim and I provide an explanation. If they object again, and their objection is rooted in the belief that <every explanation requires a further explanation>, then my task becomes something quite different from the task of justifying a claim. It becomes an attempt to show them that their underlying presupposition is untenable. The difference in threads like these is that those of us who are familiar with these debates know, a priori, that aggressive moral anti-realists already hold a similar presupposition. So we know our task from the very beginning, and that it is mostly futile. "They know as well as he that the challenge he has provided is logically impossible to fulfill" ().

Yes, that's right. The position is not, "Every moral statement cannot be reduced to deeper facts." It is that,
— Leontiskos

Ok; that clears a lot up.

Can you explain how “it hurts the puppy” is a moral fact? It seems to just be the actual result of kicking a puppy.

But no one has attempted such a thing. I — Leontiskos

Banno.

n different ways we have all been trying to show that the schema upon which the arguments against moral realism depend is fatally flawed. — Leontiskos

This has not been clear to me. And having now gone back over the thread I see no fatal flaw - if the objection goes : person A is a moral realist and the objector (B) simply considers morality subjective; what’s the catch? What’s the fatality? (I note here I may be positing something I’ve not before… so if it seems a sidestep it’s not intentional).
If moral realism is merely the position that there are moral facts - and nothing more - I can’t see how it’s anything but raising taste or consensus to an erroneously untouchable status?

Banno. — AmadeusD

Where? That one ought not kick puppies for fun is an obvious moral truth, not a brute moral truth. I don't think you've grasped Banno's line.

This has not been clear to me. And having now gone back over the thread I see no fatal flaw - if the objection goes : person A is a moral realist and the objector (B) simply considers morality subjective; what’s the catch? — AmadeusD

That's not an argument against moral realism. I said, "In different ways we have all been trying to show that the schema upon which the arguments against moral realism depend is fatally flawed."

When I said that moral anti-realists lost the day in this thread, my point was that the thread is about disproving moral realism, and the arguments have failed. The OP explicitly admitted that his arguments have failed in his new thread. You keep trying to shift the burden of proof. See:

What's happening in this thread and in your threads generally is a shifting of the burden of proof. What begins as, "I am going to argue for moral antirealism," always ends up in, "Prove to me that moral realism is true!" — Leontiskos

-

Can you explain how “it hurts the puppy” is a moral fact? It seems to just be the actual result of kicking a puppy. — AmadeusD

I don't think it is. See: .

That one ought not kick puppies for fun is an obvious moral truth — Leontiskos

So, this is the crux of my issue. No, it's not an 'obvious moral truth'. It's just something a lot of people agree with. It isn't 'true' in any other sense than that it is widely accepted, as best i can tell. There's nothing truthful about it. I think if you're going to call something an 'obvious moral truth' something other than claiming it's an obvious moral truth needs to be involved. Tautology doesn't sit well with me, even if that's what this boils down to.

When I said that moral anti-realists lost the day in this thread, my point was that the thread is about disproving moral realism, and the arguments have failed — Leontiskos

Hmm. Noted, But, I don't see that they've failed. I see you describing what would rebut but I don't actually see this applied to any argument.
The fact that I don't see morality as truth-apt, and that no one can give me any reason to think it is other than 'it's obvious' seems to me, to put that assertion on extremely thin ground. What have i missed? What's the bumper-sticker for why moral realism survives that?

I don't think it is. See: ↪Michael ↪Michael ↪Michael. — Leontiskos

Quote 1. If it is a fact that kicking a puppy hurts/harms the puppy, then that's just a fact of hte matter. So, that's not a further moral "fact" - it's an empirical fact subsequent to the act of kicking (which others are making a moral judgment on, rather than I). I ascribed no value to the harm/hurt (in fact, i think that might be what sets me on the anti-realist bent.. I do not see that it matters). Had I said that the harm is the wrong-maker, I could agree - but again, I don't see how the puppy being hurt imparts any truth to the initial statement.

Quote 2. Is him ascribing something to me which I don't think or feel but that may be explained by the above - I did not, and do not, believe the harm the puppy experiences is a fact that gives moral statements about kicking a puppy value or truth (morally speaking). It is just a fact (or, an effect).

Quote 3. Similar to above. I've never tried to prove that the fact of the puppy's harm would make it wrong or right. Though, it appears to me that's a result of my larger-scale misunderstanding being read as if i know what im talking about LOL. The only reason I was bringing up that underlying fact was because I was under the impression that i could apply the concept (that the statement is not brute) to the framework being used to allow 'One ought not kick puppies' being considered somehow 'true'. I don't think either that statement of itself, or the resulting harm/hurt impart 'truth' beyond it being empirically true that a puppy is hurt by being kicked.

So, this is the crux of my issue. No, it's not an 'obvious moral truth'... — AmadeusD

The point here was not that you must believe it, but rather that Banno is not presenting it as a brute moral fact. He is presenting it as an obvious moral truth. Your argument above requires that he be presenting it as a brute moral fact.

Hmm. Noted, But, I don't see that they've failed. — AmadeusD

Well the OP admitted their arguments failed, so that's a pretty significant consideration.

The fact that I don't see morality as truth-apt, and that no one can give me any reason to think it is other... — AmadeusD

This is the shifting of the burden of proof that I spoke about. This thread is not about proving moral realism, and in fact no one has really tried to do that in any significant sense.

I don't think either that statement of itself, or the resulting harm/hurt impart 'truth' beyond it being empirically true that a puppy is hurt by being kicked. — AmadeusD

Right. Never said you did. Again, the point is that, "It hurts the puppy," is not a moral fact, even though it could function as a non-moral premise in a moral syllogism.

Anyway, go do your work you procrastinator. :razz:

The point here was not that you must believe it, but rather that Banno is not presenting it as a brute moral fact. He is presenting it as an obvious moral truth. Your argument above requires that he be presenting it as a brute moral fact. — Leontiskos

Ahhh. Okay. I see that. Thank you.

This is the shifting of the burden of proof that I spoke about. This thread is not about proving moral realism, and in fact no one has really tried to do that in any significant sense. — Leontiskos

Okay.

Right. Never said you did. Again, the point is that, "It hurts the puppy," is not a moral fact, even though it could function as a non-moral premise in a moral syllogism. — Leontiskos

This is purely confusing. If the point is that it could serve as a non-moral fact, why would it be suggested it is a further moral fact? Is this, in fact, the debate?

Anyway, go do your work you procrastinator. :razz: — Leontiskos

I'm home now. Its quarter to 7pm. Which is early for me tbf LOL. I prefer wasting away here, now that i've found it! Or the mats.

This is purely confusing. If the point is that it could serve as a non-moral fact, why would it be suggested it is a further moral fact? — AmadeusD

I think everyone has consistently maintained that it is not a moral fact! ...lol

When I said, "I don't think it is," I was saying, "I don't think it is a moral fact." Maybe I should have clipped the second sentence in your quote. ()

I'm home now. Its quarter to 7pm. Which is early for me tbf LOL. I prefer wasting away here, now that i've found it! Or the mats. — AmadeusD

Well have a good night. I'm out.

Banno — AmadeusD

Where?

I do recall objecting to the word "brute" and suggesting "hinge" for some statements. I think "Brute" was introduced by @Michael; I might be wrong. For my part, I don't see that "one ought not kick puppies for fun" needs any justification. The problem with "brute" is that it carries some empiricist baggage.

. For my part, I don't see that "one ought not kick puppies for fun" needs any justification. The problem with "brute" is that it carries some empiricist baggage. — Banno

I suppose In this, I see a defence of it being a moral fact.

Okay, at least through all my failings, that was my understanding of your position on it… at least I got that much lol.

Fair enough.