But there is a difference. In one you have performed an immoral act.The outcome of the action performed in both (1) and (2) is the same: my hunger is sated. — Michael
Well, yes, it does. That's the point.Whether I ought or ought not eat meat does not affect the choice — Michael
...because you refuse to recognise the ethical import of "ought".it just doesn't matter. — Michael
Whether I ought or ought not eat meat does not affect the choice
— Michael
Well, yes, it does. That's the point. — Banno
What do you think? — Banno
I think you need to fill the question out. That's why I returned it to you. Generally, I don't see that your last few posts show much at all. It looks to me like you are fishing. So I've thrown it back to you, to see if you have a point to make. — Banno
I'm not saying that the natural sciences study the normative value of pain and pleasure. I'm saying that pain and pleasure are natural properties. — Michael
Moore, as explained in that quote in my previous comment, and also from his open-question argument: — Michael
Thirdly, Moore held good to be an independent property that stood on its own, like the property yellow or red, and that was identifiable as such. But this could not be the case. A comparison between good and yellow showed that good was always dependent on other properties by reference to which it had to be understood. For instance, it is clearly legitimate to say that x and y are exactly alike save that x is yellow and y is not. It is not legitimate to say that x and y are exactly alike save that x is good and y is not. If x really is good while y is not, this can only be because x and y differ in some other respect. If x is a strawberry it will be good, say, because it is red and juicy, and y will be bad because it is not. — Peter L. P. Simpson, On the Naturalistic Fallacy and St. Thomas, p. 4
In particular, there is widespread agreement that G.E. Moore’s account of goodness in Principia Ethica is a paradigmatically non-naturalist account. Indeed, if a representative sample of contemporary philosophers were asked to name a non-naturalist in meta-ethics then Moore’s name almost certainly would predominate. For better or worse, Moore’s discussion of non-naturalism profoundly shaped 20th century meta-ethics. Thomas Baldwin was not exaggerating much when he claimed that, “twentieth century British ethical theory is unintelligible without reference to Principia Ethica..."
It's belief in what is right that affects what we do. What is actually right doesn't. I don't see how it possibly could.
Hedonism is an example of ethical naturalism. — Michael
No it's not, and I just gave you an argument for why. Are you able to address arguments? — Leontiskos
Ethical naturalism encompasses any reduction of ethical properties, such as 'goodness', to non-ethical properties; there are many different examples of such reductions, and thus many different varieties of ethical naturalism. Hedonism, for example, is the view that goodness is ultimately just pleasure.
One scientific naturalist argument for hedonism is this: in the value domain we should be scientific naturalists in our methods of inquiry; hedonism is the best option in respect of scientific naturalism; therefore, we should be hedonists about value.
Another view that is often closely associated with naturalism is “reductivism.” The reductivist says that moral properties reduce to some other kind of property.
...
We should note at the outset that there is a paradigm example of a reductive view, which is used almost every time a metaethicist discussing reductivism needs a toy example to play with. That paradigm is the hedonic reduction: that goodness is pleasure and therefore reduces to pleasure.
You may have never read an actual philosopher in your life. — Leontiskos
That would make my degree in Philosophy all the more impressive. — Michael
Given that I already believe that this is immoral, what follows if my belief is true and what follows if my belief is false?
In the case of the dead battery, if I believe that the battery is dead then if my belief is true then the car won't run and if my belief is false then the car will run.
Is there anything like this for the case that I believe that eating meat is immoral? Are there consequences to eating meat that
That would make my degree in Philosophy all the more impressive. — Michael
When it comes down to it all you are able to provide are arguments from authority, and this is a problem even ignoring the fact that you are misreading the authorities. — Leontiskos
The name then is perfectly general; for, no matter what the something is that good is held to mean, the theory is still Naturalism. Whether good be defined as yellow or green or blue, as loud or soft, as round or square, as sweet or bitter, as productive of life or productive of pleasure, as willed or desired or felt: whichever of these or of any other object in the world, good may be held to mean, the theory, which holds it to mean them, will be a naturalistic theory. I have called such theories naturalistic because all of these terms denote properties, simple or complex, of some simple or complex natural object.
According to Hedonism one ought pursue pleasure and avoid pain.
That one ought or ought not do such a thing is not accessible to natural science.
Therefore, Hedonism is not naturalistic. — Leontiskos
Now, pleasure is in itself a good; indeed it’s the only good if we set aside immunity from pain; and pain is in itself an evil, and without exception the only evil; or else ‘good’ and ‘evil’ have no meaning!
The consequences of acting immorally would tend to be to make the world shittier, to put it in the simplist terms possible. Because your ordered a veal parm the restaurant is going to order more veal. In the aggregate, the sort of behavior you engage in will lead to many more veal calves leading lives of atrocious suffering, while also contributing to ocean acidification and global warming. — Count Timothy von Icarus
This is like puling teeth. Let's see if I can articulate your argument for you. Your intuition is that there is a problem with the symmetry of belief and truth against is and ought. — Banno
It is not true that John can walk through walls.
Even if John believes that he can walk through walls, he will not be able to. Regardless of John's belief, he will not be able to walk through walls.
The broken symmetry in your intuition is something like this:
Grant me for the sake of the discussion that it is true that we ought not eat meat. Put this in the place of "John can walk through walls" above.
It is not true that John ought eat meat.
The intuition is something like that if John believes he ought eat meat, he will still be able to - unlike walking through the wall. The symmetry is supposedly broken, and hence your claim that it's the belief, not the truth, that makes the difference.
I hope you can see that the substitution here is incomplete. It's not "if John believes he ought eat meat, he will be able to" that results, but "If John believes he ought eat meat, he still ought not"
Anyway, that's were charity leads me in attempting to understand you.
It is in defining goodness in terms of some natural property – in this case, pleasure – that makes it an ethical naturalist theory. And then, according to Moore, deriving the normative claim that we ought pursue pleasure commits the naturalistic fallacy. — Michael
What is the connection between acting immorally and causing suffering? Remember that I'm arguing about the implications of ethical non-naturalism.
Unless you want to say we apprehend moral truths by a faculty such as conscience, perhaps. It just seems there is no role here for moral truths to play - all they do is confer an invisible label that no one can read on actions labelling them 'good' or 'bad'. But for you they are still of practical import, and that's where I am baffled.They play no role in deliberation, they confer no consequences, I'm not sure what function they have.
Treat your wife and kids terribly, only focusing on yourself and you'll end up divorced and no one will come visit you down at the retirement home, where you sit, quite likely tormented by the thoughts of how you could have done things differently. I mean, that scenerio isn't particularly out there, it plays out across the world everyday. You could also consider the drug addict who begins taking advantage of their friends and family, stealing from them, etc. and ends up completely estranged from them. Generally, doing things that people readily identify as evil is going to have very real consequences. People who "get away," with evil to some extent generally have to convince everyone around them that they aren't really being evil. — Count Timothy von Icarus
But you have been shown that this is not correct.But for you they are still of practical import, and that's where I am baffled.They play no role in deliberation, they confer no consequences. — bert1
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