Part of that is that folk do not generally try to force their preference for chocolate on to others. — Banno

I agree, but I think that's just a mistake of analysis ). One has consequences we want to avoid. The other, generally, is trivial. That doesn't really change their status as mere emotional positions, though. Not to put words in your mouth, but does this mean that the level of potential consequence is a yardstick for whether a statement is ethical or not (before sighing and ignoring, check the *)

I want to know what else is going on when someone says "It is wrong to kick pups" (we can ignore the 'command' version, because its exactly the same thing foisted on to another).

If everyone said kicking pups is fine, and we did not have a widespread negative emotional reaction, we wouldn't have the ethic "don't kick pups". It seems some never got the memo anyway... *sigh*.

*

Ethics inherently involves other folk. — Banno

It wants to, definitely, and is framed that way. But, this still doesn't move the needle. Emotional positions on how to treat others v emotional positions on what one wants to do for themselves. I do not understand a difference which would make one ethical and one not, in a sense that changes their truth-aptness or some such. The statement "One ought eat chocolate" reads the same as "One ought not kick pups". "I wouldn't, so you shouldn't" in the latter and "I do, so you should" in the former.

I dunno. The point made, way back, was that claiming ethics to be nothing but an emotional response fails to see what is going on in doing ethics. Sure, we like this and dislike that. But this alone does not explain what we ought do. In much the same way as for the adolescent Nietzsche fanboys hereabouts, one must move on from egoism to consider one's place in a community before one can understand what ethics is about. Folk usually do this in their late teens and mid twenties, with the develpment of the frontal cortex. Of course, not everyone makes that leap. Some stay stuck in a kind of perpetual ethical adolescence, treating morality as nothing more than personal preference or power dynamics. We give them jobs in real estate and banking, to keep them out of trouble.

This doesn't seem like a very serious discussion, at this point. The dedicated emotivist is only committing to rejecting an objective claim to wrongness. I'm more than welcome to agree that stomping babies is bad. That's my position. It doesn't rely on anything but that. I am not committed to saying anything else. It just so happens our emotive positions are the same (I addressed this earlier:

That isn't agreement. I said that "'stomping babies is bad for them ' is an obvious empirical fact of medical science." To say "I agree that stomping babies is bad, but this us only because of how I feel about it," is not to agree with the fact claim made.

So, I take it you actually do disagree with: "stomping babies is bad for them is an obvious empirical fact of medical science."

Second, I don't think emotions spring from the aether uncaused. Human emotions spring from human nature. Certain things are good or bad for humans because of what humans are. This is scientifically verifiable fact. Again, to deny this is to deny that medical science can tell us things like "injecting babies with pesticide is bad for them."

To say: "I agree that 'injecting babies with pesticide is bad for them,' but this is just a statement of emotion and not facts," is not really to agree. It's to deny that it is a scientific fact that injecting babies with pesticide is bad for them, and to say that it is rather a "subjective feeling" held by individuals alone. Which, I think is patently ridiculous, but others disagree.

Now, I suppose an emotivist could grant that there are facts about values, but then deny that morality has anything to do with them. That seems like an odd position though.

And note that a blanket denial of the facticity or truth-aptness of all value claims leads to pretty ridiculous conclusions. It would mean that propositions like:

"Michael Jordan was a better basketball player than your average kindergartner"

...have no truth value because they are statements of value. But that seems prima facie absurd.

But what's the source of agreement here, if not an immediate emotional response. Most likely some form of disgust or anger?

I think it's important to note that people who reject emotivism do not deny that emotion plays a role in motivating people's value statements, nor is the fact that emotion plays a role in ethical decision-making evidence for emotivism. Emotivism is the claim that there is nothing else to statements of value but emotion, that such statements reduce to "hoorah" or "boohoo," but do not involve facts. However, one might as well argue that emotions are determined by facts about value, leading to a non-emotivist conclusion.

So on this view, "it is a fact of medical science that stomping babies is bad for them," being a value statement, would amount to "boohoo for baby stomping," but could not relate a fact or be based upon a fact.

No doubt, if we heard that Russia had just launched all its nuclear weapons at Europe and the US we would have a powerful emotional reaction, but this would not seem to demonstrate that "nuclear war would be bad" reduces to "boohoo for nuclear war," with there being "no fact of the matter," about whether or not nuclear war is actually bad. Likewise, to claim that, at his peak, Michael Jordan was a better basketball player than LeBron James doesn't seem to simply be a statement of "hoorah for Michael Jordan."


Sometimes the emotivist tries to bracket out a sui generis "moral goodness" from other forms of goodness. I think this makes emotivism more plausible, at least at first glance, but I also don't think the distinction is at all appropriate. However, it would at least relieves folks from having to argue that "a Corvette is a better drag racer than a Toyota Prius," has no truth-value, and that our answer would amount to "hoorah/boo-hoo for the Toyota Prius," rather than a statement of fact about which vehicle is better at drag racing.

"'stomping babies is bad for them ' — Count Timothy von Icarus

stomping babies is bad, — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sorry, not the same. The whole ethical problem resides in making that leap. Of course being stomped is bad for a living creature. But why should I care, asks the egoist, as long as it isn't me who's being stomped? I don't believe there are any "scientifically verifiable facts" that will help here.

I never claimed that were the same. Emotivism, at least in most of the forms I am familiar with, claims that all value statements reduce to emotion, not just "universal moral maxims."

But, referring back to our past discussions, this seems to once again be the Enlightenment demand that "if one is to do ethics or aesthetics, or to discuss values at all one must do so in the form of universal maxims."

I don't think this is an appropriate demand. I think one can investigate the "human good" without focusing on universal maxims. Perhaps such a study might produce such maxims. Perhaps not. But I hardly think it is necessary to formulate any statement of the human good in universal maxims in order to say that some things are good, or generally good ceteris paribus, for man.

I don't believe there are any "scientifically verifiable facts" that will help here.

Why? Because it is impossible that there be facts about human nature that demonstrate that it is bad for an egoist to be an egoist?

BTW, an egoist might very well make the same case I am making. Disciples of Rand have long justified rational egoism on empirical grounds for example (i.e., it is truly better for all if we act like rational egoists).

I never claimed that were the same. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Perhaps not intentionally. But it's the obvious conclusion to be drawn from this:

I said that "'stomping babies is bad for them ' is an obvious empirical fact of medical science." To say "I agree that stomping babies is bad, but this is only because of how I feel about it," is not to agree with the fact claim made. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Why would your interlocutor agree that "stomping babies is bad" unless they equated "stomping babies is bad" with "stomping babies is bad for them"?

But you're right, it's somewhat beside the point about emotivism. I wanted to flag it because the gap between "bad = destructive/deleterious/harmful/etc." to "ethically bad" is so often leaped over as if it didn't exist.

I don't believe there are any "scientifically verifiable facts" that will help here.

Why? Because it is impossible that there be facts about human nature that demonstrate that it is bad for an egoist to be an egoist? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Same question here. When you say "bad for an egoist to be an egoist," do you mean harmful/deleterious or morally bad?

Why would your interlocutor agree that "stomping babies is bad" unless they equated "stomping babies is bad" with "stomping babies is bad for them"?

Well, if they are an emotivist, presumably they agree because baby stomping has negative emotional valance for them as well, and for no reason other than this.

The conclusion I was hoping to draw was merely that at least some facts about the human good seem quite obvious, and appear to be empirically verifiable. This is not to suggest that ethics can be reduced to biology, medicine, or "science," but rather than it seems prima facie implausible that there are absolutely no facts about values as respects what is good for man in virtue of his being man.

But I'd also suggest that emotions follow from such facts. And of course, lots of moral realists have a large role for the emotions in ethics. Plato has the"spirited part of the soul," as the key ally of the rational part in ethical life. As Lewis puts it: "In battle it is not syllogisms that will keep the reluctant nerves and muscles to their post in the third hour of the bombardment," but rather spirit and sentiment. Ethical education then, involves habituating the passions and appetites to what is truly good, their alignment with the human good. This is the education, and particularly philosophical education, has had an aesthetic component for most of history.

But you're right, it's somewhat beside the point about emotivism. I wanted to flag it because the gap between "bad = destructive/deleterious/harmful/etc." to "ethically bad" is so often leaped over as if it didn't exist.

I think the post-Reformation presupposition that "moral good" amounts to a sui generis "type of good" distinct from other goods is one of the more deleterious things that has happened in this history of ethics. And with this distinction often comes the demand that the unique "ethical good" be formulated in terms of universal maxims or "laws" (this focus on "laws" is a place where Reformation theology continues to dominate even secular, atheist ethics).

To be sure, what is good sometimes depends on where you stand. When a lion catches a gazelle, it is good for the lion and bad for the gazelle. I think human ethics needs to begin from a consideration of the human good, and it certainly seems like it is possible to say some things with confidence about what is good for man, the good life, happiness, etc.

I would just note that this approach was hardly unique to the Greeks or Romans either, but that a broad virtue approach defines much Buddhist, Hindu, and Chinese thought as well, and it seems far more profitable to me to begin from a consideration of general human excellence rather than trying to bracket off "moral good," particularly if this bracketing is also going to require the extreme precision needed to formulate unimpeachable laws.

It's always funny when a religious person tries to mask "Good and Evil" as "Good and Bad." Sorry, but under the "Good and Bad" system of Virtu, children were regularly killed off to prevent spending limited resources on what was considered a "bad" baby.

The "bad" tend come up with the cheapest tactics in arguments, including "killing a baby is Evil." Well, not always.

Suppose you come upon a screen that shows you a particular contraption... that contraption houses a rabid carnivorous beast on one side, an infant on another... between them is a impenetrable barrier. However, you see a count down begins as you become the observer of this contraption. 120 seconds is on the clock. 119 now... There is only 1 button, and that button blows up the entire contraption, baby and rabid beast.

Waiting out the countdown releases the barrier between beast and baby to which the beast would eviscerate the baby alive, a very painful and traumatic way of dying although it would be fast, the baby would experience unimaginable pain and suffering...

Or you can blow up the contraption, saving the baby from unimaginable pain and suffering. Killing it in an instant.

What do you do?

the demand that the unique "ethical good" be formulated in terms of universal maxims or "laws" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, this is a further step that need not necessarily be taken. Lewis' quote about courage highlights what I would say next: Universal maxims or discursive reasoning in general may not be what's required in order to transform the ethical egoist (or, I suppose, the emotivist, though I haven't given serious thought to them) into an ethically solid character. After all, a well-known authority on the subject urged, "You must be born again," and preached compassion and mercy, not rational ethics. In fact . . . metanoia is all about noesis, isn't it?

it certainly seems like it is possible to say some things with confidence about what is good for man, the good life, happiness, etc. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure, but you and I have talked about this before, and the tragedy is that none of these things we might say can have any bearing for the person who simply replies, "I couldn't care less about what's good for 'man' or the good life or what most people think is happiness. I challenge you, since you're such a fan of reasoning, to give me a single reason why I should."

Universal maxims or discursive reasoning in general may not be what's required in order to transform the ethical egoist (or, I suppose, the emotivist, though I haven't given serious thought to them) into an ethically solid character. After all, a well-known authority on the subject urged, "You must be born again," and preached compassion and mercy, not rational ethics. In fact . . . metanoia is all about noesis, isn't it?

I think that's exactly right. A more deflated view of reason tends to "democratize" things, devaluing the role of praxis and progress. Yet in so much ethical thought praxis is the focus, and what must come prior to understanding.

Yet if man suffers from a "darkened nous," then the healing of the nous (accomplished through ascetic practice) has to come prior to a fuller understanding. I think there is an overlap here between Patristic understandings and post-modern critiques of epistemic institutions (e.g. the natural sciences, educational institutions, journalism, etc.). So long as there is still a "civil war in the soul" (Plato), or we are trapped in the "Wheel of Suffering" or "slavery in spiritual Egypt," and beset by the passions and appetites, our epistemic efforts will corrupted by our orientation towards various other goods (i.e. not the good of true understanding).

Post-modern criticism tends to look at economic interests, or the prerogatives of gender/racial identity, which corrupt judgement, but it's easy to see how these critiques could be more broadly applied at the individual level. E.g., the body builder with some level of body dysmorphia might be very intelligent and knowledgeable about steroids and stimulants, and nonetheless have their understanding clouded by their passions when considering the health risks and benefits involved.



Indeed, but I don't really see this as anymore of a challenge to ethics than persistent "flat-Earthers" are a challenge to geography.

Sometimes, it's presented as: "if we had a scientific demonstration that x was good, people would agree and do it." This appears to be Sam Harris's assumption in large parts of The Moral Landscape. I think this is obviously not the case. We have very good evidence that smoking leads to lung disease and dental issues. Smokers agree that they don't want bad teeth and lung disease, and that smoking is going to cause them to end up with these. Yet they often don't stop smoking. The same is true for unhealthy eating. Others claim these things aren't really (that) bad for us, perhaps "the darkening of the nous by the passions."

I suppose that points back to the importance of practice. Orthodox thought tends to rely heavily on medical imagery. Man is in need of healing. And sometimes illnesses themselves lead us to be unaware of our sickness (e.g. the person with a head injury who doesn't know they are acting strangely). Likewise, sometimes people doubt the treatment, and so they don't follow the doctors' advice.

The theme of "living by example" is very big in the East though. The paradigmatic example is the Desert Fathers and Mothers, who didn't run out into the desert to become authorities and teachers, but rather became authorities and teachers because of what was accomplished in the desert, which was recognized by visitors, who then told others who also came seeking wisdom (some tellings of Laozi in the wilderness are similar, or the more well documented life of Saint Francis). "You will know them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:16).

I suppose the above also gets into notions of "virtue epistemology," not just virtue ethics. Perhaps a broader question would be: "is philosophy—the love of wisdom—primarily about discursive reasoning?"

Now, on the one hand, I think the person who answers in the affirmative has a strong case, in that they can point to what virtually all professional philosophers spend all their time doing. At the same, this wasn't always the case, the Christian and Buddhist monastic traditions being the most obvious examples. Kneeling in your cell and repeating "the Logos is without beginning or end," until all your sense of desire and self-will dissolve isn't really discursive reasoning. As Hadot and others have documented, "spiritual exercises" and asceticism were also major components of pagan philosophy and education as well.

Which leads to the question, how important is such "praxis" for doing philosophy (or theology)? Or ethics in particular? Either past practices were quite misguided or current ones are.

I think that's exactly right. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Glad you agree.

the tragedy is that none of these things we might say can have any bearing for the person who simply replies, "I couldn't care less about what's good for 'man' or the good life or what most people think is happiness. I challenge you, since you're such a fan of reasoning, to give me a single reason why I should. — J

Indeed, but I don't really see this as anymore of a challenge to ethics than persistent "flat-Earthers" are a challenge to geography. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't think we can take that attitude. We're assuming that there are compelling reasons we can give a flat-earther that should convince them they're wrong, so if they aren't convinced, something else is going on that is ir- or non-rational. And I think that's right. But can we really say the same about the egoist? What are these compelling reasons we can give them -- not the reasons why behavior X or virtue Y is 'good for man', but the reasons why it should matter to the egoist, why they should change their mind about what they want to do?

You're hoping to box the egoist into the same corner that the flat-earther finds themselves in: the only way to deny the reasons is to deny reasoning itself. But what is the knockdown argument here? I wish it were as simple as "doing wicked things is bad for you, like smoking is bad for your lungs" but I hope you agree that the evidence for this, if any, is hardly knockdown. And besides, I've known many a smoker whose attitude is, "Yes, I know it's bad for my health but I enjoy smoking enough that I'm willing to pay the price." Are they being irrational? Is the egoist being irrational when they say, more or less, the same thing?

That's apparent. But seems to me that someone's preference for chocolate over vanilla is different to their thinking it wrong to kick pups. Part of that is that folk do not generally try to force their preference for chocolate on to others. Ethics inherently involves other folk. — Banno

It's certainly true that judgements of moral value are different from tastes. Part, at least, of the difference is that we don't censure people who disagree with our tastes in the way that we censure those who disagree with us about moral values - and, yes, sometimes we enforce our values on others. But I've been wondering for a while now what happened to tolerance? It's all very well to discuss what "we" (humanity in general, people in Western Democracies, "right-thinking" people) agree on. But disagreements about moral are very common. Surely, sometimes, it is perfectly reasonable to accept differences of opinion? How do we distinguish those cases from simple questions of taste?

The dedicated emotivist is only committing to rejecting an objective claim to wrongness. — AmadeusD

So how do you distinguish between moral values and questions of taste? We happily accept that some people prefer red to white wine and vice versa, but we don't allow the same liberty to puppy-kickers. The objectivist will have an explanation. Does an emotivist even recognize the question?

Which leads to the question, how important is such "praxis" for doing philosophy (or theology)? Or ethics in particular? Either past practices were quite misguided or current ones are. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is interesting and of course contentious. I separate most of my ethical and spiritual practices from philosophy, precisely because it is very helpful to have a domain in which rationality has the last word, and we call this domain "philosophy." One can then bring one's specifically philosophical insights to bear on the other areas of one's life, and vice versa. But no two philosophers are exactly alike in this regard, seems to me.

Well, first I'd just point out that most people who embrace outlandish conspiracy theories don't reject reason. They see themselves as paragons of epistemic virtue and the "sheep" as the poor reasoners.

And besides, I've known many a smoker whose attitude is, "Yes, I know it's bad for my health but I enjoy smoking enough that I'm willing to pay the price." Are they being irrational? Is the egoist being irrational when they say, more or less, the same thing?

And so long as someone is being "rational" they are infallible as to what is truly in their in own best interest? If there is a fact of the matter about whether or not smoking is truly better for the smoker than quitting (even if this reduces to "what they would have preferred to have chosen in the future") then it seems entirely possible that someone could be "rational" and wrong.

IDK, it seems like a sort of Humean anti-realism has to be assumed for this to be a real problem, i.e., that what is good for individuals ultimately comes down to inchoate current desire.

Manosphere writers and "pick-up artist" types tend to be very rationalistic in their justifications for womanizing and adopting an entirely transactional view of human relationships, what with their constant appeals to evolutionary psychology. If someone suggests to one: "you would be happier in a loving relationship, something like Aristotle's"friendship of the good," as opposed to intentionally manipulating people in predatory "friendships of utility,'" are they necessarily giving bad advice if our womanizer doesn't currently see things that way and can produce reasons for this judgement?

I don't think so at least.



Yes but the consistent rebuttal from the Stoics to the post-moderns is that this "bracketing" isn't successful without praxis. The passions just slip in through the back door and make reason their servant.

But I agree, and I don't think we would want to say that praxis removes the need for discourse or reason. Indeed, discourse can be seen as a sort of praxis. Praxis is rather an aid to reason, not a replacement.

And so long as someone is being "rational" they are infallible as to what is truly in their in own best interest? — Count Timothy von Icarus

But putting it this way begs the question against the individual. Let's call them the Smoker for convenience. You're assuming that avoiding the risk of smoking-related death is in the best interest of the Smoker, and that they don't or won't see this. Most people certainly see it that way. But by making that assumption, you don't allow the Smoker to hold the position they in fact do hold (at least this particular person I'm talking about, who is far from imaginary). The Smoker's position is, "Look, I know all about what I'm risking. I get it that most people don't see it my way. But it just so happens that I like smoking so much that I'll accept the trade-off. You say, 'That's not in your best interest.' OK, explain to me why living a life I don't want to live -- as a non-smoker -- is in my best interest, especially if I'm perfectly willing to die young in order not to do so." The example becomes more compelling with, say, opiates rather than tobacco.

I don't see how it begs any question unless we're assuming that people are infallible about what is best for them.

You're assuming that avoiding the risk of smoking-related death is in the best interest of the Smoker, and that they don't or won't see this.

No I'm not. I'm saying there is a fact of the matter about which will be truly better for them. I might very well be wrong. But you seem to be suggesting that, so long as they are being reasonable, they cannot be wrong? If 10 years later they tell me "I wish I had listened to you," is it not fair to say that I was correct in this case?

I don't get that at all. Maybe someone tells me: "I want to go to Russia right now, I'd love to see the Winter Palace."

I tell them "don't do that, you work for the State Department and they are definitely going to kidnap you, throw you in prison on trumped up charges, and hold you as a hostage."

They, knowing Russia well, have their reasons for thinking this won't happen to them. They are being 'rational' (which doesn't presuppose they aren't also deluding themselves in some way.)

But there will be a fact of the matter here. Either they will get kidnapped or they won't. If they get kidnapped, and presumably have a horrible time spending 5 years in Siberia, then I had a better idea about what was to their advantage than they did. Yet we frequently do delude ourselves. That's why people often seek advice. It's far from clear to me that individuals have special epistemic status about what is in their best interests. Maybe they are wise, maybe they aren't. Indeed, we don't let children or adolescents make all their own choices precisely because we don't think they would make choices in their own best interests, and yet I hardly think turning 18 radically alters this.

Indeed, with the smoker, I would think that it is the person who has gone through chemo and a lung transplant, or the person who has successfully quit, if anyone, who has special epistemic status vis-á-vis a the relative benefits of smoking, not the person who has yet to experience any of the downsides.

OK, let's take this step by step, if you don't mind, as the argument is somewhat complicated.

For starters, here are three statements (call this "the flat-earth analogy"):

1. There is a fact of the matter about whether using a dangerous and life-shortening drug could ever be in one's best interest.

2. And the fact is: That is not possible.

3. So anyone who asserts that it is in their best interest is wrong.

Have I understood you correctly so far?

No, I would say there is a fact of the matter as to whether some particular individual would benefit from quitting smoking.

Sort of like how you might suggest that someone could benefit from yoga or pyschotherapy without believing that all people would benefit from these. Or "therapy with MDMA can be great for some people," but "probably not for the person recovering from an addiction to similar stimulants."

I do happen to believe that it's true that at least most smokers would benefit from quitting, but that's sort of beside the point, and I might be wrong anyhow.

I hope it doesn't seem as if I'm quibbling, but . . . you've made a change in the terminology that needs to be brought out. You write:

there is a fact of the matter as to whether some particular individual would benefit from quitting smoking. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But my question concerned whether such an individual, in continuing to smoke, could ever be said to be acting in their best interest.

"Benefitting from something" is not the same as "acting in one's best interest," wouldn't you agree? It's important in this case because the smoker is going to want to say, "Yes, I'm quite aware that continuing to smoke isn't a benefit in the way you mean it. But nonetheless I consider to be in my best interest, because I don't rate the benefits the same way you do."

Once we get clear about that, we can look at the difference you're proposing between saying that we have reason to believe all people act in their best interest by quitting smoking, versus saying that we have reason to believe one particular individual does.

You can swap in best interest there. I don't think it's the case that people have infallible judgement as to what is in their own best interest. I think it's quite easy to find examples where it is obvious that people are fallible as to what is in their own best interest, even when they are "acting reasonably."

I don't think it's the case that people have infallible judgement as to what is in their own best interest. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Quite right. We're trying to understand a case in which the person asks for a reason why they are wrong. What must we say to them?

I said your argument was question-begging because you appeared to start from the premise that the smoker had to be wrong, and then used that to show that they are wrong. But now that you've clarified what you meant, we can move on.

What we want to know now is, How can the fact of the matter related to this particular individual, Smoker, be determined? We'll need to know that, if we're going to answer their demand for a reason why smoking is not in their best interest. They say it is, you say it is not. (Or so I assume; I suppose you could be agnostic on the question, while still claiming that their reason can't hold up, but let's ignore that wrinkle for the time being.) And our ultimate goal is to discover whether it's possible to be both rational and wrong about a matter like this.

So . . . how would you propose to determine the fact of the matter concerning whether Smoker is acting in their best interest?

So on this view, "it is a fact of medical science that stomping babies is bad for them," being a value statement, would amount to "boohoo for baby stomping," but could not relate a fact or be based upon a fact. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Again, I know little about emotivism. I read up a little since my last post, mostly because I found it hard to believe that emotivism has no theories to deal with stuff like that. I came across, for instance, Stevenson's first/second pattern analysis, but I haven't thought this through enough to be comfortable talking about this. Instead, I'll just go with my intuition: what if Dawnstorm were an emotivist?

First, that stomping babies is bad for them is not a scientific fact; it's probably a medical one. Science is to some degree at least supposed to be as value neutral as possible, but it does need its cues, as for what to do. Medicine, as a social institution, is meant to heal people, so that sets a context that sort of defines good and bad; as in health is good. This is taken from a greater social context: you ought to act in such a way that you stay healthy. And so on. So, yes, I do think it's true that "stomping babies is a fact of medicinal science" if you follow the traces of social values.

If I were an emotivist, I'd likely intutitively see the anchoring of social values during the primary socialisation as the fundamental process here. Beyond socialistion, though, there's a visceral, non-social reaction to being stomped, which I, as a baby, would express through crying (at least as long as I still can). It's not just one emotion; it's a bundle. And that bundle develops. It would not be the case that there's a simple one-to-one relation between any particular emotion and any one particular action. By the time we're able to act it's already far to complex for that.

Nevertheless, emotions don't just motivate moral statements. I don't even trust moral statements to do justice to the underlying bundle of emotions that tag you into your larger social context. And I do think that there are social facts that transcend any such time-space bound emotional bundle. As an emotivist, I'd first have to be a methodological individualist: I'd have to de-emphasise the social context in favour of emotional growth. I'd need a theory of how rationality ties into this. And so on. What would remain the same, though: moral statements are surface phenomena, secondary to lived social praxis. And values are the basic motivational structure of an agent - emotions.

One thing I'm not sure about is this: I don't think values/emotion is a one way road. "Value <--> Emotion" rather than "Emotion --> Value". That is because both your visceral emotions and your social-belonging derived emotions are constrained by facts: about (a) social realities, (b) biological bodies, and (c) biographic actions you've taken (even if by mistake, such as "stepping on someone's foot").

Still, I'm not sure I couldn't make it work. At the very least, I don't find that your argumentations dissuade me away from emotivism.

For example:

But you seem to be suggesting that, so long as they are being reasonable, they cannot be wrong? If 10 years later they tell me "I wish I had listened to you," is it not fair to say that I was correct in this case? — Count Timothy von Icarus

What I consider the facts here is simply that present me (I'm taking the role of the smoker) and past+present-you currently agree. But past-me probably saw this coming. What we'd need here is a theory that crosses the temporal divide: past me didn't have to suffer health problems, and present me didn't have to live a life without smoking. The different temporal positions give an obvious bias towards the present situation (which is emotionally more acute). One could say that present me has eaten well, but doesn't want to pay, for example. How do you mediate (theoretically) between the two positions? Yeah, you correctly predicted the present situation, but so did past me. It's even possible that, back then, I took this into account. Does our current agreement constitute a moral fact?

Here I imagine some random passerby overhearing the exchange and taking this as an impetus to quit smoking. A future self made more vivid by current example provided at an opportune moment in the biography. A story to be told to friends who notice he finally quit. This is the reality we live in. We're not unique - we identify with others, we imagine future outcomes one way or another, then what we didn't imagine happens and we imagine our past selves through this lense. But emotions are sort of fundamental to all these imaginings.

So we make decisions to take the bad with the good (because pure good is rare), and then when it's time to "pay up" we wish we didn't have to pay. Not such a rare occurance, and there are plenty of recipes to deal with this: askesis, the middle way... You're not going to invent the wheel. You can also just come to terms: I made my bed, so to speak.

But what's the overall theory here - when priorities change? What's the temporal aspect of morality. I don't see this as a problem for the emotivist; but I feel you have to address this if you want to say that you are "right" in this situation.

Any declaration can be made compatible with any theory with the addition of suitable ad hoc hypotheses.

I do much prefer literalism. Especially over sophistry. — Banno

Meaning is use. How do you suggest the Hebrew Bible is interpreted by those who use it? If it is that you believe they read the words and just offer the meaning from that, you are wrong.

If your auto insurance policy says your liability limits in Georgia are $20,000, what then are those limits? The answer is $25,000. Odd.

Something else must be controlling, right. Perhaps the statute that requires minimum limits of $25,000 regardless of agreement.

Genocide" is not so easy to pin down as head-stomping. What says the "moral force"? Do we need "Moral Jedi" to do the interpretation? — Banno

If there is no moral force, then it's wrong if we say it's wrong. Just like head stomping. Right if we say it's right

Perhaps so. Yet rigorously identifying an out-of-tune note still depends on someone knowing how to do it. And identifying the aesthetic quality of music is learnt and requires practice. — Ludwig V

Out of tune notes can be detected by electronic devices. We all think some music is better (aesthetically) than other music, but it remains that there is no objective measure.

That's my impression as well. So I would have thought that identifying Enlightened people was a special case of identifying someone state of mind (mood) - anxiety, joy, etc. That's not like identifying the Word of God. And you need to learn how to do that from someone else who knows. It's a social/cultural tradition. — Ludwig V

So, again there is no absolute measure. We can identify someone's state off mind, but there is always the possibility of convincing fakery. Same for identifying enlightenment. Also, it's not clear exactly what the purported enlightened state consists in. Is it a permanent state of ecstasy? Or is it simply an invincible state of equanimity? Considering neuroscience and the discovered role of neurotransmitters on mood and disposition, and the reality of dopamine and serotonin depletion, are permanent states of mind even possible?

So, I would say there is no way of definitively identifying whether someone is enlightened or even what enlightenment is. That's not so different from identifying whether something really is the word of god as far as I can tell. I agree that these matters are "social/cultural traditions", but it follows that they cannot be absolute, as is usually claimed by adherents, but are culturally relative.

They cannot be taught like a mathematical calculation, which is a matter of drills and habits. But they are certainly learned and the reports of practitioners is that some people can help that process. It's a different kind of teaching for a different kind of skill. Perhaps we should not say that they are taught, but acquired through practice and that more experienced or expert practitioners can foster that process. — Ludwig V

It is true that aesthetic appreciation and creativity can be cultivated, but since there is no objective way of identifying when they are present or of knowing just what they are, their presence or absence or degree remains a matter of personal taste, so I agree with you that the claim that they can reliably be taught is implausible. If an aspirant believes that a teacher is an "expert practitioner" then that may indeed foster their process of development, but so might other means of inspiration.

I remember reading a quote from a famous poet. I can't remember who it was, but he was addressing a question from one of his students: 'How can I tell whether my poetry is any good?". The answer was, "If you need to know that then being a poet is not for you".

That isn't agreement. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It is. I am really unsure hwo you're saying it's not, and I've full understood the rest of your comment. I agree, stomping babies is bad. Whether it's for them or not doesn't change the fact that my assent to that notion is actually what matters. "Stomping babies is medically bad for them" would be an empirical fact. And yep, that's also clearly true.

So, I take it you actually do disagree with: "stomping babies is bad for them is an obvious empirical fact of medical science." — Count Timothy von Icarus

You'll now be able to see that this isn't what was claimed previously. I agree with this (well, I notice this fact, rather).

Again, to deny this is to deny that medical science can tell us things like "injecting babies with pesticide is bad for them." — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, not at all. You are mixing up ethical claims with empirical claims. Ethics are, patently, not medical facts. Whether or not something being medically bad is actually bad for them is the question ethics needs to deal with. And i'm taking it you have no problem with saying ok fine, everyone agrees with that though, so what's the point? The point is that nothing supports that conclusion other than the universal agreement on it. Even that isn't 100% due to neuro-weirdnesses. Facts in the world are not ethical statements. I would not have thought we could still be mixing those up.

It's to deny that it is a scientific fact that injecting babies with pesticide is bad for them — Count Timothy von Icarus

But not an ethical one. Perhaps this is explains my incredulity in the above.

Now, I suppose an emotivist could grant that there are facts about values, but then deny that morality has anything to do with them. That seems like an odd position though. — Count Timothy von Icarus

They could, but you have not painted one into a corner that requires it. Your position mixes up facts and values. Being "bad for" someone, bare, is what you would need to show is self-evident. But it's not. It's bad medically/physically. I am taking a relatively linguistic position here, but allowing that a mere blank space to suffice for ab objective moral/ethic would be a much odder position that to accept, but be brutally uncomfortable with the fact (on my view) that there are no moral facts. My intuition tells me there must be. It is not an easy thing to have both of these things floating around.

First, that stomping babies is bad for them is not a scientific fact; it's probably a medical one. Science is to some degree at least supposed to be as value neutral as possible, but it does need its cues, as for what to do. Medicine, as a social institution, is meant to heal people, so that sets a context that sort of defines good and bad; as in health is good. This is taken from a greater social context: you ought to act in such a way that you stay healthy. And so on. So, yes, I do think it's true that "stomping babies is a fact of medicinal science" if you follow the traces of social values.

Is medicine not a science? What about botany, zoology, or biology more generally, which have notions of health, harm, goal-directedness, function, etc. that all involve value? What about all the social sciences? Psychology, economics, criminology, political science, etc.? These often deal with values rather explicitly.

IMHO, the demand that "real science" be "valueless science" will tend to lead towards a No True Scotsman fallacy as to what constitutes a "real science," if the emotivist goes down that route (i.e., presupposing that if a science involves value, it is not really a science). Then again, maybe they have to take this path, since a strict emotivist would also have to claim that all the value claims of these sciences are "just emotional appeals," which also doesn't seem like a good conclusion.

I would say that science tries to remain objective, not necessarily "free of value." That truth is preferable to falsify, that sounds arguments are better than appeals to emotion, that the pursuit of truth is more desirable than falsifying your data to meet your aims, etc. are all statements of value that science cannot live without.

Whereas, IMO, if we go in the direction of "science says the universe is meaningless and valueless" we have left science for the realm of (often quite dogmatic) philosophy, and at any rate "emotivism must be true because 'science says' goodness doesn't exist," seems to be a pretty hard case to make, no?

But to return to medicine, are the value statements of medicine just statements of emotion? If we are to stick to a strick emotivism, they have to be. Yet, for my part, I hardly want to say that both sides of something like the anti-vaccine debate are just speaking about their emotions, etc.

One thing I'm not sure about is this: I don't think values/emotion is a one way road. "Value <--> Emotion" rather than "Emotion --> Value". That is because both your visceral emotions and your social-belonging derived emotions are constrained by facts: about (a) social realities, (b) biological bodies, and (c) biographic actions you've taken (even if by mistake, such as "stepping on someone's foot").

Still, I'm not sure I couldn't make it work. At the very least, I don't find that your argumentations dissuade me away from emotivism

This doesn't seem like emotivism anymore though. In this case, moral statements wouldn't just be expressions of emotion or sentiment ("boo-hoo" or "hoorah.")

That emotion is involved (even deeply) in our value statements is not the thesis of emotivism. Plato agreed with that. The emotivist thesis is that there is nothing else, no facts, to moral statements, just expressions of sentiments. But there is a common fallacy in discussions, both here and even in academia, that somehow showing that emotion is involved in value judgements, or even inextricably linked to them, somehow is solid evidence of emotivism. It isn't. If emotivism is to be a unique thesis, it's that there is nothing but emotion (no facts) related to value statements, not that emotion plays a role in moral statements.

But what's the overall theory here - when priorities change? What's the temporal aspect of morality. I don't see this as a problem for the emotivist; but I feel you have to address this if you want to say that you are "right" in this situation.

Well, let me just start by asking, can people ever be wrong about their own choices? Or are we always infallible as to our own choices as respects what is best for us, and if we later regret our choices they are only bad choices for some "future us" but not bad choices for the "us" when we decided to make them?

If we can never be wrong about what is good for us, I don't think there can be any value in philosophy or introspection. Whatever we choose is right because we currently desire to choose it (so long as we always do only what we want). But I think this is pretty clearly not always the case. A last shot of tequila isn't good for me when I drink it at 3 AM, but bad when I awake five hours later with a terrible hangover. And it isn't good and bad for different people, past me and future me.

Yet if this is the case, and someone had said to me "it would not be good for you to drink that tequila," it seems obvious that they would be right (and that I would be wrong if I insisted on drinking it).

The time valuing question is interesting. I have thought of it before. There are all sorts of interesting issues there. For one, in the case of the smoker, the young smoker is epistemically in a much worse place to judge the relative suffering of chemotherapy, having their teeth pulled, and having great difficulty breathing, whereas both the older and younger one probably have about equal epistemic status as to the suffering of having to quit smoking and to go without it (indeed, the future cancer patient has probably had to quit smoking already and lived without smoking). Smoking is an interesting case because neither I, nor any of the people I know who have quit, particularly miss it (maybe some social elements of it), but perhaps some people really do enjoy it immensely.

Yet I think the time value question is only really relevant if we're committed to a certain sort of ethics, something like utilitarianism. On this view, the person who successfully quits smoking in March and then gets hit by a bus and killed in June has perhaps simply missed out on some utils of pleasure and "lived a worse life."

On other views of ethics I think the timing issue becomes much less of a problem. In particular, while there might very well be people who make hyper-rational judgements in favor of smoking, I think I can speak for the vast majority of nicotine addicts in saying that we don't quit because it is unpleasant and we have a strong appetite for the drug, not because we think it is a wholly rational pursuit (and we might very well delude ourselves as to the relative health risks as well, this sort of thing is common after all, and well documented in psychology and medicine). Yet, if we have an ethics that prizes self-determination and our capacity to "choose what we think is truly best," regardless of hardships, and the capacity to submit the appetites and passions to the shaping of reason (of what we think is truly best; Plato's image of the charioteer of reason training the horses of the passions and appetites in the Phaedrus), then it will be a victory for us to be able to overcome our appetites in this way (even as a sort of ascetic training), even if Lady Fortuna intervenes and we get hit by a bus in June. I suppose it depends on the value that one puts on reflexive/internal freedom in ethics as opposed to pleasure/pain.

It is. I am really unsure hwo you're saying it's not, and I've full understood the rest of your comment. I agree, stomping babies is bad. Whether it's for them or not doesn't change the fact that my assent to that notion is actually what matters. "Stomping babies is medically bad for them" would be an empirical fact. And yep, that's also clearly true.

Yes, it's an empirical fact about what is good or bad for humans. Hence, an empirical fact about value. To say, "yes, but it cannot possibly be an 'ethical fact' because it is an empirical fact," is, IMHO just question begging for the emotivist. It's to set: "there are no empirical facts about value," up as a presupposition, and then when this is revealed to be implausible, to retreat to "there are no empirical facts about 'ethical value.'"

My challenge would be: what makes medical facts about the human good "non-ethical?" They certainly seem ethical to me. They seem related to the human good and human happiness, which are the subject of ethics.

I am certainly aware that, from the Enlightenment on, thinkers have indeed separated "moral good," from all other sorts of good. IMHO, this is a grave mistake that leads to emotivism. But I also don't think there are compelling arguments for this separation. It was made on largely theological grounds. Protestant voluntarist theology was uncomfortable with the idea that anything could be good or bad for things "by nature" because this would seem to constrain divine freedom (as well as Euthyphro dilemma concerns about 'God having to do what is Good, and the Good thus being above God.') Hence, it broke off "moral good," as a discrete sphere of goodness.

This isn't how ethics worked for most of history though, in or out of the West. The human good was investigated empirically, just as the good of sheep is investigated by the shepherd in this way.

Strangely, this theological division seems to remain extremely dominant precisely in atheist philosophy, although maybe that makes sense since some forms of atheism just seem like the old voluntarist theology with man swapped in for God as the sui generis source of all meaning and value in the universe.

No, not at all. You are mixing up ethical claims with empirical claims. Ethics are, patently, not medical facts. Whether or not something being medically bad is actually bad for them is the question ethics needs to deal with. And i'm taking it you have no problem with saying ok fine, everyone agrees with that though, so what's the point? The point is that nothing supports that conclusion other than the universal agreement on it. Even that isn't 100% due to neuro-weirdnesses. Facts in the world are not ethical statements. I would not have thought we could still be mixing those up.

See above. I would need to be convinced that a study of the human good cannot involve empirical facts. You seem to be taking "there are no facts about (ethical) values" as a starting point." But that seems just be assuming the very thing in question.

Medicine certainly seems to tell us something about the human good and human happiness. So does psychology. Either these deal in facts or they don't. I think it's pretty obvious that they do deal in facts.

I'd agree that an "ethical good," that is cut off from all empirical realities in inchoate. It's essentially the castration of the Good. But that's precisely why it is a terrible move for ethics.The emotivists' case is made easy for them by Enlightenment ethics, which allows for the presuppositions that ethics is not about the happiness of man, but rather about some sort of mysterious "moral good."

Whether or not something being medically bad is actually bad for them is the question ethics needs to deal with. — AmadeusD

Being "bad for" someone, bare, is what you would need to show is self-evident. But it's not. — AmadeusD

This is more or less the same point I was making. "Being against my best interest" is an ethical term; "being medically bad for me" is a scientific term. The two almost always coincide. But if someone says they do not, in their particular case, they could be right. They could also be wrong, of course, but the point is that it's an open question that needs to be decided by some other means than an equation of medical with ethical terms that claims self-evidence.