You did not respond to the claim that food is (deemed) good by all. — Leontiskos

It was an unreasonable claim in teh discussion. That is simply not how food is characterized. It is necessary to survive. Colloquially referring to this as 'good' is a psychological trick and not an ethical claim. Come on now.

I assume you agree — Leontiskos

Yessir - I wasn't purposefully dodging it. My response was tactical and addressing that wasn't needed.

3. If so, are those rhymes and reasons altogether different than those which guide other people's acts — Leontiskos

Bit of a non sequitur going on here. I would want to know your motivation from 2 to 3 there - or perhaps, what you would expect one to say and what you think that might mean.

The good is arbitrary. There is no arbiter. There are things people like, and things people don't like. The pervasiveness of any given view doesn't lend it any supremacy in a meta conversation about it's worth. It works. That doesn't say anything about its rightness. It should be clear from my babblings on any of these sorts of threads that I'm not entirely comfortable emotionally/intuitively with this. I'm much closer to wanting somethign in the realm of waht I feel you're failing to support. But, intellectually it's pretty simple to me - there is no arbiter of good and bad. For htis reason, either we need to change the conversation into something more subjective but still somehow measurable (i.e something like individual desire divided by the general harm/good it would do for the chosen cultural goals of that time and place in question) to talk ab out how best to act in given times and palces or to simply accept that ethics is properly a conversation about how conflicting views of good and bad must cooperate.

Equating the two just muddies the waters. — Tom Storm

Saying, “That seems like faulty reasoning to me,” is not a substantial argument. If you want to demonstrate an equivocation, then you must identify the two different term-concepts being used and show that they are relevantly different. If you want to contest a claim about airplanes, then you ultimately have to give your definition of faith, show how that definition does not apply to airplanes, and then be prepared to defend your own definition.

The airplane analogy does not strike me as ideal, but consider this story. I have a friend who is very non-religious. When she gets on an airplane, she closes her eyes and says, “I believe it can fly, I believe it can fly, I believe it can fly!” She tells the person seated next to her that if you don’t believe, then it won’t work. She is joking, of course, but she is not making an anti-religious dig. She is just having a bit of fun, and it would not be funny if there were nothing true about it. She has no idea how airplanes fly. She has no first-hand knowledge of, “Engineering protocols, air traffic control systems, and black boxes.” And you probably don’t, either. Scientists themselves continue to dispute the explanation for lift. In fact there are a surprising number of people who avoid flying. If you ask them why, they might literally tell you something about a lack of trust/faith in airplanes. For all these reasons, the word “faith” is naturally suited to airplanes, and it seems like your dispute may be with the English dictionary and English language use rather than with the word ‘faith’. The prima facie evidence is certainly against your view that the word ‘faith’ is not applicable to air travel, given the way in which it is spontaneously used in that context. If space travel becomes popularly accessible the word ‘faith’ will be naturally applied in that context even more than it is applied to air travel. Using ‘faith’ in such contexts is surely not an equivocal use, as the difference between the money bank and the river bank is.

That fits with my experience, for I have found that polemical atheists always beg the question with regard to the concept of faith. I usually let them define the word, show them that they themselves are committed to such a concept, and then wait for them to renege on their definition, which they always do. It’s not surprising that their belief that the word or concept of “faith” only ever operates in religious contexts is impossible to sustain. This is because the polemical atheist uses “faith” as a purely pejorative term, when in fact in common use it is not a purely pejorative term. . If the atheist abandons pejoration and tries to define it in a serious way then he will inevitably lose his debate. In reality the distinction between the religious and the non-religious is not nearly as simplistic as such an atheist wants to believe.

Note that the pejorative argument looks like this:

1. Religious faith is irrational
2. Faith in airplanes is not irrational
3. Therefore, faith in airplanes is not religious faith – there is an equivocation occurring

That’s all these atheists are doing in their head to draw the conclusion about an equivocation, and this argument is the foundation of any argument that is built atop it.

-

We can actually parallel the two propositions quite easily:

1. Lack of faith, lack of assent
   
   • 1a. “I do not have faith that the airplane will fly, and I do not assent to the proposition that the airplane will fly.”
   • 1b. “I do not have faith that God exists, and I do not assent to the proposition that God exists.”
2. Lack of faith, presence of assent
   
   • 2a. “I do not have faith that the airplane will fly, but I assent to the proposition that the airplane will fly.”
   • 2b. “I do not have faith that God exists, but I assent to the proposition that God exists.”
3. Presence of faith, presence of assent (where assent flows solely from faith)
   
   • 3a. “I have faith that the airplane will fly, and I assent to the proposition that the airplane will fly (and my assent is based solely on my faith).”
   • 3b. “I have faith that God exists, and I assent to the proposition that God exists (and my assent is based solely on my faith).”
4. Presence of faith which is not necessary for assent (overdetermination)
   
   • 4a. “I have faith that the airplane will fly, but I would assent even if I did not have faith.”
   • 4b. “I have faith that God exists, but I would assent even if I did not have faith.”

A fear of flying attaches to 1a. Atheism attaches to 1b. Tom Storm’s approach to flying is represented by 2a. My approach to God's existence is represented by 2b. And as said, 3b is a more recent phenomenon. 3a can characterize flying, but it would also tend to characterize the non-professional who is traveling in space or is traveling in a deep sea submarine.

This helps show why it is wrong to assume that faith necessarily attaches or necessarily does not attach to a material proposition. In fact the same proposition can be held with different modes of assent. 2a is not the only possibility for airplanes, and 1b/3b are not the only possibilities for God.

(As I recall, Josef Pieper's treatise on faith is rather good on this question. The beginning can be found <here>.)

It was an unreasonable claim in teh discussion. That is simply not how food is characterized. It is necessary to survive. — AmadeusD

So you are claiming that food isn't good, it is necessary to survive. But I would point out that people call food good in part because it is necessary to survive. Both are true at the same time. And food is a sound counterexample to your claim that good is arbitrary and that what is good for a Christian is different from what is good for a Muslim. If Christians and Muslims both deem food good then that claim is false.

Bit of a non sequitur going on here. — AmadeusD

You are avoiding answering the question. If you answer the question in the affirmative then your claim about arbitrariness is consistent with your answer. If you answer the question in the negative then your claim about arbitrariness is inconsistent with your answer. And I think we both know that the correct answer to (3) is, "No." If the rhymes and reasons are not altogether different, then their products will not be arbitrary across individuals.

But, intellectually it's pretty simple to me - there is no arbiter of good and bad. — AmadeusD

Is there an arbiter of true and false? Do we need an arbiter before we can see that 2+2=4? If no arbiter is needed elsewhere, then why would it be needed in ethics?

-

That doesn't say anything about its rightness. — AmadeusD

I would suggest, "Autonomous Morality and the Idea of the Noble," by Peter L. P. Simpson. A link can be found <here>.

Atheists acknowledge basic assumptions but generally would treat these as provisional and open to revision, not sacred truths. Foundational beliefs like causality are not equivalent to teleological or theistic explanations, because they don’t posit an agent or a purpose we must subscribe to without evidence.

In my experience there is great variability in atheists' willingness to countenance radical skepticism, e.g. a denial of the intuitions underwriting logic, a denial of causality, taking the "Problem of Induction" (or other arguments from underdetermination) seriously, or skepticism re the authority of reason and argument in general. For instance, the "New Atheists" tend to dismiss this sort of skepticism out of hand, and I would guess that those who tend to embrace it more fully would tend towards agnosticism (since they allow that they cannot know much of anything, or that "knowing" is something more affective).

The question of teleology is sort of a fraught one. I don't think it is that simple. There are at least plausible arguments that causation degenerates into, at most, Hume's constant conjunction (which opens up the Problem of Induction question) without final causes (or that it must simply be eliminated, e.g. Russell). And these arguments don't even tend to come from the advocates of telos, at least not exclusively. Many of the most famous ones come from those who assiduously want to foreclose on final causality and have then realized that there is "nothing left" to causes and "reasons" except coorelation vis-á-vis "sense data."

Maybe not—maybe mechanistic causation can survive alone without being eliminated. Either way, the suppositions that the world we happen to find before us "just is" and that this assertion of brute fact, the dismissal of the Fine Tuning Problem, glossing over the epistemic and metaphysical issues that arise from materialism's representationalism and its positing of a "being outside intelligibility," or the sorts of plausibility issues brought up by Nagel in his "Mind and Cosmos" (just for example), has never struck me as just "following the empirical facts," or in any sense "obvious." In some sense, it's a demand to close empirical inquiry re explanation—the positive claim that it must end at the wall of "it just is, for no reason at all." And in deterministic versions of materialism, it leads to the sorts of conclusions Will Durant highlights—e.g. that every last letter of Hamlet came into being because it "just did," the result of a causeless Rube-Goldberg machine that exists "for no reason at all," and so too for all our emotions, loves, and dreams.

There is a sort of collapse of the intelligibility of causes, or "reasons," that comes with the removal of final causality, whereas the removal of formal causality seems to reduce causation to mere correlation. Yet even with some notion of formal (not uncommon in contemporary philosophy of physics these days, e.g. ontic structural realism), we are still left with no explanation of this form. It still "just is." Everything, the history of the cosmos and our lives, as well as the cosmos's quiddity, "what it is," or the nature of "efficient causal mechanisms" (e.g. "natural laws") ultimately has to bottom out in "for no reason at all." Aside from this difficulty, there is the seemingly obvious fact that final causality is at work in living organisms, or at least in us. Denials of this in the form eliminativism and epiphenomenalism have their own plausibility issues, and at the very least they don't seem "obvious."

This is of course not to say final cause does not have its own problems. Final causes have to end somewhere, and they will either bottom out in the inscrutable, just like the denial of final causes, or they will ascend to the infinite and ineffable. The dilemma then, seems to leave us straddling a chasm. On one end we face the inchoate and inscrutable, "it just is," which arises out of the denial of telos (or which is a feature of extreme voluntarist Protestant theology, from which modern athiesm largely historically evolved). On the other end we have the ineffable, the infinite, whose essence seems inherently unknowable, and which can only be probed by discursive reason through the apophatic via negativa.

But I would tend to follow Charles Taylor in "A Secular Age" here. If the answer to this long running quagmire seems "obvious" and without difficulty, this will tend to be because one has been "spun" in a closed position to the other frame. This tends to involve having avoided the issues that dominate the middle ground. It is, at the very least, not something that seems obvious to a great deal of thoughtful people who have dedicated their lives to the question. And, with Charles Taylor, I would agree that the pivot to either of the "closed" positions in either the "immanent frame" or the "transcendent frame" often tends to result more from moral and aesthetic judgement re the cosmos and conceptions of nature, than from arguments about the actual facts in question. Karen Armstrong's "Sacred Nature" is a pretty good work on these different framings across different cultures.

Maybe it is even so that things "just are " Yet, I've never been able the fathom how this assertion, when taken as obvious, doesn't need to rely on the same sort of dogmatism at work in the assertions of people of a "simple faith." This is particularly true when it is supported with "science says this is so," or "one cannot possibly have understood modern cosmology and think there are any issues here" (cosmologists debate this sort of thing all the time). At least the fundamentalist is actually correct about what their authority has said in this case (even if we would tend to give the authority far less credence).

You mentioned David Bentley Hart in your other post. His first two essays in "You Are Gods," do a decent job laying out the metaphysical and phenomenological arguments for the claim that any rational (and thus any truly free) agent must be oriented towards the infinite. Nicolas of Cusa is one of his big sources here. And ties into notions of final causality in that a chain of final causes that stops short of the infinite seems to require bottoming out in inchoate impulse.

For one, one cannot rank actions according to what is "truly best" without a "highest good" by which to order them. Barring this, all actions are only ordered to some end that must be justified and judged good according to some other finite end, and so on, in an infinite regress. But since finite creatures cannot consider an infinite number of standards in a finite time, judgement must end in the irrational.

But I would point out that people call food good in part because it is necessary to survive — Leontiskos

Sure. Something I think is misguided. But I understand that this doesn't sit perfectly.

Both are true at the same time. — Leontiskos

You've done nothing to support this. It is necessary (as we both know, empirically). That htis is good is totally arbitrary. Unless you've made some claim before entering the discussion, which means "good" is to be interpreted as "that which is necessary for survival" or something similar. Have you?

You are avoiding answering the question. — Leontiskos

No. I'm telling you it was non sequitur. Feel how you want to about that. But it was loaded and I wanted clarification as to what you had loaded into it. If you don't want to give it, that's fine. I wont engage.

And I think we both know that the correct answer to (3) is, "No." — Leontiskos

I don't even know quite what you were getting at mate. Perhaps read my comments in better faith. I wanted clarification, and I do not take anything you've said here on board because its jumping hte gun something fierce.

Is there an arbiter of true and false? — Leontiskos

Not in the strict sense of those words. We have theories that apply to different facets of life, and in some of them we get T and F values. In some we don't. Logic (pure logic, so not applicable to most things in the world) has a convenient status here, but real life isn't that simple. Heck, language can't even account for Truth and Falsity correctly or consistently.

Do we need an arbiter before we can see that 2+2=4? — Leontiskos

I'm sorry, are you trying to suggest that Ethics is a mathematical function? If so we have no basis for discussion. Otherwise, I can't tell what you're getting at in this reply.

why would it be needed in ethics? — Leontiskos

It isn't. But if you want 'good' and 'bad' to mean much of anything, you need one. I don't claim they do, so I don't need one.

Autonomous Morality and the Idea of the Noble," — Leontiskos

In the first section, he outlines almost exactly what I've suggested Ethics functions 'as'.

"The prudential ‘ought’ rests for its force on the facts about the contingent desires and interests people have, and just tells one what one ought to do if one is to satisfy them."

I find nothing further on which would counter this position. It's arbitrary. Obviously. If you'd like to point me somewhere in the article, more than happy to review and adjust.

If "good" is taken to mean "choice-worthy," — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's never been explained that way in any ethics (or morality) courses i've taken or seen. It is always described as "right" and "wrong" action. "Good" and "bad" are noted to be arbiters of that. But arbiters of 'good' and 'bad' are literally nowhere to be seen, except within agreements between people. Is this clearer?

I think @J is on the right track.

Ethics is not coherent. But that doesn't make it not useful. Flippant Eg: Virtue Ethics is an absolutely ridiculous concept. "Do what improves your character" is one of the dumbest, vaguest and unhelpful concepts society could instantiate.
But, nevertheless, it is a very effective way for people to review their actions and views with some circumspection. We can't really expect more from humans without God, so "As far as it goes" virtue ethics is successful. It just doesn't go far, because it can't do what Ethics, proper, wants: Arbitrate between "right" and "Wrong" actions.

Perhaps we just understand what's going on differently. Seems a common thing among "ethicists". For people on a forum throwing pseudo-essays around, it's almost assuredly some of hte issue.

NB: I do think these types of discussions are the dead-end of Ethics. They can be fun, but they are the inevitable result of cordially disagreeing about what should be done. There is, usually, no answer which isn't goal-oriented. The goal, itself, can't be assessed in the same way.

It wasn't intended as an objection, exactly. — Ludwig V

Totally fair enough.

how does emotivism distinguish between emotions that are reactions to judgements of taste and emotions that are reactions to judgements of ethical value? — Ludwig V

I may not understand the question, but this strikes me as "How does one delineate between water from a spring, and water from a lake?" Well, you don't. You delineate their sources. AS you've done, fairly clearly. There's no reason to go further. However...

The trouble is that the border country between actions that affect other people and those that don't is hotly contested. — Ludwig V

is certainly true. I think this is where people decide to be "hard line" in their ethical view. Usually, without actually examining it. Such is life.

Should I distinguish between ethics and morality? If not, how to these two questions fit together? — Ludwig V

I think so. Ethics is the study of moral views, as far as I understand. So ethics is assessing action, and morality is the basis for the actions in the first place. An ethical view would necessarily inform your moral views. I can see a clear difference, but I have also understood arguments that they are not actually distinct. Such is life, lol.

One thing to note, that I think its a truism, applied to any and all exchanges i'm having here"

Not "good" is not at all the same as "not good". I do not think this is being noticed.

The airplane analogy does not strike me as ideal, but consider this story. I have a friend who is very non-religious. When she gets on an airplane, she closes her eyes and says, “I believe it can fly, I believe it can fly, I believe it can fly!” She tells the person seated next to her that if you don’t believe, then it won’t work. She is joking, of course, but she is not making an anti-religious dig. She is just having a bit of fun, and it would not be funny if there were nothing true about it. She has no idea how airplanes fly. She has no first-hand knowledge of, “Engineering protocols, air traffic control systems, and black boxes.” And you probably don’t, either. Scientists themselves continue to dispute the explanation for lift. In fact there are a surprising number of people who avoid flying. If you ask them why, they might literally tell you something about a lack of trust/faith in airplanes. For all these reasons, the word “faith” is naturally suited to airplanes, and it seems like your dispute may be with the English dictionary and English language use rather than with the word ‘faith’. The prima facie evidence is certainly against your view that the word ‘faith’ is not applicable to air travel, given the way in which it is spontaneously used in that context. — Leontiskos

Sorry I missed this. I like your arguments.

You're talking, I guess, about epistemic parity; that trusting a plane to fly without understanding how it works is the same as believing in God without understanding or good evidence.

You may have something here about the nature of ignorance. If someone has no knowledge about something then their belief in it may not be justified personally. Not sure this is the same as faith at work.

And even if someone is ignorant of physics and pilots, they still know - based on experience and knowledge of the world - that planes hardly ever crash. That’s not blind faith, that’s pattern recognition based on observable outcomes.

In relation to planes, if a person wants to, they can readily establish evidence which can be tested empirically and demonstrated almost without fail. Not so God.

There's also a difference between metaphysical commitments (God) and evidence based trust (flight). Getting onto a plane assumes an empirically grounded system works, and if it didn’t, you’d change your belief based on evidence (e.g., planes started crashing). Faith in God, however, is often immune to counter-evidence, which seems to be a key philosophical difference here.

Note that the pejorative argument looks like this:

1. Religious faith is irrational
2. Faith in airplanes is not irrational
3. Therefore, faith in airplanes is not religious faith – there is an equivocation occurring

That’s all these atheists are doing in their head to draw the conclusion about an equivocation, and this argument is the foundation of any argument that is built atop it. — Leontiskos

So the argument I made is this:

Religious faith: Belief without (or despite) evidence.

Trust in airplanes: Belief grounded in consistent, observable evidence.

The difference isn't just about whether a belief is rational — it's about how the belief is formed and justified.

It’s not simply “this one’s irrational, this one’s not.” The key point is what justifies the belief. Faith in airplanes is based on statistics, experience, and reliable expert systems. Religious faith, by contrast, is typically belief without that kind of empirical support.

But thank you for your response, very interesting.

We can actually parallel the two propositions quite easily:

Lack of faith, lack of assent
1a. “I do not have faith that the airplane will fly, and I do not assent to the proposition that the airplane will fly.”
1b. “I do not have faith that God exists, and I do not assent to the proposition that God exists.”
Lack of faith, presence of assent
2a. “I do not have faith that the airplane will fly, but I assent to the proposition that the airplane will fly.”
2b. “I do not have faith that God exists, but I assent to the proposition that God exists.”
Presence of faith, presence of assent (where assent flows solely from faith)
3a. “I have faith that the airplane will fly, and I assent to the proposition that the airplane will fly (and my assent is based solely on my faith).”
3b. “I have faith that God exists, and I assent to the proposition that God exists (and my assent is based solely on my faith).”
Presence of faith which is not necessary for assent (overdetermination)
4a. “I have faith that the airplane will fly, but I would assent even if I did not have faith.”
4b. “I have faith that God exists, but I would assent even if I did not have faith.” — Leontiskos

This is hard work. :wink:

The way these are set out don't really make sense to me.

Take 2a for instance. I would not agree that this is set out in a useful way. I would say instead, "whether I believe that a plane can fly or not, there is consistent, observable evidence that they do fly safely (almost always)." And if I want to understand how, I can learn all about it and even make planes which work. I don't think faith is a useful word here. Belief is better.

2b. “I do not have faith that God exists, but I assent to the proposition that God exists.” — Leontiskos

To me this reads as: "I do not have faith that God exists, but I have faith God exists." Using “assent” doesn’t change the underlying issue: without evidence or rational support, it still functions as faith.

If I say my plane will fly, this is a probabilistic claim based on consitent observation. “God exists” is a metaphysical claim not supported by empirical observation. Isn't "assenting" to both as if they have the same epistemic weight a category mistake?

Now this brings us to evidence for God and you might consider there to be enough reasons to make God as real as plane flight. For some Aquinas' Five Ways might suffice. Which brings us to a separate area.

Out of interest, are there any forms of atheism you feel more warmly towards and if so, why?

I count many theists as friends and there are many atheists I dislike for their dogma and intolerance.

I think J is on the right track. — AmadeusD

Thank you, but although we agree that "choice-worthy" isn't helpful, it doesn't follow from this that:

arbiters of 'good' and 'bad' are literally nowhere to be seen, except within agreements between people. — AmadeusD

That's a whole other question.

Let me try to preempt something before addressing such posts.

If we are going to do real philosophical work then we have to have real definitions. What almost always happens in these discussions is that the atheist builds their petitio principii right into their definition of faith. This is how the atheist ends up defining faith:

• Faith_ath: "Irrational assent"

This goes back to what I said:

Note that the pejorative argument looks like this:

1. Religious faith is irrational
2. Faith in airplanes is not irrational
3. Therefore, faith in airplanes is not religious faith – there is an equivocation occurring

That’s all these atheists are doing in their head to draw the conclusion about an equivocation, and this argument is the foundation of any argument that is built atop it. — Leontiskos

We can literally see this within this thread. I will limit myself to your definition and avoid drawing in other atheists or unbelievers:

Religious faith: Belief without (or despite) evidence. — Tom Storm

This is just another form of "irrational assent." To believe something without (or despite) evidence is irrational. So it's no wonder that you come to the conclusion that believers are irrational. It is built into your very definition of faith.

But this is not how dictionaries, philosophers, or religious traditions define faith. It is a false definition. More to the point, it is a pejorative/biased definition, and without real definitions we cannot do real philosophical work. The essay by Joseph Pieper that I referenced gets to the heart of this.

So before any real philosophical work can be done, you need to find a definition of faith that isn't reducible to irrational assent. Along the same lines, atheists are not allowed to make ad hoc distinctions between religious faith and non-religious faith (because this depends on the same exact petitio principii). made a similar point very succinctly.

(If it makes it easier to understand, think about the fact that if we are to conduct an investigation into the question of whether believers are rational, we cannot begin by assuming our conclusion. Our starting point must be neutral.)

This is just another form of "irrational assent." To believe something without (or despite) evidence is irrational. So it's no wonder that you come to the conclusion that believers are irrational. It is built into your very definition of faith. — Leontiskos

I have not made the argument that believers are irrational. I'm merely discussing the uses of the word faith and my belief that theists often use it indiscriminately when comparing their religious faith to a non faith based confidence in something demonstrable.

But I'll mull over your reasoning. I am open to changing my thinking on most things. Perhaps I am wrong on this and if I am I'll change my mind.

Incidentally, I’m not an atheist who’s deeply invested in the role of reasoning in debates about God. As I’ve said here several times, I think religious belief or atheism are like sexual attraction—you can’t help what you’re attracted to. People tend to use reasoning as post hoc justifications. That doesn’t mean I don’t hear the arguments or engage in debate from time to time.

That's a whole other question. — J

GEnerally agreed they don't follow. But you can't get to the idea of an arbiter of good and bad from the fact that some actions are "choice-worthy" because good and bad don't come into that, prima facie.

Understood. Or the way I would say it, calling something "worthy of choice" is the same as calling it "good" or "right," but focusing on the action of choosing rather than the content of what's being chosen. So it doesn't inform us as to the values involved, only that they are "worthy" and therefore ought to be chosen.

I'm unsure I can accept the leap from "choice-worthy" (based on??) to "ought to be chosen" which amounts to "ought to be done". Can you perhaps make clearer what that connection is?

I'm not sure I buy it either. I want to put the best possible construction on it, though. I think we have to understand "worthy" simply to mean "ought to be chosen." If that's not what it means, then the whole attempt to elevate "choice-worthy" into the ethical lexicon wouldn't make sense.

But granted that its proponents do make that equation, we can see how the pieces are arranged on the board. I wouldn't say it's wrong, just not very perspicuous.

Your question, I believe, is more from the point of view of ordinary language: How come something that's worthy of choice therefore ought to be chosen? Don't we need an additional factor to take us over the bridge between "worthy" and "obligatory"? If "choice-worthy" isn't defined as above, then I agree with you.

I think we have to understand "worthy" simply to mean "ought to be chosen." — J

I have a pretty serious issue with this (and this might relate to your later comment on ordinary language). I cannot understand "choice-worthy" as anything other than an expression of preference. Nothing besides seems to arbitrate what would and wouldn't come under that head.

This does paint me into a partial corner though: I should, really, be committed to accepting the phrase as ethical, while maintaining that ethical statements are emotional ones. Perhaps that the right resolution for someone of my bent.

I cannot understand "choice-worthy" as anything other than an expression of preference. Nothing besides seems to arbitrate what would and wouldn't come under that head. — AmadeusD

If we do stick with ordinary usage, we can find examples on both sides. Sometimes we say, "This non-dairy ice cream is worthy of my choice because it's especially creamy and gooey and that's what I like." Or we might say, "You betrayed your partner. That was not a worthy choice, and you shouldn't have made it." I don't know how far we can push this kind of analysis, other than to point out that the "worth" part of "worthy" can, and does, have more than one meaning.

"Preference" is problematic in the same way. You can stipulate that it means "something I like to choose," or you can say it means "what I do in fact choose, regardless of my personal preferences." You'll find usages supporting either interpretation.

"This non-dairy ice cream is worthy of my choice because it's especially creamy and gooey and that's what I like." Or we might say, "You betrayed your partner. That was not a worthy choice, and you shouldn't have made it." — J

Hmm. While I think I'm following your intent, these aren't different claims for our purposes. The latter requires the addition of "because I disapprove" to support the obvious disapproval therein. You think it wasn't choice-worthy and in this case for someone else so there's a second level of preference involved there. But nothing but hte person's opinion makes their disapproval hold any water, I'd think. I don't think we can find examples that support both interpretations. A preference is, definitionally, something subjectively preferred. Not something 'chosen'. That may be why you're seeing a cross-reading available where I do not.

I'm merely discussing the uses of the word faith and my belief that theists often use it indiscriminately when comparing their religious faith to a non faith based confidence in something demonstrable. — Tom Storm

But I don't recognize your usage. As I said, it cannot be found in dictionaries, among philosophers of religion, or within religious bodies. So it seems to be a kind of pejorative derived from interpreting religious believers against their own testimony.

In other words, if you start the discussion by defining "faith" as "Belief without (or despite) evidence," then my response is simple: I am not familiar with this term "faith," I have never encountered this term, "faith,"* and I don't know any religious believers or philosophers of religion who use this term "faith." What dictionaries, religious people, and generally non-biased people mean by 'faith' is not "Belief without (or despite) evidence."

But I'll mull over your reasoning. I am open to changing my thinking on most things. Perhaps I am wrong on this and if I am I'll change my mind. — Tom Storm

Okay, sounds good. Pieper's treatment is very good. He also has a book-length treatment. All of the work I did in <this post> is based on Pieper's definition, which is empirically derived via actual usage. Pejorative definitions preclude true philosophical work like that.

* I have never encountered it in the wild; only in the mouths of a subset of atheists and unbelievers.

But arbiters of 'good' and 'bad' are literally nowhere to be seen, except within agreements between people. Is this clearer?

If this were true one would discover what a good therapy for liver cancer is solely by investigating people's opinions instead of by studying livers. The Wright Brothers would have had to develop a successful, good flying machine by studying people's opinions instead of aerodynamics. Farmers would likewise learn their trade by studying opinions about wheat instead of wheat. One would learn that wet, mossy logs are bad for starting fires and that dry tinder and kindling is good only though talking, not through the practice of starting fires.

More problematic, we'd have to explain all these opinions re goodness vis-á-vis ends. If they don't tie back to the things themselves, e.g., that dry hemlock and birch bark burn easily and that mossy wet oak doesn't burn easily, then these opinions would have to spring from aether uncaused. You'd need some explanation for why "being chemicals and energy" makes it impossible for wood to be "good for anything" per se, but the human being, itself also just chemicals and energy, is capable of the sui generis capacity to project the illusory goodness of things vis-á-vis different ends onto the whole world, such that "hammers are better for driving nails than tissues," seems to be an obvious empirical fact.

But it's a radically skeptical position, and frankly farcical, to claim:
"Tissues aren't actually any worse for driving nails than hammers,"
"Having its leg ripped off in a trap isn't bad for a fox" or
"Being lit on fire isn't bad for children."

This is why the more convincing moral skeptic doesn't try to claim that nothing is truly good or bad relative to different ends, which leads to absurdity (e.g. an F-150 is equally as good of a boat or plane as it is a truck). They instead point out that ends like "driving in nails" and "having a plane that flies," are not sought for their own sake. They are only choice-worthy vis-á-vis some other end. Driving in a nail is good relative to securing a shelf. Securing a shelf is only good relative to some other end. Driving a nail into your own hand isn't good. What is good as respects some end is empirical (else science and experience cannot tell us how to accomplish goals), but then each end also has to be justified in terms of some other end.

The skeptic, to have a claim that is more plausible than "stomping my cat isn't bad for it," needs to claim something like "all ends are ordered to other ends," and this ordering, since it cannot extend ad infinitum, must always bottom out in irrational impulse. On the other hand, there is the fairly dominant idea that what all men seek, they seek for the sake of being happy/flourishing (eudaimonia), and that this end is "sought for its own sake," securing an ultimate human end by which all other human ends (and means towards those ends) are judged "good" or "choiceworthy."

So, there are lots of attacks here. One can deny that man (or any organism) has any nature at all, meaning that happiness is unique and sui generis for each individual. I think this is patently ridiculous, since it's obvious that some things are always bad for people, but people have argued for relativism on the idea that man essentially creates himself and his values out of the air. The weakness here is that this sort of self-creation narrative, aside from challenging empirical experience, also tends to assume what it sets out to prove.

Hume's view, from whence we get the "is-ought gap " is another popular one. It essentially begs the question on this though because Hume presupposes his answer in how he defines reason in the Treatise, essentially declaring by fiat that rational appetites do not exist (i.e., that there are only sensible appetites). That Hume often is guilty of demonstrable question begging (e.g. the assault on causes) by presupposing definitions that contain his conclusion has certainly not affected the popularity of his arguments though. But I think it's more relevant that, if Hume is right, it isn't just emotivism or sentimentalism that follows, but that man cannot have a rational nature at all and that man cannot possess a rational, self-determining freedom in any sense, since all action always bottoms out in inchoate impulse that lies prior to the reach of his dessicated conception of reason.

Anyhow, like the radical skeptic, the moral anti-realists seems absolutely incapable of actually acting like they believe their stated position. , you make a great many posts about things being "better" or "superior" or "worse," for instance, e.g. "indigenous ways of knowing," or the justness of special indigenous privileges, etc.

I'd argue that if a philosophical position requires rejecting obvious truisms like "it is bad for children to be lit on fire," and it is literally impossible to act like one actually believes it with the courage or their convictions (i.e. for its form to inform the mind), that's a clear sign of deficiency and we should question the epistemic standards that lead to such an untoward judgement.

Anyhow, like the radical skeptic, the moral anti-realists seems absolutely incapable of actually acting like they believe their stated position. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Are there many radical skeptics on this forum or anywhere? Relativist are not all radical skeptics. A relativist is likely to believe that truth or justification, especially in areas like morality, knowledge, or culture, is relative to some framework, such as a cultural context, language, or conceptual scheme.

No doubt, some relativists also accept that causing suffering is not a good thing. There’s nothing stopping a relativist from having empathy, or from feeling bad when they cause suffering.

A radical skeptic, on the other hand, denies the very possibility of knowledge. That view is much less commonly heard and I don't really understand it.

Just because someone is a moral anti-realist doesn’t mean they are unconcerned with the suffering of people or animals. Moral anti-realism simply denies the existence of objective, independent moral truths, but this doesn’t make suffering any less important within the contingent frameworks that people care about. Anti-realists could still care deeply about reducing suffering, because their moral beliefs are shaped by social, emotional, or cultural factors that give them strong reasons to act compassionately. Although it is interesting that most people seem to be reasonably comfortable letting people die by the millions in other countries and not do a thing to help.

I doubt that there are moral facts, but (like most people) I’ve inherited a range of dispositions from my culture and upbringing, shaping my emotional responses, which inform actions and moral preferences. These might have been quite different in other circumstances.

But nothing but the person's opinion makes their disapproval hold any water, I'd think. — AmadeusD

This is the dividing line between subjectivism and objectivism in ethics. The subjectivist (you, perhaps?) wants to say that the usage of words like "worthy" or "good" or "right" can be correct only when they express personal opinions. Someone who uses these words to refer to alleged standards that "arbitrate," as you put it, between preferences is using them incorrectly. The objectivist, on the other hand (me, for instance), believes that both subjective and objective usages of value words are fine; both have their contexts; both say meaningful things. The objectivist believes, as the subjectivist does not, that when value words are used in a specifically ethical context (as opposed to "I prefer this ice cream" contexts), they refer to actual objective (or intersubjective) realities that can influence preferences, not merely reflect them.

You think it wasn't choice-worthy and in this case for someone else so there's a second level of preference involved there. — AmadeusD

We can change the example to the 1st person to avoid this: "I made X choice; it was not a worthy choice; I should not have made it." But again, I much prefer using more value-oriented words than "choice-worthy", for the reasons we've already discussed. Better to say, "It was wrong; I shouldn't have done it."

A preference is, definitionally, something subjectively preferred. Not something 'chosen'. That may be why you're seeing a cross-reading available where I do not. — AmadeusD

Well, yeah, but language isn't that easily corralled. Consider the similar case of "want". Some people argue that "You did X because you wanted to do X" is always the case (in non-coercive circumstances), because we only do what we want to do. But in real life it's much more subtle, hence the distinction between "want" and "will," or "want" and "choose." I can will something, or choose something, as my final decision in a complicated matter, without in the least "wanting" to do it. I may not even necessarily want to do the "right thing", as a category -- I just believe I should.

So, the distinction between "prefer" and "choose" follows a similar course. We often have to discriminate between something we'd prefer, subjectively, all things being equal, versus something we would never feel that way about, all things being equal, but feel we must choose, under these circumstances. Perhaps there's a better pair of words to use that reflects the distinction, but at any rate I believe the distinction is an important one.

I'd be interested to know whether you think this sort of distinction can be preserved from an ethical-subjectivist point of view. It seems to me that it can, but tell me what you think.

All moral theorists are relativists to some degree. You can see straightforward analysis of relativism in cultural norms way back in Herodotus for instance. The Greeks would accept no amount of payment to eat their dead and were offended by the very notion. They must burn them on pyres. The Callatiae would accept no amount of money not to eat their dead, and were disgusted by the notion of burning them.

We might allow that it is cruel to randomly circumcise a child in the context of Japanese culture without any medical justification, where it serves no real purpose, but that circumcision might be beneficial in the context of Jewish or Muslim society where it is a ubiquitous mark of group identity. The problem for pernicious forms of relativism is that they make everything relative. Thus, they have no way to criticize even the most extreme social practices foisted on children, e.g. female circumcision, foot binding, etc. Because the "culture" becomes the absolutized measure of morality, there is no way to step back and ask: "even if foot binding is beneficial for Chinese women as a mark of status, wouldn't they (and Chinese culture writ large) be better off (more flourishing) without this custom?"

Relativism doesn't require anti-realism. When relativism is paired with anti-realism, you end up with a multiplicity of absolute cultural standards, and find yourself saying things like: "if every third child is brutally tortured to death at age 3, we cannot really say if this is bad for human flourishing or not."

Just because someone is a moral anti-realist doesn’t mean they are unconcerned with the suffering of people or animals.

Sure. They just deny that the suffering of people or animals can actually be bad for them as a matter of fact. A total denial of facts about values equates to saying that the following statements:

• Garry Kasparov is a better chess player than the average kindergartener;
  
• It is bad for children to have lead dumped into their school lunches;
• It would have been a bad investment to buy Enron stock in 2001 or Bear Stearns stock in 2008; or
• It is bad for a bear to have its leg mangled in a bear trap.

...are neither true nor false (or true only relative to ultimately arbitrary cultural norms).

Nor does relativism actually seem to be coherent when it makes the "culture" the ultimate arbiter of morality. It could just as well be the individual. Nor is the relativists' common appeal to "tolerance" as a universal value in the face of relativism free from the problems of self-refutation.

Anyhow, I think arguments for this sort of relativism are often (but perhaps not always) incredibly facile.

The most common arguments for moral relativism run something like this:

P1: Different peoples have many different standards of right and wrong. If one were born and raised in another culture, one would have different, perhaps contradictory ideas about what constitutes moral, just behavior.

Conclusion: Therefore, there are no absolute facts about right and wrong. What is good or just is entirely determined by cultural context (alternatively, for moral nihilism: “Therefore there can be no facts of the matter vis-à-vis good or evil.”)

If this does not look like a valid syllogism, there is a good reason for that! The conclusion does not follow from the premise at all. Cultural differences are only evidence for the truth of relativism if one has already assumed relativism and is suffering from confirmation bias.

To see why, consider that the same sort of argument could be made for all sorts of things. For example, “what shape is the Earth?” or “what causes infectious diseases?” What people have believed about these questions has varied by both time and place. If you were raised in a society where people thought the Earth was flat, or that infectious diseases were spread by witchcraft, you would most likely believe those things. Yet, does this demonstrate that the shape of the Earth or the etiology of infections varies by culture, or that there can be no fact of the matter? Does the fact that people disagree—that even today some people intransigently insist the world is flat—in any way demonstrate that the Earth either has no shape or that its shape varies?

To be sure, more savvy relativists will not argue that the conclusion follows from the premise. Rather, they will follow Nietzche’s lead in the Geneology of Morals, claiming that they have a better, abductive explanation for why moral norms exist. For instance, they might claim that ethics just reduces to evolutionary psychology, and that the customs that develop from our instincts don’t have anything to do with any objective standard of goodness.

Still, these sorts of arguments also have their weaknesses. They are open to all the attacks that have been leveled against reductionism. Arguments from speculative hypotheses in evolutionary psychology to the causes of moral norms flow from premises that are less well known than their conclusion. Not only this, but even if our customs were largely “the product of evolution,” it is unclear why this should entail that there are no facts about values. We might very well allow that what is “good for man” is related to (if not reducible to) his biological nature...

The "cultural differences argument’s " key premise can also be challenged. To be sure, cultural norms do vary. Yet we can allow that culture shapes morality without subscribing to an extreme relativism. Perhaps morality is always filtered through culture, but that does not preclude something stable from standing upstream of culture.

For instance, both the Greeks and the Callatians value honoring the dead, they just do so in different ways. Likewise, it seems that all cultures value courage, prudence, fortitude, etc. Hence, while we do observe meaningful differences in moral norms, these might be grounded in universal commonalities. For example, no culture gives babies razor sharp hunting knives as toys for their cribs. Such a prohibition is clearly not arbitrary. We can also note here that something very similar might be said of early attempts at science. While explanations of the world often did vary quite a bit, they also shared similarities because they were—in the end—attempts to describe the same thing.

Such an attack on the key premise of the "cultural differences argument" might be even more relevant to abductive arguments for moral relativism. For, it does not seem that morality can be “cultural norms all the way down.” Cultural norms come from somewhere, they have causes, they do not spring from the aether uncaused.

Hence, we can ask: “is it not true, at least on average, ceteris paribus, that it is better for people to be temperate instead of gluttonous or anhedonic, courageous instead of brash or cowardly, properly ambitious instead of grasping or apathetic, etc.? A strong rebuttal of virtue ethics would need to show that these traits are not beneficial on average, or that we somehow equivocate on these terms when we move from culture to culture. Yet this does not seem to be an easy case to make. To be sure, the critic can point to instances where “bad things happen to virtuous people,” or vice versa, but everyone is exposed to the vicissitudes of fortune, and it is the virtuous person who is most able to weather bad fortune

If this were true one would discover what a good therapy for liver cancer is solely by investigating people's opinions instead of by studying livers. The Wright Brothers would have had to develop a successful, good flying machine by studying people's opinions instead of aerodynamics. Farmers would likewise learn their trade by studying opinions about wheat instead of wheat. One would learn that wet, mossy logs are bad for starting fires and that dry tinder and kindling is good only though talking, not through the practice of starting fires. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yep. :up:

I tried to get at the same idea . @AmadeusD claimed that food isn't good, it's just necessary for survival. I pointed out that a primary reason people call food "good" is because it is necessary for survival. The ability of food to nourish our bodies is not "arbitrary opinion," and I think someone would be hard pressed to argue that the desire to be alive rather than to be dead is just "arbitrary opinion."

Just because someone is a moral anti-realist doesn’t mean they are unconcerned with the suffering of people or animals."

Sure. They just deny that the suffering of people or animals can actually be bad for them as a matter of fact — Count Timothy von Icarus

I really don't think it's that. The anti-realist is happy to acknowledge the fact that suffering is bad for the beings concerned, in the sense that it's painful, undesirable, etc., but only in that sense. The anti-realist denies that this makes a difference to him/her, i.e., there is no further moral conclusion to be drawn. The words "bad/good" carry no ethical implications, on this view; there are particular facts about what is bad or good for X in the sense specified above, but no moral facts about how this may generalize, or how we ought to behave as a result.

I guess the philosophical world is divided between those who believe that "good/beneficial/conducive to happiness/healthful/pleasurable for me" is what "morally good" means, and those who conceive of moral good as above and beyond the personal. I'm not sure how to bridge the division.

I really don't think it's that. The anti-realist is happy to acknowledge the fact that suffering is bad for the beings concerned

If an "anti-realist" re values acknowledges that there areobjective facts about values then they are not an anti-realist. The question of egoism, or of man as Homo oeconomicus, is really a question about the human good, human nature, and the nature of common goods, not the existence of facts about values. One cannot address those questions without first moving beyond an all-encompassing anti-realism.

i.e., there is no further moral conclusion to be drawn. The words "bad/good" carry no ethical implications, on this view; there are particular facts about what is bad or good for X in the sense specified above,

It takes a particular (and IMO strange) view of "ethics" to say such "facts about value" are not related to ethics (and so presumably, not related to human happiness?). It seems to me that the anti-realist often engages in something like a "No True Scotsman" argument here. "No, that's a fact about values, maybe even a fact about human flourishing, but it isn't really ethical." With the demand then being that to be "truly ethical" or "moral" such facts must be facts about a sui generis moral good that is excluded, almost by definition, for being meaningful to anyone, ever, outside of some raw, sterile impulse towards "duty."

I guess the philosophical world is divided between those who believe that "good/beneficial/conducive to happiness/healthful/pleasurable for me" is what "morally good" means, and those who conceive of moral good as above and beyond the personal. I'm not sure how to bridge the division.

No, they often think that, due to human nature, "good/beneficial/conducive to happiness/healthful/pleasurable for me" extends beyond the personal. To say it doesn't is to deny that common goods exist or are an important part of human flourishing. It's to say all apparent common goods, the good of a good marriage, of family, of citizenship, etc. are really just conglomerations of individual goods reducible to the individual benefit each member derives from their participation in what is common.

Obviously, a great deal of moral theorists disagree with this reductionist line. It's only a very particular view in the Anglo/liberal tradition that insists upon the "atomized individual in the 'state of nature'" as the absolute starting point of moral analysis, and so ends up with Homo oeconomicus, the "rational" self-interested utility maximizing voluntarist agent who must be somehow "made to have an ethics that extends beyond the individual." And of course, such extensions always fail, because the presuppositions have already made man atomized and cut off from any truly common good.

But I think you struggle with getting beyond egoism in particular because you think that, provided the egoist keeps on affirming that they are better off being an egoist, then this simply must be true (i.e. they are infallible about what is to their own benefit). If someone says "I don't currently prefer x," then it cannot possibly be the case that they would truly be better off learning to prefer x. That is, "good for me" gets defined in terms of current desire.

I don't know why we should think this is true though. It is demonstrably false in children, who often have extremely strong attractions to things that will make them miserable, and biological maturation does not ensure rational self-government or wisdom.

BTW, an interesting argument that can be derived from Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed is that the reason the Humean view or Homo oeconomicus seem so plausible today is precisely because modern liberalism works aggressively, through legal, economic, and military power, and positive indoctrination in both education and ubiquitous mediato make it a reality. Since all sources of identity and responsibility are seen as limits on freedom and these have very much precipitously declined, the system has striven (intentionally or not) towards producing the very anthropology it imagined for itself, the atomized utility maximizer.

It was not always thus. The modern tendency to make no distinction between the rational and sensible appetites obfuscates that Hume’s dictum that “reason is, and ought only be, the slave of the passions,”1 is an inversion of Virgil’s last words to Dante in the Commedia: "now is your will upright, wholesome and free, and not to heed its pleasure would be wrong." For Dante (and most of the pre-modern tradition), our pursuit of our own pleasure only becomes good (and ultimately, properly “good for us”) after the soul’s faculties have been purified through repentance (a self-conscious turn towards the good as good) and purgation (ascetic training and habituation) and the higher faculties have asserted their proper authority over the lower faculties.

I mentioned in the liberalism thread about how liberalism tries to project its norms into the past (or to dismiss anything that cannot be assimilated as mere religious dogma). But there is definitely a radical disconnect. "Reason as a slave to the passions," is quite literally a good summary of the condition of the damned in Dante's Hell. And so, to whatever extent Dante and co. is right, the drive to manufacture Homo oeconomicus is literally a drive towards slavery.

I really don't think it's that. The anti-realist is happy to acknowledge the fact that suffering is bad for the beings concerned.

If an "anti-realist" re values acknowledges that there are objective facts about values then they are not an anti-realist. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But you've introduced the term "values" into my quote, and that's something which the anti-realist doesn't countenance. The anti-realist doesn't think there are objective facts about values, simply because something is conducive to happiness or its opposite. Of what value are those? they might ask. The anti-realist understands the moral realist (I think correctly) to be speaking about a type of value that can be seen to be good for everyone -- indeed, obligatory. It is this that the anti-realist denies.

Now I suppose that you could redefine an anti-realist as (only) someone who not only denies objective facts about moral values, but objective facts about the value of anything whatever. But that seems way too stringent. I think the classic anti-realist position would be that lots of things are good and bad for various people, given various considerations, but there are no over-arching values that would mandate, or even allow, a choice among them.

But I think you struggle with getting beyond egoism in particular because you think that, provided the egoist keeps on affirming that they are better off being an egoist, then this simply must be true (i.e. they are infallible about what is to their own benefit). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Personally, I don't agree with the egoist at all. I agree with you: No one is infallible about what is to their own benefit, as human history sadly attests. But what I'm claiming is that the egoist/moral anti-realist is not being irrational, and there is no argument you can make to the contrary, on the basis of objective values. It's not that the anti-realist has to say, "I know for a fact that my egoism is good for me. I can't be wrong about that." They can just say, "Well, this is the way it looks to me, and you have yet to show me an argument for all these 'common values' and 'human flourishings' and 'ethics that extend beyond the personal.' All you're doing is asserting your belief in them and claiming that, if I could only see them, I'd like them too. Perhaps, perhaps not."

Let me be clear, again: I think this character is dead wrong. But they're not going to find out they're wrong through philosophy or argumentation. I think you hold some spiritual beliefs? Then you know what I'm talking about. Jesus, to pick an example we both know, did not offer the Seminar on the Mount, providing his followers with knockdown arguments for being virtuous. Insofar as he discussed praxis at all, he seems to have recommended metanoia as a priority.

Now I suppose that you could redefine an anti-realist as (only) someone who not only denies objective facts about moral values, but objective facts about the value of anything whatever.

Well, this is often how it is framed. "Statements about value are not truth-apt, they are emotional expressions." If one wants to limit this to a special sort of "moral value," then one has to argue the point that such a delineation is preferable.

Personally, I don't agree with the egoist at all. I agree with you: No one is infallible about what is to their own benefit, as human history sadly attests. But what I'm claiming is that the egoist/moral anti-realist is not being irrational, and there is no argument you can make to the contrary, on the basis of objective values. It's not that the anti-realist has to say, "I know for a fact that my egoism is good for me. I can't be wrong about that." They can just say, "Well, this is the way it looks to me, and you have yet to show me an argument for all these 'common values' and 'human flourishings' and 'ethics that extend beyond the personal.' All you're doing is asserting your belief in them and claiming that, if I could only see them, I'd like them too. Perhaps, perhaps not."

But they aren't "being rational?" At least not on many views of rationality. Rather, they are denying the very possibility of rational freedom and rational action, at least as classically conceived. If we are incapable of desiring the good because it is known as good (i.e. a denial of the existence of Aquina's "rational appetites," or Plato's "desires of the rational part of the soul) then it seems to follow that all actions bottom out in irrational impulse.

On such a view, every end can only be judged good relative to the pleasure or positive sentiment we associate with it. Yet since there is no rational appetite for Goodness itself (an infinite, “Highest Good” sought by reason in which pleasure and sentiment also find their natural rest) every good can only be judged good relative to some other finite good. The result is an infinite regress. Yet since we cannot consider an infinite ordering of finite goods to other finite goods, practical reason must cease at some point. When it does, it must bottom out in inchoate, irrational impulse. Something that is chosen "just because I feel impelled towards it," not because it is known as good.

One potential resolution to this problem lies in selecting some finite good (e.g. pleasure) as a “benchmark,” or proclaiming it the “Highest Good” by fiat. However, this does not actually resolve the issue, as ultimately there is no definitive standard by which to choose between different potential "ultimate" or even "benchmark" ends in a rational manner. We can always ask of any standard or benchmark, “but is it a truly good standard.” This will force us to invoke another standard by which to secure our judgment vis-à-vis the initial standard. However, this new judgment must itself be secured by yet another standard, etc., ad infinitum.

Moreover, without a love of goodness and truth for their own sake (i.e., the desires of the "rational soul"), which are secured by non-discursive synterisis, we cannot transcend our own finitude, moving past current beliefs and desires. Lacking this capacity, we have no way of deciding which of our loves are proper, and should be fostered and allowed to lead us, and which we should strive to uproot. Here, the deflation of reason leaves reason stranded and impotent in the face of choice. We find ourselves unable to rationally justify what Harry Frankfurt terms “second-order volitions,” i.e., the desire to have (or not have) other desires [something he argues is essential for freedom and personhood]. Since all of our desires are irrational, each desire can only be judged relative to some other irrational desire, and this regress can never end in a properly rational desire. All that is left to us is the futile pursuit of whatever desires we just so happen to have.

Rationality requires that we have the capacity to choose certain actions because we at least believe them to be truly good.

Aside from this difficulty, there is also the phenomenological argument for the fact that man does possess an infinite appetite for goodness. We cannot identify any finite end to which we say "this is it, this is where I find absolute rest." This finding is, at the very least, all over phenomenology (including atheist phenomenology). Can someone claim: "I lack such desire?" Sure. Whether we believe them is another thing, but at any rate, that wouldn't show much. They need to claim that all men lack this desire, or that it is somehow confused or illusory, otherwise their condition is just a particular sort of spiritual illness.

they are denying the very possibility of rational freedom and rational action, at least as classically conceived. If we are incapable of desiring the good because it is known as good (i.e. a denial of the existence of Aquina's "rational appetites," or Plato's "desires of the rational part of the soul) then it seems to follow that all actions bottom out in irrational impulse. — Count Timothy von Icarus

How is this an argument for the ethical non-realist to become a realist? They merely reply, "Not at all. Nothing of the sort 'seems to follow.' My actions are neither irrational nor impulsive. I'm not aware of 'denying the very possibility of rational freedom' -- how so? Such a view of my actions comes with extremely heavy philosophical baggage, and you would have to show me why this must be the case. On the contrary, I choose what I rationally believe is best for me. Certainly I may be wrong, in any given instance. But how is that either irrational or immoral?"

There is also the phenomenological argument for the fact that man does possess an infinite appetite for goodness. We cannot identify any finite end to which we say "this is it, this is where I find absolute rest." This finding is, at the very least, all over phenomenology (including atheist phenomenology). — Count Timothy von Icarus

This isn't ringing any bells. Where would I find it? Or could you give the argument, briefly?