:up:

Hello Leontiskos,

I appreciate your elaborate, substantive, and thought-provoking response! Hopefully, I can adequately respond.

I think the heart of our disagreement (and correct me if I am wrong) is twofold:

1. A lack of a positive account of pronge-2 P2 of the moral subjectivist thesis; and
2. The implications of true moral judgments expressing something subjective (e.g., is that even possible?).

So, I will try to address those hereon; but, first, let me address some (perhaps) less crucial points that I think are still worth mentioning.

I am glad to see that you are trying to get away from the taste-based idea we discussed a few days ago.

I honestly haven’t (: . I think maybe my diction is just confusing to other people, because I take a ‘preference’ to be synonymous with a ‘taste’--it seems like other people think the former is a superficial instance of the latter. If there is any confusion with my use of ‘taste’, then I am more than happy to replace it with the word ‘preference’.

I think this idea that the sphere of morality encompasses all acts is absolutely correct, and you are the first TPF member I have seen to explicitly accept this view. I also think your arguments for moral cognitivism are sound.

:up:

Your ability to revise your views is laudable.

Although I am unsure as to whether I actually revised my position like you think I did; I will say again that I am only in the interest of obtaining the truth, like you, and will happily concede any point if my contender provides reasons I agree with for disbanding from that point.

Alright, with that out of the way, let me first address #1.

Logically, Prong-2.P2 is the heart of subjectivism and yet it receives no positive support or elaboration. You don't even say what a subjective, binding truth is supposed to be, or how it could work.

Firstly, I do think it is a fair critique that I didn’t expound incredibly clearly how the relation between truth and the subjective moral judgments work—I did give some examples I didn’t analyze them that thoroughly, so I will take a note to add that in later. I will likewise give an account here as well (in a little bit).

Secondly, the positive support for prong-2 P2 is the argument against prong-2 P2 of the moral realist thesis and the argument for true moral judgments in the subjection for prong-3 of the moral subjectivist thesis:

P2: There are true moral judgments and they are not an expression of something objective.
…
Either something is an expression of something objective (and in virtue of that at least a candidate of being factual) or it is subjective; therefore, if prong-2 of moral realism is false and there are true moral judgments, then they must be beliefs of which are the upshot of one’s psychology.

If one accepts that there are true moral judgments (and thusly that they are propositional) and that those moral judgments do not express something objective (which is derived from the is-ought ontological argument against prong-2 of the moral realist thesis), then the only option left is that they express something objective. Sure, this is a negative argument, in a sense, but either one has to deny that there are true moral judgments (or more fundamentally that they are not propositional) or that they do not express something objective. In the case of the former, they must find something wrong with the argument I gave in prong-3 of my thesis; and in the case of the latter something with the is-ought ontological argument I gave against moral realism. If they accept them, then, by my lights, they can’t reject that moral judgments express something subjective because that is all that is left.

Your disjunctive syllogism is something like, "A or B or C. We have good reasons to reject A and B. Therefore, C." The problem is that we also have good reasons to reject C.

My point is that A, B, and C are exhaustive options; so one can’t reject all three: they must bite a bullet somewhere if they don’t want to accept C since they are accepting !A and !B.

My only point here is that if you believe that we have good reasons to reject C, then you can’t agree with me that !A and !B: I think you will then have to contend with either the is-ought ontological gap argument or the argument I gave for there being true moral judgments if you want to reject C.

In terms of what good reasons we have to reject C, I don’t think we have any; but let me respond to some that I think you were alluding to, which segues nicely into #2.

This could be the central contradiction in your system. I think this commits you to the idea that there are objective truths which are not grounded in objective realities, which seems to be a contradiction. More concisely, "subjective truth" is chimerical (i.e. it is something which may seem attainable at first, but always fades into the horizon like a mirage). More on this. . .

Your problem, and correct me if I am wrong, with moral judgments being true and expressing something subjective is that they seem to be incoherent or inconsistent with each other: if it is true, then that pertains to something objective, so it can’t be expressing something subjective, right? That’s what I got out of your various responses on that matter, so if I am misunderstanding then please correct me.

My response is that the belief is the moral judgment and our beliefs about those beliefs are the facts about our psychology. Granted, I should have been much more explicit in my elaboration of this in the OP, and I will make a note to add a section in on that.

So…

After all, what is the "truth" of moral cognitivism if not objective truth? Isn't all truth 'objective' in this relevant sense?
…
This could be the central contradiction in your system. I think this commits you to the idea that there are objective truths which are not grounded in objective realities, which seems to be a contradiction. More concisely, "subjective truth" is chimerical (i.e. it is something which may seem attainable at first, but always fades into the horizon like a mirage). More on this. . .

Under moral subjectivism, when taken literally, ‘one ought not torture babies for fun’ is not true, not cognitive, and not a (valid) moral judgment but, rather, must be rewritten as ‘I believe one ought not torture babies for fun’. The latter is cognitive (being a fact about one’s psychology), is true in my case, is a valid moral judgment.

For you, I would imagine, ‘one ought not torture babies for fun’ is cognitive, is true, and is a valid moral judgment because its truth-maker is an objective feature about reality...I have no such analogous situation going on in my moral subjectivist theory: it is, afterall, at the end of the day, a moral anti-realist position.

I think this is the crux of the confusion slash debate we have about moral judgments: I think you are thinking of them in terms of a moral realist’s perspective whereas I am thinking of it totally differently (like the above).

So, to answer you question, truth is always absolute and expressing something objective, the difference between us is what the moral judgment actually is. For you it is sentences which at least validly purport facts which do not pertain to our psychology, where for me it is exactly that. Hopefully that helps clear things up, but let me if it doesn’t.

So, going back, :

When one states, "I believe one ought not torture babies for fun," I would interpret that to mean, "I believe it is objectively true that one ought not torture babies for fun."

I wouldn’t interpret it that way, I would say “I believe one ought not torture babies for fun” is a fact about their psychological state of mind such that they disapprove of torturing babies for fun. Adding in the ‘objectively true’ seems to question beg to me.

Similarly:

A non-factual moral judgment is not a preference. More, a preference is not a judgment of truth. To affirm a moral proposition is to make a judgment, not to have a preference. Preferences are not judgments and judgments are not preferences.

Admittedly, I need to spruce up my terminology on this point in the essay, because I see how I made this part a bit confusing. By non-factual moral judgment, I just meant that the disapproval, the preference, which underlies the psychological fact that “I believe one ought not torture babies”, is non-factual (which is exactly why I call it a preference). Technically, saying they are non-factual moral judgments is contradictory to what I outlined above as a moral judgment (which is the belief, not the underlying non-factual preference). So, yes, I agree that preferences are not moral judgments, but I would say that moral judgments are the upshot of those preferences. I will add this to the essay in a little while (when I have time).

For the realist a truth, such as 12*12=144, is objective and subjective, in the sense that it is objectively true and yet it is always and only ever known and appropriated by an individual subject. Objective truths are known by subjects. For the moral realist it is the same. "Do not torture babies for fun," is an objective truth, known by a subject.

True. I am saying, as a moral subjectivist, that we are not subjectively coming to know or approach the limit of knowing what is wrong or right, because moral judgments are the upshot of our psychology—not some fact-of-the-matter beyond our pyschology...not some moral fact out there.

If a truth is not universally knowable, then it cannot be universally binding;

That’s true. I should have made this more clear in the OP: the truth is the indexical belief which is universal insofar as either one does indeed have the belief or they don’t, thusly making truth absolute and expressing something objective (even though it is just a fact about one’s psychology, which is an upshot of non-factual dispositions a person has).

‘I believe one ought ...’ is universal insofar as either it is true that the person being referenced by the indexical statement does believe one ought … or they don’t. However, the belief itself, being just an upshot of one’s psychology, is not expressing something objective: it is not latching onto a moral fact out there.

Offhand I can think of two kinds of subjective truths: truths known by a subject on the basis of private information; and truths made true by a subject's intentions. For example, "I enjoy pock-marked lilies," and, "Tomorrow I am going to wear my ugly Christmas sweater." The first sort cannot function as a universally binding moral truth because it is not universally known to all.

I don’t think there is such a thing as ‘objective’ or ‘subjective’ truth: truth is absolute, and it is the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity such that thought corresponds with reality. I take it to be two different claims to say “truth is objective/subjective” vs. “this proposition expresses something objective/subjective”.

I look forward to your response,

Bob

Oh, I been in the back of the room, keeping my head down, taking notes.

:lol:

A Kantian with respect to moral subjectivism I’ll admit. Ethics is more than that, I think.

Objective moral principle is like world peace. One can wish for it, visualize it, even figure out how to do it, but understands even if he does it, there’s precious little reason to expect anybody else to follow suit.

I see: are you saying you still adhere to Kant's ethics but with modifications to accommodate to moral subjectivism? Or would you just say you agree with only Kant's metaphysics that are not about ethics?

:grin:

Where is your head at these days? I would presume a Kantian with respect to ethics as well, so probably upholding his maxim of universalizability as an objective moral principle?

I was debating on creating a new thread, but didn't see the need since this thread essentially morphed into a debate about moral realist accounts vs. moral subjectivism. But, I went ahead and reverted it and created a thread for archive purposes of this thread.

I haven't been following this thread, but the CPR is a great read and I would highly recommend reading it. Kant's mode of analysis is brutally frigid and to-the-point, which I appreciate; and most of the work, if not all of it, is very thoroughly thought out.

Schopenhauer, who builds his own metaphysics from Kant's, is also a great read. On top of reading CPR, I would suggest reading Schopenhauer's critiques of it found in the appendix of the WWR: S's critiques can also help one understand what K is getting at.

For me, I can say that I owe to Kant a couple things:

1. He awoke me from my direct realist dogmatic slumber;
2. He introduced me to a priori knowledge;
3. He made me think way to deeply about what reasons I really have for thinking I have any sort of knowledge of the world as it is in-itself, lol; and
4. His metaphysics on time and space I largely endorse.

I'm heading out for the holidays and won't be online again until Monday at minimum next week. Sorry Bob if this didn't address everything, but I'm out of time. I look forward to answering more questions then!

No worries at all.

I don’t think your posts quite addressed my questions: you seems to be overlooking the metaethical, which foundational to ethics, considerations of a normative ethical theory. Firstly, the question of moral realism vs. anti-realism. Just to provide ample clarity, by moral anti-realism I mean ‘not moral realism’, and by moral realism I mean a three-pronged thesis:

1. Moral judgments are propositional [moral cognitivism]; and
2. Moral judgments express something objective [moral objectivism]; and
3. There is at least one true moral judgment.

I am assuming you affirm #1 and #3, but I am inquiring about #2. You still have not provided what ‘goodness is’ in the sense of what those moral properties subsist in or of or are reducible to. E.g., is goodness identical to ‘well-being’, ‘happiness’, ‘existing’, ‘psychological approval’, ‘societal approval’, ‘conative emotions’, etc. ?

The closest I believe you have gotten to answer this is when you said ‘The initial idea of good is what should be’; but this doesn’t answer the above. If you claim ‘goodness’ is identical to ‘what should be’, but where do properties of ‘what should be’ subsist in or of? E.g., are they identical to ‘well-being’, <...>, etc.? However, you also said ‘initial idea’ and not ‘idea’, so I am presuming you mean goodness isn’t just ‘what should be’--so what is it?

Moreover, I think ‘existence is good’ is pretty vague: is it ‘existing is good’, ‘preserving existence is good’, or/and ‘creating more existence is good’ (I’ve read you claiming things similar to all three)? For now, I will continue using ‘existence is good’ because the worry I am expounding isn’t really contingent on getting that clarification.

If the property of goodness is being predicated of ‘existence’, then ‘the good’ is not ‘existence’ because it is not identical to it: so what it is? Is it sentiments, preferences, facts, etc.? I remember you saying there are no facts that make ‘existence good’, so that would entail either (1) you affirm #2 but there is no such fact for ‘existence being good’ (and so your theory has only subjective justification for it being good) or (2) you are denying #2 and your justification for anything being good is an expression of something subjective. Which one is it? I am trying to get my bearings on your metaethical commitments, because that’s the underlying foundation of normative ethics and applied ethics (and ethics in general).

There’s other things you noted that I would like to contend with, such as normativity needing to pertain to something that exists, but I want to hone in on the metaethics first before I move on to the normative ethics.

Bob

Thank you for the clarifications! I think I have my little bit more of my bearings, so I would like to hone in on one issue at a time and work our way through it.

The first issue I have is you are claiming ‘existence is good’, where ‘is good’ is predication, and do not seem to offer any account of (1) why it is good nor (2) what goodness actually is.

With respect to #1, you seem to be arguing:

P1: If there is something instead of nothing and moral judgments cannot pertain to nothing, then existence is good.

P2: there is something instead of nothing and moral judgments cannot pertain to nothing.

C: TF, existence is good.

If this isn’t what you are claiming, then please write a basic syllogism like the above for why ‘existence is good’ so I can understand better exactly what is being inferred from what. I will vaguely say, for now, that P1 is not valid, as per Hume’s Guillotine.

With respect to #2, I am failing to see anywhere where you outline metaethically what goodness is. If you are predicating ‘existence’ with ‘is good’, then goodness, as a moral property or set of properties, originates and subsists in something else other than existence: what is it? I know you said that there are no facts that make ‘existence good’, so I would say, if that is true, then this lands this view in anti-realist territory. Perhaps you are also a moral subjectivist, like me—not sure yet.

The reason it is important to adequately outline #2 in an ethical theory is because moral anti-realism comes with its own share of challenges. E.g., if ‘existence is good’ as a matter of fact purely of your own psychology (and thusly a moral non-fact), then it isn’t factual that ‘existence is good’--it is a preference you have...so why should anyone care?

I know you don’t like ‘isms’, but I am being careful not to attribute claims which are not directly implied of your view. If I do make that mistake, then please let me know.

I will stop there for now because I want to go point-by-point through everything here, instead of having multiple conversations about different but related disputes.

Bob

The question or morality starts from, "should" there be something at all, and arrives at the conclusion that it is the wrong question to start with. The answer is "there is something instead of nothing". We cannot even ask the question, "should" something be, without there first being something. That's the foundation. In the case of material existence, what "should" be, starts with "what is".

This seems like a non-sequitur to me. Essentially (as far as I am understanding) you arguing:

P1: If there is something instead of nothing, then there should be something.

P2: there is something instead of nothing.

C: TF, there should be something.

P1 is a non-sequitur. Just because there is something it does not follow that there should be something. Imagine there's no apple on the table, and I say "there should be an apple on that table" and you go "ahhh, but there has never been an apple on a table, and we cannot even ask the question 'should there be an apple on that table' without there first having been an apple on at least one table!". Just because there has never been something, it doesn't follow that it shouldn't be or that it is an unintelligible question. Likewise, just because there has never been 'being', it does not follow that it should or shouldn't be. Of course, I grant we presuppose in our language existence, but I think we can intelligibly get around this.

Let's say that we cannot formulate a normative judgment without presupposing something exists, there's still the unanswered question of: why is existence good? Just because we need it to perform moral contemplation it doesn't follow that it is good, moral, righteous, morally permissible, morally impermissible, etc.

. We cannot say, "should" they exist, because that would imply some other existence that dictated that they should or should not be

I don’t see why this would be true. The question ‘should they exist’ is despite whether there is anything that could exist more fundamentally than them: it could be the case that there is nothing more fundamental than a quark and it be immoral that they exist—no?; just like how I can validly ask ‘should this baby have been tortured for fun’ even if there is no actual way in which reality could have been such that the baby wouldn’t have been tortured for fun. What is is despite what ought to be.

But if there is no existence, there is nothing to dictate such a thing.

Again, why would there have be some sort of actual state-of-affairs in reality such that an action (or what not) could be performed for someone to rightfully claim it should be performed? These seem like two separate highways to me.

Likewise, it seems like you are saying existence dictates what is good, which would imply that it is not itself predicated as good but rather is identical to 'the good'. It seems to be a standard of morality for you, but then you also say it isn't because there is nothing factual which makes it 'the good'. I am sort of confused about that.

You seem to be saying that what should be the case is tied to what is actually the case.

Hopefully I clarified it earlier, but such a question of "should" cannot be asked without there first being a foundation of "is"

I totally agree that normative judgments cannot exist without something factual to judge about, but* I am failing to see how the normative judgments themselves are grounded in something factual, including how existence is non-subjectively good. By my lights, something that ought to be the case is a separate consideration from how things are currently arranged or how they exist. To me, if ‘existence is good’, I would say that is true subjectively and if it is not, then I am not sure how that is the case (yet).

* I actually don't see how this is the case either. Imagine I am contemplating whether or not it is morally permissible to breath magic syrup on a unicorn: this doesn't entail, in any meaningful sense, any facts--it is the imagination.

This is like asking, "Should oneness exist". It is the base upon which we use to discuss if we should add or subtract one.

I agree that you need the number one to make prescriptions which involve math, but this is no way (as far as I can tell) implies nor entails that those prescriptions are themselves derived from math; and think this is what you may be doing with ‘existence’. You are essentially saying (as far as I understand) that we need something to exist to create prescriptions, therefore there is a true moral judgment that states ‘existence is good’. In other words:

P1: If morality presupposes existent entities (to derive them from), then it is true that ‘existence is good’.

P2: morality presupposes existent entities.

C: TF, it is true that ‘existence is good’.

I don’t think it is true that ‘existence is good’ because morality presupposes existent entities: I just don’t see how that inference is being made. Same thing with your math example:

P1: if normativity pertaining to math presupposes math (to derive them from), then it is true that ‘oneness should exist’ (or ‘math is good’ or something like that).

P2: …

C: …

You get the point. If I am missing the mark and you agree with me here, then I would like to know what makes existence good? It seems like you are saying it is good solely because we need it to engage in morality and normativity—but that is the syllogism I gave above.

The issue of what should be done, or morality, is the addition and subtraction of existence. To add and subtract without existence is impossible.

I would say morality is just ‘the study of what one ought to be doing’. Someone might believe that what they ought to doing is to ‘subtract existence’ (e.g., anti-natalism, etc.) or something completely unrelated.

For example, I think it is perfectly intelligible to say "nothingness should be, rather than there being something": remove the linguistic limitations (e.g., nothingness should be still seems to linguistically presuppose existence, etc.) and I think it is clear that one can intelligibly convey that nothingness is morally better than existence, even if I don't actually agree with the proposition. — Bob Ross

Certainly, its perfectly intelligible to say such a thing. But is there a reason behind the claim? I'm very open to someone claiming this as long as they can back it.

My point was that it can’t be intelligible under your view because existence is presupposed for moral contemplation; so it wouldn’t make sense to say “yeah, it would be better if there wasn’t anything at all”. I am not saying that statement is true, I am just saying it would make no sense under your view because you would be committed (as far as I can tell) to “better” presupposing something exists—thusly presupposing that existence is better than nothingness and this is incoherent with the claim that nothingness is better.

My point is not to make a case for nothingness being good: I am merely pointing out that, to me, it isn’t incoherent to claim this because I don’t see why normative claims presuppose that existence is good. I see how they presuppose some content to contemplate, but not that content itself is thereby good.

Also, if there is no fact that makes existence good, then in virtue of what makes that true? Is it true because you desire it to be true, approve of it, etc.?

Thank you for the clarifications and elaborations! Let me continue down my line of questioning with respect to key point #1 first, and then move on to #2 later.

Predication seems closest. The idea of good here is foundational. The fundamental question of what should be is the question of existence itself. Should there be anything, or not? In a universe of nothingness, if a lone atom appeared, should that exist or not? The question of "should" of course cannot exist with there being something. Meaning the foundational claim of morality is not what "should" be, but what is. The "should" of morality only comes afterwards. What should be as I note later, is the expression of that material existence. Thus the foundation of morality is "is", and then logically leads to "ought".

So, to be honest, I am not sure how to wrap my head around this. I also saw similar remarks in your OP, and was unable to parse the argument here. So let me just ask some more questions.

Firstly, if it is predication and not identity, then ‘goodness’ is a standard which, I would say, you are importing or outsourcing when claiming ‘existence is good’. So, whatever ‘goodness’ is would be a separate question; so, let me ask, under this view, so I can warp my barrings around this better, is ‘goodness’ grounded in some mind(stance)-independent feature in reality (i.e., is it objective) or not? Is there a moral fact-of-the-matter that makes ‘existence good’--or is it just good because you believe it to be, desire it to be, or something similar?

Secondly:

The idea of good here is foundational. The fundamental question of what should be is the question of existence itself.

Would you agree that the fundamental question of ‘what should be’ is separate from the foundational ‘idea of good’?

Should there be anything, or not? In a universe of nothingness, if a lone atom appeared, should that exist or not?

This seems like any other normative question to me: is there a moral or normative fact-of-the-matter that you are using to determine the answer to “should there be anything, or not?”?

In a universe of nothingness, if a lone atom appeared, should that exist or not? The question of "should" of course cannot exist with there being something. Meaning the foundational claim of morality is not what "should" be, but what is.

This seems wrong to me, although admittedly I haven’t fully grasped what you are saying yet: the fact that morality has no use if there is nothing does not entail that moral claims’ truthity is dependent on there being something. The claims in morality, by my lights, are about what should be, and never what is: what should be is despite what is.

Imagine there actually is nothing: no universe, no world, no you, no me, etc. This wouldn’t change the fact (if it is a fact) that ‘it is wrong to torture babies for fun’; and it seems like, just upon my initial read here of your quote, that morality is about what is foundationally because the foundational claim of morality is what is: is that correct? It seems like you are saying that it would be perfectly unintelligible whether ‘it is wrong to torture babies for fun’ if nothing existed.

The "should" of morality only comes afterwards.

It seems like you may be claiming that morality is about what should be which presupposes something exists, that ‘existence’ itself is presupposed in any possible notion of ‘goodness’, but the truth of the moral claim has no ties to existence itself. For example, I think it is perfectly intelligible to say "nothingness should be, rather than there being something": remove the linguistic limitations (e.g., nothingness should be still seems to linguistically presuppose existence, etc.) and I think it is clear that one can intelligibly convey that nothingness is morally better than existence, even if I don't actually agree with the proposition. Is the proposition "nothingness is morally better than existence", according to your view, incoherent?

@Philosophim

Another way of thinking about key point #1 (that I described) that I just thought of, in terms of what I am thinking you are saying, is that existence is identical to 'the good'; but re-reading it I suspect I may have misunderstood and you are merely predicating the property of 'goodness' to existence. Which one is correct (in relation to your view)?

Hello Philosophim! As always, you never disappoint: your positions are creative, thought-provoking, and substantive. For now, I would like to focus on two key points I think you made in your OP before divulging in the rest.

I would like to just offer my understanding of these two key points, and inquire of any corrections you may see in my understanding of them before making any critiques.

I think your metaethics and normative ethics can be boiled down to two fundamental, key points:

1. Existence is the good; and
2. The good/right action is the one of which its consequences maximize the good.

To expand a bit, I inferred #1 from your depiction of what 'the good' is:

So then it is a question to existence itself. Should existence be? The question of ought cannot be decided because 'nothing' has no opinion on the matter. So it is a choice. Exist, or not. Not existing will result in nothing. When there is nothing, there is no morality, no good, no evil, nothing. It is the “decision” or “insistence” of existing that creates a situation of morality. Continue to exist for the next second, or cease to exist.

So instead of starting with morality as relying on the fundamental “ought”, the fundamental of morality is what “is”. The question of whether to exist or not. If an existence exists, that is the fundamental step of what we might call “good”. For without existence, good cannot exist. For anything that exists, existence is the first fundamental step of being good.
...
Taking existence as being good, we can finally calculate an objective measurement of what “ought” to happen
...

1. If existence is good, then more existence is better.
2. Any existence which lowers overall existence is evil.

However, I also sort of get the notion that you may be saying the first good is existing, and 'the good' is thereby distinct from existence itself. So perhaps I am wrong on #1.

I inferred #2 from you sections on how to calculate what one ought to be doing, and some of the above quotes, such as:

1 life * 10 hours = 10 unique life expressions.
…
10! * 1 hours = 3,628,800 unique potential life interactions

Meaning, while the unique life expressions are the same, the potential existence of what those unique life expressions dwarfs that of the single individual

I am interpreting, so far, your use of 'time ticks', probability, and the like as merely measuring units and tools for maximizing the good.

Am I on the right track here?

I look forward to your response,
Bob

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

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

:kiss:

They do not hold that tastes can be imposed on other people, and that is what you have consistently held.

Unless you mean something other than ‘preference’ by ‘taste’, then they absolutely do. Moral non-cognitivists, like emotivists, hold that our moral judgments are expressions of our emotions, like ‘Boo! Yayyy!’, and the vast majority don’t see anything wrong with doing that. They don’t end their articles or essays with ‘but this is all just irrational and we should stop doing it’.

why do you enforce and care about the moral facts?. Because you simply like it—not because there is a fact of the matter — Bob Ross

You're obviously begging the question.

How? Is your enforcement of the moral facts not a taste you have? It can’t be a moral fact, can it?

No, because what I "want" flows from my "subjectivity," and what I am bound by (morality) flows from something that is objective

Leontiskos, I never doubted that for a second, what I am saying is that the ‘what [that]...flows from something objective’ doesn’t entail nor imply that you should want to enforce or impose them on other people (which flows from subjectivity). So, why are you warranted in imposing that taste on other people?

My other point was that my position, like yours, does not entail that ‘I can do whatever I want’ in the colloquial use of that sentence, because I am not claiming everything is morally permissible.

If there is a speed limit of 55 mph that I am bound to obey, then I cannot do whatever I want. Suppose you repudiate the speed law. I conclude, "You can drive as fast as you want!" You respond that you have certain subjective inclinations that tend to limit your speed to 55 mph, and that, after all, we are both in the same boat with regard to a speed limit. But this is patently false, for we are not in the same situation at all. I can expand if you disagree.

Of course, I agree these are not equivocal, but they are analogous….and that’s my point. You upholding and caring about the speed limit (law) is subjective and you cannot ground it in objectivity. This is required for you to enforce yourself and others to go only 55 mph, but this does not negate that there is a fact-of-the-matter of a 55 mph speed limit. My point is that what is analogous is that you are subjectively enforcing the law, and I am subjectively enforcing my law: so, if, according to you, we are never justified in imposing subjectivity on each other, then why are you justified in subjecting me to the law if it requires your subjective enforcement (caring) of the law. This is the line between axiology and morality, such I am trying to get you to see that they are companions in guilt.

Your point is presumably that either I could also choose to repudiate the speed limit, or else that I am lying about my belief that the speed limit binds me. If I am lying then we are in the same boat, but of course I am not lying. I could choose to repudiate the speed limit, but I have not done so, and therefore we are not in the same boat.

I think you missed the point, and I refer you to what I noted above. You seem to skip over the fact that you have no objective reason to enforce the law.

Then, positively, if I saw someone imposing his ice cream taste, I would deem him irrational. It wouldn't matter at all if he really cares about that ice cream flavor. I would still deem him irrational

I think this is simply because it is so far out of the norm of things people really care about and you don’t approve of people caring that much about ice cream—not that there is some sort of fact out there that deems it false, nor that they are being logically inconsistent nor incoherent. What’s contradictory about imposing ice cream tastes on people? Nothing. It’s weird, odd, and most people will disapprove; but it is not logically inconsistent nor incoherent.

Namely, if I saw someone imposing something like an ice cream taste, that would be irrational. You say that you are willing to impose things that are like ice cream tastes, and therefore I deem you irrational.

I personally would not impose tastes that are like ice cream tastes, but what I am saying is that fundamentally how we decide what is worth imposing with respect to tastes is just what we care enough about. I don’t care enough about ice cream flavors to impose that on other people: it seems very trivial and it violates my own moral law. I very much believe in human rights, believe it or not...they just aren’t derived from something objective (;

By ‘taste’ I don’t just mean superficial preferences, I mean all preferences; and perhaps you are excluding deeper preferences from the term ‘taste’ because you keep going back to the ice cream example.

Imposition requires more than that.

What exactly does it require? And how are you not being incoherent with respect to axiology?

I suspect that you know this. You know it is irrational to impose ice cream tastes, even if one cares about them a great deal. And you know that if X is not imposable, and Y is like X, then Y is also not imposable.

I am saying that what is imposable is fundamentally subjective and determined by the degree of interest a person has in something. By ‘interest’ I don’t just mean superficial hobbies, I mean things like ‘I am very interested in not letting people torture other people’ or ‘increasing human rights’. Personally, I don’t approve of imposing ice cream tastes because I don’t care about it enough nor approve of other people caring about it that much to impose it on each other. I think the world is a (subjectively) better place where people can eat whatever ice cream they want.

I do appreciate these long and detailed posts of yours, but if I tried to engage them in detail I would soon run short on time. I cannot responsibly enter into such long-form discussions at this point. This seems to have been a difficulty throughout: you have much more time than I do, and that discrepancy becomes problematic.

I totally get being low on time, but this is the major issue of this conversation is that you keep ignoring large chunks of my responses and then hostilely respond with less relevant information. We are making no progress because, I would say, you are not genuinely contending with the majority of what I am saying. You just keep defaulting to “you can’t impose tastes”, “that’s irrational”, etc.

I would respectfully ask that you wait and respond when you do have time, because I appreciate responses with substance over quick responses.

I will say, though, that the central problem is that you mistake states of affairs with physical reality, and Michael has addressed this in detail in the other thread.

Interesting: can you elaborate? I specifically put in a paragraph addressing this because it is a common objection: I would say that ‘state-of-affair’ is referring to any arrangement, atemporal or temporal or spatial or aspatial alike, and not physical reality. I know non-naturalists and theists are generally going to want to escape going this route, but I don’t think they can. I am also talking about moral facts from God’s nature, and platonic forms. If you beg to differ, then I am all ears!

Of course if you assert an ontological position which denies the possibility of normative realities then normative realities will be excluded from your ontology.

The reason I deny it is not dogmatic: it is because of P1. You would have to reject P1 to accept normative realities that are supersensible.

But as I have noted, beginning with totalizing, abstract, categorical systems is just a poor way to do philosophy, or to think in general. If you are not able to consider individual propositions independently of your a priori system, then you have walled yourself off from new data, information, and insight.

I have consider moral naturalist, theist, and non-naturalist realist positions with respect to as many as I can get my hands on. I can assure you I have not just whimsically decided to cut myself off from a rich subset of moral realism. I don’t think any of them work, and my argument boils down to that one I shared previously and because I just don’t buy the positive arguments for those positions themselves.

If you disagree, then please provide me with some arguments or a contention with my argument.

The vast majority I have ever talk to or heard of have held that preferences can be imposed on other people. The only moral anti-realism view that in principle doesn't allow it is nihilism...but I've heard some of them also allow for impositions of preferences.

Moral non-cognitivist positions, like emotivism, absolutely agree with me on this point.
Moral subjectivists absolutely agree with me on this point.

You are thinking of moral nihilism or amoralism and conflating it with moral anti-realism.

Your argument seems to be, "Moral realism is false, therefore I can do whatever the heck I want! If moral realism is false, then I'll impose my tastes whenever I please!"

It depends on what you mean. I cannot do whatever I want in any meaningful, colloquial sense of the term because I must abide by my own moral law--viz., my 'ego', as the tip of the ice berg, can say 'I find this to be morally permissible', but if my true self does not then I am going to be in a world of hurt when I violate my own moral law; but, sure, that stems from my psychology too!

But this is true of yourself as well (so some extent), and is not absurd nor abnormal, just like everyone else: why do you enforce and care about the moral facts?. Because you simply like it—not because there is a fact of the matter (because there can’t be in this case, even if moral realism is true). So, let’s be consistent and apply your own reasoning to your own position:

Your axiology boils down to “I can do whatever the heck I want! I will, then, impose whatever values I please!” And you simply can't 'do whatever you want' in the sense that you will not allow yourself to violate the moral facts. See how this is analogous to the above?

You keep avoiding this because, at this point, I think you know it undermines your point here. This isn’t a gotcha moment, I would much rather you actually genuinely attempt at answering the hypothetical.

So sure, on that account you can impose your tastes, or contradict yourself with impunity, or send millions of Jews to the gas chambers.

I will not allow myself to contradict myself (if I know it) nor send millions of jews to the gas chambers; but, yes, none of it is objectively wrong...that’s why moral subjectivism is a form of moral anti-realism.

Have you read Nietzsche? Based off of your responses, I bet you hate that man (; – but I could be wrong.

Everything is fair game! I admit I wasn't prepared for the doubling-down on sociopathy. I was sort of hoping for more than that.

If by ‘sociopathy’ and ‘everything is fair game’ you are loaded the terms with objectivity, thusly presupposing your own view and consequently begging the question, then sure. I don’t use those terms that way, because I am not a moral realist.

But the notion that your view is in some way rational is surely problematic, and you did admit this in your own way

I don’t think it is irrational to be a moral anti-realist, I’ve outlined what I mean by ‘rationality’, and you never once will answer my inquiries about what you mean by ‘rationality’. It seems like, for you, being rational requires one to be a moral realist...that’s kind of convenient, isn’t it?

In this post (
↪Bob Ross
) you attempt to give four steps that would precede coercion in matters of taste. Regarding those, I would invite you to ask yourself whether <one ought not have false beliefs>, <one ought to have consistent beliefs>, etc. Logic and reasoning is inherently moral, and the things that we reason about have an inherent objective quality. Your rebuke about "charity" and "hate" is a moral rebuke (
↪Bob Ross
). The ideas that we ought to seek truth, or be consistent, or mean what we say, are all moral claims

This is correct (for the most part) and equally can be said of axiology. If the person doesn’t even agree with me on being logically consistent, for example, then I will deploy the same tactics I told you about plus some others to try and convince them otherwise; and at the end of the day if they are doing something really bad then I will use violence to stop them. this is no different than enforcing laws, axiological evaluations, and enforcing moral realism. You keep bringing up things that equally apply to your own position (as far as I can tell).

I largely agree with Amadeus' analysis here. @Bannos moral realism seems like it is really just moral cognitivism, and I think they actually agree with me on that (but I could be mistaken).

Although I gave up on my original Humean argument for moral realism, this does not entail that I am convinced that moral realism is true nor that it should be the default position: quite the contrary; and I am sure Leontiskos didn't provide a positive argument for moral realism in here because they are expected me to give a positive argument for moral anti-realism in this thread (which is fair enough) but I've moved on and am now, in the other thread, asking moral realists to give me reasons to believe their view. With that being said, I am working on an argument for moral anti-realism that I have run by Leontiskos before; but here's the fully fleshed out version:

My argument provides a positive case against prong-2 of the moral realist thesis, so let me recap what I think that thesis is:

1. Moral judgments are propositional [moral cognitivism]; and
2. Moral judgments express something objective [moral objectivism]; and
3. There is at least one true moral judgment [moral non-nihilism].

Here's the argument:

P1: The way reality is does not entail how it ought to be.

P2: Moral facts are statements about how reality is such that it informs us how it ought to be.

C: Therefore, moral facts cannot exist.

Here's an elaboration:

P1 affirms a subtle and fairly intuitive notion that whatever the state-of-affairs are in reality (i.e., in the totality of existence) it simply does not inform us how they should be—what should be the case is despite what is the case. However, if moral facts exist, then they are exactly that: states-of-affairs that inform us of how reality should be—which entails that what should be the case is not despite what is the case. Therefore, P1 precludes the existence of moral facts as defined in P2. If moral facts cannot exist, then it is impossible for any true moral judgments, if they exist, to be expressing something objective and, thusly, prong-2 of the moral realist’s thesis is denied if the above argument is affirmed. It seems as though the moral realist must deny P1 to salvage moral facticity (from this argument), but this seems like an incredibly expensive maneuver: if states-of-affairs about reality can inform us how it ought to be, then it appears as though the question “it is the case, but should it be the case?” is not a universally valid question (which seems very implausible). Likewise, when one is presented with such a state-of-affairs that ground, objectively, a moral fact-of-the-matter called, let’s say, M, they cannot, if P1 is false, validly ask “it is the case that M, but should it be the case that M?”. However, this seems like a legitimate question: just because it is the case that there is such a state-of-affairs that (allegedly) grounds a moral fact, it does not seem to follow that it should be that way or that another state-of-affairs would not have been better. Nevertheless, this is the bullet a moral realist must bite: some state-of-affairs are simply what should be, and they cannot be questioned further about what they should be themselves.

Here's anticipated objections and responses:

There are various objections a moral realist can make that are worth noting. One could, as mentioned before, bite the bullet and deny P1; one could deny the underlying theory of truth required for P2 and adopt an alternative theory (e.g., pragmatist account, coherentism, deflationary account, etc.); or one could deny what is sometimes called the ‘direction-of-fit’ with respect to the statement and reality such that it is reversed: if, in P2, a moral fact has a ‘world-to-statement’ ‘direction-of-fit’, then, at least in principle, they are not statements about reality but rather exist as informants of reality. The first objection has already been addressed and the second is out of the scope of this, but the third is worth addressing further. By ‘direction-of-fit’ of a fact, it is meant as a specifier of the direction by which one should correspond the statement and reality. There are two options: a ‘reality-to-statement’ or ‘statement-to-reality’ direction-of-fit: the former implies that one attempts, in order to decipher the truth, to ‘fit’ (or correspond) reality with the statement (such that a state-of-affairs in reality makes the statement true) and the latter implies an attempt at ‘fitting’ the statement with reality (such that the statement is true if it agrees with a state-of-affairs in reality but isn’t immediately made true by a state-of-affairs). An example of the former is a human desire: if one desires X, then it is true that they desire X and this is made true solely because of the state-of-affairs responsible for generating a desire for X—there is no matching of the statement ‘I desire X’ with reality but, rather it is just true in virtue of its own creation; whereas an example of the latter is ‘I ran today 5 miles’: that statement is true iff there was a state-of-affairs in the past (today) which contained one running 5 miles—there is a matching of the statement with reality, and the statement is not true in virtue of some process(es). The moral realist, who takes this route, will say that moral judgments are like the former and not the latter, and P2 is assuming the latter. To this, I deny the validity of a ‘reality-to-statement’ direction-of-fit for anything: every proposition is true iff that statement corresponds to a state-of-affairs in reality and, as such, is made true only by matching with reality and never by some virtue of its own creation. Consequently, ‘I desire X’ is true iff I actually desire X: it is not true in virtue of me stating or thinking it. There is simply no such thing as a fact of which its truthity is sui generis.
Another worthy objection, albeit a misapprehension, is that this is an argument from Hume’s is-ought gap and, consequently, objections are directed towards this argument by proxy of objections raised to Hume’s, or some neo-Humian’s, is-ought gap argument. It is imperative that the reader understands that Hume’s Guillotine is an epistemic argument which does not negate the possibility of moral facts but, rather, notes that one cannot validly, in logical form, derive an prescriptive statement from an indicative statement; whereas the argument set out hereon is far bolder, being a ontological argument, that contends with the notion of a moral facts being impossible in virtue of normativity and objectivity being two different ontological categories.
The last noteworthy objection is a misunderstanding stemming from the term ‘reality’ and ‘states-of-affairs’: some moral non-naturalists will agree with my argument and merely add that it does not contend with their moral realist theories because they identify moral properties with supersensible, supernatural, or non-natural properties—thusly, they have no problem admitting that the way reality is never entails how it should be. However, this misunderstands the deployment of the terms ‘reality’ and ‘states-of-affairs’ in this argument: it is not referencing nature, the universe, or the world but, rather, the ‘totality of existence’—and ‘states-of-affairs’ is not referencing mere temporal nor spatiotemporal ‘states’ within reality but, rather, is any ‘arrangement’ of existent entities within reality. Consequently, for example, theistic and platonistic moral realist positions are not exempt from this argument.

There you go @Leontiskos: this (^) is a fully fleshed-out positive argument for moral anti-realism (irregardless of whether you agree with it).

I think your toes are much stickier than you realize.

Then please respond adequately to my previous responses, and demonstrate any incoherencies or inconsistencies with my position.

f someone thinks imposing tastes is justifiable, then in my estimation the conversation is at an end, and they have reduced their own position to absurdity.

I see. So, for you, anyone who isn’t a moral realism is thereby absurd, irrational, and stupid...this seems like you have straw manned your opponent’s position(s) with a false dilemma.

Likewise, you ignored my questions about axiology. It seems as though you either reduce axiology to morality (which I think is flawed) or you are internally incoherent with this critique.

You think imposing tastes is justifiable (when "[You] care about it enough to impose it on other people"). Hence, the conversation is at an end.

So be it.

I got the feeling this wasn't on the menu, for this interlocutor. I have a feeling moral realists are necessarily unable to bridge the gap we're genuinely looking to traverse.

Although I don’t want to overgeneralize moral realists, I would say my conversation with Leontiskos is an example of a moral realist that cannot step outside of their moral realism to understand their opposition on their opposition’s own terms. I don’t expect them to agree with me, but it is sad (to me) when the conversation isn’t as fruitful as it could have been.

I would suggest you read my response again: I don't see how anything you noted helped further the conversation.

As far as I am concerned such a move is a forfeiture of your position. I have never heard anyone, on this forum or elsewhere, argue for this stupid position.

I don’t think you are being charitable to my position nor are you genuinely trying to understand it. You keep making hateful comments which are either ungrounded or presuppose your moral realist framework.

If you are unwilling to have a serious and respectful conversation about moral subjectivism, then I think it is best that we just agree to disagree. I am more than willing to continue the conversation, but, as of now, it seems clear to me you are more interesting with throwing around insults than actually contending with my elaborate responses. I responded to a lot of your objections and you simply ignored them in this response.

With that being said, I will address only the parts of your response that I think I wouldn’t be re-iterating what you have ignored from my other responses.

I am not going to argue with someone who thinks the burden is on me to show that de gustibus non est disputandum

I do not disagree that tastes, at the end of the day, are indisputable. I never said otherwise or to the contrary.

As far as I am concerned such a move is a forfeiture of your position.

You not liking my position is not a forfeiture of my position. If you can provide a contradiction or incoherence with the view, which you have not done as of yet, then I am more than happy to concede my position (or amend as necessary). I am not looking to stay ten toes down for the sake of dignity or pride: I seek the truth.

(It's actually sort of fascinating because you have basically provided a per se description of irrationality

I am not really that interested in the definition of stupidity, since it hinges on the definition of rationality; so let’s dive in: what is your definition of rationality? I don’t see how enforcing a preference is irrational there is something incoherent or contradictory about doing so. This is why I keep asking you to provide two propositions that I accept which you think are incoherent or contradictory. I can only assume, with all due respect, that you are unable to do so, and implicitly concede that there isn’t any.

It is truth or imposition by sheer willpower. This is precisely what irrationality is on a classical Platonic account. It is caring more about your passions than about what is true, and letting your passions override reason.

You would be right if moral facts existed. Again, you just continue to, with all due respect, blatantly presuppose your position and act like I am irrational for not accepting it. If there are no moral facts, then to impose a moral non-fact is not going against what is true. Likewise, in my scenario I gave you, not caring about the moral fact isn’t the same as claiming the moral fact is false or doesn’t exist.

I answered your tu quoque:
Nope. I say, "This is a moral truth [a "fact" if you prefer], and therefore I treat it as a moral truth." You say, "This is a taste, but I do not treat it as a taste." My action matches my perception, whereas yours does not. Even if someone wants to say that I am irrational (because they believe my perception is mistaken), they would have to admit that you are significantly more irrational, because you do not even act according to your perceptions. You have a sort of first-order irrationality going on.

You seem to smuggling here: treating a moral truth ‘like it is a moral truth’ seems to be smuggling in the notion that it intrinsically axiologically matters, which is false. Is that what you are arguing? That in virtue of something being a moral truth is should be valued?

If so, then how is that not stemming from a preference that you have? You can’t appeal to another moral fact because that is circular logic. Something being morally true doesn’t mean you have to value moral facts in general: what fact are they getting wrong? Or are you saying morals and axiology are the same thing under your view?

If you agree that there is a relevant difference between ice cream preference and not wanting babies to be tortured, then what is the difference!? How does a taste become justifiably imposable?

I answered this in detail in my response, and you can even find it in the quotes you have of me in your response. I said that the difference is that I care about it enough to impose it on other people, just like how you care enough about upholding moral facts to force that value down my throat.

You say, "This is a taste, but I do not treat it as a taste."

But I never said this. I would strongly urge you, with all due respect, to read my responses more carefully. I elaborated in detail how they are both tastes and are not different with regards to that...but whether it is considered ‘reasonable’ to impose is going to depend, since it is subjective, on how much the person cares about it—and I gave the analogy in axiology that commits you to the same line of thinking.

You claim they are tastes, but you treat them as laws. This is irrationality at its finest.

If by ‘law’ you mean ‘moral facts’, then you have simply misapprehended everything I have proposed so far. If by ‘law’ you just mean a ‘subjective moral judgment that commits the person to trying to universalize a desire’, then obviously I agree with that. However, the irrationality you refer to only holds water if you are speaking about ‘law’ in the former sense, not the latter.

Onto the irrationality:

It is irrational to impose tastes

Why? What’s irrational about it? Show me a contradiction, whether that be logical, actual, or metaphysical. I don’t think you can: you just projecting your sentiment that we shouldn’t impose tastes as if it ‘irrational’.

Likewise, you refuse to respond to my hypothetical that I have presented now multiple times and I am starting to think you may realize it undermines your point here; otherwise, I don’t know why you keep evading it. Respond to the hypothetical.

it is irrational to hold that there are non-objective truths

I never made this claim. Again, I think a lot of this is just misunderstandings on your side, and perhaps I am just not conveying it good enough: it is a fact that I believe, I disapprove, of torturing babies, but that is not a moral fact. The moral judgment is enveloped in the belief, which is an upshot of my psychology and physiology, that is a projection my thinking and not something which latches onto a fact about the world. You seem to be thinking that I am saying that if I believe that one shouldn’t torture babies that it is true: this is ambiguous: it is not true that ‘one should not torture babies’ because it is it true that ‘I believe one should not torture babies’. There is no truth of the matter about ‘one should not torture babies’, since there is no fact of the matter. But it is entirely possible for “I believe ...” to be true for me and false for you since it is an indexical statement. So where’s the irrationality in this? Show me a contradiction.

it is irrational to treat two alike tastes entirely differently

Sort of true. If they are identical, then sure I agree. But they aren’t. You are assuming we should treat them the same because they are within the same category, but that doesn’t make them identical. I care much more for one taste than another, then it rationally makes sense to prioritize the former over the latter. Show me the contradiction.

it is irrational to claim that rationality is a subjective matter

What makes something rational is not subjective in the sense that we get to make them up. What is ‘rational’ is tied to epistemology, which is operated under the context of ‘if one wants to know the world, then they should...’ (type hypothetical imperatives) and, thusly, within that context there are objectively better ways to know the world and, extensionally, better ways to be rational. I never claimed that the term ‘rationality’ was grounded in subjectivity: I think that it is, more or less, about ‘aligning oneself with reality in thought and action’.

When faced with a contradiction in your thinking you try to defend it, and seven more pop up.

You have not come up with a single valid contradiction yet. Give me two propositions which I affirm and demonstrate the contradiction or incoherence with them.

Why?

I am not incredibly familiar with the literature on truth-bearers and truth-makers, but I am aware of the basic idea. I would say that a truth-maker is not reducible to a state-of-affairs in reality, and I would take a necessitation approach by saying that a truth-maker is just that which necessitates something as being true or false (i.e., truth-apt); and I am going to say that ability or aptness for correspondence to reality is what makes a sentence truth-apt...truth-bearing.

That there is no ball in your room is a truth maker.
That there is no elephant in your room is a different truth maker.

I don’t understand why this would be the case. I would say the truth maker of statements is the same for all of them: whether or not it has the ability to have correspondence with reality. So, to me, both of these statements have the same truth-maker, but they are truth-apt about different claims about reality. Am I missing something?

Moral realists claim that some truth bearer "one ought not X" is true because a particular truth maker – that one ought not X – objectively obtains.

This seems odd to me, as you seem to be implying that the truth-maker, which is some sort of ‘state-of-affairs’ that does not exist, is what obtains for moral statements (when they are facts). This seems like an appeal to non-existence to justify facticity.

Their position has nothing to do with what does or doesn't physically (or abstractly) exist.

I think it does though. Moral facts are usually grounded in divinity, abstract objects, or entities (and their relations to other entities) in the physical world. I don’t know what it would mean to appeal to something that doesn’t exist to make something true. Also, I don’t see how truth-makers entail something is true but, rather, how they are truth-apt.

That there is no ball in your room is a state of affairs.
That there is no elephant in your room is a different state of affairs.

So, I just disagree with this. Those are referencing the same state-of-affairs, but noting different things that are not in that state-of-affairs.

The room in both cases is the exact same: the same couch, same chair, etc.; so why would noting there isn't A vs. B, assuming they both are not in the room, refer to a different state-of-affairs?

For any given state-of-affairs, there is an infinite amount of things of which their existence cannot be found therein and, thusly, can be predicated as "not there".

Why are you trying to universalize a taste that is not universal in any objective sense?

Because it is a taste that I find is important enough to me to enforce. I totally agree with:

Again, I think there is a relevant difference between ice cream preference and the belief that no one should torture babies

But, I would say, within my metaethical framework, the reason I agree with you is not because there is a fact of the matter: it is because what we both consider “worthy” of imposement is similar to one another. They are both tastes (to me), but one hits towards my core morals and the other seems negligible. Why? I can’t give you a full account of my psychology, but I would guess it is a bit of biology, sociology, nurture, and psychology that motivate me towards finding that a reasonable assessment.

Of course, you are going to disagree because all that matters to you, from your metaethical framework, is that they are both tastes; so why do I think you should somewhat agree with me here? Let’s go back to my example (that I still think you have avoided addressing): if you catch me in the act of torturing a baby (for fun) and tell me “you shouldn’t be doing that because it is a fact” and I say “I don’t care”...what is left for you to do other than shove your values down my throat (viz., other than for you to impose your taste that I should care about the moral facts because you care about the moral facts)?

This scenario explicates two things:

1. That moral realists cannot be coherent (internally) with the principle that a taste cannot be imposed on another because they equally do it all the time.

2. It is impossible not to impose one’s tastes, to some extent, on other people. It is not enough to note there is a moral fact-of-the-matter: you also have to impose your taste that anyone should care about them.

So I don’t think you should find it that controversial when I say I would impose my belief that one should not torture babies but no the vanilla ice cream because I value the former simply so much; just like how you value moral facts so much that you will impose that taste on other people.

You have yet to address this issue.

They respond, "No, it's my personal and subjective taste, but I just go around trying to persuade and even force everyone to eat only chocolate ice cream." And they take this to be a reasonable answer to my question. What would you say?

I would find them “unreasonable”, but not objectively wrong. ‘Unreasonablness’ is subjective (ultimately).

If moral subjectivism is the claim that moral judgments are idiosyncratic (flowing from subjectivity), then the evangelistic moral subjectivist is attempting to impose idiosyncrasies.

Not necessarily, but certainly a possibility. Most of the time moral judgments that are not peculiar to one individual makes it into society’s norms. The more peculiar, the less likely it is to have any power over the populace. Society’s functions on explicit and implicit agreement.

To be clear, I grant that your 'moral subjectivism' is probably not a form of moral realism, but I do not grant that it is coherent. It requires one to do things like impose idiosyncratic beliefs, or speak of judgments that are true and yet not objective.

What is incoherent about any of that? Please explicate two propositions which I affirm that you find to be incoherent.

For example, I think you accept “one should not impose tastes on one another” and “one is permitted to impose tastes on each other if it matters deeply to them” which contradict each other; I would say you affirm this because you would implicitly shove your values about morals down my throat in the scenario I gave, which violates the first proposition. What similarly do you find incoherent with my view?

There being true moral judgments, in the sense of being true relative to whether it is a belief or conative disposition a subject has to an action, is perfectly coherent with them not being objective—if they are an upshot of our psychology, then why would anyone even think they are objective?

Correct. The proposition "there is no ball in my room" is true iff the state-of-affairs in my room is such that it excludes the existence of the ball. @Michael appears to think, if I am understanding them correctly, that it being true is in virtue of a state-of-affairs which does not exist but makes it true.

I see what you are saying now, and let me try to address it.

Only my mind exists iff a) my mind exists and b) nothing else exists.

(b) is a state-of-affairs but not something that exists.

B doesn’t have to be a state-of-affairs for my claim to be true. This is just another example of a negative claim: nothing else exists is just like your santa doesn’t exist example. It is true because what it purports about reality agrees with the state-of-affairs in reality, such that there is no santa and there is no other minds that are in that state-of-affairs (of which we call reality). It is not that the negation of something existing entails that there is such a state-of-affairs of non-existence: it is that the state-of-affairs, which exist, agree with the proposition that X doesn’t exist because it really isn’t a part of those states-of-affairs. Go back to my ball analogy in the room, saying “there is not ball in the room” is true iff the state-of-affairs, which all exist, in that room are such that there is no ball in them; you seem to think that it would imply, instead, that there is a state-of-affairs that does not exist such that there is no ball.

Somewhere what I was trying to convey has passed over you, which is fine as I do that too sometimes, so I would like to clarify the points again.

My precise definition I am using of ‘moral realism’ is a thesis of the conjunction of three claims:

1. Moral judgments are propositional [moral cognitivism]; and
2. Moral judgments express something objective [moral objectivism]; and
3. There are some true moral judgments [moral non-nihilism].

This is reflected, upon doing a quick search (again), in every major definition I am seeing on google; but my favorite is https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism/#CharMoraAntiReal:

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

i. moral noncognitivism
ii. moral error theory
iii. moral non-objectivism

Those three prongs are the exact same as mine, except stanford is defining it in terms of the converse position (viz., in terms of what counts as moral anti-realism instead of what counts as moral realism, if you negate each and swap the disjunction for conjunction then you end up with the definition of moral realism).

In terms of your summary of my definition:

I am thinking of moral anti-realism as the idea that, to use your own words, <There are no "subject-referencing prescriptive statements" that are objectively binding on all>.

I think that is a perfectly adequate, less precise, short-hand for it. By ‘moral’ language I do mean ‘subject-referencing normativity’ and by fact I am refering to a statement which agrees with reality with respect to what it purports about reality. Unless I am missing something about your definition here, then I don’t see any incoherence with me accepting this as a useful short-hand definition.

Likewise, saying, in short-hand, “that are objectively binding on all” is just to say that moral anti-realism denies #2. “binding on all” isn’t really necessary aspect of moral anti-realism, but it a meaningful distinction. Technically some prescriptive judgment could be subject-referencing in the sense that it binds to me but not you (theoretically) and that would be a moral fact; however, when talking generally, I would say the most meaningful convo is about ones which apply to all subjects/persons.

No, I don't think so. According to the standard view, someone who accepts objective moral values is a moral realist. What source are you using?

Again, my definition pertains to the bindingness of a moral prescription, and you agreed to that definition. Are you withdrawing your agreement?

Your short-hand definition above that I agreed to was that a moral anti-realist rejects that they are objective. Likewise, I accepted that if by moral realism you mean a person who accepts #1 and #3, which precludes #2 which is required for it to be an objective moral value, then I am a moral realist. I am failing to see the confusion here.

I assume this is a typo and you meant to say "moral realism."

Correct. I apologize.

"I believe the proposition, but that doesn't mean I think it's true."

No. Like I said, moral judgments are expression of subject beliefs and not beliefs about facts under moral subjectivism. You seem to be either misunderstanding or completely ignoring this point I keep making. There is nothing incoherent with saying “I believe you shouldn’t do X” and this is a belief which is an expression of what my psyche approves/disapproves of—not an expression of a belief about a fact-of-the-matter.

I doubt you even completely reject this idea either. Imagine I said “I believe that ice cream tastes absolutely delicious!”. Would you really be confused and say “Oh so you are affirming the fact that ice cream tastes absolutely delicious?”. That believe is the upshot of an approval by their psyche of the taste of ice cream: it is not fact that ice cream tastes really good.


The second thing I wanted to clarify is that you seem to think, as I noted before, that either (1) a taste which expresses a desire for other to have the same desire is impossible or/and (2) that a subjectively universalized goal is equivalent to an objectively universalized goal.

With respect to #1, I just find these to demonstrably exist. With respect to #2, I can subjectively want for everyone to abide by “one ought not do X”, and with it a sense of universalization, while not conceding that it is a fact that “one ought not do X”. I am not sure what the hiccup is here, but you seem to think that it is actually impossible to have a taste that others should have the taste to not do X without it being converted into an objective fact: I think this is just a misunderstanding.

For example, you think that we should not torture babies, and that this moral norm applies universally and unchangeably.

Firstly, it isn’t immutable. I have the taste that everyone should not torture babies, and that could very well change (although I doubt it) in the future.

Secondly, it is not ‘universal’ in any objective sense. I subjectively commit myself to trying to universalize my goal.

Think of it this way. Imagine that we programmed an AI such that they had the sole goal all the time of trying to convince and ultimately stopping people from torturing babies. All else being equal, that people shouldn’t torture babies is not a fact, the AI just has this ingrained taste. Now, does this change the fact that this AI is trying to universalize their taste? Not at all. You seem to omit this option in your analysis.

So if there were an intersubjective agreement that it is permissible to torture babies, then it would be permissible to torture babies?

Ultimately, if one believes that torturing babies is permissible then, relative to them, it is permissible. For me, it is impermissible.

Does the wrongness of torturing babies change with the opinions of the day?

Ultimately, I would say it changes with the individual, and inter-subjectivity flows from that; although they may impact each other (e.g., I may change my mind about torturing babies depending no the society I am in).

True to a strong methodological naturalist bent, on my view, the simplest moral facts existed in their entirety - they emerged onto the world stage - long before our picking them out to the exclusion of all else with our naming and descriptive practices. They do not consist of language use.

Some events count as moral because they share the same basic common denominator that all moral things include. Morality, after all, boils down to coded of conduct. Ethical considerations, after all, are always about what counts as acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. All things moral include that. There are no exceptions. There is no stronger justificatory ground. That all serves as more than adequate ground to discriminate between facts. Moral facts involve what I've been setting out. Non moral ones do not. That commonality makes all ethical considerations and all moral discourse count as moral.

This, in summary, is where the confusion lay: I was thinking you were saying us contemplating what is acceptable/unacceptable counts as moral facts when, if I am understanding you correctly now, you are not saying that. You are saying that something else is the moral facts, and they are emerged naturally through some process (like perhaps evolution?). If I am getting it right this time, then please elaborate on what those facts are. Is tied to well-being, harm and happiness, ingrained into our biology? Something else?

All practiced usage of a term, any term, counts as a 'meaningful' sense(scarequotes intentional) of that particular term. Oddly enough, the term "meaningful" is superfluous here. All senses of all terms are meaningful to the practitioners.

Fair enough.

I'm not alone in holding that events are facts. You insist that in order for me to be arguing in the affirmative for moral realism I must use the subjective/objective dichotomy as well as the mind dependent/independent dichotomy. That's not true.

I mean, I don’t agree with your use of ‘fact’, but I am not trying to convince to use mine; I just didn’t see how us contemplating what is acceptable behavior was a moral fact under your own terms; but now I see you aren’t claiming that.

What grounds your rejection of using the same common denominator to discriminate between kinds of events/facts/states of affairs/happenings?

I am not sure I am following this part yet nor what the property of goodness, wrongness, etc. are reducible to in your naturalist view. I would rather you elaborate more so I have a better grasp of what you are saying than start quarreling about how to discriminate between events and other events.

You seem to find considerable difficulty accepting the facts for what they are when I'm saying stuff that you agree with. That's quite strange to me. What's the title of the thread again? What would a solution be like if not at least somewhat agreeable?

I am not following: are you saying I am disagreeing, or making it difficult, with what I agree with (about what you are saying)?

I am trying to evaluate your moral realist theory internally, and not externally from my view. I was trying to note that you don’t have moral facts (in the contemporary use of the terms in metaethics) in your view since I thought you were saying they are equivalent to human acts of contemplating what is right and wrong.

If you don’t agree with my use of ‘fact’, then that is fine. I am just not seeing what is a moral event/fact under your view which is not simply an act of us contemplating what to do.

The sentence "only my mind exists" is true in scenario 1 but false in scenario 2. If a sentence is true only if it refers to something that exists then it must be that something exists in scenario 1 that doesn't exist in scenario 2. But this clearly isn't the case. The only thing that exists in scenario 1 – my mind – also exists in scenario 2.

The statement “only my mind exists” claims that reality is such that my mind only exists. This is true iff reality is such that there are no other minds.

The statement “only my mind and your mind exists” claims that reality is such that my mind and your mind exists. This is true iff reality is such that my mind and your mind are the only minds.

There clearly is something which doesn’t exist in scenario one that exists in scenario two: your mind. That’s the differentiating factor.

I think you might be inferring your conclusion from that because your mind exists in both scenarios and one is false but the other is true, but that’s not the propositions you gave. To make it match what you are thinking, you would have to posit:

“my mind exists”

“my mind and your mind exists” OR “only my mind and your mind exists”

Now, the former proposition is perfectly compatible with the latter two: with the ones you gave, they are incompatible because you didn’t just claim my mind exists in the first scenario: you claimed it was the only one that exists.

It is also worth mentioning that my belief in the moral judgments is, under moral subjectivism, an upshot of my psychology and not a fact about the stance-independent world (which is what a moral realist is going to hold).

I think I have pinpointed the crux of our disagreement (and let me know what you think): it is twofold. Firstly, you believe that someone is a moral realist if they accept #3 (i.e., “There are at least some true moral judgments.”), whereas I believe one needs to accept all three prongs of the thesis (that I outlined before). Secondly, you believe that there is it is illegitimate to impose a taste on another person.

With respect to the first point, I think this is just wrong, in the sense that this is not a standard definition of moral realism. The contemporary view holds those three prongs, which makeup of the moral realist thesis in its most generic form, and rejecting even one of them entails anti-realism. If you think that #3 (and I would presume #1 as well) are all that are required to be a realist, then, by your definition, I am a realist. I simply do not agree with the semantics.

So, to clarify:

Your statement is a perfect example of a moral judgment, and you are even introducing the notion of truth.
…
Your beliefs and your actions with regard to torturing babies constitute a moral judgment (3).

I wholly agree: moral subjectivism agrees with moral anti-realism insofar as it also affirms there are true moral judgments—they just don’t express anything objective (hence the denial of #2). Again, because I don’t care about semantics, if all you mean by moral realism is #1 and #3 (thereby omitting #2), then, if I were to use your terms, I would be a moral realist: I just don’t, at the end of the day, accept that schema.

And on more clarification (on point 1):

More concisely, "Thou shalt not torture babies," is a moral judgment, and one that you affirm to be true.

Nope. I affirm that “I believe thou shalt not torture babies”. Unless you think those are equivalent propositions, then we should be able to agree that moral judgments, under moral subjectivism, clearly violate prong #2 of the moral realist thesis (as I have outlined it at least).

In short: you are confusing moral judgments with what they express; and that can be either subjectivity or objectivity.

With respect to the second point, here’s why I reject any notion of prohibiting the impositions of tastes is because it is impossible not to (re:, revisit my scenario I gave of you shoving your values down my throat to stop me from torturing babies). Beyond rejecting that principle, I also reject that moral realists (like yourself) can coherently affirm it (because if you were to take it seriously you would not be able to impose facts either, as mentioned before). What do you disagree about this?

And, finally, let me address:

he says that he only thinks that others should not torture babies (and he thinks this independently of others' beliefs, and he will act to prevent them by force if necessary). His claim here is something like, "I only think, I don't know, therefore I am not a moral realist."

I never once said this. I never once even implied this. I completely agree that there are true moral judgments: I affirm prong #3 [and #1 by the way] of the 3-pronged moral realist thesis and this is why I am a moral subjectivist, which is a form of moral anti-realism. You have to accept all three to be a moral realist: it makes no difference if morals are truth-apt and there are true moral judgments if those judgments express something non-objective.

And the moral realist will say that it is a fact that one ought not harm another because what the proposition is referencing about reality is that one ought not harm another, and this is true.

True.

At times it seems that you think of a fact as referring to something that physically exists, e.g. here where you say "[facts] correspond to a state-of-affairs in reality (where ‘reality’ is the ‘totality of stance-independently, existent things’)," although this is inconsistent with what you're now saying about the fact of Santa's non-existence.

But what you quoted doesn’t reference physical existence, it references existence. This includes any supersensible or platonic realms.

What I am saying is that it is a fact that santa does not exist because that statement agrees with reality. I never precluded the existence of facts about negations of propositions. It is a fact that it is false that ‘santa exists’ because ‘santa exists’ does not agree with reality: it being false does agree with reality, and thusly would be a fact.

Santa's non-existence is a state-of-affairs, but not an existing thing.

That’s not what the agreement (between the statement and reality) is in this case: it is that there is a state-of-affairs such santa is not a part of any state-of-affair in reality. Of course, santa’s non-existence is not a state-of-affairs, him not existing agrees with the state-of-affairs in reality since there is no santa in them.

It’s like saying “there’s no ball in this room”. This is true iff there really isn’t a ball in this room. It isn’t true because the ball’s non-existence is a state-of-affairs in that room; it is true because the state-of-affairs in the room agrees with the statement “the ball is not in this room” such that there is no ball associated with them.

This assumption that something is a state-of-affairs only if it exists is a false one, and so morality not existing (e.g. as some physical thing) does not entail that there are no moral states-of-affairs.

Existence and physical existence are two different things, and I understand you are targeting the latter; but I just want to clarify that I agree with the statement that “something is a state-of-affairs only if it exists” and disagreeing with “something is a state-of-affairs if it physically/tangibly exists”.

So it is not a fact that Santa doesn't exist? I don't think it makes sense to say that Santa's non-existence is "there".

"santa doesn't exist" is the same as it is false that "santa does exist": either way, it is conveying that the proposition "santa does exist" does not agree with reality. In your formulation, it could also be interpreted as an agreement with reality that santa isn't there. I see no problems with this.

It is a fact that "santa does not exist" because what the proposition is referencing about reality is that there is no santa in it, and this is true.

:lol: I feel like I just got kicked out of the cool kids table.



That response seems a bit harsh and unhelpful. I think I have demonstrated that I am dissecting your view with genuineness and intellectual honesty, and I am merely asking for basic clarification of what you are trying to convey. It seems like you are shutting down and unwilling to discuss your moral naturalism with anyone who doesn't immediately understand what you are saying in your first post.

With that being said, if you are ever willing to converse in further detail about it, then I am all ears! I enjoy hearing other metaethical theories.

I am thinking of moral anti-realism as the idea that, to use your own words, <There are no "subject-referencing prescriptive statements" that are objectively binding on all>.

Correct.

So if you think that, "Thou shalt not torture babies," is a prescriptive statement that is objectively binding on all, then you are surely not a moral anti-realist.

Correct. I never claimed that, I said:

I think you should not torture babies, irregardless of whether you think you should not torture babies, and if that is true then I should be trying to stop you.

Now we usually speak about objectively binding statements as true statements, but I'm not especially interested in the moral cognitivism debate, which I think is misguided. I'll leave that debate to the side.

I am a moral cognitivist, just not a moral realist. For moral subjectivism, technically, moral judgments are rewritten as indexical or specifically referencing a particular judgment (e.g., ‘one ought not torture babies’ → ‘I think/believe one ought not torture babies’ or ‘Bob Ross thinks/believes ...’).

I think you may be under the impression that a moral cognitivist anti-realism is impossible, since all true propositions are objectively binding; but when rewritten it is clear that the belief is what is enveloped in the proposition, which, in turn, envelopes the moral judgment.

Values are not morals: they are our subjective tastes of what we hold as worth something. I can value vanilla ice cream, and you not so much—irregardless of what the moral facts say. Now, imagine there’s a moral fact such that ‘one shouldn’t torture babies’ and you catch me in the act of torturing a baby: you cannot impose the moral fact without simultaneously imposing your taste that I should value moral facts. — Bob Ross

Answered here:
"Chocolate ice cream is the best," is a preference. Perhaps you construe, "Do not torture babies," as a preference as well. The difference is that when we see someone torturing a baby, we prevent them; whereas when we see someone eating vanilla ice cream, we do not prevent them. — Leontiskos

This completely missed my point: you sidestepped/derailed it with your response. I pointed out that you cannot impose a moral fact without imposing a taste, and you responded essentially with ‘preferences, by definition, are not imposable’. I just gave you an example of how they are necessarily imposed (in order to impose facts): what say you?

Obviously, as a side note, I disagree that preferences are, by definition, not imposable; and, just to clarify, I was not saying that the vanilla ice cream is equivocal to the torturing babies example: they are analogious insofar as tastes exist in both irregardless (and validly irregardless) of the moral facts. I agree that we normally wouldn’t care about someone’s favorite ice cream vs. we would about torturing babies: I am just noting that even in a moral realist’s framework they are imposing their taste that one should value the moral fact (that one ought not torture babies) when stopping that person from torturing the baby (even though it is a moral fact that one shouldn’t be doing that). You haven’t really addressed this point as of yet.

If you say “hey! You shouldn’t be doing that because it violates this moral fact!”, and I just say “why should I care about moral facts?” — Bob Ross

But I am not the one saying anything; you are. That's the whole point. You are the one enforcing a prohibition on the torture of babies. Why must we all obey your so-called "taste"? What makes it special? You are the one on the bench, here. You are the one engaged in moral realism. Whether you can square this with your rhetorical utterances remains to be seen.

Come on, Leontiskos! This is clearly a derailment and straw man! I gave you a hypothetical to prove a point: that your moral realist principle that “tastes cannot be imposed” is incoherent with your position. Instead of dealing with that hypothetical scenario and demonstrating why it isn’t, you shifted the burden of proof (for some reason) on me. Now, to answer your question (which has nothing to do with my scenario I gave you):

Why must we all obey your so-called "taste"?

I am not saying that you should be convinced that you shouldn’t be doing X because I think you shouldn’t be doing X: I am saying that I am going to try and stop you. First, I will try to intellectually and rationally convince you otherwise. In moral subjectivism, this is going to look different than moral realism, since my objective is not to convince you that it is factually true that you ought not do X. Instead, there are some other avenues to explore:

1. Tease out false beliefs you have about yourself. You may say “I don’t believe that I ought not do X” but, under moral subjectivism (being that moral judgments are cognitive beliefs which are the upshot of one’s conative psyche), that doesn’t thereby make it true (relative to you). Most people are really bad at psycho-analysis, and if I can tease out to you that you actually do believe you ought not do X, then I have succeeded in my own goal.

2. Latch onto higher prioritized moral beliefs you have, and show that accepting that hypothetical imperative logically or plausibly entails that you ought not do X. You may initially be against being obligated not to do X, but if I can get you to agree to another hypothetical imperative and show you that it is logically inconsistent with your denial of the hypothetical imperative [that one ought not do X], then you are forced to choose one or the other. Most likely, since the former is higher prioritized, you will flip your position on the latter and I have succeed in my own goal.

3. Disputing the supplemental non-moral facts. It could be that you and I agree about the underlying moral judgments that I am using to commit myself to ‘I ought not do X’ but that the supplementing non-moral fact is disputed. This aspect of the conversation follows the normal realist discussion that a moral realist wants for moral judgments (but I deny), since there is a fact-of-the-matter about the non-moral facts.

4. If 1-3 don’t work, then I may try other nuanced tactics, but, for brevity, I will not include them here.
5. The last resort, for moral realist and anti-realist alike, is violence.

You are the one on the bench, here. You are the one engaged in moral realism. Whether you can square this with your rhetorical utterances remains to be seen.

I have no clue what you are talking about. I think I have made it clear that I am not engaging in any affirmation of moral facts, and I have shown how my theory deals with this (as shown above quite explicitly).

Perhaps the issue is similar to one I had with Banno: they said that if someone proclaims something which they apply to everyone, then it is categorically not a taste. This is just so incredibly false (by my lights) and perhaps this kind of thinking is your motivation for saying I am engaging in moral realism. In order for Banno to be right here, they have to deny that I can have a subjective taste that everyone should abide by my taste [about something]: which seems blatantly false to me.

You are presumably saying, "The moral realist imposes his tastes, so why can't I impose mine!?”

No. I am saying that it is incoherent, as a moral realist, for you to say that tastes are not imposable on other people since you do it to impose the moral facts (necessarily). You still haven’t demonstrated how this is false.

First, the notion that the moral realist is imposing tastes begs the question at hand.

Not at all. I am not claiming, in that hypothetical, that moral realists are imposing tastes that are moral judgments, which would clearly beg the question, but rather that their values are being imposed on other people (which are subjective tastes). That is why I explicitly put at the beginning of it that “Values are not morals: they are our subjective tastes of what we hold as worth something”.

Second, tastes are not imposable by their very nature. When we talk about a taste that's part of what we mean

Exactly, this is what I am contending with as an internal critique of moral realism. You can’t coherently claim, or as the story goes, that tastes are not imposable and turn around and impose your value of the moral fact on me in order to stop me from torturing the baby. You still haven’t addressed this.

Third, just because your opponent engages in a practice you believe to be arbitrary does not give you license to engage in arbitrary practices, and this is particularly true when you are in the process of criticizing the supposed arbitrariness.

Two things:

1. I don’t consider the vast majority of subjective tastes to be arbitrary.

2. I do think that if it is inevitable that we impose tastes on each other, then most reasonable people would find that to be a license to impose them on each other. If you can’t impose moral facts without imposing your valueing of the moral facts, then you cannot have one over the other. Honestly, if you deny that tastes can be imposed on other people, then you will have to lie down and starve to death. There’s nothing you can do in this world which will not impose, to some degree, your tastes on other people: irregardless if moral realism is true.

Fourth, if you are imposing a moral standard of any kind then I would say you aren't a moral anti-realist.

This is patently false. Moral anti-realism is the denial of one of three things:

1. Moral judgments are propositional (moral cognitivism).

2. Moral judgments express something objective (moral objectivism).

3. There are at least some true moral judgments.

Denying any of these lands you in moral anti-realist territory. Denying just 1 lands you in moral non-cognitivism; denying just 2 in moral subjectivism; and just 3 in moral nihilism.

You have attempted to define moral realism such that it is ‘anyone who imposes a moral standard’, which includes subjective and objective standards, and this is just not what moral realism is at all. Perhaps you are presupposing that standards are always objective, then clearly I am not a moral realist since I impose subjective ‘standards’.

:up:

So, although I don’t understand the terms you are couching this in, I would say that, yes, our human condition exists apart from me and has significance because it is the possibility of the moral realm at all (and not just rules or impulse).

I have no problem with this, I just don’t agree that it is objective. I would say it is inter-subjective. Something can be independent of me and still be subjective, and it can be independent of any randomly selected person and still be subjective.

I take it you imagine the choice is that morality is either tied to something certain (the world, etc), or at least not me, because we are arbitrary. What I am saying is that moral choices are not arbitrary (necessarily) because they are tied to me (at a certain point, beyond society’s ordinary norms and expectations).

I don’t think morality is completely arbitrary. I think that morality is either objective (exists mind[stance]-independently) or it does not (e.g., subjective, inter-subjective, etc.).

I don’t even think that it is arbitrary when a person creates their own moral rules.

In fact, animals also exhibit moral behavior. Isn't the most natural explanation that it is instinctive?

Moral judgments being biologically motivated does not mean that morals are biological.