Unfortunately, I am unfamiliar with "moral irrealism", but I am all ears if you would like to advocate for it.

So the question becomes: is there any measure of quality? (Robert Pirsig Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance comes to mind.)

Interesting, I would have thought it would be "is there any measure of obligation?"--but this doesn't preclude subjective obligations.

I see. So the problem I have is that promises are not normative statements which exist mind-independently, so I wouldn't say they are even normative facts: it is a hypothetical imperative--i.e., it is a subjectively utterance of obligation. Moral facts are about obligations which are true independently of what a subject obligates themselves to do (viz., independently of what they decide to promise or not). What do you think?

Oh I see...just playing devil's advocate, eh? What did you think of my responses?

I am still not quite following where the moral facts come into play with your view. It seems like you are saying the moral facts are tied to the "Real" where the "Real" is pleasure and pain--but where exactly are these factually moral claims in reality? You said they aren't the pleasure and pain, but they are tied to them.

All your concerns target moral nihilism, not moral anti-realism. The former is a subspecies of the latter.

As a moral subjectivist, I have no problem valuing things and having adhering to moral principles and codes--they just don't correspond to moral facts.

Is there an argument for the bolded part? It sounds like you're saying that part of God is greater than God. That doesn't make much sense

Not an argument per se, but here’s my reasoning. Let’s do it by analogy.

The feeling of hunger is a biological manifestation of my obligation (biologically) to eat food. This obligation exists within my body independently of my desires (as a subject: a mind): I cannot will that feeling of hunger away. This obligation would be ‘greater’, more fundamental ontologically, than me (as a subject): it governs me, not the other way around.

So it is with God and morality if the moral facts are ingrained in God’s nature: God doesn’t choose them, create them, and they dictate him—not the other way around. No matter what God thinks (assuming God could make an error for the sake of making this point), it is wrong to torture babies for fun because it is objectively wrong—and it just so happens that God’s nature is constrained by the moral facts in a way that he wills only what it good. The moral facts would be more fundamentally ontologically than God, because they dictate and govern God, not vice-versa.

The idea is that moral facts exist as an aspect of God. This isn't an argument, by the way. It's a worldview

This is the problem for me: it does not help me when the answer to my questions I gave are roughly “moral facts just exist as an aspect of God”. This is the typical response I get, and it answers none of my questions. I am questioning whether they are moral facts (as opposed to merely normative facts), whether they are binding for us (or do they just reference God), and how they exist in God’s nature (e.g., are they ‘biological’?)

Saying ‘it just is in God’s Nature’ just restates what I was questioning in the first place.

Christianity uses the Bible as a touchstone. It's a living religion, so it doesn't reduce to scripture. It's made of history, the human psyche, and the lives of millions of people for the last 1800 years.

My point is that no where does the Bible actually explain how moral facts exist in God’s nature nor that which one’s do nor their nature.

Are you saying that ethical intuitionism is moral realism?

No. Ethical intuitionism is a form of moral realism, just like your theological view. They both affirm the existence of moral facts, and I was just saying that I find it more plausible than theological views that ground the moral facts in God (whether that be His nature or His will—or both).

Perhaps you believe that only theism has the right metaphysical view to allow for moral facts, but I don’t see why that would be the case at all. An obvious contender is platonism and neo-platonist views (like atheistic platonism).

What do you mean? I feel like you just sidestepped the questions I asked. It still stands: how do we "discover", "figure out", "decipher", etc. which moral propositions are true (under your view)?

:up:

So, for your view, how do we discover the moral facts? I understand you are a moral cognitivist...but how do we evaluate which moral propositions are actually true? Are moral properties reducible to natural properties in your view? Are they platonic forms? Something else?

Let me explain it back to you and see if I am on the right track.

I think you are saying that state-of-affairs about promises made by persons (or organisms or subjects or something along those lines) are moral facts, because the promise is an obligation that is also a fact (a state-of-affairs)...am I on the right track?

If, theoretically, there were facts embedded into God's will such that "one ought not torture puppies for fun", then it would be a moral fact and meet your criteria (as a moral realist)(I think) as well...but I just don't see how that actually is the case. Appealing to God just seems like opening up a vacuous concept where one can just throw in "all-good-willed" to justify 'moral facticity', but what makes God all good willed? Some platonic forms?

I hold that the only way to address the question of what is real, is to witness what is clearly free of ambiguity regarding its ontological status. We find Descartes useful, for his method was to do just this: discover what cold not be doubted and entirely beyond ambiguity.
…
I CAN certainly doubt the multitude of prepositions one can make about the pain dealing with categorical knowledge claims (the pain is really this or that or some other reference to a science category), for these are constructs ABOUT the pain; not the pain itself.

I am with you here (or at least I think I am)! We cannot doubt our immediate experience, although we can certainly doubt conceptually what it truly exists in or of: I can doubt whether I am in a simulation or not, but either way I cannot doubt that I am seeing something right now.

But…

This is where Moore comes in. Pain, the qualia of pain, if you will, or the pure phenomenon of pain, does not belong to interpretative error because it is not an interpretation. It, if you will, screams reality!
…
Ethics is at its core, about value, and value is the general term for this dimension of reality, only made clear by example
…
Something has to be at stake like this, or no ethics. And things "like this" are as real as it gets.

I do not understand why the better explanation would be “these are moral facts” than “these are deeply rooted sentiments, which are presumably biological, that can have heavy impact on our behavior”. I don’t see how these tell me what I ought to be doing as the subject: just because my body is biologically wired to enjoy falling in love and not sticking a needle in my eye it does not follow that those are morally ‘good’ or ‘bad’ things to be doing.

For example, imagine, that we discover that human beings on average, along with not liking being stabbed in the eye, really love torturing animals for fun: this seems to meet your criteria of something that would be factual morally good...but I am not seeing how it would be factual nor moral.

The time honored perspective is that we know there are moral facts because of God, and they exist in God's nature, and we discover them in the Bible. I don't think there is any other commonly accepted framework for moral facts.

Let me give you my concerns with this kind of Abrahamic-Theistic moral realist view and let me know what you think.

Firstly, if the moral facts are in and of God’s nature, then God didn’t create them. If God didn’t create them, then there is something which is greater than God—which defies the standard Leibnizian definition of God being that which there is no greater being. Perhaps, to be fair, by “no greater being”, we are strictly talking about persons—but then, even in the case Christianity (and the like) are false then the greatest person is now (by definition) God. Irregardless, it seems (to me) to undermine God’s existence.

Secondly, if the moral facts are in and of God’s nature, then that warrants a (conceptual) exposition of (1) how they exist and (2) what they exactly are. To say “the moral facts are derived from God’s nature” just doesn’t cut it for me: how do I know those normative facts are morally signified? Is there a normative fact that one can derive subject-referencing norms from God’s nature? It seems, when one is faced with actually giving an explanation (of those moral facts in God’s nature), that they warrant an existence of their own...such as Platonic Forms.

Thirdly, I don’t believe that the Bible, if granted as true, gives us any insight into how those alleged ‘moral’ facts that exist in God’s nature: it just describes various derived ‘moral’ facts which are predicated with “God’s nature is such that He is omnibenevolent”.

I think that rejecting the above is to reject moral facts.

Interesting. Honestly, I find ethical intuitionism much more plausible than the Biblical moral realist account.

I agree that semantics are not that important; but when discussing metaethics, isn't it at least useful to use the standard terminology?

It is a rare and beautiful thing when a chap changes his mind even a little as a result of discussion. I am inclined to say it is also a good thing to be swayed by cogent argument and to seek the truth. Truth is better than falsehood. and this is necessarily the case because a community of habitual falsehood speakers would have no use for each other's speech, and meaning and language would be lost entirely.

:up:

So in general, I would suggest that morality is social value, and the sense of unreality arises because social value and personal value can and do conflict at times. No one complains that their own desires are unreal, it's always those values that conflict with them that might not be real...

I have no problem with this...except I don’t see how it is a moral realist position: morality can have social value (and can conflict with personal value) without there being moral facts. Are you also arguing that those social values are moral facts?

I guess the only issue I face while interpreting your view (thus far) is that I am a moral cognitivist and a moral anti-realist. So, I guess, under your terms I am a moral realist but not in the sense that I believe there are moral facts, right?

Or do you think that accepting moral cognitivism entails accepting moral facticity?

Interesting. So, let me see if I am understanding you correctly. It seems as though you are advocating that either (1) moral facts are ingrained in or (2) inextricably tied to our primitive, basic biology (akin to feeling pain when getting stabbed in the kidney).

Would this be kind of like a hedonist view that the moral facts are identified with the primitive notions of pleasure and pain (or happiness and suffering)?

Am I on the right track?

Absolutely no rush! You always have thought-provoking positions; and, if I remember correctly, you hold some sort of moral realist position and thought it would be good to dive into it (and see if I am convinced by it).

I will entertain either of those. Preferably, I would like to hear (1) how we know there are moral facts, (2) where and what they subist/exist in or of, and (3) how we discover them. I think those are the key points I would question.

I realized this morning I kind of hijacked your thread

Not a problem at all! Admittedly, I haven’t read most of your posts, but assuming it is about this topic (metaethics) then I don’t mind at all. I usually only read the one’s that link me in it some way or another (e.g., quote or @).

In some sense if we don't have a knowledge of ethics then we are functionally nihilists, even if we believe there are true moral statements, because then what makes the decision is sentiment and attachment to this or that principle rather than a process of deliberation or a cadre of experts who know.

As a moral subjectivist, my push-back would be that moral nihilism entails that there are no true moral statements. Moral subjectivism (arguably) saves moral anti-realism from complete intelligibility and allows anti-realists to still validly have moral discourse: I don’t see how that is the case with moral non-cognitvists and nihilists. If you think all moral judgments are false, then there is nothing to be said about morality.

Reject ethical truth values and all there is, is violence. – Banno

This is a common and misplaced objection to moral anti-realism. Firstly, even if there are moral facts, everything bottoms out at violence—period—since values are what drive societies, not morals. One has to value moral facts to even impose them in the first place, and that bottoms out equally at violence.

Likewise, moral anti-realist positions like moral subjectivism can allow for rational and productive moral discourse—so it certainly is not the case that it necessarily explodes into violence.

And I think it's this intuition which gets along with @Bob Ross's use of the Guillotine -- in some sense I am committed to non-violence, and that's the sentiment what underpins my reasoning here

That’s true. Banno can justify what they ought to do if ‘they ought to...’ is a moral fact, but there are still value judgments underpinning Banno’s actions here—there’s no way around that. However, this was not my intention with Hume’s Guillotine, and I think my original argument is false.

But I must admit that these desires and doubts are not arguments.

I am now at a similar point: I just don’t believe there are any subject-referencing normative facts. I’ve looked into moral naturalist and non-naturalist accounts of objective morality and I don’t buy it. So I don’t really have an argument anymore, or if I do then it is just “I don’t buy it, convince me”.

No problem! Thank you for bringing thought-provoking material to the discussion board!

I would say that my mistake was in not realizing that a subject-referencing normative fact would obligate the subject, without need of another prescription for justification, because if 'one ought to...' is a fact then it is true and if it is true that 'one ought to' then one ought to (as a mere tautology).

So, afterall, the disagreement between me and (possibly) Banno is that (1) I don't think there exists any such subject-referencing normative facts and (2) it is not enough for a normative statement to be factual in order for moral facts to exist (since if the normative fact isn't subject-referencing, then granting it as true doesn't entail that one ought to do anything). I think @Banno would disagree with both 1 and 2.

To your point, I just don't see how it is valid separate quantifying over statements completely from states of affairs: to me, a proposition is a statement that corresonds to a state-of-affairs. So even quantifying over a statement is a proposition (which references a statement) that is true IFF it corresponds to that state-of-affairs (i.e., that there really is that statement).

Honestly, my sense is that you are somewhat new to philosophy and/or logic, so I am trying to do little more than give you nudges in the right direction for the better development of your ideas.

I wouldn’t say I am new to formal logic nor philosophy (or at least metaethics), but, perhaps, I am a newbie compared to however many years of experience you have in those fields. Nevertheless, I am always glad to hear any criticisms one may have of my views, so please do not hesitate to critique away! (:

P2-A*2*2: There are no known subject-referencing prescriptive statements which are facts. — Bob Ross

This sounds to me like, "There are no moral facts."*

I understand why it would seem that way, but in my argument “there are no moral facts” is not analytically equivalent to “there are no known subject-referencing prescriptive statements which are facts”: the former needs P2-A and P2-B, whereas the latter is one component of the equation to get to P2-A. Just because there are no known subject-referencing prescriptive statements which are facts, it does not strictly follow that there aren’t any; so I just emphasized at the end of the argument for P2-A (i.e., P2-A* and P2-A**) that one has no reason to believe there are any.

I agree that P2-A*2*2 is the premise that a moral realist is going to disagree with, but that is where my head is at now: I do not see any such subject-referencing prescriptive statements which are facts.

Presumably if there are no moral facts then the moral realist is wrong, but this is still question-begging because it is asserting the very issue at stake

It isn’t though: just because there are no subject-referencing prescriptive statements which are facts, it does not strictly follow that there are no moral facts. Question-begging is when one assumes the truthity of the conclusion as its own premise.

It is not conceivable that any moral realist would respond to your assertion by saying, "Oh, I see now. There are no moral facts. I am wrong after all!”

I wasn’t expecting them to: I expected them to contest P2-A*2 (as I said in the OP) and, thereafter, P2-A*2*2.

Banno already addressed this issue in his very first post:
That one ought not kick puppies for fun is a moral statement.
It is a true statement that one ought not kick puppies for fun.
Facts are true statements.

Therefore there are moral facts. — Banno

You responded:
technically “one ought not kick puppies for fun” is non-factual

That is not what I responded with:

P1 can be true and be subjective. It would be a true statement because it corresponds to one’s psyche, and the prescription itself is non-factual (being a part of one’s psyche).

More technically, I would deny, if pushed on it, P2; because technically “one ought not kick puppies for fun” is non-factual, so it is not a proposition or it is false (and only true as a non-factual claim). It would have to be “I believe that one ought not kick puppies”: then it is propositional.

My point (in a nutshell) is that P2 can be true and a statement without being a fact; because ‘one ought not kick puppies for fun’ should be ‘I believe that one ought not kick puppies for fun’.

But, Banno’s biggest problem is that we thinks moral cognitivism is equivalent to moral realism; which makes no sense, especially since I happen to be a moral cognitivist that is a moral anti-realist.

But why is it non-factual?

Originally, I was deploying Hume’s Guillotine to remove the possibility of moral facticity; now, I would just say that, although they are possible, I do not know, nor do I think anyone else knows, of any moral facts (P2-A*2*2). There’s not much more I can say past that, other than that I am have explored most of the literature in metaethics and don’t by any of the moral realist positions.

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

I am unsure as to whether this has happened in all my threads, but, yes, this has happened here. Leontiskos, I have no problem refurbishing my OP as good reasons surface for doubting it, and that is what has happened. I am only interested in the truth, and that I why I even put you and Banno’s valid concerns with my original argument in the OP: I want other people to be able to read my OP and be able to easily follow the conversation and where it is heading, so hopefully they can learn from my mistakes.

You are absolutely right that I am now hinging on P2-A*2*2, which inevitably signals a call to all moral realists to provide a counter to it, which is just to say that they seem to now have the burden of proof. I would say that there is nothing more I can say: what else can I say but that I do not know and I don’t think other people know of any subject-referencing normative facts?

I am not convinced that it has progressed beyond, "Moral facts don't exist." "Sure they do: here is a moral fact." "That's not a moral fact."

Well, that is just the nature of metaethical debates! I say “nah”, you say “yeah”. You say “check this out”, I say “checked it out: don’t buy it”. I say “check this out”, you say “checked it out: don’t buy it”.

* Or, "There are no moral statements that are factual," where a 'moral statement' is a "subject-referencing prescriptive statement."

That is fair: I can probably condense the syllogisms to essentially:

P1: If we do not know of any moral facts, then we have no reason to believe them.
P2: We do not know of any moral facts.
C: Therefore, we have no reason to believe them.

Then, the moral realist will just contend P2.

So... what say you about P2?

Banno, we are both moral cognitivists. There's no need to give an argument on that for this OP (:

I agree that my original argument has been buried, but please address the new argument (since you are a moral realist): which premise do you disagree with?

But isn't "asserting our convictions" what we do in physics as well as morality? We engineer planes from what we believe to be true. Why shouldn't we do the same thing in Ethics? — Banno

This strikes me as an important point in these conversations.

The difference is that in physics we are using our convictions to attempt at latching onto a fact-of-matter about the world; whereas, according to moral anti-realism, we not using convictions to get at moral facts-of-the-matter.

Sure, you should try to defend P2-A*1 if that is how you wish to defend P2-A. Give us a persuasive reason to accept your thesis.

I think I am understanding more what you and @Banno are talking about—so I added an Updated 2 section to the OP. Let me know what you think.

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.
…
So understood, moral anti-realism is the disjunction of three theses:

moral noncognitivism
moral error theory
moral non-objectivism

What you quoted states that moral anti-realism comes in three general flavors (listed above): that’s what ‘disjunction’ signifies in that sentence you quoted—viz., a moral anti-realist either is amoral non-cognitivist, error theorist, or non-objectivist (i.e., subjectivist).

Non-objectivism (as it will be called here) allows that moral facts exist but holds that they are non-objective.

Correct, that’s why I don’t think stanford should have described the third moral anti-realist as ‘non-objectivism’, because that term is used in entirely different ways depending on the person. In the first quote (above), it is referring to subjectivism; in this quote (of yours) it is referring to non-naturalism.

Again, "true fact" is redundant.

That’s fine. Moral anti-realism, even by your sources (standford), is, at its basic level, the view that there are no moral facts.

What I was trying to convey with ‘true fact’ was just that error theorist do consider morality objective—just objectively false; but I understand this could be also conveyed with ‘objectively false that there are moral facts’.

P2-A* (fucksake!) is not an argument, it is an assertion. As has already been explained.

It is absolutely an argument: it is a valid syllogism that has a major and minor premise meant to necessitate, if agreed as true, the conclusion. Which premise do you disagree with?

The phrase I have bolded is much stronger than antirealism. It claims that there are no moral facts.

Moral anti-realism is the position that there are no true moral facts.

A close look at Ross' argument shows that he assumes that normative statements are not factual at P1.

It surprises me that no one else has pointed this out.

He doesn't prove his thesis; he assumes it, then allows it to ride into his conclusion on the back of normative statements.

He does this again, explicitly, in his updated version:
P2-A: All prescriptive statements (P) which dictate ‘what one ought to do’ (D) are non-factual (T).

P2-A is derived from P2-A*, which you conveniently left out.

Also, P2-A is not the conclusion: that all prescriptive statements which dictate ‘what one ought to do’ are non-factual does not entail that all moral statements are non-factual. The whole argument I gave is required to get to that conclusion; and, again, P2-A is derived from P2-A*: it is not assumed.

We get ‛T is a normative true statement’, and what we want to know is whether asserting this is equivalent to asserting the truth of T

I suppose, if I am understanding correctly, that the ‘state of affairs’ would be the correspondent that T would be latching onto (i.e., referencing properly) if it is true. That’s how I would interpret it. If I am right (on that), then I don’t see any issue here. If one accepts that ‘T is a normative true statement’ is true, then T is true because the claim itself is that it is true—i.e., that it corresponds correctly to the ‘state-of-affairs’ you are talking about. What am I missing here?

If we’re allowed to use statements as bound variables – that is, if Ex can quantify over “facts” and “statements”, not just “objects” or “states of affairs” -- then it looks like we can quote the statement without committing ourselves to its truth, or even to whether it’s true-or-false.

I don’t see how it is possible to accept the proposition which expresses that a statement is true without thereby affirming the statement is true and thereby accepting whatever that statement references about reality (i.e., ‘state-of-affairs’). Is the idea that, if it were possible to only quantify over statements then someone could object to my argument by saying “T is a normative fact/statement” could be true and T be false?

But if only states of affairs can count as existing, then we have to make what is (to me) an awkward translation

To my understanding, T being a normative statement was meant to convey that T is a prescription which exists mind-independently, and the normative statement or fact-of-the-matter latches onto that existent prescription. I think, perhaps, the confusion lies in that (I guess) I am not using the term ‘statement’ the same as ‘fact’: the former is just an utterance we make which may not correspond to any state-of-affairs, whereas the latter does correspond correctly. So I probably should refrain from using ‘T is a normative statement’: it should be ‘T is a normative fact’.

Where I would like some help is in understanding whether Banno's objection, quoted above, must be correct. Are we making a normative statement in the sense that we're talking about truth, or in the sense that we're talking about whatever the normative behavior is? Does it require both truth and normativity to create a normative statement? Have I even made a meaningful distinction? I think so, but . . . see above re my logical competence.

I am not sure if I am completely following (admittedly), but let me give it a shot:

To say of some normative statement, that it is true, is itself to make a normative statement, isn't it?

No, not at all! I can say “there is a state-of-affairs out there which contains a prescription such that ‘this being should eat X amount of food’” (S for short) without claiming that ‘this being should eat X amount of food’ (N for short): the former (S) is a mere observance of a prescriptive fact, carrying with it no normative utterance from myself (as the observer), and the latter (N) is an actually normative utterance (i.e., I am saying that this state-of-affairs should transpire). As far as I understand Banno here, to admit that S is true thereby commits that person to N, which I don’t see why that would be the case at all. Descriptions of prescriptions are not prescriptions.

Now, back to your questions about it:

Are we making a normative statement in the sense that we're talking about truth, or in the sense that we're talking about whatever the normative behavior is?

What do you mean by “normative behavior” vs. “truth”? I would say that we are talking about, in the case of a normative fact, if a prescription exists mind-independently (which would be in the truth), and I don’t see how merely explicating a normative fact would entail any sort of normative behavior, in and of itself, from me nor anyone else (unless it is contrived out of confusion and ambiguity). There’s always going to need to be at least one other prescription, which is a non-fact, that is a hypothetical imperative.

Does it require both truth and normativity to create a normative statement?

I wouldn’t say so. It is possible, in principle, that one utters a prescriptive statement and it latches onto nothing in reality nor one’s own psyche, such that it isn’t truth-apt (e.g., emotivism). I am a moral cognitivist, but I don’t see how normativity, as a concept, is necessarily dependent on truth.

So this could have been summed up by, "I agree with Hume." Yet the forum is filled with critiques of Hume. I thought you were attempting to go beyond Hume in one way or another.

In a nutshell, “P2-A*1: If Hume’s Guillotine is true, then P2-A is true.” is going beyond Hume and, consequently, the entire argument: Hume never actually argued that moral facts cannot exist because of the is-ought gap, nor that normative facts cannot exist either.

As I said in my first reply to you, you are begging the question.

Which premise begs the question?

P2-A is the contentious premise, and it receives no defense/justification

A premise being controversial does not make it question begging. However, I did give justification for it:

P2-A*1: If Hume’s Guillotine is true, then P2-A is true.
P2-A*2: Hume’s Guillotine is true.
P2-A*C: Therefore, P2-A is true.

Which ties right back into the neo-Humian analysis I gave at the top of the OP.

It seems like, and correct me if I am wrong, you are disagreeing with P2-A*1, no? The way I see it, you either have to deny that Hume’s Guillotine is true or that it entails that P2-A is true—but you didn’t attempt either of those in your response. Are you saying I need to provide another syllogism for P2-A*?

Edit: This seems to be your argument in a simplified form:
1. Anything which depends on non-facts is a matter of taste.
2. Moral claims depend on non-facts.
3. Therefore, moral claims are a matter of taste.

This isn’t my argument (and I think I gave a much more robust argument in my updated OP), but let me address some of the problems I see with it.

Firstly, I would clarify that in #1 “depends” means “direct contingency”. It is not enough that someone had to use their subjective values and intentions to argue that what was derived doesn’t latch onto something factual—otherwise everything would have to be a taste, which is not what I am arguing.

#2 is false in relation to my argument, because I am claiming that anything ‘moral’ signifies non-factual normative claims, and it is not that moral claims simply depend on non-facts. If ‘moral’ language signifies ‘what one ought to be doing’, then none of the normative facts I could provide myself carry with them ‘moral’ signification because they do not tell me what I ought to be doing, even if I grant them as true.

I am basically allowing, in my argument, for the moral realist to posit normative facts, but not letting them get off easy calling them moral facts—due to Hume’s Guillotine, they simply don’t supply us with what we ought to be doing (and most moral realists just skip over this). It is not enough for the moral realist to prove there are normative facts to prove there are moral facts—the latter does not necessarily follow from the former.

(2) needs to be defended by something more than a mere appeal to Hume.

If you are referring to P2-A*1, then I can write out another syllogism for justifying that premise.

I’m not trying to prove that one ought not harm another. I’m trying to make sense of moral realism. Moral realists claim that there is something like an objective, mind-independent fact that one ought not harm another, and that because of this fact the proposition “one ought not harm another” is true.

I understand, but I am saying that simply because there is a mind-independent fact that "one ought not harm another" it does not follow that it is of moral signification.

If you can't provide a syllogism, then how am I to know you have a logically valid argument? Honestly, I don't think you do: you are going from 'this statement is true because it corresponds properly to reality', therefore 'I ought not do whatever is in that statement'--which isn't logically valid.

E.g.,:

“One objectively, mind independently, ought not murder” is true because one objectively, mind independently, ought not murder.

If I parse this into a valid deductive argument, I get:

P1: ???
P2: “One objectively, mind independently, ought not murder” is true because one objectively, mind independently, ought not murder.
C: Therefore, one ought not murder.

The prescription C does not follow from the description P2.

I think I see what you mean: technically, I did not provide an argument for my conclusion (in a valid syllogistic form) but, rather, just explained it in english. So I amended my OP with the full argument at the bottom. Please let me know which premise you disagree with.

Please put it in a syllogism so that I can see where you are coming from. Saying "One ought not harm another" truthity could be subjective or objective: I need to know your line of reasoning in valid logical form. I think it is going to bottom out at a morally non-factual prescription: one cannot validly infer from a description that there is this normative fact that you ought to abide by it--and I think this is the crux, that has to be true, for your argument to work.

Okay, that is somewhat helpful, but the other problem is that you don't seem to present any arguments for your position in the OP. Your whole thesis rests on a single sentence:

I think this is an unfair and uncharitable interpretation of the OP: I clearly outlined how I think Hume’s Guillotine, if true, provides us sufficient reasons to believe that there are no moral facts.

I said:

I think that Hume’s Guillotine can be deployed to validly extinguish the existence of moral facticity, if ‘moral’ language signifies ‘what one ought to be doing’, since in any event of reasoning about ‘what one ought to do’ it is going to be grounded in non-facts.

And:

No matter what prescription is being utilized, even if it is a normative fact or not, it will eventually take the form of the following (no matter how many syllogisms it takes to get there):

P1: [normative non-fact]
P2: [non-normative fact]
C: [target normative statement {or some other normative fact/non-fact that derives the target}]

As a quick short-circuited example, let’s say that the target normative statement, T, is a normative fact, then one would have to argue something which will bottom-out at:

P1: One ought to abide by the normative facts.
P2: T is a normative fact.
C: T

From the above, it follows that what is grounding what one ought to be doing is (ultimately) derived from a prescriptive non-fact (which is just what I was referring to by a taste):

This implies, even if it is conceded that normative facts exist, that what informs the individual of ‘what they ought to do’ is a taste

If we can only validly justify any given prescription, fact or not, that we confirm as true with a (ultimately) a non-fact, then what is truly informing us what we ought to do is that non-fact (or set of non-facts).

If you want a syllogism, then I could put it this way:

P1: If Hume’s Guillotine is true, then ‘what one ought to do’ is determined by a set of non-factual prescriptions.

P2: Hume’s Guillotine is true.

C1: Therefore, ‘what one ought to do’ is determined by a set of non-factual prescriptions.

P3: ‘What one ought to do’ is the subject matter of morality.

P4: ‘what one ought to do’ is determined by a set of non-factual prescriptions.

C2: Therefore, morality is determined by a set of non-factual prescriptions.

And, the same line of thinking, can result in morality being simply non-factual prescriptions.

I think I may see what you are saying now. I would say that every normative fact, T, can be and honestly probably should be rewritten as "There is a normative fact T" (or something similar to that) because it disambiguates the conversation.

If I create major premise, P1, that is "I ought not kill people", it is not clear if the truthity of that statement is subjective or objective: it could go either way. But, if we are being technical, it should be "I believe that I ought not kill people" if it is subjective and "There is a normative fact T" if it is objective. Then it isn't so confusing why I might say that there being a normative fact "I ought not kill people" does not entail that "I ought not kill people". Does that help?

I don't understand the distinction between something I ought to do and something I actually ought to do.[

So, the confusion, I think, is in the ambiguity of ‘I ought to do something’: that could be an expression of a normative fact or non-fact. The point is that when anyone states “There exists a normative fact that expresses ‘I ought to do something’” it does not follow that ‘I ought to do something’.

So I can regress your elaboration (again) validly into:

The proposition “there is a normative fact such that ‘one actually ought not harm another’” does not entail, if true, that “one actually ought not harm another”; and this is Hume’s Guillotine in a nutshell. If you say “one actually ought no harm another” and this is a normative fact, this is just a more ambiguous way of saying “there is a normative fact such that ‘one actually ought not harm another’”.

What about, for starters, the seeming object permanence (of things)? That seems to suggest, at least, that there is an external world.

Great post J!

Although I am not sure that I fully followed, let me try to adequately respond and you let me know if I am on the right track.

If we exclude statements as bound variables in themselves, then “X is a normative fact” and “It is true that X is a normative fact” are equivalent.
…
But if we allow statements into our universe of discourse, we get a different interpretation. “X is a normative fact” and “The statement ‛X is a normative fact’ claims to state a truth” now say two different things, because they quantify over different ranges,

It seems as though you are positing these two examples as of two competing and mutually exclusive views of quantifying ‘things’ with propositions; but I am failing to see them as a true dilemma (with relation to each other): I accept both of your examples.

“X is a normative fact” is equivalent to “it is true that X is a normative fact” because “it is true” is superfluous; and “the statement ‘X is a normative fact’ claims to state a truth’” is different then ‘X is a normative fact’ because, as you noted, the former is referencing a statement about the latter—once we strip away the linguistic aspects (e.g., ‘is true’, in this case, isn’t superfluous linguistically in ‘the statement “” is true’ just because of how English is setup), we find that they are different propositions simply because they are references two different ‘things’.

Furthermore, I don’t see how propositions referencing ‘statements’ is any different than referencing ‘states of affairs’ (other than obviously a state of affair is not a statement): they are still valid propositions.

Finally, I don’t see how my syllogism (in the OP) is contingent on accepting these ‘statement’-style propositions: “T is a normative fact” is not itself referencing a statement—it is, rather, referencing a fact. To make it analogous (in my mind), you would have to refurbish “T is a normative fact” to “the statement ‘T is a normative fact’ is true” to make the proposition reference a statement.

Let me know if I am on the right track (with respect to what you were trying to convey).

I would say that, in terms of just evidence for the existence of the world, doesn't it at least seem like you are in an external world?

What would it mean for a fact to be moral?

For my argument, I was using ‘moral’ language as signifying ‘that which one ought to be doing’.

Do these two propositions mean different things?

1. one morally ought not harm another
2. one non-morally ought not harm another

Yes, with respect what I regard as ‘moral’ signification, the word ‘morally’ is signifying in #1 that this is something you actually ought to be doing (and, in this case, more specifically, that you should not be harming others).

#2 is just, at best, a normative fact; i.e., some prescription which exists mind-independently. From that normative fact, it simply does not logically follow that you ought to do it. Another example is, ‘one ought to eat food’: arguably, this is a normative fact, since this obligation is embedded into both of our biology—but does that mean it is moral to do so? No.

A moral realist might claim that the statement "one morally ought not harm another" is made true by the mind-independent fact that one morally ought not harm another

That is how the story goes...but, this use of ‘moral’ is not signifying ‘what one ought to do’; because it does not follow from any normative fact that one ought to do it. So I would rephrase your statement here as:

A moral realist might could validly claim that the statement "one morally ought not harm another" is made true by the mind-independent fact that one morally ought not harm another, but, this does not (logically) entail that one ought to not harm another: one would also need to add a claim, or something similar, that ‘one ought to abide by what is a normative fact’--then it is of ‘moral’ significance.

Subsequent paradigm shifts in moral philosophy demonstrate that no matter what necessarily regulates our conduct, it is not sufficient in itself to explain those factual occasions where manifest conduct does not conform to it.

I didn’t quite follow this: it is not sufficient to explain manifest conduct that does not conform to it in what manner?

I would say that our own sentiments is exactly what regulates our behavior, even if the ‘ego’ is not aware of it. It is a manner of ‘strong vs. weak wills’--as Nietzsche put it.

We can most certainly fight most of our yearnings for pleasures and what not, but fighting it is itself a manner of willing it—wanting it.

That being the case, Hume’s argument with respect to mere sentiment in general, and its regulatory power over our conduct, is falsified, insofar as under those conditions, rather than no ought follows from an is, it is the case an ought is all that can follow from an is.

This is interesting, but why think that prescriptions only can follow from descriptions? That doesn’t seem correct to me at all.

The concept of “fact”, the primary intended meaning of that which the word represents, being empirical, shouldn’t be adjoined to that human condition having no definitive empirical predication whatsoever.

I agree: so where does that leave moral realism, then? As opposed to normative realism?