You may claim that you have experience of something, but how do I know that something was not your fantasy, imagination or dreams?

Oh, you don’t. I agree with you there: I would say it just seems like I am not dreaming, but, at the end of the day, I cannot definitively prove that I am not.

If you go that route, and just say solipsism is true, then it doesn’t really, for practical purposes, explain the data of experience very well: it seems as though you aren’t dreaming, although sometimes you are, and that you are an organism in a world (outside of you).

Strictly speaking, if you accept that your conscious experience is representational, then you could derive, like Kant, that in order for their to be a determination of the empirical self there must be objects outside of that self which are real; but the hard skeptic can still go further and ask whether those intuitions (in the Kantian sense of the term) are fabrications or not.

The OP does not deny the existence of the world, but it is asking for the reasons for believing in the world's existence.

I see. I just don’t see how one could definitively prove there is a world—it is just the best explanation of what one is experiencing.

We are looking for more objective reasons than personal experience for the evidence i.e. you may claim that you have experienced something therefore that something must exit, but why should I trust that claim? The claim is lacking objectivity.

This is an impossible task, because all the direct knowledge we have of anything is a part of that personal experience that you mentioned: you are asking for that which is impossible to attain.

:up:

Let me know if you have any further thoughts!

The point of the argument in the OP is essentially what you described: if we are to take 'moral' language to signify 'what one ought to be doing', then it isn't enough to simply prove the existence of normative facts--and I think many moral realists just skip over this like it isn't an issue (and perhaps it isn't and I am mistaken).

My argument only gets one to moral anti-realism, and doesn't speak about moral cognitivism vs. non-cognitivism. Personally, I am a moral subjectivist, so I agree that moral judgments are truth-apt.

I am not sure what is being argued here, but I agree, and my argument in the OP agrees, that there is a possibility for normative facts: they just aren't moral facts.

I think you are begging the question again, and, like in the past, you very much need to define what you mean by 'fact'. All of your arguments depend on your premise that there are no moral facts, and yet you never end up saying what you mean by a fact such that your statement could be reliably assessed.

Fair enough. A 'fact', for intents of the argument in the OP, is 'a statement of which its referent corresponds correctly to something in reality'; or I would be also fine with simply defining it as 'a statement which expresses something that exists mind-independently'. Facts refer to something objective (i.e., mind-independent). Either way, I think that suffices for the argument.

I might be repeating @Banno here by Hume's Guillotine says one cannot logically derive (moral) norms from non-normative facts. The moral anti-realist assumes that 'normative facts do not exist', even though they do as evident in (e.g.) public health, medical & ecological sciences as well as institutional facts like money, traffic signs, marriage vows. The vast majority of considered facts are, in fact, theory/value-laden (i.e. normative), so Hume's Guillotine makes sense to me and 'moral anti-realism' does not.

Those examples don’t make sense to me (and perhaps I am simply misunderstanding): for example, traffic signs exist and that is a fact; but that there should be traffic signs is not a fact. Are you saying the latter is also a fact? This seems to be the crux of what you are saying (as far as I understand).

Correct. Saying that "T is a normative fact" is not itself giving a prescription (as far as I can tell), and P2 is always going to take that form, and will supplement P1 to get the conclusion. If I am missing something, then I would love to hear your thoughts!

If you assume that only statements about material things or sense data are facts, then of course you will conclude that moral statements are not facts. You will have done no more than reiterated your assumption.

So you are forced to deny what is blatantly evident, that these are indeed true statements, facts, simply to keep your ideology.

My argument did not posit that facts are only about material things or sense data.

A moral realist might claim that the statement "one ought not harm another" is made true by the mind-independent fact that one ought not harm another (much like someone might claim that the statement "electrons are negatively charged particles" is made true by the mind-independent fact that electrons are negatively charged particles).

I have no problem, fundamentally, with this (other than labeling it as a moral realist position) because it didn’t specify the mind-independent fact of ‘one ought not harm another’ as morally signified. My argument doesn’t negate the possibility of normative facts—just moral facts.

If you think I am wrong, then what signification of ‘moral’ language would the moral realist, in this situation, be using other than using it to signify ‘what one ought to be doing’?

I wasn't saying that all colloquial speech is very imprecise but, rather, that it seems as though the OP's conclusion is due to the confusion with the ambiguity in the colloquial speech (they were deploying). Saying "today is tom's last day on earth" does not entail whatsoever that "one ought to kill tom". After explicating it clearly, one can see that more work has to be put into the argument to get that prescription (which you demonstrated, I would say), and from there is it clear that no ought is being derived from an is. I think we may be in agreement: I agree that not all colloquial speech is confused nor ambiguous.

[P1] That one ought not kick puppies for fun is a moral statement.
[P2] It is a true statement that one ought not kick puppies for fun.
[P3] Facts are true statements.
[C] Therefore there are moral facts.

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.

1. The moral nihilist will argue that no statements of this kind are true.

Moral nihilism is a form of moral anti-realism, so my argument is more broad than that position and could be deployed by a person that holds that position.

2. The moral anti-realist will argue that some statements of this kind are true and are made true by some mind-dependent feature of the world.

This is moral subjectivism, and not moral anti-realism. The former is a form of the latter. Moral nihilists and non-cognitivists are also moral anti-realists, and they do not agree with your #2.

3. The moral realist will argue that some statements of this kind are true and are made true by some mind-independent feature of the world.

If my OP is true, then this position would be false because moral statements are not made true by some mind-independent feature of the world (i.e., they are not moral facts).

The way I see it, P2 will also be a description, which itself can encompass a normative fact but is not a normative fact itself. If you think I am wrong, then please give me an example of a syllogism that deploys three prescriptions (i.e., on per premise and one in the conclusion) which is valid. I don't see how that is possible.

I am confused, because you proved my point. What the OP was claiming is clearly false when you explicate it unambiguously, which is exactly what you did.

For experiencing something, you don't need the world.  But you need a world.

This is exactly my point: you can’t claim you are experiencing if there isn’t something which you are experiencing. Whether or not ‘I’ or everyone exists in that world which you experience is, at this stage of the argument, irrelevant. Perhaps I misunderstood your OP, but I thought you were arguing that you don’t believe in any world at all: is that incorrect?

There are many worlds that you can experience, but a world you experience doesn't have to be part of the world

So, I agree that it is entirely logically and actual possible that what you are experiencing is not whatever reality is in-itself; but this doesn’t negate the fact that you are experiencing something, and that something, relative to you, is the world. It the only world you will ever (probably) know. Any conjecture that there are other realities is predicated on the knowledge you have of the reality that you experience.

They exist in totally different ways and in different forms, which have nothing or little to do with the physical world we live in

That ‘physical world’ is the world for you: irregardless of whether there is some other world out there.

But before that, what is the definition of the world? 

I use ‘world’ and ‘reality’ synonymously, and by both I mean ‘that which is the totality of existence’. However, this doesn’t semantically fit the discussion here: instead, we could just suppose that a ‘world’ is the totality of a locale of existences, one of which encompasses you. What exactly the boundaries are isn’t really important for proving there is at least one ‘world’.

With above points in mind, to experience a virtual world in a computer game

If you are talking about from the perspective of a video game character (that hypothetically is conscious), then I would say that the data and rules by which they are governed is separate from themselves and is what they are experiencing; and that is the ‘world’ for them. They would never, presumably, know that they are in a simulated game.

I don't think you need the world to have experience logically and epistemically

Of course we cannot derive from logic that we need something to experience to experience in the first place: but that is true of virtually everything since logic only pertains to the form of the argument.

Epistemically, I think that experience itself presupposed that which is being experienced.

1. You ought make whatever the Godfather says should be true, true.
2. The godfather says “today is Tom’s last day on earth"
3. You ought make “today is Tom’s last day on earth" true.
4. You should kill Tom.

This negates the OP and does not suffice to win my proposal (in the response you quoted of me), since they were claiming that your #2 is a description that is itself a prescription. Your argument is perfectly valid exactly because the prescription are being derived from other prescription, and not #2.

I.e., “You should kill Tom.” is being derived from the prescription #3, which is derived from the prescription #1 with the supplement of the empirical fact (which is not a prescription) #2. The OP is in disagreement with you, as they would have to argue #2 can be itself derived as a prescription:

It is the context which allows us to determine the "ought" given a descriptive statement issued with confidence or from an authority in the present in refrence to the future.
…
Here is a case where we can derive an "ought" from an "is"

Banno, you didn't derived an ought from an is.

The usage of "ought" for general normative statements is correct, since Hume wasn't only concerned with moral statements.

That’s true, but Hume was only interested in the fact that one cannot derive a prescription from an indicative statement—not that one cannot derive a normative fact. My only point before was that, in metaethics, it is about moral statements—but perhaps I mischaracterized your OP as having to do with that.

I don't see a problem with using colloquial language. In the philosophy of language, we don't look for a perfect language anymore. All we do is explore how language works in real life, following the example of Wittgenstein, who reminded everyone to let philosophy leave everything as it is

The problem is that it is leading to ambiguity that is convincing you that you have successfully derived a prescription from a description, when you haven’t. What is happening is you are converting an imprecise sentence into its underlying meaning: a prescription (like “you should kill”) cannot simultaneously be a non-prescriptive claim (like “today is Tom’s last day on earth”).

If you doubt this, then try and make a syllogism that concludes “you should kill Tom” is derivable with “today is Tom’s last day on earth” without simply making the latter an encrypted or ambiguated version of the former.

Another way of thinking about it is imagine that you heard someone tell you “today is all you can eat taco day!”. Now imagine, unknown to you, that within that area of the world (you were in) that it really was code for “you should kill”. Now, it should be clear that a purely descriptive statement has no prescriptions in it: they are categorically different. For a person who knew the lingo and knew that it was code would simply convert it in their head: they wouldn’t be legitimately deriving an ought from an is. You are just noting that we can codify sentences.

But if you accept that experience is about something, then why don't you accept that there is a world? I am confused.

Not just propositions, but true propositions. Here is 2 reasons we should prefer true propositions to be cognitive content over platonic forms

1. Platonic forms lack intentional content. There is no meaning to them in refrence to themselves. Platonic forms don't think they are true. We with our minds do.

Why would a proposition existing need have intentional content about itself? That doesn’t make sense to me. The platonic form doesn’t need to think itself as true: it is true iff our assertion that it exists corresponds to reality. So a true proposition, like ‘1+1=2’, would exist and our statement ‘1+1=2’ is true because it corresponds to that platonic form.

Let's suppose true statements existed as Platonic forms, then we would only be able to access true statements by coming into contact with platonic forms, but our minds cannot contact them or comprehend them.

Why? We come to know platonic forms, assuming they exist, by reverse engineering the form of the reality of which we experience.

Mathematics isn't an estimation of the world. You are confusing physics with mathematics. Yes, numbers may represent apples and chairs, but it's ludicrous to conflate them.

I was just noting that your argument presupposes mathematical realism, which is the view that mathematics pertains to the form of reality. Physics uses math, and for mathematical realist those physics equations work in virtue of roughly corresponding to actual mathematical relationships between entities (e.g., forces, objects, etc).

Mathematical theorems rest on axioms and inferences our minds derive from them. That's it. The axioms are taken as self-evident, not some a posteriori fact about the world.

Then, perhaps I misrepresented your view: maybe you are a mathematical anti-realist. If you think that math is just derived from our modes and means of cognition, then it doesn’t pertain to the actual structure of reality.

But how do you reconcile this with your view that there are infinitely true statements which exist in reality? Why not, then, just believe that mathematical statements, for example, are only true in virtue of how we cognize? Then you don’t need to posit a universal mind.

If you say your door is 2 meters long and "2" doesn't exist, then your statement is false.

Nah...2 meters is a valid estimation, its a tool that our faculty of reason has, of the door length. For mathematical anti-realists, they are just going to say that there is no “2” out there because there’s no math: it’s our faculty of reason that conceptualizes things mathematically.

But you do have a mind which can conceptualize "2", even if it's a rough approximation, so your statement is somewhat right

Now I think you may be a realist afterall (: Do you think math pertains to the real structure or at least exists out there mind-independently?

If you improved your instrument, you would get a better measurement, but it still depends on the existence of some number inside your head.

I can say that it is dependent on a number ‘in my head’ and say that the number doesn’t exist ‘outside of heads’. Mathematical anti-realism in a nutshell.

Now, look at physics. It describes the universe with numbers before any mind existed in the universe. Such a theory is wrong if there were no numbers, the theory can't even be approximately correct.

I disagree. We can create models of what the universe was before any mind, and those are estimations: they do not entail that reality actually abides by math. It simply does not follow.

So there must have been some mind which comprehended mathematical numbers/concepts

As for numbers being platonic entities, refer to my objection above

Yeah, I just don’t see why a mind needs to comprehend it for their to be numbers.

Are you saying there are only finitely true mathematical statements because of that ?

No, I am saying that there does not exist, if we go the mathematical anti-realist route, an infinite amount of mathematical propositions in reality--hence there is nothing needing to be comprehended by a universal mind. Just because we can generate an infinite amount of true mathematical statements from our basic mode of cognition it does not follow that there exists such math statements in reality.

1. True statements can only exist as cognitive content
2. Cognitive content depends on the existence of a mind which can comprehend it

What do you mean by ‘true statements’? Propositions? If so, I see no reason to believe that propositions could not exist as platonic forms (or something like that) independently of any mind.

For example, why can’t the true proposition ‘p > q’ not exist acausally as the a part of the form of reality?

Another route, is to just deny:

3. There are infinitely many statements that are necessarily true, independent of spacetime itself

For your argument to work, one has to be a mathematical and logical realist—i.e., one has to believe that math and logic pertain to the structure of reality and are not our mere estimations of it—which I am not seeing why this would be implausible.

Reason 1 : How can our physical theories which describe our universe to a great degree of accuracy prior to the existence of any symbolic language be true if the mathematical entities they refer to or depend on constructions which never even existed ? Your physical theory is definitely false if its meaning and truth-falsity depends on something which is non-existent.

You are conflating the map with the territory: just because I can measure a door with a ruler and get a rough estimate of its size it does not follow that the door has a fixed size (mathematically). However, if one is a mathematical realist, again, they could just say that numbers, math operators, etc. are platonic forms (or something similar), which doesn’t require a universal mind.

Reason 2 : Let's suppose mathematical statements are just symbols we draw with some rules. Given the fact our universe can only contain finite information, there can only be finite mathematical statements that are true, but this is false on face value ( There is no logical impossibility in adding additional axioms and theorems to the most comprehensive mathematical system )

What we estimate about reality will always be an finite underestimate of what is happening: no matter how precise it is.

First, let me ask you for a brief elaboration of your own view: what is 'experience' if it is not of something, under your view? That way I can provide some worries I may have with your intuitions and evidence.

:up:

I think the confusion, Sirius, may be that various metaethical debates, and the depiction of Hume's Guillotine, incorrectly depict them as "ought" vs. "is"s--but the english language has many examples of ought statements which aren't, in-themselves, moral statements.

Also, inferring "You should kill Tom" from "Today is Tom's last day on earth" is just an inference from colloquial speech: technically, one cannot logically nor coherently derive, all else being equal, the former from the latter. It is only with context in colloquial speech, where we use words very imprecisely, that one could infer this: so I wouldn't even say this proves, philosophically, that one can derive an 'ought' from an 'is'.

I would like to see the logical and epistemic arguments laid out for the reason for believing in the existence of the world

I would say I have to two main reasons why I think there is a world:

1. My experience of things strikes me as I am really in a world experiencing those things; and
2. Experience (and especially perception) presupposes a world in the first place.

I used to have similar views to you on this: I thought that since all we have is experience, then how could be possibly know anything about what is categorically beyond it? Without being able to probe around or use an instrument on whatever lies beyond our experience, which we obviously will never be able to do, how do we know how what we experience relates to what actually exists (beyond it)? It seems entirely possible that what exists beyond our experience could operate and be completely different than what we experience. So far so good!

But...the question you have to ask yourself is: doesn’t experiencing something imply that there is a something which you are experiencing—even if it appears or is presented within your experience as different than what really is? Likewise, doesn’t perceiving (which is the act of experiencing constructed representations) presuppose that which is being perceived (i.e., represented)?

I find it incredibly plausible that I exist and I am experiencing—but this presupposes a world in which I am and am experiencing.

So, that’s point #2, but what about #1? Why think that the world is very similar to what we experience? Honestly, I don’t think we should. I don’t think, for starters, time exists in the world as it is in-itself—but you asked about why one believes in the world (when one is not perceiving). I am a phenomenal conservatist; so, in a nutshell, I think that one ought to trust their intuitions (intellectual seemings) about evidence until they have good reasons to doubt them. So, for me, when I am walking around and living, all the evidence seems to me to point to me existing as an organism in a very natural world. If it strikes you as if you are just consciously experiencing phantasms, then you should hold that until you have good reasons to doubt it. I can try to present some worries with that intuition if you would like.

That is fair.

I don’t consider any AI to be a trustworthy source of a definition when it comes to specialized fields of study, as, so far as I understand, it is simply using public knowledge on the internet to figure it out (and that usually implies that it uses the colloquial definitions, as opposed to the formative ones). This is no different with Google’s definitions that they give or any basic online dictionary: they are more interested, most of the time, with colloquial definitions and not specialized ones. For example, Wikipedia says “Moral nihilism (also called ethical nihilism) is the meta-ethical view that nothing is morally right or morally wrong and that morality doesn't exist.” Colloquially, this is, indeed, how people tend to use the term; and it is not completely wrong--it is just ambiguous.

However, in metaethics, moral nihilism is the view that (1) moral judgments are cognitive (i.e., propositional) and that (2) there are no true moral judgments. That there are no moral facts just follows from #2.

Moral non-cognitivists deny #1, and it follows from that that there are no moral facts.

Both the moral nihilist and non-cognitivist believe that ethical sentences cannot be true or false

No. Moral nihilists are moral cognitivists.

And wouldn't this justify calling non-cognitivism a flavour of moral nihilism?

Unless I am misunderstanding you, I would say that your definitions here would entail the converse: if moral nihilists are moral cognitivists, then they are subsumed under moral cognitivism.

Moral nihilism (error theory) is not the view that there are no right or wrong answers to moral questions. If you are interested, then I would suggest reading this standford entry; as it is a good summary.

Here's the super-relevant parts:

Error theory is:

The error theorist is a cognitivist: maintaining that moral judgment consists of beliefs and assertions. However, the error theorist thinks that these beliefs and assertions are never true

Non-cognitivsm is:

One might deny that in making a moral judgment we are engaging in the assignment of properties at all. Such a rejection is, roughly speaking, the noncognitivist proposal

I don’t think I am fully understanding your ethical naturalist theory yet, so let me try to explain it back to you (and tell me if I am on the right track).

You are saying, firstly, that the open-question argument does not hold as valid (“besides the point for actual moral agency): why?

Secondly, you are saying essentially:

1. Suffering entails a want for help.
2. Asking for help entails a promise to do likewise for the helper (if they ever were to need it).
3. That promise is a moral fact because it is an obligation which implicitly unravels from #1.

Is this an accurate summary of your view?

I am not sure that I entirely followed the question, but I would say that they should influence moral behavior. If there is a moral fact X, then that should influence, to some degree, our moral behavior.

That is very interesting: I agree that our biology can most certainly motivate us to do things (even to an extreme level). But I think we both agree that that doesn't entail that it is the morally right thing to do (in virtue of being a moral fact).

But wouldn't that entail that you don't think there are moral facts, since you think that no one has found any?

:up:

No, moral non-cognitivism is a flavor of moral anti-realism, not moral nihilism.

I agree; but my point is that I am positing that there really are moral facts which are not just mere interpretations of phenomena, and evaluating their worth. This is what I mean by saying that I am taking it a step further than Nietzsche.

Moral nihilism (i.e., error theory) in metaethics is the view that:

1. Moral judgments are propositional; and
2. They are all false.

So, moral nihilism entails necessarily that there are no moral facts that are true.

But, forgetting the semantics, let’s dive (briefly) into the substance of your OP.

The main two arguments I have came across in favor of moral nihilism is that 1. moral thinking differs between cultures and people, so it is a subjective practice, and 2. that there is nothing tangible to attach moral facts too, therefore they do not exist.

Moral disagreement is an argument that some people give for the non-existence of moral facts, but that doesn’t entail that one is a moral nihilist per se—they would be, at a minimum, a moral anti-realist, but they could opt for a different flavor of moral anti-realism than moral nihilism (such as non-cognitivism or subjectivism).

I personally don’t find that argument very compelling, as just because we disagreeing about something it does not follow that what we are disagreeing about is a non-fact (although it very well might be).

I wouldn't say that morality has the same type of facts that the natural world has, meaning that if intelligent life didn't exist, neither would morality.

If the “moral facts” cease to exist with our existences (in the sense of our psychology), then they aren’t facts.

However, abstract human constructions often do have facts. For example, mathematics is a human construction with inherent facts. The infinite number of primes is an abstract fact of mathematics that has no basis outside of the intelligent mind. You could say that the way we describe a mathematical system is the reason that it can contain facts, meaning that since math as a language leaves little room for subjective interpretation of its findings means that it is an objective practice. However, I would say that is a fundamental problem with how we talk about morality rather than a stark difference between mathematics and morality.

Interesting! I would say that in order for mathematics to have facts, it must exist mind-independently and not contingent on subjects. Even in the case that one is a mathematical anti-realist (in the sense that they don’t believe that the structure of reality is inherently mathematical) the mathematical propositions are grounded objectively in our faculties of cognition, which are not subjective. I cannot make up true mathematical propositions because they are independent of my will, even if it is the case that they are dependent on how I cognize. In the case of morality, the counter argument here would be that this is not an analogous situation: there is no such cognitive faculty nor faculty whatsoever that moral judgments depend on nor are there moral facts somehow out there in reality (or so the argument goes). So that would be the symmetry breaker.

I think in order for you to say there are moral facts, you would have to claim that they are grounded in either a faculty we have (which is independent of our will) or exist in reality. Otherwise, they are not facts, they are tastes.

I'm not going to argue with you about Nietzsche's view and the fact that he's already considered that and written about it. If the morality of customs (which moral facts) leads to the autonomous non-moral being as its ripest fruit of that process -- I would say that implies what your saying -- but not limiting it to "only beneficial to non moral facts" because the moral fact would indeed be beneficial for its own factual existence as its own proof there of basically, and it's that tension of morality that teaches the individual how to guarantee themselves as a future. It's like a "strange loop" that self references.

I can't remember Nietzsche ever considering, in his works, the value of moral facts themselves; but only that they don't exist. The idea of "morality of customs" that you referenced was not consider moral facticity by Nietzsche but rather a socio-psychological stringing together of tastes, that is why you won't read anywhere in the Genealogy of Morals that morality is objective.

I do think Nietzsche got a lot of it right on morality, but I would say that I am taking it a step deeper than him; as he was a moral anti-realist through-and-through, whereas I would say that even if moral facts exist they are only useful insofar as they benefit the moral non-facts; and, so, the conversation is better invested into the non-facts and not the facts.

No, I was meaning to describe the benefits of moral realism if it were true; but I think most of my OP is actually still quite accurate: the only difference being that the moral facts may benefit one's morel non-facts. But, upon further reflection (again), I think that the moral facts are not fundamentally doing the 'heavy-lifting' in any ethical theory but, rather, the individual(s) which created it.

Imagine that there was a law ingrained into reality that governed objects (to some extent) where it was defined what is better/best: wouldn't aligning oneself with it benefit them?

For example, no matter what my goals are, it is objectively better to be unified and self-harmonious in that goal to achieve it. If I want to achieve my goals, then I better align my actions with that form of unity and harmony. Of course, whether I want to optimally achieve my goals is up to me (subjectively); but the form of achieving it is not.

Transcendental arguments are not intended for empirical conditions, so, no, there wouldn’t be one. No need to argue for that which gives you a bloody nose, or a headache, or hurts your eyes if you look at it too long

Well, then, it appears as though Kant has no grounds to be an indirect realist. Why think there are real objects, then?

There isn’t a proof. Remember….we’re not even conscious of this part of the system as a whole. The transcendental argument sets the technical groundwork, nonetheless, as the first part of the work.

There should be. Kant gives a proof for everything he claims; except for his presupposition that there are real objects.

No. Like….how is it called a cup-in-itself.

I just made it up for distinguishing between the cup which is experienced vs. the cup as it is in-itself. Is that what you are asking?

I just disagree that Kant was meaning 'thing-in-itself' in that manner: he states very clearly throughout CPR that we will never know anything about the things-in-themselves.