The general method is one of engagement with the medium as creator and audience, knowledge of its history, as well as the elements and principles which make up a medium. It is not one of reduction to something else. This is something that stands on its own. As such there is no deeper "because", though it is always possible to ask why.

Let's take an extreme example.

Have you ever watched The Room?

Now compare that to Guardians of the Galaxy.

Which would you say is a better movie?

There is no method. I'll put that out there. And the same holds true for factual matters.

But there are stories I can give you. With Star Wars I'd say that I discovered it was not good by watching more movies, reading more scripts, taking classes on acting and script writing, engaging with the history of storytelling and further developing my knowledge of the movie artform. In comparing Star Wars to other movies I could see how Star Wars was primarily plot-driven, that the characters were two-dimensional, and the dialogue came out because of the storyteller had a plot they wanted to tell and it drove that plot.

In general -- engaging with the history of an artform, in its production and as audience, is how you discover aesthetic values.

I don't think you'll find my response very satisfactory. :D

But, from my perspective at least, determining whether a phenomena is external or internal to our thinking isn't a productive question. It's a metaphysical set up that gets in the way of looking or "going back to the things themselves", as Husserl put it.

Whether you determine that values are strictly internal to thought or external to thought, regardless of how you interpret the phenomena -- values are distinct from facts, and they are not just preferences.

Seems to me that they operate on their own. That is, after all, my position -- that they are not reducible to something else.

The question is about the status of flaws in a film--wasn't that what I was asking you about? It's not a fact that there are flaws in a film, and it's not simply a result of preferences/opinions, but it's what? — Terrapin Station

It's a value.

What would you say it is that's different from facts or opinions/preferences? — Terrapin Station

Wouldn't there be many things that are different from those?

Let's take knowledge. Under a simple theory of knowledge it involves belief and justification as well as facts. And it isn't right to say that knowledge is merely opinion.

Don't you think things like forgiveness, redemption and repentance are applicable to particular actions that would be entirely ignored by other religions, cultures or relationships? — Judaka

Yes. I think there is a relative element to values. I also think there is a relative element to facts -- as in, other religions, cultures, or relationships ignore certain facts.

Is the wrongness of those actions really innate if this were the case? — Judaka

Well, it could be. If the cat stands up and walks off the mat, the cat is no longer on the mat -- and "the cat is on the mat" is false. Facts change, and for all that we do not say that our preference dictates what is true or false.

how much can you twist and bend something until what it's based on changes? — Judaka

A bit of a different question, but still a good one.

Start with this. Do you believe that what you're referring to are flaws factually? Or are you just saying that they're flaws in your later opinion, given how your preferences have changed? — Terrapin Station

Neither. Values differ from facts, so they are not factual. But it is not just an opinion or preference either.

Factually? No. There is a difference between facts and values.

But I'll use an example. I grew up watching Star Wars. I love watching Star Wars. I have good memories of it and a soft spot for the fantasy world that inspired me as a kid.

But as I grew older and developed a taste for film I could come back to Star Wars and see its flaws.

Now, knowing its flaws, I still love Star Wars. But I would not argue that Star Wars is a good film.


To go with music -- preferences can change over time. But there are still ways of evaluating music that do not reduce down to mere preference. Beethoven, regardless of your preference, is a good composer. You may not have a taste for classical music, or prefer to listen to electronic dance music, or some such. But in spite of your or my preference he is still a good composer.

To take a page out of the Critique of Judgment -- we treat objects of art as if our matters of taste were in some respect "objective". For Kant this had to do with purposiveness and the effects that some work of art had on our faculties. But there are other aesthetic theories out there -- and with them we can say why this or that work of art is good or not good. We can articulate an argument about our judgments, rather than simply saying "Hurrah, Beethoven!" or "Boo, Beethoven!"

The problem of appearance/reality as applied to ethics --

So this is why I think that acts like changing one's mind, repentance, forgiveness, and redemption are strong indicators for moral intuitionism. Sure, we can be wrong. In fact in the face of our own evil we often acknowledge our error and try to make amends. In a similar way in the face of our own falsity we often acknowledge our error and try to amend our beliefs. If we can be wrong then there is something we can be wrong about, unlike our preference for ice cream of which it is silly to say you can be wrong about.

But this set up is the sort of set up which denies our ability to tell someone else what is right or wrong, because it depends on intuition. And then depending on how much tolerance we are allowing the argument from a difference in ethical beliefs either does or does not get off the ground.

A bit of an afterthought -- I first wrote on this, but then thought it better just to mention instead -- If anyone can tell others what is right or wrong, it would be the ubermensch: breaker of tablets, master of the self, inspirer of slaves to write future tablets. But the ubermensch is not an ideal, nor is it something we even could aspire to -- she cannot even help but to be an ubermensch.

This is a neat rendering. The point of behaving ethically is not to say but to show.

But if that's so, how important are moral rules?

Can we Do without them? — Banno

I had to think about that one for a bit. And I'd say yes and no. Kind of in-between.

I mean, in a lot of ways we already Do without rules. As you noted a lot of ethical talk is post hoc -- which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if true that demonstrates that we aren't always acting from rules.

I think I'd want to develop the line of Wittgenstein that seems very reminiscent of Nietzsche -- that ethics and aesthetics are one.

Looking at aesthetics in a more literal fashion I think back to one of my art classes and we were taught the elements and principles of art. These are definitions for breaking down works of art into their components, in the case of elements, and then ways of building a work of art of judging a work of art when those components come together, in the case of principles. What's interesting about these rules, in comparison to the ethical rule-following we've been discussing, is that they are not of the form of if/then statements. Rather they are a collection of statements intended to get the student of art to think about art in a different way than "I like this picture" and "I do not like this picture" -- so that it isn't just whether or not you like vanilla ice cream or not, but rather so you can intelligibly say something about why you like or dislike something, or at least be able to begin to interpret a work of art.

Further, when you begin to study some of the masters you see that they actually break rules -- and its in the very breaking of the rules that their work shines. Of course they are masters, and not students, so their artistic intuition and ability is such that they can get away with that and still achieve something interesting. But this goes to show how though there are rules for students, the rules are more pedagogical than they are hard-line rules.


So, flipping back over to ethics and rules following -- it seems to me that we can learn to be good in a similar way that the student of art learns how to do art. Rules are in place as pedagogical tools for those who are unable to make judgments just yet, and need hand-holds pointed out to them. But rules are often meant to be broken, too, when we are masters of an art.

So in a way, if we have developed our ethical capacity we should grow beyond rules. But, at the same time, we could not achieve that ability without them. Further, though we can grow beyond rules aesthetically it's not like we don't think of them or have them in mind when we break them -- so its not a total absence.

Compare Nietzsche's view of the eternal recurrence -- a kind of rule that is not of if/then form, but is one of Nietzsche's responses to the death of God/traditional morality, a way of "saving" values from the death of their metaphysical underpinning.


Bringing this back around to Kant we can see how his articulation began this line of thinking because he did not provide rules. Freedom is the foundation of his ethics, as well as human value -- what he articulated were rules for making judgments about rules from a personal point of view.


EDIT: I think this goes some way to responding to your second post here: -- but let me know if you disagree.

Sure! It actually is a comparison I wish I had made sooner. It's really interesting to think about.

Because great projects usually end in disappointment and frustration, whereas small projects are more often successful -- and thereby pleasurable.

Extinction is the final stage of evolution. It will happen one day, but it will be out of our control.

We could, but who wants a great project when there's so much pleasure to be had in small projects?

Sure. I think we can all acknowledge that the thinkers are different.

But there is some resonance between these ideas too.

For one, freedom -- under a certain conception of freedom we do not follow rules. So by describing actions as being not-articulatable we could be saying that the ethical is that place in life where language can no longer operate -- that its in the showing, and not the saying, where our actions are free insofar that they do not follow a rule.

For two, one way of reading Wittgenstein is to focus on his interest in ethics -- compare his notion that ethics and aesthetics are one to Nietzsche, or that goodness is not found in the world to Nietzsche. You could almost say that Wittgenstein is struggling with the same problems of value that Nietzsche is, though they do go different ways with it of course.

And then there's rule-following as a traditional way of looking at ethics, of which Wittgenstein certainly has something to say and Nietzsche has something to say about rules.

They aren't talking about the exact same thing. But there's some interesting parallels to be drawn.

EDIT: It just occurred to me to mention this so it's in an edit -- but wasn't Wittgenstein also influenced by his readings of Schopenhauer?

Ahhh, Athens -- home of the 30 tyrants, the death penalty for teaching the youth to think, and leader of free thought in the ancient world.

That makes sense.

Sometimes it's just fun to see how ideas do or do not mesh -- even if said ideas may differ a little from how various people interpret them in an exegetical sense.

So an act's being moral is hidden, private - and hence irrelevant. Between you and your maker, I suppose. — Banno

I don't think I'd go so far as to say that its being hidden makes intent irrelevant. Though between you and your maker I believe is the inspiration behind such thinking, there is also an aspect to this which makes one question themselves and ask what it is they are really acting from. Did I do this out of love for someone, or did I do it out of respect for some rule, or did I do it because I thought it might benefit me? These aren't all necessarily exclusive of one another, but the intent behind an act is important to deciding if I'm coming from the right place or not -- and thus whether or not I should continue acting in such-and-such a manner (if I happen to believe that such-and-such is subject to moral deliberation, at least)

The private rule is that one ought act with moral intent. But could you even know if you had done so? Perhaps your memory is mistaken, and you did not intend to act morally, at the time, even though it now appears to you that your intent was moral.

This happens. We justify our actions post hoc.

And if this were so, we could never know if our actions were moral.

This line of thinking made me think in three different directions.

In one direction I would say that self-knowledge is in some respect different from knowledge of the world. I am not an object in the world, after all, and though I can certainly be wrong about myself -- and I agree with you that we do come up with post hoc justifications all the time -- the same sort of scenario can be brought up with respect to knowledge of the world. Perhaps we can have self-knowledge, but just as with knowledge of the world, that knowledge lacks certainty or has certainty coming in degrees or in different respects.

In the other direction my thought is that sometimes we do know others very well -- sometimes so well that we know others, at least in certain respects, better than they know themselves. Think of the knowledge a parent has of a child. The relationship is so intimate and long-term that the parent comes to know the child's intents. They can, of course, be wrong about this. And I'd say that the way they come to know these things differs from the way we come to know about ourselves. But the upshot here is that this sort of knowledge is not a knowledge of rules, but of intents and desires.

And, lastly, another line of thought was that perhaps we do not know our actions are moral after all -- at least in a theoretical sense. In a practical sense we can know, and this sort of knowledge is the knowledge of doing. But it's not the same as both being righteous and knowing one is righteous -- so it may actually be appropriate to say we never know that our actions are moral, though we do ponder it, interrogate ourselves, think about our intents, and do the best we can.



I recognize that all three of these thoughts are not necessarily compatible. I just shared them all because I couldn't really decide which course of thought was best.

Well, especially in regards to rule-following and existentialism Kant seems like a great touchstone. As I read him, though his purposes were clearly different from the existentialists, he kind of lays a foundation for existential thought. This is because freedom is such a central value to his ethics. In a way, if we take him at face value as saying that the categorical imperative says the very same thing in each iteration, his only criteria for whether a rule is moral is

1) Does it wind up contradicting itself if every moral actor follows it? If no then go to 2 --

2) Are you motivated strictly from a sense of respect for the moral law when you act on such and such a principle? If yes then moral, if no then at least legal but not moral.


which allows for a greater range of actions than a lot of moral systems before Kant.

Now where Nietzsche differs is probably on the emphasis on 1 -- the possibility for universality isn't as important to Nietzsche. But what Kant did is articulate a way of ethical thinking that allowed an individual to act on their own conscience in spite of whatever surroundings they may find themselves in -- so your society may believe that such and such is good, but as long as you believe otherwise and you are acting out of respect for the moral law and everyone could theoretically adopt your rule then your action is moral.

In other words he articulates a way for moral rules to be private in a particular sense -- if not quite in the sense I take the private language argument to mean when it describes a private language.

What's really interesting about Kant's rules is that what makes them moral is not the rule, though the rule must actually pass some formal criteria, but the motivation behind an actor's act. So we can have several persons who are following the same rule, are acting in the same way, but only the person who knows in their heart of hearts that they are doing it out of respect would know that their action is moral (at least if they are Kantian, of course).

Hence why this all opens up thinking, or perhaps serves more as a propaedeutic, to existential ethics -- it's about one's relationship to a rule, and its motivation, and largely excludes our social milieu. Nietzsche just takes this line of thinking further, absent its reliance on theological underpinnings (which are pretty obvious whenever we read Kant, even if his formal theory does not rely upon theology).


So this gets back around to, in my mind, on just what we mean by private or public -- because a private rule by Kant is still, in principle, articulatable (oi, I butcher the language so), even if it is not shared. And though it be articulatable we can have no behavioristic criteria for determining if an act is moral, though we can check if it follows the rule.

(a few edits for clarity)

The arguments against a private language have a more general form that argues against private rules. A rule that is only understood by one person does not count as a rule.

So can a person have private morals?

Morals are rules to live by; but if rules cannot be private, morality cannot be private.

So could Nietzsche follow a rule that was understood only by himself?

This, by way of attracting attention to a discussion between ↪Janus and myself.

Now my guess is that this will become a discussion of the merits of the private language argument well before the end of the first page. That's not the point. Rather, if the private language argument is correct, is it compatible with an existential approach to morality? — Banno

My inclination is to say "yes" -- but with a hasty addition that if all we end up doing is the same, but with different words, then it's really hard to tell the difference between existential ethics from traditional ethics. So while I am inclined to say "yes", especially because the burden is just asking about possibility so it seems likely we could come up with some scenario where this all makes sense, it might also be the case that we're missing the point if we're formulating ethics in terms of traditional morality. ((I'm tempted to go on a tangent about Kant here))

But, as I understand it at least, I don't know if it is possible for Nietzsche to understand a rule all on his own -- if it's a rule then he is formulating it in a language. So if he understands it all on his own then it must be some trans-linguistic understanding.

What's interesting here, at least for me, is not the exegesis so much as the notion of someone who has no interest in right and wrong. What might that look like? — Banno

I sort of wonder at the thought of someone who has no interest in right and wrong. To put it bluntly anyone who has an articulated opinion such that they are beyond good and evil or that they are nihilists sort of betrays in that act that they are more interested in right and wrong than most people are.

So I wonder if you mean someone who has reflected upon these issues and come to such a conclusion, or if you mean a sort of person who simply is the ubermensch?

One interesting thought Nietzsche put forward in criticizing himself, -- which he often does -- was that Jesus was such a man because he broke the tablet of values before him and reforged the image of goodness for everyone.

I suppose, in the end, my feelings don't run too deep on this so I'd be willing to give it a shot in spite of my prediction and see what actually happened.

Cool. I was hoping to demonstrate how one might use a knowledge of fallacies by placing them into argumentative form rather than list form :).

That's a sound counter-point though, hard to know if it's gonna go down that road, but.... isn't that a slippery slope? — Christoffer

On the contrary -- if it were a slippery slope I would be substituting what the proposal is for some other proposal. So something along the lines of "If we post a list of tips, then this is just one step on the road to making them rules, which is surely just a way for the socialists to take over the forum"

Which is basically a non-sequiter, and is fallacious because I am not addressing what a person said but rather what I would rather talk about -- usually because it is easier to dismiss or scarier to the audience I wish to influence.

But I believe that a list of tips wouldn't encourage the good, but would rather encourage the bad. Perhaps my prediction is wrong, but I am addressing the proposal put forward. I don't believe you are saying these should be rules, nor do I believe that it will eventually lead to socialism.

All fallacies are originally derived from argument. One of the dangers of learning a list of fallacies is that you miss out on the ability to identify why they are fallacies in the first place -- it's a common sophomoric mistake to dismiss arguments by quickly categorizing them into their respective domains of invalid inference.

The names are better served for self-criticism than as a list of do's and don'ts for others. Especially because most fallacies are of the informal variety, anyways, and so whether or not they apply is a matter of judgment to the particular argument rather than a solid proof of invalidity.

Which is to say -- I don't think it would change our penchant for making mistakes in thinking to have a list pinned up. I think all it would accomplish would be to endorse the bad use of fallacies. So I voted no.

I don't know if I'd say it's possible to empathize with people in the abstract -- so you use categories like the homeless, and I would say that we are not empathizing at all if we are claiming to empathize with such a category of persons. Empathy occurs between persons in a face-to-face relationship, not between a person and an abstract category of persons.

I think I agree with you this far @Judaka -- only that I'd say people claiming empathy for a category are a little confused on what empathy is, though perhaps that's not what you're wanting to focus on.

What I would ask of your belief is -- if empathy is bad at understanding people, is there anything good at understanding people? And if so, what is it?

That actually sounds pretty cool. Maybe you'll have to share it sometime.

Where do you find it or what examples do you have in mind? Perhaps in the Spanish or Russian Civil war? Likely the ideology was championed by those who were communists, but were also against the totalitarianism of the typical Marxist-Leninism? In both cases, the anarcho-communist groups were destroyed. — ssu

Hey! You do know some examples. Good for you. Those aren't exhaustive, but they are enough to prove my point

Them having been destroyed doesn't mean that they never were. Nor that it didn't continue on elsewhere.

In fact you might recall that some of those who did the destroying were of the authoritarian variety of communism. Seems to me that if people are willing to kill or die over a difference it's a difference that makes a difference.

And that's really all I've been saying here -- that there is a difference between them. I really have no interest in convincing you of the virtues of anarchy, though they are plentiful. Politics doesn't really work by way of argument, so I don't see that as being fruitful at all. It's not like I haven't heard what you are saying before.

Ah, ok. That makes sense now. I had a couple different thoughts so I wasn't quite sure which you were responding to.

I'm afraid I'm uncertain where this is coming from. I mean, someone could, and people do think of morality in a broader way than that -- I agree. But I'm feeling dense at the moment.

Now, why say "just" whatever we happen to feel is right? Is that supposed to indicate that it's trivial or that there's a credible alternative or both? — S

It's to indicate that there is nothing else besides whatever we happen to feel is right. In comparison I might say that moral statements are whatever we happen to feel is right, and they are also truth-functional statements which make a claim about a fact.

Because I would argue that there's no credible alternative in light of the logical consequences of these proposed alternatives. And I'd also argue that moral judgement isn't trivial.

And why non-cognitivism here?

If moral judgment is based in feeling, and there is no fact to the matter, and you don't believe that all moral statements are false then it seems to me that leaves you with either this notion of subjective truth that you're talking about, or simply stating that moral statements are not truth-functional, in spite of their surface grammar.

And I can't make heads or tails out of the notion of a subjective truth so non-cognitivism is about where I land in making sense of your view.

That's true.

And there is something to be said for that approach too, I think. Something that's been niggling at the back of my mind in thinking through all this is that another approach that hasn't been mentioned is to say that debating the truth or falsity of this or that statement or theory misses the point entirely -- that we are the ones who have to make these decisions regardless of whether such and such is true or false.

And that seems to open the door to existential ethics.

Though, for myself at least, I don't think I am the sort of person who could fully commit to a will-to-power ethos. It's quite lonely, and seems to make some people masters while others are slaves (to morality, but thereby making them useful to the masters) -- and that just seems like a sad life to me. (not that all existential ethics are like the Will to Power -- heck, even Nietzsche doesn't always agree with himself here, I think.)

I probably do have it wrong. But in trying to pin down what your getting at I just couldn't see what exactly was true about the moral statements anymore. It seemed like the statements were truth-functional, as you admit, but then they had a different kind of truth -- a subjective truth. So that "P" is true in F, where "P" refers to some moral statement and F refers to some frame of reference, usually the moral actor.

But I am unable to differentiate this from the notion that moral statements are just whatever we happen to feel is right -- which seems to me to fall squarely in with non-cognitivism.

So I just feel confused in trying to parse your account, I guess.

I think I got a much better handle on what @Terrapin Station believes -- and I thought that we might start delving into mind and stuff so I didn't want to pollute the thread this spun from with all that speculation. And I think I understand where I disagree -- without some way of building from the relating of the mind to the frequent success of language I think I have to opt for some other theory, even if it is somewhat speculative and metaphysical.

I got to make clearer some of my thoughts on meaning.

And I think this grammar is interesting that you provided:

Having said that, there are some interesting aspects of the grammar of moral language that can be cleaned up. Moral statements have a direction of fit that distinguishes them from some other sorts of statements; they are unlike mere statements of preference, in that they set out what others should do, not just what the speaker should do; and they have their import in providing justification for what we do. — Banno

(switching topics here, thinking of @andrewk)Something about saying moral statements are meant to influence others doesn't quite sit right with me -- not that I'm unfamiliar with the phenomena. Of course people say these things to influence others. But it seems that we say things we believe are right or wrong not to influence others -- at least when thinking about what is the right thing to do -- but because it is the right thing to do.

I'm not sure how to put it, though, without sounding like I'm basically just running in a circle.

Yup, definitely.

I want to get back around to the open question argument again. But I wanted to revisit my Casebeer first and see if I thought differently about him than I do now before saying much. He takes on the open question argument in arguing for natural ethical facts, but I remember not feeling convinced by it.

That seems more coherent to my eyes. But your account differs from @S or @Michael -- who seem to want to say they are subjectively true.

I suppose I can't get over the notion that the subjectivist accounts wants to claim that such and such statements are true subjectively.

The way I parse that is to say that the subjectivist thinks that all moral statements are in some way reducible to or are really saying something other than what they are saying on their surface. So that

(1) "Kicking the pup is wrong" is true

is reducible to or is actually saying

(2) "I feel that kicking the pup is wrong" is true


But these sentences do not mean the same thing. One is referring to the action "Kicking", and the other is referring to the speaker's state of mind or attitude towards the action.


We can set up some rules around subjective truth, I suppose, but then it seems to me that we're not talking about truth anymore. Truth is a property of statements. And (1) does not mean the same thing as (2). I could say that if a speaker says (1) then (2), but I could not say that the truth value of (1) is the same as the truth value of (2).

In the case where someone says, just to make it easier to see, that kicking the pup is right for instance -- (1) would be false, yet (2) would be true.

Alright. Then the two are still not opposed.

If I say "The speed of light in a vacuum is 299,792,458 m/s" then that implies that I believe said statement. The statement is made true by objective features of the world, but my belief is a subjective attitude towards said statement.

If objectivism is the thesis that moral statements are true then I'd say that Richard Brandt's notion of subjectivism is not exclusive of objectivism -- and so the two are not really opposed.

Because, after all, we can assert true statements -- and the statements we choose to assert often do imply some kind of specific attitude we have towards something. Especially so with moral matters, where anger and respect are very frequent emotions.

Reason is a skill that can be taught. But it is a skill precisely because we are all unreasonable. It's an ideal that we can aspire to and follow, but we can never just be reasonable -- even to get by in our day-to-day lives we must rely upon heuristics and fallacious reasoning, things which we have developed on the basis of how it satisfies our needs and desires rather than on the basis that it satisfies the criterions of reason.

That's why science and philosophy are hard to do. We are intentionally breaking our habits to obtain a different outcome.