There's no choice in the matter. It's like asking why judge whether you like being hit in the face or not. — Isaac

I think I would rather be hit in the face than put up with this nonsense.

And so far no one has been able to say what morality is, despite all the contorted formulations I’ve read. — Brett

Then you are probably blind. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Even if that were the case, what relevance would it be? — Terrapin Station

Brett has trouble with logical relevance. I group him with creativesoul and Metaphysician Undercover in that regard.

It just turns all such judgements to preference. Murder or not murder is the same as vanilla or chocolate. — Rank Amateur

Sweet Jesus. You are very much back at square one, as if twenty pages of correcting errors in understanding has achieved nothing.

Firstly, you've just repeated Moore's open question argument without showing how you resolve it. You've argued "we must keep morality intact today, because without it we would lose the glue that holds communities together.", but now you need an argument to show why we must keep communities together.

Secondly, and I think most importantly here, what makes you think our survival was dependent on one single morality. It certainly wouldn't appear to have been reliant on one single personality type, or physical type. In fact, there's a very good argument in favour of the evolutionary advantage of neurodiversity within communities. So what makes you think one set of moral rules would be right for everyone, even from a purely biological point of view? — Isaac

Good points.

I’m responding to the op. I don’t have to look [at] things [in] your way. — Brett

You will do. Just you wait until I'm dictator.

I'm very much a 'meaning is use' person when it comes to language, so the problem you're outlining doesn't even arise. 'Good' when used of a moral type of action, simply doesn't mean the same thing as 'good' when used of a lawnmower, or 'good' when used of an answer to a maths sum. We use words to make something happen in the world and that varies with circumstance.

To give an example, I might say "murder is wrong" to someone about to kill a non-combatant in my platoon. By that I would really mean something like "I'm betting you think murder is wrong too and I'm reminding you that killing a non-combatant is technically murder".

Alternatively I might say "raising interest from loans to poverty strike nations is evil" by I which I mean "I'm in the camp of people who think this is evil and I want people to know it"

Like most language, it depends on the circumstances. — Isaac

@Rank Amateur, I'm with him on that. It makes way more sense to me to interpret moral statements as stemming from moral feelings, and moral feelings are evidently subjective and evidently vary. Moral relativism is a way of making sense of moral language which doesn't end up translating it to "Yay!" and "Boo!" which are not truth-apt. I would translate it to something which is truth-apt, and which stems from moral feeling, like "I disapprove of murder". That's not necessarily what they mean, or at least, they don't necessarily realise that that's effectively what they're doing, but alternatives are nonsensical or false, and I don't see models which lead to nonsense or falsehood as being particularly helpful.

And there are no contradictions between different claims under moral relativism because of the relativism part. The law of noncontradiction has not been violated. And your self-made contradictions are your problem, not mine.

...we must keep morality intact today, because without it we would lose the glue that holds communities together. — Brett

I think we need to go back to the basics with anyone who makes a comment like that in this discussion:

Do you understand the distinction between normative ethics and meta-ethics? Do you understand which category your above comment falls under? And do you understand what the topic of this discussion is supposed to be about?

I don't understand why, in a debate about moral relativism, you've started asking me questions as if I support continued practice of FGM. — Isaac

But you do understand why, really. The explanation is that other people are not as logical as we are.

I'm pointing out that the problem with claiming objective moral laws is that your biases inevitably cloud them. They just become your own set of personal bugbears anyway, only with an undeserved gloss of objectivity over them. — Isaac

Yes! Tim Wood and Banno are perfect examples of this.

Why "no context"? Who is proposing anything like that? — Terrapin Station

Clearly he has trouble making the right logical connections and keeping on point.

What morality is? Don’t be so arrogant. If it doesn’t have a purpose, what it’s good for, then why would it exist? — Brett

No, not arrogant. Logical. Don't make irrelevant personal remarks about my character.

Yes, what morality is. That's a different issue to the issue your following questions get at. It is not about purpose, what it is good for, or why it would exist. That's a red herring.

The evolution of morality exists to hold communities together because it was the moral factor that constructed them, that they were based on. — Brett

Completely irrelevant given the context. The context is about what morality is, not what morality is good for. Why is it that so many people in this discussion seem blind to what the discussion is supposed to be about? A subtle red herring or a subtle missing of the point are still problems.

Nothing is absolutely right or wrong.
— Terrapin Station

You completely miss the boomerang effect of this, don't you. And it's not trivial. Indeed it's a linchpin of your argument. Like this:

1) If nothing is absolutely right or wrong, then no moral proposition is absolutely right, or wrong.
2) Nothing is absolutely right or wrong.
3) No moral proposition is absolutely right, or wrong.

But 2) is just an unsupported claim. The syllogism is valid, just not true. But why would you care, after all, nothing is absolutely true or false? You can have what you want. Btw, does everyone benefit from this argument of yours? Or does it only work for you? — tim wood

This is easily resolved in favour of the sceptic of moral absolutism, rather than the proponent of moral absolutism. One could just retract the stronger claim that nothing is absolutely right or wrong, and instead just point out that there seems to be no credible evidence or reasonable argument in favour of moral absolutism, only dogmatism and bad logic.

You would be just as guilty as he is with your own bare assertion that his argument is unsound because the second premise is not true. You haven't shown that it is not true, and you also just keep assuming absolutism, which renders your criticism trivial and ineffective.

Moreover, whether or not everyone benefits from his argument is irrelevant. Why do you keep confronting people like myself and Terrapin Station with irrelevancies, as though they are not irrelevancies? Are you so eager to attack our position that you're not thinking things through properly? It has seemed that way from the very beginning. You seem to have few qualms about throwing the logic rulebook out of the window if it seems to you that by doing so you'll gain the upper hand over your moral relativist opponents.

Who gets to judge politeness? S is offended by your use of a smiley face emoji. Should that be a jail worthy offense? — ZhouBoTong

Lock him up and throw away the key. :smile:

Are you talking about the practice/concept of FGM or the act of FGM? — VagabondSpectre

Either: it's the same answer. Not immoral in itself, only immoral in the sense of moral relativism.

Moral relativism has a parallel in existential nihilism, so it might help to think about it in that way. There's no meaning in the world itself, the meaning stems from us.

I'm not following why we need relativism to escape the amoral descriptor. I thought what is or isn't amoral was a meta-ethical distinction. — VagabondSpectre

Because moral relativism implicitly acknowledges that it's about our moral judgement in relation to the thing, whereas if you don't do that, then it leads to the absurdity of things being moral or immoral in themselves, independently of our judgement. And that makes no sense.

This is a meta-ethical distinction. I am a meta-ethical moral relativist. We're doing meta-ethics here, or at least we're supposed to be, aren't we? Some people here seem to be getting confused about the appropriate context.

It's my meta-ethical definition which describes in what way moral decisions can be objective, relative to values.

I'm eschewing subjective feelings about what morality is from a meta-ethical standpoint (by defining it as values serving strategies) so that we can have a consistent/objective discussion about how to compare and evaluate competing moral decisions or frameworks. It can't just be subjective feelings all the way up and all the way down; reality needs to be inserted somewhere.

If I've given you the impression I'm defending any sort of meta-ethical absolutism then I have miscommunicated. I am however, though not overtly, defending a kind of meta-meta-ethical distinction that I don't yet have the right language for: ethical frameworks are all in service of some sort of value, but predominantly they are arranged to serve a certain range of nearly universal human values, and they continuously adapt toward more optimal values-service. The broad "convergence" of moral decision making which is oriented toward the same ends induces us toward the idea that some ethical and meta-ethical frameworks are more universally applicable than others; it implies that there are some moral frameworks that will be more agreeable and persuasive to our moral decisions and intuitions at large. Broadly speaking, ethical frameworks which account for methods, costs, and results (empirical matters) tend to be the most widespread and communicable. Reason based moral arguments might not always persuade individual proponents of X, Y, or Z moral framework, but they have stuck around because they're objectively effective at promoting human welfare per our environments, and they transmit well because they are based in shareable empirical fact-checking behavior rather than subjective whim.

Your meta-ethical definition focuses on the very fact that there is no "objective moral 'truth'" as a starting point that defines it ontologically as a realm of relative subjective truth (where truth conforms to values and beliefs). My own meta-ethical definition focuses on what it is moral activity is attempting to do more holistically: it's not just serving values, it's trying to serve them well. Under my view also, moral "truth" doesn't necessarily point to anything meaningful beyond the existence of relative values. And like any proposition designed to navigate uncertainty (any strategy), there are no "true or false" decisions to begin with, only "statistically better and worse decisions" (though there is an objective truth to the ramifications of our decisions, even when we're lucky we can only approximate it with strong induction). Even if a decision is 100% guaranteed to be the worst decision, it could only be "false" if we went out of our way to frame it as a truth statement (it is false that X move will create the desired outcome)., Though we cannot access truth with objective certainty (as Isaac will never let me forget), we can indeed often approximate it with objectivity. (e.g:if Isaac was "objective" and gathered facts, then he would come to realize that FGM has no meaningful benefit to individuals or society.) — VagabondSpectre

Your reply is too lengthy! :rage:

So you're just being annoying by differing from me semantically? You have yet to learn that I'm always right, and that there should be a single unified meaning, namely my own meaning. One day I'll become a dictator and enforce my own unified meaning, like in 1984.

I do think that we're talking past each other to an extent, and I blame you for that more than I blame myself. In a nutshell, you seem to be saying something like that there are some moral frameworks which are generally more useful than others, and which generally serve our interests better than others. But to me that is beside the point. It doesn't matter whether it is true or false, because the problem is that it is irrelevant. It is actually fallacious if you're appealing to the consequences in a meta-ethical context. For example, if you were to suggest that we should all believe that morality is objective, because if we do, then that would serve our interests better. That's appropriate in normative ethics, but inappropriate in meta-ethics. Meta-ethics is firstly about what's the case, then what's the best way of speaking about it. (That's actually what most if not all topics in philosophy are about, or what they should be about). So I conclude moral anti-realism, but then conclude moral relativism over error theory or emotivism. The differences between the positions I mentioned have much to do with how we should interpret moral language, but also about what is actually the case.

Do you understand what moral relativism is? — Isaac

That's the key question, really. A lot of these objections can be solved simply by the objector learning about what moral relativism is.

Morality...

Everyone has one. The nuance will vary accordingly.

Next. — creativesoul

Yes, but we should all be able to agree on that, and it completely misses the controversy, making no ground whatsoever towards resolving it, which is why saying, "Next", after making that point is full of comic irony. Sometimes it's like you and MU are battling for the position of best inadvertent comedian.

In my assessment, moral relativism makes much better sense of the nuance than moral absolutism.

You both miss. I am not arguing that murder is absolutely wrong; I am assuming it. You both are free to take any stance you like. The substance is, that if you do not agree with me (more exactly with the view expressed - I take no credit for it), then in essence you're saying that at the least some murder is not absolutely wrong. If that's your position, that some murder is all right, then please say what kind of murder or what circumstance of murder that might be.

And note that "self-defense" or any similar equivocation misses because it is not to the point. Killing is not murder, and the question is to murder. Your problem, given your stance (as I understand your stance) is since morality is relative, then there is no maintainable absolute or universal moral stricture against murder. And if not, then some is ok. Question to you both: is it? — tim wood

That is a terrible argument which confuses normative ethics and meta-ethics. This error has been pointed out multiple times, and yet you still make it.

You're asking me normative ethical questions about murder, so obviously I'm going to answer from my perspective, and I've already told you that I feel just as strongly about murder as you do. Nope, no murder is okay or alright. That is obviously my moral judgement, as you're asking me, and not someone else. It is relative and subjective. Not absolute, not objective.

If you ask a murderer, you might get a different answer. And moral relativism just words that as saying that murder is okay for him.

And yes, morality is not absolute. Murder is wrong, just not absolutely wrong in a meta-ethical sense. Before asking me a silly question about murder, remind yourself that I feel just as strongly about it as you do. But I am capable of distinguishing between normative ethics and meta-ethics.

You need to be a lot clearer about the context in which you're asking whether murder is okay. The context matters, and my answers vary depending on the context. I make sense of ethics through moral relativism. If you ask me to set that aside and interpret as per moral absolutism, then the question is either nonsensical or implies a falsehood. It's a bit like asking whether the present King of France is bald.

Murder committed by someone who thinks it is all right.


To qualify - your question doesn't actually make any sense, I've tried to parse it in as best a way as I can as something like "what circumstance could someone use the expression 'this murder was not wrong'".

Otherwise you're asking me to presume absolutism within your question because without doing so, the idea that I have to accept some murders are OK does not make sense. — Isaac

Exactly. I typed up my reply before having read yours, yet we both point out some of the same key problems. Great minds think alike.

It is a real shame that Tim's reply completely ignores your explanation and jumps straight into a question about your answer full of his own implicit misguided assumptions. What he's really asking is, "Do you really believe that, given all of my misguided assumptions, and completely disregarding the explanation you've put time and effort into producing?". Isn't philosophy supposed to encourage critical thinking and open-mindedness? Some people on this forum do not display these qualities to anything close to the standard that I would like to see. It's like in that other discussion on political correctness, where some people just showed up to reinforce the simplistic view that political correctness is good, without sufficient application of critical thinking, without thinking outside of the box. Maybe this forum should be more like an academy, and members should display suitable ranks, with members who merely parrot simplistic views uncritically being of a lower rank.

Some people here should go off and spend some time reading the moral philosophy of Nietzsche and Hume, even if only as a task to encourage thinking outside of the box.

But I suggest that PC is a Good Thing overall, and that any problems it brings with it can be easily and politely dealt with. :smile: :up: — Pattern-chaser

The irony is that this can be very jarring. I don't want a stupid smile and a thumbs up. I would rather you let loose and gave it to me straight. I'm not a delicate little bone china teacup, so don't treat me like one.

Lol, you just cant help yourself can you? I am surprised that more discussion about humour hasn't been brought up. Comedy is one clear area where PC is focused on. What people are and are not allowed to be entertained by. — DingoJones

I couldn't resist. :lol:

And yeah, I thought about honesty, freedom and comedy almost as soon as I saw the term "political correctness". These are three very important things which can clash with political correctness. Political correctness can mean being dishonest, repressive and dull.

If only we were all more dishonest, repressive and dull, the world would be a much better place?

If you have a dfferent way of defining “PC”, then you are free to commit to your idiosyncratic definition but I dont have to use it that way, I didnt mean it that way and I dont think anyone else does either. “Politically correct” is exactly about controlling language, which words can be used and in what places. — DingoJones

I made a similar assessment of what he's doing. He's talking about cats in a discussion about horses.

I understand where your coming from, but I think you are perhaps missing the bigger picture. Its not just about people not being nice when talking to each other, and its not just about suggesting people do things in a nicer way.
I would politely invite you to look closer at this issue, and hopefully my previous posts will make more sense. — DingoJones

Yep. He's not thinking outside of the box. He actually just seems to be kind of unthinkingly cheering the box from the inside.

No, DingoJones, politeness good. You not know this? Be nice to people, DingoJones. You no be violent. Violence bad.

It's a bit like speaking to a child or someone with special needs.

I'm guessing he would struggle with Nietzsche.

No, Nietzsche, morality good. You no go beyond it. Christianity good. You not know Christ died for our sins? No, Nietzsche, you no reevaluate values. Values good.

Politeness or violence is the choice we're faced with. — Pattern-chaser

An obvious false dichotomy.

There can be a big difference between insulting someone and just saying something which they don't want to hear.
— S

Exactly. :up: Politeness disallows the former, while facilitating the latter. — Pattern-chaser

No, the latter clearly isn't consistent with politeness as normally understood, as my example shows. It doesn't facilitate saying things which people don't want to hear, it restrains it. Try going around and speaking your mind to people about their appearance or what you think of them. Try calling people ugly or badly dressed or unintelligent. See how they react. You think they'll agree that you're being polite?

Politeness isn't whatever you want it to be, and it doesn't do anything you want it to do.

You are lying to yourself, I suspect. You want to make politeness be a good thing to the extent that you're lying to yourself about where it can be not such a good thing, and you're dismissing the points I'm raising as a result. That's not reasonable.

But you haven't explained how murder is an absolute wrong yet, you just declared it to be the case. Why are you asking S to explain how murder isn't an absolute wrong for his argument, but you don't see it necessary to explain how it is for yours? — Isaac

I'll answer that: because he's illogical and because his position is untenable.

It can be the case that not everything is relative, yet morality is.
— S

I did not say that everything is relative. That would be the position of relativists. Mine is that not everything is relative. — tim wood

You must not have properly read what you just quoted me saying. Look again. I said that it can be the case that not everything is relative, yet morality is relative.

That's why your point misses the point. You need to argue specifically against moral relativism.

I hope you get this, because it is basic level logic.

Murder. Murder is simple. I say that murder is absolutely wrong. Maybe in some cases understandable, but wrong. Now you explain how murder is not an absolute wrong. If you cannot then your relativism is a dead letter. — tim wood

That's clearly an argument from ignorance, which is a fallacy.

And I feel just as strongly about murder as you do, so don't even try to suggest otherwise. But that still doesn't make it a moral absolute in a meta-ethical sense. On the contrary, it suggests moral relativism.

Rocks are "amoral", but FGM is a human practice which presumably nearly always concerns operant moral values on the part of humans. — VagabondSpectre

FGM is amoral except in the sense of moral relativism. So you either agree with me about moral relativism, or you're saying something false about FGM.

The example simplifies the structure of moral truth in practice. The wider question is "in what sense can moral decisions be 'true' or 'objective'". The answer is in whether or not they conform to values and circumstance; this is how we improve our existing moral decisions, and but for mutually exclusive values, this is how we actually reach moral propositions that in practice "no one is going to disagree with": the objectivity of empiricism. — VagabondSpectre

You still don't seem to realise that what you're doing is lose-lose.

You either describe something subjective, like my values, in which case we agree, even though at times you seem to act as though we don't. This would just be to preach to the choir.

Or you describe something objective, but which lacks meta-ethical relevance. Comments of the sort about brushing your teeth are not in themselves meta-ethically relevant. You only make them relevant because of your own moral evaluation, which again is subjective. It is not correct to confuse that for objectivity, and it is not correct to confuse objectivity which lacks meta-ethical relevance for objectivity which is of meta-ethical relevance.

That our decisions are explainable in terms of our values, and that they are either in our interest or not in our interest, does not in itself say anything meta-ethically relevant. Do you understand what meta-ethics is about, and what it is not about? It is not simply about values, it is not simply about what's useful to us, it is not simply about what is or isn't in our interest. It is about morality. You need an additional connection, and you can only do that subjectively. Nothing is moral or immoral in itself. That makes no sense.

Right, but there's a manner in which it makes sense to say that the Beatles created the White Album themselves, rather than saying that what created it was a complex of societal, cultural, artistic, musical, etc. institutions, as if the complex of societal, cultural, etc. institutions should be getting the royalty/publishing/licensing payments.

The sense in which people (like me) say that individuals create morality is the same sense. We're not denying influences and such, but the influences aren't the same thing as the stuff we're saying that individuals create. — Terrapin Station

You mean to tell me that you don't understand what people are referring to when they say that "the Beatles created the White Album"? Hopefully when people say that you understand at least roughly just what they're saying the Beatles did and didn't do, and you don't respond with, "By regression of causality the Beatles created themselves" or "The Beatles didn't create the White Album. It was actually a complex of societal, cultural, musical, etc. institutions interacting with the Beatles that created it." — Terrapin Station

Exactly.

I unequivocally agree. — Noah Te Stroete

You would probably agree that the sea is the sky, so long as whoever said that said it in disagreement with me.

↪tim wood

Philosophy well done. As in all philosophy, subject to critique.

Brace yourself. — Mww

I agree. Good job — Noah Te Stroete

:rofl:

My sole remaining vice. And the only one of all, I’d recommend, it’s only requisites being sufficient funds and proximity to a bathroom. — Mww

Cocaine?

Right. What was his response there anyway? I didn't understand what he wrote. — Terrapin Station

Actually, in hindsight, I think I might have misinterpreted what he meant there. But if so, it was badly worded. Given the rest of his post, which I've just briefly gone over, it seems he might have meant that not everything about morality is relative. But then, that still misses the point. And it is different from what he was claiming before, where he clearly confused moral relativism for relativism simpliciter, which he has been rightly called out for doing.

It is easy to miss the point if you don't understand what it is that a moral relativist is actually claiming. I for one am only suggesting that morality is relative in the relevant sense which I've explained in this discussion. I'm not suggesting that every single aspect relating to morality must be relative to something in some way. I'm not, for example, suggesting that rocks are relative, whatever that means, just because the judgement that it is immoral to throw rocks at people is obviously relative.

It isn't helpful that a number of people in this discussion do not have a good understanding of moral relativism, yet they nevertheless think that they're somehow qualified to criticise it.

Morality, unlike rocks, only makes sense if you apply an interpretation inline with moral relativism. The interpretation of moral absolutism only appears to make sense on the surface, but it crumbles under analysis. No one has succeeded in reasonably demonstrating the supposed existence of any objective or absolute morality. Instead, predictably, we just get dogmatism and bad logic. Even if this discussion were to continue over another twenty pages, my prediction is that that would still be all that we get from them.

(1) You're treating "morality is relative" in the manner of "everything is relative." The two claims are not the same.
— Terrapin Station

Nope, that not everything is relative. — tim wood

That's still missing the point. :eyes:

It can be the case that not everything is relative, yet morality is.

Although you copied my quote directly, you misquoted me in what you wrote. I said "It involves a complex interaction of societal, governmental, religious, and cultural institutions." Do you really think you created your morality out of nothing but your own self? Your parents had nothing to do with it? Do you really believe you created your mind and heart without being influenced by the society and culture around you. To me, that shows a profound lack of self-awareness. — T Clark

Of course not. I'm not denying any outside influence whatsoever. I'm rejecting any suggestion that factors such as the prevalent religion in my society are a primary determinant in my morality. They're simply not. And I know that better than you or anyone else, because I know myself better than you or anyone else. My morality is, as I say, determined primarily by my moral feelings, and not those of society, or of the Tory government, or of the Anglican Church. I am not a sheep, I am an individual.

And it's "parent" - singular. My biological father hasn't earned that title. He deserted me before I was even born and has played no role in my life. He certainly didn't play the role of a sort of "moral tutor".

I do think, although I didn't mention it, that a lot of our morality does come from "human nature" whatever that means, I guess it means some sort of genetic predisposition, to behave in a way that makes it easier for us to live together. As I've said many times, we are social animals. We are born to like each other. — T Clark

Yes, we are animals: humans. And we don't have to resort to the mindset of sheep. We don't have to give herd morality pride of place.

The only thing that politeness prevents, while maintaining honesty, is personal insults. — Pattern-chaser

Not thinking it through properly or lying to yourself? Which is it?

There can be a big difference between insulting someone and just saying something which they don't want to hear. There's a big difference between calling someone a twat, and saying that you think that their shirt clashes with their trousers. They might have even asked for your honest opinion of the latter. But some people would still try to be polite and respond with a white lie. It is understandable that some people get annoyed at people who just tell them what they want to hear in order to be polite or politically correct or sensitive to their feelings.

And that's its point and purpose. Address the message, not the messenger, and politeness will get you wherever you want to go, with complete honesty, but without conflict. Politeness avoids conflict. — Pattern-chaser

1. It's relevant to address the messenger if that's what we're talking about.

2. The whole point is to examine these simple minded assumptions. Is it always necessarily a good thing to avoid conflict? No. Anyone who isn't hopelessly biased and is capable of thinking outside of the box should be able to reach that conclusion.

It seems that some people here just want to be cheerleaders for political correctness, and turn this into a pointless "yay-boo" kind of affair.

The burger, when not being perceived, is like a burger, only one that is not being perceived.
— S

Then it is being conceived. That also requires a mind. — Noah Te Stroete

That's either obviously false or obviously irrelevant, although it isn't clear which, because you're playing on the ambiguity. But it's still lose-lose.

What I should have said was that a burger is always perceived or thought about when spoken of. — Noah Te Stroete

Doesn't address the point. The point had nothing to do with someone speaking of a burger.

What it is like without a mind perceiving it or thinking about it (a mental picture for instance or the memory of its taste) is nonsensical. — Noah Te Stroete

No it isn't. I just made sense, and an argument from incredulity is a fallacy.

Matter is always either thought about or perceived when people speak about it. — Noah Te Stroete

Doesn't address the point. The point had nothing to do with someone speaking of matter.

In this sense, it is impossible to speak of something extra-mental. — Noah Te Stroete

No isn't. I just did so.

I don’t know what else I can say. I thought I laid it out before you. — Noah Te Stroete

No, we're still stuck at the very first hurdle. Namely, the question of why morality can't stem from the individual in the sense that I meant that, and not any different sense which you might mean in place of that. If I assume my sense, then there's a giant logical gap between that as the antecedent, and no possible socialisation as the consequent, in the conditional of your very first premise.

Like I said, I suspect you aren't doing it right, because I suspect that you're probably talking past me. To avoid that, you should clarify key statements where I've indicated a problem, or seek clarification from me in order to check whether you mean the same thing as I do.

But all of this is time consuming and requires effort, and you've already wasted so much time and effort getting way ahead of yourself typing up formal arguments full of problems, and drifting off to bring up different points which don't help with the first problem, but only add to the number of problems you expect me to sort through and analyse and work on.

What you call a “burger” is your perception of the matter consisting of what you ate. What it is like without a mind perceiving it cannot be conceived. — Noah Te Stroete

The burger, when not being perceived, is like a burger, only one that is not being perceived.

Then you ask me a silly question like, "But what does it look like?", and I reproach you for asking a silly question like that.

That's usually how this goes, anyway.

As I said, morality is taught just as any other linguistic knowledge. Socialization teaches the shared moral norms of a society. Any other function of socialization is secondary to and meaningless without the teaching of morals. — Noah Te Stroete

I don't care. You haven't given me any reason to. You're getting way ahead of yourself. My advice would be to slow down, try to regain relevance in relation to something I've actually said, and make explicit any key differences in interpretation. Otherwise this is going to be very unproductive, like my example in "Horses Are Cats".

It is quite possible to deliver any opinion honestly and with courtesy. "Political correctness" is just another name for courtesy. Politeness. :roll: — Pattern-chaser

No, that is far from a complete picture of what political correctness is.

But anyway, your point is meaningless without your implicit assumptions about courtesy and politeness, and these implicit assumptions are precisely what is being questioned.

If I respect frankness, then are you not disrespecting me by being polite instead of frank? Frankness involves honesty and directness, and being polite doesn't allow that in at least some conceivable cases. You know, like white lies and avoiding certain subjects. If you know this about me, then why would you knowingly disrespect me?

By the way, is it polite to roll your eyes at someone? Didn't think so. Good thing I don't care so much about that sort of thing, but unfortunately for you it appears to suggest hypocrisy.

I don’t know how to prove to you that we are social creatures sharing linguistic meaning other than... — Noah Te Stroete

That doesn't contradict anything that I've claimed. I don't think that engaging with you further is going to be productive. You probably have something else entirely in mind to what I have in mind when you say that morality comes from the individual, because otherwise there is no logical link whatsoever to that somehow preventing socialisation altogether. I have not got the energy to draw out all of these problems. It's horses are cats, and I'll just end up really annoyed when it's finally revealed that you're talking about cats when I'm talking about horses.

Why would you think that repeating the problem helps to resolve it? I have narrowed down the problem to your first premise. Either try to defend it or do not. The burden is with you, and if you don't take it up, then that is tantamount to conceding, and your argument will be destined to remain meaningless to anyone who doesn't already agree with it.