I'm not sure what this means, but I believe that things don't mean anything until they are put into words. That's what meaning means. — T Clark

Can not actions, visuals, concepts have meaning even when not put into words?

Does art have meaning?

I didn’t say you said anything about sacrificing truth, but you are willing to knowingly utter a falsity to preserve someone’s feelings, with little consideration to the feelings of others who identify as the opposite. I just think that behavior is less than ethical, more of a ploy to avoid confrontation than anything else. — NOS4A2

There are a few thing going on here, as far as I can see.

If I accept that a person in the scenario being discussed is sacrificing the truth to protect someone's feelings, I don't think it is obvious that is unethical. There is long standing debate about the interplay between different ethical principles like "I shall not lie" and "I shall be kind." So I don't agree that uttering a falsity is necessarily unethical.

Secondly, and I think this is one that a trans person would use, is suggesting the use of he/she is referring to a social construct of gender vs a biological construct of sex. And hence they are not uttering a falsity, as they identify with the social construct of gender that is different to their biological sex at birth.

That's your job to figure out. — L'éléphant

And what if I come to a different conclusion to you, on what is good? My previous question could be re-written as

I think X optimises goodness
You think X does not optimise goodness

Are we both correct? Is one wrong and the other right?

Or even the following:

I think we should optimise happiness
You think we should optimise goodness

Are we both correct? Is one wrong and the other right?

What you're supposed to thinking of is to optimize the goodness (note I didn't say maximize). Optimize the goodness or the favorable outcome of moral acts. — L'éléphant

And what is goodness?

What is a favourable outcome?

And what are your justifications for saying we are supposed to think of optimising goodness? Why are we supposed to do anything in the first place?

ITs a fact that our biology "cares" about its well being and forces us to take actions by interpreting urgent issues with intense emotions. — Nickolasgaspar

Yes this is true. And this biology that "cares" about its well being and forces us to take actions results in friendships and murder, among many other things.

How do you go from that to prescriptive morality? By which I mean telling a murderer what they did was wrong, and people in that situation should not commit murder in the future.

If you are sticking to science, then seeing a murder should result in you update your theory of human behaviour to include murder as part of biology that "cares about well being.". Is that what you do, or do you say "murder is wrong"?

You use " relation of change" a few times, do you mind expanding that term as I'm not sure exactly what you mean.

In particular how you think conscious and non-conscious entities differ in terms of " relation of change."

As evidence, I offer you all of history, the horrors brought about by subjectivists, both religious and political. — Elric

I dispute this.

I suggest the greatest horrors of history were performed by people who believed in the objective righteousness of their actions. It is people with subjective views, who think those are objective views, who are the most dangerous. They think they have the moral authority to act, because they think they are objectively right, and the "other side" is objectively wrong.

A subjectivist can't have a position the "other side" is wrong.

If a person were to make a mistake, incorrectly believing one's views are subjective is far safer than incorrectly believing one's views are objective.

Let's forget about my experience of my own consciousness for a minute. The only way I can know about another person's internal experience, consciousness, is by observing their behaviour, including the things they say, their facial expressions, etc. Actually, in these days of cognitive science, I might also be able to learn things based on observing neurological activity with brain scanning equipment. This is something we do all the time in our lives, but it applies to scientific study also. — T Clark

You can definitely scientifically study behaviour resulting from consciousness. You can also scientifically study the neural correlates of consciousness. You can study the physical manifestation of consciousness.

However consciousness is often used to mean an inner state of awareness, which is not directly measurable. This contrasts with distance, for example, that is used to mean a purely physical quantity.

Now I lean towards the theory that consciousness emerges from the physical. I have yet to find a convincing non naturalist position. Which leaves me in a pickle.

Can the meaning of consciousness be wholly described in terms of the physical? If that can be achieved, I may become less pickled.

Instead of trying to measure consciousness, let’s look at the relational structure. Consciousness consists of an ongoing relation of change between a living organism and its environment. So, there are actually three interrelating events here. You can’t dismiss one without negating consciousness. And you can’t ‘measure’ one event and claim to be measuring any more than evidence of a perceived potential for consciousness. — Possibility

Is this your position? I can observe an ongoing relation of change between a plant (living organism) and its environment. Is the plant conscious?

Your line that I highlighted in bold suggests this.

In order to specify position, velocity, etc, one needs to set up a frame of reference. But from a frame of reference we can specify what a distance is.

I don't think we can do the same to consciousness - as shown by your attempt that leads to more questions than answers. From my frame of reference, I cannot access your consciousness, only the external manifestation of it.

And that is the problem I have. There is brain biology and chemistry that can be access from outside. There is body motion and behaviour that can be accessed from outside. But consciousness is often used to mean those, it is used to mean an internal state of awareness. And that internal state can't be measured directly as far as I know.

While distance is used to mean a physical attribute that can be measure from a frame of reference.

Now perhaps that internal consciousness state can be be entirely written in terms of the physical,, which solves the problem. Maybe, I don't know.

I may well be using the term objectively loosely. I am cognisant that I may be using some philosophical terms loosely, which is why I have tried to state my positions verbosely rather than using label.

So here is the conundrum I'm trying to solve:

-I think X is morally correct.
-You think X is morally wrong

Is there a "fact of the matter" that we can strive to discover about this? Or is each correct for themselves?

I did not have to take any humanities modules for my degree (done in the UK, so not major and minor). We had a brief introduction to ethics at the very start, but given that it did not count towards our marks, not many paid attention. It is only recently that I have started to appreciate philosophy.

I haven't read "Philosophy: Who Needs It?" but just read a summary of it.

You say If reality is objective, men are capable of perceiving it. Yes, I have no problems with this. I can strive to objectively perceive the human species, I agree.

The problem is then saying that reality is wrong, and should be different. There is certainly no scientific method for saying the observed empirical is wrong, and the counter factual ought to happen, so science can't be the answer. I'm struggling to find a philosophical way to justify the same, perhaps you have some suggestions?

I certainly have a sense of morality, but is it subjective or objective? that is the question I am trying to answer.

You say:

In short our biological drives, urges and biology (homeostasis) have evolved in a specific way that force us through affections and emotions to strive for specific things and conditions. What we strive for is what we reason in to the concept of "value" — Nickolasgaspar

I fully agree with that. If we are following the scientific method, we then have to empirically observe the human species, to find out what they strive for according to the above paragraph.

And what we see empirically is that often they strive for working together. Sometimes they strive to fight each other and assert dominance. Sometimes they murder and rape. Sometimes they hold hands and sing together.

It is the way it is. So we can observe human behaviour objectively, I agree.

It is when prescribing action, that problems arise. When I observe a murder being committed, and I say that it was objectively wrong, I am saying the empirical world should change to fit my theory. However good science does the opposite - where empirical evidence and theory differ, you update the theory to match the empirical evidence.

Take the following example:
- I have a scientific theory of human behaviour, that says people in situation X would not want to kill each other. Due to the way we have evolved, humans will value not killing in situation X.
- I observe humans in situation X. I observe a human kill another in situation X
- Following the scientific method, I now have to update my theory. I can no longer hold onto a theory that humans in situation X will not want to kill - I have empirical evidence that my previous theory was wrong.

An objective morality theory, on the other hand, attempts to say that the empirical observation was wrong, and the empirical world needs to change to fit the theory. It is fundamentally different to science.

So science cannot say what ought to happen, if that didn't happen.

Nature stays indifferent on the topic of our well being. We as agents that value our well being investigate which biological metrics enable the state of well being and what kind of behavior among peers in a society promotes it.
In the above framework , we don't have to assume agency in nature and the is/ought is only relevant to what we value and want for all the members of our society.
This is the only way our list of oughts can be evaluated....under a shared principle. — Nickolasgaspar

This topic interest me I have a science background. If I understand you correctly you are saying:

-We have values
-One of the things we value is our wellbeing
-We can then use science to investigate the best societal methods to achieve that wellbeing

Please correct me if I am mis-stating your position.

I mostly agree with you. However I would say that only the third point above is science. The third scientific point is dependant on the first two philosophical points to specify the values of the desired outcomes.

It is the conundrum I faced as someone form a science background where eventually I had to accept that philosophy was required in order to specify what is valuable, which science can then investigate. That is how I ended up on this forum!

Now if everyone agreed on the value of outcomes, there would be no issues. We would all just live happily ever after together. But the issue is people value things differently on the most contentious issues. You mention the shared principle - the problem comes when there is disagreement on what should be the shared principle. Science can't answer that question.

Once people have placed values on outcomes, then science can be effectively used to investigate how best to achieve that outcome, based on those values. We definitely should be promoting the use of science to analyse and improve society.

I agree with a lot of what you wrote.

But we cannot directly measure the dog's consciousness. We can measure behaviour, we can even measure neural correlates of consciousness.

While we can directly measure the position of planets and their motion, for example.

If I design an artificial dog that behaves exactly as a natural dog, is that artificial dog conscious? I don't think that is as easy question to answer.

Never mind dogs, I can never know how other people exactly sense the world. I can think of my own consciousness and extrapolate based on behaviour I see. But haven't we all had a time where we later found out that what we thought what person thought, was not actually what they thought. Neither of us can truly, precisely know what someone else is thinking.

Apples and oranges. The method of observation and examination of human interaction is different than the one required of physics — L'éléphant

The method of observing anything and formulating a theory based on that is the same.

-Observe X
-Create a theory matching my observations - "X happens" theory
-Observe X only happening some of the time, Y some of the time
-Update the theory to match the observation - "X and Y happens" theory

With morality, instead of updating their theory to reflect the observations in step 4 above, people sometimes maintain that the theory in step 2 is correct and that in 4 is wrong because Y is against human nature.

But the very fact that Y was observed in humans in step 3 shows that it is a part of human nature.

So the part of morality where we tell others what they should or ought to do, can't come from observing human nature, because if we see someone doing something we consider immoral, the very fact they are doing it shows it is human nature to do it.

We can't see someone committing murder and then say murder is wrong because it is against human nature. We have just seen that is in human nature.

Maybe there are better arguments for objective morality that avoid the above pitfall, but I am fairly new to the topic so have only just started reading about it.

My theory, if you could call it that, is to not to be misled by the minority abd focus all our firepower on keeping the majority happy! How many masochists are there anyway? At some point, it should strike our addled brains that negligible is a concept that's perfectly serviceable. I dunno, mileage may vary. — Agent Smith

If we are in search of objective facts of morality, then surely we can't simply dismiss the minority.

But the bigger problem for me is the majority thinking and minority thinking vary between cultures and across eras, hence pushing me towards cultural relativism ( I may be using that term loosely).

And happiness is subjective is it not? If you were unhappy in a certain situation, I cannot decree that you be happy as you are living the good life. The very fact that you are subjectively not happy, means you are not happy regardless of what I think you should be. Hence we can't escape subjective values.

If you were happy punching new born babies, I can't decree that you are not happy because it is incontrovertibly against human nature to be happy punching new born babies. The very fact that you are happy shows that it is in human nature, at least for you, to be happy punching human babies.

I could only say that you are a victim of incorrectly attributing similarities where there shouldn't be. We are talking humans here. Let's get physics out of here. — L'éléphant

it is an analogy, and I think an apt one as I am asking whether there are objective facts about morality.

If you think it right to do X, and I think it is wrong, how do we proceed to show who is correct?

Well, in that case, we could start from incontrovertible truths, these being hedonic judgments, in re morality, oui? Let's keep things simple and begin with nobody likes to be physically assaulted. To that one could add psychological pain e.g. insults. These are universal and true across the board. — Agent Smith

The quagmire I have with that line of thinking is as follows. We say it is an incontrovertible truth that people don;t like doing X. Nobody likes doing X.

Then we observe a person doing X. We observe a society doing X We observe a civilisation doing X

We can no longer simply dismiss it as an incontrovertible truth that people don't like X.

I'm suggesting incontrovertible truths about human nature are entirely dependant on our observation of human nature, and hence entirely dependent on the preferences, values, beliefs and actions of the individual humans.

How did we extract ourselves from the description of a planetary system, where our understanding of the system was biased by our position within it?

That is a fair enough question. Maybe I should amend my statement to being a necessary part of the system. From our understanding of the solar system, we are not a necessary part of it - it exists regardless of us.

While we are a necessary part of consciousness - it doesn't exist without us.

Hence I suggest we are less able to observe consciousness objectively, than we are able to observe the solar system objectively.

I don't think it's that hard. Consciousness is more than our experience, it is also behavior. We recognize consciousness in others without having to actually experience what they are.

Is not our behaviours an outcome of consciousness, but not consciousness itself? For sure we can observe behaviour consistent with consciousness, and I think we will eventually have a really good understanding of the neural correlates of consciousness.

However there is a missing step, an assumption, between them and consciousness itself. Maybe we will wave that assumption always as required, because otherwise we are stuck in out analysis. But it is an assumption nevertheless, is it not?

This is based upon a false assumption of the universality of ethical norms. It is simply not the case that all cultures hold to the same moral rules, which would presumably be the case if morality was the result of genetic evolution (as opposed to social evolution). — Hanover

I know you are replying to the other poster, but I'm playing with ideas here.

Objective Observational Morality
I observe the moral position of a group (a single person, a society, all of humanity, it can be any group). Based on my observation, I can specify an objective sense of morality for that group.

For example (note the numbers and specifics are made up to illustrate a point):
- Most people in the U.S think that it is wrong to sacrifice humans on a high alter because your religion specifies it.
- Most people in all of history think that it is wrong to sacrifice humans on a high alter because your religion specifies it.
-Most people in Mayan culture think is is right to sacrifice humans on a high alter because your religion specifies it.

In all those cases a combination of evolution, genetics, socialization, learning led to the above thinking. Morality is the result of evolution, genetics, socialization, learning and hence all the above are moral.

Subjective Prescription Morality
Where I elevate my values to prescribe the actions of others. This can also be where my culture elevates its values to prescribe the actions of other cultures.

For example:
-I think that human sacrifice is wrong. I think the Mayans were wrong to carry out human sacrifice.

But this is subjective morality based on my values. Clearly the Mayans didn't share those values, as evidenced by the fact they sacrificed humans. Can I somehow objectively overrule the Mayans? I'm not so sure.

Thoughts?

Yeah I think we do largely agree.

Another way to express my view would be this.

There is an objective fact that can be observed about human nature. Your baby experiment is this. So in this sense morality is observational and it is objective.

Morality is also used to prescribe what should and ought to happen. And here is where I think it becomes removed from objectivity - because you are looking at the objective observation, then saying that observation is wrong and should be something else.

So yes I would agree with you that morality is objective in some senses and subjective in others.

If morality is, as I claim, a reflection of human nature, there is a sense in which it is objective. It's how we're built by evolution, genetics, and development as supported by socialization and learning. — T Clark

Yes, but even if that is the case, I suggest it is still subjective.

If I I think it is moral to kill dogs and you think it is immoral to kill dogs, you may tell me that I am wrong because we are built by evolution, genetics, socialization and learning to not kill dogs. Hence my position on this matter is objectively wrong

But I would disagree - the very fact that I exist as a dog kill loving person shows that I am not built by evolution, genetics, socialization and learning to not kill dogs.

(I love dogs, just using that as an example)

So every subjective view on morality that someone has, is the result of evolution, genetics, socialization and learning of that person. And hence no moral view can be considered immoral, as long as someone has that view. Isn't that a subjective morality?

The babies didn't really make moral judgements at all. They acted based on their preferences. I think that's true of all of us. I think what we call moral judgements are rationalizations we come up with to justify our feelings and actions.

I agree. In which case there can't be an absolute objective morality - one where I say you are objectively morally wrong in any instance.

So I suggest there are two kinds of morality:

- The moral valuation individuals perform, than is based on the individual preference.
- The aggregate of the above in a society that allows a society to set up norms that help it function

My claim is that there is no objective morality beyond the above two, and the above two are entirely dependent on the subjective value (or preference as you said) of the people in question.

I get what you are suggesting, but the problem I have with is this. You are making an observation of nature, and of humans in nature. From this you say that humans want to preserve their family, and even animals do. I agree with you.

However how can we go from that to whether people should want to preserve their family? How do you go from the observation, to the "should" or "ought." If you looked around and say someone who didn't want t preserve their family, then you could either say:

1) I have observed a moral rule that you must want to preserve your family. You don't want to preserve your family, so you are objectively wrong
2) I have observed a moral rule that you must want to preserve your family. You don't want to preserve your family, so I have to change by moral rule to include my new observations of you.

Take the analogy of physics laws (my area). I observe that force applied on an object is proportional to it's mass multiplied by it's acceleration. People have observed that since newton, and it is one of the laws of motion he suggested. This has very accurately and reliably been shown to be true. I'm pretty confident in it. I can use it to make predictions.

However I cannot use it to say how nature should or ought to behave.

If tomorrow I woke up and found that my pen does not follow my Newton's laws of motion, then I can't chastise my pen for not following the correct law. In fact the opposite is true, I need to modify my understanding to include the new observed behaviour.

In addition to the above clarification from myself, these are some of my specific responses to specific posts:

That is an interesting video. It suggests that even babies have a concept of right and wrong. I haven't seen the full study referenced in that video, but I imagine more babies selected the "nice" puppet that the "bad" puppet? I.e it was not 100% or 0%?

Let's say 80% of the babies selected the "nice" puppet and 20% the "bad" puppet. Here are three competing senses of morality:

a) 80% of babies were objectively right. 20% were objectively (and factually) wrong.

b) 80% of babies had one sense of morality, 20% had a different sense. None of there morally was wrong, they are entitled to their own sense of morality.

c) 80% of babies had one sense of morality, 20% had a different sense. None of there morally was wrong. however if the babies were to form a baby society, then in that society the 80% of babies will be morally right and the 20% morally wrong.

Thanks everyone for the replies. It is possible that I am using terms loosely as I have not spent long studying formal philosophy. In order to try to explain myself as clearly as possible, let me give a thought experiment.

Anne and I are the only two remaining humans in the universe. We have a house and enough water but are short of food.

I tell Anne "Let us kill and eat our Dog."
She tells me "no that is immoral, I would rather starve instead"

From what I understand, these are the different ways of analysing that situation.

Case 1
God/Religion decrees that it is right/wrong to kill the dog. As God/religion has an infinitely superior morality to us, it is right/wrong to kill the Dog. Alternatively morality itself comes from God/religion, so we should always follow what God/religion says

If we disagree, we are simply wrong about the matter, due to our ignorance or flaws.

Case 2
There is natural fact of the matter that it is right/wrong to kill the dog, We may not know the answer, but there is an objectively correct answer, whether or not we know it.

Case 3
Each of us has our own morality, and both are right for themselves. So for me it is moral to kill the Dog, and for Anne it is immoral. We are both correct.

Case 4
Morality is whatever consensus can be achieve by the society. We talk between us and decide that it is right/wrong to kill the dog. Whatever we collectively decide is right/wrong, is objectively right/wrong in our society.

Case 5
Morality is derived from higher state objective laws. Such laws include:
-Maximise happiness
-Minimise suffering
-Treat people as an end in themselves and not as the means to your ends.

From those higher state objective laws, we can derive whether it is morally right/wrong to kill the dog. There is an objective fact of the matter based on the above laws, whether we are able to derive it or not.

Case 6
Morality is whatever rules and norms a society implements. Whatever is decided is then factually what was decided.

Each case may have variants, such as asking what a perfectly rational human what they would think, rather than asking a human what they think. Of course this brings up the question of what exactly is a perfectly rational human - does such a person even conceptually exist?

Some of the cases which suggest an objective morality, still leave open how we can know of that objective morality, and how we can be confident of our knowledge is in fact the correct knowledge.

Out of those options I outline above, the concept of morality that currently sits best with me is Case 4. I'm not sure if that would technically be cultural relativism, or not - perhaps someone will elucidate on that.

Coming from a science and not philosophy background, my first reaction is that in order to truly understand something, you must first extract yourself from within it and observe it objectively.

This is obviously very difficult, perhaps even impossible, in the case of consciousness. We can only really understand consciousness when inhibiting that consciousness, leading to my doubt that we can objectively figure out what that consciousness is.

How can we exit a casual loop of consciousness, where our understanding of consciousness is biased by requiring consciousness?