As he says in the Treatise: "I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Now hold on here! :smile: This is Hume on perception, not the moral ordering of the rational and lower appetites. Read the quote in context.

I might seem to be advocating for religion, but it’s not my intention to evangelise. — Wayfarer

No, I don't take you to be doing that at all. Your approach is fair-minded, and I share your view of the importance of spirituality, if not religion per se.

inevitable subjectivism . . . — Wayfarer

the individual conscience as the final arbiter of value. . . — Wayfarer

preferences are more or less sacrosanct in liberalism (within legal limits.) — Wayfarer

I think this is wrong, but the distinction that needs to be made is a subtle one. And what you say here may help make sense of it:

That's why I'm trying to focus on a philosophy rather than politics. — Wayfarer

In what I'm saying about liberalism, I am focusing on it as a political structure. It's been slow to dawn on me that others on TPF, including yourself to an extent, view "liberalism" as an entire panoply of philosophical and ethical attitudes, intent on various levels of proselytizing. I'm sure this is the sort of "overstepping" you're thinking about. I have almost no interest in this feature of contemporary life, and know little about it. I avoid that level of "political" non-conversation whenever I can. My political convictions are far to the left of all that (I should have been born Swedish!). So I can hardly say you're wrong. No doubt there are many out there who wear the "liberal" hat and who do all that you fear they do. But all I can speak about is what I know of the Rawlsian liberal tradition in political theory, which is a very different matter.

So, from that perspective . . . there really isn't any inevitable subjectivism, nor is the individual conscience consulted about value, nor is anyone's preference sacrosanct. To the extent that a government could espouse such things (by law?!), Rawls would say it did not understand liberalism. The sort of government Rawls envisaged, I think, would have no opinions whatsoever about subjectivism vs. objectivism in personal philosophy, or about how reliable one's conscience might be. Nor would a preference be sacrosanct in the sense of being philosophically unquestionable.

On all these matters, the state is neutral, agnostic. Its attitude is: "You might be right. And you have the right to be wrong. You may do as your conscience dictates, and that may or may not result in ethical truth. It's none of our business. It's not that we think "subjectivism is correct"; it's that we insist that the government must not say the opposite. We are concerned that no one, speaking for the state, attempts to impose their version of objective values other than the procedural values of liberalism itself. That is not because we "don't believe in objective values"; some of us do, some of us don't; it's because the heterogeneity of the polis demands neutrality on the question, just as a matter of tolerance and getting along. The alternative, we think, must inevitably tend toward authoritarianism."

Is this complex and full of flaws? You bet. It isn't even my preferred political structure. I only insist that it's not the same thing as taking a position on subjectivism, or trying to get people to adopt it.

"Asking for reasons" quells existential anxiety (provided you find acceptable answers). You believe in God, you believe in rationality, you believe that people are basically good... anything to preserve the modicum of routine you need. — Dawnstorm

Interestingly, I think this is right -- finding a basis for ethical values does indeed do these things -- but at the same time it can't settle the question. Because . . . if we accept all this and find that our anxiety is indeed quelled, and our routine preserved, we may still find ourselves asking, "But is this enough? Is this what 'doing good' really means?" That the question can be meaningfully asked at all seems to put it in a different category from, say, "OK, I've demonstrated the Pythagorean theorem, but is that enough? Do I really understand what a right triangle is?" I'd say that question was meaningless, but the ethical question doesn't seem to be like that.

I have never had an objectivist say something I considered particularly rational about the basis for such a view. I assume the reverse is true. — AmadeusD

Not for me. If subjectivism or emotivism about ethics were obviously irrational, it would have been dismissed centuries ago. Again, I wish it were that simple.

Better to say, "It was wrong; I shouldn't have done it."
— J

Which expresses that person's personal, internal assessment of their behaviour. There is nothing close to objective about even the assessment mechanism here. — AmadeusD

Well, that might be so. Are you meaning to say that this is characteristic of all 1st-personal judgments? That is, if I say, "My statement was incorrect," that is equally personal and internal, with no pretense to objectivity? I suspect that's not what you mean. Rather, in this case you believe that there cannot be an objective assessment mechanism here, unlike a judgment about, say, accuracy. But that's assuming the conclusion, no?

Perhaps there's a better pair of words to use that reflects the distinction
— J

There must be, as I am not seeing a distinction in your elucidations. — AmadeusD

The pair in question is "prefer" and "choose". The distinction -- which I agree is hard to put in clear terms -- is between an action I actually like, or enjoy, or grok, or whatever other word we use to express a Humean passion, and an action that has none of these characteristics but that I do because I believe I should -- that it's the right thing to do. As above, we have to be careful not to start by assuming that the latter type of action is impossible, on theoretical grounds. I guess, if nothing comes to mind when you ask yourself for a personal example, it might be hard to characterize further. But I would have said that we all know the difference between doing something we really want to do -- have positive feelings about -- versus doing something quite repugnant, yet morally necessary as we see it.

Concerning what "ought to do" means: I wish I could agree with those who believe that we can derive an "ought" from an "is", ethically. This would involve going from a foundational, definitional understanding of what a human being is, to rational deductions about values which carry with them obligations (as opposed to reasons) for action. It would make things much simpler. But I agree with you that the ethical "ought" resists this deductive understanding. For me, one of the most interesting questions in meta-ethics is: Given this basic difference of opinion, is there any way that the two versions of ethics can really talk to each other? Or must we always be talking past each other? I think a real conversation would have to involve a very active curiosity about how to live into the opposite position, a kind of understanding from within.

The kibbutz has been a particularly robust example though, and it's worth noting there that (aside from being grounded more in socialist thought), they have had the benefit of a friendly legal system that has enabled them, rather than one that is broadly hostile to their project. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I most certainly don't want to start a controversy about Israel, but notice what can happen when a "friendly legal system" extends its friendship not just to the admirable concept of a kibbutz, but to the policy that other religiously based social groups should not receive that friendship -- should in fact be seen as opponents on religious/nationalist grounds. Thank goodness, there are many, many Israelis who are opposed to this kind of theocracy.

That may amount to a kind of neutrality, but it effectively brackets deeper conceptions of the Good—not by refuting them, but by rendering them inadmissible in public reasoning. So while liberalism doesn’t deny transcendental values, it often functions as if they were subjective—and that’s the deeper concern. — Wayfarer

Yes. Minor quibble: "inadmissible" shouldn't be taken to mean "unmentionable" or "intellectually disreputable." The point is that they can't play a deliberative role, other than as a statement of what the person believes.

"It often functions as if they were subjective—and that’s the deeper concern."

But what would be the alternative? The key is "as if". Values may or may not be subjective, says the liberal state, but we must proceed as if they are -- or at any rate, as if the matter is not one for government to decide. Should we instead turn our practical deliberations into a forum about whose claim to objective value has the best argument? Or would you rather we adopted a set of transcendental values, and based the polity on them? How would that differ from theocracy? (An alternative, more critical, response here would be: The liberal state does adopt a set of transcendental values, but they are precisely the procedural values of neutrality and impartiality, as @Janus points out.)

The issue being that the supposed ethical neutrality of liberalism is itself based on a worldview, namely, that the ground of values is social or political in nature, in a world that is morally neutral or indifferent. — Wayfarer

I'm not sure that's right, though I agree with you about spirituality. Rawlsian liberalism doesn't have to say -- and indeed it usually does not -- that the world is morally neutral or indifferent. And it's not so much that the ground of values is political. Rather, it's that the only values that belong in the political sphere are process values, more or less Kantian, that emphasize impartiality and universalizability. Is this an artificial and perhaps unworkable division? Maybe. But we should try to understand it on its own terms. Liberalism, as exemplified by Rawls, believed that the job of the state was to establish, to the extent possible, a framework for coexistence among people and groups with diverging opinions and goals. And yes, as I've been discussing with @Joshs, this framework can't be neutral in respect to any values whatsoever. But it can espouse a version of neutrality that at least takes a hands-off approach to differences among religious and/or social groups -- and that's not nothing. It asks for public neutrality, regardless of what any particular member of the polis may personally believe. That is not the same thing as publicly declaring that there are no transcendental values, which the opponents of liberalism often seem to believe is the agenda.

Yep, the quote is from Gallagher’s recent book, Action and Interaction. His notion of justice departs from Rawls in not being grounded in neutrality or fairness. — Joshs

I'll make a point of reading it. I've followed his career with interest. He was quite a bit older than me -- I think he'd just left seminary -- but a really nice, smart guy,

What do you make of the version of neutrality that Axel Honneth and Shaun Gallagher are saddling Rawls with? — Joshs

(Is this quote from Gallagher? I went to grad school with him!)

I think the criticisms in the passage are apt, particularly about Rawls and goods distribution. I'm sure you're familiar with Martha Nussbaum's critiques as well. We could do a whole thread on what's right and wrong with Rawls and the original position. The reason I don't consider myself a Rawlsian is because of his over-reliance on an abstract thought experiment to generate the idea of justice as fairness -- very far from the Habermasian idea of communicative action. That, and his apparent indifference to the role of capitalism in liberalism.

But . . . flawed as it is, the Rawlsian viewpoint is about fairness, understood as neutrality or impartiality. It would be ludicrously wrong to say that Rawls "wasn't trying to be neutral" or "didn't care about fairness." If we could somehow, per impossibile, generate a re-deal of human affairs based on his original position, it would almost certainly be fairer than what we have now -- and more neutral, too.

to realise the other is a person is to realise that I am a person, the realisation of which is unpersonal and objective, and so the motivation towards altruism isn't direct (like say hunger) but derived from abstracted facts. — Dawnstorm

That's fair enough to Nagel. The important thing is that this motivation is 1) also impersonal, in the sense that it provides reasons for anyone to act, not just me; and 2) it can be stated without reference to my (or anyone's) personal feelings or preferences.

So, yeah, if emotivists say that every action is directly motived by an isolatable and easily categorisable desire, and Nagel says that isn't so, then I'm with Nagel. Beyond that, I haven't thought my intuitions through enough to say one way or another how feelings factor in. But take them away, away you're left with... what? Instructions? Elaborate if-then decision trees? — Dawnstorm

That's in part, I believe, why Nagel called his book The Possibility of Altruism. If we do eliminate feelings, even understood very broadly as you do, what could be left? What in the world could motivate me to take an unpleasant, difficult action, at no benefit whatsoever to myself, if not a strong "passion" which tells me I "should"? That is Hume's position, more or less. In contrast, Nagel argues for reasons as motivators -- beliefs, truths, entailments, arguments, the whole deal.

That is what I think myself. Given certain values (which are not generated in this way at all), we then want to know how to apply them. And the answer will be: as your reason dictates. On this view, reasons can create feelings, strong feelings, which can then help us do the right thing. But the reverse is not true. Reasons are either valid or invalid or somewhere in between, without reference to what my personal feelings or inclinations might be. This is of course why it is often so hard to "let reason be your guide."

(And if it worked out so neatly in practice, we'd have no ethical quandaries! Believe me, I know this is not like working a decision-tree.)

I wouldn't expect an appeal during the carrying out of the situation, not as a default. That comes in later, when others ask why you did something, and then the most likely reply is going to be "because he needed X" or some such. — Dawnstorm

Yes, that's all I meant by "appeal" -- theoretical, not in medias res.

But the comfort-flow itself is just there: it's not usually available for legitimisation or reflexion. — Dawnstorm

No doubt true. What we want to know is, what happens when an ethical choice arises that forces us to scrutinize our normal patterns of comfort and legitimization? Is the only tool at our disposal yet another look at the question of comfort? Or can I bypass how I may personally feel (again, taking "feel" in its broadest sense, to include like, prefer, etc.), ask for reasons, and let the comfort chips fall where they may?

The ‘neutral’ is never divorced from some stance or other arising from the messy business of assessing competing claims to validity within a diverse community. — Joshs

Yes, so all the more reason not to saddle Rawlsians with a version of "neutrality" they never claimed to exemplify. Their neutrality is associated with a stance, as is yours, as is Rorty's, as is mine.

Whether you think the Rawlsian approach is a secular offshoot of religious thinking depends on how narrowly you want to define religion. — Joshs

This is true. I think your very broad definition would make absolutely any rationalist, no matter how committed their atheism might be, an "offshoot of religious thinking." We could say that, but is it persuasive?

But then of course he thinks the entire Western philosophical tradition up through Hegel and Nietzsche is ontotheology, — Joshs

Yes, same point. Are these extremely broad generalizations accurate or helpful, past a certain point? Or perhaps it's better to ask, Does such an understanding help us make sense of Rawls or Habermas as philosophers?

I get where you're coming from. I know the case that can be made about religion as the root of all foundationalism, "skyhooks" and all. But deconstruction is not innocent here. If we choose to focus on this aspect of religion (and rationalism), we owe our interlocutors an account of why.

I think Rorty’s lack of sure-footedness in the terrain of post-Cartesianism led him to become too suspicious of philosophy, not recognizing the validity of philosophical concepts pointing beyond metaphysical skyhooks of the sort that Habermas remained wedded to. — Joshs

I don't know if you've read Richard J. Bernstein? Almost alone at the time, he was determined to build bridges between anal. and continental phil. His Beyond Objectivism and Relativism and The New Constellation contain very sharp comparisons and critiques of Habermas vs. Rorty, connecting both of them with Gadamer, Heidegger, Kuhn, and other relevant thinkers. (Since both books were written 40-odd years ago, though, we only get middle-period Habermas in the mix.)

I love the juxtaposition of ‘ought’ and ‘neutral’ here. It illustrates , without recognizing it , that built into the assumption of norms of neutrality, objectivity and non-bias (like Rawls’ veil of ignorance) is a metaphysical ought. — Joshs

I think you're selling the Rawlsian tradition short here. I recognize very well the juxtaposition you point out, and so does the tradition -- I simply don't find it scandalous in the way that you do. You're wanting to read "neutral" in terms that were never intended. It doesn't mean "without oughts." That would be directly counter to what Rawls proposed. It means "without religious doctrines, but attempting to treat each person fairly." It's you, not Rawls, who claims that this carries with it the idea that "such notions of the objective, the equal, the neutral, are secular offshoots of religious thought." If that is indeed true, then perhaps the liberal project was always incoherent. But I see no reason to believe it is true, certainly not on some universal grounds asserting that "objectivity can't be meaningful outside a religious tradition."

I hope I haven't made things worse. — Dawnstorm

Not at all. This is a very thoughtful and responsive post. I'll try to reply in stages.

I can do something that helps you, but out of purely instrumental considerations. Is this altruism? — Dawnstorm

No, not on my understanding (which I should say is very influenced by Thomas Nagel's The Possibility of Altruism). Something is altruistic when it is motivated by the belief that the plight of others, all by itself, gives me a reason to act.

the emphasis on duty makes it seem like morals as rule-following. — Dawnstorm

I know. The only word I can think of which is as disreputable as "duty" in the ethical lexicon would be "sin." You'll notice that I didn't in fact use the word "duty," because I hate it too. I prefer "responsibility." But to your point . . . I don't know whether ethics has to involve rule-following, but it probably does have to involve acting on reasons or principles. And these are often in direct conflict with our feelings.

it feels like you view "it's ultimately feelings" as feelings being the envisioned pay off. That's not the only role they have. Feelings are supposed to underly *any* value; therefore also any attachment to duty or responsibility you might have. — Dawnstorm

Yes. It would be unfair to the advocate of "it's ultimately feelings" to construe them as meaning "I expect to feel a certain way after I've helped you." Feelings should be seen as the motivator, not the pay-off, in order to make this view robust. The idea is that, at bottom, I feel a certain way about my responsibility (as I conceive it), and this provides the motivation for my action.

I can't read this line without seeing feelings front and center: "quality of my life"? "What I like"? Take feelings away and liking stuff is impossible, and quality of life becomes irrelevant to your praxis. — Dawnstorm

I agree that "quality of life" is hazy. I'll think more about a better way to talk about the attachment a person feels to a certain self-presentation of their values.

And "like" can also be questioned. Could you say more, though, about why you construe "like" to involve a feeling? Is this based on usage, or are you analyzing what "like" would have to mean, in order for it to say something meaningful?

The label "genuine altruism" is an intrusion here: it doesn't order the field, but adds a semantic problem I can do without. — Dawnstorm

Does using my Nagel-derived concept, above, help any? I think the key point is that altruism takes the other person's situation, all by itself, without any appeal to how the altruist feels, as a reason for action. You may well believe that such a thing is impossible, of course, depending on what role you give reasons in ethical deliberation. If they wouldn't be reasons without some corresponding motivating feelings, then my and Nagel's account wouldn't fly for you.

I haven't followed most of this thread, so perhaps I need to go back and look more closely. It was the mention of Habermas that hooked me! I'm seeing a distinction between what a liberally conceived government can do, and what something called "liberalism" can proselytize for. Liberalism or secularism as a structure of politics ought to be neutral as to whether following a religion is better than not doing so. I suppose there would be other, more argumentative versions of liberalism as a philosophy that see it as a positive theory of what and what not to believe. I was only referring to the first, Rawlsian version.

Do you mean specifically religious teleology or just teleology in general? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Religious teleology. The secular versions aren't really hot issues at the moment, politically. Remember, this conversation Habermas is taking part in concerns a specific moment in European politics. There are of course other ways to think about teleology.

It's not that secular reason "has no use" for teleology or eschatology, it's more that to introduce either dimension into a liberal polity is to immediately desecularize the neutral normative constraints in favor of some religious tradition's view.
— J

Would that be because of the implicit presumption of a normative axis, the implied idea of a true good. — Wayfarer

Do you mean, within a particular religion's description of, say, eschatology? Not sure I understand your thought here. But if that's what you mean, then yes, perhaps it would be impossible to introduce eschatology on its own, without foregrounding a particular tradition and calling into question the neutrality of a liberal, process-oriented polity.

But they cannot be total non-choices, right? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Such acts are "semi-involuntary." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, that's how it looks to me.

If this was the case, then we would also say that a man not cheating on his wife was also "semi-involuntary" if his lust is in conflict with his desire to do the right thing. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is interesting. True, we wouldn't call it "semi-involuntary," but we might very well offer an explanation that deprived the individual of considerable freedom of choice. Depends how much stock you put in deep-psychological explanations that bypass conscious reasons. To my thinking, they're often accurate, but not necessarily, and shouldn't be the default mode of explaining. Yet it's always important to ask, Exactly how much free choice did X have, in a given situation?

it doesn't make sense to collapse the rational and lower appetites into one hodgepodge stew — Count Timothy von Icarus

Indeed not. Your talent for a striking phrase can get the better of you sometimes, though! Is this really the best and fairest way to characterize what Humeans and other anti-rationalists are doing? The question is very difficult, and no good philosopher is willing to settle for a hodgepodge, certainly not Hume himself.

Yep, he and Rorty never saw eye to eye. My sympathies are almost entirely with Habermas, who seems to me a much more careful and interesting thinker than Rorty, though the latter's historical importance is unquestionable. Habermas is also at a disadvantage here, because his writing is often turgid, while Rorty was a sparkling stylist.

I suppose the most trenchant criticism one could offer of Rorty is that, despite his sincere efforts, philosophy has not come to end.

Ah, that's more like it. A much clearer picture of Habermas's thinking about religion and secularism -- also see Religion and Rationality (1998) and Between Naturalism and Religion (2008), both excellent.

The result, as Michael Reder, another of Habermas’s interlocutors, observes, is a religion that has been “instrumentalized,” made into something useful for a secular reason that still has no use for its teleological and eschatological underpinnings. Religions, explains Reder, are brought in only “to help to prevent or overcome social disruptions.” Once they have performed this service they go back in their box and don’t trouble us with uncomfortable cosmic demands.

I do think Reder gets Habermas a bit wrong here. It's not that secular reason "has no use" for teleology or eschatology, it's more that to introduce either dimension into a liberal polity is to immediately desecularize the neutral normative constraints in favor of some religious tradition's view. Likewise, "instrumentalize" is too harsh. Secular society need not have much belief in religion, but what Habermas advocates is more than using religion to perform a useful service. He really wants liberal societies to be troubled by the "cosmic demands," and take religious perspectives on values more seriously.

So you'd agree that our motives for action come down to feelings, Humean "passions." Is that a psychological fact about human beings, such that someone who claimed not to have feelings motivating their actions would be self-deceived?

This strain in Habermas's thinking is often presented out of context. The NY Times quote is from a Habermas paper called "An awareness of what is missing: faith and reason in a post-secular age" [2010]. This also came out as a short book, which I don't have, but you can find a short summary here.

The following two quotes from that paper give a more nuanced sense of what Habermas thinks is at stake. The problem, as he sees it, is mutual, between secular and religious traditions:

“The religious side must accept the authority of ‘natural’ science as the fallible results of the institutionalized sciences and the basic principles of universalistic egalitarianism in law and morality. Conversely, secular reason may not set itself up as the judge concerning truths of faith, even though in the end it can accept as reasonable only what it can translate into its own, in principle universally acceptable discourses.”

“The constitutional state must not only act neutrally towards worldviews but it must also rest on normative foundations which can be justified neutrally towards worldviews—and that means in postmetaphysical terms. The religious communities cannot turn a deaf ear to this normative requirement. This is why those complementary learning processes in which the secular and the religious sides involve one another come into play here.”

So it is not just that secular reason is "unenlightened about itself" -- though Habermas thinks that is true. Enlightened or not, the liberal state's normative requirement of neutrality is legitimate, and must be acknowledged by religious communities.

OK. What do you think of the self-sacrifice example we've been discussing?

If you want to describe the value with respect to rationality, rational choice can probably achieve that, but they'd need recourse to other values. And there are pretty much only two options open I can see: some sort of structuralism - it's all circular, values feed into other values etc. Or values come from something other than rational thought (e.g. we are "social animals"). — Dawnstorm

I'd have to think about whether these are indeed the only two options, but in any case I'm happy to go with the second: Values are discovered, not deduced. The idea, which is common among many philosophers, that values can be apodictically derived from first principles or definitions, doesn't seem plausible to me. The only thing that might come close would be the Kantian notion that the process of practical reason may be deduced from a metaphysics of autonomy, but that isn't quite the same thing. Also, the example of "we are social animals" is usually meant in a reductionist way (values aren't what we think they are, but rather reduce to . . . ), and I'm not speaking of that sort of discovery, if it is one, at all.

So take what I say with a grain of salt. — Dawnstorm

Take mine with pepper!

if making other people feel good didn't make you feel good, would you be "genuinely altruistic"? — Dawnstorm

That's an important question. It harks back to the distinction I was making between the various ways we can understand "what I like" or "feeling good." I might derive no pleasure whatsoever from doing something altruistic that I believe it's my responsibility to do. But in the wider, quality-of-my-life sense, trying to do this sort of thing is "what I like." Trouble is, I don't like it because of any specific feeling I expect to arise from it. I like it because I believe it's morally right. It accords with my values. That's where I think the whole "ultimately it's feelings" view breaks down. (Not to say that being kind never feels good. Of course it does!)

Let's say that's a description of "genuine altruism." Would your view entail that such a person couldn't actually exist -- or at best would be in denial about what they were feeling?

I thought "joy" was just the word used in the context of Beethoven vs. Bach, while "good feelings" vs. "bad feelings" is the more general model. I'd like to append that in situations where there are no good feelings involved, it's likely "bad feelings" vs. "worse feelings". — Dawnstorm

Yes, that's reasonable, otherwise you start thinking in terms of joyous martyrdom or some such. But even "bad" vs. "worse" is problematic. Should we imagine a self-sacrificing hero (with, as you say, a bit more time to cogitate than a grenade would allow) saying to herself, "I'll feel really bad if these innocent people die. I will feel nothing at all if I sacrifice myself to save them, since I'll be dead. So I'm choosing to feel nothing rather than feel really bad"? Maybe. But it would be a very subterranean level of cogitation, as it were; what usually goes through a hero's mind is thoughts of duty and compassion, I would imagine, not how rotten they'll feel if they funk it. I'm inclined to say that it's only plausible if, for independent reasons, we've already decided to rule out genuinely altruistic motives as incompatible with the "what I choose = what I like" equation. Then we can say, "She thinks she's acting from altruistic motives but here's what's really going on -- it's what she likes, even if she doesn't realize it."

One other point: "what I like" doesn't have to be construed as "what makes me happy" or "what feels good." It can also mean "what I value and stand for in my life, on grounds quite other than pleasant sensations." People do like doing the right thing, as they conceive it. On this construal, we can almost make sense of the situation above as being about "what she likes": She is so committed to living her life as a certain sort of person -- the sort who will make the heroic choice here -- that she would find that life literally unlivable if she fails to do so. So it's no longer a choice between "feeling really bad" and "not feeling anything." It's now between two sorts of unlivability -- death, and moral disgrace -- one of which at least will spare the innocents.

When we start to describe ethical actions with this sort of language, though, I think it's time to just drop the whole "what I like" idea, and go back to the usual discourse about values, right and wrong, etc.

Agreed. Plus, it also tends to generate an inappropriate tautology where "whatever one does" is "what gives one the most positive sentiment/pleasure." This will tend to exclude the very apparent phenomena of "weakness of will," or "losing one's temper," etc. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think we could acknowledge that losing one's temper, and other semi-involuntary acts, are not covered by the thesis "we always choose what we like," on the grounds that they aren't really choices. This would just involve changing "whatever one does" to "whatever one does deliberately/thoughtfully/ voluntarily" et al. But it leaves unresolved the general problem you point out. It's very hard to get clear on whether the "what I choose = what I like" equivalence is supposed to be a discovery of empirical psychology, or a stipulation about how to use the words. @Quk's response, if they make one, to the question about altruism may help clarify how they mean that equation.

every factor refers to what I like the most. I like good feelings and dislike bad feelings. — Quk

It's tough to make this work with examples of altruism and self-sacrifice. You'd have to stretch the meaning of "joy" awfully far. Jane throws herself on a grenade to save innocent others. Does this have to be irrational, given that "good feelings" hardly enter into the picture? And yet it's the sort of action we admire as an outcome of practical moral reasoning.

Why don't you explain what you think makes a choice "rational?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Whew, you don't ask much, do you? :wink:

Let's say I could do this, cogently and succinctly, in a paragraph or two. (I don't think I could -- I doubt if there is a single answer -- but let's say I succeeded.) And let's say you then explained your own answer, perhaps derived from the Aristotelian tradition. We might find that the two explanations differed in some substantial ways.

What would you suggest we do then, given these differing explanations?

Is slamming your own hand in a car door over and over until every bone in it is broken "rational?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Of course there are limit cases, examples of behavior that is so contrary to good judgment that we would call it irrational even if the person involved claimed to have good reasons for it. But to deny objective ethical values is not such an example -- if it is even a behavior at all. In what way is the moral anti-realist engaging in what we could only call crazy behavior, such as doing a horrible and unnecessary injury to oneself, over and over? This example is hopelessly tendentious, and makes the moral anti-realist out to be either stupid or insane. I know you don't really believe that, you have too much good sense yourself!

This just seems like: "you must default to the deflated "rationality" of "informed consent" or else you will be guilty of 'metaphysics' and not being polite. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Let me repeat a sentence from above:

Neither side can simply legislate that the other is wrong about ontology.

You seem to have taken this to mean that we can't argue about metaphysics, and must simply agree with any ontological position anyone takes. This isn't what I meant. I meant that I, as a realist about values, can't declare, without argument (legislate), to the anti-realist, "Your position doesn't hold up because you don't countenance objective values." Nor can the anti-realist say to me, "Your position doesn't hold up because you believe in items that don't exist," and expect me simply to accept it. For either of us to take such a stance, we'd just be claiming, without argument, that the other is working from false premises. And this may be true. But to show that it is true, we must (temporarily!) move away from ethical argument and talk metaphysics and ontology.

Indeed, that's what I would recommend in this conversation, should we pursue it. I think you're saying that the moral anti-realist has accepted mistaken premises about what is rational, and what sorts of items exist. Their metaphysics, in short, is faulty. I'm not sure about their version of rationality being wrong, thought it is certainly different from yours. And I quite agree that they fail to countenance entities -- more-or-less objective ethical values -- that I believe exist. So isn't this what we'd need to discuss with them? And in a manner that doesn't simply repeat, over and over, how wrong they are?

But you seem to just be using loose synonyms for good here, and having your anti-realist appeal to those. — Count Timothy von Icarus

In a way, that's right. From the point of view of moral realists like you and me, these terms are barely adequate, and don't go far enough to capture what seems vital to the moral uses of "good" and "right." But the anti-realist doesn't have to grant us that conceptual ontology. They don't see objective moral values as real. So "loose synonyms" from our point of view would be "what there is in the realm of moral discourse" for them. It's the best available, as they see it. And to be fair, we can hardly claim that every moral anti-realist must therefore make a botch of their ethical life. I've seen far too many examples to the contrary, and I'm sure you have too.

This highlights a really important point about the divide between realists and anti-realists. Neither side can simply legislate that the other is wrong about ontology. That would take us way outside of ethics. And I'd further claim that, this being so, each can maintain that their stance is reasonable/rational. The rationality -- or lack of it -- is not the problem.

So how do bedrock disputes about the ontology of values get settled, if not by rational argument? Well, as I was saying before . . . this calls for metanoia, not dialectics.

Bedtime here . . . be well!

it's in the quote right below the section you quoted if that wasn't clear. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Oh, OK, I thought that was a quote from somebody else!

I think this argument runs into trouble from the start, with this:

On such a view, every end can only be judged good relative to the pleasure or positive sentiment we associate with it.

But why? Why assume that, absent a belief in objective moral values, all the anti-realist is left with is pleasure or positive sentiment? Bottoming out in irrational impulse? Why can't the judgment that an end is good, although relative, be rooted in rational argument? True, at a certain point they will have to say some version of "Here my spade is turned" . . . but so does the moral realist. I don't see how this is less rational, more sentiment-based. And remember, the anti-realist doesn't countenance bringing in "ultimate" values at all. For them, that is irrational and sentiment-based. As you say:

there is no definitive standard by which to choose between different potential "ultimate" or even "benchmark" ends in a rational manner.

But surely the anti-realist can simply agree with this, but insist that the whole process is not therefore rendered irrational. The anti-realist doesn't acknowledge these entities at all, so can hardly be called to task for being "irrational" by not adding them into the calculative mix. Wrong, perhaps (I think so) -- but not irrational.

We both know that a great deal depends on how "rationality" is construed. You have a picture of what it means to be rational that is extremely specific, and tightly bound to one particular philosophical tradition. I don't think we should assume that the anti-realist shares this picture, nor (and I hope you agree) that this picture is uncontroversially the correct one.

Help me see this. Why does the moral anti-realist not know why they act as they do?

Take sex. They want to have sex. Why? If they haven't totally erased any sense of human nature they might appeal to this. But this is just awareness that one has a desire and that one plans to act on it. It isn't a self-reflective conscious understanding of the act as truly good. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I have to say, this sounds like a straw man. I suppose there are some immoral or amoral people who are this clueless, but an intelligent and compassionate moral anti-realist can do much better. "I have a desire to have sex with this person. Will this desire lead to healthy and harmonious consequences? Will it hurt others? Does it fit the other priorities of my life? Why do I want to act as I do?" In other words, you can be self-reflective and try to consciously understand the meaning and consequences of your actions without even asking the question, Is it truly good?

I'm probably being repetitive now, but I'll say again: To truly understand what the moral anti-realist is saying, you have to start by understanding that they don't believe in something called "the truly good." Just for the sake of comprehension, try granting them that position and then seeing whether you still think their actions are "irrational impulses."

If we understand the realist's beliefs as having a causal explanation in terms of the realist's psychological conditioning and sensory input . . . — sime

But why need we do this? I myself don't view realism as a fancy sort of physicalism. There are all kinds of ways to get reasons, ideas, intentions, propositions, what have you, into realism. (Which of these might be mind-independent is a different, and complicated, question.) But now I understand what you meant. If the metaphysical realist doesn't countenance reasons, as opposed to psychological and physical causes, then their case is much harder to make. A typical self-referential paradox would seem to result.

I don't know what you mean, I included the argument right below the quoted section. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sorry if I missed it. Do you mean this?:

If we are incapable of desiring the good because it is known as good . . . then it seems to follow that all actions bottom out in irrational impulse. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I didn't see an argument here, just an assertion. How do we get from "not desiring the good because it is known as good" to "all actions bottom out [are motivated by] irrational impulse"?

Apparently "rational action" for them won't entail knowing why one acts and believing it to be truly best. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Help me see this. Why does the moral anti-realist not know why they act as they do?

First we have to consider the meta-metaphysics of "mind-independence"; should mind-independence be understood to be an existential claim that the world literally exists independently of the senses? Or should mind-independence be understood as merely a semantic proposal that physical concepts are definitionally not reducible to the senses? — sime

This is good. I don't know what @noAxioms has in mind, but I take "mind-independence" to express the former, existential thesis. The semantic proposal would follow.

And even if an apparently dogmatic realist insists upon the former interpretation, should we nevertheless interpret him to be a semantic realist? For can we really entertain the idea that the realist is conceiving the world as existing independently of his senses? — sime

(I think the realist can be one without being dogmatic!) Not sure what seems un-entertainable about that idea. Could you expand? As best I can tell, the sort of nuanced realism I was laying out earlier does allow me to conceive a world independent of my senses, if by this we mean "existing independently but not necessarily known independently." In the case of math and logic, I would say it's also known independently of the senses, though we may need the senses as a jumping-off place for noetic investigation.

they are denying the very possibility of rational freedom and rational action, at least as classically conceived. If we are incapable of desiring the good because it is known as good (i.e. a denial of the existence of Aquina's "rational appetites," or Plato's "desires of the rational part of the soul) then it seems to follow that all actions bottom out in irrational impulse. — Count Timothy von Icarus

How is this an argument for the ethical non-realist to become a realist? They merely reply, "Not at all. Nothing of the sort 'seems to follow.' My actions are neither irrational nor impulsive. I'm not aware of 'denying the very possibility of rational freedom' -- how so? Such a view of my actions comes with extremely heavy philosophical baggage, and you would have to show me why this must be the case. On the contrary, I choose what I rationally believe is best for me. Certainly I may be wrong, in any given instance. But how is that either irrational or immoral?"

There is also the phenomenological argument for the fact that man does possess an infinite appetite for goodness. We cannot identify any finite end to which we say "this is it, this is where I find absolute rest." This finding is, at the very least, all over phenomenology (including atheist phenomenology). — Count Timothy von Icarus

This isn't ringing any bells. Where would I find it? Or could you give the argument, briefly?

I really don't think it's that. The anti-realist is happy to acknowledge the fact that suffering is bad for the beings concerned.

If an "anti-realist" re values acknowledges that there are objective facts about values then they are not an anti-realist. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But you've introduced the term "values" into my quote, and that's something which the anti-realist doesn't countenance. The anti-realist doesn't think there are objective facts about values, simply because something is conducive to happiness or its opposite. Of what value are those? they might ask. The anti-realist understands the moral realist (I think correctly) to be speaking about a type of value that can be seen to be good for everyone -- indeed, obligatory. It is this that the anti-realist denies.

Now I suppose that you could redefine an anti-realist as (only) someone who not only denies objective facts about moral values, but objective facts about the value of anything whatever. But that seems way too stringent. I think the classic anti-realist position would be that lots of things are good and bad for various people, given various considerations, but there are no over-arching values that would mandate, or even allow, a choice among them.

But I think you struggle with getting beyond egoism in particular because you think that, provided the egoist keeps on affirming that they are better off being an egoist, then this simply must be true (i.e. they are infallible about what is to their own benefit). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Personally, I don't agree with the egoist at all. I agree with you: No one is infallible about what is to their own benefit, as human history sadly attests. But what I'm claiming is that the egoist/moral anti-realist is not being irrational, and there is no argument you can make to the contrary, on the basis of objective values. It's not that the anti-realist has to say, "I know for a fact that my egoism is good for me. I can't be wrong about that." They can just say, "Well, this is the way it looks to me, and you have yet to show me an argument for all these 'common values' and 'human flourishings' and 'ethics that extend beyond the personal.' All you're doing is asserting your belief in them and claiming that, if I could only see them, I'd like them too. Perhaps, perhaps not."

Let me be clear, again: I think this character is dead wrong. But they're not going to find out they're wrong through philosophy or argumentation. I think you hold some spiritual beliefs? Then you know what I'm talking about. Jesus, to pick an example we both know, did not offer the Seminar on the Mount, providing his followers with knockdown arguments for being virtuous. Insofar as he discussed praxis at all, he seems to have recommended metanoia as a priority.

Just because someone is a moral anti-realist doesn’t mean they are unconcerned with the suffering of people or animals."

Sure. They just deny that the suffering of people or animals can actually be bad for them as a matter of fact — Count Timothy von Icarus

I really don't think it's that. The anti-realist is happy to acknowledge the fact that suffering is bad for the beings concerned, in the sense that it's painful, undesirable, etc., but only in that sense. The anti-realist denies that this makes a difference to him/her, i.e., there is no further moral conclusion to be drawn. The words "bad/good" carry no ethical implications, on this view; there are particular facts about what is bad or good for X in the sense specified above, but no moral facts about how this may generalize, or how we ought to behave as a result.

I guess the philosophical world is divided between those who believe that "good/beneficial/conducive to happiness/healthful/pleasurable for me" is what "morally good" means, and those who conceive of moral good as above and beyond the personal. I'm not sure how to bridge the division.

Is anyone willing to defend a mind-independent view? — noAxioms

Yes. I would defend the following, more or less from Frege (and paraphrased by Michael H. McCarthy):

1. There is an objective reality, independent of, but accessible to human knowledge.

2. Though human error is abundant, and it's often hard to discriminate between mind-independent and mind-dependent reality, we do in fact possess much genuine knowledge of this reality, including the standard parts of mathematics.

3. Not only the natural sciences, but logic and mathematics have objective truths as their subject matter.

Frege wrote:

If we want to emerge from the subjective at all, from the realm of ideas, we must conceive of knowledge as an activity that does not create what is known but grasps what is already there. — Basic Laws of Arithmetic, 23

I think this is too strong. I would replace "grasps" with "interacts with and displays," to allow for the role of human cognition in this process.

Here's what I would not defend:

1. A use of the term "objective" to mean "out there in a timeless, changeless way that is not only independent of how human consciousness pictures it, but also somehow identical to it." (Frege probably did believe this.)

2. A meta-vocabulary in which human knowledge is itself defended as knowably objective and certain. We don't have any such knowledge or certainty. My beliefs -- and yours -- about mind-independent reality are not verifiable in the way that statements in science are.

3. An either/or conception of objectivity and subjectivity, leading to the view that if mind-independent reality is apprehended by a subject, it has therefore been transformed into non-mind-independent reality, and is hence "only subjective."

But nothing but the person's opinion makes their disapproval hold any water, I'd think. — AmadeusD

This is the dividing line between subjectivism and objectivism in ethics. The subjectivist (you, perhaps?) wants to say that the usage of words like "worthy" or "good" or "right" can be correct only when they express personal opinions. Someone who uses these words to refer to alleged standards that "arbitrate," as you put it, between preferences is using them incorrectly. The objectivist, on the other hand (me, for instance), believes that both subjective and objective usages of value words are fine; both have their contexts; both say meaningful things. The objectivist believes, as the subjectivist does not, that when value words are used in a specifically ethical context (as opposed to "I prefer this ice cream" contexts), they refer to actual objective (or intersubjective) realities that can influence preferences, not merely reflect them.

You think it wasn't choice-worthy and in this case for someone else so there's a second level of preference involved there. — AmadeusD

We can change the example to the 1st person to avoid this: "I made X choice; it was not a worthy choice; I should not have made it." But again, I much prefer using more value-oriented words than "choice-worthy", for the reasons we've already discussed. Better to say, "It was wrong; I shouldn't have done it."

A preference is, definitionally, something subjectively preferred. Not something 'chosen'. That may be why you're seeing a cross-reading available where I do not. — AmadeusD

Well, yeah, but language isn't that easily corralled. Consider the similar case of "want". Some people argue that "You did X because you wanted to do X" is always the case (in non-coercive circumstances), because we only do what we want to do. But in real life it's much more subtle, hence the distinction between "want" and "will," or "want" and "choose." I can will something, or choose something, as my final decision in a complicated matter, without in the least "wanting" to do it. I may not even necessarily want to do the "right thing", as a category -- I just believe I should.

So, the distinction between "prefer" and "choose" follows a similar course. We often have to discriminate between something we'd prefer, subjectively, all things being equal, versus something we would never feel that way about, all things being equal, but feel we must choose, under these circumstances. Perhaps there's a better pair of words to use that reflects the distinction, but at any rate I believe the distinction is an important one.

I'd be interested to know whether you think this sort of distinction can be preserved from an ethical-subjectivist point of view. It seems to me that it can, but tell me what you think.