Which begs the question.....is there a principle “good”? — Mww

I think eudaimonia, per Aristotle. That is the universal standard by which we can evaluate the actions of ourselves and others in everyday life, as well as the participants in the train hypothetical.

How do we get to needs that aren't dependent on wants? — Terrapin Station

From an evolutionary perspective, we want food and water because we need them to survive. We don't need them because we want them.

For example, you only need food and water if you want to stay alive. If you want to die via a hunger strike, you rather need to avoid food and water. (Well, avoid water in that case if you want it to be quicker.) — Terrapin Station

As a human being you need food and water to stay alive, wants motivate you to fulfill those needs. And no-one wants to die via a hunger strike. They want to overturn some injustice that they value more highly than their own survival. That can be highly moral. That doesn't mean they cease to think food and water are valuable. Indeed the power of the act depends on other people being well aware that they are valuable.

A better foil might be the Will to Power: conscientiously acting so as to achieve power for oneself. How consistent could such an approach be? Could this lead to one flourishing? — Banno

Great example. The Will to Power is to morality as a counterfeit coin is to the real thing. The counterfeiter may do quite well for a time (perhaps even their lifetime) but nonetheless devalues the real currency and is always at risk of being exposed for who they really are. Not an example of a flourishing life by any reasonable standard.

And this presents neatly the problem with the open question argument. Is it good to conscientiously acting so as to achieve power for oneself? "No, but I don't care". — Banno

Yep.

Hm. Not to speak for Andrew M, but I would say instead that one who claims to transcend morality in the way described cannot come back and claim to be doing the right thing. That's one consequence of being beyond good and evil. — Banno

Exactly. Yet ethical subjectivism erases just that distinction by treating morality and the Will to Power as categorically equivalent.

For what it's worth, I think we are mostly in agreement; it's just that I insist on the inclusion of that (to me) all important "if" in our explanation of moral principles; I don't believe they can stand on their own without it. — Janus

I agree, but I think that conditional is simply "If life has value then ..." in an ordinary sense. If so, then that value constitutes a universal standard for measuring one's actions against. Everyone having their own arbitrary preferred standard is no standard at all.

Your talk of a "natural" standard here is obviously inappropriate, as it is the opposite of that. It is an artificial standard. — S

No, it's a natural and pragmatic standard. It's hard to get much useful work done when people keep randomly dropping in to pop you off and take your stuff.

Oh dear. What's he gone and done this time? First that thing with the bus, now he's been messing with trains. I predict that Theresa will make him the new Transport Secretary once failing Grayling has been given the boot. — S

We should start a new meme. "Blame Boris!"

But all of this is predicated on a desire to promote human flourishing in a context of social harmony, so again we can say 'If we want to promote human flourishing in a context of social harmony then we should value some acts and dis-value others, and cal the former morally correct and the latter morally incorrect. There is no contradiction then if others who do not value social harmony do not agree with our moral assessments, even though it certainly seems to be the case that the vast majority of people will agree that social harmony is of primary importance. — Janus

It's true that people can choose to value different things. But suppose one values murder and theft. Consistently acting on those values erodes or destroys the social foundation on which any values at all can be pursued including their own. Which is to say, it is parasitical on what is truly valuable.

Another way to think of a flourishing morality as distinctive is that it operates as a natural focal (or Schelling) point in a complex coordination game between people. That is, if we were all to independently assume some common rules for pursuing our various interests, what would be the most pragmatic and natural set of rules to assume? A pithy maxim here would be the golden rule, which crops up in many different cultures.

Thanks. We do seem to share a position, or at least they're very close...

Goodness is not a fact on my view either. Rather it is something discovered and aspired towards. — creativesoul

Yes.

So where do we look to check what the things are that are universally valuable to humans, where that value is independent of human opinion? — Terrapin Station

You just have to look at what the basic needs of human beings are. For example, food and water are universally valuable for human beings.

Or do you think that is something that opinions can legitimately differ on?

Tom would believe as Lady Jane believes, that not slowing down would be immoral, iff he had no sufficient reason to believe something else was of greater moral import and thus made a counter-action necessary. — Mww

Yes, so Lady Jane can think Tom is immoral to not slow down because she does not have all the relevant facts available. So that would be similar to conventional positive disagreements about the world. But if she did have the relevant facts that Tom has, then she could see why Tom's action is morally permissible, despite not liking the outcome. (Because that's the sort of rational reflection one does when a train is bearing down on you...)

On the context of others and their perspectives with respect to “the good”.......under those conditions, how do we distinguish an act of morality from an act of mere civility? Even if they are both predicated on some sense of “good”, can it be the same sense of good for both? — Mww

They're not the same sense of good, since one can be moral and uncivil at the same time (e.g., protesting loudly against slavery). But no doubt they can overlap in complex ways.

If I am the one who claims, and I claim it is immoral for the Engineer Tom (person B) to maintain the Empire Cascade’s speed (behavior X) approaching Lady Jane (person A) tied to the tracks up ahead, while Boris waits in the bushes for Dudley to rush to the rescue. Poor ol’ Lady Jane certainly believes it truly immoral that Tom refuses to slow down. But Tom, on the other hand, with a train full of passengers trailing behind and a 7% grade he absolutely must ascend or he will roll backwards and wind up in the river, truly believes it sucks to be Lady Jane for sure, but he isn’t about to scatter 14 cars and 67.5 people over 1/2 mile of river bed for her, so he truly believes my claim is false, that is, it is not immoral to maintain speed.

It is clear my claim for X being immoral is true relative to one ground of belief and false relative to another. — Mww

It's not so clear to me. :-)

Naturally both Lady Jane and Tom want to avoid bad consequences, particularly to themselves and whoever is included in their immediate duty of care (for Tom). But I think Lady Jane (perhaps only after the event of being saved) would be capable of understanding that Tom's intended action was morally permissible, perhaps even morally required. It is really only Boris here who is morally culpable.

Part of our moral calculus is the contexts of others (and their perspectives). To the extent that we do each factor in the contexts of others, I think there is a convergence towards what we might identify as "the good".

The problem I see here is: imagine that something no longer exists, and was never valued while it existed, so no one knows that it ever existed. In this hypothetical scenario, could we coherently say that the thing could nonetheless have been valuable?

Or look at it another way: if to be valuable is only to be potentially valuable, even if never actually valued, then that would seem to apply, given suitable circumstances, to almost anything we could imagine. — Janus

Perhaps this is a difference between "in principle" and "in practice". Certainly a mountain of diamonds on a planet in another galaxy has no practical value for us.

But for a practical and potentially life-or-death example, a valuable water supply might be readily available to a community, but they never searched for it, or disvalued it when they did find it (e.g., wilfully polluted it). Thus something valuable was lost.

So if the moral property/judgment/whatever-we-want-to-call-it isn't in the action itself, but requires a standard for determination, we need to ask just how/where the standard obtains. What is it a property of/what properties is it? — Terrapin Station

The standard is a fact about what is valuable for human beings (independent of human opinion). Whether a human action is right or wrong is determined by that standard (and again independent of human opinion).

As I mentioned earlier, right or wrong is a property of human actions, the value standard is a property of human beings (certain things are universally valuable to humans) and that standard is also implicit in the action (since an action is done by human beings).

The standard is necessary for us to determine whether or not the action is moral or not... that is... it is necessary for us to acquire knowledge of the morality of the action. It is not necessary for the action to be moral/immoral.

What it takes for us to acquire knowledge of what's moral is not the same as what it takes for something to be so.

Good things existed in their entirety prior to our coming to that realization. Such things are not existentially dependent upon our report/account of them. It only follows that those particular good things are not equivalent to linguistic conceptions. We can be mistaken about such things. — creativesoul

Nice post and I think we essentially agree. I would just add that I don't think the good is a brute fact - we can seek a deeper explanation of those good things.

That which already exists in it's entirety prior to our account/report of it, is not existentially dependent upon our recognition of it's existence.

Goodness is one such thing. — creativesoul

:up:

You just agreed that the standard is not in the action itself.

If the standard is necessary for determining whether the action is moral or not, then the action being moral or not is not in the action itself. — Terrapin Station

Fair enough. The standard is implicit in the action, since the action is done by a human being (for whom the standard applies).

But could something be valuable if it was never valued in the past, is not valued now, and will never come to be valued in the future? — Janus

It seems a logically coherent possibility. It just requires it to either not be recognized as valuable or always disvalued. Do you disagree?

I don't follow your point. Joe acted. He is a human being. So Joe's action can be measured against the value standard applicable to human beings. Whether his action is moral or not is a logical consequence of applying that standard.

This is no different to the idea that a statement is true or not as a logical consequence of its use in some context. Morality is to actions as truth is to statements.

No. It is something more like the basic physiological and psychological needs of human beings.

So the issue is that we can fail to value what is valuable. For example, Alice owns a diamond ring but thinks it is cubic zirconia.
— Andrew M

Valuable in what sense? — S

Monetary. Alice values the ring at a few dollars but it is worth thousands.

The example shows that the perceived value and the actual value can be different (by some metric).

Now suppose the natural standard for morality is promoting human life and well-being. Even Joe can see that his murdering of Bill doesn't meet that standard. He might not care, or he might disagree that that should be the standard, or he might think that standards are merely subjective. Nonetheless, if that is the standard, then Joe's action is wrong simpliciter, regardless of Joe's opinions on the matter.

You're supposed to be telling me how the action itself has moral value. — Terrapin Station

An action is right or wrong if there is a natural standard of value that it is measured against. I've specified what I think that standard is.

Us evaluating something and us valuing something, our personal perspectives, our perceptions, etc. aren't properties of the action itself. If the moral property is a property of the action itself, it has to be in the action itself whether anyone evaluates or values anything at all. — Terrapin Station

Right. So the issue is that we can fail to value what is valuable. For example, Alice owns a diamond ring but thinks it is cubic zirconia.

Similarly if human life and well-being is valuable independently of being valued then actions can be morally right or wrong.

That question seems to raise others:

What is meant by "valuable" in the context of the question? If to be valuable does not entail actually being valued, then does it at least entail the potential to be valued? And then, valued by whom, by how many and so on? — Janus

Yes, I think to be valuable entails the potential to be valued. But it need not actually be valued by anyone. Just as with any other aspect of the world, we can be mistaken about what is valuable.

We need to talk about the action itself and its properties. If the action itself has moral properties somehow, we should be able to in some manner point to those moral properties, provide some evidence of them, etc. — Terrapin Station

I pointed to it in your hypothetical when I said that Joe's action was wrong. We evaluate the hypothetical from our personal perspective. If you value life then you will also perceive that Joe's action was wrong. Whether you perceived correctly or not depends on whether life is valuable.

That is the appropriate level of abstraction for talking about morality. See, for example, Dennett's personal stance (the fourth level of abstraction listed). And, as Dennett notes, it does not presuppose (or reduce to) the physical stance.

I think this gives the clue. Moral principles are based on what we value, and commonly held moral principles on what is most universally valued. In that sense it is subjective because it is based on the valuations of subjects. So, if we want to live harmoniously with our fellows, we should not lie, steal, rape, murder and so on. This means that moral principles are always conditional upon that "if" that introduces what is (not necessarily universally) valued. — Janus

OK, so that leaves the question of whether something can be valuable even if it is not valued or recognized.

The opposing answers to that distinguish moral realism from ethical subjectivism.

As I've already discussed, the action itself is wrong. Whereas you seem to think that right and wrong are in the mind. Is that right?

The action itself isn't language, is it? — Terrapin Station

No, it is not.

The action itself is, for example, Joe murdering Bill. It's the physical action of Joe taking a gun, say, and shooting Bill in the head. It's been claimed that the action itself somehow has the property of being morally wrong (or whatever moral properties someone wants to claim). — Terrapin Station

Yes. What Joe did was wrong. That seems like a perfectly ordinary and meaningful sentence to me. It is his action that we are condemning.

From the Oxford dictionary definition for wrong:
Noun: An unjust, dishonest, or immoral act.

This is essentially no different than discussing religious beliefs with Christians, say, and it's nothing like discussing something with people who are interested truth from a philosophical or scientific perspective, whatever the truth may be, whether it's what you'd ideally like it to be or not. — Terrapin Station

Any worthwhile philosophical discussion involves paying attention to the logic of the language being used. And I notice that in our discussion, I've been the only one that has linked in and discussed the relevant science, including in the post that you previously responded to.

And evidence for that (the action itself being right or wrong) would be? — Terrapin Station

That human beings share the same biology and need for self-preservation and well-being (including for offspring and allies). So moral language builds in that common standard.

Note that there is a parallel situation with color perception. Most of us perceive a red traffic light as red. But blind people will not. Yet it is nonetheless the convention that the traffic light is red regardless of whether you are blind or even if no-one is around to see it at all.

That's not because traffic lights have red percepts attached to them, but simply because the same perceptual standard is applied whenever we talk about traffic lights. It's the same with morality.

Are you confident that common feeling was not always against slavery? Could it not be that the common people were simply not in situations that allowed them to act to bring it to an end, or even openly protest against it? — Janus

Perhaps that is so. Certainly basic human nature/biology hasn't changed in the time frame. Though knowledge and circumstances have.

In any case it would seem that our prosperous lives are dependent on slavery today; it's just that it is far enough away from our sight to allow us to pretend that we don't support it by consuming what we do. — Janus

Yes, so it's an argument that can be made (or challenged) on moral grounds. That is, given that we value life and well-being, and that we can empirically investigate the world, what conclusions follow?

When a sincere speaker says "The cat is on the mat", unless they're mistaken, there is a cat on the mat.

I didn't write that, because I wasn't talking solely about what it takes for a speaker to be mistaken(for their belief statements to be false). I was also talking about what it takes for their statement to be meaningful and sincere as well. — creativesoul

You might be interested in Grice's conversational maxims which cover this sort of thing. In particular the maxim of quality is that you should not say what you believe is false or lack adequate evidence for.

It's a common misunderstanding. You aren't the first, and you won't be the last. Even a dinosaur like Banno has these kind of misunderstandings. — S

:-) It's hard to keep up. Back in the day, what was real was real and what was moral was moral!

I'm not presenting a model per se. I'm describing what's really going on ontologically. Are you simply avoiding claims about what's really going on ontologically? — Terrapin Station

No, the moral realist is representing what is going on ontologically. The Alice and Bob cliff scenario shows two different kinds of action that is important for human beings to recognize and distinguish between - hence the creation of moral language to do so.

Your usage does not make that distinction - it instead redefines moral terms to express one's approval. But approval (or disapproval) is one's response to an action (which is something additional that is going on ontologically), it does not represent the nature of the action itself (which is itself right or wrong).

Part of the reason I'm focusing on what's really going on ontologically is that it's necessary for epistemological purposes here, especially when there's a disagreement and anyone is claiming that someone else is simply wrong a la getting something incorrect/inaccurate. — Terrapin Station

Just as with any non-normative disagreement, one would argue by appealing to what is observed and any relevant implications related to that. That may result in minds being changed in some situations, as occurred with attitudes to slavery.

Is not Bob's action moral or immoral on account of what would be the normal, or the most common, human attitude to it? — Janus

No, per realism, that would merely be the common attitude or feeling about what was moral. A case in point is human slavery which common attitudes and feelings have progressed on. But it was always wrong irrespective of the common feelings, ideas or attitudes at the time. Conceivably in the future some of our own common attitudes might also be shown to be wrong.

Bob's action is moral to Bob if he approves of it. X is always moral or immoral (or whatever else on the spectrum, including morally neutral) to someone, to some individual. — Terrapin Station

Yes, so we have two different models for using moral terms. On my model, whether or not Bob's action is moral is independent of whether anyone approves of it or thinks it is moral - which is what makes it a realist model.

What I had said was "if you have a suggestion about how how we could have a 'realist' ethics, I'll take a critical look at it and comment." In other words, some sort of support for how a realist ethics could be possible, ontologically. I was looking for what you took to be a support, and then I would critically assess it. That people think of ethics as something real ontologically (and it's a dubious claim that most people think of it that way) isn't a support for it being real. People can have misconceptions, false beliefs, etc. — Terrapin Station

I'm showing, via the Alice and Bob scenario, the meaning and application of moral terms on my model. Just as I might point at a red apple and say that that is what I mean by "apple" or the color property "red".

Then, abstracting from similar scenarios that we would ordinarily regard as moral, what they seem to have in common is that they are behaviors that promote life and well-being.

How did you get to this claim. It's coming out of nowhere. — Terrapin Station

I'm contrasting it with what I understand your view to be. That Bob's action is moral if he approves of it. Or have I misunderstood your view?

If you're not using "real" in an unusual way, you did zero work above to support the idea. — Terrapin Station

I'm describing a conventional use which is based in observation. What work are you looking for?

So I'm confused how you're using "realist" and "real" then. — Terrapin Station

How so? If Bob pushes someone of a cliff (ceteris paribus), then what he did was morally wrong. Bob's opinion or approval of it isn't relevant.

A property (whether color or toxicity) need not be universal to be real.
— Andrew M

I'm not sure how you're using "universal" there, and I haven't at all been saying anything about that. I wasn't making a point about whether anything is "universal" or not. — Terrapin Station

I mean the scope of a property. A property can have a limited scope (e.g., only be applicable to human beings) and still be real.

Re the rest of the post, if you have a suggestion about how how we could have a "realist" ethics, I'll take a critical look at it and comment. — Terrapin Station

According to Patricia Churchland (see this review of her book Touching a Nerve), a mammal's care for its young is the biological root of morality. And over time that has evolved into more universal principles.

Conceptually, we make the distinction between morally good and bad actions in observation. Compare, for example, Alice saving a person from falling off a cliff versus Bob pushing a person over a cliff. We might want to avoid being around Bob (at least near cliffs). That's the kind of pragmatic distinction that creates the use for realist moral language.

Yes. Quality in this sense, any judgment whatsoever that anything is better or worse than something else, is about persons' preferences. The world outside of minds couldn't care less what the ingredients are, how old the ingredients are, whether the ingredients are going to make us sick or not, it has no "proper" versus "improper," etc. — Terrapin Station

Whether the ingredients are going to make us sick or not is not a matter of personal preference. It's a real state of affairs.

Whatever else someone thinks about it, color is not at all similar to assessments/judgments like good/bad, better/worse, proper/improper, high quality/low quality, etc. — Terrapin Station

But what you said above would seem to apply here as well. The world outside minds couldn't care less how you perceive color. Yet the way in which you perceive an object is nonetheless real, and not a matter of personal preference.

A property (whether color or toxicity) need not be universal to be real.

Tim Maudlin's comment reflected my concerns about this 'experiment':

What the philosophical debate is about is whether moral claims have objective truth conditions. What “the folk” think about the matter is neither here nor there. If one is interested in that sociological question, that’s fine, but presenting this issue as pertinent to the “long and complex philosophical debate” obscures the nature of the research being done.
— Tim Maudlin — ChrisH

I see language (including moral language) as serving a pragmatic purpose for humans. Understanding that purpose (or purposes) can shed light on what a natural and empirical version of moral realism might look like.

In that sense, it can parallel or extend the evolving understanding of realism in science generally. For example, physicists and philosophers of science are almost universally realists about quantum mechanics, but the many different and varied interpretations provide philosophical insight into how realism should best be understood.

Whereas if they say, "That pizza tastes good", they are likely commenting on the high quality of that particular pizza. So a use can be objective, even when discussing pizza.
— Andrew M

No, it can't. There is no objective quality (in that sense of the word "quality," I'm not saying there are no objective properties.) — Terrapin Station

A low quality pizza might have old ingredients and be partially cooked (or burnt), whereas a high quality pizza would have fresh ingredients and be properly cooked. Do you reject pizza quality as objective because it depends on facts about humans (e.g., what is edible, healthy, palatable, etc.)?

If so, does that then carry over to other properties as well such as an object's color?

Some may, Some may not. Do most people have a clear idea of 'philosophical' objectivity (whatever that is)? — ChrisH

Maybe not. But we can still analyze people's use of moral terms or ask more concrete questions such as, "Was slavery morally OK in the past when people approved of it?" Compare with, "Was the Earth the center of the universe in the past when people believed that it was?"

It seems to me that people use moral language in many different ways and senses. As you pointed out earlier "people use language in more nuanced ways than they're often given credit for".. — ChrisH

Yes, so it is an empirical question. For one interesting piece of empirical research on what people believe, see https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/on-the-human/2010/12/objective-moral-truths/ . Also see Brian Leiter's comment which brings up relevant issues.

No, it can't. There is no objective quality (in that sense of the word "quality," I'm not saying there are no objective properties.) — Terrapin Station

OK, interesting. Before continuing down that path, I'm curious about your answers to the other parts of my post.

Do you think people ordinarily intend objectivity when making moral claims?

Do you think that well-being (and suffering) is something we can make objective claims about?

I don't know if you never understand what I write or if you never really want to address it. — Terrapin Station

Alright, I'll try again.

When people comment on pizza, they can be talking about their own subjective preferences or they can be talking about the pizza in an objective sense. If a person says, "Pizza tastes good", they are likely expressing their personal preference. We agree on that. Whereas if they say, "That pizza tastes good", they are likely commenting on the high quality of that particular pizza. So a use can be objective, even when discussing pizza.

If a person says, "Kicking puppies is wrong", then the implication is that they intend that in an objective sense, not merely as an expression of their own subjective preference.

So there are two separate issues. Do people ordinarily intend objectivity when making moral claims? And, if they do, are there moral states of affairs or not?

So we're assuming Aristotle's ethics or something? — Terrapin Station

No. But you seem to find it strange that morality could have anything to do with well-being when there are major philosophical traditions that claim just that. But leaving that claimed connection aside for now, do you think that well-being (and suffering) is something we can make objective claims about? For example, that kicking a puppy causes it suffering?

Apply the open question... Are well-being and good the very same? Could one have well-being and yet not be good? Could one be good and yet not have well-being? — Banno

Are they synonomous? No. Are they related? It would seem so. So it is valid to investigate what that relationship might be. Our moral reports are data that we seek to explain.

A similar question can be asked about what is real. Is it synonomous with what we perceive? No. Yet we suspect there is a relationship. So we propose theories and explanations that would make sense of our perceptual reports.

Is it good to rely on such extensive exegesis? Does this make one's moral choices more transparent or simply fog them over? — Banno

Yes, an argument can get too far removed from the data it is seeking to explain. It doesn't follow that the data is self-explanatory. Moral disagreement, as with perceptual disagreement, is a thing.

First, people don't normally just say "Yay pizza" or whatever. They say things like "Pizza tastes good," "Pizza is the best," etc. Do you believe that by virtue of that, "Pizza tastes good" is significantly different than "Yay pizza" would be? — Terrapin Station

You can try the sentences in different contexts to see if they're different.

(1) I used to like pizza but now I don't
(2) Pizza used to taste good but now it doesn't

The first sentence seems to say something about your changing preferences, the second seems to say something about the quality of pizza these days (or perhaps a change in your taste buds).

so too can humans act in ways that increase or decrease well-being.
— Andrew M

Re this, what does it have to do with morality? — Terrapin Station

Kicking puppies or robbing people is generally understood to decrease their well-being. Well-being (eudaimonia) is central to Aristotle's (and arguably Plato's) ethics and political philosophy. It also has parallels in utilitarianism and consequentialism (e.g., as human welfare).

People use gustatory language as if gustatory properties were objective ("the pizza is delicious").

People use language inconsistently. — ChrisH

That's one possible explanation. Another is that people use language in more nuanced ways than they're often given credit for.

Even if that were the case, anything with an intentional property isn't going to be objective — Terrapin Station

This is just the point at issue. People use moral terms as if morality were objective.

The Aristotelian claim is that a functional purpose can fit that criterion, namely well-being. Just as animals can act in ways that increase or decrease their survival prospects, so too can humans act in ways that increase or decrease well-being.

Alternatively, if moral terms merely express emotional attitudes then it raises the question of what purpose the connotation of objectivity serves. Why don't people just say "yay" or "boo"?

Conceivability needs a bit more detail than just stipulating that something is conceivable, no? — Terrapin Station

I'm just pointing out that things can have intentional properties without first requiring that they be recognized (or judged, preferred, evaluated, explained, etc.), which is what you seemed to be challenging.

So your task would be to explain either how we get to "x is human well being" without it being a judgment, preference, evaluative property etc., — Terrapin Station

It can be a possible (functional) explanation for why particular actions are right or wrong just as Newtonian Mechanics and Einsteinein Relativity are possible explanations for why apples fall out of trees. Apples presumably fell out of trees before there were any humans around to offer explanations or even perceive them. Similarly, actions can conceivably be moral (or not) absent any explanation or even recognition of that.

So the issue then is what explanation best captures what is going on when we use moral terms and how we might test possible explanations.

I think one relevant question is whether people's ordinary use of of moral terms connotes objectivity or subjectivity. For example, if Bob changed his mind about slavery, would he say that slavery used to be moral until he changed his mind, or that it was never moral and he was previously wrong to think that it was?

I agree that the intentional may be understood to be a part of the empirical context, but not in the same way as perceptible events are. — Janus

Yes, it isn't something concrete that can be perceived like rain. Instead it is an abstraction that can be considered part of the world. Similar to information, as discussed in the Is 'information' physical? thread.

Also the fact (if it is a fact) that most people think that something is good, and therefore ought to be valued, does not entail that the people who value whatever it is ought to do so. — Janus

Right.

The difference is that the former will be true only in some intentional context, not in any purely existential or empirical context, whereas the latter will be true in an existential or empirical context. — Janus

If you make that kind of distinction, sure. But you can also hold the view that the intentional is part of the existential or empirical context as, for example, Aristotle did.

Conditional on some standard or value that's not a judgment, assessment, evaluative property, etc.? — Terrapin Station

Right. So to give an Aristotelian example, if human well-being (eudaimonia) is the standard (independent of people's opinions about it), then that would ground moral judgments.

What would you argue that "good" is if not a judgment or assessment? — Terrapin Station

A state of affairs (presumably conditional on some standard or value). So the judgment "I ought to save the child from being run over" can be true (in some context) just as the judgment "it is raining" can be true (in some context).