OK, I'll try for a short one. We're talking about two things contradicting each other. Whether those two things are theories about empirical observations, propositions of some logic, or ethical policies. A contradiction is a contradiction.

If A causes B, you can't advocate both the persuit of policy A and the avoidance of outcome B without being contradictory. So for a start, I don't understand why you're suggesting such a generous, charitable type of inquiry when it comes to ethics, when you yourself follow a much more demanding and confrontational approach with other fields (say epistemology, ontology, meta-ethics... ). I don't really get from your approach in those areas that you're thinking other people are probably right from their perspective.

I think you're basically taking the idea that ethics has no 'right' and 'wrong' to mean that no one can ever say anything wrong in any ethical discussion. But a contradiction is still a contradiction. Incoherence is still incoherence. Empirical evidence (with regards to something like consequences of policies) is still empirical evidence. Why are you treating these issues within ethical discussion with such open charity, where you don't in other fields of thought?

I'd have to dig for why I thought this, but I thought that re your "assuming the likelihood of broad conformity" you were talking about broad conformity re ethical normatives.

"Does not like to hold contradictory ideas" isn't an ethical normative, of course. — Terrapin Station

It was, but the point I'm making is not specific to ethical normatives, so I used a more obvious example, to make it clearer. It's about the utility of assuming some common baseline views so as not to have to ask for the full set before engaging (which might be enormous). Whether those opinions are common because we're all fairly rational (and such conclusions are amenable to rational thought), or whether those conclusions are common because they are somewhat compassionate and by and large, humans have empathy.

As to what I'd assume, no, neither A nor B. For two reasons.

1. Why would I assume a person was right where their conclusions differed from mine, but where their originating or co-existing principles seem (even if only by my assumption) to be the same as mine? That would be tantamount to assuming I was wrong. Now I may be, but it would be utterly foolish to go about simply assuming I'm wrong. If I think I'm wrong I should change my views.

2. I post on this forum to have my ideas challenged. I'm not so arrogant as to think anyone would be interested in them wholesale. I make a reasonable assumption that at least most others post for the same reasons, so I'd be letting them down if I were to just say "well I'm sure that all makes sense to you" and leave it at that. Most people like to be challenged, and the ones that don't, I'm not interested in talking to.

As to that making it seem I assume people are "too stupid, naive, careless or whatever to have realized this before your brilliant mind came along and noticed it for them", this concept undermines the whole point of discussion. If everything I say is so basic and obvious that everyone I speak to has already thought of it, then what's the point in posting? And I know you don't feel that way so I'm confused as to why you'd bring this up? Obviously in my simplified example it's pretty obvious, but most discussions are more complicated than that and it's perfectly reasonable to think someone might not have spotted a flaw which you have.

you weren't thinking that I was claiming something contradictory, were you? I'm pretty sure that you simply had a problem with me not holding something you take to be an ethical/normative commonality, holding something that you disagree with. — Terrapin Station

You've either missed or forgotten the position I forwarded to begin this little sub-section. I'll try to be clearer.

1. You almost certainly have not posted all of you're views here, you hold both moral and rational beliefs which you have not written out in full here.

2. In the absence of your elucidation, I've assumed some of those moral and rational beliefs on the basis of my experience with normal human beings. I've assumed them rather than asked, for the reasons I've already given. For example, if you said "old people shouldn't receive free health care" I would assume your argument is economic, not because you have a psychopathic hatred of old people. I assume the former because it's very unlikely someone with such a psychopathic hatred would be composed enough to to write otherwise thoughtful comments on other matters.

3. I think aspects of your moral position with regards free speech contradict these other positions I assume you hold on the basis of being a normal averagely compassionate human being.

That's why earlier I (with tounge in cheek, I hope you realise) said that you must be a sociopath. I'm saying that your views here contradict some other views of normal socially concerned people which I assume you have.

I also reserve the right to form, and argue from, an opinion of your Web of beliefs other than the exact picture you slowly present. I'm not simply going to take everyone's word for everything they say without comment. If I think someone is claiming to hold a view, simply to avoid admitting an error (people do), where I don't think they genuinely hold it, I'll say so. As I've said before, my route into ethics was via psychology, so my approach is perhaps tainted by that.

It's not that you are undivided, it's that everything is undivided. — T Clark


Sorry, but I've just peeled a mandarin. And it is indeed divided. In fact almost every sensible object is divisible into parts, some of them, like mandarins, into sub-parts. So whatever the sentiment you're wanting to express here, it regrettably doesn't conform with the testimony of sense. — Wayfarer

What a facetious trivialising of what was a very thoughtful point. Your personal incredulity does not constitute an argument. What lends you the arrogance to think that whatever makes sense to you is what sense itself is constituted of?

It's a bit more complicated than just a blanket "14 is the age of consent" in Germany. It can still be considered rape if the other person is over 21 and if the 14 year old felt exploited, for example. — Artemis

Yes, this, I think, is a really good way of balancing the duty of care with a minimal imposition on freedoms. We allow adolescents to do whatever they want with their own bodies, but we recognise that they may need some special protection whilst doing so, like riding with stabilisers.

could you give at least a fictional example of how you think this would work for usefulness? — Terrapin Station

The trouble is (and the reason I wrote my post the way I did) that the conclusion of utility depends on you agreeing with my premises. You've already implied that you don't. I'm happy to give an example to further clarify what they mean, but basically, if you disagree with any of those premises, you're going to disagree with the utility in the example.

Say someone states "I think all women should wear the hijab", and "I think all people should be treated equally". We have two choices...

We can say "oh, how interesting" - pointless, unless for some reason we're curating a collection of 'opinions from the Internet'

Or, we can assume, like most people, they do not like to hold contradictory ideas and argue that their position is flawed because the one idea contradicts the other.

They might come back and say "I don't care if two ideas I hold are contradictory", in which case our efforts have been wasted on them, but not on us, we still had the mental excerise of spotting the flaws. So the discussion has still been more useful with the assumption than without.

We could, as a third option, simply ask "do you mind having two contradictory ideas" but there are two problems with this. First, it is inefficient, we'd have to waste time asking stuff for which the answer is 'yes' 99% of the time. Secondly, unless we're curating ideas, if the answer is 'no' we've got nowhere and haven't even benefitted from the mental excerise of 'spotting the flaws'.

So, in all, it is more useful to the interlocutors, by my broad definition of what use these discussions might reasonably have, to simply assume the OP shares the common trait of not liking to hold contradictory views, rather than to not.

I haven't recently read Wilhelm Reich (like the Mass Psychology of Fascism or The Function of the Orgasm). It seems to me he promoted greater sexual autonomy for adolescents. — Bitter Crank

Not someone I've read. To be honest, despite the subject matter, sexual autonomy isn't really my main gripe, it's autonomy in general. I dislike the way that a requirement for care becomes a rope with which to restrain. I don't think it's healthy for the children or the adults doing the restraining.

But I'm always keen to try new authors, so thanks for the name.

Because the voting age is arbitrary, set by a decision of the democracy. It makes no more sense to make it 16 or 18 or 21 — Hanover

You said earlier it was based on competence, now you're saying it makes no sense. Which is it?

The age a society chooses for anything is based upon democratic and political reasons. No where does it say that a properly running democracy must base its decisions upon some scientific reason. — Hanover

That may well be the mechanism, but it doesn't have any bearing on the presentation of moral or scientific arguments to that demos in order to try and persuade them of a better course of action. Their choices may be the final arbiter, but they are not arbitrary.

A specific question: Should a 6 year old be permitted to consent to sex with an adult? — Hanover

One cannot permit consent. Consent is an expressed state of mind. One can treat consent as sufficient justification or not, usually on the basis of whether such consent is sufficiently informed and not coerced. I can't see any way in which a six year old could be either. I have a hard time indeed believing a 14 year old has neither, and if they do, it is more likely the result of society's error in their upbringing, which is what then needs adjustment, not their freedom.

Why then can't an adult simply choose someone else to have sex with if society is telling them not to? — Hanover

Really? This is, I suspect, at the root cause of much of this moralising. The treatment of children like they're mindless property without any genuine feelings. "Choose to have sex with someone else"? Since when do we just 'choose' who to have sex with, like some supermarket shelf. Imagine talking to an adult couple like that. "Having trouble with your sex life, why don't you just choose to have sex with someone else?". Apologies if romanticism is a bit passe here, but in my world people fall in love (or at least in lust) and have sex with the object of their carnal affection, it's not a game of musical chairs.

You haven't provided any evidence that they are 'fine' in Germany or that being 'fine' in Germany translates to being 'fine' everywhere else or even what 'fine' is in measurable terms — Baden

I think you and I might be working from different principles of justice. I don't think we should be taking anyone's freedom away without pretty overwhelming evidence that doing so is necessary for their wellbeing. A reckon isn't enough, a reversal of the burden of proof isn't enough. If, for you, it is necessary to prove lack of harm beyond the level of a functioning social system, then I presume you would have been against lowering the age of consent for homosexual sex, since no such evidence was presented there.

As I said earlier, we do not, in other circumstances, simply restrict freedoms based on some guesswork about what might be in people's best interests, so why are adolescents made an exception to this rule?

It's as if you're claiming that any social policy that doesn't cause such obvious harm that it would be general knowledge to a foreigner must be a good idea and must be a good idea universally. — Baden

Ag good idea? No. Since when have we made laws restricting people's freedom on the basis of "a good idea". It's undoubtedly a good idea to eat less bacon, should we legislate against that? No, my argument is that it is not demonstrably a sufficiently bad idea to warrant restricting someone's freedom in such an intrusive way.

Why 14 and not 13? Why 13 and not 12? Is it that you share the same concerns as others but simply make different presumptions about the level of maturity of children of a certain age? — Baden

It's not a presumption, given the approach I've outlined above. 13 may well be fine, but we've no real way of knowing so there I think debate (among experts) is warranted. 14, we actually have the evidence of three European countries from which we can collect data (and we have done so many times). If there's a lot of call from 13 year olds to be allowed to have sex, then it might need to be considered, likewise 12, but I can't see it really. There's a biological limit below which it's simply not normal to want sex and never will be. It's not a slippery slope.

The trouble it it seems more than that, and somewhat endemic here. If the arguments start out that way, at least I can dismiss them early as mere proselytising. But they don't. They start out within a web of rational justification and only when other people start to pick at the strands does it deteriorate into "that's just how I feel". It seems to have happened here, its happened discussing meta-ethics, consciousness, most religious discussions and almost anything 'continental'.

Hope that helps. — fdrake

But doesn't the 'self-' bit of 'self-identity' as...

"the perception or recognition of one's characteristics as a particular individual, especially in relation to social context."

...contradict

"Gender refers to the socially constructed characteristics of women and men – such as norms, roles and relationships of and between groups of women and men. It varies from society to society and can be changed. While most people are born either male or female, they are taught appropriate norms and behaviours – including how they should interact with others of the same or opposite sex within households, communities and work places."

One cannot seem to self-identify by the first criteria as a member of some category in the second definition because the second definition makes it clear such membership criteria are taught and imposed by culture, not determined freely by individuals.

Isn't this the nub of the feminist concern about transgender issues, that society's imposed criteria for 'womanhood' become some fixed biological trait that people are born with, identifiable by the self, not imposed by the culture?

Yes, but as I've just pointed out above, we don't really need to have a big discussion. The age of consent is 14 in Germany, they're fine, job done. Anyone wanting to set it higher will have to point to some clear evidence of harm in Germany, otherwise its sounding more like an excuse to moralise than a concern for their welfare. Likewise with voting, 16 in Scotland, there's been no constitutional collapse, so there's absolutely no excuse for it being any higher anywhere else in the world. Likewise with alcohol, 16 in Germany, no major problems among teenagers, so the 21 in the American Bible belt is unjustifiable.

If one wanted to argue lower than these ages, that would be a different matter. Not impossible, given that we have to guess anyway, but certainly a discussion to be had. But where there is clear evidence from entire countries full of teenagers, I really don't see it's even a matter of debate.

Going off on a big tangent about my comments, my motivations for posting what/how I post on boards like this, etc. does nothing to answer the question I asked about something you said. — Terrapin Station

Well, whether it helped you or not, it was an honest attempt to answer your question. I'll try again.

So, assuming the likelihood of broad conformity is useful in discussions like this in your opinion because of what? What's the usefulness? — Terrapin Station

1. The purpose of discussions like these is for your interlocutors to spot flaws in your argument, either for sport, for genuine persuasion (for those that think such a thing might work), or to simply act as editors and proofreaders to help hone argumentative skills.

2. Moral arguments such as the ones of yours I used as examples, are not isolated arbitrary policy opinions. They are connected by rational inference to other feelings, concepts etc. Therefore one of the flaws that can be spotted is something claiming to be a rational inference which is not, or one which is poorly expressed.

3. It is impractical (maybe even impossible) for a person to lay out their whole Web of beliefs prior, or even during, a discussion like this.

Therefore, to carry out 1 in a moral discussion, where the only errors are rational inferences between ideas, it makes sense to assume a relatively broad 'normal' range of beliefs at 2 because of the impracticality at 3. Especially as one is very likely to be broadly right in such an assumption.

The alternative is that discussion like this get dominated by teasing out the whole Web from one oddball, or we don't really have anything to discuss.

it's based upon the principle that those lacking the competence to make decisions be restrained from making decisions. — Hanover

No it isn't, otherwise they'd be a competency test to entitle one to vote. There is an estimation of competency made in some case, but not in the case of adolescents. 16 year olds are allowed to vote in Scotland but not in England. Are Scottish teenagers more competent than the English? No. Is Scotland collapsing under the strain of so much incompetent voting behaviour? No. So why are English 16 year olds not allowed to vote. Its not competency is it?

As a society we must create rules to protect our vulnerable citizens, and how we do that will necessarily be arbitrary and imprecise to some degree. If we're going to prohibit sexual activity between minors and adults, what is a legislature to do? Does it make a law that errs on the side of caution and make the age of consent high, or does it err on the side of freedom of expression and make the age of consent low? — Hanover

It really is not that complicated. There already exist countries in which the age of consent is 14. Are those countries collapsing under the burden of psychologically damaged teenagers? No. So when a country chooses 18 its not doing so on the basis of the child's welfare is it. It is evident from entire countries like Germany, Italy, Portugal etc that no endemic problems result from this, so states in America where it is set at 18 can't claim to be 'erring' on any side, its not guesswork, we have whole sections of Western Europe proving it's fine.

The risks of such sexual involvement to the children are well documented, as survivors of such abuse are left with a myriad of relationship and sexual issues. — Hanover

So the whole of Germany, Italy and Portugal are overrun with damaged teenagers, I'm surprised no thing's turned up in the literature.

to the extent we need to build more prisons, it should be for those who abuse children. For those folks I fear we have not enough beds. — Hanover

I agree entirely, but I fear my definition of abuse would not be the same as yours. I tend to include such trivial matters as detention without trial, isolation, assault, psychological abuse and forced labour. All of which are simply considered fine below 16 in most countries.

Much of this is to say that the laws do not regulate children; they regulate adults. — Hanover

This is just more of the same patronising stuff. Of course the laws regulate children. There are two partners in a sexual relationship and few people are so callous as to just take whatever they want so long as the consequences fall on someone else, particularly if that someone else is their sexual partner.

Well actually we do both. — unenlightened

No - we don't, that's the point. We do not do both with any other section of the community, so I'm asking you why it's OK with adolescents. It's not OK to protect women from rape by making them dress more demurely. It's not OK to protect blacks from racial violence at football games by telling them not to go. So why is it OK to protect adolescents from predatory sexual activity by telling them not to have any sex at all?

You've not provided any evidence at all that children need the level of control we exert over them. The mere fact that "humans are born helpless and remain vulnerable and inarticulate for some time." has no bearing whatsoever on the matter of when an adolescent can freely choose who to have sex with without fear of legal reprisals. Nor, for that matter on the long list of other stuff we restrict them from doing.

Babies need 100% care (they don't get it most of the time, being dumped in cots and left to cry themselves to sleep, but apparently we don't give a shit about that). As babies grow up, they need less care and control until they reach 25 when the brain seems to finally settle down. The mere existence of a scale of care doesn't automatically justify any intervention we decide to make, it must be proportionate to the care required so as not to treat autonomy without due importance.

Ages of consent vary dramatically throughout the world from 11 to 18. There is no conclusive evidence in the psychological literature that this makes any difference at all to children's welfare. So we justify telling 15 year olds what to do with their own body how exactly?

There is a tradition derived from biology that the young need extra protection in various ways, including legal protection, and protection from adults and their own folly. — unenlightened

Really, what 'biology' would this be?

Your question is a bit of a feeble rhetorical gimmick, when there are extremely serious issues to be considered, as my link was intended to highlight. — unenlightened

I can assure you that I take the attempt to suppress the autonomy of an entire demographic on spurious 'biological' grounds very seriously indeed. As should anyone with any experience of the kind of bullshit that was spewed out to defend the oppression of women on the same 'biological' grounds. There are some appalling things done to children, as there are to adults. We respond by making the appalling thing illegal. We do not respond by removing the autonomy of an entire swathe of the population over their own bodies, just as a precaution.

Well, if you have any evidence whatsoever for any of that, it would certainly make an interesting read.

If I linked to a description of sex trafficking rings and debt-prostitution rackets with adult women would that suggest we should make it illegal for women to have sex too?

Well, I'm glad @Bitter Crank has put a first toe out of line as I'd be reluctant to be the only gainsayer in such a contentious topic, but a lot of my work in psychology has been with adolescents and the idea that they don't fully understand consent below 15 is frankly laughable. I knew plenty of young people in my career who could run rings round half the posters here in any ethical argument.

I think it's frankly disingenuous to pretend the imposition of any of these kinds of restrictions is anything other than adults imposing their particular view of the way things should be on a demographic too disempowered to do anything about it. Adolescents are the only group left who still suffer taxation without representation... you know, the right revolutions have been fought over.

What we should be doing is empowering young people to make their own decisions. We should be encouraging their latent abilities to make rational, informed choices, supportively creating an environment where "no" means no, not telling them they're too stupid to decidewhat they do with their own bodies, too gullible to be trusted with anyone other than their own peers.

I would perhaps have more sympathy for the intentions of the lawmakers if they weren't the same group condoning placing children in isolation rooms for having the wrong haircut. It's hard to see they've got the child's best interests at heart. A lot of the legislation around children is more aimed at getting them to conform than it is about their protection.

And I've been saying OVER AND OVER that I'm talking about whether it's physically possible for there to be something not "able" to be either positively or negatively valued. — Terrapin Station

I already answered that. With examples.

The brain (which does the valuing) is just a machine. I can't think of any good reason at all not to think that the limits and trends we observe in psychology are limits and trends imposed by the physical make up of that machine.

Valuing is a thing that machine does, so I don't see any reason not to presume that the limits and trends we observe (with respect to valuing) are not limits and trends imposed by the machine.

We have not yet observed an undamaged brain morally valuing a pile of sick, we have a sound theory as to the mechanism that might cause such a limit, so it's completely reasonable to hold the theory that a pile of sick is not morally valuable (ie cannot be valued by the machine that does valuing). — Isaac

I asked you why you were bringing up the idea of "healthy"/"undamaged" (I know why, but I want you to address the crap you're trying to "sneak in"), and you first responded with some oblique nonsense without answering the question, and here you bring it up again. — Terrapin Station

I already answered that too.

I'm saying that moral valuing can reasonably be said to be an activity that healthy, undamaged minds do. Healthy, undamaged minds are machines, the range of possible functions of which are limited. It is not unreasonable to form theories about what those limits might be based on our observations. One of those theories might well be to do with the limits of what it is possible for these brains to morally value. — Isaac

Your latest question was

So what would be something that you believe it would be physically impossible to positively or negatively value? — Terrapin Station

So I answered that too.

I'd say it's impossible for an undamaged infant brain to negatively value it's caregiver. — Isaac

Then you start in with...

all of this Aspieish crap, and you don't answer one friggin question. — Terrapin Station

...in response. Hence my reasonable assumption that things had got a bit heated.

Now, do you have a question that I haven't already answered, or is there some answer I've given that you find unsatisfactory?

Say which subset of your values you want to identify moral values with and we'll take it from there. — Bartricks

@Echarmion is already following this exact same line of argument. I won't bother duplicating unless I think I have something different to add. The subset of my values which I would identify with moral values are my moral values (ie those values which relate to the treatment of others particularly where I value their welfare). This is as any subjectivist would, but I don't even agree with your definition of morality as a set of values in the first place, I'm a virtue ethicist, so I'm already having to talk hypothetically to fit your axioms.

So just what is the usefulness in discussion of assuming that? Is it supposed to imply something? What? — Terrapin Station

OK, so we may have different ideas of what a discussion is, and I'm sure as soon as I present mine, you'll pick at some specific aspect of the wording, so perhaps you'd give me your wording to work with. I know you've said before that you post here to sharpen your argumentative skills (or something like that), but with matters of morality - like that hate speech should not be banned -why post that? What would be your purpose for posting all the information you have done about that fact that you think freedom of speech should be absolute, that we should not criminalise any non-physical act...(don't get hung up if I've paraphrased your positions wrongly, that's not the point), if it's all just arbitrary. I don't buy it.

Your first comment on this thread was

In my view, yes. I'm a free speech absolutist.

I don't agree that speech can actually cause violence. People deciding to be violent causes violence. — Terrapin Station

Are you suggesting that those two statements are linked arbitrarily? I think anyone could see why I might find that hard to believe. It seems clear that the latter is given in support of the former, ie you believe that the former "yes" is not sound on it's own, but must be supported by an argument that free speech doesn't cause violence.

It's your choice, your responsibility, to follow orders or not. There's no way I'd follow an order to kill anyone if I didn't think it was justified to kill them. And then that's on me, because it was my choice. — Terrapin Station

Again, an argument to support your absolutism - that following orders is a choice, implying that if following orders was not a choice your absolutism would not be so tenable a position to hold. Again undermining your assertion that your absolutism is just a gut feeling as arbitrary as any other. I could continue...every quote I find from you on the matter gives the clear impression that your absolutism is a reasoned position, that you've rationally derived it from (or at least checked it against) other principles that you hold (non-violence, autonomy, responsibility...)

Given the involvement of some rational derivation or checking, it is possible that you have made an error in some or all of those stages, and that, being a rational error, it is something that others who think rationally could reasonably point out.

Now you've not provided us with a full account of all the other principles that you might derive or check your policy opinions against, nor would it be practical to do so.

So, for the purposes of pointing out flaws in your position - which is what we're all here for, whether as a mental exercise, or to genuinely (and in my view misguidedly) convince others of them - it is a reasonably pragmatic assumption for me to make that you share the normal human set of basic moral principles against which you might check your policy ideas.


In addition - I'm in agreement with you re Quinian Web of Beliefs. I tend to go further and believe that our beliefs are mostly genetically or socially acquired and that most rational thought is post hoc justification for the belief we already held. The point is that such though occasionally produces results so overwhelmingly contradictory that we are forced to change our beliefs. Anyway, when I talk about 'foundational moral principles', I'm not using foundational in the inverse-pyramidal Foundationalist sense. I merely mean that such principles act as nodes to the policies being discussed, that the policies are not isolated.

Here it is again with a subset:

1. If moral values are what-I-value-when-I-am-sitting-on-the-toilet, then if I value something when I am sitting on the toilet, necessarily it is morally valuable.

2. If I value something when I am sitting on the toilet it is not necessarily morally valuable

3. Therefore, moral values are not what-I-value-when-I-am-sitting-on-the-toilet. — Bartricks

Right. You're getting somewhere. But now, with proper account taken of subsets, your premise 2 is far less plausible. It's gone from implying that simply valuing something sensu lato makes it moral (so valuing something like vanilla ice cream makes it moral - obviously ridiculous) to saying only that some specific subset of your values are moral values. Now you've lost the ad absurdum argument. It's quite possible that some subset of your values are moral values. It's quite possible that their apparent categoricity is simply the near unanimity they have because of our shared evolutionary heritage, for example. You might not agree with that position, many don't, but the corrected version of the argument is far less conclusive than you've been presuming.

Simple. Its neither 'weight' nor 'importance' of consensus, its the liklihood of broad confirmity and the usefulness in discussion of assuming it.

Yeah, whatever. I'm gradually learning I feel much better about my involvement here if I just stop responding when it gets to this kind of crap. "You don't know what you're talking about" is kind of a red flag. Happy to resume when you've calmed down, otherwise not.

So what would be something that you believe it would be physically impossible to positively or negatively value? — Terrapin Station

I'm not talking about positive or negative values sensu lato, I'm referring to moral values. I'm sorry if I've caused any confusion with sloppy shorthand terms, but I think I specified in a number of cases that I'm talking about moral values.

But to answer your question directly, I'd say it's impossible for an undamaged infant brain to negatively value it's caregiver. Brains just aren't wired that way, we have no examples of it happening (in undamaged brains) and we have sound theories as to both the mechanism which ensures it and the reason such a mechanism may have evolved.

I'd say its impossible to positively value extreme pain. Mild pain may be at a level where other feelings can override the base reaction, but at extreme levels we see autonomous circuits engage which force negative responses. Again, the undamaged brain is simply wired to produce negative responses to extreme pain.

Even flatworms, when placed in a resource-poor environment show a drop in serotonin, which, in humans is somewhat correlated with negative feelings. You'd have to first make a compelling argument for human exceptionalism before asserting that we do not have the same basic mechanisms limiting our range of responses.

Plus, I should add, we're also not talking about 'impossible'. As I said, it's not 'impossible' to ride a neutrino, it just doesn't seem at all likely given our current theories. It's that same basis I'm using here. Psychological theories are considerably less certain than theories of physics, but they are not categorically different, so any change in approach on the basis of that uncertainty would be arbitrary.

Aside from the fact that you're claiming to know everything anyone has ever proposed — Terrapin Station

You of all people should know that knowledge claims are not based on absolute proof, come on!

you're aware that the measurement standards, per widespread acceptance, have not only changed over time, but there have been competing standards in effect simultaneously at various historical times, right? — Terrapin Station

Again, this is rather disingenuous considering your usual attention to detail. I was referring specifically to the real world length represented by one inch. It is a standard which I have good reason to believe no significant number of people dispute despite a population of 7 billion. That is a serious degree of agreement. I can't even get my family of four to agree where to go on an outing, to get virtually the entire globe to agree what length an inch is puts such a standard in a justifiably different category, one which quite reasonably admits of words like 'correct' even with the normative connotations.

If you just wanted to have a discussion about what the common views are, as if you were doing a bit of descriptive cultural anthropology, then yeah, you'd be less likely to talk about arbitrariness, etc.--or at least that would be a big sidebar for it.

Hopefully you'd not be of a view that a cultural norm amounts to a normative, because it doesn't. — Terrapin Station

Again, you're ignoring my argument re moral foundational principles vs moral 'views'. Abstenence from sex before marriage is a moral view with normative weight, but no one (and I mean no one) is simply born, or grows up with a gut feeling that they should abstain from sex before marriage. The position derives from more foundational ones (we should seek to follow the Bible, we should resist carnal temptation as a virtue, we should not cause harm to others - presuming such an act would result in harm, etc...). Even some of those will be based on even more foundational beliefs.

So when we discuss normative moral positions we make an assumption about shared foundational beliefs (at least within a broad range). It's no different to when we have any other type of conversation, we assume shared principles on things like logical thought, language use etc. If I had a conversation about mathematics I would not assume that the person I was speaking with had a completely different set of mathematical axioms to any I've encountered before. He might. But I hold the conversation on the quite reasonable assumption that he doesn't.

Just because I'm a moral subjectivist, doesn't mean I have to ignore the absolutely startling similarity in the subjective moral principles most people have as foundational. It's not only entirely pragmatic in the face of overwhelming supporting evidence, but I have a reasonable mechanism (in the mechanical limits of the brain) to explain such similarities.

We don't have to limit ourselves to cultural anthropology, nor do we have to concede to falling into the argumentum ad populum. To put it simply...

1. The overwhelming majority of people have their foundational morals constrained by the features of the machine which produces them (the brain).
2. It is a reasonable approach to conversation on a subject to assume that your interlocutors hold foundational views in common with you where those views are so widely held as to make it unlikely to encounter alternatives.
3. Further to 2, it is also reasonable to make such an assumption when not doing so would render the entire discussion pointless.
4. We reserve words such as 'correct' for situations where the standard of judgement is so widely agreed upon as to, again, make encountering objections extremely unlikely.
5. We give normative weight on the basis of such widespread agreement, not because of ad populum arguments, but because we have good reason to believe the interlocutor shares those standards even in the light of their refusal to acknowledge this (consider someone insisting the wood was five inches long and on being told they were wrong, its seven, they reply that its five "of my inches, which are different to yours". We'd quite reasonably just not believe them assuming rather that they're frantically trying to save face on their poor guesswork).

Why are you introducing words like "healthy" or "undamaged"? I'm not saying anything like that. — Terrapin Station

I'm saying that moral valuing can reasonably be said to be an activity that healthy, undamaged minds do. Healthy, undamaged minds are machines, the range of possible functions of which are limited. It is not unreasonable to form theories about what those limits might be based on our observations. One of those theories might well be to do with the limits of what it is possible for these brains to morally value.

This process (theorising about limits based on observations) is no different to any other epistemological venture, including the idea that one cannot ride a neutrino.

Here (and elsewhere) you seem to be working on the presumption that people can value anything, can have any foundational principles, can believe anything to be the case. The human brain is the source of all these feelings. It is a physical machines like any other, all physical machines we have so far encountered have had their range of options limited by their physical characteristics. I don't see any reason to think brains are any different and therefore theories can reasonably be held about objective limits to the feelings that they can have.

Your original claim, which I objected to was "If we're just saying that something is "able to be valued," nothing would be excluded from that."

Your assertion there that nothing would be excluded from that is a very controversial and wildly unsupported assertion for the complete uniqueness of the human brain among all other mechanisms (biological and merely physical) which we have ever encountered, all of which have had their range of possible states constrained by their natures.

Did you miss all of my comments about normatives, re how it's not correct to conform to the norm, etc.? We're not disagreeing over whether there's a norm or what it is. We're disagreeing that the norm is correct or that it implies a normative a la what anyone should do, etc. — Terrapin Station

The term 'correct' applies here to that which does not go beyond an assumed range of moral foundational positions (what @S is describing as "absurd conclusions"). And you're right, it does have normative weight. That's because we assume whilst having this discussion (the one about free speech, not the one we're having now) that you, along with everyone else taking part, have foundational moral principles within that range, and as such claiming a course of action was consistent with them (which again, we assume you are doing by advocating it), when such a course of action is actually not consistent with them, is 'incorrect'. To make a claim that something is consistent when it is not is 'incorrect'.

Now - the assumptions.

First, assuming that you have foundational moral principles that are within the normal range. This assumption is not only warranted on the grounds of reasonable expectation (positions outside of this range are rare and usually accompanied by other signs of mental disturbance), but it is necessary. It is reasonable that normative moral discussion needs to be had (we live in a community and so must find some mechanism of reaching consensus if only to make the behaviour of others more predictable). We cannot have normative discussions at all unless we assume some shared moral foundational principles.

Second, the assumption that you advocating a position is equivalent to you claiming it is consistent with your moral foundational principles. Again, this is a necessary assumption for discussion to take place. I agree, it might not be the case, someone might advocate a position and not give a fig that it doesn't match their foundational moral principles. But in such a case discussion is pointless, they might as well not take part.

P says "if moral values (all of them, not some of them) are my values (so, if being morally valuable is one and the same as being valued by me).

Q says "if I value something, necessarily it is morally valuable" — Bartricks

Let me try to explain the set objection like this. Consider 3 dimensional measurement (depth, height, width). Measuring is something a subject does, and something being measurable means it can be measured by a subject.

P says "if depth measurements (all of them, not some of them) are my measurements (so, if being depth-measurable is one and the same as being measured by me).

Q says "if I measure something, necessarily it is depth-measurable"

This is patently false, because it is possible for you to measure 2-dimensional objects, yet they are not depth-measurable, they have no depth.

All things in the set {things which are depth-measurable} are in the set {things which are measured by me} (not in the real world, of course, but in our hypothetical). But the set {things which are measured by me} is not exhaustively constituted by the set {things which are depth-measurable}, also there are {things which are height-measurable} and {things which are length-measurable}.

So simply saying things which are depth-measurable are measured by me does not sufficiently lead to the conclusion that if I measure something it is necessarily depth-measurable (it might be one of the other types measuring I do). To lead to your conclusion you need a stronger identity (as others have already pointed out). You need to say that depth measurements (morally values) are exhaustively the same as you measuring something (your values).

So your argument, as it stands, still allows that moral values are your values because it does not lead to absurdity you suggest (where simply by valuing something you make it morally valuable). It is possible to value something without making it morally valuable and still maintain that moral values are your values. You do this by claiming that moral values are a subset of your values. Same as aesthetic values are. So when I value something I might be morally valuing it, but I might not. I might be aesthetically valuing it. These are still all my values.

So, if you want to raise an objection to the idea that moral values are my values, you'll have to take a line other than the argument that this leads to a situation where me valuing something makes it morally valuable.

You can invent them all day long. — Terrapin Station

I'm not saying you can't invent them. I'm saying it's hugely significant to the process of normative discussions (like the one this thread is about) that no one ever has. Inches are obviously far more settled a matter than foundational moral principles, but in a world of 7 billion people, it is of huge significance that there is not one single functioning alternative to the agreement about what length an inch is. It means that for normative discussions (say, teaching a child to measure, or how long we should make some timber component) we need not at all go into the fact that the length of an 'inch' is arbitrary. It would be a foolish sideline.

With the caveat that foundational moral positions do vary, such that we have to talk about a range rather than a fixed point, it is equally the case with normative moral discussions. It is a foolish sideline to point out that some people might have some utterly bizarre moral foundation. They might (although, as per our other concurrent discussion, I think there are limits). But people might have a different idea of how long an inch is. It's just the same. Both are so unlikely that we ignore them in normal discussion.

So you're arguing that there are things it's physically impossible to positively or negatively value? — Terrapin Station

Yes. The brain (which does the valuing) is just a machine. I can't think of any good reason at all not to think that the limits and trends we observe in psychology are limits and trends imposed by the physical make up of that machine.

Valuing is a thing that machine does, so I don't see any reason not to presume that the limits and trends we observe (with respect to valuing) are not limits and trends imposed by the machine.

We have not yet observed an undamaged brain morally valuing a pile of sick, we have a sound theory as to the mechanism that might cause such a limit, so it's completely reasonable to hold the theory that a pile of sick is not morally valuable (ie cannot be valued by the machine that does valuing).

Yes, but we also know something about human brains (the source of value). For some reason you're treating what we know about physics as being unequivocal fact and yet treating what we know about human brains as being irrelevant, and I don't understand why.

Of course riding a neutrino is fantastical nonsense, but you cannot rule it out as a physical impossibility because our knowledge of physics is not complete. We do not know everything there is to know about physics. We just know some of it.

We also do not know everything there is to know about the human brain, but, like physics, we do know some of it. To treat that knowledge as irrelevant to constraining options regarding what subjects reasonably can and cannot do is dogmatic and unproductive. It is not unreasonable to say that, based on what we know about the human brain, a healthy adult probably cannot morally value a pile of sick. We have disgust mechanisms, empathy mechanisms (via mirror neurons, a limited number of neurotransmitters, which only have a limited range of possible functions... There are limits to what the brain can do, and if (for practical purposes) you're talking about the vast majority of healthy brains, those limits are even more constraining.

Per other standards, other definitions of "inch," it's a different number. — Terrapin Station

But there are no other standards. That's the point. In the real world (the one in which laws must be made), absolutely no-one is seriously proposing a slightly different system in which an 'inch' is a bit smaller. 7 billion people and not one alternative definition of an 'inch' has come to the surface. For all practical purposes there's only one definition of an inch and it looks like there's only ever going to be one, so we need not waste any time assuming there might be.

Foundational moral principles are similar (although they vary more widely). The core of them is so widely agreed upon that when discussing normative ethics we do not need to take into account variations widely outside of that core, anymore than when measuring something we do not ever say "what do you mean 'six inches'? Your inches, or my inches". The issue never arises, not because inches are an objective value, but because they are so widely agreed upon.

This is a normative ethical discussion. We might well have someone psychopathic turn up, someone whose brain is damaged and has no empathy. They would have different foundational views, and would not be 'incorrect' for that. But thus is unlikely and assuming it all the time stifles meaningful normative discussion.

it's not physically possible. — Terrapin Station

How do you know it's not physically possible? We don't currently have any mechanism by which fundamental particles can be made to carry a human, but that doesn't make it physically impossible. Maybe we could one day convert humans to data contained within other dimensions and somehow 'attach' that multi-dimensional data to a fundamental particle (in our common dimension).

We can't do this right now (nor probably ever) because of the limitations of the physical world as we currently know it. Part of those limitations as we currently know them, are the workings of the human brain. So far we do not have evidence that humans randomly value things, so far our valuing of certain things is incredibly similar. Similar enough to draw very useful conclusions from.

If we're just saying that something is "able to be valued," nothing would be excluded from that. And everything would be able to be both positively and negatively valued. — Terrapin Station

Only if we were talking in absolutes, and I don't think there's any need to do that when it comes to morality. Anything is also ride-able (to take my example) in that anyone, in their opinion, could claim to be 'riding' anything, but the concept what is 'sensibly' ride-able is, and has been, nonetheless very useful in, for example, the invention of the bike. The reason why other prototypes were mentally discarded before even being made is because they were considered to be not ride-able by the inventor. But not considered that way just for the inventor, considered that way universally. Doing so was inaccurate, but useful.

There is no reason at all why such should not be the case, for example, when trying to derive laws that are widely agreed upon (prior to something like a democratic vote to check they are truly widely agreed upon). The law-makers can make a useful judgement about what is really valuable and what is unlikely to be so. Humans are not that diverse.

This pragmatic sense is the only sense in which the term has any meaning at all, otherwise we've just defined it away, which seems pointless.

At any rate, Bartricks wasn't saying anything about it being a possibility that someone might value something when he used the term "valuable." — Terrapin Station

Yes, that was the point of the objection in that form. It makes his first premise incoherent.

I think I see where you're going with this, but if I'm right it will run into the problem I highlighted (with no success) above. You are (correct me if I'm wrong) comparing some foundational moral view to the standard inch. Once that foundational moral view is established and agreed on, it is possible to be incorrect about one's rational (or guesswork gut feeling) about moral principles aimed at upholding this foundational view. It is inconceivable to me that anyone would have a foundational moral view about something as specific free speech, I simply don't believe that such a view is not some rational (or guessed) principle aimed at upholding or achieving some more foundational position about autonomy, harm to others etc..

Terrapin is maintaining, however, that his position on free speech is nevertheless, foundational. That someone could have a foundational feeling that "all people whose names begin with 'M' should be imprisoned" or something like that. I don't see what can be further argued from that bizarre position.

If any and all views can be taken to be foundational, then there's no point in discussing anything using rational argument. Parliament need not have debates because there are no facts of the matter to be discussed, Councillors need not talk to each other about the implications of their various policy ideas because implications are irrelevant if the policy ideas are foundational.

All discussion ends up futile unless we assume some shared foundational position. such an assumption is possible if we accept that foundational positions are wide-reaching and vary little among most people. The moment we accept that foundational positions are very specific and vary widely, we can't rationally discuss anything.

it being transitively valuable to someone or another makes it in an intransitively sense valuable in general — Pfhorrest

Yes, this is the point that @aletheist was trying to make above (and having about as much luck as the rest of us in getting through to the OP). That something can be valuable is a judgement about how it is possible to have a subject relate to it, not about any subject actually relating to it. A bike is ride-able even without anyone riding it - this absolutely has to be the case otherwise no-one would ever be able to have invented the bike because no-one would have been able to conceive of it as being ride-able without someone first having ridden it.

You apparently think that moral stances can be arrived at via reason and that reason somehow transcends people as individuals. — Terrapin Station

This is the point we reached when you and I spoke about this last. I think the issue is that people are having a hard time believing that your gut instinct delivers policy recommendations to you out of nowhere. Yes we all have gut feelings valuing different things and those are indeed arbitrary, but they are rarely (never in my experience) in the form of fully fledged legal policies. We feel varying degrees of compassion for others, varying degrees of value to autonomy, varying widths to our circles of concern... But I simply don't believe that we have gut feelings about some specific laws. Our conclusions about these things are an attempt to get our gut feeling values out of the society we find ourselves in. That's why it would be wrong to say "it's my gut feeling that we should arrest anyone whose names begins with M", because a) its so unlikely, given our common experience, that this is a gut feeling, and b) without some seriously convoluted thinking, such a policy is unlikely to yield anything close to the sorts of gut feelings people tend to have.

So what I'm saying here is, I simply don't believe that legal positions simply arrive in your conscious mind fully formed without having first gone through some rational process linking such a policy to the achievement of some more fundamental objective.

EDIT: Looks like Bartricks might be right. Seems the majority of philosophers are moral realists and moral cognitivists according to philpapers survey. — bert1

Don't forget that moral realism includes all forms of ethical naturalism as well as some of the 'true to archetype' forms of virtue ethics, so the moral realism required for the premise to be acceptable (arguments from authority issues aside) is not specified by the survey. Ethical naturalism particularly would class as realist, but be in opposition to the premise that moral values are not our values.

Then there's realists about morality who don't see morals as values at all but laws, or those who think moral statements are not normative at all but descriptive, those who think morality is a virtue, not a value (but still a non-subjective one). All of whom would still describe themselves as moral realists.

In all, I think the number of philosophers who believe in a non-subjective external source of moral valuing (which is what the premise here demands) is very slim. Certainly a minority.

a total idiot would reject spaghetti monsterism on the grounds there is no spaghetti monster whereas someone who knew how to argue would instead reject the idea that morality requires a spaghetti monster. — Bartricks

What? Why would only an idiot reject the existence of a flying spaghetti monster on the grounds of the complete lack of any evidence for one. That's the exact grounds on which we justify most things we consider do not exist. And what prevents me from doing both?

so why do you reject spaghetti monsterism about morality? — Bartricks

Because I have no grounds whatsoever to think there might exist a flying spaghetti monster.

I didn't say 'all'. Quote me. Come on. Find a quote where I say 'all'. Let's see if you understand language as well as you do arguments. — Bartricks

Go back over this thread and tell me you've not made a single quoting error, typo or exaggeration for rhetorical effect, then lecture me on the matter. Your claim that most atheist moral philosophers reject divine command arguments solely because of Euthyphro is also outlandish. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that a claim that any atheist moral philosopher rejected divine command theories purely using Euthyphro is pretty outlandish since you've failed to provide a single citation in support.

Which of those two arguments is stronger. Say now. They are both unsound. Which is stronger though? — Bartricks

Argument B is stronger, because it contains a premise which is self evident and can be falsified using a well-agreed upon method. All the while no one has any evidence of a flying spaghetti monster, the theory that no such thing exists is a good strong theory.

Notwithstanding that, your arguments as presented have little to do with Euthyphro because you have grouped {moral values and norms} which clearly exist, not {objective moral values and norms} which is what Euthyphro is about, and they do not clearly exist at all.

I'm not going to waste more time on this. If you've got a serious argument to make which references empirical data (most philosophers think this..., rational people conclude that...) then I expect you to be able to Cite sources, otherwise you're just consigned to the bin labelled 'stuff wot I rekon'.