Relevance?

God's defined as, inter alia, omnipotent which basically means fae can defy logic. Thus, in the context of your argument, God both can make mistakes and not make them. Both are true but more importantly no amount of reasoning, done in even the most rigorous of ways, can aid us in understanding God. — TheMadFool

That's not the argument I made. The argument I made works even if one thinks God is restricted by logic.

But it is surely clearly wrong to watch other people 24/7 and to peer into their minds and read their inner most thoughts? There are lots of ways to disrespect people, but that certainly seems like one way.

So, it seems God disapproves of it - disapproves of snooping in that manner (assuming our moral intuitions about this are accurate and thus provide us with insight into God's will). And it is reasonable to infer on this basis that God himself does not engage in that kind of activity. It does not have to follow, for what God disapproves of in others, he may approve of in himself. But it is reasonable to suppose that if someone is clearly very much opposed to others snooping on each other, that they would be opposed to themselves doing so too.

Obviously there are limits and there's much that it is not disrespectful to know about someone. But there are things it seems unethical to pry into and access, even if one can. And thus it is reasonable to believe that a perfectly good person would not pry into those areas and thus would not know our - or rather, an innocent person's - inner most thoughts and feelings.

That then generates the puzzle: how can one be both all-knowing and not know a large range of truths? (To which my solution is to note that being 'all knowing' plausibly means 'being in possession of all knowedge', which is not equivalent to 'knowing all truths')

I was arguing from the grounds that our intuitions are the only basis that exist for moral beliefs. In which case the moral beliefs are not based on objective facts, but subjective intuitions - and are best labelled subjective as a result. — Down The Rabbit Hole

That simply doesn't follow. If the only basis I have for believing in Napoleon is a book I read about Napoleon, that doesn't mean Napoleon is made of paper and ink.

Our moral intuitions are how we are aware of morality. They do not compose it.

That's why it is possible that morality doesn't exist. There's no doubt moral beliefs and intuitions exist. But that doesn't by itself entail that morality itself exists - because morality is not made of beliefs and intuitions.

Morality 'is' subjective. But you have arrived at the correct conclusion fallaciously. Note too, that the conclusion you will have arrived at is that morality is made of our individual or collective subjective states, yes?

That's obviously false: if I have the intuition that Xing is right, that does not entail that it is right, does it? Yet on your view it would. That's absurd.

SO, morality is subjective. Why? Not because our intuitions and beliefs are subjective - that's true of 'all' intuitions and beliefs, and so would make 'everything' subjective!! It is subjective because morality is made of commands and values and only a subject - an agent - can issue a command or value anything. Thus morality is made of a subject's commands and values.

Not yours though, and not mine. Why? Because it is manifest to reason that if I value something that doesn't entail that it is morally valuable, and that if I command something to be done this does not entail that it is morally right to do it.

So, morality is made of a third party's commands and values. Thus it is subjective.

What on earth are you on about??

God is omnisient.
God is omnibenevolent.
God is omnipotent.

I'm not denying any of those. Don't you understand what I am arguing?

I am arguing that God wouldn't access certain truths about us. Thus there are some truths God does not know.

I am arguing that that's compatible with being all knowing.

Again: God is omniscient, meaning he possesses all knowledge.

God does not know some truths.

That's consistent. That's what I am arguing. Being omniscient doesn't essentially involve knowing all truths; it involves having all the knowledge there is to be had.

Problems for my thesis: if God's will determines what we have reason to believe, and God does not favour himself believing some things about us, then surely that means that those beliefs are beliefs that none of us have any justifying reason to believe? And so we would have to say that innocent persons cannot know all manner of things about themselves. They could have true beliefs about some of their own mental states, but those true beliefs would not qualify as knowledge, for they would lack justification (if, that is, these beliefs are of the kind that God doesn't want to have).

My reply is that I think, at the moment, that this is correct (for if we say instead that they are knowledge because God approves of the way in which they were acquired, then God would not be all-knowing, for there would be items of knowledge he does not possess). But it is not really problematic. For we could still ask in respect of such beliefs whether they 'would' be ones God would favour us believing 'if' he were not concerned to respect our privacy. And that could be known - that is, we could know that 'if' God didn't want to respect our privacy, then a belief formed in that manner would be justified.

Another problem concerns truth itself. Knowledge has several ingredients, one of which is belief in a true proposition. But what's truth? Surely by the same logic that says God must be the determiner of what we have reason to believe, God must also be the determiner of truth as well? Yet if God determines what is true, then God's desire to respect our privacy would result in the relevant propositions not being true. That is, if God wants to respect me by not acquiring true beliefs about some of my mental states, then she would have to hold off making those beliefs true (for how could she make them true without herself believing them to be? In which case, she would be violating my privacy). And so now all of those beliefs of mine - beliefs of the sort that God would not want to disrespect me by knowing - would not even be true, let alone justified.

At the moment I am inclined to bite this bullet as well and argue that it is not really a problem, just a labelling issue. For the propositions themselves - such as the proposition "I am thinking of a cake" - would still exist. A proposition does not have to be true in order to exist. So it is just that these propositions would not be true. We could nevertheless say of them that they 'would' be true were God not concerned to respect our privacy. And that proposition could be true and justified.

I'm afraid I do not know what you're saying.

Original sin declares us all as sick. God's the doctor. — TheMadFool

That's bible stuff, right? I said God is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person. I said don't pack more into it. You're packing more into it. I don't care what the bible says. It is not a work of philosophy.

A good person wouldn't want to know all truths about a person. God is all knowing. Are those compatible? I am showing that they are. For if God does not favour himself believing all true propositions about you, then those true propositions are not items of knowledge. That would be a case of there being no knowledge there for God to know, rather than there being 'nothing' there for God to know.

Epistemic justification is not the same thing as moral justification, at least prima facie. You have a sort of is-ought problem here. — bert1

Relevance? Justifications are made of normative reasons. There are different kinds of normative reasons, including epistemic and moral. But all of them are made of God's favouring attitudes (what distinguishes a moral reason from an epistemic reason is its basis - so an epistemic reason is a reason to believe a proposition on the basis of its truth).

My point is that to know a proposition is to be justified in believing it. And as such, God can be all knowing without knowing all truths, for not all truths will have justifications if, that is, God does not favour himself believing them.

Incidentally, I should add that I am not arguing that God does not know what 'we' get up to - for we are not innocent, so the argument I am making does not apply to us.

However, though I am not a Christian, a quick read of Genesis tells me that God doesn't know where Adam is - he tries to find him. Why would he try to find him if he knew where he was? Thus clearly there are things God does not know, if Genesis is to be taken literally. Which is as one would expect, given that God considers Adam to be innocent at that point and thus would not pry and monitor him.

But anyway, that's all by the by really, as the philosophical point is that an all-good person wouldn't avail themselves of all truths, and thus would not know all truths. And my point is that this is entirely consistent with being all-knowing. Being all-knowing and knowing-all-truths are not equivalent. Thus God can be all knowing without knowing all truths. For being all-knowing involves knowing all items of knowledge, which is not necessarily the same as knowing all truths.

How could I (and the rest of the entire world) be so blind and so stupid. — tim wood

By being blind and stupid. Ask me another.

But, presumably, there is a difference between a human and God? If God is our creator, sustainer, etc. then he is like our parent, which is why he is actually referred to as "father" in religious texts. — Apollodorus

But you're appealing to a religious doctrine, not a conceptual truth. A person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent is not necessarily our creator (indeed, we seem to have independent evidence that we have not been created - free will). Sustainer, yes - that follows from being omnipotent - but not our creator (unless there's an argument that shows why omnipotence involves having created everything).

But anyway, even if God did create us, I don't see why that would change anything. Assuming my parents created me, is it okay for my mum to read my diary or film my every move? No, that would be disrespectful.

To take your example of children: why is it (sometimes) okay to monitor them? Becasue we created them? No, because they don't yet have the dignity that monitoring them would otherwise undermine; and they don't yet have powers of reason sufficient to make respecting their free will something we ought to do, and so on. Those are the kinds of consideration that justify monitoring, not 'being the creator of...'.

I like Britney. But Banoffee pie? No, I've always found it somewhat sickly and dense.

Trouble is that at some point you need to support your claims, else all you're doing is speculating on, e.g., the mating habits of hobbits or unicorns. — tim wood

What a pointless thing to say. I have said that if God exists our lives have a particular purpose (or set of purposes, more exactly). And your response? "Oh, the problem with that is that it depends on whether God exists". Er, yes. That was the point.

And I can prove God exists and have done so here umpteen times. Not my fault most of you are incapable of following an argument. But that's not the topic of this thread, so I didn't provide it here.

But even in its absence, what I said was highly significant. For the point I was making - a point lost on most people who love themselves too much and think they're little gods in their own right - was that whether your life has a purpose or not is not something that is in your gift. The purposefulness of your life depends entirely on others, not you.

In my opinion the agnostic position makes the most sense and is the strongest out of the three even though I believe in God myself. — Deus

It isn't the strongest. The case for theism is the strongest. By far. If you think agnosticism is reasonable, then you must think that the case for God is about as strong as the case against, yes? Otherwise how is it a reasonable position?

convinced me that there was a higher power/intelligence which no philosophical argument could. — Deus

I recommend undergirding your belief in God with rational arguments, for they're more stable. So long as your belief in God is based on some experience of yours, it is held hostage to your future experiences. You could lose it as easily as you acquired it - all it would take is a countervailing experience of similar or greater potency, or for your memory of the original experience to fade or disappear altogether.

If you understand that God exists on rational grounds, then one's belief is as robust as those arguments and does not depend on one's own psychology and experiences to the same extent.

It depends what stage you are at with your reasoned reflection and what arguments you have been exposed to.

For an analogy: imagine that you have gone walking in a freezing forest and you have gotten lost. And no one has found you for months, but somehow you've managed to survive, against the odds.

I am justified in believing you are dead, as is everyone else apart from.....you. Our evidence that you are dead is that you have been missing for months in a freezing forest. You too know that you have been missing for months in a freezing forest, but this doesn't provide you with good evidence that you are dead; for you have apparently cast iron evidence that you are still alive. Of course, if you subsequently encounter angels and such like in the forest, then it would start to become reasonable for you to believe that you had died as well. So, it all depends on what apparent evidence you have and its probative force.

Other things being equal - that is, you have no basic belief in God - then the default is not agnosticism, but atheism. To be agnostic at the outset is, well, silly. Just to assume there is some evidence God exists apropos nothing is not remotely reasonable. And the fact this world does not at all appear to be the kind of place God would create and place innocent people in, provides you with powerful reason to disbelieve in God.

So, you should start an atheist if you are reasonable. The burden of proof is squarely on the theist. And to think that the brute possibility God could exist provides you with some reason to doubt atheism is, well, unreasonable (anything is possible - but it is not reasonable to believe anything). At the outset you have no reason to think God exists, and apparently good reason to think God does not exist.

That should continue to be your position until or unless you encounter arguments for God's existence. If those arguments are valid and have premises that seem self-evident to rational reflection, then you should - if you are reasonable - start to take seriously that your belief that no God exists is open to reasonable doubt.

There are such arguments, of varying probative force. There is no question they exist, for they are discussed by philosophers to this day. But you should satisfy yourself of this by exposing yourself to them and seeing what your own reason says about them.

It is at that point that it would become reasonable for you to adopt an agnostic position. For now you have apparent evidence that God exists. Indeed, if you continued to be confident in your atheism you would have discovered that you are unreasonably committed to atheism. After all, being reasonable is not about what you believe, so much as the manner in which you believe it. And so if you continue to be an atheist despite being unable decisively to refute arguments for God's existence, then you have discovered that you are unreasonable.

Reasonable agnosticism, then, requires appreciating some of the force of the arguments for God's existence. Someone who thinks the arguments for God's existence are rubbish, but nevertheless calls themselves an agnostic is a bit of a twit. (Needless to say, this place is full of them). A reasonable agnostic thinks there's a good case for God.

If just one of those arguments appears to be valid and have premises that are far beyond any reasonable doubt, and you have sincerely attempted to refute it and failed, then it would be silly to continue to be an agnostic. For now you have the best evidence that God exists. Likewise, if the cumulative power of all the arguments for God raises the probability that God exists significantly over 50%, then you should stop being an agnostic and describe yourself as a theist. (There's more than one way a thesis can be proved - sometimes it is by one zinger of an argument, sometimes it is by a cumulation of weaker arguments). A reasonable person's beliefs are responsive to evidence: responsive, that is, to reasoned arguments.

Needless to say, above I am describing how I came to believe in God. The important point, however, is that agnosticism is not the default. You have to earn the right to be an agnostic - earn it, that is, by appreciating some of the probative force of the case for God. And it is an inherently unstable position. For God does not both exist and not exist. So either atheism is true, or theism is true. And yet the reasonable agnostic thinks the apparent case for both positions is roughly equally matched. They must at the same time, however, acknowledge that one set of those appearances is illusory.

Engage philosophically with the OP if you dare, or go away.

Another great contribution from Ffee Pie.

Hmm, but it seems unethical in the case of innocent adults. If I have access to someone's diary, I should not read it; nor should I watch people all the time - that's stalking and people are entitled to privacy and to be alone with their thoughts. We can conceive of situations where this is not so, but there will be extenuating circumstances in those cases. So in the case of children, this is because they already lack dignity and are incapable of looking after themselves and lack sufficiently developed powers of reason. So we can explain why it is morally fine to monitor children, but the explanation does not apply to those who possess reason and are capable of looking after themselves. It would be fallacious to infer that as it is moral to monitor a young child's every move, it is therefore moral for me to monitor my neighbour Jenny's every move.

Similarly, if I am innocent then it would be wrong of someone else to monitor my every move. That is, it seems that God disapproves of it. And so as God disapproves of it, we can reasonably suppose he doesn't do it himself. Not where innocent people possessed of reason are concerned anyway (so this does not apply to us).

Re us humans - I don't think what I have said applies to us in the same way, as the nature of our situation is such as to give us grounds to think we are not innocent. Nevertheless, a similar case can be made, where God does not know what happens to us here because he doesn't care (due to how we have behaved in the past), rather than to respect our privacy. I don't read Jenny's diary out of respect for her. I don't read Sam's out of indifference to him. God doesn't pry into the thoughts and desires of the innocent, I think, out of respect. God doesn't pry into our thoughts and desires out of indifference.

That doesn't preclude judgement, I think. For nothing prevents God from availing himself of the information later. Here and now God isn't interested in what we do. But there may come a time when he is and then he can find out exactly how we have behaved.

Re everything emanating from God - that's to pack more into the definition of God. God's omnipotence means everything that exists exists by the grace of God. But it does not follow that everything has its origin in God. Omnipotence does not essentially involve creating everything. But even if it did, I am unclear why that affects anything. If my parents have created me, it is still wrong of them to read my diary and monitor my every thought.

Re being identical with God - innocent people and God are not quantitively identical. God is a distinct person, as are we all. Are all innocent persons qualitatively identical with God? No, for God is omnipotent and omniscient and they are not.

But even if we have two qualitatively identical people - twins Mark and John - it would clearly still be wrong for Mark to read John's diary and monitor his every move and vice versa. So I don't see that qualitative identity does any real work in making morally permissible what would otherwise be wrong.

No, it doesn't follow from the fact our intuitions are subjective that morality is subjective.

My belief that I have a partner is subjective. For beliefs are mental - they exist as states of mind. Does it follow that my partner is subjective? No, obviously not.

Why not? Well, because my belief is 'about' my partner and does not constitute her.

Likewise, moral intuitions are 'about' morality and do not constitute it. After all, I cannot make xing morally right just by creating in myself the intuition that it is right.

The mistake you are making is, like I say, to conflate a vehicle of awareness with an object of awareness.

I know about Napoleon from a book. It doesn't follow that Napoleon is made of paper and ink.

I am not sure I follow you.
God is by definition good. And it seems reasonable to believe that this means God will keep himself ignorant of an innocent person's thoughts and desires out of respect for their privacy and dignity.
That generates a real puzzle given that God is also all knowing.
To resolve it I have noted that to be all knowing is not to know all truths, but to be in possession of all knowledge. And as God's attitudes constitutively determine what is and isn't knowledge, what God doesn't want to believe will not be knowledge by dint of God not wanting to believe it.

Where's your evidence? There's no equivocation.

The term is called making a "wild guess". — Cheshire

Er, no. The exact opposite, Dumbartonshire. Rational discernment. Ratiocination. Not a guess.

You said rational reflection created this masterpiece? Are you the type that assembles a jig saw puzzle with a hammer? What was the worse idea that this replace? — Cheshire

I don't know what you're talking about. Purposes. For your life here to have a purpose, either you or the environment in which you find yourself needed to have been created.....for a purpose. And that purpose will be the purpose of your life. Simple.

Closer to a potato than modified santa claus, but I also don't think you believe in God, because it's not what I believe in. — Cheshire

I believe in the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person. And that's the standard definition of God. By contrast, what you're using the word 'God' to denote is a potato.

No, I think you don't believe in God. You believe in a potato.

If God exists, then the purpose of our lives is easily discernible by some rational reflection. We are in a prison being punished by being made to live in ignorance in a dangerous world along with others who have committed crimes similar to our own. So the purpose of our being here is a) to protect innocent others from us; b) to give us what we deserve; and c) rehabilitation.

If God does not exist, then the purpose of your life is going to be determined by what motivated your parents to create you. And so your life either has no purpose at all, or a very silly one.

Them main point, however, is that you - we - don't get to determine the purpose of our lives. This seems to be something that many today don't get.

It's another example as "person god"; I don't think it is the way things are so I don't have to consider the conflict you seem to be concerned about. — Cheshire

My concept of God is better suited to the purpose I mentioned. It's something closer to integrated information theory than perhaps children's stories. — Cheshire

Yeah, you don't believe in God. Here's someone else who doesn't believe in God: "My concept of God is the concept of a tuber that grows in the ground and has a brown skin and white interior and tastes pleasant boiled, mashed or roasted". That's not God, that's a potato.

I wasn’t trying to dispute the existence of moral reasons in my OP. I was actually trying to argue against the existence of moral duties which I think is like a particular sub-category of moral reasons. — TheHedoMinimalist

That's a category error. What you have a moral duty to do is what you have overall moral reason to do. It is not itself a moral reason - moral reasons are what create your duties.

I mean, if you accept that there are moral reasons, then you must accept that there is, in any situation in which moral reasons are present, what you have overall moral reason to do. What are you going to call that, if not your moral duty?

I don't, then, see any coherent way of arguing that moral reasons exist but moral duties do not. That's like arguing that storeys exist, but buildings do not.

I still don't see how you're arriving at your conclusion. If God exists, what possible reason is there to think that this life's purpose is to, well, look at stuff or any of that other guff you mentioned? It's just silly and self-indulgent and unreflective.

When would a good, all powerful, all knowing person stop taking an interest in you and leave you to your own ignorant devices in a dangerous world? When you've behaved so badly they no longer like you and when you've attempted to do something similar to others of your own free will.

I mean, what does a good person do with such an individual? Destroy them? Maybe, but not necessarily, for good people don't like to destroy others if they can help it (and if that good person is all powerful, then they can always help it). Eradicate their free will and determine them to behave impeccably? Again, maybe, but not necessarily because, once more, good people value free will and prefer it when others are freely behaving impeccably rather than doing so because they've been determined to by someone else. What about just putting them away - putting them in another place, away from the abodes of the blessed and make them live among their own kind, to run the gauntlet that they would willingly have made others run if they'd had the opportunity? Well, yes, that seems like something a good person might do with a git. Let them go and stew in their own juices. Take no interest in them, at least for a bit.

Well, there you go. That's your situation. You're not here because someone likes you - I mean, look at the place, for christ's sake. And consider your own ignorance. It's huge. There's barely anything you know - barely anything any of us knows for certain. You think an all knowing, all good, all powerful person would make you languish here in ignorance if they loved you? That's completely mental. Pretty much any awful thing you can conceive of can happen to you here and in the next minute. At any time - any second - you could be pitched into agony. You think a good person would subject you to a lifetime in a world like that if they were fond of you? If you were a good, innocent person that they loved??? Blimey!! How deluded are you?

I have no idea how you'd arrive at those conclusions. If it is to look at stuff, why are there blind people? And why isn't everything unremittingly beautiful?
Apply your reason and stop the daydreaming!

Well if the cap fits...

God: I've made you a cake and i am going to force you to eat some.

Bert: ooo, thank you - it must be because you love me so much. I am so loveable.

God: I made it with flour and sugar and eggs and almond essence and some broken glass and some dog poo.

Bert: oo, sounds yummy. You must have put the glass and dog poo in it to enhance the loveliness of the almond essence. You love me soooooo much.

God: no, I put the glass in so you'd cut your mouth to buggery and shred your innards and make you die slowly of internal bleeding. And the dog poo I put in to diminish the flavour of the almond essence and sugar, because I don't want you to derive too much pleasure from eating the cake.

Bert: Aw, you love me soooooo much. This is the yummiest cake. Almond glass and dog poo is my favouritist cake ever!!! I am going to build you a big house and sing songs to you in it.

God: Jesus!

I don't know what you are on about, but it sounds a bit navel gazy to me.
Anyway, should you want to understand the purposes for which you are living a life here, reasoned reflection will reveal to you that you are doing porridge.

Er, ok. That's a shame, given there's so much of it. Why would someone who thinks you're great plonk you on a world that's 73% covered in poison?
Oh, cos he loves you. That's right. L is for love.

Oh do think it through Dumbartonshire. God is all powerful. So he could give you all the benefits of a meaningful relationship without any of its frustrations and anxieties if he wished. That you may be unable to imagine how is no constraint on him. You really need to stop thinking God can't do things, or can't do x without doing y. He can create meaningful relationships for us all in the blink of an eye.

He hasn't. He let whether we find one be a matter of chance and ensures they all end. Why? Coz he clearly doesn't like you. He wants to leave you to dwell in ignorance in a dangerous world among depraved people. How do I know that? Because you are dwelling in ignorance in a dangerous world. Think that's a mistake? Think God makes those? Think he loves you? Then you are a very bad lover!

Whether your life has meaning or not is not in your gift. You did not create yourself or subject yourself to a lifetime here, so you cannot be the source of your life's purpose. Your life's purpose, if it has one, is determined by someone else, not you.

If I make a knife to cut things, then that knife's purpose is to cut things even if the knife itself would prefer not to cut things (not that knives have preferences - but if they did, it'd make no difference).

Also, your opening line is fallacious. Let's say I create a knife in order to cut things. However I find that there's nothing my knife will cut. Well, that doesn't mean by knife lacks a purpose. It just means it isn't fulfilling it.

But anyway, the purpose of our lives is not to form meaningful relationships. God exists and if God's purpose in placing us here was for us to have meaningful relationships then we'd all find them easy to acquire and maintain (and they wouldn't end). But they are hard to acquire and maintain (and they always end). If you are in one, then the object of your affection could die at any moment or cease to feel for you what you do for them and vice versa.

The purpose of your life is to do your time. You're in prison. It's really the only plausible possibility, once one understands that God exists.

Those who think God exists and their life has some other purpose, are self aggrandizing idiots who grossly underestimate God's power (and have warped and sick ideas about what love involves).
Those who think God does not exist and that they have the power to give their lives a purpose are also idiots. Idiots for thinking God does not exist, and then idiots again for thinking that they have the power to give their lives a purpose despite having not created them or the world in which they find themselves. If God does not exist, then the purpose of your life is determined by whatever mucky end your parents had when they created you. That is, your life probably has no purpose at all and was just the foreseen but unintended consequence of satisfying an animal urge, or its purpose was something sad and pathetic (a misguided attemp to achieve immortality; a self indulgent desire to have someone who will look up to them etc, etc).

Anyway, there you go. Your life has a purpose and there's nothing you can do about it. And its purpose is to protect others from you; to give you your just deserts; and lastly and least importantly, to give you some opportunity to reform your depraved ways.

No, because the intuitions are 'of' morality and do not compose it. It's to confuse a vehicle of awareness with its object.
So, I can see a chair. The visual impression is in my mind. It doesn't follow that the chair is.
All states of awareness are mental. It doesn't follow that everything we are aware of is in our mind.
Morality is subjective, but that's a fallacious way of arriving at the correct conclusion.

Q; Why do we have anaesthetics?
A: Because pain is bad. Everyone knows this, except a handful of subjectivist philosophers. — Herg

You are committing the naturalistic fallacy. The word 'is' in 'Because pain is bad' is ambiguous. It could mean that pain and badness are one and the same. That would be the 'is' of identity. Or it could mean that pain 'has' badness (in the way that 'ice cream is cold' doesn't mean ice cream and coldness are identical, but that ice cream has coldness as a property).

Now, what the naturalist does is thinks "oo, pain is bad" - which is (normally) correct, if the 'is' in that sentence is the is of predication. Normally pain does indeed have badness. But then they conclude that pain 'is' bad as in 'pain and badness are one and the same. And that's to commit the naturalistic fallacy - to equivocate over the 'is' of identity and the 'is' of predication.

That doesn't by itself establish that pain and badness are distinct, it is just a fallacious way of arriving at a conclusion.

Are pain and badness one and the same? No, for if they were then it would be impossible for there to be pain that is not bad. Yet sometimes pain is not bad, for instance when it is deserved.

Furthermore, for something to be 'bad' is for it to be disvaluable. So, for pain to be bad is for pain to be disvalued. But pain could not itself 'be' the badness, because that would require that pain disvalue itself. Which is insane as pain is a mental state and is not in the business of valuing or disvaluing things.

So, anyway, you're wrong. Subjectivism is true, albeit divine subjectivism.

Who is issuing the prescription?
— Bartricks

Nature. — Herg

Oh, so you're mad. Nature issues prescriptions. I see. Stones speak to you do they? What are the molecules telling you to do today?

Who is issuing the prescription?

How am I begging the question against the naturalist? The naturalist identifies moral properties - such as rightness and goodness - with natural features, yes?

But for an act to be right is for it 'to be done'. That is, there is a prescription enjoining us to do it. How does a natural feature issue a prescription?

And for something to be morally good is for it to be morally valuable. How does a natural feature value anything?

Here are two statements:

"Xing is wrong"
"Xing has natural feature P"

They are very different. Both are descriptions, but the first describes a prescription, whereas the second does not. So they are not equivalent. Yet naturalism turns all moral statements into statements of the second kind. So it is false.

NOte too that you haven't answered my questions.

Do you think the mindless natural world can issue prescriptions and value things? If so, then are you not mad?

Or do you think that morality is not composed of prescriptions and values? If so, then are you not misusing the word morality?

What are you saying, then? IF I say that something is 'inappropriate' I am not reporting how a word is used, am I? So drop the word inappropriate and express premise 1 in an unambiguous way.

That's a good way of putting it. The only honest answer for why someone holds their moral axioms is because they feel the axioms are right. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Although that's a psychological claim rather than a metaethical one and is not equivalent to what I am saying.

I am not saying that morality is subjective because we feel some acts are right and some wrong and feelings are subjective states. That would be to commit the fallacy of confusing a cause of a belief or impression with what it is 'about'.

I am saying that morality is subjective because it is made of prescriptions and values and only subjects - minds - can issue prescriptions and value things.

So, I believe some acts are wrong. I believe Xing is wrong. What, exactly, am I believing when I believe X is wrong? Well, I believe that the act is one we are commanded not to perform. So, what would it take for my belief to be true? Well, there would have to be a command not to perform the act.

Would a command of my own do the trick? Well, no. For in order for my commands to be capable of rendering moral beliefs true, I would need to be responsible for everyone - now and throughout history - getting the impression of moral commands. And I am not responsible for that - i have had no hand in it at all. And so the truth maker of my moral belief that Xing is wrong is not my own commanding activity.

Thus, the truth maker of moral beliefs must be the subjective states of some third party.