I have no idea how that could not make sense to you.

Me: I have a car

You: what do you mean by 'a car'

Me: do you have a car?

You: yes.

Me: one of those

You: you mean a metal box with an engine and wheels and a control panel?

Me: yes.

You: I have no idea what you mean

Me: I don't know how that can be.

You: do you mean it is a lemon? I think it must be a lemon

Me: no, I mean a car.

You: A Ferrari then. It must be a Ferrari if it is a car, I don't know how else to make sense of what you're sayting.

Me: no, it is not a Ferrari. At least I don't think it is - I don't see why it has to be. Perhaps it is, I do not know. But it is a car.

You: I don't know what you mean. Does it have rotams?

Me: Rotams, no I don't think so.

You: how can it be a car and not have rotams?

Me: I don't think it has them.

You: a rotam is latin for a wheel

Me: oh, okay, then it has rotams - you know, wheels.

You: I don't know what you mean.

Like I say, I interpreted it to mean 'human', which I think 'is' one of its meanings.

I didn't know it could also mean having intelligence. But even if I did, I would have charitably assumed you meant it to mean 'human' given how blindingly obvious the answer to your question - the question you were actually asking - was.

So, 'yes', Reason is intelligent because intelligence itself is constitutively determined by her.

Anyway, Hugh, just engage the argument and stop asking inane questions. And stop saying - completely dishonestly - that I have just stipulated and not provided evidence. The argument 'is' evidence. It is what all evidence must ultimately boil down to. Reasoned arguments.

I mean, if I've identified the subject - the one whose prescriptions and values are moral prescriptions and values - as Reason, then why on earth would you think there could possibly be any question over whether she possesses reason? She 'is' Reason.

Seems to me you're doing an EricH and asking me questions to which the answers are blindingly obvious and then taking it to be some kind of victory when I don't answer.

If you're using sapient to mean possesses reason, then yes, the subject whose prescriptions and values constitute rational prescriptions and values would possess reason as he/she 'is' reason - I mean, obviously. But I take Sapient to mean 'human', not 'rational'.

Charmed as ever. Stop engaging with me then. Fool.

I am trying to get you to answer one of my questions - I've answered lots of yours. Now, I haven't read the bible, but I believe what you presented to me as a central tenet of ethics - love your neighbour as yourself - was something Jesus said, yes? And I suspect you're a big fan of his, but I don't know.
Anyway, it is false, isn't it? That central tenet of ethics is false.

Did I refute Jesus? I think I did. In three seconds flat. Amateur. Are you a Jesuser? Bet you are.

He's a plum. Plum. P.L.U.M

Er, lots and lots of people. I think most people are pretty good at knowing what's right and what's wrong. I'm nothing special on that front.
Do you think opticians have the best eyesight?

When have I said that? You're not very good at making inferences.

No.

Nope. You?

If you're a Christian and I just refuted Jesus, I think you've just found yourself a new man to suck up to - welcome to Potterism.

It would seem. I mean, you haven't answered my question about fondling your neighbour - did I refute Jesus or not?

I said he was a grape.

My own counsel tells me to follow reason. Potterites are rationalists.

No. I'm a Potterite. A follower of Bartricks Potter.

Yes, I'm not a Christian. Do you think it is okay to fondle your neighbour if you love fondling yourself? Just asking. Jesus and Bill Cosby - not a huge difference between imo.

Do you just discover right and wrong off the cuff? — frank

No.

I am saying that if Joe is a banana, he is bent and yellow.

Reason says don't get your ethics off the back of a matchbox.

Reason says no. Fondling yourself is fine, fondling your neighbour is probably not.

no, and you're changing the topic. I can't discuss this with you anymore because you're just not listening.

Analogy: me: apples are not oranges

You: bananas are not yellow bent things

Me: I didn't mention bananas. What you've said is false, but more importantly completely irrelevant.

You: just answer the question - bananas are not yellow bent things, yes!?

Address the actual premise, not quite different ones. Actually, don't bother, I am going to wait for someone who can read and who understands basic logic to come along.

No, she is sentient, but she doesn't need to be sapient. They are similar looking words, but they don't mean the same thing - that's not how language works.

You're just out of your intellectual depth, that's all. Swim back up the shallow end with the toddlers and you'll be fine. And you're confusing 'listening to' and 'agreeing with' - a classic mistake of the arrogant. I listen to everything, but I don't agree with much because most of it doesn't make any sense or is just obviously false. Anyway, you gave me some charming advice earlier in this thread - may I offer it back to you?

Not that I agree with your assessment of what most moral philosophers think with regards to your premise anyway...

I think most moral philosophers would agree that if something is morally valuable, its moral value is not constitutively determined by our valuings. — Bartricks
...may well be true, but that's a weaker position that the one you're using in your argument.

1. For something to be morally valuable is for it to be being valued. — Bartricks
Most moral philosophers would disagree with this, for example. Especially those who are moral realists. Thus making the moral value you talk about as being categorical distinct from the moral value that most philosophers talk about as being categorical (where they talk that way). Kant, for example. the archetype of categorical morality, saw a moral value as a rule specifically that one did not value anyway. Otherwise, for him, it would not be moral. So your starting premise, the one on which you hinge your conclusion that categorical moral values must be valued by someone, is not one which most philosophers agree with. A standard which you've previously used to justify their prima facae acceptability. — Isaac

I don't know why you feel the need to tell me about my own argument. But it is 'true' (not 'may well be true' - is true) that most moral philosophers will accept that moral values are not constitutively determined by our valuings.

As for my premise that for something to be morally valuable is for it to be being valued - yes, I accept that they are going to be sceptical about that, but not because it is not plausible in itself, but because accepting it would then entail a subjectivist position in ethics - a position they think is incompatible with the previous premise!

Now, it is really not my fault if most contemporary moral philosophers don't realize that they're consistent with one another, is it?

My argument demonstrates their consistency.

What follows logically from the fact that to be morally valuable involves being valued, and the fact that moral value is not constitutively determined by any of our valuings, is that moral value involves being valued by someone who is not any one of us.

See? I draw that conclusion. Why? Because I ruthlessly follow reason. Unlike you lot I don't decide in advance what's true and then only listen to reason when I think she's endorsing my pre-existing views.

Why do most contemporary moral philosophers not draw that conclusion, though?

The Euthyphro, that's why. That is, their reason (and mine too) represents moral values to be necessary not contingent. And they think that's incompatible with moral values being the values of any subject whatever. As do I. And they conclude that therefore moral values are not the values of any subject whatever. But I do not draw that conclusion.

Right. So if most moral philosophers think that Euthyphro dispatches it (not that I agree at all with your assessment there), then it must be the case that despite both you and {all of moral philosophers} having possession of exactly the same evidence (you've advanced no previously unknown empirical data). They have reached, using nothing but their rational thought, a conclusion which you think is wrong. This proves unequivocally that it is possible for your epistemic peers (and I'm generously putting you in the same camp as all other moral philosophers here), in possession of the same material facts can nonetheless apply their reasoning faculties and reach the wrong conclusion. — Isaac

First, why don't you agree with my assessment? It is correct. What, you think the Euthyphro is not the main basis upon which contemporary moral philosophers reject divine command theories??? It is. If you don't believe me, e-mail one or just pick up an introductory book on ethics and read what it says about divine command theory. So I think only ignorance could explain your scepticism about my assessment.

Most moral philosophers are going to accept that it appears to be a truth of reason that if we prescribe or value something it is not necessarily morally right or good. I mean, that's why the vast bulk are not subjectivists about ethics.

Most moral philosophers are also going to accept that it appears to be a truth of reason that if an act is right, then it is necessarily right. Which also appears incompatible with morality being subjective. So this too seems to be apparent evidence that morality is not subjective.

I agree - I agree that it appears to be a truth of reason that if we prescribe or value something it is not necessarily morally right or good.
And I agree that it appears to be a truth of reason that if an act is right it is right of necessity.

It's what my reason says too. It is what the reason of most moral philosophers says. And it is what mine says.

Does yours?

We've gone through this already.

According to your view - which you clearly don't understand - if Joe values (values - VALUES - values, values. V. A.L.U.E.S) raping Jane, then it will necessarily be good for Joe to rape Jane.

That view is just incredibly stupid. It really is. And it is your view. Join the dots.

Your argument is unsound. Obviously so. My argument is sound.

Moral values are not made of our values. Again, for the umpteenth time, if they were, then if you valued raping someone necessarily it would be good for you to rape them. That's absurd. No-one sensible thinks that's correct. To think that's correct is as silly and unworthy of rational respect as the view that if you think 3 x 2 = 90 then it is.

If you value raping someone - guess what, that doesn't mean it is good for you to rape them.

If you value me raping someone - guess what, that doesn't mean it is good for me to rape them.

If you value someone else raping you - guess what, that doesn't mean it is good for someone to rape you.

And so on and so on.

Your view is absurd. Outrageous. It has nothing - nothing - to be said for it. That you hold it - that it exists in your head - is not evidence it is true.

Your view is demonstrably false. This argument demonstrates its falsity - this argument that has a first premise that cannot coherently be denied and a second premise that is self-evidently true to everyone who isn't determined that Bartricks is wrong because Bartricks is mean and that's how the world works:

1. If my valuings are moral values, then if I value something necessarily it is morally valuable
2. If I value something it is not necessarily morally valuable
3. Therefore, my valuings are not moral values.

That's a valid argument. It always was valid. When you thought it wasn't valid, it was valid.
When you thought the first premise was not expressed correctly - and it was and is expressed correctly, unlike your first premise which is false - it was valid.

It is valid. It's premises are true beyond all reasonable doubt. It is not a remotely controversial argument.

But when coupled with another argument - the argument that moral values must be someone's, it gets us all the way to divine command theory.

And you - and most others here - don't like that. And because you seem to have the mentality of six year olds and think that if you don't like something it isn't true, you reject it.

But the whole argument is valid. And its premises appear to be true beyond reasonable doubt.

The only threat to it - the only thing that suggests otherwise - is the Euthyphro argument. That argument has the negation of my conclusion as its conclusion and premises that appear to be as strong as mine.

But no-one has pressed it!

Well I am skeptical about that. I can't argue with someone whose comprehension skills are so poor they don't understand my first premise. Your fake humility doesn't wash with me. You decided - decided - that my position didn't make sense right at the outset and nothing I can do will get you to revise that view. I have patiently provided you with answers to your questions and all you'very donew is ask furthere inane ones so determined are you not to grasp what you don't want to grasp.

So again, and just for the record, when premise one says that 'If my valuings are moral values, then if I value something it is necessarily morally valuable" that does not leave open the possibility that moral values are a subset of my values. Not if you understand English anyway.

If you want to identify moral values with a subset of your values, that's fine for the argument will still work. It works for the whole set so it works for a subset.

For example, if I said "if EricH has asked questions of Bartricks, then those questions are not in good faith' then asking me endlessly whether I mean all of your questions or just some of them shows that you lack comprehension skills. All of them - like it says. But what's true of all of them will also be true of a subset.

So your questions are fake, so obvious are the answers to them all. Or so I charitably think. So drop the whole wounded fawn 'oh, but I only want to understand and learn from others' routine, I don't buy it.

I know that's why I said it was weak rather than invalid. Weak because it has a conclusion that we have evidence is false and a premise that has no support from reason. Conclusion - that premise is false.

And if you keep premise one as it is then that premise is just plain false too. So a valid argument with two false premises and a conclusion that conflicts with reason.

My argument, by contrast, is also valid but both of its premises are true. The first is a conceptual truth that only those who don't grasp things will deny and the second has overwhelming support from reason. It's conclusion does not contradict reason either. So it is sound. Yours is not.

You're just saying things again.

I don't know what you mean by 'take on board'. I'm happy to abandon my conclusion the instant someone shows me what's wrong with the argument.

So you can't see how the famous criticism that derives from that dialogue might be relevant to my argument? Right. Okay then. I mean, it is the basis upon which most moral philosophers reject my kind of view. But okay.

One of my arguments proves the exact opposite - that Reason, not I, not you, is the way, the truth and the light (though that's not how I'd express it). But have a cookie for trying.

Oh hello you - read the Euthyphro yet?

No, I don't think anyone has accepted that premise. What do you think that shows? That I am up against quality interlocutors or people who don't realize an unquestionable premise when they see one? I only ask.

My argument is sound. That's the best kind of argument. Any argument must have at least one premise that is asserted. So yes, I have made assertions becusae you have to in order to argue for anything. Mine at least have the merit of either being self-evident truths of reason or conceptual truths that can't be denied by those who understand them.

Note, too that you can insult someone by accurately describing them. For example, let's say you're very ugly and I say "Hello. You are ugly". That's an insult, yes? Yet accurate.

And many - perhaps the bulk - think, like you, that if they say something then it is true. So, you say - and that's all you do, just say - that I have no explained something, or not defended something, then that suffices to make it so. That is the recurring theme from this end.

And I think what is also clear is that many think that if they do not understand something, that is sufficient to have established that it does not make sense.
And yet others think that if they disagree with something, that is some kind of evidence that it is false.

And yet others think that rather than addressing my argument they are free to change the premises and attack their own totally different premises rather than mine.

And yet others think that they can endlessly ask me banal questions and that if I eventually stop answering them that somehow constitutes a refutation of my case.

And others think that if they dislike me and my tone that this serves to demonstrate that my argument fails.

And so on and so on.

Something that has been explained not clearly at all can be explained more clearly. So, it is entirely consistent if - if - my explanations lack clarity for me nevertheless to say that I cannot explain them more clearly.

But my argument is clear. What's clear is that some - many - do not recognise it for what it is, namely a deductively valid argument, for they do not recognise that they need to raise a reasonable doubt about a premise before they're entitled to dismiss the conclusion.

For instance, I don't think you understand that. For you keep saying I have stipulated, as if saying it will make it so, when I have argued for the controversial conclusion from extremely uncontroversial premises.

Note, even if I can't explain myself clearly, it is still true that I can't explain myself more clearly than I did. Hence the 'more' is needed.