Yes it is. Read the opening post. Or don't. Then take a course in logic. Then take a course in ethics. Then realize you're wrong about virtually everything. Then come back.

Incorrect again. And like I say, not worth debating with. Tara.

Steve's act of rape is morally bad regardless of Steve's attitudes towards it. You think that's false. Fine, but now you're not worth debating with - to quote Anscombe, you show signs of a corrupt mind.

So if Steve rapes Jane and we subsequently find out that Steve valued raping Jane, then we have found out that Steve did nothing wrong. Far from it - Steve did something good.
Ooo, I stand refuted. What an absurd view you hold. LIke I say, you haven't refuted my argument. All you've done is reveal yourself to be morally incompetent on many levels.

Good - so you think that if I value raping someone, then necessarily it is morally good for me to rape them. That is obviously false. If I value raping someone it is not thereby morally good for me to rape them.
Perhaps I'll believe it is good for me to rape them, but again that won't entail that it is good for me to rape them.
You think otherwise. Fine.
But for those who agree with me that valuing raping someone does not entail that it is good for you to rape them, my argument goes through.

Needless to say, my argument will not persuade the morally insane or the unbelievable confused.

First, take a course in logic.

Then, once you've done that, say which of my premises - MY premises, as written by me, not you - you disagree with.

Then present a deductively valid argument that has the negation of my premise as a conclusion and I'll then inspect the premises of your argument to see if they have any plausibility at all.

Do those things.

Oh my word, the less they know the less they know it.

First, there is no 'to me' at the end of my premise, so stop putting it in. Address MY premise, not yours. It won't be morally valuable 'to me', it'll just be 'morally valuable' full stop, because that's the nature of moral value and my valuings will now constitute it. They DON'T of course, but that's the blooming point!!

Second, even if we change my premise for your one - which I won't, because it is thoroughly confused - the argument's conclusion will be the SAME!

Or do you think it won't be? You think, do you, that if I value something then necessarily it is morally valuable? So, if I value raping someone, then necessarily it is good for me to rape someone? Are you crazy? Put in 'to me' all you like, your claims are preposterous and self-evidently false.

Er, no, you're really not understanding this. There's only so much I can do. If - if - moral values are made of my valuings, then if I value something necessarily it is morally valuable. That is a conceptual truth. If you can't see that it is true, then like I say, there's nothing I can do for you.
Now, I am not going to respond to you until you actually address one of my premises rather than insisting on changing them for quite different ones of your own invention.

So, once again, and for the last time, which premise are you disputing?

Well as the argument demonstrates, moral values are not the valuings of you or I, but of another subject (and the 'of' in that sentence denotes not the object of the valuings, but the valuer - the one doing the valuing). So, the 'someone' you're referring to just is the valuer whose valuings constitute moral valuings. So, er, yes - the whole point of the argument was to show that moral values are always the values of a person. The point, though, is that the person is also demonstrably not you or I, but a god. Which is why it makes no sense to say "Xing is morally valuable to me".

LIke I say, you're confusing descriptions with prescriptions. Moral rules, if there are any, are prescriptions. Now, can a machine issue a prescription? No, not literally. Someone can programme a machine to issue prescriptions, but then those prescriptions qualify as prescriptions only because we can trace them to a subject whose attitudes they express.

For example, imagine that meteorological conditions bring it about that the clouds above your head temporarily form into shapes that look to you like the words "buy some milk!" Are you being instructed to buy some milk? No, obviously not. Why? Because the clouds were not expressing the attitude of any subject - it was just a freak meteorological occurrence. We can describe why it happened by appealing to laws of nature - but those laws, note, are descriptive not prescriptive. Which is why explaining why it happened will not amount to showing that you were, in fact, being told to buy some milk. You were not being told to buy some milk and what appeared to you to be a prescription was no such thing at all, just some clouds.

Now, for it really to be the case that there is a prescription against being cruel, say - and there obviously is such a prescription, for virtually all of those possessed of reason recognise that there is - there would need to be a subject whose attitudes that prescription expresses.

So, rather than rewriting my premises or assuming I've incorrectly written them, just address them. That is, try to take issue with one. Again, with one of my premises as I have written them.

Here, for your convenience, is the argument thus far:

1. For something to be morally valuable is for it to be being valued.
2. Only a subject can value something
3. Therefore, for something to be morally valuable is for it to be being valued by a subject.
4. If moral values are my valuings, then if I value something necessarily it is morally valuable
5. If I value something it is not necessarily morally valuable.
6. Therefore, for something to be morally valuable is for it to be being valued by a subject who is not me.

No one. Just 'morally valuable'. if I value something, then it is valuable to me, yes? But if something is morally valuable then it is valuable irrespective of whether I value it, yes?

the point - which you don't seem to be grasping - is that my valuing of something is not of a piece with it being morally valuable. They're different. Not the same. Different.

I don't think you know what a non sequitur is.
And no, nothing needs to be changed. The argument was deductively valid and both premises - as I wrote them, not as you might re-write them - are true. Deal.

that's question begging - I think you demonstrably don't. Look, if other things are equal - so we equalize all other properties, such as psychological fallout and so on - then still, forcing someone to have sex with you is an order of magnitude morally worse than forcing someone to play tennis with you - yes, or no?

If yes, why? If no - then you hold the view I have attributed to you.

the point, which you seem to be having such a hard time grasping, is that the two are not morally equivalent as any morally sensitive personal recognizes. You, howeve, think there's nothing special about sex. Thus you are committed to the morally silly view that there's no ethical difference between forcing someone to play tennis with you and forcing sex on someone, other things being equal.

I do not follow you. I have not invented anything, I have just followed an argument to its logical conclusion. Moral values are valuings (what else could they be?) and valuings are somethings subjects have a monopoly on. Yet they are not my valuings or anyone else's apart from the person whose valuings they are.
Note, I am not saying I value or do not value moral values. I am talking about what they are - that is, what they are made of - not my own attitudes towards them.
As for the Euthyphro - what's the problem?

well, top marks for not bothering to address anything I actually argued.

So, again, two no-nothings say the same thing and suddenly we have verification and knowledge, yes? Only, no, no, no.

So, basically, long story short, a big bunch of no-nothings can create knowledge by writing a Wikipedia page, yes?

Plus, I thought you didn't value what experts think - why are you suddenly into consensuses?

You realize there's a consensus that verificationism is false?

Does the random non-expert's cancer diagnosis verify the other random non-expert's cancer diagnosis? If not, why not?

I am unclear what your point is. The word 'objective' is ambiguous - it can mean 'goal', it can mean 'impartial' and it can mean 'exists outside of subjects of experience'. So, to avoid confusion I stipulated what it was going to mean in this thread - it was going to mean 'exists outside of subjects'.

I then argued that it is not possible for moral values to exist in this way. Moral values must be subjective becsaue they are valuings and only subjects value things.

Well, that's nice for you - but your random and unjustified assertions do not determine what's true in this area. Not unless you're an expert, that is (joke).

You're confusing verifiability with truth and justification.

To be justified in a belief is for there to be normative reason for you to believe what you believe (whether you have to be aware of the reasons is another matter).

You can be justified in a belief in the absence of verification. After all, as I have just noted above, if every belief, to be justified, required verification, we'd have a regress and no belief would be justified.

For example, if I am alone in the world I am nevertheless justified in believing I exist, even though my belief is not verifiable.

And I am justified in thinking I just drank a beer because I seem to remember doing so, even if I cannot travel back in time and verify it. And so on.

Again, you're not comparing like with like.
Moral norms are prescriptions. That's just what a norm is. Well, it's more of a rag bag than that. Moral philosophers often characterise them as 'favourings'. Doesn't matter. Favourings require a favourer.

No, that was my original argument for thinking that moral values, though the valuings of a subject, are not my valuings.

There's nothing incoherent about it. Look, because pain is a feeling then if I feel in pain, necessarily I am in pain, yes? Likewise then, if moral values are my values - that is, if my valuing something thereby makes it morally valuable - then if I value something necessarily it will be morally valuable. Which is isn't, of course. Hence, moral values are thereby demonstrated not to be constituted by my valuings.

If a random stranger with no expertise in medicine says that my mole is cancerous, and then another random strange with no expertise in medicine says that my mole is cancerous, have they verified each other? And do you think that, because they have both said the same thing, I now have good reason to think the mole is cancerous?

You don't have to verify that a belief is knowledge before it qualifies as knowledge. After all, if you did you'd get a regress.

And note, I did not say that moral values and prescriptions are human values and prescriptions. I concluded that they are not.

No, a normative rule is a prescription. It tells you to do something. Only a subject can tell you to do something.

And even in the extremely unlikely event that your bizarre claim is true, it would do nothing to show that machines can have knowledge. Although perhaps you were talking about experts and expertise - I am a bit lost now.

But machines can't have knowledge (not unless they can have minds). And if an expert in a field says something then you've reason to think it is true (other things being equal - as usual).

No, that's just a bizarre claim that I see no reason to think is true

No, if there are beliefs that cannot be expressed in a language that's irrelevant to whether they will qualify as items of knowledge.

I don't know what you're talking about again.

You're conflating descriptive rules with normative rules.

Morality, if it involves any rules, is going to involve normative rules. And is those that require a ruler.

You're changing your position. Knowledge involves having a justified true belief, whatever else it involves (actually, I'm sceptical it has to involve that - but it has to involve a true belief). Beliefs are mental states. Machines don't have mental states. Therefore they do not have knowledge.

Now you're saying they use knowledge. Well that's different. I used a bus to get home, but I don't have a bus.

I know, that's why I pointed out that the arguments are valid and that they have premises that are true beyond a reasonable doubt. That is, they appear to be sound arguments. It doesn't get better than a sound argument.

There's no contradiction. That premise, combined with the premise "If moral values are my valuings then if I value something it is necessarily valuable" entails the conclusion that moral values are not my values. That is consistent with moral values being someone's values (for I am not everyone)

Knowledge requires a belief, machines do not have beliefs, therefore machines do not have knowledge.