I think we're primarily considering the notion of moral obligation in this discussion. Are there moral obligations and if so then what is their ontological status?

Assuming that a moral sentence is a sentence of the form "one ought (not) X":

a) no moral sentence is truth-apt
b) some moral sentence is truth-apt

Either (a) or (b) is true.

c) no moral sentence is true
d) some moral sentence is true

If (b) is true then either (c) or (d) is true.

e) no moral sentence is true if nobody believes so
f) some moral sentence is true even if nobody believes so

If (d) is true then either (e) or (f) is true.

Therefore, one of these is true:

a) no moral sentence is truth-apt (non-cognitivism)
c) no moral sentence is true (error theory)
e) no moral sentence is true if nobody believes so (non-objectivism)
f) some moral sentence is true even if nobody believes so (robust realism)

So given that a moral sentence is a sentence of the form "one ought (not) X", which of (a), (c), (e), or (f) is true?

They're not incompatible. — Leontiskos

1. Some "one ought not X" is true
2. "one ought not X" doesn't mean "according to some rule-giver Y, one ought not X"
3. There are no obligations without a rule-giver

These cannot all be true. It seems to me that non-cognitivists and error theorists must reject (1), subjectivists must reject (2), and realists must reject (3).

If (1) is true then subjectivism allows for obligations. Everyone here seems to be in agreement that (1) is false, including you. This seems about right to me. This is the case that I would call obviously false but not incoherent. — Leontiskos

Well that’s the issue. I think that (1) is false, I think that some moral sentences are true, and I think that obligations without a rule-giver are nonsensical. Yet these three positions are incompatible.

Perhaps I’m a fictionalist.

Two self-proclaimed subjectivists in this thread have already disagreed with (1), and none have agreed with it. — Leontiskos

Yes, subjectivism covers a variety of different positions.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_subjectivism

There is some debate among philosophers around the use of the term "ethical subjectivism" as this term has historically referred to the more specific position that ethical statements are merely reports of one's own mental states (saying that killing is wrong just means you disapprove of killing). While this is an ethically subjective position (the truth of your statement does depend on your mental states), it is not the only one.

https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/moral-anti-realism/

According to John Rawls (1971), fairness is determined by the results of an imaginary collective decision, wherein self-interested agents negotiate principles of distribution behind a veil of ignorance. Decision-making, negotiation, and agency all require mental activity.

…

According to Frank Jackson (1998), ethical terms pick out properties that play a certain role in the conceptual network determined by mature folk morality. “The folk” necessarily have minds, and the relevant process of “maturing” is presumably one that implicates a variety of psychological events.

I was simply using an example that better fits my breakdown here.

Yes, but (1) is false. — Leontiskos

That’s where realists and subjectivists disagree.

Subjectivism claims that (1) is true, and if (1) is true then the conclusion follows. Subjectivism allows for obligations. It just doesn’t allow for realist obligations, which is obvious given that it’s anti-realist.

Valid and coherent, but it erroneously divorces morality from oughtness, as noted above. — Leontiskos

If the argument is valid and if the premises are true then the conclusion that one ought not harm another iff society says one ought not ham another is true.

Society saying something does not intrinsically obligate anyone to obey. — Leontiskos

What exactly do you mean by “intrinsic”? Isn’t this the very thing that realists and subjectivists disagree over? Realists say that moral rules and obligations are “intrinsic” (i.e objective) and subjectivists say that they aren’t.

If so then it’s begging the question to argue that moral subjectivism is false (or incoherent) if it entails that moral rules and obligations are not intrinsic.

You appear to just be saying that subjectivism fails because it isn’t realism.

For sure. I wrestle with it a lot - I guess i see society as an arbitrary rule-giver. Assenting to just plum majority rule does not sit well. — AmadeusD

Is there such a thing as a non-arbitrary rule giver?

This is the reason for my discomfort with the idea of moral truth. — AmadeusD

Perhaps there are moral truths because there is a rule-giver, e.g. society.

I'll set it out as a syllogism.

1. "one ought not harm another" means "society says one ought not harm another"
2. "society says one ought not harm another" is true iff society says one ought not harm another
3. Therefore, "one ought not harm another" is true iff society says one ought not harm another

The argument is valid.

Moral realists (and error theorists) believe that (1) is false, whereas (some) moral subjectivists believe that (1) is true.

You're not just saying, "Morality is just the laws we pass;" you are saying, "Morality is the laws we pass and we ought to obey those laws." — Leontiskos

Not exactly. I'm saying that society says "you ought not kill babies" and then we either obey or we don't, and if we don't then we're doing what society says we ought not do. Moral subjectivists claim that there is nothing more to morality than this. According to them, when we say "you ought not kill babies" we are implicitly (or explicitly) saying "according to society you ought not kill babies."

Moral realists, on the other hand, think that "you ought not kill babies" is never prefixed with some "according to X". Moral subjectivists think this nonsensical as they believe one cannot have a rule without a rule-giver.

We can never manufacture binding rules for ourselves. Self-legislation does not bind — Leontiskos

Well, I know lawmakers like to think themselves above the law, but they're not.

I think it an indisputable fact that society does in fact dictate rules that each member must follow.

Whether or not these are the rules that we refer to when we talk about morality is the very issue that (robust) moral realists and moral subjectivists disagree on. Realists think that moral rules are something other than the rules society manufactures for itself, subjectivists don't.

And error theorists agree with the realist that when we talk about morality we intend to talk about something other than the rules society manufactures for itself, but agree with the subjectivist that there are no such other rules.

And yet sometimes we ought not obey the law. It's never simple. — Banno

Yes, sometimes some other rule demands us to break the law. And perhaps this other rule is yet another manufactured rule. I can understand the moral subjectivist taking issue with the claim that there are rules that are simply "built in" to the world (or whatever it is that (robust) moral realists believe).

Rules without a rule-giver does seem spurious.

Again, it's not clear to me what it is you are suggesting, both in that post and in your recent line of thought. — Banno

When playing chess one ought follow the rules and when going about your everyday life one ought obey the law, even though the rules of chess and the law are manufactured by us.

Perhaps there's nothing more to morality than those socially manufactured rules that we impose on one another.

But morality is not conceived of as a voluntary activity, whereas chess is. — Leontiskos

We can choose to abandon society.

But rather than chess, perhaps laws a good example. We ought to obey the law, and not just for practical reasons.

The interesting part for me in the ought business is the justification. — Tom Storm

The interesting part for me is the very meaning of obligation. I think Anscombe said it best when she described "ought" as "a word of mere mesmeric force".

Yet it remains open as to whether we ought cooperate. — Banno

Is it open as to whether we ought not move a pawn backwards in chess when playing chess?

For others it is incoherent because in being a response to moral issues it pretends to tell us what we ought to do, and yet it only tells us what most people do. — Banno

See my second paragraph above.

My problem with this is that morality is a normative affair. If someone is making purely descriptive claims, then they are not engaged in, or committing themselves to, any kind of morality. — Leontiskos

1. X is wrong
2. One ought not X

Do these mean the same thing?

If someone claims that morality is reducible to descriptive facts, then they are explaining away morality. — Leontiskos

I don't think that this is necessarily the case. There is a normative component to the rules of chess and to laws even though these are manufactured. I don't see a problem with claiming that society has manufactured (organically over time) a set of rules that each member must abide by, and that these are the rules we talk about when we talk about morality.

Are you committed to the proposition that, on the version of moral subjectivism you are examining, the consensus has moral weight but the votes have none? — Leontiskos

What I am saying is that there are certain behaviours that society has deemed acceptable and certain behaviours that society has deemed unacceptable. According to some moral subjectivists when we talk about morality we are talking about these socially acceptable and unacceptable behaviours. The sentence "murder is immoral" is true iff society deems murder unacceptable because "murder is immoral" just means "murder is deemed socially unacceptable."

This may be factually incorrect (e.g. if Moore's open argument is sound), but that doesn't make it incoherent. It's an internally consistent theory even if it mistakes the meaning of moral sentences.

And on a similar vein, the same is true for the subjectivists who claim that "murder is immoral" is true (for me) if I disapprove of murder because "murder is immoral" just means "I disapprove of murder". It's internally consistent even if factually incorrect.

You are assuming that (3a) is coherent, but when presented with the incoherencies of (3a) — Leontiskos

I don't think you have presented any incoherencies.

I think I might have already mentioned once or twice that my interest here was no more than to show that there are moral truths. — Banno

And as I have already mentioned, the rest of us are interested in further considerations. We want to know if moral truths are expressions of individual attitudes, or if they describe conventions of social behaviour, or if they report on facts about the world that obtain even if everyone were to believe otherwise. We want to know whether or not moral truths are reducible to natural phenomena.

If you're not interested in these further considerations then you don't need to engage with the rest of us who are.

Of course. Are you expecting mere philosophical considerations will decide what you ought to do? They might help you phrase the issues, but they will no more solve all your moral quandaries than they will tell you the value of the gravitational constant. — Banno

I'm expecting philosophical considerations to help me determine what "one ought not" means and whether or not moral truths are determined to any extent by human attitudes and decisions.

You seem to be confusing metaethics and normative ethics. I have no questions for normative ethics. I already know what I ought to (not) do. Don't eat babies, for example.

Banno's point is that the common element in moral realism is that there are true moral statements. It turns out to be important that the SEP article on moral realism stops there, noting that "...some accounts of moral realism see it as involving additional commitments", while the SEP article on Moral Antirealism - the one you repeatedly refer to - needs these "additional commitments' in order to implement a critique of "moral realism".

Could it be that without these "additional commitments" moral realism stands firm? I think so. — Banno

You seem to view the distinction as:

1. Moral non-cognitivism
2. Error theory
3. Moral realism

Others view the distinction as:

1. Moral non-cognitivism
2. Error theory
3a. Moral subjectivism
3b. Moral realism

When others argue against moral realism they are arguing against their (3b), not your (3). Your (3) also allows for their (3a).

So you're just talking past each other.

So what.

Agreement is not a criteria here. The open question argument shows that.

I am not following whatever it is you are doing. — Banno

You said that "if the consequence of an argument is unacceptable, it is open to us to reject the argument."

So you offer an argument for some morality with a consequence that I find unacceptable, so I reject it.

I offer an argument for some morality with a consequence that you find unacceptable, so you reject it.

We've gotten nowhere. How do we determine which of us is, if either, is right? Is moral philosophy simply a futile endeavour?

On this account, our moral beliefs and intuitions are an expression of this cooperative system. To ask, "but what if they are *wrong*?", independently of the system, is to reintroduce moral realism, which this account leaves no room for. — hypericin

If moral realism is correct then it is perfectly appropriate to ask "what if they're wrong?"

So to simply use this example of socially advantageous behaviour as a refutation of realism is to beg the question.

If the consequence of an argument is unacceptable, it is open to us to reject the argument. That's how reductio works. — Banno

Unacceptable to who? You and I might disagree over whether or not abortion, eating meat, and the death penalty are unacceptable.

If the nature of chess is dictated by an authority, then it is not the result of a consensus. A vote and an appeal to an authority are two different things. Thus your chess case, as presented, is not a matter of consensus. — Leontiskos

I think you're being overly pedantic here. In the case of chess there was a majority consensus amongst the group authorized to decide the laws. In the case of laws there is a majority consensus amongst the legislature. In the case of morality it may be that there is a majority consensus amongst the general population.

There's nothing inherently contradictory about these positions.

Again, if a moral theory were to advocate some horror, it is open for us to reject that moral theory on that basis. — Banno

On what grounds do you justify this assertion? It seems to beg the question.

And what happens when two people disagree over whether or not something is a "horror" (e.g. with abortion or the death penalty for murderers)?

This is about the ontology of chess, and ontological questions are not settled by authorities. — Leontiskos

They are if the ontology of chess is such that the rules are dictated by some relevant authority, which they are. Cavemen didn't just discover the rules of chess one day.

How can it be simultaneously true that, "It is morally wrong because we agreed on it," and, "We agreed on it because it is morally wrong"? You have to pick one or the other. — Leontiskos

I did. Moral subjectivists say it's the former.

Only if the rules of a game do not constitute the game would this argument succeed. That seems highly implausible. — Leontiskos

Are you saying that the rules didn't change? Because they did. That's simply indisputable.

If morality is nothing more than consensus, then the origins of the consensus (the votes) are non-moral (or pre-moral). I don't have a problem with the idea that consensus carries moral weight, but I believe the circularity argument proves that morality cannot be simply reduced to consensus. If a consensus of 10 votes carries moral weight, then so does a single vote. The moral weight can't just materialize out of nowhere upon the reaching of a consensus. — Leontiskos

I don't understand what's circular about it? The people who invented chess dictated the original rules. FIDE recently dictated some new changes. Governments across the world enact new laws every day. Why can't it be that moral rules work the same way?

If we change the rules of chess then we are playing a different game. Calling it "chess" is misleading. — Leontiskos

Well this isn't true. The FIDE rules of chess last changed in January of this year to add a seventy-five move rule.

If we speak about consensus, then we are not speaking about morality. — Leontiskos

Some moral subjectivists disagree. They argue that that is exactly what morality is. See contractualism.

You conclude that their moral conventions are a socially advantageous strategy designed to foster cooperation. This account in no way requires that the apes themselves take this view. — hypericin

This is ambiguous. It may be that our moral beliefs are consistent with socially advantageous strategies designed to foster cooperation, but it doesn't then follow that socially advantageous strategies designed to foster cooperation are moral. Our beliefs may be wrong.

The summary of these facts is that one ought to be honest, because otherwise communication ceases, language is useless, and society collapses. This a physical reality. — unenlightened

But what does this have to do with morality? There can be non-moral obligations. I ought to brush my teeth otherwise they will fall out, but it's not immoral to not brush my teeth (although it may be immoral to subject others to my foul breath).

There's something missing in your argument to connect socially advantageous behaviour with morality.

If we all agree that X is morally wrong, does that agreement make X morally wrong? — Leontiskos

According to moral subjectivism, yes, hence what I said before:

1. It would not be wrong to eat babies if everyone were to say so (subjectivism), or
2. It would be wrong to eat babies even if everyone were to say otherwise (realism)

So are moral rules like physical laws (realism) or like the rules of chess (subjectivism)?

Despite @Banno's comments there is more to the issue than simply whether or not some moral sentences are true. There are further considerations to be had.

I don't think we can change moral rules by collective decision. I don't know if anyone believes that...? I am not following you here. — Leontiskos

Moral subjectivists might. They might argue that moral rules are the collectively decided rules of social behaviour (if not simply an individual's own chosen rules).

Anti-naturalists like Michael, @Banno, @Leontiskos have to demonstrate why accounts like this fail so utterly that, ontological parsimony be damned, it is preferable to introduce a whole new category of reality. — hypericin

"Socially advantageous behaviour is morally right" does not seem to be a tautology. If it's not a tautology then the meaning of "morally right" cannot be reduced to "socially advantageous behaviour".

See Moore's open question argument:

Consider a particular naturalist claim, such as that “x is good” is equivalent to “x is pleasant” or “x is pleasure.” If this claim were true, he argued, the judgement “Pleasure is good” would be equivalent to “Pleasure is pleasure,” yet surely someone who asserts the former means to express more than that uninformative tautology. Alternatively, if this naturalist claim were true, “x is pleasant but x is not good” would be self-contradictory. Once it was established that x is pleasant, the question whether it is good would then be closed, or not worth considering, whereas, he argued, it remains open.

It may be factually correct that socially advantageous behaviour is morally right, but realist metaethics may still be correct: that socially advantageous behaviour is morally right is objectively true, even if we were all to believe otherwise, and for the non-naturalist that moral rightness is a non-natural property of socially advantageous behaviour.

My point was that, "The diamond is worth $1,000," is not made true by everyone saying so. — Leontiskos

If you don't think the worth of a diamond is a good example then consider the rules of chess. We can change them by collective decision. Can we change moral rules by collective decision?

This feels like a narrow account of subjectivism that few would endorse.

In my view, people ultimately make moral judgements and decisions according to their own values and moral sense. These values and this sensibility are in turn informed by enculturation and group-think, but also by biologically based moral instincts (innate senses of fairness and justice, empathy), as well as individual experiences and preferences. This is "subjectivism" as none of these are objective features of the world (right?), but seems poorly captured by "if everyone were to say so". — hypericin

Note that I said if. I didn't say only if.

I'd say that the consequences of false moral belief will depend on the moral system in question. For example, if a consequentialist holds that killing babies is evil on account of inflicting pain, then the possible world in which the killing of babies is permissible would be a world where babies feel no pain (or where one can kill painlessly). For this consequentialist, the negative consequence of false belief is an increase in pain, or unnecessary pain, or the pain of innocents, or something like that. — Leontiskos

Perhaps a more suitable question for the consequentialist is to explain the difference between these worlds:

1. Causing pain has no moral value
2. Causing pain is morally good
3. Causing pain is morally bad

A possible response is that "causing pain is morally bad" is true by definition, and so (1) and (2) are not possible worlds, but the question stands for any consequentialist who doesn't think consequentialism true by definition.

Quote 1. If it is a fact that kicking a puppy hurts/harms the puppy, then that's just a fact of hte matter. So, that's not a further moral "fact" - it's an empirical fact subsequent to the act of kicking (which others are making a moral judgment on, rather than I). I ascribed no value to the harm/hurt (in fact, i think that might be what sets me on the anti-realist bent.. I do not see that it matters). Had I said that the harm is the wrong-maker, I could agree - but again, I don't see how the puppy being hurt imparts any truth to the initial statement.

Quote 2. Is him ascribing something to me which I don't think or feel but that may be explained by the above - I did not, and do not, believe the harm the puppy experiences is a fact that gives moral statements about kicking a puppy value or truth (morally speaking). It is just a fact (or, an effect).

Quote 3. Similar to above. I've never tried to prove that the fact of the puppy's harm would make it wrong or right. Though, it appears to me that's a result of my larger-scale misunderstanding being read as if i know what im talking about LOL. The only reason I was bringing up that underlying fact was because I was under the impression that i could apply the concept (that the statement is not brute) to the framework being used to allow 'One ought not kick puppies' being considered somehow 'true'. I don't think either that statement of itself, or the resulting harm/hurt impart 'truth' beyond it being empirically true that a puppy is hurt by being kicked. — AmadeusD

You said that one ought not kick the puppy because it hurts the puppy. How is this to be interpreted as anything other than you ascribing moral value to hurting the puppy?

By analogy, consider if someone were to say that one ought not kick the puppy because the puppy has brown fur. It is certainly true that the puppy has brown fur, but this has nothing to do with whether or not one ought not kick the puppy, and so the use of the term "because" here is fallacious.

If you only meant to say that one ought not kick the puppy and kicking the puppy would hurt the puppy then I wouldn't object. But of course this doesn't even address the issue of whether or not moral facts are brute facts, so it certainly doesn't rebut the claim that there are brute moral facts.