It seems to me that I can provide you with plenty of examples of ought claims that are not expressing authoritative statement that an agent has a moral obligation to perform a certain action. For example, suppose that someone were to tell you that you ought to invest in the company Tesla. Would you interpret that person as saying that you have a moral obligation to invest in Tesla? That seems to me like a very silly interpretation of that statement. — TheHedoMinimalist

I am referring to moral ought claims, which it is not apparently clear that your example is expressing without additional context. Nonetheless, whether it expresses a moral ought or not, I have already explained that it is a subjective authority which gives rise to a compulsive motivation to perform a certain action that is only necessarily applicable to the agent themselves. Not to deny that similar values coincide between agents, or that the values that one agent has can be expressed in such a way that compells another agent to perform an action. Such interactions can be common, even ubiquitous, between multiple agents, just not logically necessitated to based of an objective standard that lies outside the agent's subjective states.

I think there are plenty of ought claims that produce a good consequence but that consequence is good in a non-moral sort of way. — TheHedoMinimalist

This is incoherent to me. How can a consequence be evaluated as good through your perspective but good in a non-moral sort of way? I can think of nothing other than a play, or misuse of words, removing any meaning assigned to them by anyone other than yourself. The example that you repetitively offer is an example where you, a separate agent, expresses a vague ought claim that may or may not be moral in context, as if the subjective force compelling you to act or to hold such a belief, is necessarily applicable to compell me. I have said many times that this is possible but not necessary and utterly dependent upon the subjective states of the agents in question. We do not have the the ability to compell every other person to be motivated towards a particular means based on an ends that we value.

I think that might be a good psychological explanation of how the agent comes to value what they value but I don’t think that this gives us any reason to think that the values are subjective rather than objective. In fact, I think this same psychological explanation could be given regarding why agents have any sort of beliefs that they have. For example, I could say that your belief that the Earth revolves around the sun is a unique manifestation that arose and developed as a result of the complex, dynamic interactions between your subjective states and how you experienced the surrounding physical and social environments. After all, you mostly believe that the Earth revolved around the Sun because you were taught that in school and you haven’t actually seen the empirical evidence for this view as this evidence could only be accessed by certain scientists and other such people. — TheHedoMinimalist

Your example is a claim that is objectively tethered to objects of our observable reality, thus it has empirical force which is much more compelling than the emotive or subjective force behind evaluative claims that express an attitude towards a thing, and one that is not necessarily mutually compatible with the values of others. If construct a geometrical model with the sun at the center, and the planets rotating around it, the model will make an empirical prediction that as Earth travels around the sun it would overtake the more distant plants and this would be an observable phenomenon from earth of a retrograde motions of the planets. Later, more empirical evidence was gathered with a new understanding of motion (known as Newtons laws of motion), that made precise empirical predictions for the positions of the planets as they orbit the sun. As we came to realize the vastness of the distance between us and the stars, we came to realize that there was indeed an observable parallax effect seen in the stars, however tiny due to the much greater distance between us and them than that which was previously calculated.

I agree but I think evaluations are just educated guesses regarding what are actually better or worse decision options or what are better or worse state of affairs. Given this, I think someone can be wrong regarding how they evaluate a given decision option or state of affairs. For example, suppose that someone evaluated that being a professional boxer would be valuable for them because it would bring about meaningful achievement in their life which they think is valuable in a non-instrumental sort of way in the same way that a hedonist would think that pleasure is valuable. I tend to think that this person would be wrong in their evaluation because I don’t agree that there are objectively meaningful achievements that have value that go beyond the hedonistic improvement that those achievements bring. — TheHedoMinimalist

An untested evaluation of where your physical limitations lie, or what you can physically endure most certainly can be right or wrong because it depends upon the information gained through actual experience. This however does not contradict the feelings towards meaningful achievement that the subject attaches to the feat of overcoming yet untested challenges that very few have overcome. The subject will evaluate what it would be like to be a professional boxer from a perspective that values what can be seen from an external point of view, of which such value are merely reflections of the social values that are attributes to certain characteristics of a professional boxer that makes them so attractive for so many. Be it fearlessness, intimidation, physical ability, mental and physical endurance, fame, life-styles, etc, all of which would remain attractive features leading up to the realization of the sacrifices required gained through actual experience. These values may slowly fade or reverse over time as new information comes in to inform us of other potentially valuable things, or even much more quickly as a result of a realization to the extreme demands required for what was viewed as modest values. For example, many young boys hold an untested evaluation that values what it would be like to be a police officer, though as experience and additional information come in, the value many boys once held becomes disillusioned and with the possibility of reversing such a value.

If someone says "I think boxers are cool" and you think that they are objectively wrong in their evaluation, then offer proof beyond the fact that such a view is likely to change over time as new information from new experiences come in. The evaluation is temporally bound to a specific time and place where the totality of experiences that informed and values that influenced the subject were in a certain order and arrangement specific to that moment and the series of moments that lead to it. You cannot prove an evaluation wrong by removing it from its appropriate contexts such as the time or the configuration of values that influence such things at a specific moment in time.

I wonder what you think about evaluations that people make which involve them making metaphysical claims about the objective existence of something weird and magical like “meaningful achievements”. It seems to me that you couldn’t believe that evaluations are completely subjective and yet also believe that they are sometimes objectively false because of the metaphysical foundation on which these evaluations rely on is false. I think you either have to claim that everyone is right regarding their evaluations or that evaluations are sometimes objectively false. If evaluations can be objectively false if they are based on a wrong metaphysical claim then it’s not clear to me why they also couldn’t be objectively true if they are based on a correct metaphysical claim. — TheHedoMinimalist

I'm happy to share my thoughts here as that is a very interesting question to think about, but the example of "meaningful achievements" doesn't quite capture the essence of what it is you are asking about. I think people who make evaluative judgements of a metaphysical existence about something they believe to be objective and magical is completely and transparently true if the express themselves sincerely and there is usually little reason to doubt that they are.

As a case in point, consider the Christian God. This is a belief of many that is metaphysical, objective and magical in nature. The fact that the Christian God almost certainly doesn't exist, or the fact that there is little reason to hold such a belief, for some, does not mean that the subjects who hold the metaphysical belief that the Christian God does exist cannot value such beliefs. Likewise, if someone truly believed that they could have control over future events, and they truly valued this belief, then their evaluative judgment would be true despite how erroneous the belief is.

The value is a property that resides within the subjective states of the agent and is not a property of some external source. The value is attached to the belief that the subject holds and thus is not dependent upon the metaphysical truth that the belief expresses. If you believe you have a guardian angel protecting you, then you likely value the comfort and ease of mind that such a belief is likely to bring. The fact that you feel comfort and ease of mind by virtue of holding this belief is an objectively true assessment of your subjective states.

So, yes, it is possible to have an objectively true evaluation of a belief that is metaphysically false. Of course everyone is right regarding their evaluations, as long as you keep in mind that their evaluations are based in subjectivity, contextually bound to a moment in time and the set of values which arose as a result of the one's totality of experiences that lead up to the moment, is not necessarily compatible with others, and is not applicable outside of the subjective state of an agent—though it may be similar enough to be compatible between any number of agents that hold similar values.

I think there are conceptual truths about how we should behave that go beyond the universe and do not exist in space or time. I think those conceptual truths are objective in the same way that mathematical truths are objective. — TheHedoMinimalist

So your basically a platonist when it comes values and morals? I get lost when you say that values exist and are objective. I can agree with you that values exist if I understand what you mean by "exist" to be the same thing as thoughts, language and mathematics, but I would not be able to use the term "exist" in the same way I would use it to describe physical objects without committing an equivocation, and this would require me to define a special kind of existence wherein such entities can be ontologically categorized.

When you describe values that objectivity exist is when my intuitions and understands hit a metaphysical wall. Objectivity requires an existence without minds. Without human minds there can be no conceptualization of mathematical sets. Mathematical sets are defined through human interpretations of objects in space, and thus cannot exist in the absence of our existence. For example, consider an centimeter. The centimeter is a human invention based on how we interpret objects in space, however, a centimeter in and of itself does not exist, although the symmetry of the objects it corresponds with can be said to exist. I have not explored deep enough into the philosophy of mathematics to confidently to make strong claims here. I am operating on a fairly reliable mathematical intuition though.

I would need you to provide an argument to support the claim that certain abstractions such as values or mathematical sets are ontologically mind-independent.

I think that the statement “Plants are pretty” is similar to the statement “Cookies are sweet”. The adjective “sweet” doesn’t imply a value judgement and thus the statement “Cookies are sweet” is value neutral. I also think that the adjective “pretty” doesn’t imply a value judgement in the same sort of way. Thus, just like the phrase “Cookies are sweet” is value neutral, I think the phrase “Plants are pretty” is as well. — TheHedoMinimalist

Value judgments such as those of heaviness, loudness, and brightness clearly are dependent upon a particular frame of reference, a context, or a background of information that against which such value judgments can be made. A stimulus that produces "sweetness" as a taste perception does not necessarily mean that the stimulus also produces "pleasantness" as a value judgement. Sweetness depends upon a context against which a value judgment can be made. Sweetness may imply a positive, negative or neutral value judgement all depending on the context of the taste perception. Sweetness corresponds with the relative concentration of sucrose a food contains and while a positive value judgement may coincide with the taste perception of sweetness within a range of varying contexts of modest sucrose concentrations, maximal sucrose concentrations necessarily correspond with maximal taste perceptions of sweetness, whereas neither maximal sucrose concentrations nor the corresponding maximal taste perceptions of sweetness correspond with the value judgement of pleasantness.

Sensory adaptation such as fatigue or adaptation of taste receptors also produce contextual effects with variations in value judgements reported by the same subject rating the pleasantness produced by the same concentrations of sucrose. The term "pretty" implies a positive value judgement that generally refers to the pleasantness experienced by visual perceptions. Brightness is a visual perception, but the relative brightness of a visual perception does not necessarily correspond with the pleasantness produced by the visual perception. Things can clearly be too bright or not bright enough, as well as, unpleasantly bright or pleasantly bright. Similarly, taste perceptions can be too sweet or unpleasantly sweet depending on the context of the stimulus effects on our nervous system.

Words such as "beautiful", "pretty", and "handsome" all describe something which looks good, and are therefore expressing a positive value judgement.

Nobody would ever be a deontologist about the act of learning how to dance and you wouldn’t think that it’s contradictory for me to suggest that some people should learn to dance and some people shouldn’t. So, why do you think that it’s contradictory for me to say that some people should rape and some people shouldn’t? — TheHedoMinimalist

It is contradictory for you to say that the act of rape, in and of itself, is deontologically wrong and right, immoral and moral, or as a decision option, has a relative worseness and betterness compared with the decision option to not rape. I already illustrated a reductio entailed by deontological logic (that an act, such as killing, is morally wrong no matter what the context or consequences of the act may be. It is immoral to kill one person and we oughtn't kill them, even if the consequence of not killing them means that every person, including the individual we oughtn't kill, will be killed and the consequence of killing the individual results in everyone else being spared of such a death.

It is not contradictory if we make it clear that there is a deontological threshold, even if we are unsure about the precise point at which the threshold is located, and that the moral status of the act depends upon whether or not this threshold is met. For example, I don't think it is morally right to kill one person to save five, such as in the trolley problem, because this logic leads to scenarios such as justified organ theft, and I think it would be immoral to kill a healthy person so to save five lives of people in need of an emergency organ transplant. However, if asked if it is morally right to kill one person in order to save ten, or twenty, or hundreds, or thousands, or millions of people, then, at some point, I would have to change my mind based on consequencialist terms because of the severity of the outcome. I don't know exactly where this threshold is between the range of killing one in order to save four and killing one in order to save a million—but there is definitely a threshold for me between four and a million.

With regards to the rest of what you said in this same post, what do you mean when you say you don't have a moral system? Are you morally indifferent to rape? How would a rape affect you if it resulted in having positive effects for you? What if a rape had a positive effect for everyone? What if a rape had a positive effect for everyone except you? What if a rape had a negative effect for you—or for everyone, or for everyone except you? Would you be indifferent to a rape in every imaginable context? Saying that rape can relate to betterness or worstness is a normative statement that nonetheless makes a value judgement since better implies more good and worse implies more bad. In order to evaluate that something is better, it necessarily must be contrasted against something else and that something else is a standard of goodness in cases where you express something is better than, and conversely, a standard of badness in cases where you express that something is worse than.

What do you mean by an act or a consequence related to "betterness" or "worseness"? How do you hold a system of values if such values do not motivate you towards or against a given action in any context? Are you a non-cognitivist and a value realist? How does egoistic hedonic utilitarianism not factor in such values and calculate a moral perspective for you? If you could destroy a hypothetical box containing the universe (thereby destroying everything in the universe) and by doing so increase your own hedonic utility, would you?

I was referring to your view of ought claims rather than your view on moral and aesthetic evaluations. I’m arguing that it is prudential considerations rather moral or aesthetic considerations that are most relevant to the question regarding whether or not you should rape. — TheHedoMinimalist

I view ought claims, in ethics, as statements that prescribe (or proscribe for oughtn't claims) a given action; that it should be done. An ought claim is a statement used to express that an agent has a moral obligation to perform a certain action. It is an authoritative statement for a course of action to be followed, however, this authority is based on (as you argue for) the consideration of prudential values relative, and subsequently applicable, to an individual subject.

For sake of clarity, I'll break what I mean by this down into three points. First, allow me to explain what I mean by an ought claim being a statement that prescribes a given action. Secondly, I'll explain what i mean by the authority based on an individual subject. Lastly, I'll explain what I take you to mean by "prudential value" and "prudential considerations" because if what you understand these phrases to mean is as I understand them to mean, then I believe we have found some convergence herein.

The first point, how an ought claim is necessarily prescriptive. An ought claim is a statement that prescribes a given action either because the given action is, in itself, when considered in isolation from the actions surrounding context or the contribution the actions causal influence has towards a resulting effect, morally right to do; or, as an alternative, that a given action should be done because a particular state of affairs is morally right to exist and what gives rise to the existence of such a state of affairs, as an effect thereby produced, is causally dependent upon the influential contribution of the given action thereof.

The second point, how ought claims express a moral authority that is based on an individual subject. An ought claim is an authoritative statement that expresses a demand for a specific way to behave or for a course of action to be followed. An ought claim captures an agent's motivations, which are influenced by the agents values as the agent reflects upon the behaviors or decisions that are consistent with them. An agents values are a unique manifestation that arise and develope as a result of the complex, dynamic interactions between the agents subjective states and how the agent experiences the surrounding physical and social environments.

Though many external factors influence what an agent values and such factors influence populations of beings who share genetic, cultural, and geographic predispositions in very similar ways, there are reasons to view values that are mutually compatible yet individually unique and relative to the agent. If we imagine the sequence of experiences that uniquely unfold throughout the life of each being and consider how each experience influences the beings agency (how agency conforms to structure) which uniquely molds them in a way that gives rise to subjective variation, it becomes clear that every evaluation is dependent upon the authority of the subject.

In other words, an agent evaluates the world through a scope that is constantly developing under the influence and pressure of structures within their environment. The only common denominator between a constantly changing environment and the constantly adapting being occupying it, is the current sum between the external environmental force's actions upon the subject and the internal environmental opposing force's reactions upon the environment. This is realized in every moment by everything and is expressed in way that we, as individual subjective agents, can relate to and interact with. However, we can only do so on the surface level and only seem to understand that whatever lies between our conscious awareness gives rise to compulsive reactionary thought.

Every conscious agent is ultimately motivated to act by compulsive reactionary thoughts. These are the must-thoughts or should-thoughts that an agent is psychologically compelled to act on that manifest through both a conscious intrasubjective reflection and a social intersubjective communication. The former emerges from an underlying awareness of self-desire with egoistic motivations informing us of who we must be and what we should do, whereas the latter emerges from the stress and anxiety imposed by our perception of what the members of our social groups expect us to be and demand of us to do.

In considering this holistically, every evaluation is necessarily an expression of the subjects values and every ought claim represents an agents compulsive motivations towards fulfilling their must-thoughts. The agent is ultimately the authority, though restricted by structures of the environment, of what is of value, what is moral, and what ought to be—in a subjective context that is ascribed by the agent, by their own subjective authority, that is limited to the subjective states of the agent themselves and not to be dictated as objectively the case for others.

Finally, the third point, which will hopefully tie everything else together, what I take prudential value and prudential considerations to mean. A prudential value is a type of value that is only relevant alongside other values and is always relative to a person, a culture, a society, a point in history, etc, and generally refers to the well-being or welfare of a person or group. Prudential reasoning considers values based on calculated gains or losses relative to an individual or a group. For example, the calculated increase or decrease in overall person health resulting from careful dieting; or the calculated increase or decrease in social conflict between two groups resulting from a violation of trade agreements.

Hedonistic and subjectivistic accounts of prudential values are favored by many utilitarian philosophers and calculated as units of pleasure or preference satisfaction. Prudential values are calculated differently within a socio-politico-economic framework of ethics than they are within the framework of ethics as a moral philosophy. While the ethical framework of moral philosophy remains a controversial subject which diverges on many issues such as cognitivism or non-cognitivism, realism and non-realism, metaphysical objectivism or relativism, etc; a socio-politico-economic framework of ethics takes a pragmatic approach that mostly ignores any meta-ethical roadblocks and operates under the same assumptions as normative ethics (that there is only one criterion of moral conduct) for the purpose of establishing moral standards in order to regulate conduct of society.

While few philosophers believe there is any single principle against which all actions can be judged, by instead focusing on the idiosyncrasies, inconsistencies or redundancies entailed by other rival moral theories; a socio-politico-economic take, such as those ascribed to by the social sciences, doesn't focus so heavily on the problem of divergent human values and instead focuses on the few ubiquitous, prudential values that humans share to construct a set of foundational principles of ethics. As a result, such prudential values become institutionalized as a part of the structure of a society (such as culture) that influences the belief systems and value systems of the members therein.

The members of a society who are most motivated are those who share similar prudential values as those that are a part of the structure of society because the majority of people are heavily influenced by the structures of society and will subsequently organize so that what they work towards results in the production of that which is mutually valuable to them. Societal structures reinforce themselves intergenerationally but also evolve over time as values between branching social classes influence one another with the most deviation taking place between generational classes.

Some of the most well-known prudential values to be built into social structures or give rise to the social principles underpinning a society include: the prudential value of personal autonomy, built into the structure of society as the sacred concept of freedom, which gave rise to the principle of liberty; the prudential value of self preservation, built into the structure of society as the belief that life is sacred, which gave rise to the principle of the right to life; and the prudential value of fairness, built into the structure of society the sacred concept of justice, which gave rise to the principles of equality adopted by the Civil Rights Act.

It seems apparent, at least on the surface, that these prudential values universally enhance the well-being of human beings and welfare status of the society's they inhabit. Prudential values can be installed into a socio-politico-economic system of ethics through three different normative strategies. First, as a virtue, or the social proclivity for developing good habits of character. Examples of such virtues include wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. Secondly, as an obligation that comes with being human. This deontological strategy takes prudential values and constructs a system of duties whereby prudential values are held as fundamental principles of obligation. Such obligations include: "Do not kill," "Treat others as you wish others to treat you," and "Take care of your family". Thirdly, a strategy based on the overall outcome that weighs the good and bad consequences of an action. This consequencialist approach uses prudential values as the basis to determine whether or not the consequence of an action is bad or good. Examples of prudential values used to weigh the consequences of an action include following three.

First, egotistic prudential values, which are values that reflect an action is good if it resulted in a more favorable than unfavorable consequences for the agent performing the action. Second, altruistic prudential values, which are values that reflect an action is good if it resulted in a more favorable than unfavorable consequence for everyone except the agent performing the action. Thirsd, utilitarian prudential values, which are values that reflect an action is good if it resulted in a consequence that is more favorable than unfavorable for everyone.

Hopefully this exhaustive explanation at last provides some elucidation of my position with regard to ought claims. Also, just to be clear, I was responding to the view you expressed in the quote below where you explicitly take a consequencialist stance, then flesh out your particular view on rape. You then provide two reasons to support your view, followed by an assumption that I would not accept the implications of your reasoning, subsequently followed by calling into question the level of concern I hold over the implication thereof, in contrast with the anti-realist view I hold of ought claims. You then proceed to flesh out my view, with a caricaturing misrepresentation, by saying that, on my view, people have no reasons one way or another when it comes to choosing whether or not to rape. You further caricature my position as you go on to say that, on my view, there isn't anything that gives people a reason to choose one way or another of any decision option.

On my view, ought statements cannot be logically grounded in facts about the world and thus what is right or wrong cannot be objectively derived from a property of the external world. Ought statements can, however, be logically grounded, though with substantially less persuasive force, in the private facts about our subjective states, which thereby gives us a reason to choose and make decisions. Also, it is important to note that, given that such reasons are predicated on a subjective frame of reference, it followes, then, that such reasons should not be considered or expected to apply to other subjects as if to satisfy an objective path for others to follow. It is subjectively grounded, subjectively limited, and is subjectively applicable within the confines of the individual subject.

I want to point out that I’m egoistic hedonistic utilitarian which means that I’m not even sure if the suffering of the rape victim would actually give you any reason not to rape that person. Rather, I would say that almost nobody should ever rape because almost nobody derives pleasure from rape and almost nobody could get away with rape in the long term. You might think this implication is unacceptable but I don’t see why you aren’t more bothered by the bullets that you have to bite as an anti-realist about ought claims. Under your view, it seems that nobody ever has more reason to choose not to rape someone over choosing to rape someone. This is because you don’t seem to think that anything gives people reason to choose any decision option(even a decision option to avoid raping someone). — TheHedoMinimalist

I meant to post this earlier today and failed to do so, I apologize for the time delay and will consider you more recent post another time.

I don’t see anything contradictory about it. — TheHedoMinimalist

The contradiction would form when the principles with which we construct a framework for our moral system contains both of the following propositions. 1) Rape is wrong; and 2) Rape is not wrong. You either must (a) concede that your moral system produces a contradiction when it comes to evaluating rape; or that (b) it contains some level of arbitrariness by viewing rape as deontologically wrong, even if it produces positive consequences, but nonetheless can be morally justified if the positive consequences it produces surpass a given threshold; or that (c) a rape is justified so long as the rape results in a positive net gain in hedonic utility. I bite the bullet with arbitrariness.

Consider the following statements as they capture a reductio entailed by each.

(a) On pain of contradiction (that you both should and should not rape), according to the principle of explosion, from a contradiction anything follows. In other words, on this view, anything can be justified–including rape.

(b) Rape is wrong in itself, and even if the rape results in positive utility (say the victim was payed royalty that derived sufficient hedonic utility to outweigh the negative hedonic disutility) gained, it remains wrong, but however there must exist some threshold of hedonic utility gained as a result that would thereby justify the rape (if the rape resulted in a galaxy of people being able to avoid infinite suffering for an infinite amount of time).

(c) Rape is justified so long as the pleasure derived from it outweighs the suffering inflicted by it (if the rapist feels more pleasure than the victim feels suffering).

I also want to point out that I think it’s not enough for someone to believe that they will get away with rape in order for a rape to be the wiser decision option. — TheHedoMinimalist

Then why list it as a reason? You said that most people should not rape (a concluding statement) because (introducing supporting statement 1) almost nobody derives pleasure from rape and (introducing supporting statement 2) almost nobody could get away with rape. I formalized your argument as a biconditional statement, so yes, the 2nd conditional is not sufficient for the entailment alone, since the conclusion is true if and only if both conditionals are true. Are you no longer holding that view? The view that most people should not rape because almost nobody derives pleasure from rape and almost nobody could get away with rape?

People can be highly irrational at evaluating their own odds regarding what they can get away with. — TheHedoMinimalist

We aren't talking about the evaluations of other people, we are talking about your position on rape. You said, "I would say that almost nobody should ever rape..." then went on to list the reasons why as both because nobody derives pleasure from rape and nobody could get away with it. Also, as a tangential point, a persons belief that they will get away with something must necessarily mean that they, at least on their rationality, think they have overcome the barrier which prevents most people from raping on your view. People are not omniscient, but they do become certain of things no matter how false they actually are. People are limited by their beliefs and cannot avoid acting on said beliefs while still holding to them.

Ok, so how would you classify an action that should pretty much always be avoided because it pretty much always causes a negative consequence in your life? Bad seems like a pretty good word to describe it to me. — TheHedoMinimalist

What is the argument that the consequence is bad? Let's say prison time is the consequence: what makes a prison bad? Besides, you are naming the consequences of an act that you say is morally bad. This would imply that it is bad even if there are no consequences involved at all. Is rape bad even in the absence of any such consequences one would worry about? If so, how is it bad? What property of badness can we find of it? Because an act has negative consequences does not mean that the act is necessarily bad. For example, is falling in love bad? It can result in very negative consequences. Or, as another example, is driving a car bad? Plenty of negative consequences result from such an action. We must separate the consequences of an act from the moral status of the act itself. If rape is only bad when it results in negative consequences, then we are utilitarian on the matter. If rape is bad in itself no matter what the context may be, then we are deontologically entrenched and would act in accordance with such a rule no matter what the costs may be. If rape is always bad, but certain exceptions can be made in order to avoid results that are far worse, then we are taking the view from threshold deontology.

To answer your question, I would classify the act as bad or undesirable, but only when whichever concepts you are referring to as negative consequences that should almost always be avoided are indexed next to you as the subject of the statement. To you, an action should always be avoided because, to you, it always causes, what you see as, negative consequence in your life. It is completely coherent and easy to defend from the view that considers such evaluative statements to be relative,
thus only be applicable to, the individual subject in which it is indexed beside within the structure of the proposition.

Well, I would say that you do believe in at least one objective ought claim then. You seem to think that you have objective reasons to act in accordance to your own preferences. — TheHedoMinimalist

I would say that it is objectively true that I hold a subjective preference towards one thing or another, but not that I should act in accordance with my preferences. It is true that I hold the belief that my pleasure is good, however this does not mean that I can justify an act based on my pleasure, or that my pleasure is necessarily good. I would say that it is a psychological fact that I desire my own pleasure and that I helplessly act towards that goal because my actions are so determined by them and not by my own free will. I may seem to act in accordance with my preferences but such preferences stem from my desires and I am never free to choose that which I desire. Even if I resist my desire to eat a lot of sweets, it is not a product of my free will, but rather the pull of a stronger will, perhaps one of health or fitness, that moves me from a weaker desire—none of which am I the author of. I never choose what I will desire. It emerges seemingly at random and to be undergoing constant fluctuations that I am unconscious of.

I must ask you, do you believe that we have objective reasons to act on our own preferences or do you think that’s just subjective as well? — TheHedoMinimalist

Not objective reasons, no. It is an objective fact that we have and experience such preferences, but there is nothing to ground that in other than a subjective tautology. I have a preference for pleasure because I desire pleasure. I can subjectively ground such an axiom, as, "To me, my pleasure is good, therefore, I should act in accordance with that which derives me pleasure and avoids pain." Notice that I can't reason that you should act in accordance with my own pleasure, but we will all nonetheless do so relentlessly if you think about it. It is objectively true that I desire my own pleasure, and from this it is objectively true that if I wish to satisfy my desire for pleasure then I should act in accordance with that which gives me pleasure. I cannot objectively state that my pleasure is good by any measure besides my own preferences for it.

I would say that almost nobody should ever rape because almost nobody derives pleasure from rape and almost nobody could get away with rape in the long term. — TheHedoMinimalist

Your argument is something like this?

P1. You should rape if, and only if, you both derive pleasure from it and think you can get away with it

P2. Most people neither derive pleasure from rape nor think they could get away with it.

Therefore, C. Most people should not rape.

I believe that accurately captures what your saying. If so, then I would challenge premise 1, because it is not clear to me how the derivation of pleasure combined with the belief that one can escape any negative consequences necessarily entails that one should rape. When you say that almost no one should ever rape, it is as if you are saying that the act of rape is sometimes just and sometimes not just, which is contradictory. Is there some kind of deontological threshold that makes some rapes justified and others not? That was my critique of hedonic utilitarianism.

Also, getting away from the legal consequences seems to imply that rape is not bad, but just happens to entail the risk of some negative impact on ones life.

Under your view, it seems that nobody ever has more reason to choose not to rape someone over choosing to rape someone. — TheHedoMinimalist

Quite the contrary, there are many reasons, but they are dependent upon the agents current preference and attitude toward a thing. Many of us have empathy towards one another and can relate to the suffering others feel. On my view, there is no external reference whereby the moral status of an act can be determined objectively right or wrong. We can, however, reason internally based on how we feel towards an act. In fact, many do and reach similar enough conclusions to legislate against such things as rape.

Why do you find your own opinion that raping is not better or worse than not raping more acceptable than my view that raping is almost always worse than not raping. — TheHedoMinimalist

First of all, your question is loaded with a false premise, as I do not hold that view. I hold the view that moral or aesthetic evaluations are dependent upon the individual subject who is reflecting upon them. I think that raping is almost always considered worse by many and since there is such a majority view, then the act of rape has been institutionalized as a bad thing and this is usually a dogmatically held belief indoctrinated upon us through society (which I think at least brings favorable consequences).

I think that in order to maintain a consistent philosophical view of ethics you must ground moral principles in subjectivity rather than objectivity. I think it is silly to say that something out in the universe informs us as to how we should behave. I think most people do not hold philosophical principles but instead take whatever is normalized for granted. Some, in fact most, who do adopt philosophical principles seem to be struggling with a cognitive hangover left by religious influence that they tend to view morality though an objective lens. I have my reasons for why I view rape as wrong but they do not necessarily make rape wrong for you, though they certainly could persuade you.

I’m still kinda inclined of thinking of prettiness as a value free description of something but I can understand that maybe some people can’t think of prettiness in that kind of value neutral way. — TheHedoMinimalist

I don't think you are appreciating the context of my example. The statement is "Plants are pretty" with the noun "Plants" being the subject of the sentence and "are pretty" being the predicate verb attaching the subject of the sentence to the adjective describing the noun. The statement is talking about plants. (What about plants?) That they are pretty. Now, if you want to express the fact that plants have prettiness attributed to them by others from a third party perspective, then we could say something like "Plants have been considered pretty by many" since otherwise we are describing the plant through our perspective.

I don’t think it makes it deontological because that seems to imply that all ought statements are duties(at least I have always thought that deontological refers duty oriented stuff.). It seems like ought statements as colloquially understood do not imply a duty to do something. — TheHedoMinimalist

Deontology is a normative, rule-based ethic wherein an act, such as rape, is considered wrong by virtue of the character of the act itself and does not factor in the outcome of the act. It is the contrast to consequentialism, which includes theories such as utilitarianism. People who say they would divert the runaway trolley from the track inevitably killing 5 workers, to the track inevitably killing one worker (in the popular dilemma), are taking a consequentialist view, whereas, those who refuse to harvest the organs of one healthy person so to save five in need of organ transplants, on the converse, are taking a deontological view.

With that in mind, consider the statement "You ought not rape" and think if what is being said is "You ought not rape if it results in less than a good outcome" or if what is being said is "You ought not rape because the act of rape is always wrong". I do not view the two as being mutually exclusive. This is where the threshold comes into play. I am deontic when it comes to most cases of rape but do admit that there must be a threshold where the consequences of rape, or the omitting to rape, based on the overall utility, must be justified. For example, if you had to choose between either raping one woman, or, as a consequence of not raping the one woman, all women would be raped, then I would say that you are justified, obligated even, to perform the rape. It is either that or bite the bullet and say that one must never rape even if the consequence of not raping is billions to be raped.

If you expressed the ought as a conditional statement, then yes, of course, it would not be deontological. Such as with the statement "If x threshold is not met, then you ought not rape".

I agree with you that we have no reason to act on our desires but I do think that we have reason to act on opportunities for hedonistic improvement in our own lives. — TheHedoMinimalist

This sounds like Hedonistic Utilitarianism, which assumes an act is moral based entirely on a net gain of positive utility (pleasure it produces) or on a net drain of negative utility (pain it prevents). To put it in simple terms, it Is a view that considers pleasure to be the measure of the Good and, conversely, that considers pain to be the measure of what is not the Good. The problem entailed by such logic is that it suggests that we have a justified reason to act so long as the act is of the Good, and that which makes an act an act of the Good is an overall increase of relative pleasure that the act derives; or, to quote you, that we have reason to act on opportunities for hedonistic improvement, is that it provides a justification for acts that, im sure, you would not find just. For example, if a rapist derives a sufficient amount of pleasure from the act of rapping a victim, that it offsets the overall suffering the victim endured, thereby resulting in an overall net gain in hedonic utility, then, on this view, the rape is justified. That is quite a reduction to absurdity, and a bullet that im not willing to bite in order to hold that view consistently.

I think that ought statements are indistinguishable from normal value statements. — TheHedoMinimalist

Ought statements are a derivative of normative value statements. Every ought statement is also a normative statement but not every normative statement is an ought statement. A normative statement is one that proffers a subjective opinion that can, for instance, be only aesthetic in nature, whereas an ought statement contains a prescriptive component that suggests a course of action, which makes it deontological. If you wish to reference a dictionary, I would suggest either considering the OED or the SEP in order to disambiguate from the more colloquial meanings of such terms for their standard meanings within philosophical contexts.

I think that empirical evidence is only slightly better than other forms of evidence. — TheHedoMinimalist

I agree, and would go further still, to say that empiricism utterly fails at capturing a closer truth about reality in many cases. For example, the wave function in quantum physics represents a mathematical description of quantum systems (everything is a quantum system) that predicts future phenomena with extreme accuracy (up to ten decimal places), and yet, it describes the kind of physical phenomena that empiricism cannot (which is why quantum mechanics has been so open to different interpretations).

I don’t think it’s that crazy to think that our sensory capacities might not be as reliable at arriving at truth as we may think that they are. — TheHedoMinimalist

You are quite right. It seems that our senses evolved for reproduction and genetic survival rather than for truth. As an example, consider grabbing an apple. As we observe the apple in our hand, we do not see what the apple truly is (as revealed by the most rigorous scientific research). We do not have access to it as a complex biological system of eukaryotic cells; of which consists of nucleic acids, proteins, lipids, sugars, etc; of which consists of a complex organic chemical system of amino acids; of which contains a complex chemical system, or network of interacting molecules such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc; of which each of these elements contain a complex physical, or quantum mechanical system of stable sub atomic particles such as protons, neutron, electrons—including a zoo of elementary particles such as quarks, leptons, antiquarks, etc, that goes on perhaps infinitely. We see the apple as a tasty looking object that produces sensory pleasures and this correlation has to do with the nutritional requisites for our survival so as to increase the capacity to pass on our genes.

Im no radical empiricist.

No, I’m trying to point out that there are some people who say that they subjectively feel as though something is ugly and yet they enjoy that thing because of its ugliness. For example, someone can think that death metal sounds ugly but say that they enjoy the music because it sounds ugly. — TheHedoMinimalist

That is not the same as saying something is pretty. To say that evaluating a thing as pretty is the same as to say it is enjoyable because it is ugly is not only an equivocation but a logical contradiction, too. It is to say a thing is P and not P, that it both is and is not the case that the object in question is pretty. Saying that you enjoy something is not analytically equivalent to saying something is pretty because you can enjoy something that is not pretty and not enjoy something that is pretty. I agree with you that we can enjoy something we feel is subjectively ugly, however, that was not my point. My point was that the statement "Plants are pretty" is subjective and is a value claim because it is to say of a thing that it is pretty (sensually appealing relative to other things), which implies that its prettiness is a thing of value. It may, nevertheless, have other properties of which we evaluate as unappealing to us that makes us feel that the thing is, overall, unenjoyable.

I think it’s also kinda hard to define what prettiness is kinda how it’s hard to define what sweetness is. — TheHedoMinimalist

It is quite difficult to define such terms in a way that is completely objective, that is to say, in a way that is independent of the subjective opinion of a conscious agent. It is quite simple to define such terms in an otherwise subjective context. You can do so tautologically with the statement "Plants are pretty because they are pretty" if we interpret the meaning implied through the lens of a subjectivist construal, as to say "To me, plants are pretty because that is how I feel about them" since, if nothing else, our current subjective attitude towards a thing is axiomatic.

I agree with you that objective moral values probably do not exist but I think that are probably objective prudential values. I’m talking about things like the value of making yourself have experiences that feel better in the long run by doing things like saving money, eating healthy, brushing your teeth, and shutting toxic people out of your life. — TheHedoMinimalist

I think I may agree with you. A prudential value is a kind of value which is always relative to someone or something. I do think that moral statements are truth-apt in a subjectivist construal. That is, that moral statements are truth-apt, but their truth values are dependent upon the subject they are indexed next to. What this means is that if you were make a value statement or moral statement such as "Apples taste better than oranges" or "Rape is wrong" what you really seem to be expressing is a personal preference for a particular experience or a personal attitude towards a particular behavior. What you are actually saying is "I have a preference for the taste of apples over the taste of oranges" and "I hold a negative attitude towards the act of rape". It is objectively true, it seems, that your subjective states have come to value certain aesthetic preferences and emotional attitudes towards certain behaviors.

We can objectively state that you hold a particular subjective belief insofar as the content of the belief is a property of you, the thinking subject, and not a property of the object of thought. The problem with grounding such statements still remains though. For example, I can make a hedonistic argument for my desire of pleasure "I desire pleasure" (an objectively true subjective statement), "Acting in accordance with x results in the satisfaction of my desire for pleasure" and then a conditional "If I wish to satisfy my desire for pleasure, then I ought to act in accordance with x" then affirm the antecedent "I do wish to satisfy my desire for pleasure" and, finally, the conclusion "Therefore, I ought to act in accordance with x". Everything seems valid and deductively sound, right? Well, there is a problem. Just because we desire something doesn't mean that we ought to act in accordance with our desires. Perhaps we could eliminate the component of free will to support the premises "We have no control over our desires" and "What we desire is pleasure" but the problem remains with how to generate a prescriptive "ought" from all of this. Just because something is out of our control does not mean that it is morally right or ought to happen. We cannot avoid our death. So, does this mean that our death is a morally good thing? Is it a moral obligation to die?

Well, my understanding of the word “proven” is that something must be true with 100% certainty in order to be proven. This is why I always try to avoid using that word because it seems to set the bar too high for what I consider to be enough evidence for a belief to be reasonable. You have instructed me not to understand the word “proven” as something shown to be definitely true. So, I think I’d have to ask you how you understand the word “proven” and what would suffice as enough evidence to prove something. — TheHedoMinimalist

What I mean by 'proven' is that a claim is demonstrable or verifiable through empirical evidence or logical necessity. Absolute, 100% knowledge is something only the most naive of people would consider possible. We have systems of knowledge built through rigorous methodologies that get pretty close to certain—that is, insofar as they predict future phenomena and overlap with multiple fields of research. If you can provide me with testable evidence or a logical entailment, that would suffice for me.

That point is that it seems to me that many of the facts of value that you mentioned as facts of value are not actually evaluative claims. For example, the claim that the suspect says that he didn’t commit the murder doesn’t claim that anything is better or worse. Rather, it’s just testimonial evidence — TheHedoMinimalist

That is actually not an accurate representation of what I said. My exact words were, "The suspect says that he did nothing wrong that day" which means that he believes his actions were either moral or amoral, but not immoral. This means little since many people recognize that an act is illegal or socially unacceptable, and yet do not see it as immoral.

Also, I think it’s worth mentioning that I don’t think that Statement B is a value claim. This is because I think you can believe that plants are pretty without believing that this makes them better or worse than other things in any way. — TheHedoMinimalist

It is making a value judgment that expresses an approval. To say something is "pretty" is only meaningful because it draws a distinction between other objects with comparable properties. It is to say that, when it comes to visual appeal, object x is more desirable than. If you are speaking to the general view of a thing, of which you feel otherwise towards, then you are making a non-evaluative statement. But not if you are literally expressing your own honest opinions about the thing.

There are some people that seem to hold a somewhat unusual opinion that certain kinds of ugly things are better than certain kinds of pretty things. — TheHedoMinimalist

No. There are people who see beauty in what to them is beautiful, notwithstanding the popular appeal to the contrary. They don't approve of something because of the disapproval they have of it, but rather they have developed an appreciation for something that commonly is not appreciated. It feels as if you are appealing to some external property that objectively has value, which would make you a Realist.

Well, it seems to me that there is public evidence to support various value claims. For example, when I try to argue for a value claim, I usually make an argument using something like an analogy or a thought experiment or just provide an example. — TheHedoMinimalist

I agree with you that we publicly express value claims and, what is more, I would even grant the notion that there are evaluative components entangled within all of a language (as Putnam argues), but I don't think we can safely say that the available evidence for both evaluative statements and non-evaluative statements carry the same force. I think we both agree and can easily draw a distinction between the two based on this. Whenever we argue a value claim, we do provide anecdotal evidence that appeals to our attitudes toward such a value by describing how it personally or mutually impacts our emotional and physical states.

Such arguments only go so far, though. The cultural components that have been evolving, at least, since the emergence of the genus Homo has been the influential force that molds us from our natural, savage proclivities. These forces are learned mostly through empathy and are universal as they appeal to basic instincts such as self-preservation and both fosters and facilitates our desires for well-being in a way that is now functionally dependant upon the social dynamics of the group. In order to enjoy the benefits of society we must participate in the effort to maximize the prevailing values of the society; which means sacrificing a portion of ourselves toward whatever ends are most socially desired. Although, given the random nature in which our environment shapes us, both physiologically and psychologically, and that this process has continued across generations for billions of year's, even the most ubiquitous of human values could easily have evolved quite differently from what they are now.

What we value as a group, culture, society (especially at the level of developed National and Global interaction) has progressed in a very deterministic way. What we value today stems from the imposition, for better or worse, of a history of ancestral values that have, through conflict, been forced into convergence by virtue of a groups evolutionary fitness and influential force. As ancestral groups organized into hierarchical power structures, the cultural components and particular value systems of the dominant groups had a prevailing influence over others. Human populations that developed traits such as: a prominent social cohesion, social efficacy, larger bandwidth and efficiency for social networking, and relative population densities, etc, seemed to be better equipped, and not only to merely survive, but to become a cultural force by influencing the values of other developing groups, as well.

The difference may just come from the lack of knowledge with regard to the human mind relative to our knowledge of the human brain. While we can empirically dissect, explore, and model the brain through interaction with the physical material therein, we do not have such experiential access when it comes to studying the mind. We can analyze the brains structure through a bottom-up perspective that breaks the entire system down to it's individual parts thereby deducing the role of each particular neurological constituent. We cannot however apply such reductive methodologies when it comes to exploring the mind. We are left in the dark, so to speak, to the point where many (especially materialists) refuse to acknowledge such philosophical mysteries as Chalmers, "Hard Problem" because they view the descriptions of science either to encompass all possible knowledge or all relevant knowledge. Values exist in the same way that phenomenal experiences do but by no means do they have the same existence as something empirically accessible or conceptually tethered to physical reality—and that is the meaningful difference that distinguishes language that is concrete and empirically-based from language that is abstract and phenomenologically-based.

I can provide you a philosophical argument that could be used to support the existence of an afterlife and I can provide you a philosophical argument against the existence of an afterlife. While we can never truly know who’s right, it would quite silly nonetheless for me to say that nobody is objectively right regarding this issue just because the evidence for both sides is highly speculative. I think philosophers shouldn’t be afraid to provide speculative reasons or speculative arguments in an attempt to resolve a philosophical issue because a philosophical issue wouldn’t be much of a philosophical issue if all philosophers just thought that the correct answer was obvious. — TheHedoMinimalist

I think my language has mislead you, I apologize for my imprecision here. My position regarding both facts and values and the level of epistemic uncertainty between grounding evaluative arguments and non-evaluative arguments is not as strong or explicit as you seem to believe. I hold a more agnostic position. Although, I do undoubtedly lean one way or another between every issue im consciously aware of, I am not necessarily committed either way. I am not convinced that value statements carry the same logical weight as non-value statements. I lean in the direction that they don't, but im not quite ready to commit to that because, though I can articulate an argument supporting the fact/value distinction and the is-ought problem, l cannot derive a contradiction on your view that can, to my satisfaction, avoid some degree of reduction to absurdity. Your points, though speculative, and, IMO, tentative, are not necessarily false, but they are appeals to possibility (essentially, you argument draws an inference between a possibility and a probability). My arguments, on the other hand, seem to fail either by appealing to ignorance (we know of no moral facts therefore moral facts don't exist), or by appealing to personal incredulity (value statements are subjective, thus unfalsifiable, and unfalsifiable statements cannot be factual).

Just as with your example of an afterlife, though I may hastily make a negative claim in such regards, the position I find most convincing would be an agnostic one. I have seen no evidence to suggest an afterlife. This is a true statement regarding my understanding of the matter, however, if I were to use such a premise to infer the conclusion that, therefore, there is no afterlife, it would be fallacious.

With this in mind, would you consider your position to affirm or deny the proposition "Values cannot be empirically proven true or false"? And, just to be clear, the propositions "Scientific methodology cannot prove anything true or false with absolute certainty" as well as "Empirical evidence is not free of evaluative components" do not provide a valid inference for the negation of the proposition in question.

Well, I think there are other reasons why courts would find fingerprint evidence more reliable; the evidence is meant to support a non-evaluative claim that a person performed a particular action like murder. After the non-evaluative evidence gets collected, it then gets evaluated and that’s when the courtroom does start making lots of evaluative claims. — TheHedoMinimalist

But the courts do, in fact, treat evaluative claims differently from non-evaluative claims, right? That is my point. There is a distinction between the two and it has to do with the extent to which we attach cognitive success to them and how they rank amongst our epistemic states. Which of the following statements would rank highest among your various epistemic states? Statement a) "Plants release oxygen" or, statement b) "Plants are pretty"...do you hold a belief, do you know, are you unsure, or do possess a complete understanding that the latter claim is true or false—and, what is the justification to hold such an epistemic state?

I don’t think that facts are necessarily supposed to report something that is observable or falsifiable and you will find plenty of academic analytical philosophers who also don’t think about facts in those terms. This way of thinking about facts has largely fallen out of style since the decline of the logical positivist movement in the mid 20th century. — TheHedoMinimalist

I think this may be where our differences lie. The distinction that I draw between facts and values is much more current and ubiquitous than a few 20th century philosophical treatises.

Think of how the prosecution and defense teams of a courtroom use statements of fact and statements of value. If I was being charged with burglary, and the prosecution presented its case, which of the following statements do you think the court would more likely engage with?

The suspect left a fingerprint near the window which determined the point of entry of the brake-in.

A neighbor witnessed the suspect exiting the house while carrying the stolen jewelry box.

A footprint that was collected at the scene of the crime which matches the shoe size and pattern that is left by the shoes the suspect was wearing that day.

The suspect hates thieves.

The suspect doesn't think the stolen jewelry looks valuable.

The suspect says that he did nothing wrong that day.

I understand that there are serious problems in epistemology, such as Cartesian examples of radical skepticism (evil demon, brain in a vat, computer simulation controlled by a mad scientist) which are all problems that I appreciate. I think that there are nonetheless distinctive characteristics when it comes to the justification of evaluative statements and statements of fact.

I understand that a statement of value can be a type of fact about the preferences or attitudes of an agent. If you say that you like blue or that you think stealing is wrong, then, I suppose I could concede that it is a type of fact about your color preferences or your attitude towards the act of stealing. The problem with having evaluative facts is that there is no method to substantiate them or evidence to support and confirm them. They necessarily depend upon the agent to express them, either directly or indirectly, for substantiation and the only evidence there is that suggests they are true is contained within the privacy of the agents subjective mental states.

The court would appreciate the statements regarding a fingerprint, eyewitness, and footprint because these statements correspond with how we experience reality. If what is stated has the semantic content that most members of a language associate with a concept which corresponds to the way we experience the world, even with varying degrees of accuracy, arbitrarily defined by human standards such as limited sense perception and inconsistent cognitive processing, it is what we call a fact. The type of fact that is most compelling and that most pressure us to adopt a new belief.

The court would be mostly dismissive of the value statements because of the lack of correspondence between the semantic content of what is stated and the association of conceptual frameworks constructed through our prior experiences and that can be replicated by reproducing a similar interaction with reality. You can't experience values other than your own except for our abilities to relate to the correlation between neurological stimuli and emotive responses. Taking an approach to linguistically appeal to a value judgement has substantially less force and is more likely to fail at changing someone's prior beliefs than taking an approach to linguistically appeal to a coherently shared concept that mutually corresponds with the way we experience the world during particular interactions with it.

On a side note, I find it both funny and ironic that I chose to regard the views of Putnam while you were simultaneously suggesting a reference video featuring Putnam lecturing on the topic. We both seem to view him as a competent proponent of the view.

Just to be clear, you are quoting my response to a question asking who the authority is when it comes to defining what a descriptive statement is. It is not a claim stating that analytic philosophy takes a view one way or another when it comes to the fact/value distinction.

I think that Hilary Putnam best encapsulates much of the views put forward by the philosophers in your list with regard to objections to the fact/value distinction, or f/v dichotomy, as Putnam seemed to favor.

Hilary Putnam makes the case that facts and values are entangled. Putnam, under the influence of figures such as Quine, Peirce and William James, argued against the existence of a fact–value dichotomy, or, at least that the distinction between the two weren't as absolute as Hume and the Positivists believed them to be. This rejection was essentially derived from either a premise stating that normative judgments (ethical or aesthetic) can be factual based or a premise stating that there are normative elements to factual statements—even empirical statements such as those expressed within scientific methodology.

Putnam was a well-known figure of analytic philosophy and was especially drawn towards a pragmatic view of morality. I think that he, as with his contemporaries, focused a concerned with what views such as subjectivism, non-cognitivism and internalism seem to entail and that this motivation lead him to take some pretty extreme positions in opposition. He was, at some point, a metaphysical realist, but later adopted his own view known as internal realism, of which he also came to later abandon in favor of the views of scientific realism. He was somewhat of a neo-platonist when it came to his views in ontology. He later shifted to take a pluralistic, meta-philosophical view similar to those of Wittgenstein—even adopting some of the views of continental philosophers in the later years of his career.

His arguments seem to all stem from his work on the mind-body problem, which I think is his best work. It makes a case for a non-physical existence that is based on the causal relationship between psychological states, concepts, language and material objects. Another view deeply embracing pragmatism. In a way, at least in every day life, I take a pragmatic view of the world, but I think that it forces philosophers to over engage in motivated reasoning.

Sorry for the tangent, but I hope it at least gave you some idea of how the figures on your prolific list of philosophers who, in some way, reject the fact/value distinction have influenced my understanding of it.

The is/ought divide is not the same thing as the fact/value distinction. — TheHedoMinimalist

The difference between the fact/value distinction and the is-ought divide is that the former also encompasses aesthetics.

I don’t see how it does provide any argument for the existence of a fact/value distinction and Hume himself never said that it does. — TheHedoMinimalist

It doesn't necessarily provide an argument but rather questions if it is possible to derive one exclusively from the other. The arguments that positivism offers are pretty straight forward, however. The premise is simple; if something can be empirically verified, then it is factual and thus descriptive. For example, if I make the statement that "My right hand has 4 fingers with 1 thumb," it provides a description for the way things are. A statement such as this can be checked and verified through empirical observation. It is a fact. It is a description of the world that corresponds with observation and continues corresponding even if an observing agent feels or thinks otherwise.

On the converse, a statement that makes an evaluation, such as, "Murder is bad" seems to be expressing something that cannot be empirically verified. It may be true that an agent holds negative feelings towards the act of murder and that may manifest as a subjective preference against murder, but that would be a fact about the agents attitude. There simply is nothing in the world that we can observe that corresponds with 'badness' and without such a thing we have no way to verify whether or not it is the case.

Yes, but a statement like “you ought to brush your teeth” is not a prescriptive ought statement either. It is an evaluative ought and I’m claiming that value realists can argue that evaluative claims are factual and that the fact/value distinction is an illegitimate distinction. — TheHedoMinimalist

The statement "You ought to brush your teeth" is necessarily a prescriptive statement because it is recommending that an action be taken. It implies that a desirable outcome would result thereafter. It contains the term 'ought'. Prescriptive statements are a subset of evaluative statements, which is the only distinction between the two that I am aware of.

Well, who exactly gets the authority to define what a descriptive statement is? It could be argued that evaluative statements are descriptive statements because they describe things related to value. — TheHedoMinimalist

Are you making a case against the general consensus amongst analytic philosophers who differentiate between descriptive and prescriptive statements based on the reasons I have thus far offered? Most people understand that there is a very different kind of thing being described when it comes to value judgements. Something that extends beyond merely describing that which corresponds with empirical observation.

Regarding what could be argued, well, it would have to be a semantic argument because the premise "Because they describe things related to value" concedes that there is a distinction between the two.

After all, doesn’t it make more sense to say that descriptive statements are statements that describe stuff even stuff related to value? — TheHedoMinimalist

I suppose if we redefine the terms it could, perhaps. Even so, you seem to be aware that there is a distinction between statements that describe stuff and ones that describe stuff and stuff related to value.

Because [not] brushing your teeth causes cavities and the sensations caused by these cavities produce experiences that have a felt quality that you are psychologically compelled to regard as being worse than the felt qualities of most normal experiences that you have in life. — TheHedoMinimalist

I like how much effort you put into this argument to make it appear purely fact-based. Let's formalize it and see what the statements break down to.

P1. There is a range of possible experiences that scale between two points on a spectrum.

P2. We classify the two points located at each extreme of the spectrum as: 1) the worst possible experience, and: 2) the best possible experience.

P3. A tooth cavity produces an experience that generally registers on the side of the spectrum classified as: 1) the worst possible experience.

P4. Brushing our your teeth reduces your chances of getting a tooth cavity.

Therefore, C. You should brush your teeth.

Now, lets classify the nature of each statement.

P1. Descriptive. (Some experiences vary from others. This is a fact that can be tested and verified empirically.)

P2. Evaluative. (The classification is a fact, since we could observe the proclivity for people to classify experiences as either better or worse. However, each classification is based on two opposing value judgements "worst" and "best" neither which can be empirically observed, but must instead be subjectively expressed by an agent).

P3. Evaluative. (It is a fact that, if a poll was taken, the overwhelming majority would classify experiences related to tooth cavities as: 1) the worst possible experience. But, the term "worst" is both irreducible and non-corresponding to anything empirically observable.)

P4. Descriptive. (This is a fact that can be experimentally verified through empirical analysis.)

C. Prescriptive and evaluative. (It suggests an action by implying a positive value judgement).

Note that just because a premise has been distinguished as evaluative does not mean that it is necessarily false. The distinction is made mainly for the purpose of exposing problems specific to evaluative statements

P1 is something we all grant.

P2 is valid since it follows from P1 but a few problems emerge. First, that it is not entailed that every agent will classify the experience within the same category. Second, the category itself is based on an arbitrary measurement that is phenomenally dependent. Lastly, a premise cannot be true in some cases and false in others.

P3 follows from P2 but runs into the same problems that P2 has. It can be true some of the time and is ultimately relative to the agent.

P4 is sound because it is always the case and there is a wealth of clinical evidence to support it.

C is not necessarily entailed by the premises and it has the same specific problem that P3 and P2 have, in that they can be sometimes be false. It is possible, in fact probable, that certain agents do not classify experiences associated with tooth cavities in the first category. Similarly, it is probable that some do and yet associate the experience as desirable. Many things that are relative to a particular agent can affect whether or not a given premise—or, even the conclusion itself—can be true. This is not a problem when arguing just from the facts.

Yes, that’s the is/ought divide but I don’t see how it implies the fact/value distinction. — TheHedoMinimalist

It is the other way around, actually. The fact that value statements seem to describe something, not only beyond that which is described by factual statements, but also, something that doesn't correspond with anything observable, as factual statements do, reveals a distinctive problem about them that warrants our appreciation.

Why think that value statements are not factual statements and why think that they have to be derived from non-evaluative statements? — TheHedoMinimalist

Because they do not report something that is observable or falsifiable, and that is what facts are supposed to do. I only think that they must be derived from non-evaluative statements in order to bridge the is-ought divide and establish an is-ought inference. I remain skeptical that this can be done and for you to think otherwise means that the burden of proof lies with you.

Well, the first thing that I want to point out is that there actually seem to be some ought statements that cannot be called prescriptive statements.

This is, of course, trivially true and tangential to any point that I have made. The is—ought divide expresses skepticism that an inference can be made between a descriptive "is" statement and a normative/evaluative "ought" statement. It is not concerned with descriptive statements that contain the term "ought". The statement that "the road ought to be visible now because the fog has cleared" is not the kind of ought statement we care about here. We don't care about inferences deriving an "is" from a descriptive "ought", but rather we are concerned with inferences deriving an "is" from a prescriptive "ought".

Brushing your teeth is the best available decision option at this time for you to take' seems to be a descriptive statement and it also happens to be an is statement.

It is, in fact, not a descriptive statement because the term "best" here is evaluative and prescriptive which makes the statement loaded. Try forming an is—ought inference with your examples and see the issue reveal itself.

P1. If you have options, then you ought to choose the option that is best;

P2. Brushing your teeth is the best option you have to choose from;

Therefore, C. You ought to brush your teeth.

Problems

Just because we have options doesn't mean we should choose any of them. For example, if I had the options to burn my hand, cut my hand, or freeze my hand—I would choose none of these options. This makes the premise false. It is not necessarily entailed that we must choose any option at all.

By calling one of the options the "best" we are making a loaded statement. The option of brushing our teeth here is assumed to be the option that we ought to choose. Why should we brush our teeth? How is it morally obligatory? Well, you could make an argument like the following.

P1. Brushing your teeth makes them clean

Therefore, C. You ought to brush your teeth.

This is deductively invalid. The conclusion is not entailed by the premise. It is possible for the premise to be true and the conclusion be false.

So, the creators of the English language created the word “ought” that could pretty much be substituted most of the time for these long winded evaluative propositions.

Am I in the Twilight Zone rn?

...My whole point is that the is/ought divide doesn’t seem to do anything to threaten moral realism.

The is/ought divide threatens the central thesis that Moral Realism attempts to put forward and defend. Moral Realism takes the view that moral values are not simply held by an observing moral agent whom assesses an act in terms of right and wrong, but rather that moral values represent an intrinsic characteristic of an act itself. That an act is either right or wrong in-itself; or, alternatively, that an act possess certain moral properties that a moral agent can intuitively recognize as right or wrong. Either view represents a moral reality that can be objectively considered whether or not the agent is consciously aware of it.

Moral Realism assumes that moral values exist as the constituents of an ontological reality and not as the constituents of a moral agents phenomenological reality.
The central thesis of Moral Realism is committed to four propositions:

1. Moral statements express propositions.

2. Some of these propositions are true.

3. True propositions are made true by objective, mind-independent features of the world.

(A brief digression). Moral Realism diverges into two separate moral doctrines (Naturalism and Non-naturalism) with one (Naturalism) committed to a fourth proposition and the other (Non-naturalism) committed to the negation of the same proposition. I have therefore included both the thesis and antithesis that represent the divergence between these moral doctrines.

4. (Naturalism): These moral features of the world are reducible to some set of non-moral features.

4. (Non-naturalism): These moral features of the world are not reducible to any set of non-moral features.

The first problem that Moral Realism faces is how it can justify the third proposition. Namely, how can moral statements be made true by objective, mind-independent features of the world? Keep in mind that such a problem is raised by attempting to cross the is-ought divide. Moral Realism attempts to cross the divide by claiming that both descriptive and prescriptive statements are true/false propositions and that some are made true by objective, mind-independent features of the world.

According to Moral Realism, it is either the case that objects and events in the world have an intrinsic moral value in themselves (they are either good or bad); or, alternatively, that they possess some moral property of which moral agents innately recognize as being either good or bad. Either way, Moral Realism has committed itself to an ontological central thesis that.

The Non-naturalist is committed to the ontological claim that moral statements correspond with reality insofar as reality contains innate moral properties (such as, an innate human purpose). The Naturalist, on the other hand, is committed to the ontological claim that moral statements can be reduced to a naturally equivalent fact (such as, sensory pleasure (a natural fact) is good (a moral statement).

To flesh out this objection, lets consider the following argument as it attempts to cross the is-ought divide under the interpretation of Moral Realism.

P1. Humans die if you decapitate them (This is a descriptive statement).

P2. John is human. (Another descriptive statement).

C. Therefore, you ought not decapitate John. (This is a prescriptive statement).

It is the case that humans die upon decapitation and it likewise is the case that John is a human. These are both empirically verifiable facts that can be objectively considered. However, nothing about these observations tells us if we ought, or ought not kill humans by virtue of decapitation. This means that the argument is not valid because the premises do not entail the conclusion.

Here, Moral Realists and myself would agree that an additional premise is required in order to make this argument valid. A premise such as "Killing humans is immoral" would suffice, however, here a Moral Realist would be satisfied with her view that such a premise represents an objective fact of the world (an "is" statement), whereas I would remain skeptical and request an argument be provided so that I may see where such an inference is made.

Two arguments would be provided. First, the argument of Semantic Moral Realism that is concerned with our moral utterances and the truth value of the content therein. Semantic Moral Realism states that though moral terms play a role in how we form evaluative concepts which aim to refer to certain properties as objectively prescriptive facts, not all speakers are using moral terms in association with the same properties.

Some speakers may, for instance, use moral terms in some unusual, idiosyncratic way. In short, our evaluative language and concepts could be non-cognitive, anti-realist, and yet the truth of our moral judgements can still represent objective or mind-independent features of the world. Such an argument could be formalized into something similar to the following.

P1. Moral terms such as "right" or "wrong" play a semantic role that an agent uses to refer to the moral properties of "rightness" or "wrongness"

P2. Moral properties of "rightness" or "wrongness" represent the state or condition of being either right or wrong in conduct or judgment.

P3. An agent refers to these moral properties with such terms based on the moral convictions they have formed.

P4. An agents moral convictions are formed through a subjective evaluation of these moral properties.

P5. Subjective evaluations are subject to interpretation and perspective.

P6. Interpretation and perspectives are fallible.

Therefore,
C. Terms such as "right" and "wrong" can be mistakenly applied to a conduct or judgment by an agent.

A Moral Naturalist would think of moral terms as being analytically equivalent to terms referring to natural properties. For example, Hedonism refers to the natural property of pleasure as being analytically equivalent to the moral term "good" whenever they claim that "pleasure is good". A Moral Non-naturalist would take the opposite stand in thinking of moral terms as being irreducible to terms referring to natural properties and would instead suggest that moral terms, if true, purport to report a fact that lie outside of naturalism.

Non-naturalists claim that terms such as "good" or "bad" are indefinable and therefore cannot be substituted with terms such as pleasure or suffering. Both Naturalistic and Non-naturalistic versions of Moral Realism avoid the problem of moral disagreement with the Semantic Moral Realist argument.

Though the argument for Semantic Moral Realism seems to avoid a threat raised by Anti-realist objections, it does nothing to defend the third proposition in question (that true propositions are made true by objective, mind-independent features of the world), that is, besides offering up an excuse of semantic incompetence for the lack thereof. This is where the second argument comes in which is known as the argument for Metaphysical Moral Realism.

The argument for Metaphysical Moral Realism takes two separate construals for its defense. The first construal suggests that there must be some connection between an agents moral convictions and the agents motivations towards a specific action. The argument states that any such moral proposition must necessarily have corresponding motivations built into them. From this premise, it is inferred, that, if an agent were both fully able to rationalize and also possess the knowledge of all the relevant moral facts, then the agents motivations would be guided by objective moral facts towards actions that are objectively "good" or that are, in fact, the "right" thing to do. Such an argument could be formalized in the following manner.

P1. An agents moral convictions are intrinsically motivating.

P2. An agents moral convictions may or may not be fully rational or based on all the facts.

P3. There are objective facts to be known about morality.

P4. An agent may achieve conformity between their beliefs and their reasons to believe such beliefs, as well as between their actions and their reasons for which they act.

Therefore,
C. An agent would be motivated to do what is objectively moral, if and only if the agent was fully rational and knew all of the facts.

This argument, which takes on a more naturalistic construal of Moral Realism, serves only to suggest that the existence of objective moral facts are merely logically possible. It remains a tentative explanation at best for a reason to believe that such objective, mind-independent moral facts do indeed exist.

The second construal of argument for Metaphysical Moral Realism suggests that moral facts are the same as mathematical facts. They are both abstract entities that cannot be fully explained through empirical observations (as natural facts can be) and this places them in a separate ontological category from naturalistic entities.

As a result, what makes some moral statements true propositions that are made true by objective, mind-independent features of the world lie in the relations between it and the features of the world that make it true. Such features need not be natural nor provide us concrete conceptions of the world, but rather need be supported by an a priori appeal to the ontology of concepts they are involved with.

Consider the two analogs of Mathematics and Logic. Both need not rely on empirical correspondence to be confirmed as true because they are systematically supported within their own conceptual reality. The following is an example of how such an argument could be formalized.

P1. Moral sentences sometimes represent a statement that is true.

P2. A sentence is true only if there is a truth making relation that holds between its contents being something that exists in the world and the proposition that such contents exists.

(A metaphysical bridging relation between what is true and what exists).

P3. True moral sentences are true only because they are held together by a truth-making relation between their existence and the things which makes them true.

Therefore,
C. The things which make some moral sentences true must exist.

This argument, in the end, also fails to substantiate the ontological premise needed to ground Moral Realism. It is a failed attempt to bridge the is-ought divide, on my view, and an attempt that must be successful in order for Moral Realism to justify its central ontological thesis.

How would Moral Realism achieve this goal?

Well, it would have to substantiate the claim that moral values exist as objective, mind-independent features of the world.

How would it do that?

Well, we could conjecture that human lives have an innate moral property of being Good; or, we could otherwise conjecture that there exists moral properties possessed by things in-themselves — that such things as happiness, pleasure, or honesty are in-themselves morally Good and thus analytically equivalent at a fundamental level — then, if our conjecture is accepted, the problem would be resolved and the gap would be bridged. This is essentially the Moral Realist approach and I do not find such conjecture to be convincing.

My objection to the Moral Realist approach would be that the whole theory seems to be begging the question. If we ask "how are human lives 'Good'", then, most often, the answer given is "because humans possess an innate property of Goodness" — or, "because they possess happiness and pleasures and such things possess natural properties that can be reduced to moral properties — such as Goodness." And just how is that not a premise assuming the conclusion? How do Moral Realists find this to be an acceptable justification?

Perhaps therein lies the problem — in the Moral Realist's justification. Let's touch on this a bit, as it makes for a nice segue into my second objection to your comment.

In epistemology, justification is a concept which describes a belief that is held by virtue of having good reasons and evidence to hold it. Morality is a system of evaluative beliefs used to generate principles that guide our conduct. Justifying moral beliefs is an important part of developing a moral system, because without good reasons for believing moral claims, morality becomes inconsistent. Without a consistent moral system, any behavior becomes justifiable.

With that in mind, it becomes clear why Moral Realism must overcome the is-ought divide in order to develop and maintain a consistent take on morality. Moral Realism, in order to be a consistent view, must derive a prescriptive conclusion from descriptive premises. They must state  which claims are actually true and explain what it is about the world that makes those claims true.

The problem is that in order to derive a prescriptive conclusion, it is necessary to construct an argument containing at least one prescriptive premise. In other words, a moral belief can only be justified by another moral belief because prescriptive conclusions cannot be derived from non-prescriptive premises without either begging the question or running into an infinite regression.

Every prescriptive premise placed within the inference structure of a moral argument is attempting to justify another prescriptive claim. Every prescriptive claim, however, must then be subsequently justified itself by providing an additional argument containing an additional prescriptive premise. This would go on ad infinitum and thus such conclusions remain as unjustifiable beliefs.

Any belief that appeals to an unjustified belief for justification can never be justified. If there is no good reason to believe a claim we generally don't believe it. A claim that is begging the question, or a claim that must fall back on an infinite sequence of requisite arguments, is a belief appealing to an unjustified belief.

So, how does this trouble Moral Realism? It does because Moral Realism is making the claim that there exists an ontological grounding for our moral judgements and that requires crossing the is-ought divide. Crossing the is-ought divide requires each moral claim to be justified.

One problem is that the only way a moral claim can be justified is if it is itself justified by another moral claim — this becomes a problem. This problem is known as the infinite regress, wherein a moral claim must be justified by a chain of normative inferences that goes on infinitely. Another problem is known as circular reasoning which includes the concluding moral claim itself to be a built in presupposition within the premises.

So, if we say...

It seems like believing that you can’t defend an ought claim without making another ought claim is still perfectly compatible with moral realism.

Then we are conceding that Moral Realism is defeated either by virtue of circular reasoning or by falling into an infinite regression.

No one is ever justified in believing any moral claim that uses an argument which includes the same moral claim in its conclusion as the moral claim in its premises. If a moral claim is represented as one of the premises of the argument that is trying to prove the same moral claim as its conclusion, the argument is circular. The premise cannot support the conclusion, since the conclusion is merely restating one of its premises which cannot adequately provide the sufficient justification for a belief.

No one is ever justified in believing any moral claim supported by an infinite chain of inferences. Even though the justification for a moral claim could, in theory, go on infinitely, we nevertheless would never know whether or not such a claim was justified. If the entire chain of justification is not present for us to form a belief, then we can never know if we can be justified in believing it. If a single unjustified claim was present within the entire chain but beyond the reach of our limited scope of knowledge, it would undermine the justification of the entire chain itself.

Moral realists could just argue that ought claims can be just as objective and factual as is claims are. There doesn’t seem to be any obvious reason to think that they aren’t.

The reason that "ought" claims cannot be just as objective and factual as "is" claims are is because "ought" claims are prescriptive or normative statements, whereas "is" claims are descriptive or positive statements. There appears to be a lacking appreciation for the fact-value distinction. All "ought" claims represent statements of value, whereas all "is" claims represent statements of fact.

To begin, a "claim" is a type of statement that offers an assertion about an issue that can either be true or false.

Descriptive claims attempt to state the facts and give an account of how the world is through non-evaluative observations. The statement "What happens after we die is unknown" for instance, is a descriptive claim. Whether a descriptive claim is true or false is an empirical question. Empirical questions can only be answered through observations we make as we experience the real world.

Prescriptive claims, on the other hand, express an evaluation and give an account of how the world should be. A statement such as "We should be afraid to die," is a prescriptive claim. Whether a prescriptive claim is true or false is an ethical question. Ethical questions can only be answered by an entity with moral agency (an entity capable of generating personal values, a sense of purpose and who attributes meanings to things).

Some descriptive statements bear the truth for normative or prescriptive statements by describing a set of circumstances from which a value judgment can then be considered. To demonstrate this point, the claim, "Abortion is the deliberate termination of a pregnancy that involves killing the undeveloped embryo or fetus," is a descriptive statement wherein the truth of the circumstance described thereby raises a normative issue — whether or not killing a developing human fetus is desirable. Moreover, it likewise raises a prescriptive issue, namely whether or not abortions should be done. As a result of such a dichotomy, descriptive claims are seen in contrast with prescriptive claims.

Objectivity describes a feature of the world that is independent from the specificities of a mind, whereas subjectivity describes a feature of the world that is conditional on the specificities of a mind. Therefore, for a claim to be objective, it must be empirically falsifiable and describe mind-independent features of the world.

There are claims that make objective statements, such as "The sky is cloudy," that reflect reality and, in contrast, there are claims that make subjective statements, such as "I like a cloudy sky," that reflect a perspective through which a subject views reality.

For a moral claim to be a factual statement, it must contain facts — externally verifiable, demonstrable realities — based on empirical evidence. Furthermore, for a moral claim to be an objective statement, it must have some properties accessible through external reality and not just be privately accessible through an internal, mind-dependent reality.

Why even presuppose an objective moral ontology in the first place? I mean, given the subjective nature of human psychology, it seems that our cognitive and evaluative capacities do not require a philosophically objective foundation.

I am not saying that weather itself is subjective. Im saying that we can talk about weather in an objective way - as some fact of the world - and that to talk in such an objective way about morality doesn't make sense if we are supposing morality is subjective.

But some beliefs are about objective matters - such as the belief that it is raining - and some beliefs are about subjective matters - such as my belief that I am believing something, or my belief that Jane is enjoying the donut.

@Bartricks

This is what I'm trying to say, that moral statements are really an expression of a personal belief and that some beliefs are about objective matters - such as the belief that it is raining - and some beliefs are about subjective matters - such as my belief that stealing is wrong. I cannot make a statement that stealing is objectively wrong, as if the action itself contains some inherent immoral property. I can only say that I hold the belief that stealing is wrong as a personal axiom.

If you believe stealing is wrong, what exactly do you believe about stealing? That is, provide a translation for that word 'wrong'.

@Bartricks

I cannot provide you a meta-ethical translation for the word 'wrong'. All that I can say is that I have a preference against the act. I don't think that I can make meaningful statements about an act being inherently wrong, or objectively wrong. I believe I can provide descriptive statement that explains some of the consequences of stealing, but not a prescriptive statement stating why we ought not steal. Just as your example of conflicting beliefs regarding rain or sunshine, I don't think there's a way to bridge the is-ought divide. I don't think that you can make moral statements as if our value judgments represent something that just is, as in, a fact of the world.

I believe it's raining. You believe it is sunny. Therefore whether it is raining or sunny is just a matter of opinion.

@Bartricks

No, your approach is all wrong here. If I believe it's raining and you believe it's sunny, it is, therefore, true that you hold a belief that it is sunny and also true that I hold a belief that it is raining. It is not an objective opinion, but rather a subjective one. This is more accurately illustrated with an abstraction concept (eg, a value judgment) rather than a concrete concept (eg, rain or sunshine).

If I say a "x is immoral", I am making a statement analogous to saying "vanilla is my favorite flavor." Notice that the analogous statement is not an objective one, such as "vanilla is the best flavor" but rather as a subjective one "to me, vanilla is the best flavor." It is the same with moral statements or other normative statements. If I make the statement "stealing is wrong" what I actually mean to say is "to me, stealing is wrong."

If morality is subjective, then it would not make sense to interpret moral statements objectively, as in some inherent moral property of the thing in question. If morality is subjective, then we are not able to make moral statements outside from the subjective confines of our own minds. I mean, we technically can, however, there is no objective standard available for us to test such statements upon.

We can only know our own values that guide our own principles. We are a social species that developed a proclivity for social cohesion and our sociological environments naturally produce pressures within peer groups, societal boundaries, cultures and other social constructs that heavily influence from a top-down perspective (societal influence upon an individual) and mostly lightly influence from a bottom-up perspective (individuals influence upon society).

This is why we share many values - because we adapt to our social environment which is segregated into groups with disproportionate levels of power. The most powerful groups often dictate which values are allowed to be proliferated through influence and the strength that each influence is allowed to have.