Atheists: Your Metaethical Position...?

[Adonael]

Realism: There are at least some duties or moral trues that are objective (applicable to all people) and timeless.

Provisionalism: There are at least some duties or moral trues about the human condition that are currently objective but not necessarily timeless.

Relativism: Morality and duties are exist as nothing more than cultural preferences, customs or taste.

Other: Non-cognitivism, etc.

Forgive my oversimplification. I'd like to know what beliefs, if any, best describes your position.

[GenesisNemesis]

Relativism.

[Adonael]

I'm retarded. I made the poll only for atheists and then I voted.

[Sprax]

Well I voted for relativism (closest) but I think morality is better explained by evolution than culture etc (ie it's genetic, "hardcoded" to at least some extent).

Edit: cultures are superficially more different than anything else. Morality tends to be pretty much the same all over the globe, even among atheists / theises, even if some differences exist.

[atrib]

I'm retarded. I made the poll only for atheists and then I voted.

Is your subconscious mind trying to tell you something?

Welcome to the dark side :devil1:

[Adonael]

Well I voted for relativism (closest) but I think morality is better explained by evolution than culture etc (ie it's genetic, "hardcoded" to at least some extent).



This seems better fitted for what is called provisionalism.

[Sprax]

This seems better fitted for what is called provisionalism.Hmm... except I'm not saying morality is objective. I'm just saying morality is probably a result of evolution.

Edit: yikes I can't spell at all right now... I've had to edit that sentence like 5 times.

[ashe]

This seems better fitted for what is called provisionalism.Hmm... except I'm not saying morality is objective. I'm just saying morality is probably a result of evolution.

Edit: yikes I can't spell at all right now... I've had to edit that sentence like 5 times.

That would fall under 'taste', I imagine, which is also evolved. I know that 'taste' is commonly taken to imply a free choice but often our tastes are not free. (I don't like grapes that much although I like grape juice... but I couldn't give you a good reason why it is like that for me but not for you.)

[Adonael]

This seems better fitted for what is called provisionalism.Hmm... except I'm not saying morality is objective. I'm just saying morality is probably a result of evolution.

Edit: yikes I can't spell at all right now... I've had to edit that sentence like 5 times.

Well, if there is something that is within our genetics, then I take it to be universally applicable. Assuming, of course, that whatever this this within our genetics is usually exemplified and is part of the normal human condition.

[Sprax]

That would fall under 'taste', I imagine, which is also evolved. I'd say that's a reasonable way of looking at it. I wouldn't use the word "taste" for "morality" but they seem to function in similar ways much like you described.

Edit: (iidb, almost like irc)
Well, if there is something that is within our genetics, then I take it to be universally applicable. Assuming, of course, that whatever this this within our genetics is usually exemplified and is part of the normal human condition.
Most people like strawberries, but that doesn't make eating strawberries "right" (as opposed to wrong) or "moral".

Edit 2: oookay... sleepers kicking in... better log off. :D

[Adonael]

The tendency of the atheist's to acclaim moral relativism is probably not the best public relation showcase. It feeds into the idea that if god does not exist, then moral relativism is true.

[Sprax]

The tendency of the atheist's to acclaim moral relativism is probably not the best public relation showcase. It feeds into the idea that if god does not exist, then moral relativism is true.(still here...)

Well it is. Tere is no objective morality, i.e. what is "right" is only what we consider right. On the other hand, most moral rules are universially accepted (lying is bad etc). Atheists have pretty much the same rules as everyone else (maybe we tend to be more liberal... but pretty much the same). For instance, according to fox news (impeccable source) Sweden is about 85% atheist. And yet strangely you won't get stabbed in the streets.. corruption is lower than pretty much anywhere etc. We're not saying "anything goes", we're just saying that WE are the ones who've come up withe the rules, not god (we invented him...).

[Will.L]

Realism. There are certainly universals. Anthropologists, philosophers, social scientists, etc. have been wrestling with the idea of whether all morality was relative or not for generations, and I think that some conundrums in recent years that we've come up with has led to the necessity of answering this by saying that not everything is always relative.

[Will.L]

think this might fit better in MF&P...

[Adonael]

That would fall under 'taste', I imagine, which is also evolved. I'd say that's a reasonable way of looking at it. I wouldn't use the word "taste" for "morality" but they seem to function in similar ways much like you described.

Edit: (iidb, almost like irc)
Well, if there is something that is within our genetics, then I take it to be universally applicable. Assuming, of course, that whatever this this within our genetics is usually exemplified and is part of the normal human condition.
Most people like strawberries, but that doesn't make eating strawberries "right" (as opposed to wrong) or "moral".

Edit 2: oookay... sleepers kicking in... better log off. :D


I didn't wish to conflate taste with morality.

[Adonael]

The tendency of the atheist's to acclaim moral relativism is probably not the best public relation showcase. It feeds into the idea that if god does not exist, then moral relativism is true.(still here...)

Well it is. Tere is no objective morality, i.e. what is "right" is only what we consider right. On the other hand, most moral rules are universially accepted (lying is bad etc). Atheists have pretty much the same rules as everyone else (maybe we tend to be more liberal... but pretty much the same). For instance, according to fox news (impeccable source) Sweden is about 85% atheist. And yet strangely you won't get stabbed in the streets.. corruption is lower than pretty much anywhere etc. We're not saying "anything goes", we're just saying that WE are the ones who've come up withe the rules, not god (we invented him...).


What people find so troubling with that view is that there is nothing objectively and timelessly wrong with child rape. Under your worldview, it's not the best social norm and there seems to be a horrible understatement in that.

[Will.L]

Japanese comfort women, female circumcision, the treatment of women in Islam (lots of Islamic dogma in general in fact!), rape, murder, etc. are all examples of the kinds of things which have led people to state what I believe to be obvious, there are timeless, universal morals. In my view, it is immoral to conclude that we simply don't understand those cultures from WITHIN, and that such behaviors are certainly perfectly acceptable from within those cultures so we better just back off!

[PyramidHead]

Realism. Moral statements are as scientific as any other fact, provided they are phrased as "if...then" conditionals. For instance, you could argue that X is wrong because X causes unnecessary suffering, but you have to show that unnecessary suffering is intrinsically undesirable given certain goals (a peaceful society, reciprocal altruism, and whatnot). If you succeed through logic and evidence, it becomes objectively true to say "if your goal is [such-and-such], then doing X is wrong, where 'wrong' is defined as being detrimental to this goal."

Adding a god into the equation doesn't make it any more objective, as many would think, because instead of the goal (the "...then" part) being a peaceful society etc., it might be paradise after death or something like that. But the conditional aspect is still there, and all that is required to prove it to be objectively true is to provide evidence for the premises, including the crucial "if...then" normative premise (i.e. demonstrate that people who do action X do not go to heaven after they die). Since this has not been done in any theistic system of morals that I am aware of, we can say that the ethics of those systems have not been shown to be true.

[GenesisNemesis]

What people find so troubling with that view is that there is nothing objectively and timelessly wrong with child rape. Under your worldview, it's not the best social norm and there seems to be a horrible understatement in that.

Not really. It's not the best social norm, but then again, there's no real reason why it would be beneficial to society at all because it causes so much pain to innocent individuals who have no idea what they want. Is that an understatement? I think not.

[abaddon]

I think there are rules of behavior universal to all humans. Just as there are for the other apes, and for whales, elephants, etc. It’s a bit evolutionary biology but it’s also culture (just as with apes, whales, elephants, etc.). If you want to survive you obey some basic rules; if you want to survive reasonably comfortably you contribute what you can; if you empathize you practice altruism (all just as with apes, whales, elephants, etc.).

The basics of that aren’t relative at all. If you wantonly kill then you’ll be restrained or killed... there’s nothing involving “taste” in that. If humans want to not go extinct, they’ll live according to natural necessities... You break nature’s rules, you pay a price; the only thing relative about it is when, where and how the price is paid.

Since I don’t know what “timeless” means (does it imply some creator who has established morals apart from our biological and cultural interrelations?), I’m not sure if I should select Realism or not.

In sum, I believe some social behaviors are objectively necessary, but not established by something timeless -- i.e. something other than nature.

[Joslyn]

My meta-ethical framework is essentially emotivist--I don't see ethical statements as objectively true or false, but rather emotional reactions that come primarily from our evolution as social animals.

That said, even if a god or gods did exist, the choice to recognize it as a "moral authority" would be entirely subjective. There is no objective bridge to the is/ought gap.

Even though my ethics are subjective I consider them to be of great importance to me--I am willing to judge all cultures by my own standards. This is becase importance is also subjective.

Hence, while my ethics are entirely subjective they are not at all relative.

[Adonael]

What people find so troubling with that view is that there is nothing objectively and timelessly wrong with child rape. Under your worldview, it's not the best social norm and there seems to be a horrible understatement in that.

Not really. It's not the best social norm, but then again, there's no real reason why it would be beneficial to society at all because it causes so much pain to innocent individuals who have no idea what they want. Is that an understatement? I think not.

As it stands, your objection to child rape is that there is no good reason to believe child rape has benefits. This does not even state that there are cons to child rape.

[GenesisNemesis]

As it stands, your objection to child rape is that there is no good reason to believe child rape has benefits. This does not even state that there are cons to child rape.

There certainly are cons to child rape. I don't think anyone would deny that except the child rapists themselves. For instance, child rape results in psychological abuse as well as sexual abuse. The child will most likely feel isolated from the rest of the world, and it might result in depression later on in life. I'm concerned about the well-being of individuals. Therefore, no child rape.

How much of a justification do I need? From my point of view, I just need to be "human". That's all. I don't need to explain why I don't kill people or rape people.

[abaddon]

As it stands, your objection to child rape is that there is no good reason to believe child rape has benefits. This does not even state that there are cons to child rape.

There certainly are cons to child rape. I don't think anyone would deny that except the child rapists themselves. For instance, child rape results in psychological abuse as well as sexual abuse. The child will most likely feel isolated from the rest of the world, and it might result in depression later on in life. I'm concerned about the well-being of individuals. Therefore, no child rape.

How much of a justification do I need?
You need to justify selecting relativism (morality is just preferences) and then saying something like "Therefore, no child rape."

[fatpie42]

I'm a fan of Peter Railton who combines naturalism with realism:

Ethical naturalism... holds that there are objective moral properties but that these properties are reducible or stand in some metaphysical relation (such as supervenience) to entirely non-ethical properties. Most ethical naturalists hold that we have empirical knowledge of moral truths.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-ethics#Moral_realism

I'm quite keen on Mackie's Error theory too, but I think Railton's view of ethics manages to be quite different from the kind of moral theories Mackie was criticising. Mackie looks at the 'queerness' of a set of rules which are intrinsically motivating, arguing that there would be something very 'queer' about such properties and they could hardly produce hard facts. However, Railton's theory holds that moral goods are based on our non-moral goods and for him they are only factual to the extent that they lead to a pretty common agreement in our language on the meaning of 'good'.

Error theory is as follows:
Error theory holds that ethical claims are generally false. They hold that there are no objective values---that nothing is morally good, bad, wrong, right, etc.---because there are no moral truths. For example, an error theorist would say that murder is not wrong, but it's not right either. J. L. Mackie is probably the best-known proponent of this view.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-ethics#Moral_anti-realism

[GenesisNemesis]

You need to justify selecting relativism (morality is just preferences) and then saying something like "Therefore, no child rape."

I do not need to justify anything, but I will anyways. It is my specific moral preference that child rape should not be performed at any times. Good enough? And me saying "therefore, no child rape" was my own conclusion coming from what I said before, and that was that I'm concerned about the well-being of individuals.

Justifying morality... who knew?

[fatpie42]

Japanese comfort women, female circumcision, the treatment of women in Islam (lots of Islamic dogma in general in fact!), rape, murder, etc. are all examples of the kinds of things which have led people to state what I believe to be obvious, there are timeless, universal morals. In my view, it is immoral to conclude that we simply don't understand those cultures from WITHIN, and that such behaviors are certainly perfectly acceptable from within those cultures so we better just back off!

The thing is that one does not follow from the other. Just because there are other cultures which need to be respected (not just trampled over and ignored because they are different), does not lead to the conclusion that we should presume that they cannot be improved. Even within other cultures there are progressive movements. For example many Islamic countries have their own feminist movements and those movements cannot be said to be an invasion of the culture since they often work within an Islamic framework making radical changes from within the culture.

It must be remembered that western culture too was once quite 'backward' with slavery, dictatorships, and public executions. Even today sexism, racial inequality, xenophobia and homophobia are still problems with no easy solution. Our culture has needed to progress on these issues and at no point would it have been right to say that slavery, public executions, the sovereignty of the monarchy, and male supremacy are all inalienable parts of our culture which it would be a travesty to undermine (as much as many would have loved to insist on such things)... :)

[Adonael]

For instance, child rape results in psychological abuse as well as sexual abuse. Why is that a con?



The child will most likely feel isolated from the rest of the world, and it might result in depression later on in life.

Why is that a con?

I'm concerned about the well-being of individuals.

Why?

[GenesisNemesis]

Why is that a con?

Why do I have to explain myself?

Why is that a con?

Why do I have to explain myself?

Why?

Because it's a lot better than depraving them and making them suffer.

[Adonael]

I'm a fan of Peter Railton who combines naturalism with realism:

Ethical naturalism... holds that there are objective moral properties but that these properties are reducible or stand in some metaphysical relation (such as supervenience) to entirely non-ethical properties. Most ethical naturalists hold that we have empirical knowledge of moral truths.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-ethics#Moral_realism

I'm quite keen on Mackie's Error theory too, but I think Railton's view of ethics manages to be quite different from the kind of moral theories Mackie was criticising. Mackie looks at the 'queerness' of a set of rules which are intrinsically motivating, arguing that there would be something very 'queer' about such properties and they could hardly produce hard facts. However, Railton's theory holds that moral goods are based on our non-moral goods and for him they are only factual to the extent that they lead to a pretty common agreement in our language on the meaning of 'good'.

Error theory is as follows:
Error theory holds that ethical claims are generally false. They hold that there are no objective values---that nothing is morally good, bad, wrong, right, etc.---because there are no moral truths. For example, an error theorist would say that murder is not wrong, but it's not right either. J. L. Mackie is probably the best-known proponent of this view.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-ethics#Moral_anti-realism

Mackie argues a form of nihlism.

[abaddon]

I do not need to justify anything
I didn’t mean to me. And, yes you do.

It is my specific moral preference that child rape should not be performed at any times. Good enough?
No. I don’t see how your personal preferences matter. Ethics isn’t just a personal issue.

And me saying "therefore, no child rape" was my own conclusion coming from what I said before..
Yes, I know. I just didn’t quote it all.

Justifying morality... who knew?
You weren’t asked to justify morality. You were asked to reconcile an apparent contradiction between your relativism and your recognition that there’s objective harm in child rape, which is more conclusive than relativism would allow.

[Adonael]

Why do I have to explain myself?

You don't "have" to. Although, I don't find your viewpoint to be clear and so I asked. I suspect you breach outside the limitations of relativism too.



Because it's a lot better than depraving them and making them suffer. In what way is it "better"?

[GenesisNemesis]

I didn’t mean to me. And, yes you do.

Why do I need to?

No. I don’t see how your personal preferences matter. Ethics isn’t just a personal issue.

For me, it is.

You weren’t asked to justify morality. You were asked to reconcile an apparent contradiction between your relativism and your recognition that there’s objective harm in child rape, which is more conclusive than relativism would allow.

I don't have to prove that there's objective harm, because harm is subjective. Hence my relativism.

Me saying "therefore, no child rape" was my own conclusion coming from what I said before, and that was that I'm concerned about the well-being of individuals.

[GenesisNemesis]

You don't "have" to. Although, I don't find your viewpoint to be clear and so I asked. I suspect you breach outside the limitations of relativism too.

Not really. I'm all relativist, baby!

In what way is it "better"?

To tell you the truth, I have no idea. :rolleyes:

[abaddon]

I didn’t mean to me. And, yes you do.
Why do I need to?
Because otherwise you're not rational. Again, I didn't mean you must make your reasons clear ("justify" your stance) to me. But the reasons must be clarified all the same, in order to try for coherence; that's what reasoning is.

[GenesisNemesis]

Because otherwise you're not rational. Again, I didn't mean you must make your reasons clear ("justify" your stance) to me. But the reasons must be clarified all the same, in order to try for coherence; that's what reasoning is.

Morality is never rational.

[Simen]

Realism. Moral statements are as scientific as any other fact, provided they are phrased as "if...then" conditionals. For instance, you could argue that X is wrong because X causes unnecessary suffering, but you have to show that unnecessary suffering is intrinsically undesirable given certain goals (a peaceful society, reciprocal altruism, and whatnot). If you succeed through logic and evidence, it becomes objectively true to say "if your goal is [such-and-such], then doing X is wrong, where 'wrong' is defined as being detrimental to this goal."

A moral wrong is not a prudential wrong. If it is in a murderer's best interest to murder, we will not excuse him because it was conducive to his goals to murder. And so on, and so forth. Morality isn't a set of hypothetical imperatives. That's a non-morality.

My meta-ethical framework is essentially emotivist--I don't see ethical statements as objectively true or false, but rather emotional reactions that come primarily from our evolution as social animals.


How do you deal with Frege-Geach?

I'm a fan of Peter Railton who combines naturalism with realism:

Ethical naturalism... holds that there are objective moral properties but that these properties are reducible or stand in some metaphysical relation (such as supervenience) to entirely non-ethical properties. Most ethical naturalists hold that we have empirical knowledge of moral truths.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-ethics#Moral_realism

I'm quite keen on Mackie's Error theory too, but I think Railton's view of ethics manages to be quite different from the kind of moral theories Mackie was criticising. Mackie looks at the 'queerness' of a set of rules which are intrinsically motivating, arguing that there would be something very 'queer' about such properties and they could hardly produce hard facts. However, Railton's theory holds that moral goods are based on our non-moral goods and for him they are only factual to the extent that they lead to a pretty common agreement in our language on the meaning of 'good'.


Now, if what Railton means is that "[moral goods] are only factual to the extent that they lead to a pretty common agreement in our language on the meaning of 'good'", then he would be a relativist, not a realist. If not, then he owes us an explanation of whence the normativity of ethics comes from. Supposing that "moral facts supervene on non-moral facts", what is it that makes the moral facts normative? How do they give us reasons to act even if we have no goals that will be satisfied by acting this way?

This is exactly what Mackie objected to. If moral facts are to be about moral properties, then they must have some kind of queer action-guidedness to them. Richard Joyce develops and refines this argument further. His argument is basically:

If X morally ought to Ø, then X has a reason for Ø-ing, regardless of any ends or desires (etc.) on X's part that will be satisfied by Ø-ing or not Ø-ing.
There is no sense to be made of this property, for practical reason gives us only contingent reasons.
So, X is not morally obliged to Ø.

Which effectively dispenses of any ontological moral properties, regardless of their source: naturalistic or non-naturalistic, suerpvenient or not, simple or complex.


Mackie argues a form of nihlism.

True, he argues for an error theory, which implies nihilism.

[Solitary Man]

I'm surprised the relativists didn't vote for all of them. ;)

[Simen]

Morality is never rational.

Wonderfully Humean. How would you defend that? What do you make of moral inferences, such as "If stealing is bad, getting your kid to steal is bad"?

[MrFungus420]

Morality seems, to me, to be essentially extensions of the basic behaviour that would be beneficial to pack animals.

We've just added a lot of verbiage to it.


I would also point out that there is no activity that is, in and of itself, immoral. It is the specifics of the situation that determine whether or not an action is considered immoral.

[Simen]

It is the specifics of the situation that determine whether or not an action is considered immoral.

And that is undisputed, just like no one disputes that the specifics of the situation determine whether or not an action is a tightrope walk or a an act of passionate sex or a leap from one stone to another or a man scratching himself behind the ear with a pencil or something else entirely.

It's very obvious that a situation can't be accurately classified without all the relevant facts. Not a single person would dispute it. So, let's move on.

[Will.L]

Japanese comfort women, female circumcision, the treatment of women in Islam (lots of Islamic dogma in general in fact!), rape, murder, etc. are all examples of the kinds of things which have led people to state what I believe to be obvious, there are timeless, universal morals. In my view, it is immoral to conclude that we simply don't understand those cultures from WITHIN, and that such behaviors are certainly perfectly acceptable from within those cultures so we better just back off!

The thing is that one does not follow from the other. Just because there are other cultures which need to be respected (not just trampled over and ignored because they are different), does not lead to the conclusion that we should presume that they cannot be improved. Even within other cultures there are progressive movements. For example many Islamic countries have their own feminist movements and those movements cannot be said to be an invasion of the culture since they often work within an Islamic framework making radical changes from within the culture.

It must be remembered that western culture too was once quite 'backward' with slavery, dictatorships, and public executions. Even today sexism, racial inequality, xenophobia and homophobia are still problems with no easy solution. Our culture has needed to progress on these issues and at no point would it have been right to say that slavery, public executions, the sovereignty of the monarchy, and male supremacy are all inalienable parts of our culture which it would be a travesty to undermine (as much as many would have loved to insist on such things)... :)

Amen, brother!

btw, I wasn't trying to say that there are cultures which are morally superior to others... As you say, there's backwards aspects in all, and movements to uplift society morally in all (though the ratios can be different...). I'm just pointing out that the relativist argument came about especially from anthropologists and even most of them today seem to have resolved this debate by saying that not all morality is culturally relative. There ARE universals.

[Simen]

I'm just pointing out that the relativist argument came about especially from anthropologists and even most of them today seem to have resolved this debate by saying that not all morality is culturally relative. There ARE universals.

Even if there are universals, that doesn't prove relativism wrong.

[Simen]

Example: there are linguistic universals (features that all languages have), but that doesn't mean linguistic correctness isn't relative (just because there are features all languages have, doesn't mean what's correct to say in a language isn't relative to its speakers.)

[Will.L]

I'm just pointing out that the relativist argument came about especially from anthropologists and even most of them today seem to have resolved this debate by saying that not all morality is culturally relative. There ARE universals.

Even if there are universals, that doesn't prove relativism wrong.

What it proves wrong is that there is ONLY relativism. What I'm arguing against are those who suggest that ALL morality is SOLELY subjective, relative, cultural, and nothing else. I believe that it is universal and that this DOES go against this form of relativism, which was quite popular during post-modernism's heyday...

[Simen]

Even if there are universals, that doesn't prove relativism wrong.

What it proves wrong is that there is ONLY relativism. What I'm arguing against are those who suggest that ALL morality is SOLELY subjective, relative, cultural, and nothing else. I believe that it is universal and that this DOES go against this form of relativism, which was quite popular during post-modernism's heyday...

No, you have misunderstood relativism. Relativists hold that moral facts are only true in relation to a culture, or society, and so on. This doesn't preclude that there might be shared values between cultures. Two cultures can share a value, although what makes that value a moral fact might be only its relation to society.

I provided one example of such relativism: language. There aren't really any realists about linguistic correctness. As far as I know, everyone accepts that what makes an uttering correct in a language is its acceptance by the competent speakers of that language. So what makes an uttering correct is its relation to a community of speakers. Nevertheless, languages share some common universals, some facts that all natural language share.

What you seem to be talking about is the thesis that morality is solely learned behavior, that there is nothing innate about morality. That thesis is false, but that does nothing to disprove moral relativism.

[Joslyn]

How do you deal with Frege-Geach?
It's a meaningless objection. The fact that someone is speaking about an assertion instead of making it directly doesn't change the fact that the assertion itself is--in the case of ethical statements--an emotional one.

To take the example in the wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressivism#The_Embedding_Problem_.28or.2C_the_Frege-Geach_objection.29):

- It is wrong to tell lies.
- If it is wrong to tell lies, then it is wrong to get your little brother to tell lies.
- Therefore, it is wrong to get your little brother to tell lies.

is really just

- (emotional statement 1)
- If (emotional statement 1), then (emotional statement 2)
- Therefore, (emotional statement 2)

[Simen]

It's a meaningless objection. The fact that someone is speaking about an assertion instead of making it directly doesn't change the fact that the assertion itself is--in the case of ethical statements--an emotional one.

To take the example in the wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressivism#The_Embedding_Problem_.28or.2C_the_Frege-Geach_objection.29):

- It is wrong to tell lies.
- If it is wrong to tell lies, then it is wrong to get your little brother to tell lies.
- Therefore, it is wrong to get your little brother to tell lies.

is really just

- (emotional statement 1)
- If (emotional statement 1), then (emotional statement 2)
- Therefore, (emotional statement 2)

The surface argument is valid, but your paraphrase is not. So, your theory fails to explain valid arguments. So, it fails. That's very meaningful.

[fatpie42]

Mackie argues a form of nihlism.

Oranges are orange.

Sorry, wait a moment. We aren't playing the 'state the obvious' game, are we? What was your point?

[fatpie42]

How do you deal with Frege-Geach?
It's a meaningless objection. The fact that someone is speaking about an assertion instead of making it directly doesn't change the fact that the assertion itself is--in the case of ethical statements--an emotional one.

To take the example in the wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressivism#The_Embedding_Problem_.28or.2C_the_Frege-Geach_objection.29):

- It is wrong to tell lies.
- If it is wrong to tell lies, then it is wrong to get your little brother to tell lies.
- Therefore, it is wrong to get your little brother to tell lies.

is really just

- (emotional statement 1)
- If (emotional statement 1), then (emotional statement 2)
- Therefore, (emotional statement 2)

I don't think you've understood the Frege-Geach problem.

I'm not happy about lying
If I'm not happy about lying I'm also not happy about people getting their little brothers to lie
Therefore I'm not happy about people getting their little brothers to lie.

The thing is that the whole logical process becomes meaningless if the moral statements do mean emotional expressions as I've shown above. The premises no longer seem to lead to their conclusion in the way they are meant to.

It seems to me that there are three possible objections:
1) The whole argument actually is meaningless despite how it might appear (because moral statements aren't statements of fact).
2) The re-phrasing of the argument in the form of statements about feelings still has the same logical force in an argument. (I think I'd need a fair bit of convincing on that one.)
3) The argument does have meaning, but only if one has bought into the error that moral statements are matters of fact. (The response according to MacKie's error theory.)

[balanced]

Realism. Moral statements are as scientific as any other fact, provided they are phrased as "if...then" conditionals. For instance, you could argue that X is wrong because X causes unnecessary suffering, but you have to show that unnecessary suffering is intrinsically undesirable given certain goals (a peaceful society, reciprocal altruism, and whatnot). If you succeed through logic and evidence, it becomes objectively true to say "if your goal is [such-and-such], then doing X is wrong, where 'wrong' is defined as being detrimental to this goal."

Isn't this what relative means?? From Merriam-Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary): relative - introducing a subordinate clause qualifying an expressed or implied antecedent

And just because something is "scientific" doesn't at all mean that it's objective.

Japanese comfort women, female circumcision, the treatment of women in Islam (lots of Islamic dogma in general in fact!), rape, murder, etc. are all examples of the kinds of things which have led people to state what I believe to be obvious, there are timeless, universal morals. In my view, it is immoral to conclude that we simply don't understand those cultures from WITHIN, and that such behaviors are certainly perfectly acceptable from within those cultures so we better just back off!
What makes female circumcision objectively wrong, but not male circumcision? Sounds like a relative assessment to me....

The entire concept of morality hinges on the subjective meanings of words like "good", "bad", "right", "wrong", "murder", "rape", etc. 'Murder' is 'wrong' because we define it to be, under the subjective perspective of our shared experiences and goals as humans.

And alarm bells go off any time someone says something is "obvious". It makes it sound like you don't know how to rationalize or justify your position, so you just assert it as "obvious". That's hardly convincing when you're trying to discuss the objectivity of something.

The basics of that aren’t relative at all. If you wantonly kill then you’ll be restrained or killed... there’s nothing involving “taste” in that.I've wantonly killed ants in my backyard. Should I go into hiding? Or did you mean just humans? Sounds pretty relative, to me. What if I just kill other humans, but not wantonly? Who gets to decide if I've been wanton? Soup, anyone?
If humans want to not go extinct, they’ll live according to natural necessities... You break nature’s rules, you pay a price; the only thing relative about it is when, where and how the price is paid.
So, if I randomly pick 10 people from the phone book, kill them, and get away with it, are you saying that I might have to pay "in the afterlife"?? Or do you think I might "feel bad"?

In sum, I believe some social behaviors are objectively necessaryNecessary for what? The universe would cease to exist if certain social behaviors weren't followed? Even that sounds relative. Is there some objective reason the universe must exist?

Hence, while my ethics are entirely subjective they are not at all relative.Interesting distinction. But according to the definition in the poll, if your ethics/morality comes from your cultural preferences, customs, tastes, etc., then that is relativism, regardless of how you apply them.

[Joslyn]

- (emotional statement 1)
- If (emotional statement 1), then (emotional statement 2)
- Therefore, (emotional statement 2)

The surface argument is valid, but your paraphrase is not. So, your theory fails to explain valid arguments. So, it fails. That's very meaningful.
Why is my paraphrase not valid? I see absolutely no reason that the entire statement must be emotional if it can be shown that even one of the components are.

Edit: Let me put it another way. The example is an argument about emotions and not about objective facts. It's still an argument.

[Autonemesis]

The tendency of the atheist's to acclaim moral relativism is probably not the best public relation showcase. It feeds into the idea that if god does not exist, then moral relativism is true.

Good. Because that leads right into my counter-argument, that despite belief in an objective morality, believers are really moral relativists at heart, and so that objection to atheism is founded on irrational and unjustified fears that society would change drastically if morality were really relative. But morality really is relative, as the contemporaneous existence of believers in different and incompatible "objective" moralities demonstrate beyond any doubt.

In other words, if morality were objective, there'd be no differences in moral codes observed and recognized in different times and places. But we do not observe this, therefore morality appears subjective. Yet, despite the subjectiveness of morality, our society today is not radically different or "worse" than it is, so those fears are unfounded. A society that follows subjective moral codes would look like ours, because ours follows subjective moral codes.

[Simen]

The surface argument is valid, but your paraphrase is not. So, your theory fails to explain valid arguments. So, it fails. That's very meaningful.
Why is my paraphrase not valid? I see absolutely no reason that the entire statement must be emotional if it can be shown that even one of the components are.
If the antecedent is emotional, that means it has no truth value. Thus, it can't function in a modus ponens. Therefore, the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. The argument is no longer valid.

[Simen]

In other words, if morality were objective, there'd be no differences in moral codes observed and recognized in different times and places. But we do not observe this, therefore morality appears subjective.

If science were objective, there'd be no differences in scientific beliefs observed and recognized in different times and places. But we do not observe this, therefore science appears subjective. Er, wait. That can't be right.

The argument from disagreement isn't by itself very strong. Disagreement in different times and places does not amount to subjectivity, it only shows that we are flawed human beings who aren't always applying the principles in question consistently at all times and in all places.

Even if the argument established that morality wasn't objective, it wouldn't establish that morality was relative.

[Antiplastic]

The surface argument is valid, but your paraphrase is not. So, your theory fails to explain valid arguments. So, it fails. That's very meaningful.
Why is my paraphrase not valid?

Because commands or cheers of approval cannot preserve validity in unasserted contexts, but moral statements can.

"If shut the door, then snow is white" or "If yay for closed doors, then snow is white" can't stand in relations of logical validity to their constituents, but "if you have an obligation to close the door, then snow is white" can.

I see absolutely no reason that the entire statement must be emotional if it can be shown that even one of the components are.

I don't know what this sentence means.

Edit: Let me put it another way. The example is an argument about emotions and not about objective facts. It's still an argument.

If you mean, moral arguments are really clashes between rival emotive states and not disagreements about objective facts, then I agree. But there are still formally valid and formally invalid moral arguments, which cannot be the case if their constituents are not truth-functional. My own view is that expressivism is fundamentally correct, but it requires a deflationary semantics of the truth predicate for moral statements to work in truth-functional contexts.

[Antiplastic]

Realism. Moral statements are as scientific as any other fact, provided they are phrased as "if...then" conditionals. For instance, you could argue that X is wrong because X causes unnecessary suffering, but you have to show that unnecessary suffering is intrinsically undesirable given certain goals (a peaceful society, reciprocal altruism, and whatnot). If you succeed through logic and evidence, it becomes objectively true to say "if your goal is [such-and-such], then doing X is wrong, where 'wrong' is defined as being detrimental to this goal."

Isn't this what relative means??

Yes, indeed. One thing I've noticed on IIDB is that a substantial number (perhaps even a majority) of people who describe themselves as objectivists are actually relativists who just have the taxonomy skewed.

[Joslyn]

If the antecedent is emotional, that means it has no truth value. Thus, it can't function in a modus ponens. Therefore, the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. The argument is no longer valid.
I just don't see why "truth value" can't be subjective in certain arguments, as long as one recognizes that the conclusions are just as subjective as the premises. I mean, what if we made an argument that was blatantly about emotions?

- If I feel cookies are gross, then I shouldn't eat cookies.
- I feel cookies are gross.
- Therefore, I shouldn't eat cookies.

The only difference between that argument and the "lying" one is that the latter tends to feel subjectively more important because it's quite a bit more pressing to how we live our lives.

I think emotions can be (subjectively) just as important as objective facts about the universe. They just aren't the same thing. And clearly, moral and ethical statements can never be objective facts about the universe if there is no bridge to the is/ought gap.

[Will.L]

What it proves wrong is that there is ONLY relativism. What I'm arguing against are those who suggest that ALL morality is SOLELY subjective, relative, cultural, and nothing else. I believe that it is universal and that this DOES go against this form of relativism, which was quite popular during post-modernism's heyday...

No, you have misunderstood relativism. Relativists hold that moral facts are only true in relation to a culture, or society, and so on. This doesn't preclude that there might be shared values between cultures. Two cultures can share a value, although what makes that value a moral fact might be only its relation to society.

I provided one example of such relativism: language. There aren't really any realists about linguistic correctness. As far as I know, everyone accepts that what makes an uttering correct in a language is its acceptance by the competent speakers of that language. So what makes an uttering correct is its relation to a community of speakers. Nevertheless, languages share some common universals, some facts that all natural language share.

What you seem to be talking about is the thesis that morality is solely learned behavior, that there is nothing innate about morality. That thesis is false, but that does nothing to disprove moral relativism.

Okay, your version of moral relativism is quite different than what I've encountered in the past. Those who I've encountered in the past WOULD argue that it's none of our business to judge things such as child rape, female circumcision, etc. because we are incapable of viewing that culture from WITHIN, and so we have no basis for understanding their morality, which is no less valid than our own, or than any "universal" morality. This is what I take issue with, but it appears that I had moral relativism wrong?

Your version of moral relativism sounds just like what I think about universal, objective morality. Sure, it's subjectively created (or imagined), but that doesn't change the fact that there are certain things which apply, or SHOULD apply, to all humans.

I'm turning around the linguistic analogy in my head... At first I thought it was a poor comparison, but I see how it is appropriate in a way...

I wasn't even talking about morality being innate vs learned. I DO think it is learned actually, though from an evolutionary, biological standpoint, perhaps there are innate things which lead us to be cooperative/moral. I don't know a ton about this though (trying to recall a lecture I saw R. Dawkins give on this...). Either way, morals ARE cultural, and they ARE learned, but this doesn't change the fact that, in my view, certain things which people learn are objectively morally defunct, and others are objectively morally sound.

[Antiplastic]

If the antecedent is emotional, that means it has no truth value. Thus, it can't function in a modus ponens. Therefore, the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. The argument is no longer valid.
I just don't see why "truth value" can't be subjective in certain arguments, as long as one recognizes that the conclusions are just as subjective as the premises. I mean, what if we made an argument that was blatantly about emotions?

- If I feel cookies are gross, then I shouldn't eat cookies.
- I feel cookies are gross.
- Therefore, I shouldn't eat cookies.

Whoops. This is not an emotivist argument, it is a cognitivist subjectivist one. There is a fact of the matter whether you do or do not feel cookies are gross, just as there is a fact of the matter whether George Bush likes broccoli (he famously hates it), and there is a fact of the matter whether I think eating meat is immoral (I do). However, there is no fact of the matter whether "EWWWWWW!!!!!" See here for more on the distinction. (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-cognitivism/#ConCogSub)

The only difference between that argument and the "lying" one is that the latter tends to feel subjectively more important because it's quite a bit more pressing to how we live our lives.

I think emotions can be (subjectively) just as important as objective facts about the universe. They just aren't the same thing. And clearly, moral and ethical statements can never be objective facts about the universe if there is no bridge to the is/ought gap.

What I think you're confused on is whether you're trying to say that moral claims are statements about psychological facts (which is what cognitivist subjectivism is, in which case they do have truth values) or whether you're trying to say that moral claims are expressions of psychological facts (which is what emotivism is, in which case they don't.)

[Joslyn]

Whoops. This is not an emotivist argument, it is a cognitivist subjectivist one.
Heh, sorry to everyone who replied--I obviously was not clear on my terms. But on the plus side, I learned something new. ;)

[Lógos Sokratikós]

Constructivism.

Morals are constructed by humans over time in response to their perceived needs.

[J842P]

Hmm... except I'm not saying morality is objective. I'm just saying morality is probably a result of evolution.

Edit: yikes I can't spell at all right now... I've had to edit that sentence like 5 times.

Well, if there is something that is within our genetics, then I take it to be universally applicable. Assuming, of course, that whatever this this within our genetics is usually exemplified and is part of the normal human condition.

Nope. Sorry. Genetics is characterized by variability.

Anyway, my meta-ethical position could be described as emotivism, or perhaps relativism. Somewhere in the sea of anti-realism is my position, I'm just not sure where.

[abaddon]

The basics of that aren’t relative at all. If you wantonly kill then you’ll be restrained or killed... there’s nothing involving “taste” in that.
I've wantonly killed ants in my backyard. Should I go into hiding? Or did you mean just humans? Sounds pretty relative, to me. What if I just kill other humans, but not wantonly? Who gets to decide if I've been wanton?
Are you trying to demonstrate there are some relative perspectives in any issue? I understand and accounted for that, and addressed “basics” that are universal. Or does relativity describe it all? How relative? So much so you can kill and kill and if there are no apparent consequences for you personally and immediately then it’s OK? That’s assuming there’s such a thing as something strictly “personal” -- which is impossible given that your existence isn’t self-sufficient but reliant on relations with your environment (humans, ants and all). Morality is not a private issue, as you are no more a separate “individual” entity than is a cell in an organism.

If humans want to not go extinct, they’ll live according to natural necessities... You break nature’s rules, you pay a price; the only thing relative about it is when, where and how the price is paid.
So, if I randomly pick 10 people from the phone book, kill them, and get away with it, are you saying that I might have to pay "in the afterlife"?? Or do you think I might "feel bad"?
As with an organ’s cell, you can run amok (become cancerous) and might not “pay” immediate consequences; you might enjoy immediate benefits. But the destruction you create around you affects you, inevitably, as you’re not separate from your environ. Whether you feel good or bad about killing means little in this context. What you do inevitably affects your relations with others; the thriving or diminishment of your superficially “individual” life depends on the quality of those relations.

In sum, I believe some social behaviors are objectively necessary.
Necessary for what? The universe would cease to exist if certain social behaviors weren't followed? Even that sounds relative. Is there some objective reason the universe must exist?
The cessation of the universe sounds relative? Relative to what?

The universe just exists. So do the laws that describe its behaviors. Which are not erratic. A skilled “cell” will live a higher quality (subjectively perceived but still measurable) life living with awareness of how the patterns of nature work; that is, a life that's lived knowing how your relations to self and others are enhanced or disrupted by your behavior. Because nature (including “you”) is not erratic but patterned makes that quality measurable -- in spite of seeming subjective to the nothing-in-itself called a “person” that imagines itself separate from (or “free of” as you seem to suggest) the rest of nature (humans, ants, et al).

[J842P]

The tendency of the atheist's to acclaim moral relativism is probably not the best public relation showcase. It feeds into the idea that if god does not exist, then moral relativism is true.

I think that even if God exists then moral relativism is true.

[J842P]

(still here...)

Well it is. Tere is no objective morality, i.e. what is "right" is only what we consider right. On the other hand, most moral rules are universially accepted (lying is bad etc). Atheists have pretty much the same rules as everyone else (maybe we tend to be more liberal... but pretty much the same). For instance, according to fox news (impeccable source) Sweden is about 85% atheist. And yet strangely you won't get stabbed in the streets.. corruption is lower than pretty much anywhere etc. We're not saying "anything goes", we're just saying that WE are the ones who've come up withe the rules, not god (we invented him...).


What people find so troubling with that view is that there is nothing objectively and timelessly wrong with child rape. Under your worldview, it's not the best social norm and there seems to be a horrible understatement in that.
Well, thats because objectively wrong doesn't mean anything to me. It's like saying this music is objectively bad, or that painting is objectively ugly. It doesn't change my feelings towards child rape or what I would do to a child rapist.

[J842P]

My meta-ethical framework is essentially emotivist--I don't see ethical statements as objectively true or false, but rather emotional reactions that come primarily from our evolution as social animals.

That said, even if a god or gods did exist, the choice to recognize it as a "moral authority" would be entirely subjective. There is no objective bridge to the is/ought gap.

Even though my ethics are subjective I consider them to be of great importance to me--I am willing to judge all cultures by my own standards. This is becase importance is also subjective.

Hence, while my ethics are entirely subjective they are not at all relative.
I think this post would characterize my position very well.

[Joslyn]

My meta-ethical framework is essentially emotivist--I don't see ethical statements as objectively true or false, but rather emotional reactions that come primarily from our evolution as social animals.

That said, even if a god or gods did exist, the choice to recognize it as a "moral authority" would be entirely subjective. There is no objective bridge to the is/ought gap.

Even though my ethics are subjective I consider them to be of great importance to me--I am willing to judge all cultures by my own standards. This is becase importance is also subjective.

Hence, while my ethics are entirely subjective they are not at all relative.
I think this post would characterize my position very well.
Just becareful not to use the word "emotivist" incorrectly like I did. :blush:

[J842P]

I think this post would characterize my position very well.
Just becareful not to use the word "emotivist" incorrectly like I did. :blush:

Aye. I'm still not clear on the distinction. Could someone clear this up for me? What I think you're confused on is whether you're trying to say that moral claims are statements about psychological facts (which is what cognitivist subjectivism is, in which case they do have truth values) or whether you're trying to say that moral claims are expressions of psychological facts (which is what emotivism is, in which case they don't.)

[Adonael]

Why is my paraphrase not valid? I see absolutely no reason that the entire statement must be emotional if it can be shown that even one of the components are.
If the antecedent is emotional, that means it has no truth value. Thus, it can't function in a modus ponens. Therefore, the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. The argument is no longer valid.

Assuming that the emotional statements are not assertions as well as expressions.

[Simen]

If the antecedent is emotional, that means it has no truth value. Thus, it can't function in a modus ponens. Therefore, the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. The argument is no longer valid.

Assuming that the emotional statements are not assertions as well as expressions.

According to simple emotivism, they are not. But more sophisticated expressivists still need to explain just what, if anything, a moral assertion asserts, in such a way as not to collapse into some other metaethical view (such as error theory or realism).

[Unbeatable]

Other: error theory.

[balanced]

Are you trying to demonstrate there are some relative perspectives in any issue? I understand and accounted for that, and addressed “basics” that are universal. Or does relativity describe it all? How relative? So much so you can kill and kill and if there are no apparent consequences for you personally and immediately then it’s OK?
It sounds like you have a subjective perspective of what's "universal". I don't like sweeping generalities, like "relativity describes it all," but maybe this example will help elucidate my point: When the Vikings arrived on the shores of England, and wantonly killed everyone they found, was that objectively wrong? I bet they didn't think so, and probably would have quickly dispatched any of their members who tried to raise an objection.

That’s assuming there’s such a thing as something strictly “personal” -- which is impossible given that your existence isn’t self-sufficient but reliant on relations with your environment (humans, ants and all). Morality is not a private issue, as you are no more a separate “individual” entity than is a cell in an organism.It doesn't have to be personal. It only needs to be common with those you associate. If you were a Viking, then wantonly killing the English was a perfectly moral thing to do, in your Viking society. Why would a Viking think otherwise?


As with an organ’s cell, you can run amok (become cancerous) and might not “pay” immediate consequences; you might enjoy immediate benefits. But the destruction you create around you affects you, inevitably, as you’re not separate from your environ. Whether you feel good or bad about killing means little in this context. What you do inevitably affects your relations with others; the thriving or diminishment of your superficially “individual” life depends on the quality of those relations.Sure. And if those around me agree that killing the English is a great thing to do, because we get all the booty, then see how moral it is for me? "Paying the price" of winning England for my clan doesn't sound so immoral. Who cares if the English are all dead? They smelled funny anyway.

The fact that the English would do the same to me only serves to demonstrate the relativity/subjectivity of it.


Necessary for what? The universe would cease to exist if certain social behaviors weren't followed? Even that sounds relative. Is there some objective reason the universe must exist?
The cessation of the universe sounds relative? Relative to what? Don't evade the question: What is objectively necessary about certain social behaviors? I'll bet the best you can do is tie it to some desire or drive that humans have. That's hardly objective. The Lords of Destiny could hardly care less. (2 points for anyone who gets that reference!)

The universe just exists. So do the laws that describe its behaviors. Which are not erratic. A skilled “cell” will live a higher quality (subjectively perceived but still measurable) life living with awareness of how the patterns of nature work; that is, a life that's lived knowing how your relations to self and others are enhanced or disrupted by your behavior."Higher quality??" What's that supposed to mean? Does it somehow make the universe "better" for us to be alive? As you said, the universe just exists. It doesn't care about quality, or what you thinks is "better" or "worse."

[Will.L]

What makes female circumcision objectively wrong, but not male circumcision? Sounds like a relative assessment to me....

The entire concept of morality hinges on the subjective meanings of words like "good", "bad", "right", "wrong", "murder", "rape", etc. 'Murder' is 'wrong' because we define it to be, under the subjective perspective of our shared experiences and goals as humans.

And alarm bells go off any time someone says something is "obvious". It makes it sound like you don't know how to rationalize or justify your position, so you just assert it as "obvious". That's hardly convincing when you're trying to discuss the objectivity of something.

Yeah, you're right. Obvious is a red flag word, and not one I should have used (obviously, none of this is obvious ;)). At any rate...

I agree with your post. All morals are cultural, all morals are learned, all morals are subjective. In that sense they are relative. The reason I believe that you can say that there is universal/objective morality is because there are basic things which apply to essentially all cultures. Let's say in one culture, child rape is good. Anthropologists in the mid 20th century would have had us believe that we could not judge them using our own moral compass, because I do not have an understanding of that culture from within. This is bullshit. If you believe in objective morality, and two cultures have two different perceptions regarding some moral question, only one can be right. This is a good thing.

I never said male circumcision was fine, but the damage inflicted pales in comparison to the case of female circumcision, so I at that moment just happened to say "female circumcision" as opposed to "circumcision" in general. *shrug*

[abaddon]

"Higher quality??" What's that supposed to mean? Does it somehow make the universe "better" for us to be alive? As you said, the universe just exists. It doesn't care about quality, or what you thinks is "better" or "worse."
Does it have to matter to the universe to count as “objective”? You want it to be either the universe, or this or that culture, or me alone. Where do the values shared by all humans fit into your scheme?

[Sabine Grant]

What makes female circumcision objectively wrong, but not male circumcision? Sounds like a relative assessment to me....

I never said male circumcision was fine, but the damage inflicted pales in comparison to the case of female circumcision, so I at that moment just happened to say "female circumcision" as opposed to "circumcision" in general. *shrug* Just chiming in to add water to your well on that specific, Will. The degree of harm and long term negative consequences are definite factors in female circumcision since such mutilation is in fact the excision of her clitoris. Meaning the intention is to deprive her from experiencing sexual fulfillment. As we explore further the alleged justifications for such act, we discover that it is motivated by a mentality which views females as susceptible to be promiscuous. The goal is then to deprive females from pleasure in order to keep them from seeking sexual fulfillment.

IMO it does not take a degree in ethics to analyze such mentality as being oppressive and repressive towards the pursuit of happiness of a category of human beings.

Whereas male circumcision as practiced in westernized cultures claims to be motivated by hygienic purposes and certainly does not affect the sexual fulfillment and individual pursuit of happiness of males.

Since you were being probed about your choice of words, I thought I would point to what appeared to me to be quite rationally constructed.

[Laurentius]

I voted realism.

I'm retarded. I made the poll only for atheists and then I voted.

I would call this involuntary frankness. ;)

[wiploc]

The tendency of the atheist's to acclaim moral relativism is probably not the best public relation showcase. It feeds into the idea that if god does not exist, then moral relativism is true.

I agree with Adonael.

By the way, Adonael, which way did you vote. (I assume that I should vote the same way.)

crc

[Will.L]

Exactly the thoughts I had before posting Sabine. And thanks. :)

Male circumcision leads to better health, potentially SLIGHTLY less sexual pleasure, and at worst (if you have a dumbass for a doctor) issues with pain when getting an erection. These problems pale in comparison to the sheer barbarism that is female circumcision, which is composed of all cons, and no pros (that I'm aware of).

At any rate though, I can see what your point was balanced, but I addressed that in my previous post...

[Adonael]

The tendency of the atheist's to acclaim moral relativism is probably not the best public relation showcase. It feeds into the idea that if god does not exist, then moral relativism is true.

I agree with Adonael.

By the way, Adonael, which way did you vote. (I assume that I should vote the same way.)

crc

im a realist, but not all philosophers acknowledge the middle ground (provisionalism).

-------

Readers should note that my options are ridiculously simple and inapt for the amount of ethical positions there are. Analytical philosophy is a pain in the ass for splitting hairs and division.

[wiploc]

im a realist,

I'm probably a realist then. (This is Adonael's thread. He who makes the definitions usually makes his own position seem reasonable.)

crc

[Antiplastic]

Just becareful not to use the word "emotivist" incorrectly like I did. :blush:

Aye. I'm still not clear on the distinction. Could someone clear this up for me? What I think you're confused on is whether you're trying to say that moral claims are statements about psychological facts (which is what cognitivist subjectivism is, in which case they do have truth values) or whether you're trying to say that moral claims are expressions of psychological facts (which is what emotivism is, in which case they don't.)

There are facts about people's psychological states -- which are in the end, facts about people's brain states -- which you can get right or wrong. It's a fact that Michael Behe believes Yahweh poofed the flagellum into existence in a puff of smoke. It's a fact that Bin Laden hates American freedoms. It's a fact that I hope I have enough money to pay rent next month. If you come along and assert the negations of any of these persons' beliefs, dislikes, or hopes, then you are asserting a falsehood. If any of these people disingenuously deny their own beliefs, dislikes, or hopes, they are likewise stating a falsehood. To be a cognitivist subjectivist about morality (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-cognitivism/#ConCogSub) is to say that when Jane says "Eating meat is wrong," she is making just this kind of report of her psychological state of disliking it. Her statement can be evaluated as true or false just to the extent that it's true she disapproves of people eating meat. If Jim says, "No, eating meat is acceptable," his statement in turn can be evaluated according to his own psychological states. In this case, Jim and Jane don't really disagree over any matter of objective fact (or any matter of fact at all); they are simply stating mutually conflicting tastes.

Noncognitivism in its basic form (like emotivism) is the thesis that when Jane says "Eating meat is morally wrong," she has the same psychological state of emotive disapproval described above, but what she is doing is not giving a report in language that is a description which can be true or false, but is simply using English grammar and vocabulary to express her psychological state, in the same way that crying, or raising one's voice, or smiling, or saying "ewwww, yuck" or "hooray" express psychological states but don't themselves have truth values.

[Antiplastic]

So, if I randomly pick 10 people from the phone book, kill them, and get away with it, are you saying that I might have to pay "in the afterlife"?? Or do you think I might "feel bad"?


As with an organ’s cell, you can run amok (become cancerous) and might not “pay” immediate consequences; you might enjoy immediate benefits. But the destruction you create around you affects you, inevitably, as you’re not separate from your environ.

What are you trying to claim here? That getting away with a crime is just conceptually impossible? Physically impossible? That anyone who has ever (ever) performed an immoral act has suffered as a result of it?

[abaddon]

As with an organ’s cell, you can run amok (become cancerous) and might not “pay” immediate consequences; you might enjoy immediate benefits. But the destruction you create around you affects you, inevitably, as you’re not separate from your environ.

What are you trying to claim here? That getting away with a crime is just conceptually impossible? Physically impossible? That anyone who has ever (ever) performed an immoral act has suffered as a result of it?

We’re taking turns summarizing our meta-ethics and not talking legal issues, right? The language being used makes me wonder. My word “pay” didn’t mean an authority (whether police or your conscience) is gonna “get” you.

My view is that every individual is part of nature and we’re not separate from it. That being the case, any action on my part affects my surroundings and that affects me as I’m not a discrete thing set apart from the rest. My well-being requires the well-being of my surroundings, including the people in it. If you think you can kill and “get away with it”, you’re alienated from people, nature and your own self. Any action makes what I am. Failing to feel or cognize that is a symptom of the very problem; a kind of sociopathy, or at least dissociation. I do “good” because I want to flourish as a human animal and want others to do so as well. It starts with biology and works up into cultural issues, with increasing aspects of relativity and preference... But there are some set rules of what’s healthy and what isn’t. We know the difference between sick and healthy organisms, so figuring out what’s healthiest for individuals and societies isn’t reliant on arbitrary personal preferences. In sum, my morals rely on figuring out what’s healthy (which isn’t wholly arbitrary because nature isn't), and my viewpoint is holistic not individualistic.

[Antiplastic]

What are you trying to claim here? That getting away with a crime is just conceptually impossible? Physically impossible? That anyone who has ever (ever) performed an immoral act has suffered as a result of it?

We’re taking turns summarizing our meta-ethics and not talking legal issues, right? The language being used makes me wonder. My word “pay” didn’t mean an authority (whether police or your conscience) is gonna “get” you.

My view is that every individual is part of nature and we’re not separate from it. That being the case, any action on my part affects my surroundings and that affects me as I’m not a discrete thing set apart from the rest. My well-being requires the well-being of my surroundings, including the people in it.

Then you are a miraculously unique individual in some peculiar circumstances. There are any number of times when the well being (defined fuzzily enough) of the rest of us depends on other people getting fucked, good and hard.

If you think you can kill and “get away with it”, you’re alienated from people, nature and your own self. Any action makes what I am. Failing to feel or cognize that is a symptom of the very problem; a kind of sociopathy, or at least dissociation.

OK, so people who do wrong are "dissociated". That's a far cry from proving they are deficient in some way, or that they have false beliefs about some moral matter of fact. Maybe being "dissociated" is good. And the fact remains that psychologically healthy people get away with all kinds of crap.

I do “good” because I want to flourish as a human animal and want others to do so as well. It starts with biology and works up into cultural issues, with increasing aspects of relativity and preference... But there are some set rules of what’s healthy and what isn’t. We know the difference between sick and healthy organisms, so figuring out what’s healthiest for individuals and societies isn’t reliant on arbitrary personal preferences. In sum, my morals rely on figuring out what’s healthy (which isn’t wholly arbitrary because nature isn't), and my viewpoint is holistic not individualistic.

I find the quickest way to get talk of "health" to dry up is to put a person on a raft with someone whose protein requirements are past due; suddenly the recommendations of nutritionists are the furthest thing from their mind.

[LukeS]

Other.

Subjectivism and emotivism.

[Anat]

Are there universal and timeless moral values? Only to the extent that humans as we are and as we understand ourselves to be are timeless and universal, ie - not. That most people from most cultures and most societies agree on certain morals reflects the common neurology of all humans. It is possible to imagine beings with a different evolutionary history, and therefore a completely different wiring than ourselves, for whom certain acts which to us are horrible crimes would to them be something to shrug off. For example, if humans had the sexual behavior of common chimpanzees (an estrous female mates with any male in the vicinity, a non-estrous female is generally unattractive to males) - would rape be a meaningful concept at all?

I think that at its most basic morality starts as an instinct, and this instinct is evolved. On top of that come culturally learned morals. Morals which flow with human instincts tend to be more common across time and culture, those that are in conflict with instinct would be either rare and short-lasting, or require some other powerful cultural force to support them. And then there are probably morals that flow with certain instincts but are in conflict with others (say submission to authority vs self-preservation).

[Hoodoo Ulove]

. . . when Jane says "Eating meat is wrong," she is making just this kind of report of her psychological state of disliking it. Her statement can be evaluated as true or false just to the extent that it's true she disapproves of people eating meat. If Jim says, "No, eating meat is acceptable," his statement in turn can be evaluated according to his own psychological states. In this case, Jim and Jane don't really disagree over any matter of objective fact (or any matter of fact at all); they are simply stating mutually conflicting tastes.This amounts to saying that Jane and Jim don't mean what they think they mean.

Just because you think that there is no objective fact of the matter, it does not follow that Jim and Jane do not, and that they do not mean that eating meat is objectively right or wrong.

[Antiplastic]

. . . when Jane says "Eating meat is wrong," she is making just this kind of report of her psychological state of disliking it. Her statement can be evaluated as true or false just to the extent that it's true she disapproves of people eating meat. If Jim says, "No, eating meat is acceptable," his statement in turn can be evaluated according to his own psychological states. In this case, Jim and Jane don't really disagree over any matter of objective fact (or any matter of fact at all); they are simply stating mutually conflicting tastes.This amounts to saying that Jane and Jim don't mean what they think they mean.

Just because you think that there is no objective fact of the matter, it does not follow that Jim and Jane do not, and that they do not mean that eating meat is objectively right or wrong.

Lucky for me I think descriptivist subjectivism is bollocks then.

[Will.L]

I believe we should hash out what provisionalism means, and how universal we are getting when we say timeless. Do we mean timeless in the broadest sense, as in for ALL time? Or for the purposes of practicality, could timeless simply apply to a large chunk of time in which humans have existed in our current biological state? (that is, to differentiate us from similar species which have shown signs of possessing morality). Or is there a better way to define timeless? (or a better term to use...?)

Depending on how provisionalism is traditionally understood, I think that might closer fit my views. But in taking the one-sentence version of it at first glance, I'd still say I'm closer to a realist than provisionalist.

Haven't seen anyone self-identify as a provisionalist except adonael, and it was no less vague than the definition given in the OP (though admittedly, I agree with adonael in the sense that starting from overly-simplistic extremes is beneficial for the sake of using the dialectic to fill in the nuances and details...)

[balanced]

"Higher quality??" What's that supposed to mean? Does it somehow make the universe "better" for us to be alive? As you said, the universe just exists. It doesn't care about quality, or what you thinks is "better" or "worse."
Does it have to matter to the universe to count as “objective”? You want it to be either the universe, or this or that culture, or me alone. Where do the values shared by all humans fit into your scheme?

To me, in order for something to be considered truly objective (i.e., not simply some colloquial understanding of objective), then it needs to apply in all cases, with no conditionals. When you use a word like 'quality', there's an implicit dependency on what is considered 'good' or 'better'. And that is a subjective assessment, unless you think that there is some objective standard by which to measure it. Is there an entropy equivalent to quality? I don't think so. We judge something to be of higher quality if it better meets our goals. But there's no objective purpose in our goals. They're simply what we are driven to do.

As for values shared by all humans, I think that pretty much boils down to "what's best is that which makes me most content," for each individual. Which isn't to say that being content is objectively better; it's just what we're programmed to strive for. By whatever mechanism, humans have a tendency to want to live, and to associate together in groups. These drives compel us to agree on certain behaviors, or morals. But they're not objective, and often the morals that apply within one group are considered meaningless when applied in different groups - like to an individual, or a family, or a community, or a nation. Or in different situations - like when I'm alone, or starving in a lifeboat with 6 other people, or in a foxhole with my enemy, or at a party with my friends.

[Simen]

That sounds reasonable. We value, the universe does not -- how could it? It's not equipped to value anything.

[Moridin]

I'm a moral realist.

[Hoodoo Ulove]

That sounds reasonable. We value, the universe does not -- how could it? It's not equipped to value anything.Nor is it equipped to declare the lack of value of anything.

[Prester John]

Morals are personal, and based upon our nature and our nurture.

Whilst 99.99% of people would assert that child rape is immoral, maybe 50% would assert that homosexual behaviour is immoral. The search for absolutes is the peculiar obsession of the theists, and like their gods has very little to do with reality.

Our morals form i would argue the basis for our laws. Consider how varied they are now and how varied they have been over time.

For the record i guess, using the definitins provided i fall in to relativism for what its worth.

[Adonael]

I believe we should hash out what provisionalism means, and how universal we are getting when we say timeless. Do we mean timeless in the broadest sense, as in for ALL time? Or for the purposes of practicality, could timeless simply apply to a large chunk of time in which humans have existed in our current biological state? (that is, to differentiate us from similar species which have shown signs of possessing morality). Or is there a better way to define timeless? (or a better term to use...?)

Depending on how provisionalism is traditionally understood, I think that might closer fit my views. But in taking the one-sentence version of it at first glance, I'd still say I'm closer to a realist than provisionalist.

Haven't seen anyone self-identify as a provisionalist except adonael, and it was no less vague than the definition given in the OP (though admittedly, I agree with adonael in the sense that starting from overly-simplistic extremes is beneficial for the sake of using the dialectic to fill in the nuances and details...)

Hi Will,

I got the term "provisionalism" from a sociobiologist who ventured into metaethics. What he described was evolutionary grounds for moral trues that encapsulate (although with some deviations) our species. Notably, his basing for such moral trues is contingent and can change. Thus, he declared that it was not eternally nor necessarily true . However, neither are these moral trues mere social conventions, tastes of the months, etc. They are a part of the modern human construct; they are general trues about our species and so he did not want to refer to them as merely relative.

The term "provisionalism" can be toyed with. the main idea is that there exists a middle ground.

[J842P]

Whereas male circumcision as practiced in westernized cultures claims to be motivated by hygienic purposes and certainly does not affect the sexual fulfillment and individual pursuit of happiness of males.

I've actually heard it does affect sensitivity. I don't know since I am circumcised (so I guess I'll never know). I wish I had at least had a choice.
But you are right, the intention is completely different.

[J842P]

Aye. I'm still not clear on the distinction. Could someone clear this up for me?

There are facts about people's psychological states -- which are in the end, facts about people's brain states -- which you can get right or wrong. It's a fact that Michael Behe believes Yahweh poofed the flagellum into existence in a puff of smoke. It's a fact that Bin Laden hates American freedoms. It's a fact that I hope I have enough money to pay rent next month. If you come along and assert the negations of any of these persons' beliefs, dislikes, or hopes, then you are asserting a falsehood. If any of these people disingenuously deny their own beliefs, dislikes, or hopes, they are likewise stating a falsehood. To be a cognitivist subjectivist about morality (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-cognitivism/#ConCogSub) is to say that when Jane says "Eating meat is wrong," she is making just this kind of report of her psychological state of disliking it. Her statement can be evaluated as true or false just to the extent that it's true she disapproves of people eating meat. If Jim says, "No, eating meat is acceptable," his statement in turn can be evaluated according to his own psychological states. In this case, Jim and Jane don't really disagree over any matter of objective fact (or any matter of fact at all); they are simply stating mutually conflicting tastes.

Noncognitivism in its basic form (like emotivism) is the thesis that when Jane says "Eating meat is morally wrong," she has the same psychological state of emotive disapproval described above, but what she is doing is not giving a report in language that is a description which can be true or false, but is simply using English grammar and vocabulary to express her psychological state, in the same way that crying, or raising one's voice, or smiling, or saying "ewwww, yuck" or "hooray" express psychological states but don't themselves have truth values.
Thats what I thought but it seemed like a nit-picky distinction. That's analytical philosophy for you. It seems to me that both theses entail the position that moral truths don't exist. Certainly psychological truths exist, though. I don't see why emotivists don't consider a proposition such as "Eating meat is wrong" a description about a psychological/emotional state - which it seems they both agree are the underlying phenomena, but 'merely' and expression. I'll check out the Standford Encyclopedia (which i should have done from the beginning). I see morality from a psychological/biochemical/evolutionary perspective which makes a lot of the meta-ethical discourse seem like superfluous babble to me sometimes.

[Will.L]

Adonael, thanks. That makes perfect sense to me. Postmodernism beat into us the lesson that everything is subjective, everything is taught/learned. Morals are not BIOLOGICAL (again, I've seen the case be made that there are evolutionary reasons for morality to exist, but for the purposes of this discussion I think that'd be a bad can of worms to open here). The fact that morals are learned and subjective does not change the fact that, for our practical purposes, it would be perfectly reasonable to say there are objective, universal morals across the board for humanity.

Balanced, just a gentle *nudge* to see if you noticed my most recent reply to you?

[Simen]

That sounds reasonable. We value, the universe does not -- how could it? It's not equipped to value anything.Nor is it equipped to declare the lack of value of anything.

The universe doesn't declare anything, since it's not conscious. But since it doesn't value anything, that means as far as the universe is concerned (which it isn't, given that it doesn't have any concerns), there is no value.

[Antiplastic]

There are facts about people's psychological states -- which are in the end, facts about people's brain states -- which you can get right or wrong. It's a fact that Michael Behe believes Yahweh poofed the flagellum into existence in a puff of smoke. It's a fact that Bin Laden hates American freedoms. It's a fact that I hope I have enough money to pay rent next month. If you come along and assert the negations of any of these persons' beliefs, dislikes, or hopes, then you are asserting a falsehood. If any of these people disingenuously deny their own beliefs, dislikes, or hopes, they are likewise stating a falsehood. To be a cognitivist subjectivist about morality (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-cognitivism/#ConCogSub) is to say that when Jane says "Eating meat is wrong," she is making just this kind of report of her psychological state of disliking it. Her statement can be evaluated as true or false just to the extent that it's true she disapproves of people eating meat. If Jim says, "No, eating meat is acceptable," his statement in turn can be evaluated according to his own psychological states. In this case, Jim and Jane don't really disagree over any matter of objective fact (or any matter of fact at all); they are simply stating mutually conflicting tastes.

Noncognitivism in its basic form (like emotivism) is the thesis that when Jane says "Eating meat is morally wrong," she has the same psychological state of emotive disapproval described above, but what she is doing is not giving a report in language that is a description which can be true or false, but is simply using English grammar and vocabulary to express her psychological state, in the same way that crying, or raising one's voice, or smiling, or saying "ewwww, yuck" or "hooray" express psychological states but don't themselves have truth values.
Thats what I thought but it seemed like a nit-picky distinction. That's analytical philosophy for you.

On one thesis, Jane and Jim are really disagreeing, but on the other, there is no real disagreement. I think if I found out that I didn't "really" disagree with Jerry Falwell on moral issues, that would be an absolutely astonishing thing to discover.

It seems to me that both theses entail the position that moral truths don't exist.

On the cognitivist thesis, they do exist, they're just not what some people mistakenly think they are. On early noncognitivisms like prescriptivism, you're right that moral claims are not truth evaluable (since they are really disguised commands), or on emotivism moral claims are literally nonsensical.

But (and what a but), if you take up the theses of the contemporary noncognitivists, it turns out you actually can talk about and assert absolute moral truths. This is where I've ended up myself.

Certainly psychological truths exist, though. I don't see why emotivists don't consider a proposition such as "Eating meat is wrong" a description about a psychological/emotional state - which it seems they both agree are the underlying phenomena, but 'merely' and expression.

It's an ancillary to the Logical Positivists' metaphysical commitments. The LPs tried (and God bless them for trying) to show that verifiability was the sine qua non of meaning: if a statement can't be empirically verified in principle, then it is literally nonsense. Since sentences like "unnecessary suffering is evil" can't be verified or falsified by empirical observation, it follows from the verificationists' theory of truth that "unnecessary suffering is evil" isn't even a conceptually coherent sentence that can be evaluated for truth. It is simply a wail or a lament.

For obvious reasons, almost no one is an emotivist anymore.

I'll check out the Standford Encyclopedia (which i should have done from the beginning). I see morality from a psychological/biochemical/evolutionary perspective which makes a lot of the meta-ethical discourse seem like superfluous babble to me sometimes.

The old saw goes that 90% of philosophy is nonsense and the other 10% is the refutation of that nonsense. The trick is to try to live in the 10%; the problem is people try to pull metaethical tricks on you in 1st-order moral conversation, and it helps to know how to escape when someone springs nonsense like relativism or realism on you.

[The AntiChris]

But (and what a but), if you take up the theses of the contemporary noncognitivists, it turns out you actually can talk about and assert absolute moral truths. This is where I've ended up myself.Intriguing.

What are the defining features of an "absolute moral truth" and what would be an example of one (from the contempary noncognitivist view). I'm not an academic nor do I have an academic background so if you could keep the technical jargon to a minimum it would be appreciated. Thanks. :)

Chris

[Hoodoo Ulove]

Nor is it equipped to declare the lack of value of anything.

The universe doesn't declare anything, since it's not conscious. But since it doesn't value anything, that means as far as the universe is concerned (which it isn't, given that it doesn't have any concerns), there is no value.Stating that there are no objective moral facts looks suspiciously like stating an objective moral fact. (Am I here making the same error here of which I accuse others?)

[Angra Mainyu]

The universe doesn't declare anything, since it's not conscious. But since it doesn't value anything, that means as far as the universe is concerned (which it isn't, given that it doesn't have any concerns), there is no value.Stating that there are no objective moral facts looks suspiciously like stating an objective moral fact. (Am I here making the same error here of which I accuse others?)
Stating that there are no objective moral facts is a metaethical claim, not an ethical one.

[Hoodoo Ulove]

Stating that there are no objective moral facts is a metaethical claim, not an ethical one.Umm, if I say eating meat is wrong, that's an ethical claim, right? If you deny my ethical claim, saying are no moral facts, isn't that also an ethical claim?

[Simen]

Stating that there are no objective moral facts is a metaethical claim, not an ethical one.Umm, if I say eating meat is wrong, that's an ethical claim, right? If you deny my ethical claim, saying are no moral facts, isn't that also an ethical claim?

No. To say that there are no objective moral facts is not to say that anything has any moral property, that anything is morally obligatory, that anything is morally good or morally bad, or any other thing that might be construed as a moral claim. To say that killing is not objectively wrong is not to say that it is objectively good, it is simply a denial of its having the objective property "wrongness" -- assuming that what we mean when we say that killing is wrong is that it has the property of moral wrongness.

[Simen]

The universe doesn't declare anything, since it's not conscious. But since it doesn't value anything, that means as far as the universe is concerned (which it isn't, given that it doesn't have any concerns), there is no value.Stating that there are no objective moral facts looks suspiciously like stating an objective moral fact. (Am I here making the same error here of which I accuse others?)

No, "there are no objective moral facts" is not a statement within ethics, it's a statement about ethics. Suppose you proposed a theory of arithmetic from which I could derive that 1 + 1 = 3. Then I could state a fact about your theory, that it is inconsistent. You could counter the same way, "Hey, to say that 1 + 1 isn't equal to 3 is to make an arithmetical statement, therefore you haven't refuted my theory!" Hopefully, in this example it is clear that in fact the error lies notwith the one who points out the inconsistency of the theory of arithmetic, but with the one who insists that pointing out this is itself a statement within the theory.

[Antiplastic]

But (and what a but), if you take up the theses of the contemporary noncognitivists, it turns out you actually can talk about and assert absolute moral truths. This is where I've ended up myself.Intriguing.

What are the defining features of an "absolute moral truth" and what would be an example of one (from the contempary noncognitivist view). I'm not an academic nor do I have an academic background so if you could keep the technical jargon to a minimum it would be appreciated. Thanks. :)

Chris

Well, it's absolutely wrong to kill and consume sentient creatures when it is not necessary for survival, or to traffic in slavery, or to adopt a pacifist or neutralist stance in response to Islamic terrorism, or to dishonestly snip away people's refutations in an internet conversation and pretend as though no response had been given, or to fail to give up your seat on the bus for an elderly citizen, or to raise children without the benefit of a liberal education. I couldn't give you any algorithmic set of necessary and sufficient conditions if that's what you're looking for by "defining features", but it seems to me that what these true moral truths have in common is the realization that cruelty and ignorance are the worst sorts of things we third chimpanzees like to do, and that the world is a better place when there's less of them.

I don't think that metaphysics and ontology are things we should (or, ultimately, could) bring to bear to make our moral decisions. All moral truths look the same from "street level" -- my words and my actions that flow from believing homophobia is wrong are the same as the words and and actions that flow from a relativist's in Berkeley or a realist's in a theological seminary if they adopt the same moral belief. I don't think metaethical theories can dictate in any detail one's 1st-order normative commitments.

Yeah, I know, what you were probably digging for is, "what is it that makes these moral things true, according to your expressivism?" My response is that according to expressivism, that's not ultimately an interesting question. I'm not interested in providing some Realist theory of correspondence for moral truths that meta-justifies justification by latching onto something beyond human experience, and I'm not disposed to abandon moralizing as the error theorists want us to do because of the impossibility of providing a Realist-style justification. I simply express my (noncognitive) conscience and give my reasons in conversation, hope you find them persuasive, and place myself open to persuasion by others who honor the same rules in the language game. One of those rules is that taking a moral stand (as opposed to a mere expression of taste) is making an existential commitment to hold yourself and others responsible to that moral rule, even if they personally reject it -- therefore, when I make moral claims, they are absolute.

[Simen]

I'm not disposed to abandon moralizing as the error theorists want us to do because of the impossibility of providing a Realist-style justification.

That's not true. Error theorists can and do offer reasons why we might want to continue moralizing, while knowing that what we're saying isn't literally true. That's exactly what J. L. Mackie, who coined the term error theory, did. It's all about making a change in our ways: it's about no longer believing what we say to be literally true, but instead, to regard it as having some use but not the same ontological or epistemic status as, say, science or mathematics.

There is nothing wrong with an error theorist arguing that we should regard morality as you do (unless, of course, his reasons are bad). The difference is that you propose that our attitude to morality already, implicitly, is such-and-such, while the error theorist proposes that currently, we are really in error, so perhaps we should shed the error and let the language of ethics be something other than what we regard it as today.

There are those who would have us abolish what we are in error about, but we could just as well remove the error and adopt a different attitude to the language without abandoning it; like we could continue using classical mechanics despite knowing of its inaccuracy under certain special circumstances. I read someone suggesting recently that in a correct ontology, although there may be no such object as, say, a play, there is good reason for us to accept that "Shakespeare wrote <x> plays" is true.

But I don't think I have to convince you of the usefulness of this. I've seen you make similar arguments and accept similar positions yourself, and indeed, this is exactly what you seem to be doing when you defend your use of terms such as true, false, absolute etc., with regards to ethics. So the same arsenal as you use is available to the error theorist, with regard to what we should be doing about ethics (abandon it? transform it? change our attitude towards it?). The error theorist by definition can't use them when dealing with how we currently, pretheoretically use moral language, though.

I simply express my (noncognitive) conscience and give my reasons in conversation, hope you find them persuasive, and place myself open to persuasion by others who honor the same rules in the language game. One of those rules is that taking a moral stand (as opposed to a mere expression of taste) is making an existential commitment to hold yourself and others responsible to that moral rule, even if they personally reject it -- therefore, when I make moral claims, they are absolute.

Well, they certainly are, but why would it be preferable to talk in such a way that we are easily taken to be saying and committed to something other than what we mean? That very same objection, naturally, applies both to your theory and to any error theorist who may feel tempted to revise ethics along expressivist lines. (I've seen Simon Blackburn quoted as having said that if we weren't already talking in terms of moral predicates such as good and evil, we would need to invent them. I don't believe I caught the reason why.)

[The AntiChris]

Yeah, I know, what you were probably digging for is, "what is it that makes these moral things true, according to your expressivism?". My response is that according to expressivism, that's not ultimately an interesting question. Ok, but I'm not still not sure what you mean by "true" in this context. :huh:
I'm not interested in providing some Realist theory of correspondence for moral truths that meta-justifies justification by latching onto something beyond human experience, and I'm not disposed to abandon moralizing as the error theorists want us to do because of the impossibility of providing a Realist-style justification. I simply express my (noncognitive) conscience and give my reasons in conversation, hope you find them persuasive, and place myself open to persuasion by others who honor the same rules in the language game.Yeah, nothing to disagree with there.
One of those rules is that taking a moral stand (as opposed to a mere expression of taste) is making an existential commitment to hold yourself and others responsible to that moral rule, even if they personally reject it -- therefore, when I make moral claims, they are absolute.Ok, I see why you say "absolute". I'm still not sure in what sense you mean your claims are "true".

Chris

[Antiplastic]

Yeah, I know, what you were probably digging for is, "what is it that makes these moral things true, according to your expressivism?". My response is that according to expressivism, that's not ultimately an interesting question. Ok, but I'm not still not sure what you mean by "true" in this context. :huh:

It's hard to give a non-jargon answer here. True is a felicitous move in a language game, and normative claims as a rule aren't true in the way empirical descriptions are true, because I deny the cognitivist (descriptivist) claim that moralizing consists in getting an accurate picture of the way "things really are", independent of human experience; it's OK to say your moral beliefs are true when you can justify them against all comers.

IANA capital P Pragmatist, but I share many points of contact with them on these topics. Here's a brief passage from the late Richard Rorty that might give a better feel for the idea:

“From a pragmatist’s point of view, the notion of ‘inalienable rights’ is no better and no worse a slogan than that of ‘obedience to the will of God’. Either slogan, when invoked as an unmoved mover, is simply a way of saying that our spade is turned—that we have exhausted our argumentative resources. Talk of the will of God or of the rights of man, like talk of ‘the honour of the family’ or of ‘the fatherland in danger’ are not suitable targets for philosophical analysis and criticism. It is fruitless to look behind them. None of these notions should be analyzed, for they are all ways of saying, ‘Here I stand: I can do no other.’ These are not reasons for action so much as announcements that one has thought the issue through and come to a decision.”

[Antiplastic]

I'm not disposed to abandon moralizing as the error theorists want us to do because of the impossibility of providing a Realist-style justification.

That's not true. Error theorists can and do offer reasons why we might want to continue moralizing, while knowing that what we're saying isn't literally true. That's exactly what J. L. Mackie, who coined the term error theory, did. It's all about making a change in our ways: it's about no longer believing what we say to be literally true, but instead, to regard it as having some use but not the same ontological or epistemic status as, say, science or mathematics.

Well, I didn't mean abandon altogether to a kind of quietism. Mackie went on in Ethics to advocate a kind of fictionalism; "making a change in our ways and no longer believing our moral beliefs to be (really) true" is "abandonment" enough. The point here is that the error theorist, regardless of whether he goes on to be a quietist or a revisionist, thinks he has identified through the power of his philosophy a ramified and and irreparable mistake made by just about everyone.

There is nothing wrong with an error theorist arguing that we should regard morality as you do (unless, of course, his reasons are bad).

You mean, there is nothing wrong with an ET advocating that we replace what he thinks morality actually is with a "morality *" that looks like expressivist quasi realism. But quasi-realism is crucially different from Mackie-style fictionalism. (http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/~swb24/PAPERS/fictionalism.pdf) (PDF link)

The difference is that you propose that our attitude to morality already, implicitly, is such-and-such, while the error theorist proposes that currently, we are really in error, so perhaps we should shed the error and let the language of ethics be something other than what we regard it as today.

Careful; I don't propose that our attitude toward morality is any such-and-such in particular. Philosophical analyses (like metaethics) are theories about what people do when they (for instance) moralize; opinion-polling is where you look for theories about what people's attitudes towards things are. Fretting about metaphysical justifiers for maths, or morals, or probabilities, or modal claims etc. is for philosophers, while the rest of us get on fine.

But I don't think I have to convince you of the usefulness of this. I've seen you make similar arguments and accept similar positions yourself, and indeed, this is exactly what you seem to be doing when you defend your use of terms such as true, false, absolute etc., with regards to ethics.

Sorry, you lost me on the antecedent of "this". If you mean abandoning or revising a practice, the only people whom I implore to abandon anything are readers in philosophy trying to model their theoretical commitments about the practice of morality on that of empirical science, and judging success or failure by that measure. I think most moral discourse, by most people most of the time, is theoretically fine.

So the same arsenal as you use is available to the error theorist, with regard to what we should be doing about ethics (abandon it? transform it? change our attitude towards it?). The error theorist by definition can't use them when dealing with how we currently, pretheoretically use moral language, though.

Yep. There's an interesting question here, though -- you are more or less an error theorist, so imagine purely for the sake of a