A defence of evaluative objectivism

[Skepdick]

I know I only predicted a couple of days ago that this site cannot hold discussions about sophisticated topics.

Before this site can hold discussions about sophisticated topics first you'd have to learn how to distinguish between sophistication and sophistry.

Nothing on here passess the sniff test for sophistication. It's all abstract tom-foolery, language and mind games never approaching any contact with the ground.

[Atla]

I'd summarize the argument as: Assuming solipsism (and this solipsist even has an unchanging personality), some things are pleasant (intrinsically good) and some things are unpleasant (intrinsically bad).

But we can't assume solipsism. Adam hurts Bob, which is pleasant for Adam and unpleasant for Bob.

It wasn't going to work out like that. He's a moral realist of a sort that doesn't normally exist at PN by virtue of not being an absolutist. VA, IC, Henry, all the others all think that they can define a full and comprehensive set of the complete moral truth with all questions answered. CIN was in the process of a limited claim that there is some knowledge. He was going to have a tough time usefully defining the boundaries, but it might have revealed something cool.

I know I only predicted a couple of days ago that this site cannot hold discussions about sophisticated topics, and the whole notion of limited moral knowledge definitely falls within that shadow, so it's never going to survive contact with Skepdick and mister Can... but nonetheless I am suprised he was so thin-skinned as to pick up his ball and go home on page 1.

To be honest, I don't see anything in CIN's arguments either. Okay, "good" and "bad" are two fundamental qualia, I agree with that.

But when "good" and "bad" are parts of the human brain/mind, which is very complex and diverse, we always end up with subjectivism, no matter how we slice it. But maybe I'm missing or misunderstanding something.

Reminds me a little of the Continental phenomenologists, who seem to think that "value" and/or "good/bad" are somehow at the heart of everything. And I never could beat it out of them, why they think that value/good/bad deserve special treatment.

[Skepdick]

But when "good" and "bad" are parts of the human brain/mind, which is very complex and diverse, we always end up with subjectivism, no matter how we slice it. But maybe I'm missing or misunderstanding something.

Here's an idea: stop slicing.

Then get rid of the "subjective" and "objective" slices. Get rid of the "good" and "bad" slices also.

And then rethink the whole thing...

[FlashDangerpants]

To be honest, I don't see anything in CIN's arguments either. Okay, "good" and "bad" are two fundamental qualia, I agree with that.

But when "good" and "bad" are parts of the human brain/mind, which is very complex and diverse, we always end up with subjectivism, no matter how we slice it. But maybe I'm missing or misunderstanding something.

Reminds me a little of the Continental phenomenologists, who seem to think that "value" and/or "good/bad" are somehow at the heart of everything. And I never could beat it out of them, why they think that value/good/bad deserve special treatment.

If it were VA, that would be about right, VA is clumsy and his arguments practically disassemble themselves for you. He does stuff like naturaising 'oughtness' into braincells and DNA. But CIN probably wasn't doing that, it would be walking into a big famous trap. If I am mistaken, then presumably he must have thought ahead to the open-question argument and the naturalistic fallacy, so he would be unliekly to attempt a simple reduction of that sort.

If he wanted to naturalise good and bad to quales he could used pleasure and pain 9actual quales) as those quales just as Bentham did. Insead he took the computationally expensive option of using pleasantness and unpleasantness, thereby embedding some level of higher order judgment. I couldn't say for sure why he went that way, there's several hundred reasons he might.

That said, he did make a point of stating that his argument wasn't ontologically expansive (apparently Pete had accused him of somthing like that before), but it was much less clear if he's doing a reduction of good to pleasantness (an oversimplification that would burn down) or a something more like a supervenience relationship (requiring a much more complicated argument that would have taken about 20 pages to resolve, not counting whatever ChatGPT trash VA throws up in his confusion).

We'll never know.

[CIN]

I'd summarize the argument as: Assuming solipsism (and this solipsist even has an unchanging personality), some things are pleasant (intrinsically good) and some things are unpleasant (intrinsically bad).

But we can't assume solipsism. Adam hurts Bob, which is pleasant for Adam and unpleasant for Bob.

It wasn't going to work out like that. He's a moral realist of a sort that doesn't normally exist at PN by virtue of not being an absolutist. VA, IC, Henry, all the others all think that they can define a full and comprehensive set of the complete moral truth with all questions answered. CIN was in the process of a limited claim that there is some knowledge. He was going to have a tough time usefully defining the boundaries, but it might have revealed something cool.

I know I only predicted a couple of days ago that this site cannot hold discussions about sophisticated topics, and the whole notion of limited moral knowledge definitely falls within that shadow, so it's never going to survive contact with Skepdick and mister Can... but nonetheless I am suprised he was so thin-skinned as to pick up his ball and go home on page 1.

Thin-skinned.... No, just weary of the poseurs and cranks who infest this forum and can't do proper philosophy to save their lives. Annoyed at tossers who use my thread to promote themselves and their weird and unfounded ideas for the millionth time. Depressed at the thought of having to wade yet again through Peter Holmes's misreadings of my arguments and his delusive claims to have refuted me when he's done no such thing. (Nice guy, Peter, but utterly hopeless at reading my arguments properly, and far too easily satisfied with half-assed answers.)

All right, Flash, you have my attention. "He was going to have a tough time usefully defining the boundaries." Amplify, please. Give me your best shots. Maybe you and I can have a worthwhile debate about ethics. I don't think anyone else here is up to it.

[Veritas Aequitas]

but nonetheless I am suprised he was so thin-skinned as to pick up his ball and go home on page 1.

Thin-skinned.... No, just weary of the poseurs and cranks who infest this forum and can't do proper philosophy to save their lives. Annoyed at tossers who use my thread to promote themselves and their weird and unfounded ideas for the millionth time. Depressed at the thought of having to wade yet again through Peter Holmes's misreadings of my arguments and his delusive claims to have refuted me when he's done no such thing. (Nice guy, Peter, but utterly hopeless at reading my arguments properly, and far too easily satisfied with half-assed answers.)

All right, Flash, you have my attention. "He was going to have a tough time usefully defining the boundaries." Amplify, please. Give me your best shots. Maybe you and I can have a worthwhile debate about ethics. I don't think anyone else here is up to it.

You are too arrogant when your knowledge in Ethics is that shallow and narrow. [.. I had downloaded your OP into Words and scrutinized it in detail]

That was why I introduced the general information of what EO is about [re ChatGPT], then gave you an idea of Peter's background on ethics, thereon, give my views on what is EO from my perspective.

NOTE, this is a Philosophical Forum, as such by default is open to all views WITHIN the rules of the forum. How come you are SO ignorant of this point?

It is at your absolute discretion whether to response or not [just ignore] or run away; don't imagine your self to be that high and mighty in philosophy when you are really just a philosophical gnat.

[Peter Holmes]

Thin-skinned.... No, just weary of the poseurs and cranks who infest this forum and can't do proper philosophy to save their lives. Annoyed at tossers who use my thread to promote themselves and their weird and unfounded ideas for the millionth time. Depressed at the thought of having to wade yet again through Peter Holmes's misreadings of my arguments and his delusive claims to have refuted me when he's done no such thing. (Nice guy, Peter, but utterly hopeless at reading my arguments properly, and far too easily satisfied with half-assed answers.)

Well, that's me told.

The best way to avoid misreadings of your argument is to set it out as briefly and clearly as you can - to isolate your premises and conclusions - which I think you've done in your summary. And you begin by defining 'good' and 'bad', relating them to 'pleasantness' and 'unpleasantness' - in turn relating those to 'pro-/neutral or anti-responses' being 'actually fitting'.

But here's a dictionary definition of morality: 'noun: principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour'.

And in your OP, you say the following: 'Of the five commonly used ethical words — 'good', 'bad', 'right', 'wrong', and 'ought' — my argument only makes use of 'good' and bad'. I have nothing to say in this post about 'right', 'wrong', or 'ought'.'

My point is that I think your omission of moral rightness and wrongness, or 'oughtness', from your theory - as presented here - is fatal, if your aim is to make a moral argument. Badness from unpleasantness from an actually fitting anti-response may explain the use of those terms - but they have no moral significance. That has to be injected as an assumption, which is therefore subjective.

Of course, you're arguing for evaluative objectivity - not specifically moral objectivity. But you do begin by talking about ethics. And I don't think you show evaluative objectivity at work in moral discourse. Your premises don't get you there.

But if you think I'm misreading your argument again, by all means abuse me and dismiss my points.

[Skepdick]

But here's a dictionary definition of morality: 'noun: principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour'.

Appealing to a dictionary to justify the meaning of words is like appealing to the bible to justify the existence of God.

It's an appeal to authority and a bandwagon fallacy. It's also intellectually lazy. God forbid you had to consider any alternative world-view.

My point is that I think your omission of moral rightness and wrongness, or 'oughtness', from your theory - as presented here - is fatal, if your aim is to make a moral argument.

Are you prescribing to him what his moral argument ought to be? Ahhhh the fucking irony!

Badness from unpleasantness from an actually fitting anti-response may explain the use of those terms - but they have no moral significance. That has to be injected as an assumption, which is therefore subjective.

Do the words "right" and "wrong" have moral significance. What sound and valid argument led you to this conclusion?

Of course, you're arguing for evaluative objectivity - not specifically moral objectivity.

I thought you understood how deductive reasoning works? You start with general premises and you arrive at specific conclusions.

So if you start with evaulative objectivity (in general) and it allows you to objectively evaluate moral claims as being true (in particular).

That's your objection being rendered irrelevant.

But you do begin by talking about ethics. And I don't think you show evaluative objectivity at work in moral discourse. Your premises don't get you there.

What needs showing? The word "evaluate" is derived from the Late Latin word "evaluare," which means to determine the value of something.

Like evaluating the truth-value of linguistic expressions.

No values - no evaluation.

But if you think I'm misreading your argument again, by all means abuse me and dismiss my points.

OK... What point?

[FlashDangerpants]

All right, Flash, you have my attention. "He was going to have a tough time usefully defining the boundaries." Amplify, please.

Well I was making some assumptions that may or may not work out to be honest. But in the main, the limited and conditional MO is enough to upend my position* if it is sufficient to resolve any moral controversy at all. Which seems like quite an achievable goal. Prima facie a full map of all moral stuff from end to end would surely be more challenging than that.

So an obvious argument strategy for me (given the type of approach I usually prefer) would be to nibble at the edges and turn the strength into a weakness if I can: Add a negligence clause to the dog kicking part just to establish the habit of extending the radius of the MO; then a small bit of poking to see why exactly we're using unpleasantness instead of pain for our intrinsic factor; then see if I can extend the dog thing again to make it unweildy. If that doesn't reveal any threads to pull then I would probably move to expand beyond reason the way we calculate what is fitting. If that doesn't work, then we may have a situation where we can predict in advance which moral factoids we can support as fact versus which we must recommend as tentative extensions instead. At which point I appear to be hosed.

Ultimately I have to explain the same set of discourses that you do, but somehow get out of it without committing to it being a knowable fact that kicking a dog is morally wrong because it inherits a state of true wrongness from the unpleasantness of the kick. Yet it is obvious to me that the unpleasant dog kickery is wrong. Further to that I have to accept all the circumstances that come with the territory (such as that we all agree that somebody who just kicks dogs at will has something wrong with them). Depending on how you determine some stuff, I might not be up to the task.



* a sort of generalised antirealist, my only firm commitment is that I think moral fact is incoherent and my lesser commitment is that I think moral discourse is cognisable. I doubt that this unfocussed approach would survive much interrogation tbh and in a big ol argument I am at risk of finding out what I really think (and not liking it).

[CIN]

Thin-skinned.... No, just weary of the poseurs and cranks who infest this forum and can't do proper philosophy to save their lives. Annoyed at tossers who use my thread to promote themselves and their weird and unfounded ideas for the millionth time. Depressed at the thought of having to wade yet again through Peter Holmes's misreadings of my arguments and his delusive claims to have refuted me when he's done no such thing. (Nice guy, Peter, but utterly hopeless at reading my arguments properly, and far too easily satisfied with half-assed answers.)

Well, that's me told.

The best way to avoid misreadings of your argument is to set it out as briefly and clearly as you can - to isolate your premises and conclusions - which I think you've done in your summary. And you begin by defining 'good' and 'bad', relating them to 'pleasantness' and 'unpleasantness' - in turn relating those to 'pro-/neutral or anti-responses' being 'actually fitting'.

But here's a dictionary definition of morality: 'noun: principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour'.

And in your OP, you say the following: 'Of the five commonly used ethical words — 'good', 'bad', 'right', 'wrong', and 'ought' — my argument only makes use of 'good' and bad'. I have nothing to say in this post about 'right', 'wrong', or 'ought'.'

My point is that I think your omission of moral rightness and wrongness, or 'oughtness', from your theory - as presented here - is fatal, if your aim is to make a moral argument. Badness from unpleasantness from an actually fitting anti-response may explain the use of those terms - but they have no moral significance. That has to be injected as an assumption, which is therefore subjective.

Of course, you're arguing for evaluative objectivity - not specifically moral objectivity. But you do begin by talking about ethics. And I don't think you show evaluative objectivity at work in moral discourse. Your premises don't get you there.

But if you think I'm misreading your argument again, by all means abuse me and dismiss my points.

It was never my intention to abuse you. Charging you with not reading my argument properly and with being satisfied with half-assed answers does not constitute abuse. Calling you a 'dumb c..t', as Skeptic does, would be abuse. (Though I suppose 'delusive' was a bit strong. But really you shouldn't claim to have won an argument when you haven't.)

My opinion of you, Peter, is that (a) you're the only person here who has demonstrated an understanding that the right way to deal with a formal argument is to check it for internal validity and the truth of its premises, but (b) so far you haven't been doing a very good job of it. I went through your latest reply to me in the other thread with a fine-tooth comb, and by the end I had lost count of the number of times I wrote 'straw man'. I don't quite know why this is, but perhaps it's that you seem to think all objectivist theories are just different versions of one theory, which they're not. Most ethical theories end up in much the same place, but the important thing is not where they end up, but where they start from and how they get there. Some theories (like mine) start from the idea that there are values embedded in nature; some from the idea that values come from God; some from the idea that values are intuited; VA's theory, which seems to me eccentric, is based on the idea that values come from human biology. You can't refute just one of these theories and then assume that you have thereby refuted any of the rest. You have to take each one on its own merits.

In your reply to me in the other thread, you wrote this:
"As for moral act-consequentialism, that just kicks the problem (and the failure) of moral objectivism down the road from the act itself. If there are no deontological moral facts, then there are no consequential moral facts either."
This is the kind of thing I mean when I accuse you of half-assed answers. How on earth can you think that the second sentence here is defensible? Taken as it stands, it's an obvious non sequitur. If you had in mind that there is some feature of deontological theories that makes them fail, and that this feature is also present in consequentialist theories, then you need to say what that feature is.

I take your point about my mentioning ethics. Perhaps I should replace 'ethics' with 'axiology'. You'll have to cut me some slack here: there was no mention of axiology in my philosophy degree course, nor have I come across it in my more recent reading. I get the impression that most moral philosophers go straight for morality without thinking about non-moral values on the way. I did this myself until very recently: it's only a few weeks since I realised that a clear distinction needs to be drawn between moral and non-moral evaluative facts. God knows, I'm no expert at any of this. It's 50 years since I got my philosophy degree, and I've forgotten most of what I learned. My only virtue is persistence: I will not give up this quest to find out what the truth is about values and ethics until I'm satisfied that I've got it right.

I disagree with this:
"My point is that I think your omission of moral rightness and wrongness, or 'oughtness', from your theory - as presented here - is fatal, if your aim is to make a moral argument."
I think here you are trying to impose a condition on me which I don't need to accept. There's an interesting essay by Luke Townend, called 'Evaluative Realism and the Argument from Queerness' (https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/30511/1 ... Thesis.pdf), which starts off "Purely Evaluative Moral Realism is the view that there are moral facts, but they are always and only concerned with goodness and badness, without being concerned with reasons or obligations." If you think moral theories must involve 'right', 'wrong' and 'ought', I think you are going to have to make a case for it.

Thanks for continuing to talk to me.

[Skepdick]

There's so much wrong with your presuppositions, and your strategy and your methodology (and probably your entire education and society is to blame) but I guess there's far too much for you to unlearn before you can see why you are chasing your own tail in the futility of your project.

But there is this one gaping problem that just absolutely puzzless me.

you're the only person here who has demonstrated an understanding that the right way to deal with a formal argument is to check it for internal validity

Do you understand that when you are constructing a theory and making a theoretical argument the internal validity of the argument is not subject to any methodological scrunity whatsoever?

You aren't in the realm of facts, empiricism, results and peer-review. You are in the realm of story-making inspired by life. You are in the realm of connecting dots between experiences.

What criteria are people supposed to use? What authority are people supposed to consult and what criteria are people supposed to use as counter-examples with in order to determine whether your story is any good?

What's your reference source against which validity is to determined?!?

This is akin to Einstein asking people whether it's internally valid to infer that matter tells space how to curve. It's a theory dude! YOU are making up the INTERNALS!

What makes something made up valid or invalid?

Calling you a 'dumb c..t', as Skeptic does, would be abuse.

Also, I've addressed this a dozen times now...

Ask Peter Holmes and he will agree that there is nothing objectively wrong (and so it can't be abuse) with my behaviour towards him.

But hey, at least, it's a good litmus test for you. If evaluative objectivism works then you should be able to help Peter objectively establish whether he is being abused or not.

Because he can't do it.

[CIN]

Thanks to people for their comments, which I will try to respond to. Up to my eyes at the moment, but here's something to be going on with.

To be honest, I don't see anything in CIN's arguments either. Okay, "good" and "bad" are two fundamental qualia, I agree with that.

But when "good" and "bad" are parts of the human brain/mind, which is very complex and diverse, we always end up with subjectivism, no matter how we slice it. But maybe I'm missing or misunderstanding something.

Reminds me a little of the Continental phenomenologists, who seem to think that "value" and/or "good/bad" are somehow at the heart of everything. And I never could beat it out of them, why they think that value/good/bad deserve special treatment.

If it were VA, that would be about right, VA is clumsy and his arguments practically disassemble themselves for you. He does stuff like naturaising 'oughtness' into braincells and DNA. But CIN probably wasn't doing that, it would be walking into a big famous trap. If I am mistaken, then presumably he must have thought ahead to the open-question argument and the naturalistic fallacy, so he would be unliekly to attempt a simple reduction of that sort.

Well, let's dispose of Moore. Not having a copy of Moore to hand, I'll refer to the Stanford Encyclopedia for my account of the open question argument:

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

So far, so good. But then we get this:

'The same argument can be mounted against any other naturalist proposal: even if we have determined that something is what we desire to desire or is more evolved, the question whether it is good remains open, in the sense of not being settled by the meaning of the word “good.” ' (ibid)
(my emboldening)

This isn't a proof, it's a mere conjecture. It's like Fermat's Last Theorem (which is also a conjecture). Fermat couldn't find any numbers raised to a power greater than 2 which were the sum of two numbers raised to the same power, so he conjectured that there weren't any. Moore is doing the same thing with 'good'. He looks for natural properties that are the same as goodness, doesn't find any, and conjectures that there aren't any. But Moore's failing to find one doesn't prove that there aren't any. Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's conjecture to be true, but — correct me if I'm wrong — no Andrew Wiles has come along and proved Moore's conjecture to be true. I think Moore's conjecture is false. I think there is a natural property that's the same as goodness, and it's being such that a pro-response is fitting and a neutral or anti-response is not. This is my version of fitting attitude theory. Fitting attitude theory wasn't as developed when Moore was writing, so it's not surprising that it didn't occur to him. I think the open question argument is defunct, and therefore so is the supposed naturalistic fallacy.

[Skepdick]

Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's conjecture to be true, but — correct me if I'm wrong — no Andrew Wiles has come along and proved Moore's conjecture to be true.

Another statement which contains so much uncorrigirable misunderstanding.

How do you even... compare Mathematical with Philosophical conjectures; or confuse Mathematical with Philosophical proofs.
How do you even begin to. ... I can't even.

Mathematics is just symbol manipulation and transformation under a strict set of rules. It's syntax and grammar - no semantics.

[Atla]

I wonder where this is going, I can't detect even a hint at an argument for objectivism.

[CIN]

Very sad. The only person who rises above philosophical incompetence in their replies to me on this thread is Flash, and he seems to have caught Peter Holmes's disease of intellectual sloth. What on earth is the point of this forum, if this is the best it can produce?