IS and OUGHT

[Astro Cat]

Typing on a tiny screen.

This is why I just use the word “nontheist” to avoid all the baggage with the word atheist. It’s so much more complicated than has been laid out here.

For one thing, the position “I don’t know if there are gods” is not agnosticism as Huxley coined it: Huxley’s agnosticism was that the problem is insoluble; so technically an agnostic would say “I can’t know,” not “I don’t know.” And that is quite a specific claim that a lot of so-called “agnostics” don’t make because some hold that they may be able to be convinced. (I believe I can be, so I am not an agnostic).

Now, language evolves over time. So most people use the word “agnostic” for the weaker case (“I don’t know”) now. But I think Huxley’s demarcation between the two is important.

So that’s one point that bugs me in these definitional debates. Another one is that there’s not one word that encapsulates our opinions on gods. It’s always going to depend on how gods are defined, and there are lots of different words to do it with.

For instance, if God is defined as the God of an interpretation of the Bible with a 6,000-10,000 year old Earth with a global flood that literally supposedly happened, one could easily be a hard atheist (“that god does not exist”) because it’s possible to cite evidence for the belief: it’s a positive claim to make that such a god doesn’t exist and it’s a positive claim that can be supported.

But if God is just defined as a nebulous being that’s omnipotent and omniscient and which created the world, that’s not generally specific enough to positively claim it doesn’t exist. We must generally be weak atheists towards such a god (“I’m not convinced it exists”).

So these debates always have me sighing because no single “atheism” term covers all the possible gods people believe in, and these “no, atheism is defined this way, not that way” debates never take that into consideration.

So I just call myself a nontheist. I am not a theist, and if someone wants to know why, we have to talk about which god concept they want to know my general epistemic and ontological attitude towards.

[Harbal]

This is why I just use the word “nontheist” to avoid all the baggage with the word atheist.

That makes sense, but IC will still find a way to complicate it. Over enthusiastic religious types just can't seem to grasp the idea that some people don't even think about religion or God unless someone else brings up the subject. I'm talking about me here, I don't know the regularity with which you think about God.

[henry quirk]

You are the kind of muthafucker that would shoot a fox, arncha?

No, I'm the kind who has, and will again.

[henry quirk]

https://pestsmart.org.au/toolkit-resour ... -of-foxes/

I don't care, B.

[Astro Cat]

This is why I just use the word “nontheist” to avoid all the baggage with the word atheist.

That makes sense, but IC will still find a way to complicate it. Over enthusiastic religious types just can't seem to grasp the idea that some people don't even think about religion or God unless someone else brings up the subject. I'm talking about me here, I don't know the regularity with which you think about God.

I came from a religious background, so I still do occasionally; but largely I don’t unless prompted. So that’s probably common once someone’s outside of it maybe?

[promethean75]

Yes Belinda we would hope that if Henry is an executioner of the vulpes vulpes, he be as humane as he can in doing so. It would do him well to read the link you offered, especially the animal welfare considerations subsection 'impact on target animals.'

I do have a question regarding this instruction:

'The shooter must be certain that each animal is dead before another is targeted.'

What if the shooter is being attacked by a whole fuckin skulk of foxes and it's like an action movie or some shit? What if they're just comin at him man? Like on some John Wick level shit. I mean you always finish em off but sometimes you can't do that with the first shot and have to shoot a'nuh muhfucka before you can finish the other one.

[Belinda]

https://pestsmart.org.au/toolkit-resour ... -of-foxes/

I don't care, B.

Why don't you care? Do you lack empathy? Do you not have the curiosity to inform yourself? Sometimes you don't seem to be a slob.

[Belinda]

Yes Belinda we would hope that if Henry is an executioner of the vulpes vulpes, he be as humane as he can in doing so. It would do him well to read the link you offered, especially the animal welfare considerations subsection 'impact on target animals.'

I do have a question regarding this instruction:

'The shooter must be certain that each animal is dead before another is targeted.'

What if the shooter is being attacked by a whole fuckin skulk of foxes and it's like an action movie or some shit? What if they're just comin at him man? Like on some John Wick level shit. I mean you always finish em off but sometimes you can't do that with the first shot and have to shoot a'nuh muhfucka before you can finish the other one.

Dear Prometheus, you have survived that experience with your good intention intact. I hope you can keep on keeping on as you do.

[Astro Cat]

So where does the "oughtness" come from?

It doesn't come from the "values" themselves, since those have no objective referent, allegedly. It can't come from the action of "valuing," because it surely must be evident that people can and do "value" many things that you and I would recognize as very bad or even morally reprehensible (according to our own values). If nothing else, saying "Bruce Jenner" fits into this category, for you: I value it as a statement of truth, and you evaluate it as a "deadnaming," which is allegedly bad. So on that point at least, we are "valuing" differently; and thus the "valuing" cannot be making one right or wrong.

So there is one place left, from which the "oughtness" could be emanating: the person. It must be the case, I have to assume, that you hold that because it's a person valuing X or Y, then X or Y becomes an "ought," at least for them.

But it's still hard to see why we should think this is so. After all, a "person" is no more than a contingent being, one thrown into existence by chance forces that created the universe, a universe which cares nothing and has no particular purposes for him/her and is essentially amoral. And this being the assumption, why should we think a "person" has any more special importance or dignity, let alone ability to confer moral duty on things, than has a horse, a fish or a rock?

And, of course, there's the additional problem we just mentioned: that when Cat values something one way, and IC values it differently, both are "persons." Which one of them is able to confer "oughtness" on the situation? Ought we to say "Bruce Jenner," or ought we to say "Kaitlyn"? A "person" stands behind each valuation. Which is the "ought"?

Multiply this problem by this: that at one time, it was perfectly "valuable" for Cat to call Jenner "Bruce," because he was still a male decathlete. Later in time, it "became an ought" that Cat should not, because her evaluation of the situation changed. Now she regards that as "deadnaming," and evaluates "deadnaming" as wrong. But then we can see that even a single person, considered all by herself, can have different valuations of a single act at different times: so which valuation by the person "Cat" produces a duty?

Let's add this all up: "oughtness," then, at least the moral kind, does not come from society, from instrumentality, or from values. It doesn't come from the act of valuing, and it doesn't come from some special glow possessed by the persons doing the valuing.

So why should anybody take any "ought" seriously at all? Why is any "ought" even incumbent on Cat herself? Why does she even need the word "ought," since nothing exist that can impose or assert any moral duty upon her, not even herself?

That is the position: that there is no evidence there is a moral ought at all, that all oughts that exist are instrumentalist oughts (which are all means to the end of furthering a value and come in the form of if/then statements).

I do not understand what a moral ought even means (what it means to have an imperative without a hypothetical: without an "if you value/then you should" structure).

When I try to understand what it is, it always goes like this:

Person: You ought to value x.

Me: Ok, but I don't hold that value. Why ought I value x?

P: You have a duty to value it.

M: Ok, but you're just changing one word that I don't understand to another word that I don't understand. What does it mean that I have a duty to value x if I don't experience the personal feeling that I should?

P: It means that you should value it.

M: Ok, 'ought,' 'duty,' 'should,' these are all just the same undefined concept to me if there's an absence of a hypothetical imperative. I suppose you'll say I have an 'obligation' next, and I still won't know what that means. If I don't feel that I have an obligation to value x, then what does it mean to say that I do? It makes sense for me to feel I ought to do y if doing y furthers some value that I hold. But I don't understand what it means that I ought to value x if I don't experience holding that value. What makes it so that I ought to? I understand that you're saying how I feel doesn't matter for this kind of "ought" you speak of, but then I have nothing to give this concept of "ought" any substance to cognitively latch onto. What is it?

P: You should value x because x is good.

M: It doesn't seem good to me.

P: That doesn't matter. x is good in a universal way, not a personal way: whether you personally experience the feeling that x is good or not, x is actually good. The proposition that "if x is good, then for any S, S ought to value x" is true.

M: Ok, so that's using the word "good" in a way that I don't understand. When I say "y is good," I'm saying that y aligns with my values. It's basically another way to say "I value y." I don't know what it means for x to be good if I don't feel that x is good, if I don't value x. What is goodness in this context that you're using?

P: Goodness is a property that's objectively defined, not personally defined.

M: Objectively defined how?

Different realists answer from there in different ways, so I'll stop the mock conversation there. This is also pretty much the point in this conversation that we're at now with my questions to you regarding what goodness means. Maybe this mock conversation helps distill why I'm interested in that so keenly: a lot hinges on whether it can be made sensible.

"Parsimonious." I love that word. It's so...niche. It gets at a concept for which there's no genuine synonym. "Concise" might come closest, but it fails to grasp the whole of the concept. What a great word.

Anyway, that's astute: the summary above captures the whole of the situation in a brief...parsimonious...way. However, what it leaves out is the follow-up questions, which all point to how we are going to make sense of such a position. And those are the ones I'd like to press a bit.

We end up in a world in which "value" means nothing more than "prefer temporarily." It lacks all force of "oughtness," all duty, all compulsion to "do the right thing," and all moral content. So we have dealt with the concept of "oughtness" by essentiallly banishing it from the realm of the meaningful, or, on the other hand, by accidentally conflating it with the instrumental -- as if something could become a moral duty merely by being efficient for some purpose that itself cannot be morally judged.

And that leaves us with a confusing universe: it's one in which moral language floats around for no reason, referring to nothing. How it even all got started becomes a mystery...it's as if the whole world had suddenly begun to believe in fairies, and are now just discovering there never was any such thing. But what cosmic mechanism would ever produce belief in fairies in the first place, since fairies never existed? And now that we've discovered that the morality-fairies are not real, then why persist in using the fairy language at all? None of it remotely makes any sense.

I love "parsimonious" too!

In any case, yes, I think you describe it right: values are a lot like preferences and lack the ostensible force of whatever a moral ought is supposed to have. I think the world is full of people with their values doing things based on them. One could object, "well, but a lot of people are moral realists so they feel as though they're doing what is objectively good, not just what they value." But my worldview accounts for that as most people are simply born into their cultures and/or religions without much questioning and it is part of the "nurture" aspect of their values. Those that convert to another culture or religion surely do so on the basis of what "feels" the most right to them: they choose based on what is closest to their values!

As for moral language floating around, humans do this sort of thing all the time where their language incorporates things that may not even be real or based on reality. Simple examples are non-believers simply cursing "God damn it!" as an expletive, or even "Oh God!" in the bedroom. People also say things like "knock on wood" or "cross your fingers," or colloquially (but not actually, at least for most people) express something about the surely nonsense concept of "luck." Words like "disaster" come from ancient beliefs about comets and nebulous evil. Language is actually rife with nonsense that most people don't believe (though some do), and that is true for every language. People do tend to just sort of do this.

Even as a moral noncognitivist I could, if I wanted to, just say "I value that" instead of saying "That's good," but I'm human, and sometimes it's easy to just speak colloquially. It's something we all do anyway.

So, I think all of the oughts we experience are instrumentalist in nature.

Well, then there's no such thing as morality. Hitler had a good sense of the instrumentality of his purposes. His success in executing (if I can use that word) so many of them bespeaks his instrumental effectiveness...and we would have to say that he "ought" to have done something like he did.

Personally, I don't think you and I can live with such a conclusion. However, in an amoral universe, there's no longer any reason why you and I "shouldn't."

On the noncognitivist picture, "oughts" are personal, so one person experiencing an ought doesn't mean someone else does. So I can say that it's true that if Hitler valued genocide, then from his perspective he ought to commit it. It is a dispassionate description of what he does with his value; it can be translated as "if Hitler valued genocide, then a way to further that value would be to commit it." That's what an instrumentalist ought is. We can see that once translated and see that it's simply true, it carries no connotation of being morally right or morally wrong (which are undefined non-concepts on noncognitivism).

You are incorrect when you say that in an amoral universe there is no reason why you and I "shouldn't" live with such a conclusion, at least to a point. We can live with the hypothetical imperative Hitler made as being simply factual (if he values x, and y is a way to further x, then carrying out y will help him further x -- or, if he values x, and y furthers x, then he ought to do y, same statements), but we don't have to live with his valuation of x. We can (and do) value the antithesis of x: we can abhor genocide, and form our own hypothetical imperatives where we will stop genocide by any means necessary, perhaps even if it takes our own lives to do so. It depends on what we value. I'd take a bullet if it would stop genocide in some way: if it helped people to get away for instance, or whatever; if I wasn't just sacrificing myself for no reason, had some reasonable expectation it might help, I'd do it. You might too, I'd guess. I think this still describes reality. Hitler had his values, we have ours; we find Hitler's values shitty, and we'd stop him if we could.

Now this is where I might have confused you originally. Most of us look at this and think, "ooh, that sounds gloomy." So I usually point out the silver lining: "don't worry," basically. "If you possess the common values of empathy and altruism, so do most people.

Wow. That's nowhere near "silver" enough.

Let's suppose that psychopaths are rare. In fact, they are: 1% in the general population. And severe, active psychopaths, like axe murderers...let's say they're only 1 in 1,000. The fact that "most people" do not share their "values" gives us no consolation at all. That still means that we have severely morally disordered individuals among us, and no legitimate explanation of why you and I have any right to impose our "values" over their "values."

Well, on the noncognitivist picture, there's no such concept as a "right" in the context you're using. The universe allows things to happen, so those things can happen until someone stops them. When governments speak of "rights," on the noncognitivist picture, they're just saying that they're not going to interfere with your natural ability to do whatever which you could do anyway unless someone stopped you. Your right to speech is just that the universe doesn't stop you from speaking, other people do. To have a "right" is just that the government says they won't stop you from doing that particular thing.

On the noncognitivist picture, nobody has a "right" to not have others impose their values on you. If they can do so, then they might: because they exist, and you exist, and the universe allows them to do that; nothing comes up and stops them (unless it is other people with their own values!)

So sometimes we see this in ways that people with values like ours would object to: we see totalitarian regimes preventing people from having things like freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and so on. We value people being able to do those things, so we get outraged. (Someone that thinks those things are bad might get outraged to allow them, too).

But for instance since we value life, we might impose that value using power on society: we make it a "crime" to take someone's life. We will use power, force, violence to enforce it: we'll throw someone in prison that has taken a life. On the noncognitivist view, we are furthering our values.

Pursuing values will almost always include forcing those values on someone else in some way. It will always come down to power, force, even violence (even if "violence" is putting someone in handcuffs, that's violence). We don't always necessarily see this on an individual level, but we do see it once large groups of people start agreeing on values: they decide to enforce it on everyone under their power. This is why we have laws. Laws can either agree with our values or not, it becomes a matter of whether we agree enough to be complacent or disagree enough not to (so we move, or become politically active to try to make changes, or go to extremes like rebellion/revolution or insurgency).

That society will not collapse into chaotic hedonism has two possible explanations: one, that you're right; but two, that the residue of conventional morality will continue, for a time, to restrain such impulses, but in a declining way. And eventually, the reasoning behind the idea that there is no substance to morality is bound to take hold of more and more people, precipitating gradual socio-moral decline.

In other words, we shouldn't expect hedonistic chaos to come quickly. We should expect it to come gradually, but increasingly and inevitably. And I might add that we should expect to see seismic eruptions between the forces of moral conservatism and those of moral permissiveness. We should anticipate moral-worded "wars," and increasing erosion of social coherence, increasing antipathies on both sides, and eventual decline into a more general Moral Nihilism.

And is that second explanation not exactly the right fit with what we now see?

And we should anticipate as well (just has happened during the Roman Empire or the Weimar Republic) the increasing of public fears of loss of stability and social control, rising uncertainties as to the future, economic turmoil, political polarization...and inevitably, the rise of a totalitarian leader who, in exchange for unprecedented powers of control, will reassert order by force upon the gathering chaos. And people will give him that power, because they are afraid, confused, debauched and lost.

That's our future, I think, under that moral paradigm.

I'm more inclined to think that I'm right and that it will not matter. You mention matters from history without, I think, considering that it lends credence to my point: stability in societies ebbs and flows throughout history on a multitude of different complex waves. We see the rise and fall of entire civilizations all the time looking back. A lot of the time we see the same worries about mass immorality and decadence for instance, and I shall note, without some correlation to irreligiosity (sometimes, in fact, the reverse).

I just do not think irreligiosity is anything to worry about. Many secular countries have been secular to varying (but significant) degrees for a long time and much of the trouble plaguing modern countries isn't connected to that in any salient way I can perceive. In my own country, the USA, a lot of the worst things my country has done have been in the firm belief that God was with us the whole way. Religiosity does have a correlation in the USA with poor education, poor health, higher mortality, lower life expectancy, poverty, STD's, teen pregnancy, domestic abuse, so on and so forth. Now, I have said sometime before that I think this is a cheap point and that I wouldn't make it in earnest, and I still believe that: it is a cheap point, and I'm not making it in earnest right now. I'm in fact arguing that I just don't think religiosity vs. irreligiosity is going to be that important, so I am deeply skeptical of your alternative explanation.

On my worldview, I can still use the word "good," but "good" means something like "in accordance with my values," and it's personal, subjective. On your worldview, "good" is something universal not defined by peoples' values. So I've been calling the moral realist concept of good "intrinsic good." I'm not trying to make it into a Platonic object, just demarcating the moral realist "good" from the anti-realist's "good." Does that help? Is there a better way for me to do that?

No, that's okay. I get that.

But I think the one thing you're not quite understanding is that Moral Realism does not entail either DCT or, even more importantly, that "goodness" can be treated as an entity capable of existing apart from an object. That's a basic flaw in Euthyphro: it's not coherent to expect Moral Realists to provide an account of a kind of "goodness" that is floating Platonically apart from God. That's what Socrates saw would be the case, and why he had to refer to the squabbles within the polytheistic pantheon to ground his own case. Absent the polytheism, the problem he needed to point out would not even exist.

Well, the notion is that "goodness" has to be defined somehow. If God's attitudes, values, beliefs, or commands play a causal, definitional part in what the property of goodness is, then that is DCT. Yet the alternative is that goodness gets defined in some other way, and that's tricky.

If the theist says, as you have, that goodness is defined by God's character, then we have to parse out what that means: it could be DCT hiding in a fancy mask. For instance if by "God's character" they mean goodness is defined by the things that God values, then God's values are defining what is good, which is DCT.

But we speak of this below somewhere, so we'll get to it then.

I don't have a fix for you on that. If we want to say the word "God" we just have to have the concept "unitary Source of all good" embedded in it. Without that, we've got no "God" at all.

We will first have to understand what it means to be "source of all good," both in terms of what "good" means and then also what it means to "be the source of" some property. These may well be non-concepts. It may well be that you have no God at all, as you say.

But now we can't account for the intuition. It becomes complete cypher. Why should people (mistakenly) be inclined to think that the creator of a thing has some special warrant for disposing of that thing that others lack?

And yet, that's exactly what we DO think.

I couldn't tell you why belief in things like moral oughts is so prevalent in humans. Why is any kind of magical thinking so prevalent in humans? People speak of things like luck and knocking on wood (comes from an animist belief about spirits in wood) and things like that all day every day. From my perspective religiosity is just another examples of humans believing in strange things. Humans are prone to believing in wild things because we're really, really bad at separating things like correlation from causation and we have really, really good imaginations.

I think it's likely that many people value creators of paintings hanging them as they like because we have many values about property, and we have empathy (so we can project our values about our own property onto other people: if I value doing what I wish with my creation, I bet that guy over there does too, I feel no objection, so I share his value that he ought to put his painting where he wants).

Indeed, which hierarchies are which are probably arbitrary if there isn't moral realism. I think that still accurately describes the world that we see either way: whether moral realism is true or not, it seems our value hierarchies just are what they are (because even on moral realism, some people value differently than others).

Then the existence of value hierarchies themselves becomes inexplicable. They must appear without justification, on no basis, with no criteria involved.

And yet, they do not. People give reasons for their value hierarchies. They debate the order of value hierarchies. And we even agree, in most cases, with the hierarchies of others. (For instance, as I say, it would take a very rare person to believe that the saving of a life ought to rank below the eating of an ice cream cone...regardless of the flavour. )

Yes, this is why I've said that our values are some combination of nature and nurture; and have said that I think this is why so many humans share common values such that there are such things as "popular values." For instance, take note of the fact that a vast majority of people just end up with the local values they're born into (even if we consider something like religious values): the vast majority of humans that have ever been born and are even being born right now have predictable values based on their longitude and latitude of birth. Isn't that crazy to think about?

Cultural values also spread through cultural diffusion, you can almost imagine them spreading on a globe as differently colored regions with the right software and a few historians' help. A baby born in this century at this location (we put a pin on the globe) isn't likely to hold x, y, and z values, but oh look: just 100 years later of cultural diffusion, and now it's quite likely that a baby born here will hold x, y, and z values. You can imagine this.

So there is the nature aspect of our values, which I think explains why we share what feel like more "primal" values such as altruism, valuing our own life, valuing the lives of others (but sometimes not of the other that is different from us!), and so on. Then we have the nurture aspect of our values, which come from our parents, our culture, those we interact with during formation, our own influences on ourselves as we're forming (maybe we sporadically get interested in something and learn about it, and it might not have happened that way in another universe!), etc.

You've turned the "ought" into a simple "is" there.

It "is" the case that people value certain things. That does not, of course, mean they "ought" to. That's the sum of the statement, I think.

Sure, if we are talking about a moral ought. Of course it doesn't mean they "ought" to in that case -- on moral noncognitivism anyway.

Because some hard version of doxastic voluntarism is false: we don't choose what our values are.

Oh. Determinism.

Well, I don't believe that. And I don't think you do, either, even if you maybe still suppose you do. I say that because you are here, discussing these concepts with me, debating, exchanging positions and reasons, arguing, and so on. That means you must suppose my values can change, and aren't simply handed to me by nature and nurture. You must think I can "change my mind."

And I suppose the same of you.

Values can change, I've argued this before in this conversation. Granted, that was a while ago in this conversation. I'm not arguing for some hard form of determinism. I am merely pointing out that people don't have conscious control over changing their values. I can't sit here and just will myself to suddenly start valuing genocide, no matter how hard I earnestly tried out of some sick mental experiment. It isn't possible. You couldn't do it either. We don't control our values, not consciously. That is what I mean when I say doxastic voluntarism is false. That is also why an altruist that goes from believing moral realism is true to moral skepticism isn't just going to stop being an altruist: their valuation of altruism wasn't dependent on realism being true; so they are still going to value it, and they won't be able to help but to value it.

Doxastic voluntarism being false also applies to our beliefs and what convinces us, by the way. For instance, I bet I couldn't convince you that I'm actually an extraterrestrial beaming down these messages to Earth. You might say the obvious "well it's technically possible," but you wouldn't help but to doubt it. You couldn't just decide to furrow your brow, think really hard, and force yourself to actually believe it.

Our beliefs and values are outside of our conscious control. But they do change on exposure to new information, new perspectives. That's why we talk to one another. We can change each others' minds, we can raise awareness of things, present new ways of thinking we haven't tried before, and so on. We just don't directly control our values or beliefs. Those we accumulate throughout our life, our values coming from some combination of nature and nurture and our beliefs coming soon after that from the same and our exposure to whatever information.

An altruist could go from a moral realist to a moral nonrealist and would still be an altruist (case in point: myself).

Right. This is something I always try to point out immediately: that one's behaviour and one's beliefs can be at variance.

That is the case with Atheists, I think. They are often quite "good" or "conventionally moral" people in their behaviours. But they lack the reasons for being that, as opposed to being morally wretched. And that's the difference between them and the Theists: the Theists can live with a coherence between their beliefs and their actions; the morally-behaving Atheist has no reasonable explanation for why his own actions are actually "better" than, say, recreational cannibalism, if such a thing should come to suit him later.

The moral skeptic would just say that by "better" they mean they value non-cannibalism more than cannibalism, and that they suspect you do too, so they're using language you can agree on. They would say they find recreational cannibalism despicable per their values. There's no conflict between their behavior and their belief at all.

If someone truly values not stealing, then even placed in a situation with something that they desperately want that isn't theirs, even with a 100% guarantee they wouldn't be caught, they will not steal it.

That's tautological, though. It just means, "Morality is whatever it is I decide to do."

If the guy does steal the thing, we say, "You see? He didn't really value not stealing." And if he doesn't, we say, "You see? He did really value not stealing." In all cases, the action taken becomes the justification for the same theory. So it's unfalsifiable: it's always going to look true, but only because we can't find a way to disprove it.

Well, yeah, it is tautological in a way. I don't see that as a problem though. Someone that values not stealing is going to not steal. Someone that doesn't, might steal. It's tautological in that it's not really an argument, just a description. But is that a problem?

But there will be points at which we run out of ability to reconcile. To float a relevant example, we disagree over whether it's moral to call men "women." And I don't think we're likely to make progress on a world in which that is even an option. So there will always be sticking points, so long as values are a thing. And it's not apparent to me that compromise is always possible. Nevertheless, there's merit in eliminating everything upon which we can agree from the field of discussion, so as to get to the truly vexed issues, where they win-and-lose outcomes are unavoidable.

Sociologists refer to this situation as "irreconcilable moral pluralism," or "incommensurability." It means that compromise always has its limits; and in a situation of genuine moral multiculturalism, some "cultures" are going to end up being the losers, and some more the winners...it's inevitable. It didn't used to be thought, among sociologists, that that is the way things were. Guys like Dewey, for example, plugged for what they called "Judeo-Christian consensus" in society, and hoped that ALL human values, worldwide, would eventually be shown to be reconcilable. But as moral multiculturalism has continued to diversify, that hope has been abandoned entirely. "Incommensurability" is now the accepted fact.

I wasn't familiar with that term, that's an interesting aside.

But, I already realize when talking to people that some things might not be reconcilable, and that's okay. It's always a judgement call against my values. I deeply disagree with your position on trans issues, but the thing that bothers me the most isn't even your beliefs on the facts of the matter, or your beliefs about whether sex and gender can be different concepts: I can accept disagreeing about those things with a shrug. The thing that bothers me is the deadnaming thing, at which point I did have to ask myself if your intentions were cruel or not, which is something like an anti-value (something I despise: cruelty). I think we hashed that out in the other discussion, so I am just explaining: I'm cognizant that sometimes there might never be an agreement that's met, but that's OK. Unless something irreconcilable happens, like triggering an anti-value such as with egregious cruelty.

Anyway I kind of lost my train of thought there. I think I was just saying, I accept with any human that we'll never agree on everything, it just matters what we disagree on. If we disagree on facts and definitions and the like, or slight valuation differences, that's fine. It would take something like egregious cruelty (which has to be intentional: for instance even believing "homosexuality is morally wrong" would not trigger this because the intent isn't to be cruel in all cases) for me not to be able to amicably disagree with someone.

Well, I meant something more like this. On my worldview, our value hierarchies aren't right or wrong, they just are. On the moral realism worldview, some are right, some are wrong, some are "more" right, some are "more" wrong. But I don't understand what this means.

It means the same thing that "hierarchy" means. It means that some things are "better" or "higher priority" than others.

It doesn't matter whether we talk about debate among individuals about their moral hierarchies, or just about the moral hierarchy within a single, particular individual; the issue is the same.

Some values get placed higher than others. And we want to know WHY. What criteria produce such differentials in valuation?

Again, I think it's some combination of nature and nurture. Some cultures for instance value individualism more than collectivism, while some cultures value collectivism over individualism. Individuals in those cultures might feel differently. I think extremes of either aren't great, but that's me. That's just one example of nurture affecting a hierarchy, because I doubt that anyone that values individualism more doesn't value collectivism at all, it's on a hierarchy.

I don't know what it means for there to be a "universal right," or "intrinsic right."

If I may be blunt, I can see that that's because it doesn't fit within your worldview assumptions. So it makes perfect sense that you can't figure out what it might mean. In the world you see yourself as being in, there is no place for such things to have an explanation.

But Locke saw how it worked, and he explained how it worked. But he was a Christian, of course. So I can't ask you to concede his rationale or the ensuing rights.

My nontheism is pliable to being convinced, though. It just takes presenting something that would convince me. I do not find theism convincing and don't think people have sufficient warrant to believe in it, but that's provisional: I know I don't know everything, including not knowing what other people know. But I do see what sorts of arguments and thinking is popular, and I know that what I have seen (which is not inconsiderable) is not convincing to me. I don't understand why it convinces other people.

I am also capable of entertaining ideas. My complaints about "rights" and "goods" are cognitive complaints, at the end of the day: the complaint is that they aren't sensible. The complaint would be answered if someone could render them sensible, even if it's in a worldview I don't believe to be true. The complaint would at least be answered. For instance, perhaps I don't know what transubstantiation is or something like that, and someone explains it to me on the Catholic worldview. Well, I don't hold that worldview, but at least the doctrine has been rendered sensible to me.

Now, good luck doing that with something like the Trinity, though, which is not sensible no matter what theist hat I put on to think about it

...then we're still stuck trying to answer what it would mean to have something like a "universal good."

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "universal good." The phrase is potentially ambiguous. Do you mean, "good that everybody should do," or "a single kind of goodness that is universal"? Can you clear that up?

Well, it's hard to clear up a term that I myself don't know what it means. But I get the sense that when a moral realist says "x is good," they mean something like... given enough perception, or thinking, or information, or whatever is needed, that any thinking agent could agree that x is good. That it doesn't depend on their values. So I guess "good that everybody should do," but I am still unsure because of the "should" in there. Maybe refer to my mock conversation at the top of this response for why this confuses me, but what I'm trying to get defined for me.

What does that even mean? This is what I'm trying to get answered. It feels like it would mean there's just something about the universe that makes some things undeniably "good" and some things undeniably "bad," which everyone must agree on inspection.

Something about God, not "something about the universe."

God is part of the universe, so when I say "something about the universe" I just mean something like "something that doesn't come from an agent's decision or values." It can still be something about God. But I'm not the one defining it so I don't know, so I say the most broad thing as a courtesy to not constrain the other person from replying however they need to.

But for one, nobody does seem to agree even on inspection,

Yeah, I think there's general agreement, with some variation. But I don't think it's important that there is, anyway. I think it's what we should expect in a moral world with free will beings in it.

Why, though? I mean, I get people even disagree that the Earth is round. But it seems as though you could pick a skeptic up in a shuttle to show them and they would, if they were actually sane, be forced to admit it. If morals are facts, why can there not be arguments that an ignorant, but willing and well-intentioned person turn to in a thoughtful way to agree, "yes, that is true? That must be true?"

and secondly, what does it even mean to be "good" at that point if it's not compared to values?

Well, it means that "values" are not the source of anything, just as eyeballs are not the source of light. Values are our human attempts to approximate the actual "goods" that exist in God. They are "good-detection-attempts," not sources of legitimation.

Ok, I can file that away to apply later once I know what a "good" is supposed to be: but I'm still wondering, what is good supposed to mean? You say goods exist in God, but this is still confused because people are supposed to have the property of being good, too: and properties are descriptions of the things that carry them.

If P is a good person, then we should be able to give a description of good using P's qualities alone: even if it is not the maximal possible goodness. So let me ask this:

Can we describe what goodness is just using P, without invoking God? Then goodness is a property, and let us please do so: let us describe what goodness is without invoking God for now, and then we will talk about goodness in relation to God after that.

If we can't do that -- if we can't define what goodness is in P without invoking God -- then goodness is not a property. I think that's a lot of trouble if that's the case because I don't know how you're going to make something sensible out of that. If it isn't a property, what is it?

For instance let's say that one can be Cat-like, and that P has the property of being Cat-like. Well, we can still define in P what it means to be Cat-like. Perhaps P enjoys gouda over parmesan (or whatever silly cheese example I gave earlier). Perhaps P likes cats, or perhaps P studies physics. Even though the property is to be like Cat, we can still say in what way P is like Cat: the property in P can still be defined in terms of P. So if "good" means "Godlike" or something like that, we should still be able to say what this property means to describe P without invoking God yet. We may eventually have to move on to talk about God to contextualize P's property of goodness, but initially, we should just be able to talk about what P's property of goodness means.

My answer to this is simply that most people are not philosophers, and for historical reasons, most people are nominally moral realists.

So they're just silly and wrong? Or at least, ignorant and naive?

Social justicers are just ignorant proles, who can't extract themselves from the moral language they have been taught? So they really have no justification in any of what they want?

If that turns out to be the case, I really hope they never get any of it. We should hardly want the ignorant and naive to be shaping our society for us. They seem to be flying without a plane.

I don't look down at humans for not all being philosophers, so I don't think in these terms, no. That they use moral language is fairly inconsequential. Social justice is still sensible in terms of values because all moral statements have a value-hypothetical imperative equivalent. So it doesn't matter how they phrase what they're saying.

This is so close to something cognizable, I think. So people value goodness as a property, so they would value God for having the most of that property: that's completely sensible. But that doesn't tell us what the property is that's being valued, though.

That's because we're never supposed to locate the property-in-itself, in abstraction from God. We're supposed to be God-aspirers, looking constantly to understand more of our own situation by successive approximations to the character of God, in which the perfections for which you are looking are perfectly found. We're supposed to want to be with Him, so as to participate in those perfections. We are not independent monads, running around this mudball for our own sake. We're supposed to need God in order to enter into these things.

God wants us to know and love Him. And if we could have the "perfections" without the Perfect One, we would have no further need of association with Him, would we? We would be independently possessed of all we needed to know. (Sounds like Genesis, doesn't it? The Deceiver says to the woman, "God knows that in the day you eat of the fruit of the tree, you shall be like God, knowing good and evil.")

Yet this frustratingly doesn't bring me any closer to knowing what the property of "goodness" is supposed to be. Do you notice that? I don't think you do it intentionally, but can you see how a noncognitivist might feel frustration going through their whole adult lives saying "I can't get anyone to define this for me," and then, in fact, no one ever does?

I'm not frustrated in a mad way, but can you see how it might seem like noncognitivism is justifiable? That the absence of evidence for moral realism can begin to feel like evidence of absence?

What is goodness? Is there a straight answer? Can any realist define this without smoke and mirrors? If I say, "I don't think the realists even know what it is," would you disagree with me?

The answers I've gotten so far to me asking "what is goodness" have been "goodness is identical to God" and then "God." (period), then after some clarification I asked "what is goodness" and I got something like "goodness is defined by God's character," so then I ask "well what is it about God's character that goodness is defined by?" and I don't think I've gotten past that yet.

It's a problem if the answer is "God's values," because that's just DCT: if God's values play a definitional role in what is "good," then DCT is true. However if the theist then says "well no, God's values don't define x as good, God just values x because x is good," then God's character actually has nothing to do with why x is good, and I'm back to my original question of "what is goodness, then."

if it's something other than God's values in "God's character" that defines what is good, then I can't imagine what, but that's why I'm asking.

Can you see how this is a labyrinth of frustrating non-answers, and I mean this politely, and not insultingly to you personally?

I wonder, does it concern you if there isn't a straight answer to this question? Does it cause alarm if you begin to wonder whether it can be sensibly defined? What if the non-cognitivist is right?

Well, as I say, DCT is not true. Nor is it true that something other than God "defines" anything, as if "definition" of moral things were a thing that happens with no reference to God. So neither is true.

We can safely assume that God values all good things: the elements of the set of all good things are valued by God. But the question is "what makes the elements of that set good?" What does goodness mean?

If the elements are in that set -- if the elements are good -- because God values them, such that God valuing them is what makes them be called "good," then that is DCT. So we must reject that by your own words: "DCT is not true."

But that means that the elements in that set of all good things are called "good" for some reason other than God valuing them. What is that reason?

If “good” is defined as “reflecting the character of God” then what part of the character of God is “good” reflecting? Unless I’m quite mistaken, it can only mean God’s values!

"Good" is a comprehensive adjective, in reference to God. There is no part of God that is not "good." His justice is good, His holiness is good, His wisdom is good, His mercy is good, His love is good...

Can you see that this doesn't tell me what good is? I could take what you just said and replace "good" with "slithey" and get just as much meaning out of it, which is none. This is that frustration I'm talking about that noncognitivists experience when they try to just get moral realism to be sensible: just sensible! Not even worried about it being true or not yet, just trying to get it to be sensible.

If "good" reflects "the character of God," then what part of God defines "good?" You can't just say "all of God," because for instance power is a concept, and power is a property that God has, and power is not "good" (it can ostensibly be used in good or bad ways, but "power" as a concept is not goodness, it is a distinct concept from goodness). So if someone wanted to know what "goodness" is, how do we answer for them? If to have the property of "goodness" is to have something like the character of God, what is that?

If it's God's values, as I've said 100 times, we are headed straight towards either DCT or a microcosm of the question "what is goodness?" I shan't repeat again here what I've already said I think twice above, or I might drive you nuts LOL.

If not, then what?

If “good” is defined as “what God values”...

It is defined as all that God is. You are trying to separate God's cognitions from God's person, as if He could "value" something that has to be "not Him."
So we have very good reasons for us to value what God is.

This is a nonsense definition, though. For instance if a person P is "good," are we saying "P is all that God is?" No. We quite clearly mean something else. But what?

God also has the property of being immaterial for instance. Being immaterial isn't "good" (we wouldn't say, intuitively), it is just a fact. Nor is it "evil." It is just a state of being. And when we say P is "good" we aren't saying that P is immaterial. There are a great many properties that God has that we aren't saying P is when we say P is "good." So this is just nonsense.

This attempt at a definition can't possibly work, do you agree that it's problematic? Can you save it?

You have to be able to define what "goodness" is in a way that will make sense for us to say P is good and also make sense for us to say God is good. You need to do it in some way that provides cognitive content, without contradictions, internal inconsistencies, and so on. I want you to maybe consider that if you're struggling to do this, that maybe my suspicions are right. Maybe there's just no cognitive content to be had.

The one way we know of that renders “good” a cognitive concept is DCT. But if DCT is true, then moral realism is not.

[henry quirk]

Sometimes you don't seem to be a slob.

You, on the other hand, are always a bleedin' heart.

[Gary Childress]

https://pestsmart.org.au/toolkit-resour ... -of-foxes/

I don't care, B.

Why don't you care? Do you lack empathy? Do you not have the curiosity to inform yourself? Sometimes you don't seem to be a slob.

I have a cousin who used to drown newborn kittens so his small farm wouldn't become overrun with cats. He believed that fixing the mother would prevent her from catching as many mice around the farm so he didn't fix her. Personally, I didn't and don't approve of the behavior, however, he is a Christian/avid churchgoer, and actually a very gentle and good man around other people. Farming seems to make people very hard-spirited, especially working with livestock. Ultimately the cute little piglet born in the spring is going to become dinner someday and small farmers once upon a time (some still do) had to participate in the whole cycle. Of course today, most farmers send their cattle off to third-party meat packing plants but there still need to be people who will work those places too. Dirty jobs but necessary. Kind of like plumbers. I also know a guy who hunts wolves on his farm out in the midwest, just to keep them away from his dairy cows. He's a nice guy around people but I suppose he's a terror of animals.

To be honest, I hope there is a God who created animals without souls or whatever. Otherwise, it would make existence that much crueler and more inhumane.

[henry quirk]

Tomorrow...

Supervising Unit 1: Let's see...according to your profile you were some kind of scientist, yes?

Citizen 4798: Yes.

1: Well, here in the Nimbus colony we have no need of scientists...let's see (leafs thru a stack of note cards) ...yes...here, this your assignment.

4798: (reading the offered card) Pleasure Unit. Wait...does this mean what I think it does? Am I being made into a whore?!

1: Please, citizen, whore is rife with all manner of negative connotation. You are a Pleasure Unit.

4798: But I'm a scientist! This (waving the card) is for someone who can do nothing else! I educated myself! This isn't right!

1: Citizen, you are what you are assigned. As I said, Nimbus has no need of scientists...

4798: ...then send me where there is a need!

1: (annoyed at 4798's interruption) You, like each of us, go where you are assigned, become exactly what you are assigned to be.

4798: But this isn't right!

1: There is no right, Citizen, only necessity. (1 quickly scans 4798's profile) I'm puzzled by your reaction, Citizen...your examinations revealed little in the way of moralist tendencies. Why is your assignment wrong?

4798: I...I...I'm a human being!

1: (chuckling) Why citizen, we're all human beings...human beings in service to the Hive...we each serve as assigned.

4798: But...uh...me, as a Pleasure Unit, that's...uh...poor resource allocation...yes! That's it! it would be wrong because I could be better used elsewhere!

1: Oh my! You believe you know what's best for the Hive? What's best for you? You're above it all? You know better than the local, regional, and national committees put together?! I see through you well enough! In The Time Before you smugly claimed the high ground of amorality...it was easy, then, yes? You said the words and thought I'm enlightened. When the Great Transition occurred you were all for it, weren't you. When the Great Equity was established you were right up front to cheer it, weren't you. When the night of the Great Leveling was done, your appetite was sated, wasn't it. But, here and now, in the paradise you pined for, your true colors emerge, don't they. You think you matter...you're a person and you matter and it's wrong to be used in a way you don't consent to. You're no better than the religion and freedom scum we scrapped off our shoes during the Leveling. You're meat, citizen, a commodity...and you're a hypocrite (1 presses a button on his desk) ...and, you're right...it wouldn't be right for you to be a Pleasure Unit.

4798: Then...what?

1: I'm sending you to Food Processing.

4798: (visibly relieved) I'll be working there?

1: (smiling broadly) No, Citizen...your work is done.

4798: (eyes widen as two Security & Escort Units enter the room) No..no..no!

[Dubious]

This is why I just use the word “nontheist” to avoid all the baggage with the word atheist.

That makes sense, but IC will still find a way to complicate it. Over enthusiastic religious types just can't seem to grasp the idea that some people don't even think about religion or God unless someone else brings up the subject. I'm talking about me here, I don't know the regularity with which you think about God.

In a way atheism can be described as containing its own contradiction; what after all is the point in denying a theistic entity which has never been shown to exist or required to exist. The term is simply the negation of a false belief not worth thinking about except on philosophy forums. The more ingrained the meaning of atheism becomes to the same extent its meaning will quietly fade in proportion to what it denies ever having existed.

[Astro Cat]

Tomorrow...

Supervising Unit 1: Let's see...according to your profile you were some kind of scientist, yes?

Citizen 4798: Yes.

1: Well, here in the Nimbus colony we have no need of scientists...let's see (leafs thru a stack of note cards) ...yes...here, this your assignment.

4798: (reading the offered card) Pleasure Unit. Wait...does this mean what I think it does? Am I being made into a whore?!

1: Please, citizen, whore is rife with all manner of negative connotation. You are a Pleasure Unit.

4798: But I'm a scientist! This (waving the card) is for someone who can do nothing else! I educated myself! This isn't right!

1: Citizen, you are what you are assigned. As I said, Nimbus has no need of scientists...

4798: ...then send me where there is a need!

1: (annoyed at 4798's interruption) You, like each of us, go where you are assigned, become exactly what you are assigned to be.

4798: But this isn't right!

1: There is no right, Citizen, only necessity. (1 quickly scans 4798's profile) I'm puzzled by your reaction, Citizen...your examinations revealed little in the way of moralist tendencies. Why is your assignment wrong?

4798: I...I...I'm a human being!

1: (chuckling) Why citizen, we're all human beings...human beings in service to the Hive...we each serve as assigned.

4798: But...uh...me, as a Pleasure Unit, that's...uh...poor resource allocation...yes! That's it! it would be wrong because I could be better used elsewhere!

1: Oh my! You believe you know what's best for the Hive? What's best for you? You're above it all? You know better than the local, regional, and national committees put together?! I see through you well enough! In The Time Before you smugly claimed the high ground of amorality...it was easy, then, yes? You said the words and thought I'm enlightened. When the Great Transition occurred you were all for it, weren't you. When the Great Equity was established you were right up front to cheer it, weren't you. When the night of the Great Leveling was done, your appetite was sated, wasn't it. But, here and now, in the paradise you pined for, your true colors emerge, don't they. You think you matter...you're a person and you matter and it's wrong to be used in a way you don't consent to. You're no better than the religion and freedom scum we scrapped off our shoes during the Leveling. You're meat, citizen, a commodity...and you're a hypocrite (1 presses a button on his desk) ...and, you're right...it wouldn't be right for you to be a Pleasure Unit.

4798: Then...what?

1: I'm sending you to Food Processing.

4798: (visibly relieved) I'll be working there?

1: (smiling broadly) No, Citizen...your work is done.

4798: (eyes widen as two Security & Escort Units enter the room) No..no..no!

You should consider writing dystopian fiction, maybe

In any case, if this pastiche is targeted at my position, I'm not sure what point it's trying to make. Entire societies have gone off the rails of altruism in the past, and those who do value things like human dignity and altruism and the like have opposed them. Citizen 4798 would have been food whether or not moral realism is sensible. Someone that doesn't value human dignity and life wouldn't do so even if moral realism were true, after all. So this does not really accomplish a biting response or anything, unless it was just for fun.

[Harbal]

"Objective Morality" seems to be an oxymoron. If morality was objective, it wouldn't be morality, it would be a matter of fact.

Morality has to come from personal conviction, which is based on a personal sense of right and wrong; good or bad.

If your moral practice is dictated to by any source other than your own sense of ethics, it is not moral behaviour, it is simply following rules.