IS and OUGHT

[Age]

It fell already, and it wasn't becuz folks wouldn't share.

Why did "america" already so-call fall then?

It fell, or began to fall, when the Articles of confederation were abandoned and the Constitution was adopted.

Could have it fallen prior to this even?

[Sculptor]

So, I don't think anyone has a moral obligation to share or collaborate.

And that is why America shall eventually fall.

Duh. Predictable idiocy. If you read other posts of mine you'd know that I think it's a bad strategy and compared people who don't collaborate and share with komodo dragons (on that issue) and pointed out that we are far more dangerous to komodo dragons that they are to us. I also pointed out in another post that I have motivations, other than some rule from above, to collaborate and share (and these traits are in the majority). So, your curmudgeon sniping and hysteria is misplaced.

And it seems you're one of those people who needs some authority and some contractual obligation to collaborate and share. Perhaps you lack compassion and social mammal urges to get along with people and work together and care about each other so you think, for some reason, a whole country will fall (despite it being filled with moral realists like you).

I'm not a moral realist but I collaborate and share all the time, because it's part of my nature. Have the people in your country lost those tendencies?

I wonder which country it is. England? Yeah, there's a country that's doing well, no fundamental splits nor a damaged economy. Not mimicking it's cousin across the pond like it's little brother, while still trying to act superior. Canada, Australia, New Zealand? Yeah, they're doing real well. And if this makes you think a good response would be: the US is really fucked up right now because X; Y and Z. That would be missing the point. I agree, the US is a mess right now. And the exact same psychopaths are running your country, whichever one it is. And those psychopaths are pitting moral realists against each other, and very effectively.

10 years of your sour little mind taking pot shots. And we're supposed to believe you're out there collaborating and sharing. There's no sign of it here.

Your response is incoherent babble, which exactly confirms what I said.

[henry quirk]

age, I'm cuttin' all extraneous crap of your post, and quotin' the essentials. I won't contribute to post bloat.

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That parcel of land was TAKEN from "others", and you will NOT give it back, right?

As I said when we talked about this before: I bought the land and house from someone who has all the legal paperwork indicatin' it was his to sell. As I also said: if someone shows up on my stoop with a credible, verifiable, claim to the land and house, I'll be glad to sit down with him and settle it.

*

What you claim is 'your' child, does not have liberty because you BELIEVE it is 'yours', it HAS TO DO what you tell it to do, and it can NOT do what you tell it it can NOT do, correct?

As I said when we talked about this before: I love my kid and have a responsibility to him to feed him, clothe him, educate him, keep him healthy, preserve him, and defend him against his own bad choices. I don't own him: I love him and I owe him.

*

If ANY you do NOT want ANY one trespassing on what you call and CLAIM is 'your' land, then you WILL hold them captive, until they are dealt with, or just SHOOT them DEAD, right?

As I said when we talked about this before: If someone breaks into my house at 3 in the morning, I'll assume they're lookin' to take what isn't theirs and I'll assume they're willin' to hurt my kid or me. I'll respond accordingly. And -- yeah -- that response might be shooting 'em in the chest.


So: that's your evidence -- that I own a house & land, that I love my kid, that I'll defend the lives, liberties, and properties of my kid and myself -- I've taken another's life, liberty, or property unjustly?

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Could have it fallen prior to this even?

Sure.

[Immanuel Can]

Moral Nihilism = Nothing is morally wrong.

You will get the best results if you assume that this is my position.

Yes, that's what I was saying. It's confined to the ethical domain, not a generalized Nihilism.

I'm a moral noncognitivist in a weak way (I don't affirm that moral utterances are noncognitive, I'm just not convinced they are -- I leave open the possibility, in other words, because so far I do not have some argument by which I can prove my doubt; and sometimes such doubts can't be proven).

Fair enough. But if it turns out that moral utterances have no objective referent, then complete Moral Nihilism would follow from that. I understand that you're more of a sort of "Moral Agnostic" rather than a true "Moral Nihilist." As you say, you leave open the possibilities.

There's something profoundly inconsistent in the way you talk. And on[e] such thing is that you seem to attribute a sort of moral value to things like social beliefs, instrumental purposes, and personal values. You wobble back and forth between the three in your statements, so I find it difficult to locate which one of them you are actually grounding your "oughts" in. Hence, my question about which of the three you actually believe is fundamental...and I'm still not sure I know that answer.

So are you really a total Moral Nihilist? Or do you actually try to "save" a kind of moral "oughtness" through one of those three?

I don't think that I wobble back and forth between where oughts originate, but I do talk about how oughts interact with the three things you mention (social beliefs, instrumental purposes, personal values). I can see how that might lead to a confusion on where I'm saying the oughts are coming from.

So, the one that I actually believe is fundamental is "personal values." It's not that I ought not to murder because society largely believes that I ought not to, it's because of my personal values that I ought not to murder.

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?

I think what you're doing here is presenting an amoral description of people self-interestedly acting to satisfy their values. Which includes using the word "ought" to describe instrumental thinking about the best way to achieve one's ends.

And then finding that the concept of duty plays no role in such a description and thus finding it meaningless.

That this is an impoverished description of human decision-making is indeed part of the point. In such a world, nothing has moral force, because we're all slaves to our "values" which we are powerless to choose (even if they may be changed by experience as you describe). In your description, all choices are about means to satisfy ends (values) and there is no constraint on the means employed other than those same values.

They say "impoverished," but I say "accurate" and also "parsimonious," because I think that this describes the world that we see without needing to invoke the existence of something mysterious like a "moral truth" or "intrinsic good." I do think that "all choices are about means to satisfy ends (values) and there is no constraint on the means employed other than those same values." That is why we see people causing other people suffering: because of their values. That is why we see people alleviating the suffering of others: because of their values.

"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.

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."

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."

So just because moral realism might not be the case doesn't mean society will collapse into chaotic hedonism, because most people are still going to value altruism, and most people are still going to value empathy, and so on. And they won't be able to help but to value those things: learning that moral realism is nonsensical won't change their values because that's not how values work." I would say something like that, and again, I think that's where you started wondering if I thought oughts originated from social consensus.

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.

Hopefully you can see that I don't think oughts come from social consensus now, that I was just bringing it up for other reasons. And hopefully I shouldn't have to point it out by this point (but I will, just in case), but there's nothing intrinsically good about society or a person valuing altruism and empathy, either. I just point it out to explain why on moral noncognitivism we still get a world that looks like ours, where societies at large do at least nominally hold these values. I hold these values.

No, I understand: "oughts" clearly do not come from society. And moral ones, which are what concern us, cannot come from instrumentality. They cannot come from any aspect of "personal valuing" either. So we are back to a theoretical Moral Nihilism, covered with a thin veneer of moral habits that may very well have no durability over the long haul.

The moral realist position would be that "S ought to do what is intrinsically good."

Yes, but then you'd have to go on to say what makes something "intrinsically" good. For it is not the case that adjectives exist in some kind of Platonic realm as concrete nouns. An entity can "have goodness," but cannot BE goodness, because "good" is an adjective, not a concrete noun. An apple can "have redness," but it cannot "be redness itself." Nothing IS redness. "Red" is an adjective.

Beware the category error and Neo-Platonism there.

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.

So I was ultimately saying that on moral realism, S ought to do what is universally good, not what seems good to S. Maybe "universally" is a better way to demarcate the ways to use "good?" Then of course, I am unsure what "universally good" means under examination, so I'll remind that I'm only treating the term as meaningful for the sake of argument.

Okay.

I know that it's not the Christian position that God would be evil, but I think to point this out is to misunderstand the point of thought experiment. Thought experiment invokes circumstances that might not even be under consideration to test if some proposition is true under all circumstances.

I know what a "thought experiment" does. And I have no problem with such things. They're very useful...provided they're carefully shaped to pick out the relevant truths about the things to which they relate. If they falsify or misrepresent those truths, then they cease to function as suitable "thought experiments" for that particular question.

So what you and I are saying differs only on this: the question of whether or not positing an "evil god" falsifies the concept of God as understood by Christians too much, and renders the thought experiment attached to it absurd or incompatible in the important ways. I say, yes; you say, no.

For me, the problem with your experiment is that it asks me to imagine three different things that can be "moved around" independent of one another. One is "good," another is "evil" and a third is "God." But this very premise is one that no intelligent Christian would ever accept. For the Christian, it is as if you're asking to separate the counters "woman" and "adult human female." For us, the first is absorbed by the second. And "good" is comprehensively included in the concept "God."

This is why it's impossible for me to proceed with your thought experiment: it requires me to sever concepts that cannot be severed without doing total violence to the root concept, "God." So for me, your thought experiment can only be referring to something like "Satan" or "Demiurge," or, as Socrates saw, something like "Apollo." And since that is the case, your thought experiment fails to refer to anything I care about, or any Christian should even care about.

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.

Her thinking in choosing a place may be. But ours, in deciding that it is her who has that right, is not evidently so. Rather, we're deciding -- before all instrumental concerns even come into play -- that it is she who has the primary right to decide the disposition of her creation.

Why do we do that?

Because there's nothing "instrumental" about deciding one person should put a painting somewhere as opposed to another person having the same option. Both options "work" equally well, when we consider the outcome purely "instrumentally." But we instinctively don't think that the second person should have the right to dispose of the painting that the creator of it has; she has more right than others, we think.

I'm asking how we account for that intuition.

Because we have a value that says so.

That's circular.

I'm asking why we value that. Are we just gratuitously "valuing," or do we actually think that value aligns with some objective good or truth?

If we're doing it gratutiously, then it is NOT true that painters own the right to say anything about what happens in the disposition of what they create. It's totally a gratuitous claim, with no objective reality behind it.

But if it's actually better (in some sense; and we all think it is) to accord to the creator a right over the disposition of her creation, then WHY do we intuitively think that? If it's not gratuitious, there must be some real reasons behind it.

Those are the only two possibilities. Which shall we pick?

If I understand your usage of "gratuitous" correctly, then yeah, that's what I'm saying. Nothing about the universe makes the painter "correct" in thinking she can place it where she wants. In order for that to be true, a "moral right" would have to be sensible and true; and I doubt that.

So the painter's ought is gratuitously formed, and comes solely from her values. (And someone else may value her putting it where she wishes, too, so they do not interfere with her doing so). There is no objective reality behind it. You ask "if it's actually better..." but it is not, insofar as I don't know what it being "better" in some non-personal way, some objective way would mean.

So, on my view, the painter values her own property, and makes the hypothetical imperative "if I value controlling what I do with my painting, then I ought to put it where I want." She's not "correct" in a universal sense, she just experiences the feeling that she wants to put it where she wishes -- she instrumentally ought to put it where she wishes (the instrumentalism is that the ought is about satisfying her value). Someone else could reject this kind of value and think she shouldn't put it where she wishes, and they would not be "incorrect" any more than she is "correct," and vice versa (she's also not "incorrect" and her objector is not "correct").

Now you've got it.

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.

Of course it's not a moral quality. On my view there is no moral anything until someone steps up to make a "moral truth" sensible.

"There is no moral anything" is too strong a claim, unless you have reasons for believing it. Personally not knowing the evidence isn't a strong enough reason.

Consider what happened when America had not been discovered. The king of Spain, say, might have said, "There is no continent across the seas until somebody steps up to make it sensible." That would be too strong. What he ought to say would be, "If there is a continent over there, I do not yet have reason to know there is." And that would be fair enough.

You don't know what would ground morality. Fair enough. That does not, however, warrant the belief there is none. It only warrants the claim, "If there is, Cat doesn't (yet) realize what it is."

I concede this point totally, I admit that being in a neutrally skeptical position is not easy with the English language. It is a lot more typing, for every claim, to say "well I'm not convinced that's true" rather than to just carry on as if it's not true. This is entirely colloquial speech and more about brevity than anything else.

You are right, I can't truly say "there is no moral anything," I can only say "I'm not convinced anything is moral." But it is taxing on speech to do this, so hopefully that is forgiven in the future where it might matter less. When it's important I do try to demarcate it. I will do my best to use my judgment on how carefully I need to speak on it.

Yes, it's hard to be precise with this. And yet, where "ought" we to do so, more than when we are discussing something in a drill-down philosophical way? It's in this sort of a situation that precision is most practical.

As for the complex hierarchies claim, it is the observation that you note: people value some things more than they value others.

Then it's trivial.

For then, the hierarchies are arbitrary. That people happen to put some things higher than others, and others believe in different hierarchies tells us nothing about the legitimacy of any particular hierarchies. A value doesn't become "more valuable" simply because somebody happens to arbitrarily rank it "above" another.

But in fact, the very existence of hierarchies creates an additional problem for you to entertain: namely, that all hierarchies are criterial. People put one value higher than another for reasons, at least reasons they personally hold. (If they did not, they'd have no hierarchy of values, and they would simply be paralyzed in decision making. Because to make a decision is to make a definite choice about what to value in a given situation.) So what are the good reasons for making, say, the preserving of life "higher" than the eating of ice cream? Both are things people can "value," and everybody does, in fact, rank them hierarchically in relation to each other: on what basis can any such thing be done? What's the fundamental mechanism underneath the valuing and the creating of value hierarchies?

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. )

I am not convinced there is a good reason for making the preservation of life "higher" than the eating of ice cream. Valuing life more than ice cream wouldn't be correct while moral realism is unproven, indeed.

Well, it wouldn't be "proven" while Moral Realism remains "unproven," it's true: but it would arguably still be "correct," if Moral Realism turns out to be true.

Now if the question is "why do more people seem to value life higher than ice cream than the other way around," I think that is just a question with a nature/nurture answer: that there are demographics of values humans hold (some are more popular than others), but that these demographics have nothing to do with moral truth. For instance I think altruism is a popular value because of evolutionary reasons and because societies instrumentally work better with concepts of altruism most of the time, so it's a popular value that has survived and flourished. I'm glad that it has, since it's a value I hold very dearly. But it's not that it "must" be the case, it's not that it "morally ought" to be the case: until those terms are given some kind of meaning.

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.

I have given a very simple example involving only two values: I value property, I value life. I value life more.

Good example.

Why?

What criteria do you use to decide that life is of higher value than property? If they're both values, why don't you just value them equally?

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.

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.

People don't just become chaotic hedonists because that's not how values work.

OR, "People don't just become chaotic hedonists, because they are creatures of habit who are proceeding from a moralizing culture and only slowly leaving it," OR "People don't just become chaotic hedonists, because God has given them a conscience."

We'll have to decide which one is true.

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.

The world that we look at right now: I think my worldview describes it.

How interesting. I think mine totally does.

If I compare my worldview to moral realism's worldview, I can see why my worldview describes the world. When I look at moral realism's worldview, and compare it to the world, it confuses me: "but then why is there so much stuff that's ostensibly bad going on?

I see no problem with that at all.

It's exactly what we should expect, if we have a world with two moral "polarities" in it, and people with free wills.

What 'good' did the moral realism do if the moral realist world looks just like the world without it?"

I don't think it does. And we have already mentioned some of the ways it does.

The world is not a total mess of chaotic hedonism...so far. You have said so. And I think that has a lot to do with both historical moralizing of our culture, and with human conscience. But I don't think that moral non-cognitivism gives us any basis to expect it.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think a world without moral realism is bleak. In fact it gives me great hope. I think it's up to people that value altruism and empathy and all these values that people like you and I have (I believe we do share a lot of values, perhaps not all, but enough that we might call each other "good people"!) to spread those values, maintain those values -- because we better believe people that don't share them will be trying to spread and maintain theirs! So it's hopeful in the sense that it implies we can do things with our values like trying to shape the world closer to them. Even if there's nothing about our values that are "right" and others' that are "wrong," they are still our values, and we can root for them. We must root for them, perhaps: that's what it means to have a value. Just as our "value enemies" must root for theirs, I suppose.

We certainly have mutual respect. That much, I think, we've both made abundantly clear. And all the more clear, since it seems that nothing depends on us always agreeing, even about moral judgments. We can disagree fairly strongly, and still treat each other with deference, calmness and tact. That, I think, is a proof of real respect.

And there are some values we'll both want to see actualized. And maybe, if the different "sides" of the political spectrum talked more openly and respectfully, as we are doing, then there would be much more common ground on which the "sides" could work than they are able to discover in our very polarized present world.

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.

What does it mean to say I should value X?

It would appear to mean that if your value hierarchy is different, you're wrong. But we won't know why until we explain how hierarchies are assembled in the first place.

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?

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.

But if DCT isn't true,

It isn't.

...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?

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."

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.

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.

Not quite. You're missing an element.

The jokers in the pink hats, or the pinheads burning down neighbourhoods don't just want to yell "I value rebellion." They want to tell me I should, as well. They want others to agree with their cause. That's why they hold up the signs, chant the slogans, seek out media opportunities, stage events, burn things, and so on. They hope and expect to effect changes in other people's value structures, to make them more favourable to their particular revolutionary goals.

But on what basis? Do they not want to self-present as "liberators?" And do they not want us to believe that being such a "liberator" is "better" than being a proponent of the status quo?

But if they don't believe racism is intrinsically wrong, say, then on what basis can they expect to change my mind? Are they nothing more than empty propagandists, hoping to convince me by nothing but show of force?

I don't think they are. I think they actually think they are, in some sense, "right." And they want me to believe they're "right," and to want to be "right" too, and that society itself won't be "right" until the laws and systems change to accommodate their view of the "right."

Moralizing is intrinsic to all social justice claims. So without morality, goodbye social justice. Instead, what you get is merely social upheaval, gratuitous destruction with no promise of "progress" at all.

For "justice" itself is a moral value. And a conception of "justice" must be argued for. We don't all have the same one.

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.

So, I need to know what goodness is.

I think you do. But only intuitively. The intellectual task is to make that intuitive knowledge more conscious and rational.

I need help doing that, as I described above. When I try to make sense of it, I come up with nothing. I don't feel as though I'm a stupid woman, either; nor do I feel like it's for lack of trying.

Heck, no...you're not stupid. Far from it, obviously.

But I think it's the worldview. From the worldview you've selected, there are simply not entities in the universe, conceded to be real, that can account for things like morality as more than a sort of sociological oddity.

But what does having the property of goodness mean on the moral realism view? Does it mean the person values the intrinsically good (but then what is that)?

Ultimately? It means to value God for that property. And it means to value things because of that property in them, the property which is only perfectly realized in God Himself.

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.")

There's no escaping this: either DCT is true (God's valus definitionally makes what is good), or something else defines what is good and God just participates passively by liking what is good because it is good.

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.

The utterance "if adultery is wrong, it is because God is faithful" does demand an answer to whether adultery is wrong because God is faithful (and so DCT is true*),

Well, I'm afraid that's just a Non-sequitur. It does not follow from what you say that DCT is entailed at all.

If the reason that unfaithfulness is evil is because God is faithful, it does not follow that commanding it makes it so. Rather, it follows that God is faithful, and that makes unfaithfulness immoral; and consequently, because He is also truthful and just, He commands us to be faithful too. But the command, so to speak, does no work in that equation. It is an after-the-fact issuance. We are told (or commanded) to be faithful because faithfulness is already moral, because God is already faithful and true.

So DCT is NOT true, on this account. Divine Command does not make things righteous. Rather, they are commanded because they are righteous, and righteous because they reflect the character of God.

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...

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.

One problem with that "should" you've inserted there: there is absolutely nothing that God has not created. So anything that has any property, is ultimately indebted to Him for that property, in that He makes it possible and real in the first place.

But moral properties and physical properties are, as you and I both know, quite different things. And nobody believes that God possesses in Himself all physical properties, as if they were all "excellencies" or "great-making properties," (to quote Plantinga). Moral properties ARE great-making properties: yellowness is not. Length is not. They are mere physical properties, and contingent ones, too.

Your post greatly cleared up a lot of uncertainties I had over what you were saying, this was a really good post. Moving on from there as some of those comments I was making don't matter now that I get you better.

Oh? Great. Thank you for saying so. I'm doing my best to be helpful and responsive to your concerns. I'm hoping I'm not merely perplexing you by way of taking issue with such fundamental assumptions as you've articulated at times. I'm not trying to be difficult.

Yeah, I'm having fun. Hope you are too!

This is proving to be the most profitable and fertile conversation I've had in a long while, actually. There are other interlocutors who are similarly valuable, but not very many, alas. Would that they were all so.

[FlashDangerpants]

I'm a moral noncognitivist in a weak way (I don't affirm that moral utterances are noncognitive, I'm just not convinced they are -- I leave open the possibility, in other words, because so far I do not have some argument by which I can prove my doubt; and sometimes such doubts can't be proven).

Fair enough. But if it turns out that moral utterances have no objective referent, then complete Moral Nihilism would follow from that.

Why?

Religions exist, they are made up by humans.
Moral codes exist, they are made up by humans.
Table manners exist, made up.
Fashions exist, also manufactured.

None of these things has an objective referent.

[Immanuel Can]

What is moral is supposed to be universal ...

Yes...

Since political systems are not accepted by all, they cannot be associated with morality.

That doesn't mean that universal assent is what makes morality moral. That's absurd, and obviously wrong.

Where did I state "universal assent"??

You said "not accepted by all" as if that were some important concern, or constituted some kind of reasonable objection. But there's no reason why something genuinely moral has to be "accepted, as a condition of its truth, at all.

Morality is "universal" in the sense that even if every single person on the planet failed to believe it at all, it would still be true. It's so universal that it doesn't depend on anyone's mere opinion.

This is what I meant.

Okay. Then it's hard to see that "acceptance" has any relevance here.

In this, it's like reality. Because reality does not change, no matter what people believe. When every person on the Earth thought there was no such thing as bacteria, that did not mean bacteria did not exist. All it meant was that a lot of people were wrong.

What is reality is independent of individual[s] beliefs and opinion. Reality which is 'all there is' including humans therein is entangled with humans and humanity.

No knowing what you mean to convey by "entangled," I can say nothing about that.

So if the entire planet decided that murdering children was acceptable, they would still all be wrong about that, because the objective truth of morality would remain that murdering children is evil. And God would still know what the moral truth was, even if every person on the planet lost the idea.

It is not that they are wrong with the above, but rather they have the intuition murdering children is evil which is driven by an inherent moral potential and drive within all humans.

That won't work, as an explanation.

I have an intuition that there's an axe-murderer in my closet. It doesn't make it true. It also doesn't make it a moral issue. And if I have a "drive" to run screaming from my house, then no matter how strong it is, that "drive" doesn't make my action justified.

As for politics, political systems immediately involve morality. Because political systems involve the way we treat other people. So we can't even design a political system without already having in mind some view of what is right or wrong treatment of others. And we can be right or wrong about what we think.

I would suggest that to accord others dignity, rights and respect is right, and to tyrannize or propagandize them is immoral. And that would mean, all the time, and regardless of what society we were in, or what the people there thought. But even if I were wrong about that, God would know the truth. And He would be right, even when I was wrong.

Since morality is about absolutely good and absolutely no evil, politics cannot be conflated nor be associated with morality.

That's not at all true, and nobody thinks it's true, either. Politicians themselves routinely accuse their opposition of behaving immorally or unethically. Politicians are removed from office for corruption or dereliction of duty. Laws are moral edicts framed by the legislature in the presumed interest of justice. Dispensing of funds is a moral concern -- who "deserves" what portion of the public purse is the central question.

You'll never be able to separate the two. Nobody sensible thinks you can. And in practice, you never can.

[Immanuel Can]

I'm not sure what "not viable" means, though. It's certainly a proposition that most people do accept, and some do not. But "viable"?

The notion of God goes contrary to what we know about nature and the universe,

Who is "we"?

According to the CIA factbook, not more than 4% of the world's population are outright Atheists, by their own self-declaration. Another 4% are agnostic. The rest are some form of "religious."

Whoever the "we" are who are "knowing," it's not more than 4% of the world.

When an idea does not conform to logic that you have hitherto found to be reliable, you tend to think of it as being unviable.

Well, "logic"? I don't think "logic" is the problem. I think the problem you're speaking to is "experience." If you have no "experience" of God, you tend to think it is "unviable" to believe in Him. Fair enough.

But new "experiences" are always possible.

But what would make us feel "shame," since in a world without God, we don't "owe" anybody to do anything different?

Firstly, Even if I were to accept the possibility of their being God, it does not necessarily follow that I would believe we owed him anything. Why would I think I owed God anything? I haven't asked God for anything, or entered into any agreement with him.

https://babylonbee.com/news/god-ever-do ... athing-air

Is shame purely a thing that you feel when you consider how you must appear in the eyes of others?

It's different for different people, I suppose. But we should ask why, no matter the audience, we even DO feel this thing called "shame." After all, if the empirical facts are that no moral standards are objective, are we just responding to our mal-conditioning inherited from our society? Should we just "get over" our feelings of shame, since they are mere social constructs, and now seem to plague us and make us unhappier than we would like?

Or when we feel shame, are we tapping into something real?

To be personal, I will tell you that it was worry over things like this that eventually led me to be a Christian. I found the Atheist explanations of things like evil and guilt to be totally unsatisfactory...utterly disappointing, so far as dealing with the dysfunction I realized was not only in the world, but in myself. And I was not okay with spending the rest of my life in agony over it, or as some kind of perpetual victim of all that was wrong in the world.

Atheism told me sin was unreal. I knew it was real. Atheism told me shame was unrelated to reality. I felt the falseness of that. Atheism said if I just thought about things differently, then I would realize that evil and wickedness did not exist as a real thing, either in this world or in me. I saw that was an evasion.

I wanted a serious answer to sin. Atheism didn't have anything. So I went looking beyond it.

I'm sorry -- did something of that seem "disgraceful" to you? It wasn't intended as such. I was merely pointing out what the Atheist worldview would logically imply. It would imply that "guilt" was never justified. It would mean that the feeling of such was a kind of mental disorder, not at all reflective of any reality.

I think your whole position on this issue is disgraceful. You are implying that anyone who doesn't believe what you believe is morally less than you. [/quote]
That, I utterly deny.

I realize why you feel that way. You questioned the moral status of Christians, and I defended it. Since I'm a Christian, that might sound like I was making myself, personally, out to be better than you. But I was not.

Quite the opposite, as I have said, and as I say again now, I have no reason to imagine you are any worse person than I am. You might well be better. I'm in no position to say. Nor have I even implied otherwise.

What I am, is a sinner whom God has saved. That doesn't mean I'm perfect. It just means I've realized that fact, and made the first steps to trying to do something about it. That doesn't make me better than anyone...arguably, worse, maybe. But it means that, by God's grace, I am heading in the right direction, no matter how far from the finishing point I started.

You may be starting from a better moral position than I. I can hope so.

If God can come up with moral directives, that means that coming up with moral directives is possible, and if it is possible, I and anyone else can also come up with them.

I'm not sure what "come up with" means. I don't think it's the right coinage, however. God can issue moral directives, but those directives proceed from His character, not from nothing.

And yes, you can come up with moral directives. Anybody can. But ours are arbitrary, except to the extent they conform to the facts of God's character. God's moral directives are never arbitrary. They're always grounded in who He is.

And if it is possible to feel guilt under God's judgement, then it is also possible to feel it under your own.

Sure.

But "feel" is a tricky thing. We sometimes all "feel" things that are not true. So I'm not saying that your assessment of guilt is not true; I'm saying we won't know whether or not it's true by referring to nothing more than "feeling."

Feelings need to be justified, in order for us to know what they mean. We need to know why we feel what we feel, and if that's related to reality.

I don't doubt your feeling. I don't even question your guilt, as you say it is there. I just ask, "What do you want to do about that?"

I was merely saying that the Atheist view allows that there is no reason for "shame" or "guilt."

So you are here not only as spokesman for the Christian view, but you have also appointed yourself as the definative authority of the atheist view.[/quote]
Not at all.

I'm just a guy who can do some basic logic. I take the premises I'm given, and deduce the conclusion they require.

Atheism gives me the premises; I just point to the necessary conclusion from there.

I obviously belong to a different denomination of atheism than the one you describe above.

Well, there are consistent Atheists, and inconsistent Atheists.

There are Atheists who follow through the logic of Atheism to it's own conclusions. Nietzsche, perhaps, came closest to achieving that "ideal." But I don't tend to meet any consistent Atheists. I tend to meet the inconsistent ones, the ones who profess Atheism but act much more moral that Atheism gives them any reason to be.

And quite frankly, I prefer the latter. They're much safer.

[Immanuel Can]

I'm a moral noncognitivist in a weak way (I don't affirm that moral utterances are noncognitive, I'm just not convinced they are -- I leave open the possibility, in other words, because so far I do not have some argument by which I can prove my doubt; and sometimes such doubts can't be proven).

Fair enough. But if it turns out that moral utterances have no objective referent, then complete Moral Nihilism would follow from that.

Why?

Because people cannot have any duty to chase ghosts. If morality is a ghost, nobody's got to think about it.

[FlashDangerpants]

Fair enough. But if it turns out that moral utterances have no objective referent, then complete Moral Nihilism would follow from that.

Why?

Because people cannot have any duty to chase ghosts. If morality is a ghost, nobody's got to think about it.

Why?

Religions exist, they are made up by humans.
Moral codes exist, they are made up by humans.
Table manners exist, made up.
Fashions exist, also manufactured.

None of these things has an objective referent.

[Immanuel Can]

Why?

Because people cannot have any duty to chase ghosts. If morality is a ghost, nobody's got to think about it.

And it doesn't matter how many other things are ghosts, too. That still produces no duty on the part of anyone to chase any.

[FlashDangerpants]

Why?

Because people cannot have any duty to chase ghosts. If morality is a ghost, nobody's got to think about it.

And it doesn't matter how many other things are ghosts, too. That still produces no duty on the part of anyone to chase any.

You seem to be insisting there is a stark dichotomy with religion inspired moral absolutism on one hand or no moral shit whatsoever on the other. Like if we don't have od to tell us not to steal then it's implausible (in your imagination) for us to come up with that one without him.

You don't have any apparent argument to support that though.

[Immanuel Can]

Why?

Because people cannot have any duty to chase ghosts. If morality is a ghost, nobody's got to think about it.

And it doesn't matter how many other things are ghosts, too. That still produces no duty on the part of anyone to chase any.

You seem to be insisting there is a stark dichotomy with religion inspired moral absolutism on one hand or no moral shit whatsoever on the other.

No, not "religion inspired." There are many religions that are false, and whatever they "inspire" is not morally obligatory. (I presume you don't sacrifice your children to Molech or Baal.)

But Atheism hasn't even got something to offer...a Baal, or a Molech, or some other authority that could plausibly tell us what morality is. So that puts Atheism well behind all of the "religions," in the dilemma of "is" and "ought." It can't even suggest a reasonable solution.

But it was an Atheist who first pointed this weakness out...David Hume...so you can take issue with him on that.

[FlashDangerpants]

Because people cannot have any duty to chase ghosts. If morality is a ghost, nobody's got to think about it.

And it doesn't matter how many other things are ghosts, too. That still produces no duty on the part of anyone to chase any.

You seem to be insisting there is a stark dichotomy with religion inspired moral absolutism on one hand or no moral shit whatsoever on the other.

No, not "religion inspired." There are many religions that are false, and whatever they "inspire" is not morally obligatory. (I presume you don't sacrifice your children to Molech or Baal.)

But Atheism hasn't even got something to offer...a Baal, or a Molech, or some other authority that could plausibly tell us what morality is. So that puts Atheism well behind all of the "religions," in the dilemma of "is" and "ought." It can't even suggest a reasonable solution.

But it was an Atheist who first pointed this weakness out...David Hume...so you can take issue with him on that.

Where is the argument that religion is a necessary component of morality?

[Immanuel Can]

You seem to be insisting there is a stark dichotomy with religion inspired moral absolutism on one hand or no moral shit whatsoever on the other.

No, not "religion inspired." There are many religions that are false, and whatever they "inspire" is not morally obligatory. (I presume you don't sacrifice your children to Molech or Baal.)

But Atheism hasn't even got something to offer...a Baal, or a Molech, or some other authority that could plausibly tell us what morality is. So that puts Atheism well behind all of the "religions," in the dilemma of "is" and "ought." It can't even suggest a reasonable solution.

But it was an Atheist who first pointed this weakness out...David Hume...so you can take issue with him on that.

Where is the argument that religion is a necessary component of morality?

That's not the argument. The argument is that Atheism is useless in that area.

[FlashDangerpants]

No, not "religion inspired." There are many religions that are false, and whatever they "inspire" is not morally obligatory. (I presume you don't sacrifice your children to Molech or Baal.)

But Atheism hasn't even got something to offer...a Baal, or a Molech, or some other authority that could plausibly tell us what morality is. So that puts Atheism well behind all of the "religions," in the dilemma of "is" and "ought." It can't even suggest a reasonable solution.

But it was an Atheist who first pointed this weakness out...David Hume...so you can take issue with him on that.

Where is the argument that religion is a necessary component of morality?

That's not the argument. The argument is that Atheism is useless in that area.

Why is that a problem? What was all the ghost talk about?

do you actually have an argument? It's not easy to find out what it actually is.