What could make morality objective?

Should you think about your duty, or about the consequences of your actions? Or should you concentrate on becoming a good person?

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Peter Holmes
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Re: What could make morality objective?

Post by Peter Holmes »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 6:00 am
Peter Holmes wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 12:48 pm So here are your claims, as corrected by you.

1 Nothing exists in-itself, independent from a human framework and system of knowledge.

2 Nothing existed in-itself before we turned up, and nothing will exist in-itself after we're gone.

But what's the difference between a thing and a thing-in-itself? Can you spell it out?

If they're different, then I don't believe that things-in-themselves exist. Oh, wait - neither do you and Kant.

But if they're not different, then your claims are as I expressed them, because we can delete 'in-itself'. Nothing exists, etc; and nothing existed, etc. And that's an extraordinary metaphysical or ontological claim - for which you need to provide empirical, scientific evidence.
Note I explain in this this thread;
P_Holmes Do Not Believe in a Thing-in-Itself??
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=35502

A thing-in-itself [aka noumenon] is something that is claimed to be independent of an individual's opinion and belief.
This is exactly the definition for your 'what is fact' and 'what is truth'.

What is a real-thing is that which is verified and justified via a specific FSK that enable its emergence. [whatever that is described subsequent to the emergence is not relevant for this issue].
Thus what is a real-thing cannot be a thing-in-itself but rather it is a thing-with-FSK, thing-entangled-with-human-conditions and is wholly relative.
To repeat. Are things-in-themselves different from things? If so, what is the difference?
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Sculptor
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Re: What could make morality objective?

Post by Sculptor »

Peter Holmes wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 12:48 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 2:24 am
Peter Holmes wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 5:11 am
1. You claim that nothing exists in-itself, independent from a human framework and system of knowledge.

2. So you claim that nothing existed before we turned up, and nothing will exist after we're gone. You're saying that humans magicked the reality of which we're a part into existence when we turned up.
[numbers & bold = mine]
Yes, I claimed for 1.

Thus 2 following should be corrected as follows;
  • So you claim that nothing existed in-itself before we turned up, and nothing in-itself will exist after we're gone. You're saying that humans magicked the reality of which we're a part into existence when we turned up.
Nevertheless the corrected statement 2 is still a strawman. The above are your statements, not mine.

My point is,
  • 1. whatever 'YOU' claimed as 'fact' i.e. a thing-in-itself or things-in-themselves are illusory.

    2. whatever is fact existing as real are conditioned upon a specific FSK.
The fact that before humans emerged on Earth, there were dinosaurs, and that is a evolutionary, scientific fact and also a historical fact conditioned upon their respective FSK.
All FSK are conditioned upon the human conditions.
Thus these facts cannot be independent of the human conditions.
And this a metaphysical or ontological claim. It's about what exists and why it exists. So it's not an epistemological claim about what is or can be known. That's a separate matter.
This is irrelevant.
Whatever is claimed as a real fact is always conditioned upon a specific FSK.
No natural scientist - at least that I've come across - agrees with you. All the scientific evidence we have indicates that your claim is false. (And Kant never said any such thing anyway.)
Your knowledge of science is so narrow and shallow.
It is likely the scientists of classical science will agree with your claim hinging on metaphysical realism, e.g. Newton [theist], Einstein [deist].
The more advanced scientists involving in modern science will agree with me.
So what evidence do you have to support this extraordinary claim?
Whatever 'extraordinary claims' you invented above are your strawman.
Kant was the one who demonstrated the thing-in-itself is illusory.

My claim is,
whatever are real facts are conditioned upon a specific FSK, e.g. scientific facts [the emerging reality not their descriptions] as verified and justified with empirical evidence; they are the most credible and are conditioned upon the scientific FSK.

Now, prove or justify your claim H2O-in-itself is real by itself, i.e. independent of the human conditions.
Actually your claim is merely an opinion i.e. driven psychologically by desperate impulses necessary in the majority.
So here are your claims, as corrected by you.

1 Nothing exists in-itself, independent from a human framework and system of knowledge.

2 Nothing existed in-itself before we turned up, and nothing will exist in-itself after we're gone.

But what's the difference between a thing and a thing-in-itself? Can you spell it out?

If they're different, then I don't believe that things-in-themselves exist. Oh, wait - neither do you and Kant.
That is not correct.
Kant asserts that things exist, but that our perception of them is limited by our senses.
As you can see from this quote, it assumes the existence of things beyond perception.
We are perfectly justified in maintaining that only what is within ourselves can be immediately and directly perceived, and that only my own existence can be the object of a mere perception. Thus the existence of a real object outside me can never be given immediately and directly in perception, but can only be added in thought to the perception, which is a modification of the internal sense, and thus inferred as its external cause … . In the true sense of the word, therefore, I can never perceive external things, but I can only infer their existence from my own internal perception, regarding the perception as an effect of something external that must be the proximate cause —Critique of Pure Reason, A367 f.
But if they're not different, then your claims are as I expressed them, because we can delete 'in-itself'. Nothing exists, etc; and nothing existed, etc. And that's an extraordinary metaphysical or ontological claim - for which you need to provide empirical, scientific evidence.
What VA might say is a different matter altogether.
Peter Holmes
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Re: What could make morality objective?

Post by Peter Holmes »

I wish we could settle Kant comfortably in a museum, as an historical curiosity, along with Plato, Descartes, and a few other crusties. It's right that we should know what they said, but that's different from having to take it seriously.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: What could make morality objective?

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Peter Holmes wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 10:38 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 6:00 am
Peter Holmes wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 12:48 pm So here are your claims, as corrected by you.

1 Nothing exists in-itself, independent from a human framework and system of knowledge.

2 Nothing existed in-itself before we turned up, and nothing will exist in-itself after we're gone.

But what's the difference between a thing and a thing-in-itself? Can you spell it out?

If they're different, then I don't believe that things-in-themselves exist. Oh, wait - neither do you and Kant.

But if they're not different, then your claims are as I expressed them, because we can delete 'in-itself'. Nothing exists, etc; and nothing existed, etc. And that's an extraordinary metaphysical or ontological claim - for which you need to provide empirical, scientific evidence.
Note I explain in this this thread;
P_Holmes Do Not Believe in a Thing-in-Itself??
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=35502

A thing-in-itself [aka noumenon] is something that is claimed to be independent of an individual's opinion and belief.
This is exactly the definition for your 'what is fact' and 'what is truth'.

What is a real-thing is that which is verified and justified via a specific FSK that enable its emergence. [whatever that is described subsequent to the emergence is not relevant for this issue].
Thus what is a real-thing cannot be a thing-in-itself but rather it is a thing-with-FSK, thing-entangled-with-human-conditions and is wholly relative.
To repeat. Are things-in-themselves different from things? If so, what is the difference?
I have already explained above the difference between what are 'things' versus 'things-in-themselves'.

Things-in-themselves are different from 'things' I repeat;
  • 1. A thing-in-itself [aka noumenon] [or pl. things-in-themselves] is something that is claimed to be independent of an individual's opinion and belief.

    2. What is a thing [real] is that which is verified and justified via a specific FSK that enable its emergence. The most credible 'what is a thing' emerges from the scientific FSK.
Why it is so difficult for you to understand the above very simply explanation?
But then again, you are so blindfolded and dogmatically bias with your beliefs, I believe you are not likely to understand the above. If so, tell me what is your problem or my failure to explain.

For further understanding note this [actually I have already explained this a "million" times already],
viewtopic.php?p=590535#p590535
Belinda wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 12:40 pm Sculptor wrote:
The phrase "thing in itself" is used to indicate the limits of perception such that any thing has qualities beyond which our limited perception allows. There no implication of complete independence from other things, and these connections could well be outside the limits of perception too.
to indicate the limits of perception such that any thing has qualities beyond which our limited perception allows. There no implication of complete independence from other things, and these connections could well be outside the limits of perception too.
The phrase "thing in itself" is used to indicate the limits of perception. Yes, but also to indicate there are things in themselves. That perception is limited is not a reason to believe things in themselves exist.
Kant's CPR is one long argument in different phases.
Re Kant, it is the 'noumenon' as thing-in-itself that is "ASSUMED temporarily" to indicate the limits of perception [re phenomena] in the initial phase before he ventured into the details of the No Man's Land [see below].

As such, the above does imply there is still the 'thing-in-itself' to be considered.
But upon deeper philosophical consideration in the later phases the above assumption is taken off and the 'thing-in-itself' is concluded as illusory i.e. a psychological derivative and is not a real thing at all.

Note Russell's No Man's Land as an analogy;
All definite knowledge – so I should contend – belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology.
But between theology and science there is a No Man’s Land, exposed to attack from both sides; and this No Man’s Land is philosophy.
At the limit & boundary of the No Man’s Land on the Science side is what Kant would place the noumenon which is assumed logically [not really] from the real phenomena.
Meanwhile theists and the likes take their necessary desperate big leap of faith and jumped across the No Man's Land to reify the noumenon as a 'real' thing-in-itself, i.e. the dogmatic God, the independent soul, etc.

While Russell merely generalize, Kant provided a very detailed argument of how theists reify the noumenon as a 'real' thing-in-itself when it is merely an illusion emerging as a psychological derivative serving therapeutic purposes only.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: What could make morality objective?

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Peter Holmes wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 12:02 pm I wish we could settle Kant comfortably in a museum, as an historical curiosity, along with Plato, Descartes, and a few other crusties. It's right that we should know what they said, but that's different from having to take it seriously.
You wish?? that is because you are so ignorant and the neurons in your brain for philosophy are already crusted.

Kant is claimed to be one of the greatest philosophers of all times.
Even "... Kant could be viewed as the intellectual godfather of cognitive science."
As such, to be ignorant of and not taking Kant's philosophy seriously would leave one big empty hole in your philosophical brain.
No wonder you are so lost in more refined philosophical matters and issues.


Plato and Descartes are also great philosophers that people into philosophical should be very familiar with.
Peter Holmes
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Re: What could make morality objective?

Post by Peter Holmes »

No, please answer the question. In what physical way is a so-called thing-in-itself, such as water-in-itself, different from the thing we call water? What different properties do the two things have? If they have the same properties, then they're identical. And in that case, it would be nonsensical to say that one exists and the other doesn't.
Skepdick
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Re: What could make morality objective?

Post by Skepdick »

Peter Holmes wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 7:28 am No, please answer the question. In what physical way is a so-called thing-in-itself, such as water-in-itself, different from the thing we call water? What different properties do the two things have? If they have the same properties, then they're identical. And in that case, it would be nonsensical to say that one exists and the other doesn't.
Trivial question is trivial.

When we talk about water we talk about extensional properties.
When we talk about a "thing-in-itself" we talk about intensional properties.

The thing we call "red" has different extensional (quantities) and intensional (qualities) properties.

Red vs the experience of redness.
Iwannaplato
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Re: What could make morality objective?

Post by Iwannaplato »

Peter Holmes wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 7:28 am No, please answer the question. In what physical way is a so-called thing-in-itself, such as water-in-itself, different from the thing we call water? What different properties do the two things have? If they have the same properties, then they're identical. And in that case, it would be nonsensical to say that one exists and the other doesn't.
Don't worry, he'll never read my post.
How would we know and what language do we use to describe the water-in-itself? Properties tend to be relational and put in terms that we understand. So, this either precludes talking about the water-in-itself or we have to point at potential differences.
Visual properties would not be the same.
Also, the way we experience water is in time. We tend to think of objective in terms of what repeated experiments will create in terms of observations. But that's partially objective. Every experiment is from a vantage and given that we experience 'things' chronologically, this would be different or potentially different from things-in-themselves. Things that are not being experienced, why would we think of them as existing in moments. We experience things unfolding, changing (or appearing to remain) more or less the same over time. But this may not be fully real, this unfolding of time. Objective might be more block universe type being.

This is different from saying that the water changes when no one is looking at it. I am open to that not being true, certainly in fairly trivial ways, but possibly in more profound ways. But that's not quite what I'm saying above.

QM might lead one to believe that water in itself, not being currently percieved has something like a flexible set of potentially specific characteristics waiting to enter a consiously lifeline. It's there in a fuzzy way. It is not infinitely malleable in how it might manifest, but it hasn't chosen which slit to go through yet or what the interference pattern will be.

And then in general, water or X needs to be something that leads to set of effects Y. We, to some degree or completely, need to black box X and water. (again, in philosophical discussions, I am not saying scientists titrating a reagent or an sailor or a thirsty kid need think of these things, especially working or whining to daddy)
Last edited by Iwannaplato on Sat Aug 20, 2022 12:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Belinda
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Re: What could make morality objective?

Post by Belinda »

Skepdick wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 9:21 am
Peter Holmes wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 7:28 am No, please answer the question. In what physical way is a so-called thing-in-itself, such as water-in-itself, different from the thing we call water? What different properties do the two things have? If they have the same properties, then they're identical. And in that case, it would be nonsensical to say that one exists and the other doesn't.
Trivial question is trivial.

When we talk about water we talk about extensional properties.
When we talk about a "thing-in-itself" we talk about intensional properties.

The thing we call "red" has different extensional (quantities) and intensional (qualities) properties.

Red vs the experience of redness.
I agree but I'd think of quality further than red or any other quale. The entire idea of extension (quantities) is a quale. Space does not exist;please see quantum entanglement.
Skepdick
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Re: What could make morality objective?

Post by Skepdick »

Belinda wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 11:41 am I agree but I'd think of quality further than red or any other quale. The entire idea of extension (quantities) is a quale. Space does not exist;please see quantum entanglement.
Precisely that! We are on the same page. The quantitative is qualitative.

The absence of a quantity (the number we call 0) is what we qualitatively call a counter-factual. It represents absence of quantity. Numbers (and modern-day Mathematics in general) are the Hindu-Arabic delusion born from the ability to represent nothing.

Things used to be far more grounded when counting was 1-indexed.
Peter Holmes
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Re: What could make morality objective?

Post by Peter Holmes »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 2:56 am
Your idea of 'fact' is based on the early-Wittgenstein idea of "what is fact" which W had subsequently abandoned and yet you are still stuck with it.
No, I follow the later Wittgenstein's rejection of the early Wittgenstein's misconception that the world is the totality of facts-as-assertions: 'such-and-such is the case'.

His hard-won insight into meaning-as-use liberated us from the 'assurances of realism' - that any description of reality can or does 'say it all'. But his conclusion was not that what we call reality can be nothing more than what we perceive, know and describe it to be. He wasn't an idiot.
Peter Holmes
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Re: What could make morality objective?

Post by Peter Holmes »

If we mistake what we say about things for the way things are, then we can conclude that what we say is the case is indeed the case. So, if we say 'X is morally wrong', then (it's a fact that) X is morally wrong. And that's what one moral objectivist argument we've seen here boils down to. It amounts to saying 'this is just how we use these words, when we talk about moral rightness and wrongness'.

But saying something is so doesn't make it so, because the way things are and what we say about them are completely different things. So, for example, water isn't H2O just because 'that's how we use those words'. We have rules for the use of language, but they aren't rules for the way things are.

If we recognise the radical difference and separation between the way things are and what we say about them, this argument for moral objectivism - the existence of moral facts - collapses. We can use moral words - and produce moral descriptions - any way we like, but that doesn't mean there are moral facts - that moral rightness and wrongness actually exist as real things.
popeye1945
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Re: What could make morality objective?

Post by popeye1945 »

Nothing could make morality objective simply because everything is subjective there is no objectivity whatsoever. It has been stated and indeed I had stated it myself, that reality is a biological readout, meaning it is how the energies of ultimate reality affect one's biology this is what apparent reality is, this is what object is. The experience of biology is meaning and the sole property of a conscious subject. If apparent reality in and of itself is an emergent quality of the reactions of biology how could there be any such thing as objectivity or an objective world. Everything is biological reaction to the energies of ultimate reality, which according to modern physics is a place of no things. The physical world's reaction to the cosmos was to create life on earth and as life's cause, it is that to which life reacts.
Peter Holmes
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Re: What could make morality objective?

Post by Peter Holmes »

popeye1945 wrote: Fri Sep 02, 2022 9:39 am Nothing could make morality objective simply because everything is subjective there is no objectivity whatsoever. It has been stated and indeed I had stated it myself, that reality is a biological readout, meaning it is how the energies of ultimate reality affect one's biology this is what apparent reality is, this is what object is. The experience of biology is meaning and the sole property of a conscious subject. If apparent reality in and of itself is an emergent quality of the reactions of biology how could there be any such thing as objectivity or an objective world. Everything is biological reaction to the energies of ultimate reality, which according to modern physics is a place of no things. The physical world's reaction to the cosmos was to create life on earth and as life's cause, it is that to which life reacts.
Here are two of your assertions:

1 Everything is biological reaction to the energies of ultimate reality. False: if 'the energies of ultimate reality' are what 'biological reaction' reacts to, then it's false to say that 'everything' is biological reaction to those energies. Your rhetoric leads you astray.

2 If, 'according to modern physics', 'ultimate reality...is a place of no things' - (which is not what 'modern physics' says) - then that is a factual assertion with a truth-value independent from opinion. Your argument is self-defeating.
popeye1945
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Re: What could make morality objective?

Post by popeye1945 »

Here are two of your assertions:

1 Everything is biological reaction to the energies of ultimate reality. False: if 'the energies of ultimate reality' are what 'biological reaction' reacts to, then it's false to say that 'everything' is biological reaction to those energies. Your rhetoric leads you astray.[/quote]

Peter, Of course, there is cause and effect/reaction. If you are inferring something more you will have to clarify.

2 If, 'according to modern physics', 'ultimate reality...is a place of no things' - (which is not what 'modern physics' says) - then that is a factual assertion with a truth-value independent from opinion. Your argument is self-defeating.
[/quote]

Peter, I do hope you realize that my statements about ultimate reality are a speculation and could be nothing more, but I insist it is a perfectly reasonable assumption. When you speak of truth value statements, you must try to keep in mind that any truth value statements are is at least once remove from experience and that the individual is not actually receiving the experience, but a communication of assertion about an experience to be evaluated by another conscious biology.

Find below some sources which make the idea more palatable.

https://phys.org/news/2019-11-quantum-p ... oesnt.html

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/ob ... t-reality/ --this one just says they don't know.

file:///C:/Users/jboag/AppData/Local/Packages/microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe/LocalState/Files/S0/1/Attachments/The-Illusion-of-Reality---The-Scientific-Proof-That-Everything-is-Energy-and-Reality-Isnt-Real[1772].pdf

https://understand-ultimate-reality.com ... eality.htm
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