What could make morality objective?

[Veritas Aequitas]

The thing we call a tree isn't an abstraction - a thing that doesn't exist. It exists physically, just as do the many different things that constitute it - down to the quantum mechanical events that seem to constitute everything that exists. If a tree is an abstraction, then so is everything, including humans and their silly conclusions.

Chomsky was one of many victims of a fashionable delusion.

If the thing you call tree isn't an abstraction,
then you will have to name each every tree with their specific conditions [trunk, leaves, etc.].

This is obviously false - and self-refuting, because no description could satisfy the condition of specificity of particulars. That's why the scholastic debate over the existence of so-called universals was ridiculous. A common noun doesn't name an abstraction from all the particulars it supposedly names - it doesn't name a 'universal'. That idea was Plato's mistake - or the mistake of Platonists and their successors ever since.

Strawman.
You missed my point.

Example,
Say you have two apples of different colors [red and green] in bowl.
If you say, there are two apples, then that is an abstraction because you did not differentiate them as two different things.
To be realistic, you would have to state,
there is one red apple and one green apple.
to be more precise you will have to identify the redness and green_ness.
to be more precise, you will have to identify the actual shape, volume, weight.
to be more precise, you will have to determine the exact chemical compositions, count the number of molecules, atoms, particles and quarks.

If you have hundreds of apples you will have to do the above for each of the apples to claim you are realistic.
That is no way you can determine your supposed fact as state of affairs with realness.
What is fact to you is merely a linguistic thing not any real independent thing existing out there.

Because you are unable to do it, what you call 'apple' or any thing is always an abstraction with a Reality-Gap.

What you call 'fact' within your definition of what is fact is an abstraction i.e. an intelligible object, a noumenon, empty, nothing, meaningless and non-sensical on the other side that is beyond human reach.
Prove to me if otherwise?

[tillingborn]

What about the scientific FSK makes it reliable? What would be the near equivalent in a moral FSK?

Some would say there's no difference between science and morality; so what makes it 'reliable' is the results.

So a second characterization of pragmatism might go like this: there is no epistemological
difference between truth about what ought to be and truth about what is, nor any metaphysical
difference between facts and values, nor any methodological difference between morality and
science --Richard Rorty

I agree in general. but of course nitpickers would disagree in particular.

If you agree in general, some would say you therefore disagree with some particulars. It is always the case that some might say something that challenges anything another says. They can do so because there is any number of possible causes for the things we experience, assuming there are at least two things that can be called we. It might be a stripe of naïve realism that clouds my judgement, but I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that you, me, Veritas Aequitus, Peter Holmes and maybe even a few more personae actually refer to what might, in an FSK, school of thought, épistémè, Weltanschauung, paradigm or whatever term you use in your point of view, the term I will use, that could be unique to me, assuming me is separate from everything else, are what I take to be real; at least insofar as they are separate sequences of experiences. But I could be wrong.
So yeah, Rorty is correct that there is "no epistemological difference between truth about what ought to be and truth about what is", for the simple reason that we don't know what is. You have to adopt Rorty's point of view to accept his claims that there is no "metaphysical difference between facts and values, nor any methodological difference between morality and science". What he is doing is that philosophical thing of presenting a case for his point of view, which relies, among other things, on our accepting his use of language. I don't know what he means by facts, for example. I don't know if he would include the claim that H2O is water is a fact, or whether he would limit the scope of facts to phenomena. Were he to do the latter, there is at least one point of view according to which ought/is and morality/science can be distinguished.
Regardless of any metaphysics I attached to the phenomenon, when I experience dropping a brick, I experience it falling. Anyone familiar with Hume will appreciate that it is not necessarily what I will experience, but so far it has been utterly reliable. I can invent scales and measures, record and analyse the data gathered from experiments involving falling bricks, and call the whole endeavour fallingbrickology, and place that under the umbrella term science. There is at last one point of view according to which dropping bricks, or deliberately causing the phenomenon of a falling brick, has no moral content. It is more complicated if the brick is dropped on someone's head. Or their foot. Either way, in many points of view, the dropping of a brick now raises the sort of ought question that simply doesn't arise when nobody is under the brick.

[Peter Holmes]

Premise: Agreement in the use of signs is what constitutes what we call facts and, therefore, objectivity.

Erm. False.

[Peter Holmes]

We can and do use words and other signs as precisely or as vaguely as we need to. The descriptions 'two apples', 'one red apple and one green apple' and so on, are not intrinsically precise or imprecise - or anywhere in between.

Words and other signs can mean only what we use them to mean. And a description is not the described. And these facts are a damn nuisance for eejits, because they blow up the stupid argument for moral objectivity - the existence of moral facts.

[Skepdick]

We can and do use words and other signs as precisely or as vaguely as we need to. The descriptions 'two apples', 'one red apple and one green apple' and so on, are not intrinsically precise or imprecise - or anywhere in between.

Really?

So then the description 'two things' is no more; or less precise than 'two apples'.

You are necessarily implying that both descriptions are equally informative.

Do you actually believe your own bullshit?

Words and other signs can mean only what we use them to mean. And a description is not the described.

Great! So what is the described which you are describing as "water" ?

Make sure your answer informs us of the denotation and not the connotation of the described.

[Peter Holmes]

Agreement on the use of signs does not constitute what we call facts and, therefore, objectivity. So whether we use them denotatively or connotatively is irrelevant. Outside language, features of reality, and what we believe and know about them, have nothing to do with language - with the use of signs in descriptions.

[Skepdick]

Agreement on the use of signs does not constitute what we call facts and, therefore, objectivity.

Yes it does.

If we agree that this color is called "blue", and if we agree that the aninmal below is called a chicken - then it's a fact that this is a blue chicken!

What else could possibly establish factuality on the matter?!?

Outside language, features of reality, and what we believe and know about them, have nothing to do with language - with the use of signs in descriptions.

Is there a reason you keep refusing to confront your own equivocation?

Why are you using a single sign ("tree") to refer to a multitude of existents?

[Iwannaplato]

Strawman.
You missed my point.

Example,
Say you have two apples of different colors [red and green] in bowl.
If you say, there are two apples, then that is an abstraction because you did not differentiate them as two different things.
To be realistic, you would have to state,
there is one red apple and one green apple.
to be more precise you will have to identify the redness and green_ness.
to be more precise, you will have to identify the actual shape, volume, weight.
to be more precise, you will have to determine the exact chemical compositions, count the number of molecules, atoms, particles and quarks.

If you have hundreds of apples you will have to do the above for each of the apples to claim you are realistic.
That is no way you can determine your supposed fact as state of affairs with realness.
What is fact to you is merely a linguistic thing not any real independent thing existing out there.

Because you are unable to do it, what you call 'apple' or any thing is always an abstraction with a Reality-Gap.

What you call 'fact' within your definition of what is fact is an abstraction i.e. an intelligible object, a noumenon, empty, nothing, meaningless and non-sensical on the other side that is beyond human reach.
Prove to me if otherwise?

The category apple is not real. But the category good is real.

Ontological antirealism is the close sister to moral realism.!!!!!!

If murder was like apples, we'd have to compare murderers' quarks.

Goodness is an attitude.

Skepics might say that VA uses realist science and objective facts from science about brains to support his objective morals. They might say that he treats objects and categories as real when it suits him.

But this is shallow sophistry.

Brains are objects that are real, even when not being looked at, because they contain morals. And he is a moral realists.

Chairs and apples do not contain morals, so they do not exist when we don't look at them.

[Skepdick]

The category apple is not real. But the category good is real.

Are categories real? Is the category "real" real?

Categorization is arbitrary. How many fundamental categories are there?

Stick a pin anywhere on the monism-pluralism continuum and you won't be wrong. Or right.

[Iwannaplato]

The category apple is not real. But the category good is real.

Are categories real? Is the category "real" real?

Categorization is arbitrary. How many fundamental categories are there?

Stick a pin anywhere on the monism-pluralism continuum and you won't be wrong. Or right.

Yes, all the posts here are equally arbritrary. I don't know why people react differently to different posts.

[Peter Holmes]

Agreement on the use of signs does not constitute what we call facts and, therefore, objectivity.

For example, the plane shape we agree to call a circle would remain what it is if instead we agreed to call it a square - because signifiers are arbitrary. If we did call what we now call a circle 'a square', then, of course, the factual assertion 'this is a circle' would then be false, and the assertion 'this is a square' would then be true.

But there would be no change to the plane shape - because it is what it is. Its shape is what we call a fact - a feature of reality that is the case - regardless of opinion and regardless of what it's called. Der.

[Peter Holmes]

Elsewhere, VA claims that morality is an objective fact of human nature. And this is rubbish.

1 The expression objective fact is a redundancy, because there's no such thing as a subjective fact.

2 The existence of an identifiable so-called human nature is unsubstantiated and hotly disputed.

3 The constitution of so-called human nature is notoriously variously described - because factual assertions about human nature are notoriously unfalsifiable. The supposed inherent moral goodness of humans is as unsubstantiated as the supposed inherent moral badness of humans - or our inherent moral neutrality.

[Skepdick]

For example, the plane shape we agree to call a circle would remain what it is.

What it is? I don't know what you are trying to say. What is it?

if instead we agreed to call it a square - because signifiers are arbitrary. If we did call what we now call a circle 'a square', then, of course, the factual assertion 'this is a circle' would then be false, and the assertion 'this is a square' would then be true.

Precisely! So agreement on terms constitutes objective facts!

But there would be no change to the plane shape - because it is what it is.

What it is? I don't know what you are trying to say. What is it?

Its shape is what we call a fact

Huh? You just said we call it a circle?

Fine! Whatever. Lets call this shape a fact.



And lets call this call this shape a square.

[Peter Holmes]

A conversation elsewhere.

VA: There are moral neurons.

Iwannaplato: Do moral neurons exist when no one is looking at them?

VA: Yes, but only as an emergent fact entangled with the human conditions and conditioned upon the neuroscience framework and system of knowledge based on intersubjective consensus opinion.

Me: Does an emergent fact entangled with the human conditions and conditioned upon the neuroscience framework and system of knowledge based on intersubjective consensus opinion exist when no one is looking at it?

Does a triangle exist if no one is looking at it?

[Skepdick]

Does a triangle exist if no one is looking at it?

Maybe.

Which property is this triangle's "existence"?
What would be different about this triangle if it didn't exist while I was looking at it?

Just draw me another triangle (similar to the one below), but accentuate its non-existence.