There are Moral Facts

[Terrapin Station]

Note the analogy with scientific facts which are independent of any individual's opinion and beliefs.

• Scientific truths [verifying and justifying facts] started as the individual-scientist's opinion and hypothesis based on his intuitions, imaginations or other sources.
  When the scientist proved the hypothesis to himself, then it his convicted beliefs.
  However all scientific truths must be verified and justified empirically and philosophically with the imperative requirements of the scientific framework and system [FSK] before it is accepted as proven theory.
  When it is a justified and accepted scientific truth, then it is independent of of any person's opinions and beliefs.
  I believe you will agree with the above.

Aside from the tuth/fact switch here, which I'll avoid getting into if we can in order to avoid a big tangent on truth theory, I couldn't disagree more with the above. Facts obtain independently of anyone's opinion because they're what the world is like whether any people exist or not (at least facts that are not facts about people; this wouldn't include facts about physiology etc. of course). Persons' beliefs, propositions about beliefs, justifications of those propositions, experiments performed with respect to those beliefs, judgments about the way that propositions relate to anything else, etc. have absolutely nothing to do with whether something is a fact or not!

As with the above,
moral elements [no killing, slavery, rape, incest, etc.] are intuited by humans,
when a moral intuition [verifying the moral fact] is verified and justified empirically . . .

Give any specific example of how a moral edict/judgment/whatever-you-might-want-to-call-it would be "justified empirically"

[Peter Holmes]

Facts obtain independently of anyone's opinion because they're what the world is like whether any people exist or not (at least facts that are not facts about people; this wouldn't include facts about physiology etc. of course). Persons' beliefs, propositions about beliefs, justifications of those propositions, experiments performed with respect to those beliefs, judgments about the way that propositions relate to anything else, etc. have absolutely nothing to do with whether something is a fact or not!

Agreed - and nicely expressed.

(I suggest the reservation about 'facts about people' is unnecessary. We're part of 'what the world is like', so facts about us - for example about our physiology - also 'obtain independently of anyone's opinion'.)

[Skepdick]

(I suggest the reservation about 'facts about people' is unnecessary. We're part of 'what the world is like', so facts about us - for example about our physiology - also 'obtain independently of anyone's opinion'.)

This conception is too narrow.

What about facts about our state of mind? Do those not obtain independently of anyone's opinion?

[Skepdick]

Facts obtain independently of anyone's opinion because they're what the world is like whether any people exist or not

This is absolutely incoherent. Yet another failed attempt to externalise the Kantian Noumena.

Facts obtain? Is that not a human assertion about facts? For juxtaposition maybe you have some examples of facts that don't obtain?

What are the necessary conditions for facts to obtain in the absence of people?
What the hell is "necessity" in the absence of people?

What the world is LIKE? Is that not a human comparison about the world?

Without any people there are no such things as "facts".
Without any people nothing is LIKE anything.

(at least facts that are not facts about people; this wouldn't include facts about physiology etc. of course).

So many exceptions in your definition in attempts to rescue it and you still failed.

Is it or isn't it a fact that Paris is the capital of France?

[Veritas Aequitas]

Note the analogy with scientific facts which are independent of any individual's opinion and beliefs.

• Scientific truths [verifying and justifying facts] started as the individual-scientist's opinion and hypothesis based on his intuitions, imaginations or other sources.
  When the scientist proved the hypothesis to himself, then it his convicted beliefs.
  However all scientific truths must be verified and justified empirically and philosophically with the imperative requirements of the scientific framework and system [FSK] before it is accepted as proven theory.
  When it is a justified and accepted scientific truth, then it is independent of of any person's opinions and beliefs.
  I believe you will agree with the above.

Aside from the truth/fact switch here, which I'll avoid getting into if we can in order to avoid a big tangent on truth theory, I couldn't disagree more with the above.
Facts obtain independently of anyone's opinion because they're what the world is like whether any people exist or not (at least facts that are not facts about people; this wouldn't include facts about physiology etc. of course).
Persons' beliefs, propositions about beliefs, justifications of those propositions, experiments performed with respect to those beliefs, judgments about the way that propositions relate to anything else, etc. have absolutely nothing to do with whether something is a fact or not!

Generally we agree personal beliefs and opinions are independent of 'what is a fact', e.g. what is agreed as scientific theory is independent of any individual's opinion and beliefs.

But there is a deeper philosophical consideration.
What you deem as fact is different from what I take to be fact.
The fact is there is no fact-in-itself, as in no thing-in-itself.
I have argued this point quite extensively elsewhere.
The contention is what-is-fact to you is that which you have adopted from analytic philosophy which was passed from the defunct bastardized philosophies of the logical positivists.

see this thread;
There are No Fact-in-Itself
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31591

As with the above,
moral elements [no killing, slavery, rape, incest, etc.] are intuited by humans,
when a moral intuition [verifying the moral fact] is verified and justified empirically . . .

Give any specific example of how a moral edict/judgment/whatever-you-might-want-to-call-it would be "justified empirically"

I am not referring to any personal nor groups' moral edict nor moral judgment.

To be precise what need to be verified and justified empirically and philosophically are the moral facts which are to be used as a moral standard within a moral FSK.

Here is an analogy;

• 1. ALL humans are 'programmed' to breathe else they die.
  2. Biologically, all humans ought to breathe, else they die.
  3. The imperative to breathe can be tested empirically via biological experiments.
  4. The above 'ought_ness to breathe' is represented by the human physical and neural matter, physiological and mental mechanisms and processes.

"Ought" in the above do not refer to a rule that is enforceable by any external authority, rather 'ought' in this sense = proper, correct, in order in alignment to being-human.

The moral fact [ought_ness] 'no human ought to kill humans' can be verified and justified empirically and philosophically just like the above procedures and ultimately it must be reducible to its physical referent.
Note there are many other approaches to justify the existence of the above moral fact.

[Terrapin Station]

2. Biologically, all humans ought to breathe, else they die.

In just the same sense, all humans ought not to breathe, else they remain alive (or "else they do not die of suffocation").

I'm other words, this is not the moral sense of "ought" that you're employing here, it's the "precondition" or prerequisite sense. "Unless x is the case, then y will not be the case." The problem here is that this tells us nothing about morality. For morality to be relevant , we need to be talking about something where at least two options are available, and where one option is what we ought to or should do versus the other option. So yes, option (1) if we don't breathe we'll die, and option (2) if we don't cease breathing we'll remain alive (ceteris paribus)--those are two possibilities with preconditions, but it tells us nothing about which option we ought to pick.

3. The imperative to breathe can be tested empirically via biological experiments.

You can show that there are physiological reactions that are directed towards breathing, but that in no way tells us that we ought to breathe rather than not breathe, that we ought to follow those physiological reactions rather than fight them and stop breathing.

Again, we have to be talking about at least two options, otherwise we're talking about something where there's no moral choice to be made; there's no other option to follow regardless of what anyone might want to do.

"Ought" in the above do not refer to a rule that is enforceable by any external authority, rather 'ought' in this sense = proper, correct, in order in alignment to being-human.

It's not a "proper" or "correct" sense but a precondition sense. It's not proper or correct to breathe versus not breathe.

The moral fact [ought_ness] 'no human ought to kill humans' can be verified and justified empirically and philosophically just like the above procedures

Which means that it can't be verified/justified empirically, because you did no such thing above with respect to anything having to do with morality.

[Skepdick]

I'm other words, this is not the moral sense of "ought" that you're employing here, it's the "precondition" or prerequisite sense. "Unless x is the case, then not y will not be the case.

Semantics.

ALL claims (including moral claims) are preconditioned upon the existence of humans.

if you want to make claims you OUGHT to exist means the same thing as "Unless you exist, then morality will not exist"

[Terrapin Station]

I'm other words, this is not the moral sense of "ought" that you're employing here, it's the "precondition" or prerequisite sense. "Unless x is the case, then not y will not be the case.

Semantics.

Any normative claim about the future is an ought.

This is not meant as a response to you--I'm not wasting time with you any longer, but what you quoted had a typo I've subsequently fixed. (I had an extra "not" in the sentence left over from rewording it.)

[FlashDangerpants]

I'm other words, this is not the moral sense of "ought" that you're employing here

This guy has been shamelessly trying to sneak hypothetical imperatives as categorical ones for years, many have tried to explain this to him, he won't get it, it's a waste of effort.

[Skepdick]

DOUBLE POST

[Skepdick]

I'm not wasting time with you any longer

That's a performative contradiction.

While at it, let me spell it out in the language you would understand.

Philosophising is preconditioned upon the existence of philosophers.

Unless a philosophers exist, then moral philosophy will not exist.

[Terrapin Station]

I'm other words, this is not the moral sense of "ought" that you're employing here

This guy has been shamelessly trying to sneak hypothetical imperatives as categorical ones for years, many have tried to explain this to him, he won't get it, it's a waste of effort.

Yeah, I'm getting the impression he's another person I'm going to have to wind up just functionally ignoring. I'm not that familiar with him yet, so I was hoping he'd be someone one can reason with, but the fact that he regularly ignores stuff one types and keeps just referring to other posts, other threads of his (with content that appears like a prepackaged spiel that he keeps repeating) is making me leery already.

[Skepdick]

I was hoping he'd be someone one can reason with.

Of course, you would (normatively) assume that he's the problem and not you...

You can't reason with anybody because you seem incompetent at reasoning (from where I am looking).
You can only reason with people who share your incompetence. Philosophers.

[Belinda]

All so-called 'moral' claims refer implicitly (usually) to a religious or political ideology in which persons feature.The person may be a personal deity, or a family or clan wielder of power.
All the other claims refer to authorities other than religious or political ones.Among those are technologists, technicians, experts, liars, charlatans, mathematicians, scientists, artists, and persons as subjects of experience.

[Veritas Aequitas]

I'm other words, this is not the moral sense of "ought" that you're employing here

This guy has been shamelessly trying to sneak hypothetical imperatives as categorical ones for years, many have tried to explain this to him, he won't get it, it's a waste of effort.

Yeah, I'm getting the impression he's another person I'm going to have to wind up just functionally ignoring. I'm not that familiar with him yet, so I was hoping he'd be someone one can reason with, but the fact that he regularly ignores stuff one types and keeps just referring to other posts, other threads of his (with content that appears like a prepackaged spiel that he keeps repeating) is making me leery already.

You are too arrogant based on ignorance.

The currency of this forum is sound arguments as I have emphasized all the time, i.e. verified and justified empirically and philosophically. Show me where I have failed on this maxim.

On the other hand you take different views [dogmatic] not based on objectivity [i.e. empirically and philosophically] but rather based on emotional, psychological and ideological reasons pulsating within you which you are ignorant of. That is why people like PantFlasher is throwing tantrums instead of objective arguments and you seem to be following suit.

"prepackaged spiel"??
I am surprised you are so intellectually lacking.

It started from this 312-pages thread on
What could make morality objective?
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=24601

In that discussion [which triggered my interest] there were many issues that were raised that required specialized discussions in the details as a separate topic.
This is a mark of wanting the discussion to be intellectually serious and rigorous.

It would be very stupid & incompetent of me to wallow in a Posts-Salad-of-312-pages and searching for 'needles in the haystack' whenever a serious point is brought up.

Thus, so far I have raised more than 50 separate threads within "Ethical Theory" which are necessary and relevant to support my points in detail and for future reference so I don't have to repeat every time the same point is raised again and again [which PH did regularly] or in response to newcomers on the same issues I had discussed.

Thanks to Peter Holmes' persistence and Sculptor's provocation, I have added >1200 files [books, papers and articles] in >60 folders related to the Philosophy of Morality and Ethics.

Don't be too arrogant, I don't believe I will learn anything new from you except I traded posts with you merely for the purpose of refreshing the knowledge I have compiled.