There are Objective Moral Facts

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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Astro Cat
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Astro Cat »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 9:19 am
Astro Cat wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 5:15 am For instance, I'm not sure whether "A fact is objective when conditioned upon a specific FSK" is true (as I'm still unsure exactly what an FSK is in this context).
If you tell him you're a physicist he'll take the time to try and impress you with many detail as the science "FSK" thing is a big deal to him.

Ultimately, if you sit down and create a scoring system, Vestigial Arquebus believes THAT by itself is sufficient to convert any subjective valuation into objective, measurable, dependable fact. Thus he has argued that Miss Universe is a measurement system that collects true objective data about feminine beauty.

Attempting to get this idea across and have it gain traction is why he has launched about 90 threads here.
Typing on a tiny screen.

I feel like we’re in a buddy cop movie and I’m the rookie, you’re pointing out all the usual suspects to me lol.
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Astro Cat
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Astro Cat »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 9:13 am You may have been misled by the term 'net-negative' above.
Note I had used 'net-negative' and not 'net-positive'.
If I had used 'net-positive' it would be applicable to the casuistry trolley dilemma. My definition of evil as 'net-negative' has nothing to do with consequentialism nor pragmatism.

My approach to evil would be to rate 'genocide of humanity with WMDs' at say 99/100 degrees of evilness, small scale genocides at 90/100, murder at 80/100 and petty violence at 5/100. From the above, we will tabulate [appx] a taxonomy of evil acts.
This would necessarily be a subjective system, though: there is no universal unit of evil. Some things people will perceive as being wrong that others won't perceive as being a moral question at all (e.g., some people think homosexuality is quite wicked, while others wonder why it's considered a moral question whatsoever). Some things people will think are very "bad" that other people will think is not so bad at all, or even good.

We might end up with some congruency on very large scales with things like murder and theft: a lot of humans tend to agree about these things in very simple contexts. But as soon as those contexts become even a little bit more complex, there's going to be a lot of disagreement. You couldn't poll everyone on earth twice between a few days and even get the same answers.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: A FSK is a Framework and System of Knowledge or FSR -of Reality.
All knowledge claims [in degrees of credibility] must be conditioned upon a specific FSK. Otherwise the claim would be mere nonsense.
A scientific fact when conditioned upon the scientific FSK is true scientifically.

Note from the WIKI article;
For example,
"This sentence contains words." accurately describes a linguistic fact, and
"The sun is a star" accurately describes an astronomical fact. Further,
"Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States" and "Abraham Lincoln was assassinated" both accurately describe historical facts.

All the above facts are conditioned by their respective FSK with its own degree of credibility in comparison to the scientific FSK as the standard.
The linguistic fact by a linguistic FSK, an astronomical fact by an astronomical FSK, a legal fact by a legal FSK and so on.
At present the most credible facts are from the scientific FSK whilst they are not absolute facts/truths.
I am still not quite sure what an FSK is. When we evaluate facts for their truth or falsity, we're usually looking at justification and warrant -- for which we use epistemology. We evaluate whether an utterance is logical, whether it's internally and externally consistent. We evaluate whether utterances are cognizable by being references to some sensible referent that we can compare to reality to see if it corresponds to reality.

I don't know what the difference is between a linguistic FSK or an astronomical FSK because the process is the same for truth evaluation (the objects under evaluation just differ). Can you explain from start to finish what an FSK is maybe, some particular one?
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Morality is basically avoiding evil [as defined] and promoting good in relation to humans only.
Otherwise we should not kill non-humans like bacteria, viruses, insects and killing of non-humans animals for food.
There are other non-moral considerations in not killing and harming other sentient creatures.
Hmm, well people have different values regarding all of these things. To some people, humans are all that matter if they value anthropocentrism: they may not even feel an ounce of pity for slaughtering even highly intelligent non-humans like dolphins. To other people, they might feel some guilt over eating meat, but not enough to take on radical diets (or they may use mitigating facts like "it would devastate the environment if everyone were a vegan" to justify not taking a perfectly vegetarian stance).

I think a description of how morality works is that people hold values, they hold those values because of some combination of nature/nurture, and those values lead them to form oughts using hypothetical imperatives (if I value x, then I ought to do y). This explains why people disagree on what's right or wrong (because people hold different values), it describes reality.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Astro Cat wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 9:36 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 9:19 am
Astro Cat wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 5:15 am For instance, I'm not sure whether "A fact is objective when conditioned upon a specific FSK" is true (as I'm still unsure exactly what an FSK is in this context).
If you tell him you're a physicist he'll take the time to try and impress you with many detail as the science "FSK" thing is a big deal to him.

Ultimately, if you sit down and create a scoring system, Vestigial Arquebus believes THAT by itself is sufficient to convert any subjective valuation into objective, measurable, dependable fact. Thus he has argued that Miss Universe is a measurement system that collects true objective data about feminine beauty.

Attempting to get this idea across and have it gain traction is why he has launched about 90 threads here.
Typing on a tiny screen.

I feel like we’re in a buddy cop movie and I’m the rookie, you’re pointing out all the usual suspects to me lol.
Bad news, I'm two weeks from retirement, it will fall to you to continue the vendetta when Vestibule Architect murders me. I will haunt everyone until my bones are avenged,my ghost will be impolite.
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Astro Cat
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Astro Cat »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 11:28 am
“Astro Cat” wrote:
Typing on a tiny screen.

I feel like we’re in a buddy cop movie and I’m the rookie, you’re pointing out all the usual suspects to me lol.
Bad news, I'm two weeks from retirement, it will fall to you to continue the vendetta when Vestibule Architect murders me. I will haunt everyone until my bones are avenged,my ghost will be impolite.
That’s not how this works. You’re supposed to show me the ropes until I find out you’re on the take, at which point you give a speech about real life on the forum streets, THEN you die right as I start redeeming your character arc
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Astro Cat wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 12:52 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 11:28 am
“Astro Cat” wrote:
Typing on a tiny screen.

I feel like we’re in a buddy cop movie and I’m the rookie, you’re pointing out all the usual suspects to me lol.
Bad news, I'm two weeks from retirement, it will fall to you to continue the vendetta when Vestibule Architect murders me. I will haunt everyone until my bones are avenged,my ghost will be impolite.
That’s not how this works. You’re supposed to show me the ropes until I find out you’re on the take, at which point you give a speech about real life on the forum streets, THEN you die right as I start redeeming your character arc
Well, luckily I have done many reprehensible things. For instance I once tried to investigate the numbers VA assigns to those "evilness units" he is """""measuring"""""" and we got as far as counting how many badnesses out of 100 it is to piss in the baptismal font before a christening versus doing so while the baby is actually getting dunked. He ended up trying to factor in some eastern practice of drinking piss medicinally for some reason.

So I can confess to generally bringing down the tone, as well as contributing to the moral decline of a fucking idiot.
Advocate
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Advocate »

Objective moral facts include at least:

Survival is a prerequisite for all meaningful goals.
Truth is a prerequisite for all non-arbitrary goals.
Sustainability is a prerequisite for all non-temporary goals.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Astro Cat wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 10:01 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 9:13 am You may have been misled by the term 'net-negative' above.
Note I had used 'net-negative' and not 'net-positive'.
If I had used 'net-positive' it would be applicable to the casuistry trolley dilemma. My definition of evil as 'net-negative' has nothing to do with consequentialism nor pragmatism.

My approach to evil would be to rate 'genocide of humanity with WMDs' at say 99/100 degrees of evilness, small scale genocides at 90/100, murder at 80/100 and petty violence at 5/100. From the above, we will tabulate [appx] a taxonomy of evil acts.
This would necessarily be a subjective system, though: there is no universal unit of evil. Some things people will perceive as being wrong that others won't perceive as being a moral question at all (e.g., some people think homosexuality is quite wicked, while others wonder why it's considered a moral question whatsoever). Some things people will think are very "bad" that other people will think is not so bad at all, or even good.

We might end up with some congruency on very large scales with things like murder and theft: a lot of humans tend to agree about these things in very simple contexts. But as soon as those contexts become even a little bit more complex, there's going to be a lot of disagreement. You couldn't poll everyone on earth twice between a few days and even get the same answers.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: A FSK is a Framework and System of Knowledge or FSR -of Reality.
All knowledge claims [in degrees of credibility] must be conditioned upon a specific FSK. Otherwise the claim would be mere nonsense.
A scientific fact when conditioned upon the scientific FSK is true scientifically.

Note from the WIKI article;
For example,
"This sentence contains words." accurately describes a linguistic fact, and
"The sun is a star" accurately describes an astronomical fact. Further,
"Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States" and "Abraham Lincoln was assassinated" both accurately describe historical facts.

All the above facts are conditioned by their respective FSK with its own degree of credibility in comparison to the scientific FSK as the standard.
The linguistic fact by a linguistic FSK, an astronomical fact by an astronomical FSK, a legal fact by a legal FSK and so on.
At present the most credible facts are from the scientific FSK whilst they are not absolute facts/truths.
I am still not quite sure what an FSK is. When we evaluate facts for their truth or falsity, we're usually looking at justification and warrant -- for which we use epistemology. We evaluate whether an utterance is logical, whether it's internally and externally consistent. We evaluate whether utterances are cognizable by being references to some sensible referent that we can compare to reality to see if it corresponds to reality.

I don't know what the difference is between a linguistic FSK or an astronomical FSK because the process is the same for truth evaluation (the objects under evaluation just differ). Can you explain from start to finish what an FSK is maybe, some particular one?
OK, hope this will get through;
A FSK is a Framework and System of Knowledge or FSR -of Reality.
The scientific FSK is a specific Framework and System of Knowledge with its assumptions, scientific methods, processes, peer review, and other conditions which scientists must comply with for their conclusions to qualify as scientific facts or truths.
As such that 'water is H20' or any other scientific truths must always be conditioned upon the scientific FSK.
I simply cannot claim 'water is H20' because 'I said so' or 'my friends said so'. Rather it has to be 'science said so' with reference to the scientific FSK.

The point is every knowledge claim must be conditioned to a specific FSK with its specific conditions, assumptions, processes, methods, etc. Each FSK has its degree of credibility, i.e. the scientific FSK being the most credible while the theistic FSK is at the other end of lower credibility.
The scientific FSK, [subset Physics] justified the universe is continually being created after the Big Bang.
The theistic FSK [Abrahamic] insist the universe and all things are created by a God.
Can you see the difference between the scientific FSK and the theistic FSK which is distinctly contrasting.

That Ted Bundy is a convicted murderer is a legal fact, but it is only valid within a legal FSK under the US Constitution and not of other nations.
There are other FSK [framework and system of knowledge] e.g. economics, geographical, financial, political, arts, and so on and each FSK will have its own conditions.

So we have the moral FSK generating moral facts which will have its own conditions and which in my case the moral FSK will have near equivalent credibility to the scientific FSK.
We evaluate whether utterances are cognizable by being references to some sensible referent that we can compare to reality to see if it corresponds to reality.
When you make reference to some sensible referent you will have to use some sort of FSK and in most cases it will have to be the scientific FSK and therefore correspondence to scientific facts.
If it is based on merely logical analysis, these are merely half-truths and thus not reliable.
Logic is based on Half-Truths
viewtopic.php?p=571101#p571101
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Morality is basically avoiding evil [as defined] and promoting good in relation to humans only.
Otherwise we should not kill non-humans like bacteria, viruses, insects and killing of non-humans animals for food.
There are other non-moral considerations in not killing and harming other sentient creatures.
Hmm, well people have different values regarding all of these things. To some people, humans are all that matter if they value anthropocentrism: they may not even feel an ounce of pity for slaughtering even highly intelligent non-humans like dolphins. To other people, they might feel some guilt over eating meat, but not enough to take on radical diets (or they may use mitigating facts like "it would devastate the environment if everyone were a vegan" to justify not taking a perfectly vegetarian stance).

I think a description of how morality works is that people hold values, they hold those values because of some combination of nature/nurture, and those values lead them to form oughts using hypothetical imperatives (if I value x, then I ought to do y). This explains why people disagree on what's right or wrong (because people hold different values), it describes reality.
Note my reply in the other thread.
For me, morality is not about what is right or wrong which is obviously subjective.
What is morality [moral oughtness] must be grounded on real physical things, i.e. in the DNA, brain and human nature.

I gave an analogy of the inherent and innate drive to breathe which is embedded as a physical drive in the DNA and the brain.
It is present in ALL humans, thus objective and no one can deny its existence.

Even if someone is suicidal, he cannot deny he has an inherent need to survive [avoid premature death] but it is only due to his abnormal conditions he has this drive to commit suicide.
It is because of the inherent objectivity to survive that the medical community are trying to cure depression and inhibit suicidal impulses so that one can align to the inherent innate impulse to live [at least till the inevitable].

A better analogy is the drive for hunger which is inherent in all humans.
Even someone decide to fast for 10 days, 100 days or fast to death, [which is subjective] he cannot deny the existence of the inherent physical hunger-mechanism within himself and present in all human beings [which is universal thus objective].

Thus whatever a person judge something to be right or wrong [which is subjective] he cannot deny the existence of the inherent physical moral-mechanism within himself and present in all human beings [which is universal thus objective].
The latter is the moral fact which is a physical referent traceable to the DNA and neural correlates in the brain.

From the above, it is translatable to the following Kantian mission and vision, i.e.
1. What can I know? epistemology
2. What can I do? Moral actions based on moral facts
3. What can I hope for? 1 & 2 will lead to Perpetual Peace.

You will note all the other discussions of morality re what is right or wrong leads to nowhere and has no direction of humanity's continual progress towards perpetual peace.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Astro Cat wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 9:36 am Typing on a tiny screen.
I feel like we’re in a buddy cop movie and I’m the rookie, you’re pointing out all the usual suspects to me lol.
Don't get misguided by a psychopath.
What you need to is to hold onto the ropes of critical thinking [sound rational arguments], evidence-based justifications along the philosophical path.
popeye1945
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by popeye1945 »

There are no moral objective facts. There is indeed nothing which is objective even your everyday reality is a biological readout, meaning it is a subjective interpretation of bodily experiences. Nothing in and of itself in our apparent reality has meaning in the absence of a conscious biological subject. Any meaning you can think of out there is because of the way it has affected your body, this is what object is, biological readout and subjective, you live in a dreamlike world. It is true or false to your given biology and if you wish to experience a different apparent reality simply alter the state of your present biology.
Peter Holmes
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Peter Holmes »

Advocate wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 12:45 am Objective moral facts include at least:

Survival is a prerequisite for all meaningful goals.
Truth is a prerequisite for all non-arbitrary goals.
Sustainability is a prerequisite for all non-temporary goals.
1 A moral assertion is one that says something is morally right or wrong, or that we should or shouldn't do something because it's morally right or wrong. The above aren't even moral assertions, so they can't assert the existence of so-called moral facts.

2 Non-moral premises can't entail moral conclusions. So the above have no necessary moral implications.

3 There are no subjective facts, so the expression 'objective fact' is redundant.
popeye1945
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by popeye1945 »

"There is no such thing as right or wrong, only thinking makes it so." Billy Shakespeare

"To god all things are right and good, only to man somethings are and somethings are not." Heraclitus

The physical world is not objective, meaning is not objective, so how could there be objective moral facts.
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Advocate »

[quote="Peter Holmes" post_id=593538 time=1662103013 user_id=15099]
1 A moral assertion is one that says something is morally right or wrong, or that we should or shouldn't do something because it's morally right or wrong. The above aren't even moral assertions, so they can't assert the existence of so-called moral facts.

2 Non-moral premises can't entail moral conclusions. So the above have no necessary moral implications.

3 There are no subjective facts, so the expression 'objective fact' is redundant.
[/quote]

Morality is about the sort of actions that lead to the best outcomes. Regardless of what you plug into that scenario, there are facts about it The fact that morality is contingent on priorities has nothing to do with whether moral facts can be known.

IF your goals are meaningful, non-arbitrary, and non-temporary. THEN you must value survival, truth, and sustainability. That's universally true and it applies to all moral ideas. Since it applies to all meaningful goals, it's meaningfully true. I don't know what you think you're after, but skepticism in the face of an actual pragmatic answer is intellectually regressive.
Last edited by Advocate on Fri Sep 02, 2022 4:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Peter Holmes
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by Peter Holmes »

Advocate wrote: Fri Sep 02, 2022 3:57 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: Fri Sep 02, 2022 8:16 am 1 A moral assertion is one that says something is morally right or wrong, or that we should or shouldn't do something because it's morally right or wrong. The above aren't even moral assertions, so they can't assert the existence of so-called moral facts.

2 Non-moral premises can't entail moral conclusions. So the above have no necessary moral implications.

3 There are no subjective facts, so the expression 'objective fact' is redundant.
Morality is about the sort of actions that lead to the best outcomes. Regardless of what you plug into that scenario, there are facts about it The fact that morality is contingent on priorities has nothing to do with whether moral facts can be known.

IF your goals are meaningful, non-arbitrary, and non-temporary. THEN you must value survival, truth, and sustainability. That's universally true and it applies to all moral ideas. Since it applies to all meaningful goals, it's meaningfully true. I don't know what you think you're after, but skepticism in the face of an actual pragmatic answer is intellectually regressive.
Nope. Morality is about the rightness or wrongness of behaviour. Any dictionary will tell you. Stuff about goals - such as survival, truth (?) and sustainability - is irrelevant, because an action consistent with a goal can be morally right or wrong.

I'm not just skeptical about moral objectivism - the existence of moral facts. Such things can't exist. The expression 'moral fact' is incoherent.
promethean75
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by promethean75 »

"because an action consistent with a goal can be morally right or wrong."


[Redacted by iMod]
popeye1945
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Re: There are Objective Moral Facts

Post by popeye1945 »

promethean75 wrote: Fri Sep 02, 2022 9:56 pm "because an action consistent with a goal can be morally right or wrong."

Subjectively!
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