Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Wed Feb 01, 2023 9:48 pm
Non-moral premises can't entail moral conclusions. And your theory's premise(s) are non-moral.
I don't think that follows -- the way I see it there are two distinct intellectual disciplines dealing with the same issue, but approaching it from two different angles. One is subjective, as it references personal values, preferences, experiences and intuitions to inform us about what's morally right and wrong.
The other one is objective, as it's derived from logical principles, without relying on subjective values and such.
Now, the subjective (and inter-subjective) approach is fairly vague, imprecise and inconsistent, so it's difficult to work with. However, we "know" a lot about it intuitively, as it's part of the world that we experience daily.
The objective approach is strictly logical, thus making it consistent and repeatable, with predictive and explanatory power (well, at least that's the expectation). The question is what it should be based on, such that it leads to useful and sensible conclusions.
I'm certainly not the first person to come up with the idea of an objective moral framework -- Utilitarianism, Kantian Ethics and Randian Objectivism are some examples. The problem with these approaches is that they lead to strange conclusions that often contradict our intuitive, subjective understanding of morality. Furthermore, they don't provide us with a complete tool set, to enable us to apply them to every conceivable moral problem.
I argue that this isn't the case in my proposed approach -- it consistently aligns well with our moral intuitions and can be applied to any situation.
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Wed Feb 01, 2023 9:48 pm
And - (not sure if I made this response then) - facts (or at least premises) about why we have moral values and codes aren't
moral facts, so they don't and can't establish moral objectivity.
Well, to clarify: what I'm saying is that the approach I'm presenting informs us about the rights and duties that are present in any given circumstance, as well as their state (whether they're "valid" or not). So sure, we can say that this in itself does not constitute "moral" facts.
However, rights and duties -- I would argue -- are the building blocks of morality as we understand it, subjectively. Therefore, an objective framework which maps well to our subjective understanding of morality can reasonably be considered
moral, in the sense of "pertaining to morality". If we subjectively accept that respecting valid, legitimate rights is moral, we can therefore talk about "moral facts", in the same sense as we can talk about mathematical facts if we accept the validity of mathematical principles (which are just as "optional" as moral principles).
Just to be clear: I'm not saying that the approach I propose actually describes "physical reality". It simply happens to lead to consistent and useful insights pertaining to moral questions, when applied properly. That's all.