Plato's Moral Realism

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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Veritas Aequitas
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Plato's Moral Realism

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Moral realism (also ethical realism) is the position that ethical sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world (that is, features independent of subjective opinion), some of which may be true to the extent that they report those features accurately.

Many philosophers claim that moral realism may be dated back at least to Plato as a philosophical doctrine,[3] and that it is a fully defensible form of moral doctrine.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_realism
Plato takes his argument to support moral realism. That’s the view that the truth of moral beliefs is independent of what anyone thinks, much like the truth about other matters of objective fact.
http://carneades.pomona.edu/2009-PoP/nts-0921.shtml
Realism / objectivism is often defended by appeal to the normative or political implications of believing that there are universal moral truths that transcend what any individual or even an entire culture might think about them (see sections two and eight). Realist positions, however, disagree about what precisely moral values are if they are causally independent from human belief or culture. According to some realists, moral values are abstract properties that are “objective” in the same sense that geometrical or mathematical properties might be thought to be objective. For example, it might be thought that the sentence “Dogs are canines” is true in a way that is independent from what humans think about it, without thereby believing that there is a literal, physical thing called “dogs”— for, dogs-in-general (rather than a particular dog, say, Fido) is an abstract concept.

Some moral realists envision moral values as real without being physical in precisely this way; and because of the similarity between this view and Plato’s famous Theory of Forms, such moral realists are also sometimes called moral Platonists.

According to such realists, moral values are real without being reducible to any other kinds of properties or facts: moral values instead, according to these realists, are ontologically unique (or sui generis) and irreducible to other kinds of properties.

Proponents of this type of Platonist or sui generis version of moral realism include G.E. Moore (1903), W.D. Ross (1930), W.D. Hudson (1967), Iris Murdoch (1970, arguably), and Russ Shafer-Landau (2003). Tom Regan (1986) also discusses the effect of this metaethical position on the general intellectual climate of the fin de siècle movement known as the Bloomsbury Group.
I do NOT agree with Plato's Moralism because I believe his universal and forms are illusory and fictitious.

My position is 'Moral is Objective' because there are justified objective moral facts conditioned upon a moral FSK which adopt scientific facts at its major inputs.

Views?
Last edited by Veritas Aequitas on Tue Mar 21, 2023 9:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Plato's Moral Realism

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Plato's Moral Realism: The Discovery of the Presuppositions of Ethics
https://www.amazon.com/Platos-Moral-Rea ... 0813219809
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Plato's Moral Realism
https://www.amazon.com/Platos-Moral-Rea ... 1009329987
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Harbal
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Re: Plato's Moral Realism

Post by Harbal »

I'm puzzled, VA, you haven't mentioned Peter Holmes (and gang). :?
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: Plato's Moral Realism

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Harbal wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 9:15 am I'm puzzled, VA, you haven't mentioned Peter Holmes (and gang). :?
Perhaps he's gathering forces to assault the only Platonist on this forum .... the mighty and terrifying Nick_A
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Harbal
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Re: Plato's Moral Realism

Post by Harbal »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 10:26 am
Harbal wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 9:15 am I'm puzzled, VA, you haven't mentioned Peter Holmes (and gang). :?
Perhaps he's gathering forces to assault the only Platonist on this forum .... the mighty and terrifying Nick_A
I haven't seen Nick for a while. It seems ages since he visited us down here in the cave.
Iwannaplato
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Re: Plato's Moral Realism

Post by Iwannaplato »

I found the two covers of books on Plato's Moral realism to be quite convincing arguments.
I no longer wonder why
1) VA is disdainful of realism...except when it comes to morals
nor
2) he believes that objectivity is intersubjective agreement.
Cause Plato sure didn't believe that and so this thread would be robbing Peter to pay Paul.
And VA would never do that, even implicitly.

This thread would then be like this:

Hey Peter, Nyah, Nyah, important people like Plato disagree with you [and, well, I guess me, but for different reasons. Plato was really smart when it came to morals but not so much with the whole forms thing so I can appeal to one aspect of his authority, alright, yeah]
popeye1945
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Re: Plato's Moral Realism

Post by popeye1945 »

Apparent reality is biologically dependent, read a subjective property, it is a self-simulation, a biological readout of the effect on the body of the energies that surround us. To say that something exists/objects in the absence of a conscious subject is nonsense, that can never be proven. Certainly, subjectively is the only way we know the apparent reality of our everyday existence; to say it exists separately is again nonsense. The environment/energies play biology like an instrument, the melody it plays upon us is our reactions to said energies/environment. We are reactionary creatures, that is our basic nature as something that is part of something larger than ourselves, reaction is participation in and of the world, we are not separate from the world. So, to say something exists in the absence of subjective opinion again is nonsense.
Peter Holmes
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Re: Plato's Moral Realism

Post by Peter Holmes »

popeye1945 wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 9:09 am To say that something exists/objects in the absence of a conscious subject is nonsense, that can never be proven.
Then how can the existence of a conscious subject be known or proven? This looks like special pleading.
We are reactionary creatures, that is our basic nature as something that is part of something larger than ourselves, reaction is participation in and of the world, we are not separate from the world.
If there is something 'larger than ourselves' to which we react, and in which we participate, it must exist independently from us. So the 'no subject = no object' claim is false.
popeye1945
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Re: Plato's Moral Realism

Post by popeye1945 »

Peter Holmes wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 10:21 am
popeye1945 wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 9:09 am To say that something exists/objects in the absence of a conscious subject is nonsense, that can never be proven.
Then how can the existence of a conscious subject be known or proven? This looks like special pleading.

Technically, no object including your own body can be proven to exist outside subjectivity, subjectivity is the only way we can know the world of objects.

We are reactionary creatures, that is our basic nature as something that is part of something larger than ourselves, reaction is participation in and of the world, we are not separate from the world.
If there is something 'larger than ourselves' to which we react, and in which we participate, it must exist independently from us. So the 'no subject = no object' claim is false.
You are talking about the nature of being of the world, and it is well known in philosophy that subject and object can never be separated. The union of subject and object is apparent reality. Take the object/world away and the subject/consciousness ceases to be, take away the subject and the world as object ceases to be. These two are discussed as separated in philosophy in order to understand their relationship, their interdependence, interdependence within subjective consciousness. We are part of that larger reality, the physical world, to which we are linked as reactive creatures ever changing and adapting to a slowly changing world. Objects, any objects cannot be proven to exist outside subjective consciousness.
Peter Holmes
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Re: Plato's Moral Realism

Post by Peter Holmes »

popeye1945 wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 5:41 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 10:21 am
popeye1945 wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 9:09 am To say that something exists/objects in the absence of a conscious subject is nonsense, that can never be proven.
Then how can the existence of a conscious subject be known or proven? This looks like special pleading.

Technically, no object including your own body can be proven to exist outside subjectivity, subjectivity is the only way we can know the world of objects.

We are reactionary creatures, that is our basic nature as something that is part of something larger than ourselves, reaction is participation in and of the world, we are not separate from the world.
If there is something 'larger than ourselves' to which we react, and in which we participate, it must exist independently from us. So the 'no subject = no object' claim is false.
You are talking about the nature of being of the world, and it is well known in philosophy that subject and object can never be separated. The union of subject and object is apparent reality. Take the object/world away and the subject/consciousness ceases to be, take away the subject and the world as object ceases to be. These two are discussed as separated in philosophy in order to understand their relationship, their interdependence, interdependence within subjective consciousness. We are part of that larger reality, the physical world, to which we are linked as reactive creatures ever changing and adapting to a slowly changing world. Objects, any objects cannot be proven to exist outside subjective consciousness.
I disagree. 'Take away the subject and the world as object' would carry on just as it did before conscious subjects turned up, would have carried on had no conscious subjects turned up, and will carry on when conscious subjects are gone. I think yours is another version of VA's peculiar anthropocentric theory.

Think of humans as just a little more developed and intelligent apes - which is what we are - and this subject-object myth fades away. We're not embodied souls or minds or consciousnesses. Ours was no special creation.
popeye1945
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Re: Plato's Moral Realism

Post by popeye1945 »

Peter Holmes wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 6:28 pm
popeye1945 wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 5:41 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 10:21 am

Then how can the existence of a conscious subject be known or proven? This looks like special pleading.

If there is something 'larger than ourselves' to which we react, and in which we participate, it must exist independently from us. So the 'no subject = no object' claim is false.
You are talking about the nature of being of the world, and it is well known in philosophy that subject and object can never be separated. The union of subject and object is apparent reality. Take the object/world away and the subject/consciousness ceases to be, take away the subject and the world as object ceases to be. These two are discussed as separated in philosophy in order to understand their relationship, their interdependence, interdependence within subjective consciousness. We are part of that larger reality, the physical world, to which we are linked as reactive creatures ever changing and adapting to a slowly changing world. Objects, any objects cannot be proven to exist outside subjective consciousness.
I disagree. 'Take away the subject and the world as object' would carry on just as it did before conscious subjects turned up, would have carried on had no conscious subjects turned up, and will carry on when conscious subjects are gone. I think yours is another version of VA's peculiar anthropocentric theory.

Think of humans as just a little more developed and intelligent apes - which is what we are - and this subject-object myth fades away. We're not embodied souls or minds or consciousnesses.
The only way you know apparent reality is on a subjective level. Your everyday reality is a subjective property. In subjective consciousness's absence, necessarily that subjective world no longer exists. It is a self-simulation in the sense that apparent reality is how object/energy alters your biology; it is then, a biological readout. From this, you know more about the effect of the object/energy than you know about the object/energy.

Peter, you don't believe we are embodied with minds or consciousness-----really? This is really the wrong topic for you.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Plato's Moral Realism

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Peter Holmes wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 10:21 am
popeye1945 wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 9:09 am To say that something exists/objects in the absence of a conscious subject is nonsense, that can never be proven.
Then how can the existence of a conscious subject be known or proven? This looks like special pleading.
This is where your ignorance of your own self is exposed.

Are you familiar with self-awareness?
If there is something 'larger than ourselves' to which we react, and in which we participate, it must exist independently from us. So the 'no subject = no object' claim is false.
Even a newborn has an implicit awareness of 'it must exist independently from us' i.e. his cry for assistance from the external to facilitate his survival, the mother, the mother's nipple, etc.
This 'it must exist independently from us' [subject vs object dichotomy] is the default consciousness from birth to facilitate his survival, thus not expected to change till death.
This becomes common sense, but note below re Professor Jim Al-Khalili's comments below.
But when this subject vs object dichotomy is clung on dogmatically as an ideology [as you do], it had [will continue to] contributed to terrible evils upon humanity.

But if a newborn can philosophize, he would realize he is not absolutely independent from the external world in many other perspectives, firstly the newborn is dependent on his mother, parents and others to facilitate his survival.

For a newborn, whatever is [exists] is dependent of what is already programmed in the DNA he [& all humans] is born with.
This higher level of consideration of reality means that what exists to a human cannot be absolutely independent from the human conditions.

'no subject = no object'?
Btw, I have mentioned this a 'million times'.
The Moon Does Not Exist If No Humans 'Look' at It
posting.php?mode=edit&f=8&p=624050
The principles involved won the 2022 Nobel Prize for Physics.

Here at 54:30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISdBAf-ysI0
Professor Jim Al-Khalili stated,
"In some strange sense, it really does suggest the moon doesn't exists when we are not looking. It truly defies common sense."

Note:
1. Reality is definitely larger than oneself.
2. Reality is all-there-is which comprise all things and oneself therein.
3. So oneself and all things are intricately part and parcel of reality.
4. All things cannot be independent of reality. [3]
5. Oneself cannot be independent of reality. [3]
6. Therefore oneself cannot be independent of all things within reality.

Here is an "if" as a clue;
If say, a 'piece of iceberg' in the ocean is given self-awareness and it claim it is independent from the waters surrounding it and the whole ocean of water.
Would that be absolutely true?

It is only true if based on the perspective of self-awareness to enable a consciousness of independence.
But it is not true in the ultimate sense, because that individual piece of iceberg is merely a cluster of denser H2O molecules which is interchanging with all other H2O molecules of the ocean. As such that piece of iceberg cannot claim it is absolutely independent from its external environment [ocean] and other pieces of iceberg.

Similarly;
It is true in the conventional sense, an individual human being with self-awareness is aware that it is independent from its external environment and things. This awareness is essential for his survival.

But in the ultimate sense, that individual human being with self-awareness is merely a cluster of denser atoms/quarks within the whole soup of atoms/quarks within the whole of reality.
In this sense, that supposedly independent self-aware individual human being cannot be absolutely independent of its external environment and all things within reality.
popeye1945
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Re: Plato's Moral Realism

Post by popeye1945 »

Could you be a little more succinct, when I spoke of being part of something larger than one's self, I was referring to being of the world, the world being of the cosmos; and who knows what after that? Pointing out specifically where my reasoning goes astray is much better than inundating me with reference materials.
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Agent Smith
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Re: Plato's Moral Realism

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Peter Holmes
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Re: Plato's Moral Realism

Post by Peter Holmes »

popeye1945 wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 8:13 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 6:28 pm
popeye1945 wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 5:41 pm

You are talking about the nature of being of the world, and it is well known in philosophy that subject and object can never be separated. The union of subject and object is apparent reality. Take the object/world away and the subject/consciousness ceases to be, take away the subject and the world as object ceases to be. These two are discussed as separated in philosophy in order to understand their relationship, their interdependence, interdependence within subjective consciousness. We are part of that larger reality, the physical world, to which we are linked as reactive creatures ever changing and adapting to a slowly changing world. Objects, any objects cannot be proven to exist outside subjective consciousness.
I disagree. 'Take away the subject and the world as object' would carry on just as it did before conscious subjects turned up, would have carried on had no conscious subjects turned up, and will carry on when conscious subjects are gone. I think yours is another version of VA's peculiar anthropocentric theory.

Think of humans as just a little more developed and intelligent apes - which is what we are - and this subject-object myth fades away. We're not embodied souls or minds or consciousnesses.
The only way you know apparent reality is on a subjective level.
To say we perceive, know and describe reality in a human way is not to say reality is what we perceive, know and describe. But that's what the 'no subject = no object' idea implies.


Your everyday reality is a subjective property. In subjective consciousness's absence, necessarily that subjective world no longer exists.
But so what? That doesn't mean that what we call reality disappears or doesn't exist if we're not experiencing it - or if it's not being perceived. That is Berkeley's barmy idealism - empiricist skepticism at its dreadful work.
It is a self-simulation in the sense that apparent reality is how object/energy alters your biology; it is then, a biological readout. From this, you know more about the effect of the object/energy than you know about the object/energy.
My 'biology' is object/energy, and there's nothing abstract or non-physical about it.

Peter, you don't believe we are embodied with minds or consciousness-----really? This is really the wrong topic for you.
Popeye, your model is incorrect. There's no reason to think there is - or is evidence for - a duality or polarity or dichotomy between mind and matter or body, between the subject and the object, between consciousness and the object of consciousness.

The claim that we are 'embodied' minds or consciousnesses or subjectivities is a quasi-religious residue. It goes back to and way beyond Descartes. The mind is the soul secularised and dressed up with scientific solemnity.

But perhaps you do have evidence for the existence of any abstract or non-physical thing. Perhaps you can explain how a non-physical cause can have a physical effect - or how a physical effect can be evidence for a non-physical cause - without an appeal to magic.

But if not - whence and whither your subject/object theory?
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