What could make morality objective?

[Sculptor]

But you said, "Quantum information doesn't die and neither should we if we can quantize ourselves. If something doesn't die, it must stay alive. If that is not what you meant, OK, but I only had what you said to go by.

What you should realise here is that the phrase "quantize outselves" is meaningless BS

[Skepdick]

That's what sacrifice looks like in practice. A priori, not a posteriori. Nobody has the foresight of whether they will live or die when they choose violence over subjugation.

Call it whatever you like. It's not a sacrifice to take a small risk for a greater gain. If you want to call it, "sacrifice," it's no skin off my nose.

Sure. It's just a word.

What is it that you gain when you die but your wife lives?

[RCSaunders]

What you should realise here is that the phrase "quantize ourselves" is meaningless BS

Yes, I should. It's just interesting what people can actually believe.

[RCSaunders]

That's what sacrifice looks like in practice. A priori, not a posteriori. Nobody has the foresight of whether they will live or die when they choose violence over subjugation.

Call it whatever you like. It's not a sacrifice to take a small risk for a greater gain. If you want to call it, "sacrifice," it's no skin off my nose.

Sure. It's just a word.

What is it that you gain when you die but your wife lives?

As I already explained here, I have no intention of dying.

[Skepdick]

As I already explained here, I have no intention of dying.

Obviously! Nobody has the intention of dying in such a situation. Everybody knows their intent does not dictate the outcome. You know damn well that there is an element of luck to everything that you do and in escalating the situation you risk death.

That is the price to pay - that is THE definition of risk vs reward, cost vs benefit.

So, knowing that you risk the cost of death, what is "IT" that you would selfishly gain IF you died?

[Veritas Aequitas]

"Value" if it exists objectively at all, is something only secure in the assessment made by God Himself. Among humans, "value" is a verb...it's "valuing," a thing we do, as we try to figure out what the objective value of a thing might really be. That's why so many of us can get it wrong so often, and why so many estimates of higher and lower value differ.

God? When, Where and How is God a possibility to be real empirically and philosophically.
Where is your proof God exists as real empirically and philosophically.
Note my argument;

• God is an Impossibility to be Real
  viewtopic.php?f=11&t=24704

"Value" by default cannot be absolutely-objective but is always conditioned by the human conditions.

Nonetheless we can have "values" that are objective which is of the highest good or ideals to be used as a GUIDE [only] and not to be enforced in any way.
We can bring in "Perfection" [via reason] as a guide only since there is no way 'perfection' is a possibility in reality.

Thus whatever is reasoned as an objective moral law is not expected to be enforced by merely as a guide, i.e. to act as a fixed goal post to promote improvements.

You may imagine that "a rational human being" has a duty to "live happily and successfully in this world." But that cannot be established. "Happiness" is an emotion. No one can have duty to have an emotion. And "success" begs the whole question of what it is "rational" or "right" for a person to be "successful" in doing.

So your explanation really informs us of nothing. There are no "objective moral principles" that can be established on a "rational" basis, without first dealing with the problem of ontology. What is it "rational" to do? We can only know that after we know what a human being is FOR, why the human being is here at all, and what human beings true telos is. Only then can we assess how "rational" his behaviour is, and whether or not the "moral principles" he adopted were the best ones. Only then can we call him (in the much more substantial) Solonic sense, "happy."

Your above is a straw man.
Who is talking about having a duty to "live happily and successfully" which is very relative and thus cannot be established as 'objective'.

Whatever is claimed as a moral imperative duty and as an objective moral law, it has to be reasoned and justified as such. Note my examples;

OUGHT from IS is Possible
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=27245

The UN Declaration on Slavery is an Absolute Moral Law
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=28426

Humans cannot practice a standalone 'best' moral values but only the optimal-ethical-values relative to one's conditions [internal and external] as closed as possible to the ideal objective moral law.
Without ideal objective moral laws a person would not have any basis [fixed goals] to assess his performance to duty whether he is progressing or regressing.

[Peter Holmes]

Moral objectivism: the case so far.

A secular moral objectivist claims morality is objective, but has no evidence to justify the claim, and therefore merely repeats it ad nauseam.

A theist moral objectivist claims morality is objective, but only if (or because) it comes from a god - but has no evidence that a god exists, and can't show why the existence of a god would make morality objective - independent from opinion - which doesn't follow.

[Skepdick]

Moral objectivism: the case so far.

A secular moral objectivist claims morality is objective, but has no evidence to justify the claim, and therefore merely repeats it ad nauseam.

That's an incorrect summary. No, it's a misrepresentation - a strawman. Actually, no. It's an outright lie.

The statistically significant evidence offered by the moral objectivist is being dismissed by the moral subjectivist as "insufficient", all while criteria for sufficiency are not being put forth.

The debate is not about morality, it's about objective standards of evidence. The subjective moralists do not understand statistics, and why the time-average of human behaviour over 2500+ years is scientifically valid objective evidence of morality.

The subjective moralist position as nothing more than argument from ignorance.

[surreptitious57]

the time average of human behaviour over 2500 years is scientifically valid objective evidence of morality

You can study the evolution of morality from an historical / philosophical / religious / cultural perspective
And you can study human behaviour but the morality behind it is abstract and so it is not scientific because that cannot be observed
Therefore it is fallacious to claim that morality is scientifically valid objective evidence because that is beyond the remit of science

[Immanuel Can]

"Value" if it exists objectively at all, is something only secure in the assessment made by God Himself. Among humans, "value" is a verb...it's "valuing," a thing we do, as we try to figure out what the objective value of a thing might really be. That's why so many of us can get it wrong so often, and why so many estimates of higher and lower value differ.

God?

A small side comment turns into a major question? Naw.

• God is an Impossibility to be Real
  viewtopic.php?f=11&t=24704

I saw this. Aside from the obvious grammar error in the OP, there were myriad logic errors in the exchange. But again, there is no relevance here, as nothing in my statement required anybody to believe in God. It only went so far as to say, "The only entity that even potentially could know what objective value is, would be God."

It was a hypothetical claim, as you can tell by the word "if." I can make arguments for God...this is not one. And this is not the thread for that.

"Value" by default cannot be absolutely-objective but is always conditioned by the human conditions.

Then it's imaginary. It's just something people "make up" in their heads, and can be different for different people, and different over time, and different over cultures, and even wrong altogether.

Which means the term "value" has no significant import. It just means, then, a thing people choose, temporarily, to feel may be important. You could hardly make it more trivial.

Nonetheless we can have "values" that are objective

This is direct contradiction of what you just said yourself.

You may imagine that "a rational human being" has a duty to "live happily and successfully in this world." But that cannot be established. "Happiness" is an emotion. No one can have duty to have an emotion. And "success" begs the whole question of what it is "rational" or "right" for a person to be "successful" in doing.

So your explanation really informs us of nothing. There are no "objective moral principles" that can be established on a "rational" basis, without first dealing with the problem of ontology. What is it "rational" to do? We can only know that after we know what a human being is FOR, why the human being is here at all, and what human beings true telos is. Only then can we assess how "rational" his behaviour is, and whether or not the "moral principles" he adopted were the best ones. Only then can we call him (in the much more substantial) Solonic sense, "happy."

Your above is a straw man.
Who is talking about having a duty to "live happily and successfully" which is very relative and thus cannot be established as 'objective'.

My conversation partner used both those expressions. I borrowed them from him, to speak to his point.

Note my examples;

OUGHT from IS is Possible
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=27245

The UN Declaration on Slavery is an Absolute Moral Law
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=28426

Both obviously wrong. There is no basis in the UN for an absolute moral law. If the law were absolute, the reasons would pre-exist the UN. And no, the is-ought problem not only isn't helped by your thread, it's not even really understood by you in your thread.

I don't know why you bother citing threads.

Humans cannot practice a standalone 'best' moral values but only the optimal-ethical-values relative to one's conditions [internal and external] as closed as possible to the ideal objective moral law.

You mean the "ideal objective moral law" you said doesn't exist, or the one you said does?

Without ideal objective moral laws a person would not have any basis [fixed goals] to assess his performance to duty whether he is progressing or regressing.

A person could have all the goals he wanted. What he could not have is objectively right goals. That's different.

[Skepdick]

You can study the evolution of morality from an historical / philosophical / religious / cultural perspective
And you can study human behaviour but the morality behind it is abstract and so it is not scientific because that cannot be observed
Therefore it is fallacious to claim that morality is scientifically valid objective evidence because that is beyond the remit of science

Nothing the Large Hedron Colider does nowadays is "observable". Science relies on measurement/tools/instruments to take readings; and to separate the signal from the noise.

To dismiss this on methodology is to dismiss all technological progress.

Statistical hypothesis testing is the instrument that turns data (observations) into knowledge (information). To rely only on observation and to ignore one's mathematical/statistical intuition is very reductionist and short-sighted.

[Peter Holmes]

Thinking something is so doesn't make it so. Does anyone here disagree? If so, please explain why.

It follows that how many people think something is so doesn't make it so. Does anyone here disagree? If so, please explain why.

It follows that everyone's thinking something is so doesn't make it so. Does anyone here disagree? If so, please explain why.

It follows that everyone's thinking something is so for thousands of years doesn't make it so. Does anyone disagree? If so, please explain why.

It follows that thinking the earth is flat or an oblate spheroid or neither of those doesn't make the earth flat or an oblate spheroid or neither of those, even if everyone has thought it's one of those for thousands of years. Does anyone here disagree? If so, please explain why.

And it follows that thinking [slavery] is morally right or wrong doesn't make [slavery] morally right or wrong, even if everyone has thought it's one of those for thousands of years. That they have so thought may be a fact. But that doesn't make it a fact that slavery is morally right or wrong. To claim that would be to make an elementary logical error. Does anyone here disagree? If so, please explain why.

[Skepdick]

Thinking something is so doesn't make it so. Does anyone here disagree? If so, please explain why.

Acting out your thoughts makes them so.

The behaviour of 1 is inconsequential
The behaviour of billions is consequential.

One snowflake an avalanche does not make. Many snowflakes do.

To claim that would be to make an elementary logical error. Does anyone here disagree? If so, please explain why.

Sure. You don't know what an "error" is. Logic is not prescriptive. There are no rules to be followed, and therefore - there are no rules to be broken.

Come to think of it, you probably don't know what Logic is either.

Locus solum: From the rules of logic to the logic of rules

Pay attention to how meticulously you are levering the principle of induction to arrive at your hasty generalizations.
Further pay attention to how you are NOT doing the exact same thing when it comes to interpreting the evidence for objective morality.

I'd point out your double standard, but I think you already know.

[surreptitious57]

That link is I92 pages so maybe a short but precise summary would be more beneficial
So can you briefly say what essentially is the argument that is being presented there ?

[henry quirk]

This...

what is it that moral objectivists claim about moral judgements that makes them objective - matters of fact, falsifiable and independent of judgement, belief or opinion?

...is your question, yeah?

And: embedded in the question is your standard, yeah?

A moral judgment/fact, to be objective, must be falsifiable and independent of judgment, belief or opinion.

Question: must a moral fact exist independent of man, or do you accept that some real things only exist within a context, or when certain conditions exist?

A stone, for example, exists independent of me and is independent of judgement, belief or opinion (uncertain where falsifiability fits in), but (my) hunger (an equally real biological event that occurs without judgement, belief or opinion) only exists in a certain context, that being me; or fire (another equally real event) that exists only in certain conditions, that being, colloquially, fuel, spark, and dry.

I want to pin down exactly what your measure is, what exactly you'll accept as evidence of objective morality.

Once I that, once we're both satisfied, I'll offer my argument.