What could make morality subjective?

[FlashDangerpants]

Moral concepts are useful for us to have moral discourse, which in turn is useful for us to decide what to do and stuff like that. Is this somehow controversial?

It's only as controversial in as much as you are suggesting that we ought to "decide what to do and stuff like that".

I don't think you have being paying much attention, so I am just going to copy pasta what I already explained.

What I argue is that moral 'knowledge' is unattainable unless we accept that knowledge in this context is so very severely bounded by shared subjectivity that the word 'know' is being treated very badly. But in matters of real controversy, there is no set of external moral facts for us to look every question up against, and so we are limited to persuasion.

Anybody who is able to join in the shared human activity of behaving morally will behave as-if their own understanding is correct and universal most of the time. And unless they are a complete **** they should be right enough for our purposes in most situations. Moral skepticism doesn't mean just runing around tea-bagging everyone you dislike until the cops taze you.

[Skepdick]

I don't think you have being paying much attention, so I am just going to copy pasta what I already explained.

What I argue is that moral 'knowledge' is unattainable unless we accept that knowledge in this context is so very severely bounded by shared subjectivity that the word 'know' is being treated very badly. But in matters of real controversy, there is no set of external moral facts for us to look every question up against, and so we are limited to persuasion.

You are not paying much attention either. If you defend a Pyrrhonist view on "what knowledge is" (absence of uncertainty") then ANY knowledge is unattainable. Full stop.

If you are moral skeptic then you don't believe in ANY moral facts, right? (internal or external). So why are you trying to persuade anybody of anything?

Moral skepticism doesn't mean just runing around tea-bagging everyone you dislike until the cops taze you.

I addressed this point and you failed to notice. It's a false dichotomy. You need not be a nihilist. Being a relativist is sufficient to recognise the choice that exists.

You can go around tea-bagging people. Or you can go around NOT tea-bagging people.
You can go around tazing people. Or you can go around NOT tazing people.

Since moral knowledge is unattainable then a moral sceptic should have absolutely no opinion on which choices is "better" or "worse". They are morally equivalent outcomes.

[FlashDangerpants]

I don't think you have being paying much attention, so I am just going to copy pasta what I already explained.

What I argue is that moral 'knowledge' is unattainable unless we accept that knowledge in this context is so very severely bounded by shared subjectivity that the word 'know' is being treated very badly. But in matters of real controversy, there is no set of external moral facts for us to look every question up against, and so we are limited to persuasion.

You are not paying much attention either. If you defend a Pyrrhonist view on "what knowledge is" (absence of uncertainty") then ANY knowledge is unattainable. Full stop.

Then you agree with me, so the rest is boring semantics. To the extent that any moral fact could be known, it would be subject to future revision. Therefore you agree that murder and genocide are wrong (for now and for the forseeable).

Moral skepticism doesn't mean just runing around tea-bagging everyone you dislike until the cops taze you.

I addressed this point and you failed to notice. It's a false dichotomy. You need not be a nihilist. Being a relativist is sufficient to recognise the choice that exists.

You can go around tea-bagging people. Or you can go around NOT tea-bagging people.
You can go around tazing people. Or you can go around NOT tazing people.

A moral skeptic says "one is not a better or a worse choice than the other. There is no way to decide e.g they are morally equivalent choices."

Anybody who understands how to participate in the moral life of a society should know without need to refer to an absolute ultimate higher authority not to punch old ladies in the kidneys. That's a prefectly acceptable statement under terms of moral skepticism and it precludes your claim above.

Moral skepticism only requires that our moral language is founded on human behaviours and beliefs, not that it useless, worthless OR COMPLETELY RANDOM OR ARBITRARY. If our most basic moral assumptions are a matter of fashion, persuasion, agreement and so on, rather than something you can look to the sky, or under a rock to find out, then we are done.

I am now done explaining that to you. I am bored of answering to straw men. Murder and genocide are objectively wrong, because they are universally agreed to be wrong, not because there is some foundational logic that proves they are wrong. Get that, don't get it, I don't care any more.

[Skepdick]

Murder and genocide are objectively wrong, because they are universally agreed to be wrong, not because there is some foundational logic that proves they are wrong.

You can't "prove" anything with logic alone! Proof requires axioms and inference rules. The foundational thing is not logic, it's the axioms and inference rules themselves!

Axioms and inference rules are unquestioned/unquestionable truths. Everybody knows this.

If our most basic moral assumptions are a matter of fashion, persuasion, agreement and so on, rather than something you can look to the sky, or under a rock to find out, then we are done.

And where would I look to determine the truth-value of your most basic axiomatic assumptions?

It's not just moral assumptions that are a matter of fashion - it's ALL AXIOMATIC ASSUMPTIONS.

Get that, don't get it, I don't care any more.

Once we agree that "murder is wrong". The WHY is immaterial also! There is nothing "to get".

Suppose we find a primitive people, who have an effective herb for healing cancer. They explain its efficacy in terms of the divine action of Vishnu on the body’s hokus pokus. We find that the herb is equally effective in our society - it heals cancer!

The syntax is correct - the herb works! The semantics of "Vishnu acting on the body hokus pokus" are irrelevant - it's just stories.

In exactly the same way: Murder is wrong. If we agree to that then the grammar is "correct" (by consensus). The semantics don't matter, and yet semantics is all that philosophy ever argues about.

[FlashDangerpants]

If our most basic moral assumptions are a matter of fashion, persuasion, agreement and so on, rather than something you can look to the sky, or under a rock to find out, then we are done.

And where would I look to determine the truth-value of your most basic axiomatic assumptions?

It's not just moral assumptions that are a matter of fashion - it's ALL AXIOMATIC ASSUMPTIONS.

Has it not been my point all along that there is no scope to determine a truth-value of a moral axiom? Just as there is no truth-value that can be measured when somebody asserts that the Mona Lisa is a really good picture but the Laughing Cavalier is better.

You can carry out your vendetta against all of philosophy and natural language some other time. For the purpose of the question asked in this discussion, it is a true description of how our conceptual language works to say that we assert different confidence levels for some types of information than we do for others based on the perception that some sorts of observation are deemed objective, or more objective at least, than others. For morality our normal standards are not met, and cannot be met in principle. If you want to assert that for any other type our normal standards are insuffficent, I take the position that "meh" for the time being.

Get that, don't get it, I don't care any more.

Once we agree that "murder is wrong". The WHY is immaterial also! There is nothing "to get".

Then I would posit that this conversation is complete. We seem to have found out that morality can indeed be subjective, but that its subjectivity is shared and therefore has some set of rules that must be understood by those who are competent to participate.

This fuzziness seems like a problem that must be fixed from some people's perspective, and I wish them the best of luck in fixing it. They are welcome to suppose that the whole edifice OUGHT to be better than it IS. But in the meantime it explains why there are so many insoluble moral conundrums where the application of one sort of rule (that we normally consider good) violates the axioms of another (that we also think is usually good).

The above, incidentally, is why I am immediately suspicious of any moral theory that claims it can fix the trolley problem. The authors of those never understand that by even trying to beat that thing they are failing an intelligence test.

[Skepdick]

Has it not been my point all along that there is no scope to determine a truth-value of a moral axiom?

Has it not been my point all along that there is no scope to determine a truth-value for ANY axiom?

You are the one who has blinkers on and narrows it down to moral axioms.

Just as there is no truth-value that can be measured when somebody asserts that the Mona Lisa is a really good picture but the Laughing Cavalier is better.

Nor as there is truth-value that can be measured when one says 1 = 1.
Nor as there is truth-value that can be measured when one says "The sky is blue"

It's axiomatic truth. Truth-by-definition.

You can carry out your vendetta against all of philosophy and natural language some other time.

You can strawman me some other time. My vendetta is against foundationalism. Axiomatics is the poor man's logic.

For the purpose of the question asked in this discussion, it is a true description of how our conceptual language works to say that we assert different confidence levels for some types of information than we do for others based on the perception that some sorts of observation are deemed objective, or more objective at least, than others.

To present objectivity as a sliding scale of confidence is to admit to relativism. On what principle do you insist that more confidence is 'better' than less confidence?

I have said this before (but perhaps not in this discussion), so I will repeat: If you admit to drawing a distinction between "better" and "worse", and if you insist that your bias is towards "better is preferable to worse" (as opposed to worse is preferable to better) then you are an objective moralist in my book.

For morality our normal standards are not met, and cannot be met in principle.

Yeah but RELATIVE to some standard (ANY standard) you can always assert whether things are getting better or worse!

That's why I don't buy your moral skepticism. For you better is better than worse!

If you want to assert that for any other type our normal standards are insuffficent, I take the position that "meh" for the time being.

I am not addressing their epistemic status. I am merely addressing their ontological status within your system of reasoning.

Without some implicit standards of sort, you cannot differentiate between 'better' and 'worse'.

Then I would posit that this conversation is complete. We seem to have found out that morality can indeed be subjective, but that its subjectivity is shared and therefore has some set of rules that must be understood by those who are competent to participate.

From where I am looking, we have arrived at objective morality. Given your own criterion for objectivity (statistical confidence), I am pretty statistically confident that on a representative sample size of the human population we will high 90% confirmation that 'Murder is wrong.'

So, as you see - the disagreement was always about semantics. Your notion of 'objectivity' was inconsistent with the scientific notion of 'objectivity'.
Which is statistical significance and nothing more.

This fuzziness seems like a problem that must be fixed from some people's perspective, and I wish them the best of luck in fixing it. They are welcome to suppose that the whole edifice OUGHT to be better than it IS.

Yeah well. In your perspective you prefer to call our agreement 'subjective', in my perspective I prefer to call our agreement 'objective'.
I guess we can't fix that

But in the meantime it explains why there are so many insoluble moral conundrums where the application of one sort of rule (that we normally consider good) violates the axioms of another (that we also think is usually good).

Yeah! Because axiomatic reasoning is broken. That is why we need humans to be less dumb and observe that if you follow some particular principle and that will lead to you driving a Jumbo Jet into a skyscraper, you should probably choose another axiom.

The above, incidentally, is why I am immediately suspicious of any moral theory that claims it can fix the trolley problem.

The trolly problem is poorly formed. It suffers from a shift of perspective. It is inconsistent.

The decision one makes being in the driver's seat is different to the decision one makes from the bridge.

Context matters.

[FlashDangerpants]

Has it not been my point all along that there is no scope to determine a truth-value of a moral axiom?

Has it not been my point all along that there is no scope to determine a truth-value for ANY axiom?

You are the one who has blinkers on and narrows it down to moral axioms.

Just as there is no truth-value that can be measured when somebody asserts that the Mona Lisa is a really good picture but the Laughing Cavalier is better.

Nor as there is truth-value that can be measured when one says 1 = 1.
Nor as there is truth-value that can be measured when one says "The sky is blue"

It's axiomatic truth. Truth-by-definition.

You can carry out your vendetta against all of philosophy and natural language some other time.

You can strawman me some other time. My vendetta is against foundationalism. Axiomatics is the poor man's logic.

For the purpose of the question asked in this discussion, it is a true description of how our conceptual language works to say that we assert different confidence levels for some types of information than we do for others based on the perception that some sorts of observation are deemed objective, or more objective at least, than others.

To present objectivity as a sliding scale of confidence is to admit to relativism. On what principle do you insist that more confidence is 'better' than less confidence?

I have said this before (but perhaps not in this discussion), so I will repeat: If you admit to drawing a distinction between "better" and "worse", and if you insist that your bias is towards "better is preferable to worse" (as opposed to worse is preferable to better) then you are an objective moralist in my book.

That doesn't really work for my book though. So I guess it's moot unless we determine there is a better or worse way to see this. Until then, I am using the terms according to the general understanding of them that I share with everyone who seems competent to use them. you can exclude yourself from that group if you wish and see how it profits you.

For morality our normal standards are not met, and cannot be met in principle.

Yeah but RELATIVE to some standard (ANY standard) you can always assert whether things are getting better or worse!

That's why I don't buy your moral skepticism. For you better is better than worse!

Fine. You can have your own special definition of moral skepticism that barely if at all relates to the meaning of the term as used by anyone else if you like. I am not that. This affects me none much.

If you want to assert that for any other type our normal standards are insuffficent, I take the position that "meh" for the time being.

I am not addressing their epistemic status. I am merely addressing their ontological status within your system of reasoning.

Without some implicit standards of sort, you cannot differentiate between 'better' and 'worse'.

Then I would posit that this conversation is complete. We seem to have found out that morality can indeed be subjective, but that its subjectivity is shared and therefore has some set of rules that must be understood by those who are competent to participate.

From where I am looking, we have arrived at objective morality. Given your own criterion for objectivity (statistical confidence), I am pretty statistically confident that on a representative sample size of the human population we will high 90% confirmation that 'Murder is wrong.'

So, as you see - the disagreement was always about semantics. Your notion of 'objectivity' was inconsistent with the scientific notion of 'objectivity'.
Which is statistical significance and nothing more.

When I am using statistical singificance as my guide I will be sure to tell you. Until then I am not. It is not my problem that you are not able to consider certainty and uncertainty in any other terms, everyone else is. Our concepts of certainty (relative) are the parent of your statistical understanding, not the baby.

90% of people responding to an opinion survey might say that Cheese is better than beer, or vice versa. That would be a fact about the opinion survey, there is no means by which cheese can be factually better than beer, so only opinions have been discovered by this method. Subjective opinions of course.

This fuzziness seems like a problem that must be fixed from some people's perspective, and I wish them the best of luck in fixing it. They are welcome to suppose that the whole edifice OUGHT to be better than it IS.

Yeah well. In your perspective you prefer to call our agreement 'subjective', in my perspective I prefer to call our agreement 'objective'.
I guess we can't fix that

We could if you were able to point to something other than the opinions of people as a guide. If you cannot, then I am referencing objectivity as the shared public concept it is, and you are referencing an alternative that you think it ought to be.

But in the meantime it explains why there are so many insoluble moral conundrums where the application of one sort of rule (that we normally consider good) violates the axioms of another (that we also think is usually good).

Yeah! Because axiomatic reasoning is broken. That is why we need humans to be less dumb and observe that if you follow some particular principle and that will lead to you driving a Jumbo Jet into a skyscraper, you should probably choose another axiom.

That's exactly how it does work though. When the axiomati assumptions of any field lead to failure, then IF some alternative schema provides a fix, the axioms move. Something we can view as objective information (whether that meets your standards is irrelevant) informs this movement. Morality has no basis for that search and thus the axioms cannot merely move just because you are annoyed that the trolley problem isn't working out the way you want.

The above, incidentally, is why I am immediately suspicious of any moral theory that claims it can fix the trolley problem.

The trolly problem is poorly formed. It suffers from a shift of perspective. It is inconsistent.

The decision one makes being in the driver's seat is different to the decision one makes from the bridge.

Context matters.

The trolley problem works just fine, it just doesn't happen to be doing something you like or can cope with psychologically. You have difficulty acceting uncertainty it seems, perhaps this explains your demands to quantify it.

[Skepdick]

That doesn't really work for my book though. So I guess it's moot unless we determine there is a better or worse way to see this. Until then, I am using the terms according to the general understanding of them that I share with everyone who seems competent to use them. you can exclude yourself from that group if you wish and see how it profits you.

Ohhhh!!!

So you are claiming that:

1. There is a distinction to be drawn between 'profitability' and 'unprofitability'
2. Profitability is better than unprofitability.
3. (MOST WELCOME ADMISSION) There is a 'better' and 'worse' way to see things.

It seems to be working in your book just fine But I am still not buying your moral skepticism.

Indeed, it profits me just fine (financially even) to exclude myself from groupthink. I put no value on persuading you or anybody of anything.
It pays well enough (quantitatively/financially) for others to be dumb. But I think it would pay even better if everybody is less dumb.

Fine. You can have your own special definition of moral skepticism that barely if at all relates to the meaning of the term as used by anyone else if you like. I am not that. This affects me none much.

I don't care about definitions. How many times must I explain this to you before you accept it as fact?

There are three hypotheses on the table:

A. Profitability is preferred state of affairs to unprofitability
B. Unprofitability is a preferred state of affairs to profitability.
C. There is no preferential difference between profitability and unprofitability.

If you had chosen C, I would believe your 'moral skepticism'.
If you had chosen B, I would've believed your claim about moral nihilism.

But you keep choosing A! You keep choosing the better outcome over the worse outcome"

In economics this is called revealed preference.
That which I call 'actions speak louder than words'.

When I am using statistical singificance as my guide I will be sure to tell you. Until then I am not.

But you already told me! You appealed to 'confidence'! Do you not know that Confidence intervals are statistical constructs?

I know this. I am waiting for you to convince yourself.

It is not my problem that you are not able to consider certainty and uncertainty in any other terms, everyone else is. Our concepts of certainty (relative) are the parent of your statistical understanding, not the baby.

So you can consider certainty/uncertainty in a framework other than statistics? Why don't you explain to us how your framework works then?

90% of people responding to an opinion survey might say that Cheese is better than beer, or vice versa. That would be a fact about the opinion survey, there is no means by which cheese can be factually better than beer, so only opinions have been discovered by this method. Subjective opinions of course.

There are empirical means. You use revealed preference. You put beer and cheese in a shop and if people tell you that they 'prefer cheese to beer' but everybody keeps buying beer and nobody keeps buying cheese, then you simply conclude that people have no clue what the fuck they want.

We could if you were able to point to something other than the opinions of people as a guide. If you cannot, then I am referencing objectivity as the shared public concept it is, and you are referencing an alternative that you think it ought to be.

I already pointed you to something. People's behaviour - not their words. revealed preference

That's exactly how it does work though. When the axiomati assumptions of any field lead to failure, then IF some alternative schema provides a fix, the axioms move.

That's exactly NOT how science works. You start with both hypotheses: null and alternative.

H1: People like cheese more than beer.
H2: People like beer more than cheese

And then you see what people actually buy more beer than cheese, and you conclude that H2 is 'more true' than H1.

Something we can view as objective information (whether that meets your standards is irrelevant) informs this movement. Morality has no basis for that search and thus the axioms cannot merely move just because you are annoyed that the trolley problem isn't working out the way you want.

Same thing.

H1: Murder is preferred to non-murder
H2. Non-murder is preferred to Murder.

Humans prefer one of those outcomes more than the other.

The trolley problem works just fine, it just doesn't happen to be doing something you like or can cope with psychologically. You have difficulty acceting uncertainty it seems, perhaps this explains your demands to quantify it.

I don't need to 'cope with it psychologically' if I can cope with it statistically.

I have an instrument that you don't. Ergodic theory and the Monte Carlo method.

It's sufficient for me to know that H1 wins over H2 by 1 decibel (in English that would be a needle in a Universe of haystack) that's enough for me to make up my mind.

[FlashDangerpants]

90% of people responding to an opinion survey might say that Cheese is better than beer, or vice versa. That would be a fact about the opinion survey, there is no means by which cheese can be factually better than beer, so only opinions have been discovered by this method. Subjective opinions of course.

There are empirical means. You use revealed preference. You put beer and cheese in a shop and if people tell you that they 'prefer cheese to beer' but everybody keeps buying beer and nobody keeps buying cheese, then you simply conclude that people have no clue what the fuck they want.

Now you are just replacing an openly stated opinion with an inferred opinion. The realtionship between the metric and the claimed phenomenon remains broken. It is meaningless for beer to be better than cheese or cheese to be better than beer, and nonsensical to propose frequency of appearance on hopping lists as a fix for that. Perhaps there is a theory you can direct me to that shows some sort of ontological mishap where people replace a thing that cannot be measured with some proxy that can be measured, and then claim the proxy as the actual thing. If not, take that and give it a fancy title.

[Scott Mayers]

Give me an example where murder and genocide are right.

When I am in a room with a hundred other people whom I managed to annihilate with extreme prejudice (murder AND genocide for all who are not me), I just have to place my left shoulder against the wall, then turn my head to the right and voila!, murder and genocide is 'right'.

If you question my meaning of 'right' to be incorrect, then -- after I do the above -- I ask myself if any murder or genocide occurred to which I would recognize how correct I was and so prove that...

Murder and Genocide is right by any definition!!

[Skepdick]

Now you are just replacing an openly stated opinion with an inferred opinion. It remains menaingless for beer to be better than cheese or cheese to be better than beer.

That's neither the fault of beer, nor the fault of cheese.

It's entirely your fault for using the word 'better' without stating (a priori) what yardstick you are using to assert this 'betterness'. Your use of 'better' is untestable and unfalsifaible. It's unmeasurable - to you and by you!!!

If you don't have some empirical test in the back of your mind, some experiment, some measurement that you think can resolve the matter for you, then yeah! It's completely meaningless.

Perhaps there is a theory you can direct me to that shows some sort of ontological mishap where people replace a thing that cannot be measured

Whether 'betterness'' can or can't be measured is entirely up to you! When you say "beer is better than cheese" I fully expect this to be a measurable claim.

I expect that if I made you choose between beer and cheese 100 times, then you will choose beer more than 50. That's all I am prepared to say or infer.

Maybe you'll choose beer 100/100 times. Maybe you will choose it 51/100 times. But I DO NOT expect you to choose it 50/100 times or less.

with some proxy that can be measured, and then claim the proxy as the actual thing. If not, take that and give it a fancy title.

Proxy-measurement is all you have! That is epistemology for you. If you don't like it, then you have simply failed to deal with the limitations of the human condition.

[Skepdick]

Murder and Genocide is right by any definition!!

What does that mean in practice?

Are you suggesting that we should all go out and begin murdering people and committing genocide?

[Scott Mayers]

Murder and Genocide is right by any definition!!

What does that mean in practice?

Are you suggesting that we should all go out and begin murdering people and committing genocide?

It was a joke I thought up.

But seriously? "Should" we all go out and begin murdering people*?

I can't speak for what "shall happen in the future if I had my own way"** is 'bad' for others. But let's just make sure that only my satisfaction is always met at all times.


[* Murdering all in the room but me selectively eliminated their genes from spoiling my own!
[** Defines should]

[And yes, this too turned into another joke, unintentionally!]

[FlashDangerpants]

with some proxy that can be measured, and then claim the proxy as the actual thing. If not, take that and give it a fancy title.

Proxy-measurement is all you have! That is epistemology for you. If you don't like it, then you have simply failed to deal with the limitations of the human condition.

Nope. Immeasurability is also something we have. The goodness of cheese, the loveliness of a work of art, the cuteness of kittens, the nastiness of cats, these are all fundamentally non-measurable. Measuring some alternative like how many people think cats are nasty is not measuring the nastiness of cats.

Measuring other things that can be measured, such as the number of words in this conversation does not mean that we can measure the pointlessness of this total fucking chore.

[Scott Mayers]

with some proxy that can be measured, and then claim the proxy as the actual thing. If not, take that and give it a fancy title.

Proxy-measurement is all you have! That is epistemology for you. If you don't like it, then you have simply failed to deal with the limitations of the human condition.

Nope. Immeasurability is also something we have. The goodness of cheese, the loveliness of a work of art, the cuteness of kittens, the nastiness of cats, these are all fundamentally non-measurable. Measuring some alternative like how many people think cats are nasty is not measuring the nastiness of cats.

Measuring other things that can be measured, such as the number of words in this conversation does not mean that we can measure the pointlessness of this total fucking chore.

We always resort to binary values as all that is 'measurable'. But this doesn't mean that our measures can't include different ones collectively as 'true'. The relative indeterminacy of some 'measure means precisely the contradiction: a measure that is not a measure! So this third possibility you assert is either true and makes it false for being 'immeasurable', or false and makes it true that it IS 'immeasurable'!