What could make morality objective?

[Peter Holmes]

Thoughtful Wrath

“But for the sake of the principle that these things embody, that man is a means, not an end; that none exist for the use or pleasure of another; that he who kills, or enslaves, or robs even the least among us, by whatever means, for whichever cause, commits a crime not only against his victim but rebels against the proper nature of rational beings itself —

“If the world chooses to deny this principle, gentle reader, we must drown the world in its own blood.” -A. Young

Edifying. A sententious moraliser cheerfully proposes to drown dissenters in their own blood. That's fascist moral objectivism for you.

...as the moral vacuum is mute.

A bas, the unworthy thought that you're calling me 'the moral vacuum', Henry. Just a vague memory that you may have applied the phrase to me before. But I must be mistaken.

[henry quirk]

A sententious moraliser cheerfully proposes to drown dissenters in their own blood. That's fascist moral objectivism for you.

that's what you got from the piece: fascism and a cheerful desire to off dissenters

okay


...you're calling me 'the moral vacuum'...

if morality isn't real, then you are a moral vacuum: full of opinion but no substance

don't be pricked: it's just my opinion, yeah?

[Veritas Aequitas]

Here is some points from Korsgaard re Normative Ethics;

Moral principles could be shown to be principles of practical reasoning that are based on the nature of the will and yield conclusions about what we ought to do.
There are then facts, moral truths, about what we ought to do, but that is not because the actions are intrinsically normative.
They [facts and moral truths] inherit their normativity from principles that spring from the nature of the will - the principles of practical reasoning.

.... [there are] philosophers who reject the idea that knowledge is what we need for normativity and put something more like confidence in its place.
According to these philosophers, morality is not grounded in our apprehension of truths about objective values.
It [morality] is grounded in human nature and certain natural human sentiments [e.g. Hume].
The normative question is then whether it is good to have such a nature and to yield to its claims.
Normativity will be established, not by knowledge, but by our own reflective endorsement of our moral nature.

Quoting a load of cack written by someone else does nothing to beautify yours.

I don't expect you to be convinced but they are indication that there are philosophers who argued for the existence of relative objective moral facts, i.e. relative not absolute.
The above is merely a tip of an iceberg, to understand [not necessary agree] you will have to read the whole books/articles they wrote.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Skepdick, we do not agree on many issues but wow!! this point is very philosophically solid.
This is a checkmate argument and Peter has no way out of this.
Your point has so much philosophical sense, yet those real ignorant dickheads in their ignorance condemned your point without solid counter argument.

If so wish, anyone all can murder Peter because he is insisting it is not morally wrong to kill another human.

If we are in a sovereign nation with severe penalties the one who murder Peter could only be in trouble if he did not commit the perfect murder, thus could end with a lifetime prison sentence or will be legally killed for it.
If anyone who think they can commit the perfect murder, they can go ahead an murder Peter.

Now if Peter lands on an isolated island not belonging to any sovereign nation, then, anyone on that island can kill him without any legal threat at all.

This is why we need a Framework and System of Morality and Ethics with objective moral facts/truths as moral ought/standard that are independent of individual opinions and beliefs and are naturally in alignment within ALL humans regardless of where they are.

Within a Framework and System of Morality and Ethics, the individual is his own moral-defendant, defense lawyer, persecutor, jury, judge, correctional officer within his internal court [brain/mind].
The effective with moral laws applied within himself are those he has recognized and adopted himself which align with the universal moral facts justified from empirical evidences and philosophical reasoning.

In this case, the moral fact/truth of an ought-not as effected internally is;
'No human ought to to kill another human'

In this case, it is morally wrong for any human to kill Peter because he is 'another human'.

If despite the above, Peter is killed due to other reasons, it is not a moral issue rather it will be an issue of Ethics [Applied] and deliberated separately.

Where was the checkmate? Treating a global moral system like it was objective, doesn't actually turn that system absolutely objective.

I wonder which part of this is difficult to understand?

Peter is cornered to accept it is not morally wrong if you or anyone wants to kill him, rape his wife/daughters/kin or commit any other evil acts on him and others.

It is not treating a global moral system like it was objective.
It is objective because it is justified to be objective based on empirical evidences and philosophical reasoning.
Because it is justified to be objective, it is a Justified True Moral Belief, thus it is a moral fact.
Peter do not recognize there are such moral facts to act as a GUIDE to steer the moral conscience of all humans regardless of whatever circumstances they are in.

Therefore, Peter is cornered to accept it is not morally wrong if you or anyone wants to kill him, rape his wife/daughters/kin or commit any other evil acts on him and others.

My point is;
"No human ought to kill another human"
is an relative objective moral fact,
which is justified as a Justified True Belief, [like scientific facts]
via a Framework and System of Morality and Ethics.

Therefore based on the objective moral fact, it is morally wrong for anyone to kill/rape another human or commit other evil acts upon another human.
Where any actual evil acts are committed, they are a variance with the grounded objective moral facts, as such necessary actions [morally] has to be taken to deal with the moral variance.

As far as Peter is concerned, he only has legal recourse [not if he is living in an isolated island], personal vengeance or cry, but he has no holistic moral solutions to deal with the acts of evil.

[Veritas Aequitas]

"(of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts."

You have the emotional intelligence of a potato.

The whole notion of "judgment" and "not influenced by feelings" is incoherent bullshit!

You cannot represent the totality of facts because language does not allow for it!
Language is lossy compression!

That which is left unsaid is that which you, the judge of facts have deemed irrelevant to mention! The distinction between relevance and irrelevance is 100% a subjective judgment!

If what's relevant to me is not relevant to you, from my perspective you are lying by omission!

It's an aspiration since all statements about moral matters inevitably involve a person in making a JUDGEMENT, about how to weight the facts. That is what makes it an aspiration because it is not possible for anyone to speak without offering their own point of view.

You aren't fucking saying anything. OBVIOUSLY everybody's point of view is their own point of view.

What I am asking you is how does the unification of perspectives work? How do we arrive at facts if all we have is the sum of subjective judgments?

Objectivity exists AS AN ASPIRATION.
It is an attempt to see a problem without bias. This is impossible, since none of can escape our point of view.

Does anything which humans call "objective" in 2020 satisfy your aspiration; or is everything that humans call "objective" simply not good enough for Sculptor?

fallacy of adverse consequences, tosser!

Fallacy fallacy! Wanker.

Such idealism/perfectionism is fucking harmful - perfect is the enemy of good!

Which only begs the question: Good enough for WHAT?!?!?

Total wanker.
Back on ignore with you

Sore loser.
In this case, you are running away because you don't have any rational counters to the points raised.

You have this blind arrogance you are right but don't realize you are ignorant of the relevant knowledge to discuss the issue on hand.
This is very common with those who are stuck with Analytic Philosophy and Philosophical Realism which in the first place are fundamentally unrealistic.

As I had stated, your thinking is very shallow, narrow and dogmatic.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Duh! Like this, wanker.
"(of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts."
It's an aspiration since all statements about moral matters inevitably involve a person in making a JUDGEMENT, about how to weight the facts. That is what makes it an aspiration because it is not possible for anyone to speak without offering their own point of view.

How come you are SO ignorant?
It is very common for a discussion on 'morality' to associate with personal judgments on so-called moral decisions, e.g. casuistry trolley scenarios and problems. But this pseudo morality.

Note what is morality;
Here is the conventional meaning;

• Morality= principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour.
  http://english.oxforddictionaries.com/morality

Here is the from the Philosophical community

• In the normative sense, “morality” refers to a code of conduct that would be accepted by anyone who meets certain intellectual and volitional conditions, almost always including the condition of being rational.
  https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/

From the above, the main purpose of morality is the establishment of moral facts to be use as principles and code of conduct within a Framework and System of Morality and Ethics.
The issue from here, what is the definition of moral facts and the various contentious issues surround what are moral facts.
I disagree with absolute moral realism relying on absolute moral facts, like those of Plato's Forms or objective moral commands from a God.

What I have been proposing are relative objective moral facts that are justified from a Framework and System of Morality and Ethics.

From a Framework and System of Morality and Ethics, the Moral Agent is suppose to act spontaneously in alignment with the relative objective moral facts. If he had acted wrongly and created a moral variance, then his inherent continuous improvement faculty will strive to do better the next time.

It is very stupid [like you] to stick to the idea that a Moral Agent will be making a judgment in every activity he did or will be doing, by weighing the facts.

DUH.
Objectivity exists AS AN ASPIRATION.
It is an attempt to see a problem without bias. This is impossible, since none of can escape our point of view.

Nah.. ignorant again.
Objectivity exists on the basis of intersubjective consensus, thus cannnot escape subjectivity.
Objectivity [relative not absolute] exists as a necessity to facilitate survival, thus has survival value.
We have objective Scientific knowledge/facts/truths which has high utility for survival and progress - who would deny such necessary objectivity which is independent of individuals' opinions and beliefs.

Just as we have objective scientific knowledge/facts/truth we have moral knowledge/facts/truths are derived in the similar manner as in Science.

[Peter Holmes]

A sententious moraliser cheerfully proposes to drown dissenters in their own blood. That's fascist moral objectivism for you.

that's what you got from the piece: fascism and a cheerful desire to off dissenters

okay


...you're calling me 'the moral vacuum'...

if morality isn't real, then you are a moral vacuum: full of opinion but no substance

don't be pricked: it's just my opinion, yeah?

'Here is a moral principle. And if we don't hold to this principle, we must drown the world in its own blood.' What did I miss?

Let's just look at what you say:

'If morality isn't real, then you are a moral vacuum.'

I assume you mean that, if morality isn't real, there is no such thing as morality. Well, der. And, of course, in that case, we're all moral vacuums - because, well, there just is a moral vacuum. If morality isn't real, you're a moral vacuum, Henry. Welcome to the human condition.

But wait. We believe in trying to be kind and help each other, and trying to do no harm. We believe that some things are morally wrong: collective punishment of the innocent, genocide, the oppression of women and homosexuals, racism, slavery, rape, substitionary human sacrifice, and so on.

Ah, but we're just kidding ourselves, because, if we think morality isn't real, we can have no reason to believe these things - and we might just as well believe the opposite. Because, of course, collectively agreed values, judgements and opinions, developed over millennia, are utterly worthless and meaningless - if we think there are no moral facts.

[Peter Holmes]

Here is some points from Korsgaard re Normative Ethics;

Quoting a load of cack written by someone else does nothing to beautify yours.

I don't expect you to be convinced but they are indication that there are philosophers who argued for the existence of relative objective moral facts, i.e. relative not absolute.
The above is merely a tip of an iceberg, to understand [not necessary agree] you will have to read the whole books/articles they wrote.

I've no doubt there are people who believe the monstrous chimera 'relative objectivity', and moral facts, exist. And their abject failure to demonstrate the existence of moral things, and therefore moral facts, clearly hasn't dented their faith.

Rings bells, doesn't it? Moral objectivism, like all forms of metaphysical delusion, is sublimated theism. And I reckon that's why the deluded refuse to recognise their irrationality. Same deep baby-need.

[Peter Holmes]

Therefore, Peter is cornered to accept it is not morally wrong if you or anyone wants to kill him, rape his wife/daughters/kin or commit any other evil acts on him and others.

Oh, please. On reflection. I know VA is a special case.

But if this fucking idiocy is what passes for reasoned thought among the moral objectivists here, then there really is no hope, and no point in trying to discuss moral objectivism.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Quoting a load of cack written by someone else does nothing to beautify yours.

I don't expect you to be convinced but they are indication that there are philosophers who argued for the existence of relative objective moral facts, i.e. relative not absolute.
The above is merely a tip of an iceberg, to understand [not necessary agree] you will have to read the whole books/articles they wrote.

I've no doubt there are people who believe the monstrous chimera 'relative objectivity', and moral facts, exist. And their abject failure to demonstrate the existence of moral things, and therefore moral facts, clearly hasn't dented their faith.

Rings bells, doesn't it? Moral objectivism, like all forms of metaphysical delusion, is sublimated theism. And I reckon that's why the deluded refuse to recognise their irrationality. Same deep baby-need.

That is why you are ignorant.
How can you arrive at the above conclusion when you have not read thoroughly and review the those views of the authors? All you do is merely babbling.

Relative objective moral facts are not metaphysical entities like what metaphysical moral realists are claiming for their absolute moral facts.

You are also ignorant the matter of facts that you claimed to be objective, and cannot be evaluated with moral values, are ultimately metaphysical entities.

I have asked you this many times;
demonstrate to me, where is the 'real referent of the table' that represent the 'matter-of-fact of a table'.
Note Russell's doubt, perhaps there is no [real] table after all.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Therefore, Peter is cornered to accept it is not morally wrong if you or anyone wants to kill him, rape his wife/daughters/kin or commit any other evil acts on him and others.

Oh, please. On reflection. I know VA is a special case.

But if this fucking idiocy is what passes for reasoned thought among the moral objectivists here, then there really is no hope, and no point in trying to discuss moral objectivism.

That is a very logical and rational conclusion when you insist whatever moral facts I argued for, are merely moral 'opinions'.

You can escape the above checkmate and conundrum but you choose not to and cling dogmatically to your morally loose views.

[Peter Holmes]

Therefore, Peter is cornered to accept it is not morally wrong if you or anyone wants to kill him, rape his wife/daughters/kin or commit any other evil acts on him and others.

Oh, please. On reflection. I know VA is a special case.

But if this fucking idiocy is what passes for reasoned thought among the moral objectivists here, then there really is no hope, and no point in trying to discuss moral objectivism.

That is a very logical and rational conclusion when you insist whatever moral facts I argued for, are merely moral 'opinions'.

You can escape the above checkmate and conundrum but you choose not to and cling dogmatically to your morally loose views.

No. Foll-ow this argument.

1 If moral assertions don't make factual claims, then there can be no moral facts.

2 If moral assertions don't make factual claims, then to say something is morally right or wrong is not to make a factual claim with a truth-value which is independent from opinion.

3 Given the above, to believe that murder is morally wrong is not to believe that it's a fact that murder is morally wrong.

4 And given the above, to deny that the moral wrongness of murder is a fact is NOT to accept that murder is or can be morally right.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Oh, please. On reflection. I know VA is a special case.

But if this fucking idiocy is what passes for reasoned thought among the moral objectivists here, then there really is no hope, and no point in trying to discuss moral objectivism.

That is a very logical and rational conclusion when you insist whatever moral facts I argued for, are merely moral 'opinions'.

You can escape the above checkmate and conundrum but you choose not to and cling dogmatically to your morally loose views.

No. Foll-ow this argument.

1 If moral assertions don't make factual claims, then there can be no moral facts.

2 If moral assertions don't make factual claims, then to say something is morally right or wrong is not to make a factual claim with a truth-value which is independent from opinion.

3 Given the above, to believe that murder is morally wrong is not to believe that it's a fact that murder is morally wrong.

4 And given the above, to deny that the moral wrongness of murder is a fact is NOT to accept that murder is or can be morally right.

Still stuck in that archaic traditional paradigm.
Note I raised this point;

Being Stuck in the Traditional Metaphysical and Linguistic Paradigm re Morality
viewtopic.php?p=457659#p457659

By now I have read more than 100 article [incl. books] on the issue of Morality. From them I noted your views are too primitive relative to the current trend of discussions of morality & ethics within the philosophical community.

Your starting premise is WRONG, i.e. not consistent and rhetorical -

• "1 If moral assertions don't make factual [??] claims, then there can be no moral facts."

you equivocated natural facts with moral facts.
it should be;

• 1 If moral assertions don't make moral factual claims, then there can be no moral facts.
  
  1 But If Moral assertions are justified from a Framework and System of Morality, then they are moral facts.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Here is a point from Korsgaard again where the view of what is morality will shock your system that is stuck to the traditional view;

The source of [moral] obligation is a legislator, one whose authority is beyond question and does not need to be established.

But there is only one such authority and it is the authority of your own mind and will.

It is not the bare fact that it would be a good idea to perform a certain action that obligates us to perform it.

It is the fact that we command ourselves to do what we find it would be a good idea to do.

The above is not about moral judging and deliberating moral decisions but it is activated spontaneously in alignment with the moral fact.

It obvious I don't expect you to buy the above outright.

But what should happen is you should be shocked with the above claims and retorted,
WTF is that?? and be stirred to ask why, how is the above possible and what the hell it is all about? to shift to another perhaps more tenable paradigm of what is morality.

[Peter Holmes]

Here is a point from Korsgaard again where the view of what is morality will shock your system that is stuck to the traditional view;

The source of [moral] obligation is a legislator, one whose authority is beyond question and does not need to be established.

But there is only one such authority and it is the authority of your own mind and will.

It is not the bare fact that it would be a good idea to perform a certain action that obligates us to perform it.

It is the fact that we command ourselves to do what we find it would be a good idea to do.

The above is not about moral judging and deliberating moral decisions but it is activated spontaneously in alignment with the moral fact.

It obvious I don't expect you to buy the above outright.

But what should happen is you should be shocked with the above claims and retorted,
WTF is that?? and be stirred to ask why, how is the above possible and what the hell it is all about? to shift to another perhaps more tenable paradigm of what is morality.

So there are moral facts because 'we command ourselves to do what we find it would be a good idea to do'.

And you find this claptrap even remotely rational? Let's see, shall we?

We find it would be a good idea to murder our enemies. So we command ourselves to murder our enemies. And it's a moral fact that murdering our enemies is a good thing. Indeed, it's a moral obligation.

I think you know Korsgaard's idea is shit, which is why you hesitated to suggest it. Have the courage of your moral convictions. Please.