Moralty is Objective [ by Magnus ]

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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Magnus Anderson
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Moralty is Objective [ by Magnus ]

Post by Magnus Anderson »

I made this post in another thread, in response to something a member of this forum has said, but since it turned out to be pretty long, and far more than just a strict reply; and since the thread I posted it in is pretty noisy, I decided to give it its own topic.

So here we go.

In the ontological sense, the word "objective" means "existing independently of minds". To say that a thing exists independently of minds is to say that it would exist even if minds ceased to exist. The question of this thread, then, is "Would morality continue to exist if all minds ceased to exist?"

The first thing that needs to be done in order to answer that question is to understand what the word "morality" means.

The term "morality" means "the set of all laws that someone [ an individual, a group of people or everyone ] ought to obey in order to maximize their chances of attaining their highest goal".

If it actually meant something like "a set of beliefs about what is right and what is wrong held by someone", then morality would clearly be subjective, since beliefs exist within minds, and if something exists within a mind, removing all minds from existence would also remove that thing from existence. But is that what the word actually means?

Of course, you can use the word "morality" that way, and a lot of people already do, but in that case, you'd no longer have a word for what moral beliefs are attempting to represent. ( Every belief, if it is a proper belief, is attempting to represent a portion of reality. Moral beliefs are no exception. If there is no portion of reality that moral beliefs are describing, they are not beliefs, but something else. A belief is a proposition held to be true by someone, and every proposition, in order to be a proposition, must consist of two parts: the described and the description. Remove one of these parts and you no longer have a proposition. )

Morality isn't a set of beliefs. It is a set of laws. And it isn't a set of any kind of laws. Societal laws ( i.e. how societies behave, e.g. "When a resident of a modern day country kills someone, he goes to jail" ) and personal laws ( i.e. how individual people behave, e.g. "Peter never eats meat" ) are not moral laws. Moral laws are laws of the form "Under circusmtances C, the best decision for person P or group of people G is D."

Given that morality is a set of laws, we need to ask the following questions:

1) What is a law?

2) Do laws exist?

3) Are laws ontologically objective? Is their existence independent of minds? If minds ceased to exist, would laws continue to exist?

Let's answer these questions one by one.

WHAT IS A LAW?

A law is a limit on what is possible. It is that which forces a portion of reality to be certain way in some or all situations. If there are no laws, i.e. if no laws exist, it means that everything is possible in every situation. If there are laws, i.e. if some of them exist, it means that certain things aren't possible in certain situations.

The simplest example of a law is the law of identity, "A = A". That statement is saying that every thing is identical to itself in all situations. It's saying that there is a law that prohibits all things in all situations from not being identical to themselves.

Another example is the mathematical law captured by the statement "2 + 2 = 4". That statement is saying that every set consisting of two sets of two elements is a set consisting of four elements. It's saying that there is a law that prohibits all sets consisting of two sets of two elements from being sets of one element, sets of two elements, sets of three elements, sets of five elements, etc.

Another example of a law is the causal law that is "If you press the light switch at point in time t, the light bulb will turn on in less than a second". That statement is saying that there is a law that prohibits the light bulb from not turning on when you press the light switch at point in time t.

Finally, there are moral laws. Moral laws are laws of the form "Under circumstances C, the best decision for person P or group of people G is D". An example of a moral law is "The best decision for a man, every man, in every situation is to choose to do only what his mind unanimously agrees it's the best thing to do". ( I understand that most people don't define the term "morality" this broadly. Most use it narrowly, to refer to social morality, i.e. to what's the right way to treat other living beings. Keep in mind that I define it a bit differently, to mean what's the right thing to do in general. )

DO LAWS EXIST?

Given that a law is a limit on what's possible, it follows that, if there are things that aren't possible in some or all situations, then there are laws. And if there are laws, then they exist.

To say that laws do not exist is to say that there are no laws, i.e. that there are no limits on what is possible. That, in turn, means that everything is possible in every situation.

I can assure you that literally everyone believes that we live in a world in which at least some of the things aren't possible. And if there are people who argue otherwise, which I'm sure there are, I can assure you that they are contradicting themselves.

The idea that laws exist is difficult to accept by some people. These tend to be people who think in terms of "If you can't touch something, it does not exist". They affirm the existence of nothing but physical objects. They have a tendency to bastardize highly abstract concepts by reducing them to the most similar concept they are familiar with. Pragmatists, for example, have done that with the concept of truth by reducing it to the concept of useful belief ( or to the concept of the limit of inquiry, as C. S. Peirce did. ) A number of physicists have done the same with the concept of past by reducing it to memories in the present. Others have done it by reducing the concept of time to "what clocks show". And so on. There are many examples. If you ask these people, laws either do not really exist, since they aren't physical objects, or they do, but they are not want we think they are, they are merely concepts inside our minds ( e.g. mental tools that we use to predict what's going to happen in the future. )

The fact of the matter is that the universe is not merely the sum of everything that was, everything that is and everything that will be. The universe does not merely refer to what is actual. It also refers to what is possible. And what is possible is determined by laws.

ARE LAWS ONTOLOGICALLY OBJECTIVE?

If minds ceased to exist, would laws continue to exist?

To answer that question, it's important to understand the difference between mutable and immutable things.

A mutable thing is a thing that can change. A thing that can change is a thing that can go through multiple stages of existence. The number of stages a mutable thing goes through is called its lifespan. A mutable thing, if it has a beginning, starts existing at one point in time, and if it has an end, it stops existing at another. Typically, a mutable thing occupies a portion of space at a single point in time at every stage of its existence. However, this is not a definitional requirement -- a mutable thing can occupy any number of moments at any stage of its existence. A mutable thing can exist in the same exact state at every stage of its existence, meaning, it does not have to change at all. But it has the capacity to do so. The state of a mutable thing at any stage of its existence, as well as its lifespan, can be determined, partially or completely, by other things. Physical objects, for example, are mutable things.

An immutable thing, on the other hand, is a thing that has no capacity for change at all. An immutable thing can exist at one or more points in time but it cannot go through more than one stage of its existence. The set of everything that was, that is and that will be is an example. That's the state of the universe at every single point in time. It's a thing that exists at more than one moment -- actually, at every single moment of existence -- but that goes through no more than one stage of its existence. The state of a physical object at a single point in time is another example. It's a thing that exists at a single point in time and a thing that goes through exactly one stage of its existence. The truth value of a proposition is yet another example. If a proposition is true on one day, it is true on all days. None of these things can change. As such, nothing can change them. If they exist, nothing can make them disappear from existence. They are, in a sense, permanent.

That said, if a law is an immutable law, it cannot cease to exist.

Are all laws immutable?

Absolutely not. There are mutable and immutable laws. Let me illustrate that with a very simple example.

Consider a universe that consists of exactly 3 points in time. At each point in time, nothing exists except for a light switch and a light bulb. At each point in time, the light switch can only be in one of the following two states: it can be "up" or it can be "down". Similarly, at each point in time, the light bulb can only be in one of the following two states: it can be "on" or it can be "off".

Let us say that the following laws apply:

1) Whenever the light switch is "up" at point in time 1, the light bulb is "on" at point in time 2.

2) Whenever the light switch is "down" at point in time 1, the light bulb is "off" at point in time 2.

3) Whenever the light switch is "up" at point in time 2, the light bulb is "off" at point in time 3,

4) Whenever the light switch is "down" at point in time 2, the light bulb is "on" at point in time 3.

The 4 laws that I just mentioned are immutable laws. They go through exactly one stage of their existence. They have no capacity to change. They are what they are.

However, if we said that 1) and 3) are two different stages of one and the same law, that law would be a mutable law. And in this particular case, it would be a law that changed ( since it went from "If up, then on" to "If up, then off". )

Are moral laws immutable laws?

A morality is a set of immutable laws, i.e. laws that cannot change. They either exist or they do not. If they exist, nothing can make them disappear from existence. Thus, if minds ceased to exist, moral laws would continue to exist.
Skepdick
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Re: Moralty is Objective [ by Magnus ]

Post by Skepdick »

These thought experiments “what if minds disappeared…” are silly.

If minds disappeared who is asking the question and why? Who would care about the answer?

If minds disappeared then the discourse would be about a different universe - not this one.

Laws don’t have ontological existence. They are mental constructs.

This doesn’t prevent humans saying things like “the laws of physics are objective”. Philosophers simply don’t know how to use that term like scientists.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: Moralty is Objective [ by Magnus ]

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Magnus Anderson wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 2:46 pm The term "morality" means "the set of all laws that someone [ an individual, a group of people or everyone ] ought to obey in order to maximize their chances of attaining their highest goal".

If it actually meant something like "a set of beliefs about what is right and what is wrong held by someone", then morality would clearly be subjective, since beliefs exist within minds, and if something exists within a mind, removing all minds from existence would also remove that thing from existence. But is that what the word actually means?

Of course, you can use the word "morality" that way, and a lot of people already do, but in that case, you'd no longer have a word for what moral beliefs are attempting to represent. ( Every belief, if it is a proper belief, is attempting to represent a portion of reality. Moral beliefs are no exception. If there is no portion of reality that moral beliefs are describing, they are not beliefs, but something else. A belief is a proposition held to be true by someone, and every proposition, in order to be a proposition, must consist of two parts: the described and the description. Remove one of these parts and you no longer have a proposition. )
Even if goals are not beliefs, the highest goal is surely a belief about the available goals.
Peter Holmes
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Re: Moralty is Objective [ by Magnus ]

Post by Peter Holmes »

Magnus Anderson wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 2:46 pm I made this post in another thread, in response to something a member of this forum has said, but since it turned out to be pretty long, and far more than just a strict reply; and since the thread I posted it in is pretty noisy, I decided to give it its own topic.

So here we go.

In the ontological sense, the word "objective" means "existing independently of minds". To say that a thing exists independently of minds is to say that it would exist even if minds ceased to exist. The question of this thread, then, is "Would morality continue to exist if all minds ceased to exist?"
If there are no minds, then this definition of objectivity is redundant.

The first thing that needs to be done in order to answer that question is to understand what the word "morality" means.

The term "morality" means "the set of all laws that someone [ an individual, a group of people or everyone ] ought to obey in order to maximize their chances of attaining their highest goal".
No, it doesn't. Here's a standard dictionary definition of morality: 'principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour'. Goal consistency has no intrinsic moral significance, and neither does obedience to laws. I think you have this completely wrong.


If it actually meant something like "a set of beliefs about what is right and what is wrong held by someone", then morality would clearly be subjective, since beliefs exist within minds, and if something exists within a mind, removing all minds from existence would also remove that thing from existence. But is that what the word actually means?
No. See the above definition, which doesn't mention minds at all.

Of course, you can use the word "morality" that way, and a lot of people already do, but in that case, you'd no longer have a word for what moral beliefs are attempting to represent. ( Every belief, if it is a proper belief, is attempting to represent a portion of reality. Moral beliefs are no exception. If there is no portion of reality that moral beliefs are describing, they are not beliefs, but something else. A belief is a proposition held to be true by someone, and every proposition, in order to be a proposition, must consist of two parts: the described and the description. Remove one of these parts and you no longer have a proposition. )
No. A belief isn't a proposition of any kind, let alone a representation. A proposition is nothing more than a linguistic assertion - an existence-claim or a description. It does not 'contain' the described. And anyway, belief that something should be the case isn't a representation of what is the case.Again, I think you have this all wrong.

Morality isn't a set of beliefs. It is a set of laws.
No, it isn't. Law and morality are quite separate and different things.

And it isn't a set of any kind of laws. Societal laws ( i.e. how societies behave, e.g. "When a resident of a modern day country kills someone, he goes to jail" ) and personal laws ( i.e. how individual people behave, e.g. "Peter never eats meat" ) are not moral laws. Moral laws are laws of the form "Under circusmtances C, the best decision for person P or group of people G is D."
No, This is a non-moral assertion, because it doesn't mention moral rightness or wrongness. And 'the best decision' could well be considered morally wrong, unless 'best' means 'morally rightest', which begs the question.

Sorry, but I think your premises are false or at least not shown to be true.
Magnus Anderson
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Re: Moralty is Objective [ by Magnus ]

Post by Magnus Anderson »

Peter Holmes wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 6:38 pm
Magnus Anderson wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 2:46 pm In the ontological sense, the word "objective" means "existing independently of minds". To say that a thing exists independently of minds is to say that it would exist even if minds ceased to exist. The question of this thread, then, is "Would morality continue to exist if all minds ceased to exist?"
If there are no minds, then this definition of objectivity is redundant.
It seems that you're saying that, if there are no minds, then the definition that I provided is of no use to anyone. If that's the case, then I agree with you, but I don't see how it relates to the topic at hand.
Magnus Anderson wrote:The term "morality" means "the set of all laws that someone [ an individual, a group of people or everyone ] ought to obey in order to maximize their chances of attaining their highest goal".
No, it doesn't. Here's a standard dictionary definition of morality: 'principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour'. Goal consistency has no intrinsic moral significance, and neither does obedience to laws. I think you have this completely wrong.
The word "principle" is another word for "law". So what that dictionary definition is saying is that morality is a set of laws concerning the distinction between right and wrong, good and bad, behavior.

The definition isn't making it clear whether moral laws are those that people are obeying ( i.e. what people THINK is the right thing to do ) or those that people ought to obey ( i.e. what IS the right thing to do. ) That's an important distinction to make.

Finally, to say that a behavior is right ( or good ) for person P is to say that it would help that person P get closer to attaining his highest goal compared to all other competing behaviors. Things are good or bad, right or wrong, only in relation to a goal.
No. See the above definition, which doesn't mention minds at all.
It does not mention them explicitly, that much is true.
No. A belief isn't a proposition of any kind, let alone a representation. A proposition is nothing more than a linguistic assertion - an existence-claim or a description. It does not 'contain' the described.
Actually, propositions are non-linguistic entities. I think you're confusing propositions with statements. Let me quote Wikipedia.
Wikipedia wrote:Propositions are also often characterized as being the kind of thing that declarative sentences denote. For instance the sentence "The sky is blue" denotes the proposition that the sky is blue. However, crucially, propositions are not themselves linguistic expressions. For instance, the English sentence "Snow is white" denotes the same proposition as the German sentence "Schnee ist weiß" even though the two sentences are not the same. Similarly, propositions can also be characterized as the objects of belief and other propositional attitudes. For instance if one believes that the sky is blue, what one believes is the proposition that the sky is blue. A proposition can also be thought of as a kind of idea: Collins Dictionary has a definition for proposition as "a statement or an idea that people can consider or discuss whether it is true."[1]
Emphasis is mine.

They also say that propositions are "the objects of belief". On another page, they say that "A belief is a subjective attitude that a proposition is true".

That said, I don't think I'm deviating too much from what they are saying. They are saying that a belief is an attitude that a proposition is true. I am saying that a belief is a proposition held by someone to be true. Perhaps what they are saying is closer to truth than what I am saying but it doesn't seem like a significant difference.

All in all, a proposition is an idea that a portion of reality exists in certain state. It consists of a reference to a portion of reality ( "the described", "subject" ) and a description of that portion of reality ( "the description", "predicate". ) As you can tell, a proposition does not contain the portion of reality itself. Instead, it contains a reference to it. The two components are necessary in order for something to be a proposition. If one or both are lacking, then that something is not a proposition. And if something is not a proposition, it's also not a belief ( or, if you want to go with Wikipedia, it's not something that can be believed, i.e. something that can be held to be true. )
And anyway, belief that something should be the case isn't a representation of what is the case.Again, I think you have this all wrong.
Every "ought" statement has an equivalent "is" statement. For example, the statement "John ought to do X" is equivalent to "The best thing for John to do is X". The described portion of reality is "The best thing for John to do". The description is "X". The description either corresponds to the described or it does not.
Magnus Anderson wrote:Morality isn't a set of beliefs. It is a set of laws.
No, it isn't. Law and morality are quite separate and different things.
I suspect that you're using the word "law" narrowly to mean "societal law". Not every law is a societal law. As I explained in my OP, the word "law" in the general sense means "a limit on what is possible" and moral laws are laws of the form "Under circumstances C, the best decision for person P is D".
Magnus Anderson
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Re: Moralty is Objective [ by Magnus ]

Post by Magnus Anderson »

Peter Holmes wrote:No, This is a non-moral assertion, because it doesn't mention moral rightness or wrongness.
I am defining the term "morality" a bit more broadly than most people do. Most people define it in such a way that it only refers to how people ought to act in relation to other living beings. I define it in such a way that it refers to how people ought to act in general. What people normally call "morality", I consider to be a branch of morality that I call "social morality". By showing that morality, in the broadest sense, is objective, I also show that morality, in the narrow sense, is objective as well.
And 'the best decision' could well be considered morally wrong, unless 'best' means 'morally rightest', which begs the question.
Why would anyone care about what's morally good if it has nothing to do with their highest goal?

The entire purpose of your life is to attain your highest goal. Everything you do revolves -- or at least, should revove -- around that.

It is indeed true that if something can help you attain a goal, that it is not necessarily morally good. For example, if you want to kill yourself, and if a decision can help you achieve that end, that does not necessarily mean the decision is a morally good one. The thing is that I am not talking about ANY goal a person posits, I am talking about the HIGHEST goal of an individual.

There's such a thing as a hierarchy of goals. At the top of that hierarchy, there sits a goal I call "the highest goal". This is the goal the attainment of which is the purpose of your life. You pursue this goal unconditionally in the sense that you don't spend a minute thinking about whether you should pursue it or not. It's not something you choose, it's given to you. It's probably in your DNA. Beneath that goal, there are sub-goals, goals that you choose to pursue based on your belief that they will help you attain some other goal ( and ultimately, your highest goal. ) You're not necessarily justified in pursuing those goals, so if something can help you attain them, that something is not necessarily moral, because in relation to the highest goal, the attainment of that sub-goal might be a bad thing.
popeye1945
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Re: Moralty is Objective [ by Magnus ]

Post by popeye1945 »

Magnus Anderson wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 2:46 pm I made this post in another thread, in response to something a member of this forum has said, but since it turned out to be pretty long, and far more than just a strict reply; and since the thread I posted it in is pretty noisy, I decided to give it its own topic.

So here we go.

In the ontological sense, the word "objective" means "existing independently of minds". To say that a thing exists independently of minds is to say that it would exist even if minds ceased to exist. The question of this thread, then, is "Would morality continue to exist if all minds ceased to exist?"
The first thing that needs to be done in order to answer that question is to understand what the word "morality" means.
The term "morality" means "the set of all laws that someone [an individual, a group of people or everyone] ought to obey in order to maximize their chances of attaining their highest goal".
If it actually meant something like "a set of beliefs about what is right and what is wrong held by someone", then morality would clearly be subjective, since beliefs exist within minds, and if something exists within a mind, removing all minds from existence would also remove that thing from existence. But is that what the word actually means?
The word objective is a derivative of object in the relation between subject between object which constitutes the bases of apparent reality. Morality, like everything else, comes into being through process. The beginning of this process is when a subject or subjects identify themselves with the selves in others, in so doing compassion arises, and compassion is the seed of the morality of self-interest in this expanded concept of the self. In this process morality is held by an individual on a subjective level and the collective subjective in agreement forms the society/group that this process enables. Society is the collective subjective and morality is the collective subjective biological extension and expression of a common humanity. Yes, if morality was not a product of the collective society but dependent upon an individual, consciousness would then perish with the individual, the process though is the coming together of individual selves in this extended concept of self, identity with other-selves forms a society which is dependent on a collective of individuals in a commonality of one called a society.

Of course, you can use the word "morality" that way, and a lot of people already do, but in that case, you'd no longer have a word for what moral beliefs are attempting to represent. (Every belief, if it is a proper belief, is attempting to represent a portion of reality. Moral beliefs are no exception. If there is no portion of reality that moral beliefs are describing, they are not beliefs, but something else. A belief is a proposition held to be true by someone, and every proposition, in order to be a proposition, must consist of two parts: the described and the description. Remove one of these parts and you no longer have a proposition.
Morality isn't a set of beliefs. It is a set of laws. And it isn't a set of any kind of laws. Societal laws (i.e. how societies behave, e.g. "When a resident of a modern-day country kills someone, he goes to jail") and personal laws (i.e. how individual people behave, e.g., "Peter never eats meat") are not moral laws. Moral laws are laws of the form "Under circumstances C, the best decision for person P or group of people G is D." [/quote]

Morality like all experience/knowledge/meaning is formed subjectively in the manner above outlined. So, as the sole owner of meaning, the subject then bestows the meanings of his/her experiences upon a meaningless world. Morality being the collective sentiments that ensure the health and wellbeing of all the selves of the collective community. Again, morality as it is made manifest in our outer world is a biological extension, an expression of our common humanity.




Given that morality is a set of laws, we need to ask the following questions:

1) What is a law?

2) Do laws exist?

3) Are laws ontologically objective? Is their existence independent of minds? If minds ceased to exist, would laws continue to exist?

Let's answer these questions one by one.

WHAT IS A LAW?

A law is a limit on what is possible. It is that which forces a portion of reality to be certain way in some or all situations. If there are no laws, i.e. if no laws exist, it means that everything is possible in every situation. If there are laws, i.e. if some of them exist, it means that certain things aren't possible in certain situations.

The simplest example of a law is the law of identity, "A = A". That statement is saying that every thing is identical to itself in all situations. It's saying that there is a law that prohibits all things in all situations from not being identical to themselves.

Another example is the mathematical law captured by the statement "2 + 2 = 4". That statement is saying that every set consisting of two sets of two elements is a set consisting of four elements. It's saying that there is a law that prohibits all sets consisting of two sets of two elements from being sets of one element, sets of two elements, sets of three elements, sets of five elements, etc.

Another example of a law is the causal law that is "If you press the light switch at point in time t, the light bulb will turn on in less than a second". That statement is saying that there is a law that prohibits the light bulb from not turning on when you press the light switch at point in time t.

Finally, there are moral laws. Moral laws are laws of the form "Under circumstances C, the best decision for person P or group of people G is D". An example of a moral law is "The best decision for a man, every man, in every situation is to choose to do only what his mind unanimously agrees it's the best thing to do". ( I understand that most people don't define the term "morality" this broadly. Most use it narrowly, to refer to social morality, i.e. to what's the right way to treat other living beings. Keep in mind that I define it a bit differently, to mean what's the right thing to do in general. )

DO LAWS EXIST?

Given that a law is a limit on what's possible, it follows that, if there are things that aren't possible in some or all situations, then there are laws. And if there are laws, then they exist.

To say that laws do not exist is to say that there are no laws, i.e. that there are no limits on what is possible. That, in turn, means that everything is possible in every situation.

I can assure you that literally everyone believes that we live in a world in which at least some of the things aren't possible. And if there are people who argue otherwise, which I'm sure there are, I can assure you that they are contradicting themselves.

The idea that laws exist is difficult to accept by some people. These tend to be people who think in terms of "If you can't touch something, it does not exist". They affirm the existence of nothing but physical objects. They have a tendency to bastardize highly abstract concepts by reducing them to the most similar concept they are familiar with. Pragmatists, for example, have done that with the concept of truth by reducing it to the concept of useful belief ( or to the concept of the limit of inquiry, as C. S. Peirce did. ) A number of physicists have done the same with the concept of past by reducing it to memories in the present. Others have done it by reducing the concept of time to "what clocks show". And so on. There are many examples. If you ask these people, laws either do not really exist, since they aren't physical objects, or they do, but they are not want we think they are, they are merely concepts inside our minds ( e.g. mental tools that we use to predict what's going to happen in the future. )

The fact of the matter is that the universe is not merely the sum of everything that was, everything that is and everything that will be. The universe does not merely refer to what is actual. It also refers to what is possible. And what is possible is determined by laws.

ARE LAWS ONTOLOGICALLY OBJECTIVE?

If minds ceased to exist, would laws continue to exist?

To answer that question, it's important to understand the difference between mutable and immutable things.

A mutable thing is a thing that can change. A thing that can change is a thing that can go through multiple stages of existence. The number of stages a mutable thing goes through is called its lifespan. A mutable thing, if it has a beginning, starts existing at one point in time, and if it has an end, it stops existing at another. Typically, a mutable thing occupies a portion of space at a single point in time at every stage of its existence. However, this is not a definitional requirement -- a mutable thing can occupy any number of moments at any stage of its existence. A mutable thing can exist in the same exact state at every stage of its existence, meaning, it does not have to change at all. But it has the capacity to do so. The state of a mutable thing at any stage of its existence, as well as its lifespan, can be determined, partially or completely, by other things. Physical objects, for example, are mutable things.

An immutable thing, on the other hand, is a thing that has no capacity for change at all. An immutable thing can exist at one or more points in time but it cannot go through more than one stage of its existence. The set of everything that was, that is and that will be is an example. That's the state of the universe at every single point in time. It's a thing that exists at more than one moment -- actually, at every single moment of existence -- but that goes through no more than one stage of its existence. The state of a physical object at a single point in time is another example. It's a thing that exists at a single point in time and a thing that goes through exactly one stage of its existence. The truth value of a proposition is yet another example. If a proposition is true on one day, it is true on all days. None of these things can change. As such, nothing can change them. If they exist, nothing can make them disappear from existence. They are, in a sense, permanent.

That said, if a law is an immutable law, it cannot cease to exist.

Are all laws immutable?

Absolutely not. There are mutable and immutable laws. Let me illustrate that with a very simple example.

Consider a universe that consists of exactly 3 points in time. At each point in time, nothing exists except for a light switch and a light bulb. At each point in time, the light switch can only be in one of the following two states: it can be "up" or it can be "down". Similarly, at each point in time, the light bulb can only be in one of the following two states: it can be "on" or it can be "off".

Let us say that the following laws apply:

1) Whenever the light switch is "up" at point in time 1, the light bulb is "on" at point in time 2.

2) Whenever the light switch is "down" at point in time 1, the light bulb is "off" at point in time 2.

3) Whenever the light switch is "up" at point in time 2, the light bulb is "off" at point in time 3,

4) Whenever the light switch is "down" at point in time 2, the light bulb is "on" at point in time 3.

The 4 laws that I just mentioned are immutable laws. They go through exactly one stage of their existence. They have no capacity to change. They are what they are.
However, if we said that 1) and 3) are two different stages of one and the same law, that law would be a mutable law. And in this particular case, it would be a law that changed ( since it went from "If up, then on" to "If up, then off". )
Are moral laws immutable laws?
A morality is a set of immutable laws, i.e. laws that cannot change. They either exist or they do not. If they exist, nothing can make them disappear from existence. Thus, if minds ceased to exist, moral laws would continue to exist.
[/quote]

Morality is not a set of immutable laws this should be made obvious by the changes in the moralities of populations over time. The only way you know the world is on a subjective level. In the absence of a conscious subject, nothing continues to exist on a subjective level. All meaning is biologically dependent. Take away the conscious subject and the object ceases to be, take away the object and consciousness ceases to be.
Magnus Anderson
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Re: Moralty is Objective [ by Magnus ]

Post by Magnus Anderson »

Skepdick wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 3:27 pmThese thought experiments “what if minds disappeared…” are silly.
Sure, you might think it's a silly question to ask whether or not morality is objective. I don't think it is. But if you do, feel free to explain to us what's so silly about it.

Until then, let us remind that the word "objective" is used in more than one way. Here in this thread, the relevant sense is the ontological sense. In the ontological sense, to say that a thing is "objective" is to say that it is mind-independent, i.e. that it exists independently of minds. That, in turn, can mean one of the following:

1) that a thing would continue to exist even if all minds ceased to exist

2) that a thing exists even when noone is observing it

3) that a thing exists outside of minds

4) that a thing exists outside of counscious minds

By proving that morality is mind-independent in the first sense, I am also proving that it is mind-independent in the other three senses.
If minds disappeared who is asking the question and why? Who would care about the answer?
Sure, if minds ceased to exist, there would be no mind to ask questions and no mind to care about answers.

But how exactly is that relevant to the topic at hand?
If minds disappeared then the discourse would be about a different universe - not this one.
I am not sure what that means. I understand the term "universe" to mean "everything that exists". As such, there is only one universe. It's in the name: universe.
Laws don’t have ontological existence. They are mental constructs.
Perhaps you should define the terms "ontological existence" and "mental construct".

Until then, all I can do is guess. I take it that what you're saying is that laws exist within minds. That's an answer to the qeustion posed in the OP -- the one that you thought it's silly. If something exists inside a mind, then removing all minds would also remove that thing. That said, since morality is a set of laws, and since laws would cease to exist if all minds ceased to exist, it follows that morality would also cease to exist if all minds ceased to exist. In other words, morality isn't objective; it's subjective. That's your position.
Magnus Anderson
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Re: Moralty is Objective [ by Magnus ]

Post by Magnus Anderson »

popeye1945 wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 10:06 pmMorality is not a set of immutable laws this should be made obvious by the changes in the moralities of populations over time.
If you define the word "morality" to mean something like "a set of moral beliefs held by someone" or "a set of laws someone is obeying", then yes, morality is a mutable thing.

Beliefs are mutable things. They can change. In fact, they change all the time. You believe one thing one day and then another thing another day. You believe all sorts of things when you're young. You believe that Santa Claus is real, for example. ( That's what I'm told American kids do. I never held that belief myself. ) When you grow up, you replace those beliefs with different ones. And so on.

The same goes for a set of laws that someone is obeying. Today, you might be obeying a law that says "Don't eat". But tomorrow, you might be obeying a law that says "Eat three times a day".

However, if you define the word "morality" to mean something like "a set of moral truths" or "a set of laws someone should obey", then no, morality is not a mutable thing.

Do you agree that truth is immutable? Do you agree that what is true on one day is true on all days? If so, then you should also agree that moral truths are immutable. If it is true today that you should eat three times a day every day then it is true on all days.

And the same goes for laws that one ought to obey. If you ought to obey the law that says "Eat 3 times a day" each day, then you ought to obey it each day. That sort of thing has no capacity to change.

And if something is immutable, the following applies:

1) it cannot change

2) if it exists, it cannot cease to exist

3) if it exists, and if minds cease to exist, it won't cease to exist

4) it cannot exist within mutable things

5) since minds are mutable, and since immutable things cannot exist within mutable things, it cannot exist within minds ( and therefore, it does not )
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Moralty is Objective [ by Magnus ]

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Magnus Anderson wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 12:08 am
Skepdick wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 3:27 pmThese thought experiments “what if minds disappeared…” are silly.
Sure, you might think it's a silly question to ask whether or not morality is objective. I don't think it is. But if you do, feel free to explain to us what's so silly about it.

Until then, let us remind that the word "objective" is used in more than one way. Here in this thread, the relevant sense is the ontological sense. In the ontological sense, to say that a thing is "objective" is to say that it is mind-independent, i.e. that it exists independently of minds. That, in turn, can mean one of the following:

1) that a thing would continue to exist even if all minds ceased to exist
2) that a thing exists even when noone is observing it
3) that a thing exists outside of minds
4) that a thing exists outside of counscious minds

By proving that morality is mind-independent in the first sense, I am also proving that it is mind-independent in the other three senses.
We have discussed this point re Objectivity but you just ignored what I wrote.
Since this is a philosophical forum, so we start with what is Philosophical Objectivity;
  • In philosophy, objectivity is the concept of truth independent from individual subjectivity (bias caused by one's perception, emotions, or imagination).
    A proposition is considered to have objective truth when its truth conditions are met without bias caused by the mind of a sentient being.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivity_(philosophy)
Note "a" which means ONE person which I would extend to a loose mob of people in an unorganized manner.
How can you ignore the above?

I also mentioned to you there are TWO sense of what is objectivity;
viewtopic.php?t=39326
1. FSK-ed Objectivity, e.g. Science
2. P-realist mind-independent objectivity.

I have argued 2 is illusory,
Why Philosophical Realism is illusory
viewtopic.php?t=40167
as such Objectivity [ontological] is illusory.

The supposed Ontological Objectivity is merely based on ONE individual belief or merely individual[s] assumptions and hearsays without proof at all.

An organized FSK-ed is based on shared-knowledge with consensus by a collective of subjects or person, thus it is NOT based on the individual subjectivity (bias caused by one's perception, emotions, or imagination).
The most credible and reliable Objectivity [philosophy] is from the Scientific FSK, i.e.
Scientific Objectivity
viewtopic.php?t=39286
Scientific Objectivity satisfy the definition of Philosophical Objectivity, i.e. it is independent of individual's mind.
However it is not independent of the collective subjects and their shared-mind.

So, repeat, your sense of objectivity [ontological P-realist] is illusory;
Why Philosophical Realism is illusory
viewtopic.php?t=40167
as such Objectivity [ontological] is illusory.
Skepdick
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Re: Moralty is Objective [ by Magnus ]

Post by Skepdick »

Magnus Anderson wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 12:08 am
Skepdick wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 3:27 pmThese thought experiments “what if minds disappeared…” are silly.
Sure, you might think it's a silly question to ask whether or not morality is objective. I don't think it is. But if you do, feel free to explain to us what's so silly about it.
The question is valid and morality is objective, but your thought experiment is self-defeating.

Who would give a damn if morality is objective if minds don't exist?
Magnus Anderson wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 12:08 am Until then, let us remind that the word "objective" is used in more than one way. Here in this thread, the relevant sense is the ontological sense.
Ontology. Epistemology. Is just a way to confuse yourself even further.

Are minds ontological? They sure are! Everything that exists is ontological.

But if objective morality exists only in ontological minds and ontological minds disappear - is morality still objective?
Magnus Anderson wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 12:08 am In the ontological sense, to say that a thing is "objective" is to say that it is mind-independent, i.e. that it exists independently of minds. That, in turn, can mean one of the following:
Q.E.D the confusion has already settled indeed.

You appear to be saying that minds are NOT objective e.g that your mind doesn't exist ontologically.

What a peculiar mindset.
Magnus Anderson wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 12:08 am
If minds disappeared who is asking the question and why? Who would care about the answer?
Sure, if minds ceased to exist, there would be no mind to ask questions and no mind to care about answers.

But how exactly is that relevant to the topic at hand?
How is it not relevant?!?

Your thought experiment entails a scenario where minds cease to exist. So your mind imagines its own non-existence? How? As your mind disappears - the thought experiment disappears with it!

Your conception of "objectivity" as mind-independence is a non-starter.
Magnus Anderson wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 12:08 am I am not sure what that means. I understand the term "universe" to mean "everything that exists". As such, there is only one universe. It's in the name: universe.
Sure. But the moment you imagine a universe without your mind in it - you are talking about some other, imaginary universe, not this universe.

This universe has your mind in it. The one you are talking about doesn't.
Magnus Anderson wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 12:08 am
Laws don’t have ontological existence. They are mental constructs.
Perhaps you should define the terms "ontological existence" and "mental construct".
I am using them exactly as you are using them. If minds disappear - laws disappear.
Magnus Anderson wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 12:08 am Until then, all I can do is guess. I take it that what you're saying is that laws exist within minds. That's an answer to the qeustion posed in the OP -- the one that you thought it's silly. If something exists inside a mind, then removing all minds would also remove that thing.

Magnus Anderson wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 12:08 am That said, since morality is a set of laws, and since laws would cease to exist if all minds ceased to exist, it follows that morality would also cease to exist if all minds ceased to exist. In other words, morality isn't objective; it's subjective. That's your position.
That's not my position.

I agree with the first part (if minds ceased to exist morality would also cease to exist - yes.)

But I disagree with the premise that the objectivity of morality requires mind-independence.
I also disagree with the insinuation that minds; and the contents thereof are not objective.

That's just the usual philosophical mental muddle.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Moralty is Objective [ by Magnus ]

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Magnus Anderson wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:57 pm
Peter Holmes wrote:No, This is a non-moral assertion, because it doesn't mention moral rightness or wrongness.
I am defining the term "morality" a bit more broadly than most people do. Most people define it in such a way that it only refers to how people ought to act in relation to other living beings. I define it in such a way that it refers to how people ought to act in general. What people normally call "morality", I consider to be a branch of morality that I call "social morality". By showing that morality, in the broadest sense, is objective, I also show that morality, in the narrow sense, is objective as well.
And 'the best decision' could well be considered morally wrong, unless 'best' means 'morally rightest', which begs the question.
Why would anyone care about what's morally good if it has nothing to do with their highest goal?

The entire purpose of your life is to attain your highest goal.
Everything you do revolves -- or at least, should revolve -- around that.

It is indeed true that if something can help you attain a goal, that it is not necessarily morally good. For example, if you want to kill yourself, and if a decision can help you achieve that end, that does not necessarily mean the decision is a morally good one. The thing is that I am not talking about ANY goal a person posits, I am talking about the HIGHEST goal of an individual.

There's such a thing as a hierarchy of goals.
At the top of that hierarchy, there sits a goal I call "the highest goal".
This is the goal the attainment of which is the purpose of your life.
You pursue this goal unconditionally in the sense that you don't spend a minute thinking about whether you should pursue it or not.
It's not something you choose, it's given to you.
It's probably in your DNA.

Beneath that goal, there are sub-goals, goals that you choose to pursue based on your belief that they will help you attain some other goal ( and ultimately, your highest goal. )
You're not necessarily justified in pursuing those goals, so if something can help you attain them, that something is not necessarily moral, because in relation to the highest goal, the attainment of that sub-goal might be a bad thing.
I have been arguing on the basis of what you termed as 'highest goal' but 'highest goal' is a problematic term.

I have been stating this long time ago;
1. But empirically wise, it is very evident, ALL humans are programmed to survive as long as possible till the inevitable as embedded in our DNA, genes, brain and body.

2. To facilitate the above, ALL humans are programmed with all necessary adaptions to the above objectives, i.e. the basic instincts re 4Fs, emotions, intellect, planning, language and so on.

3. One of this basic instinct is the moral functions and potential embedded deep into the human brain via DNA.
However, the moral potential is not active in the majority of humans and even in a minority their activeness is say 10% relatively greater than the minority.
So there is still a lot of room for the unfoldment of the moral potential in modern humans.
"Morality [moral potential] for me is fundamentally tied to the survival instinct which had been programmed in the first-living-one-celled thing and is embedded in all living things that evolved from those first living one-celled thing 3.5 billion years ago.
viewtopic.php?p=574008#p574008
"

4. Morality-proper is self-driven like Self-Motivation, Self-Motivation in accordance to an inherent moral potential of universal moral standards [represented by physical neural correlates] which can be verified and justified as a moral fact.
viewtopic.php?p=573665#p573665


5. You wrote;
You pursue this goal unconditionally in the sense that you don't spend a minute thinking about whether you should pursue it or not.

This why I have been claiming, morality-proper is not about right or wrong, i.e. deciding what is right or wrong to act.
It's not something you choose, it's given to you.
It's probably in your DNA.
The main goal and sub-goals are given to all humans embedded within the DNA, genes, brain, body.
The above moral goals are subsequently expressed as a neural algorithm in the brain.
These moral goals [main and sub-] are represented by physical neural correlates, thus they are factual and it is possible to verify and justify them empirically via the human-based science-biology FSK as objective scientific facts.

The point is each individual must develop his moral competence to as high as possible to the extent when he act, it is always moral and not immoral without thinking about it.
However, this is not possible at present because the majority of humans are still animal like with high evil propensities.
It is only in the future [next 50, 100, 150 years or more] that we can hope to increase the average moral competence upon an exponential expansion of knowledge and technology.

6. When these objective scientific facts are inputted into a human based moral FSK, they are then identified as objective moral facts.
Because they are human-based, they cannot be mind-independent facts as claimed by P-realists.

7. Morality is thus Objective but cannot be Objective in the P-realist mind-independent sense. Morality is objective in entanglement with the human factor.

Your fundamental principle of philosophical realism of mind-independence is not realistic and will be a hindrance to the progress of humanity, in this case with reference to morality.
Note this;
Philosophical Realism is A Threat to Humanity
viewtopic.php?t=40094
popeye1945
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Re: Moralty is Objective [ by Magnus ]

Post by popeye1945 »

Magnus Anderson wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 1:24 am
popeye1945 wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 10:06 pmMorality is not a set of immutable laws this should be made obvious by the changes in the moralities of populations over time.
If you define the word "morality" to mean something like "a set of moral beliefs held by someone" or "a set of laws someone is obeying", then yes, morality is a mutable thing.

Beliefs are mutable things. They can change. In fact, they change all the time. You believe one thing one day and then another thing another day. You believe all sorts of things when you're young. You believe that Santa Claus is real, for example. ( That's what I'm told American kids do. I never held that belief myself. ) When you grow up, you replace those beliefs with different ones. And so on.

The same goes for a set of laws that someone is obeying. Today, you might be obeying a law that says "Don't eat". But tomorrow, you might be obeying a law that says "Eat three times a day".

However, if you define the word "morality" to mean something like "a set of moral truths" or "a set of laws someone should obey", then no, morality is not a mutable thing.

Do you agree that truth is immutable? Do you agree that what is true on one day is true on all days? If so, then you should also agree that moral truths are immutable. If it is true today that you should eat three times a day every day then it is true on all days.

And the same goes for laws that one ought to obey. If you ought to obey the law that says "Eat 3 times a day" each day, then you ought to obey it each day. That sort of thing has no capacity to change.

And if something is immutable, the following applies:

1) it cannot change

2) if it exists, it cannot cease to exist

3) if it exists, and if minds cease to exist, it won't cease to exist

4) it cannot exist within mutable things

5) since minds are mutable, and since immutable things cannot exist within mutable things, it cannot exist within minds ( and therefore, it does not )
It all hinges on where one believes the source of all meaning is, and the source of all meaning is the individual conscious subject. When one comes into this world, this society, the moral framework is already in place, including most other standards of value and for the most part one accepts these standards without much thought. It is just the way the world is, our ancestors have laid out the moral landscape for the coming generations. All meanings are biologically dependent, meanings are experiences and constitute the relations between subject and object. This process of sensing the world in the way of experiences, knowledge and meanings are then bestowed upon a meaningless world by the conscious subject creating a world one understands on this level of subjective experiences and one may maneuver more safely in world as a result.

Our apparent reality, our everyday reality is a subjective creation, a biological readout, or biological simulation. Which to me means the only foundation of morality is our common biology, rather than the varieties of supernatural mythologies dominate throughout the world. You insist that something can exist in the absence of a conscious subject but in reality, in the absence of a conscious subject there is nothing, on a subjective level, but that is where our reality, apparent reality is. Subject and object stand or fall together, take one away and the other ceases to be. Apparent reality is as mutable as is the plasticity of biological forms, change the biology and you change one's reality/apparent reality. In the absence of a conscious subject, the physical world is utterly meaningless, and just maybe, does not exist at all. In other words, life experiences the effects of the source not the source itself, it might be considered what Kant considered the thing in itself; in that the image is taken for reality when reality is the unknow source or the thing in itself, in this case one naturally thinks energy/energies.
Last edited by popeye1945 on Sun Jun 04, 2023 12:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Peter Holmes
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Re: Moralty is Objective [ by Magnus ]

Post by Peter Holmes »

Magnus Anderson wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:25 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 6:38 pm
Magnus Anderson wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 2:46 pm In the ontological sense, the word "objective" means "existing independently of minds". To say that a thing exists independently of minds is to say that it would exist even if minds ceased to exist. The question of this thread, then, is "Would morality continue to exist if all minds ceased to exist?"
If there are no minds, then this definition of objectivity is redundant.
It seems that you're saying that, if there are no minds, then the definition that I provided is of no use to anyone. If that's the case, then I agree with you, but I don't see how it relates to the topic at hand.
My point is that, pending evidence, belief in the the existence of minds, or any other abstract or non-physical things, is irrational. So mind-independence is a useless criterion for objectivity.
Magnus Anderson wrote:The term "morality" means "the set of all laws that someone [ an individual, a group of people or everyone ] ought to obey in order to maximize their chances of attaining their highest goal".
No, it doesn't. Here's a standard dictionary definition of morality: 'principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour'. Goal consistency has no intrinsic moral significance, and neither does obedience to laws. I think you have this completely wrong.
The word "principle" is another word for "law". So what that dictionary definition is saying is that morality is a set of laws concerning the distinction between right and wrong, good and bad, behavior.
Not so. Principles are quite different from laws. Again, you want to redefine words to construct your model. And this description of morality doesn't mention a person's 'highest goal' - which has no moral significance anyway.

The definition isn't making it clear whether moral laws are those that people are obeying ( i.e. what people THINK is the right thing to do ) or those that people ought to obey ( i.e. what IS the right thing to do. ) That's an important distinction to make.
Agreed. That's the difference between an is and an ought - which is the issue.

Finally, to say that a behavior is right ( or good ) for person P is to say that it would help that person P get closer to attaining his highest goal compared to all other competing behaviors. Things are good or bad, right or wrong, only in relation to a goal.
This is, very explicitly, not what moral objectivism means. If there are so-called moral facts, then people's goals - highest or not - are irrelevant. That's what I mean by saying that goal-consistency does not confer moral objectivity. Consider the following.

Premise: Our highest goal is white supremacy.
Conclusion: Therefore, it's morally right for us to subjugate non-white people.

Given your explanation of moral goodness or rightness - consistency with a highest goal - this is a valid argument. The fact that most of us, including most moral objectivists, would dismiss this argument as morally obnoxious demonstrates the uselessness of goal-consistency as a criterion for moral conclusions.
No. See the above definition, which doesn't mention minds at all.
It does not mention them explicitly, that much is true.
It doesn't imply them either. The venerable intrusion of the mythical mind into discussion of objectivity and subjectivity is an unnecessary distraction.
No. A belief isn't a proposition of any kind, let alone a representation. A proposition is nothing more than a linguistic assertion - an existence-claim or a description. It does not 'contain' the described.
Actually, propositions are non-linguistic entities. I think you're confusing propositions with statements. Let me quote Wikipedia.
Wikipedia wrote:Propositions are also often characterized as being the kind of thing that declarative sentences denote. For instance the sentence "The sky is blue" denotes the proposition that the sky is blue. However, crucially, propositions are not themselves linguistic expressions. For instance, the English sentence "Snow is white" denotes the same proposition as the German sentence "Schnee ist weiß" even though the two sentences are not the same. Similarly, propositions can also be characterized as the objects of belief and other propositional attitudes. For instance if one believes that the sky is blue, what one believes is the proposition that the sky is blue. A proposition can also be thought of as a kind of idea: Collins Dictionary has a definition for proposition as "a statement or an idea that people can consider or discuss whether it is true."[1]
Emphasis is mine.
Thanks, but the conceptual mess informing talk of abstract or non-physical things, such as propositions - and concepts - is what we need to clean up. Quoting a mistake does nothing to rectify it.

In short, the fact that different 'token sentences' can have the same function doesn't mean there must be an abstraction that unites them. The so-called logical form of a declarative is just another declarative. And propositions have subjects and predicates, and some have truth-value - so they're just like declaratives. The myth of propositions is potent and pervasive in philosophy.

They also say that propositions are "the objects of belief". On another page, they say that "A belief is a subjective attitude that a proposition is true".
Thanks, but we need to question these definitions. And this one is patently false. If I believe the sky is blue, that has nothing to do with the proposition/sentence 'the sky is blue'. That is to mistake what we say about things for the way things are - as does the JTB truth condition: S knows that p iff p is true. (Iow, the confusion is institutional.)

That said, I don't think I'm deviating too much from what they are saying. They are saying that a belief is an attitude that a proposition is true. I am saying that a belief is a proposition held by someone to be true. Perhaps what they are saying is closer to truth than what I am saying but it doesn't seem like a significant difference.

All in all, a proposition is an idea that a portion of reality exists in certain state. It consists of a reference to a portion of reality ( "the described", "subject" ) and a description of that portion of reality ( "the description", "predicate". ) As you can tell, a proposition does not contain the portion of reality itself. Instead, it contains a reference to it. The two components are necessary in order for something to be a proposition. If one or both are lacking, then that something is not a proposition. And if something is not a proposition, it's also not a belief ( or, if you want to go with Wikipedia, it's not something that can be believed, i.e. something that can be held to be true. )
This shows how murky our thinking gets when we try to flesh out the myth of propositions. So-called propositional knowledge and propositional belief are chimeras that don't stand up to the slightest scrutiny.

You seem to be working with a correspondence theory of truth: a proposition refers to a portion of reality. But such a theory is demonstrably incorrect. And since what we're actually talking about is factual assertions, they can be true or false. So I think your analysis is muddled in several ways.
And anyway, belief that something should be the case isn't a representation of what is the case. Again, I think you have this all wrong.
Every "ought" statement has an equivalent "is" statement. For example, the statement "John ought to do X" is equivalent to "The best thing for John to do is X". The described portion of reality is "The best thing for John to do". The description is "X". The description either corresponds to the described or it does not.
Two problems. 1 The words ought to and should can be used non-morally, so "John ought to do X" need have no moral meaning. And "the best thing" similarly need have no moral meaning. 2 Your supposedly equivalent 'is' assertion still expresses a matter of opinion, which is subjective. It doesn't describe the way a portion of reality is - it asserts the way it ought to be.
Magnus Anderson wrote:Morality isn't a set of beliefs. It is a set of laws.
No, it isn't. Law and morality are quite separate and different things.
I suspect that you're using the word "law" narrowly to mean "societal law". Not every law is a societal law. As I explained in my OP, the word "law" in the general sense means "a limit on what is possible" and moral laws are laws of the form "Under circumstances C, the best decision for person P is D".
I disagree with your gloss on the word law.

Magnus, there are many issues on which we disagree here. If you want to continue, can I suggest we narrow it down to one at a time - for example, the existence and nature of propositions - or the nature of goals and goal-consistency?

But I'm happy to leave it here, if you think it wouldn't be fruitful to continue.
Magnus Anderson
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Re: Moralty is Objective [ by Magnus ]

Post by Magnus Anderson »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 5:12 amWe have discussed this point re Objectivity but you just ignored what I wrote.
Since this is a philosophical forum, so we start with what is Philosophical Objectivity;
  • In philosophy, objectivity is the concept of truth independent from individual subjectivity (bias caused by one's perception, emotions, or imagination).
    A proposition is considered to have objective truth when its truth conditions are met without bias caused by the mind of a sentient being.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivity_(philosophy)
Note "a" which means ONE person which I would extend to a loose mob of people in an unorganized manner.
How can you ignore the above?

I also mentioned to you there are TWO sense of what is objectivity;
viewtopic.php?t=39326
1. FSK-ed Objectivity, e.g. Science
2. P-realist mind-independent objectivity.
Words often have more than one meaning. The word "objective" is no exception. You're aware of that yourself.

In the epistemological sense, the word "objective" can be one of the following things:

1) an adjective that specifies that the truth value of a proposition is not necessarily the same as what people think its truth value is

2) an adjective that specifies that a belief is a product of a judgment that wasn't corrupted by subjective factors ( e.g. personal preferences )

In the above quote, you seem to be using the word "objective" in the second sense.

However, the title of this thread, as well as the opening post, do not use the word "objective" that way. Instead, they use it in the ontological sense. "Morality is objective" is to be interpreted to mean "Morality would continue to exist even if all minds ceased to exist". That's what we're talking about here. That's the subject of this thread.
I have argued 2 is illusory,
Why Philosophical Realism is illusory
viewtopic.php?t=40167
as such Objectivity [ontological] is illusory.
Roughly speaking, your argument against the existence of mind-inpendent things is as following:

1) There exists a time gap. By "time gap" you mean "a temporal distance between the moment the light hits one's retina and the moment it reflects off of physical objects or is emitted".

2) Time gap makes it impossible for us to know what's out there.

3) Therefore, what's out there does not exist.

I agree with ( 1 ). I disagree with ( 2 ). And I also disagree that ( 3 ) follows from ( 1 ) and ( 2 ).
The supposed Ontological Objectivity is merely based on ONE individual belief or merely individual[s] assumptions and hearsays without proof at all.
I presented a proof in the opening post. I suggest that you read it.

1) I explained what the word "law" means.

2) I explained what it means to say that a law exists and what it means to say that it does not exist.

3) I mentioned a number of laws that everyone believes exist ( e.g. "A = A" and "2 + 2 = 4". )

4) I explained the difference between mutable and immutable things ( and by extension, mutable and immutable laws. )

5) I argued that, since immutable things cannot change, they cannot cease to exist. As such, if minds ceased to exist, immutable things that existed up to that point wouldn't cease to exist.

6) I argued that, since "A = A" and "2 + 2 = 4" are immutable laws, they do not merely exist, they also exist independently of minds, i.e. they would continue to exist even if all minds ceased to exist.

7) Therefore, at least some mind-independent things exist.

Of course, this wasn't the point of the OP. The point of the OP was to show that morality is mind-independent. But it ended up being part of it.
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