Moral Fact Deniers Has Cognitive Deficit in Morality

[Skepdick]

Have I missed something? Has anyone here made such a claim? Who has proposed an experiment the null result of which would show morality doesn't exist?

is it not the default position for an empiricist? If you assumed morality doesn't exist I would've expected you to give yourself the label "amoralist" or something?

Well, you know there are logical realists out there who will argue with an empty room that 2+2=4 regardless of whether anyone thinks it.

When the argument presents itself without the arguer, I might believe them.

So...you need to be alive to do morality, but you don't need to do morality to be alive is necessarily untrue?

You need morality (a set of values) to remain alive. Else you'd go the way of Buridan's ass..

[uwot]

is it not the default position for an empiricist? If you assumed morality doesn't exist I would've expected you to give yourself the label "amoralist" or something?

Well, the default position for this empiricist is not to bother with labels for every ontological proposition I don't subscribe to. No small part of that reasoning is that all labels are contextual. Which I'm sure I've mentioned.

You need morality (a set of values) to remain alive. Else you'd go the way of Buridan's ass..

Do you believe that every living creature has a set of values?

[henry quirk]

No, they're just wrong.

Bein' wrong doesn't make 'em retarded.

[Peter Holmes]

No, they're just wrong.

Bein' wrong doesn't make 'em retarded.

Intelligence doesn't guarantee rationality. After all, some moral objectivists are intelligent.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Disagree. Pretentious and offensive codswallop.

As usual you did not offer any justified nor rational counter argument.

You haven't demonstrated the independent existence of moral rightness and wrongness, and therefore the existence of moral facts. So you haven't shown that morality is a matter of knowledge or cognition in the first place. So your claim that those of us who deny moral objectivity are cognitively deficient is laughable.

Here's your claim: people who deny the existence of moral facts just aren't thinking straight.

And you think that deserves a rational counter argument?

It is the theists and Platonists [and alikes] who are claiming the independent existence of moral facts regardless of humans' thoughts, opinions and beliefs.

Note my argument;

• What is Fact?
  viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29486

In the above I am arguing, what is fact is produced and regulated from a Framework and System of Knowledge.
The referent related to that fact is an emergent, i.e. inter-entangled with humans.

Thus moral facts are facts produced and regulated from a Framework and System of Morality.

Your denying of such moral facts has a cognitive deficit re moral sense, i.e. an under-developed moral faculty.

Here's your claim: people who deny the existence of moral facts just aren't thinking straight.

Nope!

The development and cognition of an efficient moral compass is independent of being intelligent, logical, analytical and the likes.
Morality is not about "thinking" straight but spontaneously acting right.

The most stupidest person can instinctively empathized and extent compassion to another human.

[Veritas Aequitas]

It's also lazy and stupid and Veritas has misread his source material, which blatantly does not accuse "moral fact deniers" of any cognitive deficit.

I did not claim the above is a proven certain conclusion.

I noted 'probably' in the quoted;

We are now in a position to see why the morally unconcerned person, the person for whom moral facts are motivationally irrelevant, probably suffers a cognitive deficit with respect to moral reasoning.

However if one were to read the whole book, 'cognitive moral deficit' is very likely as supported by the various researches in psychology, the neurosciences, and the likes.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Generally stated as something like 'Do not multiply entities beyond necessity.'
Moral facts are not logically necessary - it's you that's multiplying unnecessary entities.

You have a narrow conception of the general accepted meaning of 'what is fact'.

Note my point to Peter Holmes;

It is the theists and Platonists [and alikes] who are claiming the independent existence of moral facts regardless of humans' thoughts, opinions and beliefs.

What is Fact?
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29486
In the above I am arguing, what is fact is produced and regulated from a Framework and System of Knowledge.
The referent related to that fact is an emergent, i.e. inter-entangled with humans.

Thus moral facts are facts justified, produced and regulated from a Framework and System of Morality.

"Moral facts are not logically necessary"
Justified Moral facts are imperative as standards and GUIDEs to regulate human actions within an efficient Moral & Ethical Framework and System.

[uwot]

Generally stated as something like 'Do not multiply entities beyond necessity.'
Moral facts are not logically necessary - it's you that's multiplying unnecessary entities.

You have a narrow conception of the general accepted meaning of 'what is fact'.

Meh, yes and no. You're right that I do think that there is something that really, really exists and somethings that really, really happen. Essentially that's the 'there is something' of Parmenides and 'there are phenomena' of Descartes I keep banging on about. They are philosophical facts, and there are only two of them. What makes them so special is that they cannot be conceived or expressed without being true. Nothing else you can say has that level of factiness. The issue with the word 'fact' is that when people apply it to something, more often than not, the assumption is that the claim has the same level of logical necessity as the only two cor blimey, only an idiot would deny 'em facts.
On the other hand 'fact', like any other word, is contextual. And if you understand the context, yer not going to get yourself in a muddle. For instance the argument over whether murder is wrong is pointless, in my view. Call it a fact, if you will, but it is an analytic fact because 'murder' simply means the reason someone was killed weren't good enough, or accidental enough.
So yeah, call anything you like a fact, but that doesn't mean it therefore can't be disputed.

Justified Moral facts are imperative as standards and GUIDEs to regulate human actions within an efficient Moral & Ethical Framework and System.

The problem there is who does the justification?

[Skepdick]

Well, the default position for this empiricist is not to bother with labels for every ontological proposition I don't subscribe to. No small part of that reasoning is that all labels are contextual. Which I'm sure I've mentioned.

And yet you have labeled "morality". What is its context?

Do you believe that every living creature has a set of values?

I believe every living creature has a utility function.

In the field of artificial intelligence, utility functions are used to convey the value of various outcomes to intelligent agents. This allows the agents to plan actions with the goal of maximizing the utility (or "value") of available choices.

[FlashDangerpants]

It's also lazy and stupid and Veritas has misread his source material, which blatantly does not accuse "moral fact deniers" of any cognitive deficit.

I did not claim the above is a proven certain conclusion.

I noted 'probably' in the quoted;

We are now in a position to see why the morally unconcerned person, the person for whom moral facts are motivationally irrelevant, probably suffers a cognitive deficit with respect to moral reasoning.

Dude, pay attention to what you are doing. Motivationally Irrelevant means something. Think about it ... I'll give you a moment.

Did you get there yet? That's right, people who find morality "motivationally irrelevant" are psychopaths, sociopaths, and others that we might in normal life describe as morally disordered if we want get all Victorian. Motivational relevance means that you take something into account when you are deciding what you want to do. You know, like how even I, a denier of moral fact, won't randomly stab any strangers today, because I don't want to do such an immoral thing. Morality is motivationally relevant to me because I am not a psychopath.

The guy is writing a response to an argument that used psychos as an example for some reason, or else he is in the middle of making an argument that psychos demonstrate some fact of reason. But because you are incapabable of analysing a philosophical argument at all, you have just picked a couple of words out of it and fooled yourself you get it.

You are incompetent, a buffoon, a foolish and deluded bulshit artist. You have misread your source material, which blatantly does not accuse "moral fact deniers" of any cognitive deficit.

However if one were to read the whole book, 'cognitive moral deficit' is very likely as supported by the various researches in psychology, the neurosciences, and the likes.

You haven't read the book from which you lifted this "argument"?

[Skepdick]

The problem there is who does the justification?

We do.

Logic is an input to reason, not a substitute for it.

[henry quirk]

...or goodwill.

[Skepdick]

Dude, pay attention to what you are doing. Motivationally Irrelevant means something. Think about it ... I'll give you a moment.

Did you get there yet? That's right, people who find morality "motivationally irrelevant" are psychopaths, sociopaths, and others that we might in normal life describe as morally disordered if we want get all Victorian. Motivational relevance means that you take something into account when you are deciding what you want to do.

Precisely. Dimwit.

There is no such thing as unmotivated reasoning. That would be reasoning without a "Why?"

You got any examples? I'll wait. Not.

You know, like how even I, a denier of moral fact, won't randomly stab any strangers today, because I don't want to do such an immoral thing. Morality is motivationally relevant to me because I am not a psychopath.

The denier of moral facts doesn't want to do "immoral; things". Please, please PLEASE, tell me about the paragon/normative notion of "morality" against which you are judging your own behaviour?

Almost as if you are saying "Factually, my behaviour is moral.". But you aren't saying it. But you are.

You are incompetent, a buffoon, a foolish and deluded bulshit artist. You have misread your source material, which blatantly does not accuse "moral fact deniers" of any cognitive deficit.

Uhuh. So the colourful labels you quoted out of the DSM-5 don't apply to "moral fact deniers"?
You wanna tell me what normative standard they had in mind when they came up with those classifications?

How is it that your opinion seems to coincide with opinions in the DSM-5?
Almost... as if.. you have a range of socially acceptable behavioural norms in mind. Or something.

[uwot]

Well, the default position for this empiricist is not to bother with labels for every ontological proposition I don't subscribe to. No small part of that reasoning is that all labels are contextual. Which I'm sure I've mentioned.

And yet you have labeled "morality". What is its context?

Dunno mate. You show me the passage you lifted that quote from, and I'll try and remember.

Do you believe that every living creature has a set of values?

I believe every living creature has a utility function.

In the field of artificial intelligence, utility functions are used to convey the value of various outcomes to intelligent agents. This allows the agents to plan actions with the goal of maximizing the utility (or "value") of available choices.

Well, call me old fashioned, but until a living creature or artificial intelligence can make up its own mind about what it values, it's not all that intelligent in my book. Mind you, there's a bunch of values some human beings have that persuade me they're not terribly intelligent.

[uwot]

The problem there is who does the justification?

We do.

If you are making the utterly banal point that it is we human beings that do the justification, well done, have a lollipop, sit in the corner and shut the fuck up. If not, which 'we'?

Logic is an input to reason, not a substitute for it.

People have tried to build ethical systems on reasoned and even logical grounds - Utilitarianism springs to mind. Hasn't worked so far because people have feelings about 'moral' subjects which are completely immune to logic or reason, but which they will try to defend with post hoc logic or reason. No one has succeeded with that either, but who knows? Maybe the fine contributors to this forum will finally nail it.