Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Mon Apr 01, 2024 4:24 am
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Mar 31, 2024 8:49 pm
Age and other moral objectivists [
except VA's] claim that there are moral facts - things that just
are morally right or wrong - regardless of anyone's opinion. But a simple question shows why this is incorrect.
The claim that there are moral facts is delusory - and can be (and often is) morally and practically harmful.
You need to qualify the above with "
except VA's version".
You also need to edit the below as such;
The claim that there are moral facts is delusory [
based on my definition of 'what is fact'] ...
But I have argued your 'what is fact' is illusory, therefore your above claim is false and illusory.
PH's Fact is Delusional
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39577
PH's What is Fact is Illusory
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39577
You have not countered by claims convincingly.
I suggest you open a specific thread to counter my claim so we can refer to it easily. [your two large thread has become a skip full of shit]
This thread will do fine. I've countered your argument countless times. But here goes again.
The Concise Oxford has this disjunctive definition of fact: 'a thing that exists, or has occurred, or is true.' Of course, a dictionary definition is always a snapshot explanation of how we use a word - it asserts a fact about that usage.
For now, let's leave aside the 'or is true' disjunct - though it's very important in my refutation. So a fact is: a thing that exists, or has occurred.
Now, your claim is that there's no such thing as 'a thing that exists or has occurred' which is absolutely independent from humans. You say such a thing is an illusion. For example, this means you say that everything that existed and occurred in the universe before humans evolved was not absolutely independent from humans.
And I say that is patent and demonstrable nonsense, for which there's no evidence of any kind. And I explain where this nonsense - which you've bought into - comes from, as follows.
The third disjunct in the above definition of
fact is: 'or is true'. But, in this context, the only thing that can be true or false is a factual assertion - typically a linguistic expression. And language is, of course, a human phenomenon - though not exclusively, because other species arguably have at least 'proto-languages'.
So this kind of fact - a linguistic expression - isn't and can't be absolutely independent from humans. But it's a radically different kind of thing. A linguistic expression is obviously 'a thing that exists'. But outside language, reality - consisting of things that exist or have occurred - is not linguistic.
So I think you mistake what we humans believe, know and say
about reality - things that exist or have occurred - for reality itself - the facts of reality. Hence your absurd conclusion that reality isn't absolutely independent from humans.
And if you want to get out of this confusion by claiming that reality is 'relatively' independent from humans - ie, not 'absolutely' independent - then what is it that
is independent? Oh - it must be things that exist or have occurred.
In this context, the things that are indeed dependent on humans are human knowledge-claims and truth-claims
about reality. Not reality itself.
So, as I've said many times, your primary premise is false. From which it follows that the rest of your argument about morality is incoherent.