FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 13, 2024 4:06 pm
That's an interesting point. He's obscuring the directedness of the ought in either case. So instead of if one wishes to be good, one ought to be nice to kittens (the basic morla ought), or in order to continue enjoying cream cakes for a long time, one ought to eat no more than one per day (a basic prudential ought), VA just doesn't mention the objective and tries to not deal with it. In VA arguments, if something is usual then that is enough to establish one of these oughtnesses.
Yes, which means that oughtness is precisely not objective, since that which is usual changes over time. Further as he used to do with mirror neurons vs. neuronal patterns that lead to aggression, he chooses which things will become usual.
When I pointed out that there is no THE morality proper, he conceded that, but said that he was sure that in the future what he thinks of as morality proper will be THE morality FSK. So, the usual, now, doesn't meet his criteria, but something possible in the future, somehow leads to his current proposal being objective.
And let's put this in the context of his other beliefs. He has argued that realism is problematic because of stars, their great distance, when we look at them and see them, they may in fact no longer be there - having gone nova, for example.
But he founds his objectivity of morals on a future then accepted morality proper. Antirealists and transcendental idealists should be turning over in their graves. At least there was a star there, his future earth with a general acceptance of what he calls morality proper may never exist. And why isn't he satisfied with what is now?
I have thought for a long time that he is primarily tactics. Someone makes objection X and he finds a solution on the internet - they may not even be solutions, but at least they possibly are - whether or not it fits with other positions he has.
But that leaves him in a dog-legged situation where he still needs to deal with the motive and whether it is moral or prudential and how it makes for the ought part of the oughtness. His plan appears to be to just wish it away.
Yes, even 'prudential' suggestions or guidelines are an application of knowledge from the biological FSK. They are not from within it. And he specifically refuses to use the language of the FSK he is arguing his premise comes from. He says his 'oughtness to breathe' is the same as 'respiratory drive'. If so, he should have no problem using the latter, given that it does come from the FSK he is citing as the authority.
He's betraying his own system. Hell, I probably take it more seriously than he does. I don't think the FSK idea, in and of itself, is off. Yes, each discipline has its methodologies, models and epistemology. Conclusion in those fields are accepted if they have been arrived at according to those 'things' (all going well, that is).
But when he actually wants to apply this idea, suddenly he's ignoring the framework. Why? I don't think he realizes, himself, why he is doing that. But it couldn't be more obvious to anyone else why.
Simon Blackburn calls that the "regress-or-elephant problem". VA can only explain oughtness with one of these KFC-buckets, by leaving motivation out of this one he needs to create another KFC to expain the missing motive, but to not break the "objective" part of this one, he must leave out anything that isn't objective there, leading to the next FSCK also not including motive but rather kicking hte can down the line again .... and thus we have elephants all the way down.... OR, he will have to stop it here, at the first elephant, either by properly accounting for motive (but that will put him back in the circle) or by a more radical reductivist strategy that asserts motive is irrelevant/illusory/epiphenomenal.
Agreed.
Those are all terrible choices. He should have just abandoned the bad argument.
Yes. I don't even think it's a necessary battle. In the end he could form allegiances with people who don't believe in moral realism. They may well have similar values, even if they don't consider them objective.
He actually said to me that there are no absolute uses for words. When it's pointed out that his words are misleading and do not fit the FSK he is using as the authority, he says that doesn't matter because we can use words any way we want.
I could ask 'According to which FSK?' but then I am sure it would be THE linguistic FSK and later Wittgenstein who will suddenly be the only linguistic FSK.
Unless of course you or PH are using later W and he'll dismiss all OLP as idiotic.
I can understand that it's hard for him to even keep track of his own trail of slab dab positions.