But moreover, if you think folk ought not keep slaves, how could you not be committed to concluding that "One ought not keep slaves" is true? — Banno

No. It think its the best option given te information I have, when input to the values i hold.

I would need to be confident in my own ideas to such a degree (one i can't fathom) that my beliefs entail teh truth of them. I just don't make that move. And i can't really see how anyone could, and be entirely comfortable with it (that is, without some supervening source of ethics like revelation. Then you just believe what you're told and it's air tight).

My suspicion, from what you have written, is that you are only now becoming aware of the implications of this.

You're welcome. — Banno

No. It was my entire point. One which i took extreme pains to try to very carefully map out over your responses. Apparently, i failed. But i thank you not :snicker: This appears to some thing necessarily ignored by your responses to mine. So, I don't think either of us could have done a great job here :lol:

Also we can't really say that these ideas are necessarily unique to Christianity. — Echarmion

Don't most aspects of Western civilization predate Christianity in some near-Eastern traditions anyway?

Yes. In order to know that there is a difference between two things, one must have access to both in order to compare them — creativesoul

That's up... out of the bottle. Not down. — creativesoul

Gotcha; thank you :pray:

So, where does my deduction, given above, go astray? — Banno

That it doesn't establish it's truth. It establishes any given S's belief in it's truth. I note a very subtle, but incredibly important difference between "..therefore X is true" and "..Therefore S believes X is true".

Seems to me that such positions are inherently flawed in that they are untenable and/or self-defeating. — creativesoul

Sorry, just to be clear, you're indicating a Kantian "We know we don't see things as they are" position is untenable (I suppose this entails the inverse also is lol)?

And yet, one ought not keep slaves. It is therefore true that "One ought not keep slaves". — Banno

I reject your position. You haven't defended it adequately, and so i remain unconvinced. Im not asking you to make any psychological moves - But i am pointing out that your descriptions and expositions are very much wanting to my mind. If you're to reject my 'theorizing', so be it. That doesn't actual say anything about the truth of your position. I may agree with that position, but that doesn't make it true.

And hence, if truth is corresponding to states of affairs, then that one ought not keep slaves is a state of affairs. — Banno

Trying my best to remain credulous, no. But that is given my above position, i suppose. It just plum has nothing to support it as a conclusion running from your opinion about slavery.

I can't make sense of how you are distinguishing morals and ethics here. Ethics is the field of study that has as its subject, morals. What you have said is analogous to "thjis seems to suppose that botany is the correct basis for considering plants". Well, yes. — Banno

Ethics is the study and discussion of the benchmarks that inform morals( to my understanding, and from what i can tell, the general population including philosophers). They seem adequately different to be potentially decoupled, or conjoined by context.

Further, no, it isn't anything like that. Ethics is how to get your framework in place. Morals is how to apply that framework to your behaviour (in answering what i take to be your query here viz. what do i actually mean by these terms).

They must work it out for themselves. Their believe does not determine the truth of the proposal. — Banno

Apply this to what you've proposed, at any point in these collected exchanges. I smell a lot of fish.
Your belief that moral truths exist doesn't entail that they actually do. It entails that you believe them. Which is the totality of my point, highlighted in a specific instance. And as best i can tell, your beliefs rest upon your beliefs. And at this stage, I am getting the distinct impression your position jhust boils down to "Well, I believe these moral statements are true. You can reject that, and that's fine, but they're still true". I just don't buy that line.

Notice that you do understand that ethical truths "ground" moral truths, something you seem to deny, above. — Banno

If this has been the impression, I have misspoken. I am acutely aware that ethical positions inform moral decisions. I am just under the impression that barely anyway has a clue what their ethical positions are and operate from (what i read to be) similar brute statements are you're employing to support teh abstract position that moral truth exists. So, as mentioned many, many times, i accept that for you some ethical statements may be true because you cannot conceive otherwise. I'm just not in that position. Seems a fairly simple divergence that we should be able to just recognized and see for what it is.

In addition, there is a confusion here about "subjective" statements, such that you seem to suppose that hey cannot be true. That would be very odd. But then, the subjective/objective distinction is fraught with conceptual puzzles. — Banno

This I'm certainly picking up. Subjective statements can be 'true'. Like Jones is in Barcelona :snicker:

I'm just pointing out that there are moral truths. — Banno

*claiming. You've yet to say anything that indicates to me that statement is anything but a over-wrought subjective claim. But i have no issue with this, because that's my ground position anyway LOL

Because if one is going to hold others to a standard then they either have to admit that a standard exists or else accept the fact that they are performatively self-contradicting themselves. This is quite bas — Leontiskos

Where did i indicate my standard applied to others?

Strictly speaking, everything ever thought, believed, and/or uttered comes through a subject, so in that sense, nothing is strictly objective — creativesoul

It has always appeared to me that 'objective' refers to the 'best of the lot' type of thinking rather than a strict entailment of necessity. That said, I am yet to find a convincing passage/chapter/paper that convinces me the gap between 'ding en sich' and my impression of it is such that It can't be a 1:1 match. That we can't know this seems inherent in sensibility - but I can't quite grasp that the gap is wide enough to matter (until imagination comes in, anyway - which may be the place in which the problem actually lies).

which is what I've done. — creativesoul

Interesting. As you'll have seen, It appears i must necessarily be heading toward that conclusion. But i will explore every alcove on the way down haha

If it is not objectively wrong for others to torture babies then you should not get angry at them when they do. — Leontiskos

I'm unsure this makes too much sense. If i'm happy with (in light of potential objections in practical day-to-day life) understanding my position is subjective, but that it is the 'best' position by my lights, given the information I believe I can rely on, how would that necessarily mean it was senseless to get angry about a behaviour that I have, by those previous subjective position/s, understood to be 'wrong'?

Making moral decisions, acting out their conclusions, and then adjusting for resulting data input seems to be a totally coherent and workable way to go about moral consideration. I suppose if you take morals to be objective (or that there are some objective morals) this might not work, but i'm more trying to make the 'other' position cohere in the face of this critique.

Can you explain your thinking? — Banno

HI mate, sorry for the delay here. Weekend with the kids :)

I came into this thread simply to point out that there are moral truths. — Banno

So, i'm taking this as an at-base position. One with which I disagree, in so far I consider truth to be corresponding to states of affairs, and I don't understand morals to be states of affairs. In that position in a baked-in need for individuals to understand their own moral compass as theirs and not aligning with some antecedent (though, i recognize that within this position is also a incredible wealth of guiding lights in previous writing and other people's conceptions of their own morals. They just are all relative to those individuals) theory that claims truth. Not an odd position, i don't think, but just laying some ground work for the response.

Indeed, in questions of ethics, you have no choice but to work it out for yourself. — Banno

This seems to suppose that ethics are the correct basis/es for considering morals. I reject that wholly as ethics basically assume either 1. A worthwhile external benchmark (you could think revelation or law here); or 2. Some way to ascertain certainty around a moral claim via some ethical consideration.

If you're concluding that for ethics, individuals must 'work it out for themselves' you're (to my mind) precluding an external mitigating authority (or force) which would be required as a source of 'ethical truth' which would be required to ground a moral truth.

I certainly think you can make claims like 'Generally, suffering is bad'. That could be an ethical consideration informing a moral position to not cause suffering. However, I just don't understand how that's an objective or 'true' statement. It is patently relative. So accepting that ethics must be relative, each individual who must necessarily (by this light) work out their own ethical code as such, are being informed by a identically relative moral code as informed by that antecedent ethical consideration (notwithstanding hypocrisy lol).

If you're decoupling ethics from morals and essentially considering ethics teleological and morals some how truth-apt, I'm not really understanding how that works

I did re-read it, and found the same conclusion; so perhaps it would be useful if you could elaborate on what I am misinterpreting? — Bob Ross

Fwiw, for both of you ( @180 Proof ) i read the same ideas into the post/s.

I'm still seeing the same as Bob Ross in those passages.

Yes, this is a very good point, and shows that the nuances of objective truth isn't quite captured by the "realism" in moral realism. — Michael

While there may be some daylight between us in terms of reflecting on our interactions; the point that you're responding to here is largely what I was trying to get across throughout our interactions around moral realism.

If the context is what gives a moral statement its validity, I have no issue with that (and, to be fair, i expounded on this much more clearly in the exchange with Banno) - but I see the requirement for context in actualizing the validity of statement to implicitly confirm its subjectivity. And this may be that the bullet it bite is an extremely Kantian one of idealism, in some form, to support the idea that if everything needs context, nothing is objective.

I have work to do :lol:

Indeed, in questions of ethics, you have no choice but to work it out for yourself. — Banno

This seems to be an implicit but quite strong admission of moral subjectivity

Mad, but that's just how it is. So I'm not going to try to convince you that kicking puppies for fun is wrong. I'll just call the RSPCA. — Banno

That seems like giving up the discussion because you hit the crux of the climb…

And even if it does, my next question would be how does it matter in terms of how we live? — Tom Storm

Parfit? Is that you? :nerd:

e are constantly changing, all the cells that constitute our bodies replaced every seven or so years according to some accounts. On the other hand, are we not distinguishable as the entities that undergo those changes? — Janus

I was making this point to my wife yesterday. Persistence overnight might be fairly easy to deal with but me now is my e when I was nine via persistence of self? Seems utterly absurd. But I am clearly the same person so wtf haha

Yeah, there's a way in which "one ought not do harm" is tautological if harm is just what we ought not do. There'd be work here in sorting out harm in a way that pays out — Banno

Ok, i think we've probably come to terms here then. Thank you :)

Gotcha. Thank you.

Part of the whole critical deal is to expose the errors in doing just that, — Mww

Do you mean by "just that" the act of trying to use terms in their incompatible context? Just for clarity - Can't be sure if you're decrying that, or my delineation between contexts lol

I think it's a good mental habit to be aware of it. — Mark Nyquist

Agreed

however the benefit is that by following an order of operations we might eliminate some physically unsupported mental content that we seem to be prone to. — Mark Nyquist

Could this be prone to just having various orders of operations being discussed with no real road to resolution?

↪AmadeusD I think he more or less found something more interesting to look at. The journey was more important. The question was kind of futile in the same sense that asking ‘Does the world exist?’. — I like sushi

Sorry, perhaps i'm just frazzled but I can't quite grok what this is in response to?

They are not the sorts of things that can be true/false. Rather, they are part of what makes it possible in order for truth apt things to be so. — creativesoul

Can you elaborate on this a bit? I note a distinction in a way that one could be 'telling the truth' that they believe something which runs counter to a fact of the matter.

But I can't see how this removes the element of 'truth' in a given fact (if established as such)

That we ought not eat babies. It's true even if we all believe otherwise (and even if we never consider it at all). — Michael

No it's not.

How do you respond to that?

I think many moral truths are facts, but I'm skeptical (and nervous) about justifying them with these kinds of analogies — J

Do you have a suggestion of how to justify a moral 'fact'?

but i somehow don't think that's you — Banno

As I understand the position, I would agree that's not me. But i'm young in this - so that may change, or be revealed as I go.

that gravity accelerates objects at that rate is just a brute fact... — Banno

I note that verification is what gives this statement veracity. You could have noted a different rate, and been wrong, in the face of the verification of the rate you've noted. You're right in that there is a rate of gravitation acceleration, as a brute fact, and if we're wrong, that doesn't change the fact of it. But,. that we note it at THAT rate, is a custom. Our scale could just be something different. Borders of London could be different too. But hte difference is, the rate of acceleration remains what it is without that conventional rate-signifier. London does not exist at all without the convention.

are there some other statements that imply its truth — Banno

My immediate intuition is yes, but I'd need to do more work to identify what they are, and may end up conceding.

So, do you think it true? — Banno

I do not. I believe 'wrong' must be established as an actual criteria, rather than just a word to be referred to in relation to harm. Why is it wrong? Because it's harm? That's tautological.
That many people ascribe wrongness to harm doesn't do much for me. Still just extends convention. There is nothing in my experience of the world that indicates harm is wrong, ipso facto so I, at least, require some further grounding of it's wrongness with reference to the world.

For Kant, then, world and Universe are pretty much the same thing — Mww

To me, this is basically the key to understanding your point/Kant's point. As long as we're sure the term, in this context, isn't trying to do the work of it's every-day definition, there's no difficulty.

my position is is not a brute fact, though. What makes it a brute fact?

Do we have to just rely on “brute disagreement” to resolve, at least in terms, the conflict?

It's not. 4 is required to get from the facts of hte matter, to the judgement about htose facts.

And you've done nought to show otherwise. It's just your belief.

Santa doesn't exist even if nothing exists. — Michael

If nothing existed, that would be a state of affairs that included Santa not existing. Though, that would require 'soemthing' no notice that ffact, which is fairly much incoherent if nothing exists.

What? — Banno

I understood your response to be that, if i claim that using harm (level 2, lets say) to prevent harm level 6, this would support the brute fact of 'one ought not harm'.

I provided that the concept of justification can render that irrelevant. The brute facts remain:

1. We exist
2. We can be harmed
3. We can harm others.
4?????? (this is where i'm not seeing any work being done)
5. One ought not harm.

Which is extant in the state of the physical world - Santa isn't in it.

There are non-physical states of affairs; that Santa doesn't exist, — Michael

That is a physical state of affairs.

In any case, it's plain to see that your reliance on the brute fact isn't something i accept, and so we can't come to terms.

Obvious special pleading — Banno

Vehemently rejected. It was a direct response to your claim that proportionality has somethign to do with establishing the fact. It doesn't on my account, and i'm not ignoring, but rejecting the crux of your claim that proportionality matters.

Situations in which a greater harm is avoided? — Banno

That was not my contention. They could be equal, but considered less or more justified on either side.

They could also be inverse. Causing a greater harm, to prevent a lesser harm to a less deserving target (Israel/Hamas comes to mind.. )

Harm is not, in brute fact, amendable to judgement. It just is a fact that we experience harm. And can cause it.

That aside (i mean to say, please respond to this next question separately, rather then within your answer to the above):

How do you take claims of desiring harm? Either due to mental illness, or lets say some BDSM proclivity? Is that an except, or is there some reason this doesn't fit the definitions your using?

I do. I'm sorry, but i'll need to pull away if this gets adversarial.

It makes no appreciable difference unless you're quoting a particular instance of speech. The cat is on the mat refers to something outside of the utterance/quotation/sentence. It is referential. The quote marks literally make no different to the substance of the statement. Whether it's spoken, or thought, it is the same statement making the same reference.

That it has no quote marks around it, doesn't change it's actual content, and merely it's source. But even then, ultimately, the source is a thought about something.

"One ought not x" is only referential if you have a state of affairs to refer to. In this case, you haven't established it. You end up on 'brute fact' but i don't accept that position, so, as i actually began this part of the exchange - we have no further to go on this journey together.

Firstly, "one ought not x" is a sentence, not a thought. Specifically, in this case, it is a written sentence. — Michael

I covered this. It's the linguistic representation of a thought, not a state of affairs. If your position is that a sentence is necessarily representative of a state of affairs, i find that bizarre and hard to grasp.

No, i understand the distinction you're making. Perhaps you're not groking my objection - support that it is a state of affairs, rather than a falsity.

I think you're misunderstanding me.
Those sentences, as you posited, indicate a less-than-truth, to a realist. This is the case with that statement. Which is why it's qualified. I don't see the problem...
I do not understand realists to be unable to make equivocal or less-than-truth statements, but to delineate clearly between those whicih have truth-value and those which do not. Forgive me if im getting that wrong.

I think perhaps, I would say, the correct sentence structure (in this particular context) for a realist then, would be "I think xyz about, what I think, is London".

But i do think the force of habit is strong enough to explain why realists talk in those absolutes anyway.

Thank you mate :) I shall look into those sources.

"The cat is on the mat" is a sentence. That the cat is on the mat is a state-of-affairs.
"One ought not harm another" is a sentence. That one ought not harm another is a state-of-affairs. — Michael

How? You've not addressed my reason for it not being one. I also, again, do not think we can get any further if you see that as a state of affairs, rather than a thought with no external referent, which is necessarily true, whether it could be construed as a state of affairs as well or not - it certainly doesn't refer to anything external to the mind.