• Bartricks
    6k
    No, because the intuitions are 'of' morality and do not compose it. It's to confuse a vehicle of awareness with its object.
    So, I can see a chair. The visual impression is in my mind. It doesn't follow that the chair is.
    All states of awareness are mental. It doesn't follow that everything we are aware of is in our mind.
    Morality is subjective, but that's a fallacious way of arriving at the correct conclusion.
  • Down The Rabbit Hole
    516


    When I say "feelings" I am referring to our intuitions. That our intuitions are the only basis we can have for moral beliefs, is surely a reason for labelling them subjective?Down The Rabbit Hole

    No, because the intuitions are 'of' morality and do not compose it. It's to confuse a vehicle of awareness with its object.
    So, I can see a chair. The visual impression is in my mind. It doesn't follow that the chair is.
    All states of awareness are mental. It doesn't follow that everything we are aware of is in our mind.
    Morality is subjective, but that's a fallacious way of arriving at the correct conclusion.
    Bartricks

    If our intuitions are subjective, it follows that everything stemming from them including our values are too?

    In any event, our intuitions are the sole basis for us holding our values, whereas unmoral facts have a basis outside of our individual minds. I think this in itself justifies a difference in labelling.
  • Bartricks
    6k
    No, it doesn't follow from the fact our intuitions are subjective that morality is subjective.

    My belief that I have a partner is subjective. For beliefs are mental - they exist as states of mind. Does it follow that my partner is subjective? No, obviously not.

    Why not? Well, because my belief is 'about' my partner and does not constitute her.

    Likewise, moral intuitions are 'about' morality and do not constitute it. After all, I cannot make xing morally right just by creating in myself the intuition that it is right.

    The mistake you are making is, like I say, to conflate a vehicle of awareness with an object of awareness.

    I know about Napoleon from a book. It doesn't follow that Napoleon is made of paper and ink.
  • Down The Rabbit Hole
    516


    I was arguing from the grounds that our intuitions are the only basis that exist for moral beliefs. In which case the moral beliefs are not based on objective facts, but subjective intuitions - and are best labelled subjective as a result.

    That our intuitions are the only basis we can have for moral beliefs, is surely a reason for labelling them subjective?Down The Rabbit Hole
  • Bartricks
    6k
    I was arguing from the grounds that our intuitions are the only basis that exist for moral beliefs. In which case the moral beliefs are not based on objective facts, but subjective intuitions - and are best labelled subjective as a result.Down The Rabbit Hole

    That simply doesn't follow. If the only basis I have for believing in Napoleon is a book I read about Napoleon, that doesn't mean Napoleon is made of paper and ink.

    Our moral intuitions are how we are aware of morality. They do not compose it.

    That's why it is possible that morality doesn't exist. There's no doubt moral beliefs and intuitions exist. But that doesn't by itself entail that morality itself exists - because morality is not made of beliefs and intuitions.

    Morality 'is' subjective. But you have arrived at the correct conclusion fallaciously. Note too, that the conclusion you will have arrived at is that morality is made of our individual or collective subjective states, yes?

    That's obviously false: if I have the intuition that Xing is right, that does not entail that it is right, does it? Yet on your view it would. That's absurd.

    SO, morality is subjective. Why? Not because our intuitions and beliefs are subjective - that's true of 'all' intuitions and beliefs, and so would make 'everything' subjective!! It is subjective because morality is made of commands and values and only a subject - an agent - can issue a command or value anything. Thus morality is made of a subject's commands and values.

    Not yours though, and not mine. Why? Because it is manifest to reason that if I value something that doesn't entail that it is morally valuable, and that if I command something to be done this does not entail that it is morally right to do it.

    So, morality is made of a third party's commands and values. Thus it is subjective.
  • Down The Rabbit Hole
    516


    I completely understand and agree with your reasoning for morality being subjective. Our disagreement is academic rather than practical, and I appreciate you engaging.

    That simply doesn't follow. If the only basis I have for believing in Napoleon is a book I read about Napoleon, that doesn't mean Napoleon is made of paper and ink.Bartricks

    But it would be different if the only basis we can have, the only basis that exist for believing in Napoleon is the book you read about Napoleon. Then he would ipso facto be made only of paper and ink.

    That our intuitions are the only basis we can have for moral beliefs, is surely a reason for labelling them subjective?Down The Rabbit Hole

    I was arguing from the grounds that our intuitions are the only basis that exist for moral beliefs.Down The Rabbit Hole

    I am thinking of a sinking ship. Although the passengers are not the ship, as the ship is their only basis they too are sinking, and there are no other ships or helicopters (basis) to save the passengers from their fate. Our ship, our intuitions, are subjective, the beliefs they support share the same fate.

    Note too, that the conclusion you will have arrived at is that morality is made of our individual or collective subjective states, yes?Bartricks

    Either that or it doesn't exist. There is no evidence of an alternative.

    That's obviously false: if I have the intuition that Xing is right, that does not entail that it is right, does it? Yet on your view it would. That's absurd.Bartricks

    Either it's subjectively right, or moral rights and wrongs don't exist.

    That's why it is possible that morality doesn't exist. There's no doubt moral beliefs and intuitions exist. But that doesn't by itself entail that morality itself exists - because morality is not made of beliefs and intuitions.Bartricks

    Morality 'is' subjective.Bartricks

    So you believe morality is subjective but it's possible it doesn't exist? Do you see evidence of any alternatives?
  • Herg
    212
    ↪Herg

    Who is issuing the prescription?
    — Bartricks

    Nature.
    — Herg

    Oh, so you're mad. Nature issues prescriptions. I see. Stones speak to you do they? What are the molecules telling you to do today?
    Bartricks
    I have on my shelves this book (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13624497-ethical-naturalism) which contains essays by thirteen present-day ethical naturalists. Twelve of them are university professors, one is a fellow. Which is more likely: that these thirteen professional philosophers are all mad, or that you don't understand ethical naturalism?

    There is more to nature than stones and molecules.
  • Herg
    212
    ↪Herg
    Q; Why do we have anaesthetics?
    A: Because pain is bad. Everyone knows this, except a handful of subjectivist philosophers.
    — Herg

    You are committing the naturalistic fallacy. The word 'is' in 'Because pain is bad' is ambiguous. It could mean that pain and badness are one and the same. That would be the 'is' of identity. Or it could mean that pain 'has' badness (in the way that 'ice cream is cold' doesn't mean ice cream and coldness are identical, but that ice cream has coldness as a property).

    Now, what the naturalist does is thinks "oo, pain is bad" - which is (normally) correct, if the 'is' in that sentence is the is of predication. Normally pain does indeed have badness. But then they conclude that pain 'is' bad as in 'pain and badness are one and the same. And that's to commit the naturalistic fallacy - to equivocate over the 'is' of identity and the 'is' of predication.

    That doesn't by itself establish that pain and badness are distinct, it is just a fallacious way of arriving at a conclusion.
    Bartricks
    Another straw man. I don't hold that pain and badness are identical. When I said 'pain is bad', I meant that pain (or, more precisely, the unpleasantness of pain) has the property of being bad. My ethical naturalism is not founded on an equivocation over 'is', it's founded on the fact that pleasantness and unpleasantness of experience to some degree dictate our evaluations, so that the evaluations are not entirely subjective. If you read the three syllogisms I posted earlier, you will see that.

    Are pain and badness one and the same? No, for if they were then it would be impossible for there to be pain that is not bad.Bartricks
    I haven't said that pain and badness are one and the same.

    Yet sometimes pain is not bad, for instance when it is deserved.Bartricks
    When it is deserved, it is deserved precisely because it is bad. That's the whole point of retributive punishment - it repays bad with bad. More precisely, it repays intrinsic badness with intrinsic badness which, because it is (considered to be) deserved, is (considered to be) instrumentally good. Rehabilitative or reformatory punishment, by contrast, generally repays intrinsic bad with treatment which is both intrinsically good and (intended to be) instrumentally good.

    Furthermore, for something to be 'bad' is for it to be disvaluable.Bartricks
    I agree with this, but it isn't very helpful. All it says is that for an object to be bad is for it to have negative value. What it doesn't say is why any object would have negative value. My theory explains this: an object has negative value if it influences us to value it negatively; unpleasantness of experience influences us to value the experience negatively; and thus an unpleasant experience has the property of badness.

    So, for pain to be bad is for pain to be disvalued.Bartricks
    I disagree with this. It's inconsistent with your assertion in the previous sentence: "for something to be 'bad' is for it to be disvaluable" means that the badness consists in the object having the property of negative value, whereas "for pain to be bad is for pain to be disvalued" means that the badness consists in the object being valued negatively. Roughly speaking, the first is objectivist, the second subjectivist.

    But pain could not itself 'be' the badness, because that would require that pain disvalue itself.Bartricks
    Once again, I haven't said that the pain is the badness.

    Which is insane as pain is a mental state and is not in the business of valuing or disvaluing things.Bartricks
    And I never said it was.

    So, anyway, you're wrong. Subjectivism is true, albeit divine subjectivism.Bartricks
    Theism intruding into ethics? Dear me.
  • Bartricks
    6k
    And what do you think I am?

    Shall we recap? Moral norms are directives.

    I have asked you who is issuing the directives constitutive of moral directives. And your answer was the insane 'nature'. So nature - mindless objective nature - issues instructions and orders?!?

    And your reply to that? The utterly lame 'but, but, there are professors who defend naturalism....so it must be true".
  • Herg
    212
    *sigh*
  • Herg
    212
    This really is no fun. I'm out of here.
  • GTTRPNK
    53
    Morality is subjective and situational. But not objective and not relative.

    The reason it is subjective: We all experience morality through our own subjective lense, it just so happens, as a society, we have generally agreed upon the moral system of things.

    The reason it is not objective: No morality exists inherently in nature without thinking agents who deem it so.

    The reason it is not relative: The morality of things do not change. Slavery, for example, was justified at times in the past, but that doesn't mean it was moral for those times. It means they had the wrong understanding or simply justified it.

    How it can be situational: Stealing, we decided, is morally unfair. But, to use one example, if someone is dying and there is a respirator in the store next to you, stealing it to save a life would be morally justified.
  • MikeListeral
    119
    EVERYTHING is objective, subjective, and relative
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