That's an example of non-cognitivism.

I provide a different explanation of the difference between objectivity and subjectivity here.

It's a complex issue. It cannot simply be addressed with aphorisms.

Quote 1. If it is a fact that kicking a puppy hurts/harms the puppy, then that's just a fact of hte matter. So, that's not a further moral "fact" - it's an empirical fact subsequent to the act of kicking (which others are making a moral judgment on, rather than I). I ascribed no value to the harm/hurt (in fact, i think that might be what sets me on the anti-realist bent.. I do not see that it matters). Had I said that the harm is the wrong-maker, I could agree - but again, I don't see how the puppy being hurt imparts any truth to the initial statement.

Quote 2. Is him ascribing something to me which I don't think or feel but that may be explained by the above - I did not, and do not, believe the harm the puppy experiences is a fact that gives moral statements about kicking a puppy value or truth (morally speaking). It is just a fact (or, an effect).

Quote 3. Similar to above. I've never tried to prove that the fact of the puppy's harm would make it wrong or right. Though, it appears to me that's a result of my larger-scale misunderstanding being read as if i know what im talking about LOL. The only reason I was bringing up that underlying fact was because I was under the impression that i could apply the concept (that the statement is not brute) to the framework being used to allow 'One ought not kick puppies' being considered somehow 'true'. I don't think either that statement of itself, or the resulting harm/hurt impart 'truth' beyond it being empirically true that a puppy is hurt by being kicked. — AmadeusD

You said that one ought not kick the puppy because it hurts the puppy. How is this to be interpreted as anything other than you ascribing moral value to hurting the puppy?

By analogy, consider if someone were to say that one ought not kick the puppy because the puppy has brown fur. It is certainly true that the puppy has brown fur, but this has nothing to do with whether or not one ought not kick the puppy, and so the use of the term "because" here is fallacious.

If you only meant to say that one ought not kick the puppy and kicking the puppy would hurt the puppy then I wouldn't object. But of course this doesn't even address the issue of whether or not moral facts are brute facts, so it certainly doesn't rebut the claim that there are brute moral facts.

3. It would not be wrong to eat babies if everyone were to say so (subjectivism) — Michael

This feels like a narrow account of subjectivism that few would endorse.

In my view, people ultimately make moral judgements and decisions according to their own values and moral sense. These values and this sensibility are in turn informed by enculturation and group-think, but also by biologically based moral instincts (innate senses of fairness and justice, empathy), as well as individual experiences and preferences. This is "subjectivism" as none of these are objective features of the world (right?), but seems poorly captured by "if everyone were to say so".

This feels like a narrow account of subjectivism that few would endorse.

In my view, people ultimately make moral judgements and decisions according to their own values and moral sense. These values and this sensibility are in turn informed by enculturation and group-think, but also by biologically based moral instincts (innate senses of fairness and justice, empathy), as well as individual experiences and preferences. This is "subjectivism" as none of these are objective features of the world (right?), but seems poorly captured by "if everyone were to say so". — hypericin

Note that I said if. I didn't say only if.

↪Leontiskos I provide a different explanation of the difference between objectivity and subjectivity here. — Michael

In my estimation the account you gave in that post is the same account you gave in the post I responded to. I decided to respond to the earlier post because I thought it was a clearer case. My point was that, "The diamond is worth $1,000," is not made true by everyone saying so.

This feels like a narrow account of subjectivism that few would endorse. — hypericin

See:

But the other difficulty is that I don't think anyone in this thread has taken morality to be a form of consensus... — Leontiskos

Still, I think @Michael's account of moral subjectivism is more plausible than any other account on offer in this thread, sans @AmadeusD's. Like 'subjective truth', 'moral subjectivism' is chimerical.

From another thread:

Imagine a tribe of smallish monkeys in a jungle environment; they have various calls of social identification, and perhaps some to do with dominance and other stuff, but in particular, they have two alarm calls, one warning of ground predators, and one warning of sky predators. One day, one rather low status monkey, who aways has to wait for the others to eat and often misses out on the best food, spots some especially tasty food on the ground, and gives the ground alarm call. The tribe all rush to climb up high, and the liar gets first dibs for once on the treat. This behaviour has been observed, but I won't trouble you myself with references.

Here, one can clearly see that dishonesty is parasitic on honesty. Overall there is a huge social advantage in a warning system, but it is crucially dependent on honesty, and is severely compromised by individual dishonesty. Hence the social mores, that become morality. Society runs on trust, and therefore needs to deter and prevent dishonesty. And this cannot be reversed because the dependence is one way, linguistically. If dishonesty were ever to prevail and be valorised, language would become non-functional. The alarm call would come to mean both 'predator on the ground', and 'tasty food on the ground'. that is, it would lose its effective warning function and its function as a lie. — unenlightened

This to me is a good example of an anti-realist account. Morality is a conventionalized system devised to punishes uncooperative behavior and reinforce cooperative behavior. If moral claims are to be considered "true", they are only true in terms of this system.

Anti-naturalists like @Michael, @Banno, @Leontiskos have to demonstrate why accounts like this fail so utterly that, ontological parsimony be damned, it is preferable to introduce a whole new category of reality.

Like 'subjective truth', 'moral subjectivism' is chimerical. — Leontiskos

Great. You think it's "chimerical". Wow. Everyone take note, Leontiskos thinks moral subjectivism is chimerical.

Like so many of your "devastating critiques" or whatever you like to call them, this is empty of content.

Great. You think it's "chimerical". Wow. Everyone take note, Leontiskos thinks moral subjectivism is chimerical.

Like so many of your "devastating critiques" or whatever you like to call them, this is empty of content. — hypericin

Buddy, are you just a troll? Feel free to go back into the thread and read the arguments, and do some actual philosophy for once.

Nope. Are you just a self-important child?

- I'm here for philosophy. Good luck with your temper tantrums. You're on my ignore list.

:ok:

My point was that, "The diamond is worth $1,000," is not made true by everyone saying so. — Leontiskos

If you don't think the worth of a diamond is a good example then consider the rules of chess. We can change them by collective decision. Can we change moral rules by collective decision?

Anti-naturalists like Michael, @Banno, @Leontiskos have to demonstrate why accounts like this fail so utterly that, ontological parsimony be damned, it is preferable to introduce a whole new category of reality. — hypericin

"Socially advantageous behaviour is morally right" does not seem to be a tautology. If it's not a tautology then the meaning of "morally right" cannot be reduced to "socially advantageous behaviour".

See Moore's open question argument:

Consider a particular naturalist claim, such as that “x is good” is equivalent to “x is pleasant” or “x is pleasure.” If this claim were true, he argued, the judgement “Pleasure is good” would be equivalent to “Pleasure is pleasure,” yet surely someone who asserts the former means to express more than that uninformative tautology. Alternatively, if this naturalist claim were true, “x is pleasant but x is not good” would be self-contradictory. Once it was established that x is pleasant, the question whether it is good would then be closed, or not worth considering, whereas, he argued, it remains open.

It may be factually correct that socially advantageous behaviour is morally right, but realist metaethics may still be correct: that socially advantageous behaviour is morally right is objectively true, even if we were all to believe otherwise, and for the non-naturalist that moral rightness is a non-natural property of socially advantageous behaviour.

If you don't think the worth of a diamond is a good example then consider the rules of chess. We can change them by collective decision. Can we change moral rules by collective decision? — Michael

I don't think we can change moral rules by collective decision. I don't know if anyone believes that...? I am not following you here.

I don't think we can change moral rules by collective decision. I don't know if anyone believes that...? I am not following you here. — Leontiskos

Moral subjectivists might. They might argue that moral rules are the collectively decided rules of social behaviour (if not simply an individual's own chosen rules).

Moral subjectivists might. They might argue that moral rules are the collectively decided rules of social behaviour. — Michael

Okay, I see. I think this goes back to my voting example. If we all agree that X is morally wrong, does that agreement make X morally wrong? Either it is morally wrong because we agreed on it, or else we agreed on it because it is morally wrong. Such equivocations seem to always be present, in this case on the term "morally wrong." It begins as one thing in the voting phase, and it transforms into a different thing in the consensus phase.

Or more concisely: positive laws can be immoral.

If we all agree that X is morally wrong, does that agreement make X morally wrong? — Leontiskos

According to moral subjectivism, yes, hence what I said before:

1. It would not be wrong to eat babies if everyone were to say so (subjectivism), or
2. It would be wrong to eat babies even if everyone were to say otherwise (realism)

So are moral rules like physical laws (realism) or like the rules of chess (subjectivism)?

Despite @Banno's comments there is more to the issue than simply whether or not some moral sentences are true. There are further considerations to be had.

This to me is a good example of an anti-realist account. Morality is a conventionalized system devised to punishes uncooperative behavior and reinforce cooperative behavior. If moral claims are to be considered "true", they are only true in terms of this system. — hypericin

It's my anti-antirealism. The reality is that communication happens, and is advantageous, and can only happen in a largely truth-telling community. The summary of these facts is that one ought to be honest, because otherwise communication ceases, language is useless, and society collapses. This a physical reality.

"Such-and-such is socially advantageous behaviour" and "such-and-such is morally wrong" seem to mean different things. — Michael

That might be because "Such-and-such is socially advantageous behaviour" is a third-person perspective and "such-and-such is morally wrong" is a first person perspective.

Imagine you are an alien anthropologist observing the hairless apes of earth. You conclude that their moral conventions are a socially advantageous strategy designed to foster cooperation. This account in no way requires that the apes themselves take this view. To them, morality might seem primordial, and there may even be philosopher-apes who formalize this perception.

The summary of these facts is that one ought to be honest, because otherwise communication ceases, language is useless, and society collapses. This a physical reality. — unenlightened

But what does this have to do with morality? There can be non-moral obligations. I ought to brush my teeth otherwise they will fall out, but it's not immoral to not brush my teeth (although it may be immoral to subject others to my foul breath).

There's something missing in your argument to connect socially advantageous behaviour with morality.

We are arguing over whether moral subjectivism is a coherent position, or whether subjective truth is a coherent concept. If we change the rules of chess then we are playing a different game. Calling it "chess" is misleading. If we speak about consensus, then we are not speaking about morality. Else, if "morality" is nothing more than consensus, then how could one cast a vote in the first place, before the consensus? Consensus-"morality" is something like positive law, and I think everyone recognizes that positive law is not the same thing as morality.

Again, "Either it is morally wrong because we agreed on it, or else we agreed on it because it is morally wrong." Is the pre-consensus vote pre-moral?

You conclude that their moral conventions are a socially advantageous strategy designed to foster cooperation. This account in no way requires that the apes themselves take this view. — hypericin

This is ambiguous. It may be that our moral beliefs are consistent with socially advantageous strategies designed to foster cooperation, but it doesn't then follow that socially advantageous strategies designed to foster cooperation are moral. Our beliefs may be wrong.

If we change the rules of chess then we are playing a different game. Calling it "chess" is misleading. — Leontiskos

Well this isn't true. The FIDE rules of chess last changed in January of this year to add a seventy-five move rule.

If we speak about consensus, then we are not speaking about morality. — Leontiskos

Some moral subjectivists disagree. They argue that that is exactly what morality is. See contractualism.

You said that one ought not kick the puppy because it hurts the puppy. How is this to be interpreted as anything other than you ascribing moral value to hurting the puppy? — Michael

No, no. This was my (highly likely to be) misguided approach to enumerating hte opposing position. I was intimating that the fact that you could say "Well, no, your claim must necessarily rest on the harm caused by the kicking being considered bad/immoral" as though it was a rebuttal to the position that the flat claim that kicking puppies is wrong is a brute fact. It was wrong to do so, but that the kciking is wrong because of hte harm was never my personal claim. I don't really think the harm matters, personally. But again, this is a result of my talking out of school at almost every turn here.

By analogy, consider if someone were to say that one ought not kick the puppy because the puppy has brown fur. It is certainly true that the puppy has brown fur, but this has nothing to do with whether or not one ought not kick the puppy, and so the use of the term "because" here is fallacious. — Michael

That is my position. I can't recognize an aspect of hte act which would 'prove' the truth of it being bad or good.

If you only meant to say that one ought not kick the puppy and kicking the puppy would hurt the puppy then I wouldn't object. But of course this doesn't even address the issue of whether or not moral facts are brute facts, so it certainly doesn't rebut the claim that there are brute moral facts. — Michael

Yeah, and this is the mistake i was making, likely leading the misunderstanding above. However, i actually only meant to say the second part. That it is a fact that kicking the puppy will hurt it. I wasn't saying kicking the puppy is wrong for either the reason of claiming it's wrong, or that it hurts the puppy.

And yes, I was wrong. My point was that if the claim "kicking puppies is wrong" must rest on a deeper fact viz. that it will hurt hte puppy, then it's not a brute fact. I actually haven't entirely given up this line but only out of lack of progress. I don't believe the puppy being hurt is a wrong-making necessarily so it's not a deeper 'moral' fact on my account - but I guess it's hard to say with certainty that i actually think that is the case rather than it 'seems wrong to count a fact of hte matter as a moral fact'

Leontiskos has very well dispossessed of the notion that this matters. It merely defeats that one single claim (if true).

There can be non-moral obligations. I ought to brush my teeth otherwise they will fall out, but it's not immoral to not brush my teeth. — Michael

Yes it is, but I am not going to argue that right now. But you ought not argue that it is not immoral to lie, because you are undermining your own argument when you do so. Your bullshit undermines this site; It is a performative contradiction. It is not immoral for a-social beings like the cat that walks by himself to lie. It is immoral for humans to do so. And also in the quoted post, I indicate that it is not immoral for a stick insect to pretend to its predator to be stick. because they are not in a social mutual relationship. But humans are.

Well this isn't true. The (official) rules of chess last changed in 2014 (I think) to replace the fifty-move rule with a seventy-five move rule. — Michael

Only if the rules of a game do not constitute the game would this argument succeed. That seems highly implausible.

Some moral subjectivists disagree. They argue that that is exactly what morality is. — Michael

But you haven't answered my central contention about circularity. If morality is nothing more than consensus, then the origins of the consensus (the votes) are non-moral (or pre-moral). I don't have a problem with the idea that consensus carries moral weight, but I believe the circularity argument proves that morality cannot be simply reduced to consensus. If a consensus of 10 votes carries moral weight, then so does a single vote. The moral weight can't just materialize out of nowhere upon the reaching of a consensus.

The incoherence is going to be especially problematic in a democratic age, where majoritarianism and morality are more clearly distinguished.

The reality is that communication happens, and is advantageous, and can only happen in a largely truth-telling community. The summary of these facts is that one ought to be honest, because otherwise communication ceases, language is useless, and society collapses. This a physical reality. — unenlightened

I agree with @Michael. "Society ought not collapse" is not a physical reality.

Only if the rules of a game do not constitute the game would this argument succeed. That seems highly implausible. — Leontiskos

Are you saying that the rules didn't change? Because they did. That's simply indisputable.

If morality is nothing more than consensus, then the origins of the consensus (the votes) are non-moral (or pre-moral). I don't have a problem with the idea that consensus carries moral weight, but I believe the circularity argument proves that morality cannot be simply reduced to consensus. If a consensus of 10 votes carries moral weight, then so does a single vote. The moral weight can't just materialize out of nowhere upon the reaching of a consensus. — Leontiskos

I don't understand what's circular about it? The people who invented chess dictated the original rules. FIDE recently dictated some new changes. Governments across the world enact new laws every day. Why can't it be that moral rules work the same way?

Are you saying that the rules didn't change? Because they did. — Michael

I mean, you're making an argument from authority. "The chess foundation said so, so it must be true." I think this chess tangent is a dead end. This is about the ontology of chess, and ontological questions are not settled by authorities.

I don't understand what's circular about it? — Michael

How can it be simultaneously true that, "It is morally wrong because we agreed on it," and, "We agreed on it because it is morally wrong"? You have to pick one or the other. How could the votes that constitutes the consensus themselves be non-moral?