There may be facts about what is universally approved and disapproved of by humans; well, at least by those humans that are motivated by social considerations and 'normal' levels of concern for others.

Would you call those 'moral facts'? — John

How are you defining facts?

A purported fact is something which is posited as being the case. But as I noted before, there are both ostensive and discursive facts and they are not the same. So the set of ostensive or objective facts are those which are considered to be such independently of anyone's opinion. And the set of discursive facts are those which are, by inter-subjective agreement, purported to be objective facts. Some of these purported facts may turn out not to be objective facts at all. For example it is accepted that Aristotle existed for a certain time and at certain places at certain times, and engaged in certain activities, wrote certain works and so on, according to the evidence we are now in possession of. If new evidence comes to light, then some of the present discursive facts about Aristotle may need to thrown out.

Some facts like 2+2=4 are true by definition or are apriori self-evident, depending on your philosophical position, others like "Paris is the capital of France", although they involve the empirical world are quasi-tautological, or 'kind of' true by definition; I mean think about it: how could you possibly falsify the proposition that Paris is the capital of France?

Of course, there is much more that could be said (and no doubt has been) about facts; it is by no means a straightforward or settled topic.

She is a firefighter. Therefore she does whatever a firefighter does.

This works. But the obligation only has meaning when there is the possibility of not 'following one's function/nature. — unenlightened

I really like that. It's like the converse of Kant's important
'Ought implies can'

This one says
'Ought implies can not'

'can not' here has a very different meaning from 'cannot'

The point of my thread is to suggest that the claim, "you can't get an ought from an is" may not actually be binding. — anonymous66

I'd just like to point out that Hume never said those words. What he said was

'For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given' — David Hume

So he's not saying it can't be done. He just says that if you do it, you need to explain how you did it, and why that's valid.

Lest anyone accuse Hume of trying to get oughts from is-es himself, let me point out that his 'tis necessary' and 'should' can be understood from the context to be instrumental oughts. They are things you need to do in order to get people to accept that your argument is a logical one. There is no moral obligation to do those things.

Facts are true statements. Moral statements are treated as if they are truth apt.

For all practical purposes, true moral statements are facts — Mongrel

I'd say there's a difference between moral statements being truth-apt, and the assertion that there are true moral statements. It's possible for all moral statements to be false, for instance, even if they are truth-apt.

I can go with "facts are true statements"

I'm uncertain that moral statements are truth-apt, but it's not the point I wish to contend here.

It's the demonstration that there are true moral statements that seems to be lacking -- at least if we're using mathematics as our basis of comparison. No moral calculus has the same force as actual mathematical statements when it comes to accepting their truth. So it's at least reasonable to believe in facts while not believing in moral facts, and it's fair to ask the moral realist for some sort of demonstration that there are true moral statements which is at least comparable to the amount of force other, already accepted facts.

All right. Ought from is, second attempt:

She intends to be a firefighter.
To be a fighter you have to get training at firefighters' school.
Therefore she ought to get training at firefighters' school.

Clue: it has been addressed by someone in the discussion already.

I think this is just the right kind of approach. The moral or ethical fact or facts is/ are based on the psychological or empirical fact or facts about individuals or people in general.

So, in a broader context than the 'firefighter' example, if someone wishes to live with, and live in harmony with, others then in order to fulfill that desire, they ought to treat others as they would wish to be treated themselves or as they honestly believe the other wishes to be treated.

If we accept the proposition that most people do wish to live in harmony with others, then it is a moral fact that most people ought to abide by the golden rule.

Cool, so we end up with this:

She intends to live in harmony with others.
To live in harmony with others you have to treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself.
Therefore she ought to treat others as she would wish to be treated herself.

Some will question whether it's characteristic of a human being to want to live in harmony with others, so that the argument is seen to come down to her own personal desire. And this is probably just a different way of putting the objection that the derivation concerns merely instrumental oughts and not moral obligations. This is the sticking point.

Some will question whether it's characteristic of a human being to want to live in harmony with others ... — jamalrob

It would be nice if it was.

Isn't there any empirical data?

This raises several associated questions for me:
Is there any way of coherently distinguishing between "instrumental oughts" and moral oughts?
Is there some requirement that moral oughts not be instrumental?
In the context of the example of living harmoniously with others and the like, must the achievement of a desired end be, or is it best characterized as, an example of instrumentality?
What other purpose could there be for moral injunctions than the achievement of some end or other? Or to put it another way; if moral oughts are to have any purpose at all, would that not make them examples of instrumentality, in any case?
Can we coherently think of moral injunctions as imperative and yet serving no purpose at all?

Some will question whether it's characteristic of a human being to want to live in harmony with others, so that the argument is seen to come down to her own personal desire. And this is probably just a different way of putting the objection that the derivation concerns merely instrumental oughts and not moral obligations. This is the sticking point. — jamalrob

Or question whether that's the only way to live in harmony with others.

I think it is fair to say that most people basically want to live in harmony with others, but very often, due to various psychological issues, difficulties controlling negative emotions, lack of capacity for self-examination, the sub-conscious effects of scotomas and so on; people simply don't know how to achieve it, or find it very hard to do and only achieve partial success and so on.

Yes, you can live in harmony with others by exploiting them, lying to them, robbing them, raping them and their children, killing their friends and loved ones and in general by having no regard for their feelings at all....just as long as they don't mind.
:-$

Yes, you can live in harmony with others by exploiting them, lying to them, robbing them, raping them and their children, killing their friends and loved ones and in general by having no regard for their feelings at all....just as long as they don't mind. — John

I was only pointing out a possible logical exception to the reasoning jamalrob forwarded. Obviously, the weakness in all these formulations are the premisses of which he already highlighted the first. The second is logically also problematic.

The instrumentality of "If you want..." produces morality because, as has been pointed out, I want to live in harmony, but I'd rather Mrs Un did most of the housework. This conflicted passion produces a gap between what I instrumentally ought to do for the sake of harmony, and what I instrumentally ought to do for the sake of comfort and idleness.

Unfortunately, harmony does not come cheap. We don't have it because we will not pay for it, and so we moralise instead.

Harmony comes at the cost of all being in the same key, for starters.

Nowadays, that is regarded as authoritarian.

Harmony comes at the cost of all being in the same key, for starters.

Nowadays, that is regarded as authoritarian. — Wayfarer

I used to play music with a chap like that; he was an excellent violinist, but could not play with another, but had always to have others play with him. In the end, such authoritarian harmony cannot be sustained; a mutuality of listening is required rather than a one way affair. Authoritarianism is exactly the demand for harmony alongside the refusal to pay for it by attending to others.

I think this is just the right kind of approach. The moral or ethical fact or facts is/ are based on the psychological or empirical fact or facts about individuals or people in genera — John

I'd say that there's something important missing from such an account -- namely, that this is just not what "good", in the moral or ethical sense, means. The empirical desires of individuals or people in general are not always good. It's not just the extreme cases that you bring up later. Even in milder cases, people's desires are not always good.

To say that empirical desires predicates moral truths is to miss what we mean by moral obligation, exhortation, and even desire (something we can desire unto itself). So we can say that someone's desires is the sort of truth which morality is concerned with, but it would not make sense to say that this is a truth about morality, much less some kind of moral fact which differs from any other kind of fact.

How else would we know that the example "She intends to live in harmony with others" was itself the right example to use? And what if

"She intends to get revenge"

?

"She intends to break up their relationship"
"She intends to get them fired"

etc.

In some situations we may say the darker side of desire is itself good. But then, that would be right to the point too: We would only say that desire can be good if we first understood, even at a pre-conceptual level, what good is separate from the desires anyone might hold. And we do seem to believe that certain desires are good and certain desires bad, which may vary with circumstances and certainly varies between groups and individuals.

A purported fact is something which is posited as being the case. — John

The reason I ask, is because it looked like you were asking, "what if there were moral facts that were determined by social considerations?" And I got the sense you were trying to sneak in some relativity, so that you were essentially asking, "what if there were facts, but they were relative to _____", and then asking, "would those still be facts?"

Think about math. Where did it come from? Is it present in the "real" world? Or is it just something that man made up..... did it essentially just spring up from man's brain?

I'm uncertain that moral statements are truth-apt, but it's not the point I wish to contend here. — Moliere

It's common to treat them as if they're truth apt. This argument is basically from common sense.

It's the demonstration that there are true moral statements that seems to be lacking -- at least if we're using mathematics as our basis of comparison. No moral calculus has the same force as actual mathematical statements when it comes to accepting their truth. So it's at least reasonable to believe in facts while not believing in moral facts, and it's fair to ask the moral realist for some sort of demonstration that there are true moral statements which is at least comparable to the amount of force other, already accepted facts. — Moliere

The structure of the argument (which isn't mine, btw) is that we treat moral statements as if they're truth apt. Concerns over whether there are true moral statements falls into the same batch of skepticism about whether there are true statements of any kind.

It comes down to your theory of truth, basically. As long as you aren't a truth skeptic, you allow that at least one statement is true and this requires no demonstration. Its just logic. Beyond that... put forward your theory of truth and we can go from there.

As for treatment of the word fact: a slippery factor is that statement can mean proposition. So there's all sorts of hidden goodness there.

No moral calculus has the same force as actual mathematical statements when it comes to accepting their truth. — Moliere

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The same force? If math statements (essentially facts about math= facts about morality) are the same types of facts as moral facts, then they would, by definition, have the same force.

If objective morality, then we would know when someone Is immoral (like we know when someone is bad at math)... But, does anyone have the right to "force" another to Be moral? That's another discussion. I certainly don't think I have the right to attempt to force anyone to be good at math.

Just like no one could force you to "do good math", no one could force you to "do good morals". Presumably, there are benefits for those who are good at math. And there are presumably benefits for those who are good at morality. Our society seems to have decided that morality is important. At least when it comes to making laws. But, even they can't "force" anyone. (and no one forces you to stay in any particular society). They can "provide" consequences for those who don't see the benefits of being moral.(would you argue there are no consequences for those who are bad at math?) And then we can also consider that there are the feelings of "guilt" and the concept of "conscience", assuming one believes they exist.

No moral calculus has the same force as actual mathematical statements when it comes to accepting their truth. — Moliere

Consider the statement. It is moral to be moral. This is tautological so it has to be true it is also very robust from any mathematical analysis.

.

After considering my last post, and it's probably not what Hume had in mind, but perhaps he Was right. Even IF morality is objective, you're still no closer to getting an Ought from an Is. So, perhaps it is a universal truth. You can Never get an ought from an is.

(of course, if a universal, then it also means that Hume WAS Wrong when he says, "Reason is, and Ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.")

Just because you know math, there is nothing binding about math. No one can say "You Ought to do math well." And I suppose, in the same vein, if objective morality, then we're no closer to saying, "You Ought to be moral."

I am pretty good at math... It's kinda silly to let all that knowledge about how to do good math go to waste. And I usually don't think about them, but there are consequences that come as a result of my doing math poorly.

Again, if laws are any indication, our society does seem to want people to think about whether or not their actions are moral, so much so that it is willing to create severe consequences for those who don't also take them seriously. (and don't forget guilt and conscience). So, if objective morality, Ought you be moral? I guess that's up to you to decide.

But, I'm still considering the possible existence of moral facts, and the possibility that morality is, in fact Objective.

I'm not sure what you are referring to here. Could you state which premises are "logically problematic", and why you think they are?

I'd say that there's something important missing from such an account -- namely, that this is just not what "good", in the moral or ethical sense, means. The empirical desires of individuals or people in general are not always good. It's not just the extreme cases that you bring up later. Even in milder cases, people's desires are not always good. — Moliere

I certainly acknowledge your point that people's desires are not always good. People are very often "fucked up" as I think any reasonably intelligent person will acknowledge. The fact that it is generally agreed that desires and the acts they lead to range in kind from variably beneficial to oneself and others, to benign, to varying degrees of harmfulness shows that most people have a clear, if not precisely formulated, idea of what it means to flourish or live happily with others.

What else could "good" "in the ethical or moral sense" mean than this? So, I wasn't talking about the whole range of the empirical desires of people in general, but rather the underlying desire to live in harmony with others, which gets distorted by various empirical desires, which are expressions of dysfunctionality insofar as they consist in trying to exploit others to any degree, however subtle. That exploitative tendency is all too often quite unconscious. To exploit others for personal pleasure or gain is also to exploit oneself, in my view. In that I agree with Kant that others should always be treated as ends, not as means. To treat others as means cannot be anything other than to also treat oneself as means. I call this dysfunctional, because it can never lead to truly harmonious living.

So, if this is right it would seem that morality must be seen in functional, which is really the same as to say instrumental, terms. What plausible alternative conception of the good is there?

The reason I ask, is because it looked like you were asking, "what if there were moral facts that were determined by social considerations?" And I got the sense you were trying to sneak in some relativity, so that you were essentially asking, "what if there were facts, but they were relative to _____", and then asking, "would those still be facts?" — anonymous66

Well no, I was saying that moral facts are determined by general facts about human beings. Would you really want to deny that most people would wish to live, if they could, in a condition of harmony and mutual love with their fellow humans? Social animals, for the most part, apparently achieve something like this instinctively. But humans are 'fucked up' psychologically speaking; is that really controversial?

Think about math. Where did it come from? Is it present in the "real" world? Or is it just something that man made up..... did it essentially just spring up from man's brain?

I don't understand the question. We are part and parcel of the real world, so if math comes from us it comes from the real world. It is certainly present in the real world insofar as the real world can be mathematically modeled with a great deal of success and practical application. If math "sprang form man's brain" then where did "man's brain" spring from? In any case, given that math is so successful in its practical applications, is it plausible to consider that it could be merely something that "man made up", accepting for the sake of argument that we even know what it means to say maths is merely made up?

I think I can sum up your questions/comments this way...
There are X's and there are Y's. X's exist in the real world and Y's exist only in the human mind. If there were no humans, would Y's exist? Can Y's be universals, if they only exist in the human mind (or perhaps, can anything concerning Y's be facts?)

(if this isn't your meaning, then it's still relevant to the discussion).

The thing is, it seems like I'm being told (by most people who talk about morality, or maybe just by people who are already sure that morality IS subjective), that they know the possibility of moral facts is inconceivable (and they claim that if there is anything that might be called "moral facts", then because we already know they only exist in the human mind, they're subjective anyway). I'm asking.. "are you sure? how could you know that?" I'm still not convinced that the possibility of moral facts (not pretend moral facts, real moral facts.. universal facts) is any weirder than any other facts...

And of course, that leads to: what is the demarcation between "the things that only exist in the human mind", and "the things that exist in the real world"? (it looks like some people just say something like "well, if they're too weird to be true, then they must only exist in the mind". Or maybe it's more like, "if they're too weird then they Ought only to exist in the mind, and Ought not to be taken seriously".)

And another relevant question may be, if we decide that Y's "only exist in the human brain", then can we tell anything about Y by examining humans, their behavior, and the human brain?

Have you ever tried to make a list of X's and Y's?

It's common to treat them as if they're truth apt. This argument is basically from common sense. — Mongrel

Is it common sense to treat moral statements as if they are truth-apt, or is it common to perceive people to be treating moral statements as truth-apt when we believe they are truth-apt?

At the very least I wouldn't claim that common sense would use the term "truth-apt".

But even supposing they are truth-apt, I disagree with this:

The structure of the argument (which isn't mine, btw) is that we treat moral statements as if they're truth apt. Concerns over whether there are true moral statements falls into the same batch of skepticism about whether there are true statements of any kind. — Mongrel

Surely not. Suppose astrology. A reasonable person could simultaneously believe that there are, say, statements about plumbing, some of which are true and some of which are not, while simultaneously believing that all statements about astrology (or, perhaps, within astrology, just to be careful about self-reference) are all false without falling into global skepticism.

We can treat whole classes of statements as false without thereby being a global skeptic.

It comes down to your theory of truth, basically. As long as you aren't a truth skeptic, you allow that at least one statement is true and this requires no demonstration. Its just logic. Beyond that... put forward your theory of truth and we can go from there.

As for treatment of the word fact: a slippery factor is that statement can mean proposition. So there's all sorts of hidden goodness there.

I don't have a position on truth. I find that conversation hard to follow. Also, I'm not trying to summon up propositions. I don't mean statement in any specific way.

How do these relate to the question of moral anti-realism/realism? I just don't see it.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The same force? If math statements (essentially facts about math= facts about morality) are the same types of facts as moral facts, then they would, by definition, have the same force. — anonymous66

I mean that when we justify a mathematical statement that it is more persuasive than when we justify a moral statement, and I also mean that when we justify a mathematical statement that people change their beliefs about math whereas when we justify a moral statement people do not change their beliefs about morality. They continue to believe what they thought before.

I'm sure there are instances where you can find a counter-example, so take that to mean "on the whole", rather than as some kind of universal. Usually argument suffices to change a person's beliefs about math, but argument usually does not suffice to change a person's belief about morals.

Now, that does not mean there are no moral facts, mind. But since you were mentioning mathematics, and saying that mathematical facts are just as strange as moral facts, I was trying to argue that it's consistent to believe in mathematical facts while disbelieving in moral facts because of the argument from queerness -- that they are not "just as strange", from certain (not horribly uncommon or abstruse) perspectives.

So, if this is right it would seem that morality must be seen in functional, which is really the same as to say instrumental, terms. What plausible alternative conception of the good is there? — John

There is good, simpliciter, and then there's also moral good in terms of a moral agent's proper motivation, just off the top of my head.

I don't think morality must be seen as functional. There's a great deal more opinions on good and evil than instrumentalism.

But to the broader point about empirical psychology -- I think that disagreements about good will come about precisely in designating what is "fucked up", psychologically. These are very broad strokes to be talking in, and I don't think I'd attribute the desire to live in harmony with others as a universal desire, even though it is a plausible desire for some people to have. Exploitation is just too common to believe that this is an underlying, universal desire of human beings.

Which isn't to speak against goodness, per se -- only the formulation that goodness should rest on empirical psychology. This is to confuse what is the case with what ought to be the case, I would say. People should want to live in harmony with others, but they do not as we can see from their behavior. While I sometimes wonder if the fact/value distinction holds water at the ontological level, I believe that we should not lose sight of its strengths (namely, to guard against the belief that because things are the way they are, they are also the way they should be) -- which, perhaps there is a way I'm just not seeing, but it seems to me that if we ground morality in empirical psychology that we are at least in danger of committing the naturalistic fallacy.

I'm not sure that's a tautology to be honest. You've got two different uses of the copula going on there, by my lights. "it is moral" and then that sentences embedded in "to be moral"

What is the "it"?

Morality is morality is a tautology, sure.

Even so, I'd have to say -- even though mathematics can be argued to be tautological -- that I'm not sure I'd find a tautology very convincing on the point that morality as the same persuasive force as mathematics, given the argument I gave to anon earlier.