If goodness is subjective, then you can be right and I can be right, even if our views contradict one another. — Banno

Moral utterances aren't true or false, correct or incorrect.

But I took it that we were instead considering if someone says "Good is this". — Banno

You lost me. Isn't that what I shifted to in the rest of my post (the unquoted part)?

I agree that a proposition is true or false, and that moral statements are of the form of propositions.

However, given that there is no fact of the matter, they must then all be false.


That being said it seems to me that there is an extra-logical function which moral statements inhabit. Something like a promise or an admonition -- these aren't exactly truth-apt functions, but they are still things we are doing with words. In saying something is good we are still doing something in spite of the falsity of the statement. What is that, though? I don't know.

Engaging in a bad habit of double-posting:

Also, that being said, I should say there is some sense in which it makes sense to say there is a fact to the matter -- that what is good is good, and what is evil is evil. Usually cases of conversion seem to fit that bill; we often do, through our mistakes, change our minds about what moral propositions are true (in that we believe them to be true, even if they are false). I'd say that's the strongest argument for there being true moral propositions. I just compare such cases to cases where I change my mind because I was mistaken about some fact, and that empirical element seems to not quite be there in the case of moral propositions so the rational conclusion is that they must all be false in spite of their apparent semantic content.

so the rational conclusion is that they must all be false in spite of their apparent semantic content. — Moliere

If 'it is good' is understood to mean 'I think it is good' then the statement may be true or false depending on its honesty. Is it necessary, or even fruitful, or chase a mirage of the absolute?

If "It is good" means "I think it is good" why wouldn't you just say "I think it is good"?

In the case of facts we don't have a problem appending "I think" when we wish to describe our beliefs. And similarly so with moral statements -- "I think we should help the poor -- I think it is a good thing to do" works perfectly well to describe my beliefs. Why substitute beliefs as the referent when we are perfectly capable of stating our beliefs on the matter clearly?

Moral utterances aren't true or false, correct or incorrect. — Terrapin Station

Then you seem to be in the rather odd position of claiming, say, that it is wrong to kick a puppy, but that it is not true that it is wrong to kick a puppy.

That's what I'd call incoherent.

Then I haven't followed your point. Are you agreeing that "good" is indefinable?

I agree that a proposition is true or false, and that moral statements are of the form of propositions. — Moliere

And hence you are at odds with @Terrapin Station.

Yes, definitely.

"I prefer the behaviour in question, but it is not good".
"I approve: but it is still immoral".
— Banno

Both are incoherent. — Terrapin Station

SO you can't comprehend that one might approve of an action which is immoral?

Well done you.

SO I think we will agree that kicking a pup is wrong - not just a push with the side of your foot, but perhaps a proper punt...

I suggest that it is also tru that it is wrong to kick a puppy; and, in answer to your:

...they are still things we are doing with words. — Moliere

that it follows that one ought not kick puppies. What distinguishes a moral fact from other facts is the implied act. Don't kick the pup. SO it is true that we do something more with moral statements than other statements.

"Ice cream is good"
"That doctor is good"
"That researcher is good"
"That teacher is good"
"That game is good"
"Pleasure is good"
"Knowledge is good"
"That example is good"

Ice cream does not share the virtues of a doctor or a researcher, but it might be good because it is usually found pleasurable to eat. A good game might be one with a set of rules that inspire engaging play, but it cannot have an analytical mind, pleasant bedside manner or be delicious. Any equivalence which invites us to ask "How do the rules of chess taste?" is a silly one.

When we take something quite abstract, like pleasure or knowledge, and say that it is good, it seems to express a commitment to the abstraction as being in some sense valuable. Knowledge might be something a society could be geared to produce, just like ice cream, but I believe we would only say a society is good because it produces ice cream flippantly, whereas if it values knowledge and knowledge's production we might say it is good in a deeper sense and with more commitment. We also do not behave as if our commitment to a thing is why that thing is good, as this equivocates a personal sentiment with being good; why that sentiment was held in the first place.

Which is not to say we also cannot use 'is good' to express mere approval or personal sentiment, we do frequently, I imagine it's probably the most common use of "is good" - its use in "that's good".

Analysing "is good" on its own terms removes all the contexts that give it its sense. Which is not to say that it can't be analysed or that good cannot be demarcated from its opposite, just that context is key and the boundaries of the application of "is good" are of necessity not sufficiently clear to facilitate an exhaustive definition.

Maybe if we asked "what makes a teacher good?" or "what makes an ice cream good?" we could have a more productive discussion, but unfortunately by supposition this would be off topic.

What distinguishes a moral fact from other facts is the implied act. Don't kick the pup. SO it is true that we do something more with moral statements than other statements. — Banno

Cool -- so I think we are pretty close save for my lack of understanding what a moral fact is. Perhaps it does not matter? But maybe it does too.

A moral fact is an implied act. So abstaining from kicking the pup, even though it pooped all over my nice shoes, is the implied act. I feel like kicking the pup, but I do not act on that feeling because it is a wrong thing to do.

What if I did act on the feeling? What is it about the implied act that makes the moral statement true? Surely this would not make the moral statement false, else whatever we did would just make moral statements true, and then they'd all be true -- which isn't exactly what we mean by saying such and such is good or bad. Quite the opposite.

But where is our implied act, then, if we do not do it? Maybe I'm just not following.

If "It is good" means "I think it is good" why wouldn't you just say "I think it is good"? — Moliere

That's simple, when people say "it is good'. they assume that what they think is good is good, absolutely speaking.

Alright, then we are in agreement I think -- I'm only saying that when people say "It is good" that this is what they mean -- they do not mean "I think it is good", but rather "It is good" is true.

Right, they probably do mean "it is good' is true', but that does not entail that ''it is good' is true' is true.

I agree with that.

Then you seem to be in the rather odd position of claiming, say, that it is wrong to kick a puppy, but that it is not true that it is wrong to kick a puppy. — Banno

Aren't you at all familiar with noncognitivism/emotivism? "It is wrong to kick a puppy" is akin to "Boo to kicking puppies!" Boo, and alternately yay, are not true or false.

SO you can't comprehend that one might approve of an action which is immoral? — Banno

So "x is immoral" is "Boo to x!" If you're booing x, you're not approving of x.

Aren't you at all familiar with noncognitivism/emotivism? "It is wrong to kick a puppy" is akin to "Boo to kicking puppies!" Boo, and alternately yay, are not true or false. — Terrapin Station

Of course. But that does not avoid the issue I set out above:

...you seem to be in the rather odd position of claiming, say, that it is wrong to kick a puppy, but that it is not true that it is wrong to kick a puppy. — Banno

That is, emotivism fails to account for the commonplace notion that moral statements are indeed statements. And so it appears incomplete.

the commonplace notion that moral statements are indeed statements. — Banno

Insofar as people believe that moral utterances can be true or false they're simply mistaken. They have mistaken beliefs about the ontology of moral utterances.

Noncognitivism/emotivism is an analysis of what moral utterances are ontologically. The task isn't to address why people have mistaken beliefs, as common as the mistaken beliefs may be.

It's akin to an analysis of what God talk really is--pegging it as a fiction, etc.--despite the prevalence of mistaken beliefs otherwise.

Well, sure, you can double-down and bite the bullet. But can you see why someone might find the theory unappealing? It seems somewhat elaborate and unnecessary to claim its all emotion, on the face of things, and goes against what we mean by moral statements.

The spirit in which it's forwarded is akin to a scientific examination. It's not based on whether anyone finds it appealing or not. We want to know what the phenomenon really is.

A common analysis, and one I have much sympathy for. Indeed if you had asked me a month or two ago I might have agreed.

But as @Moliere suggests, I'm reconsidering. Kicking the pup is wrong.

It's often attributed to Wittgenstein.

pointed out that

goodness apparently does not track personal preferences. — Snakes Alive

If someone thinks that kicking the pup is fine, then I wouldn't say they have a different preference to me in the way I like vanilla and they like banana. I, and I hope you, would say rather that there was something quite wrong with them.

Yes, and as a result one can e.g. simultaneously describe something as good (sensually) and not good (morally) without falling into contradiction. Unless some particular sense is specified, asking what is 'good' is bound to lead to confusion.

@Banno, is your OP motivated by a pragmatist's account of morality?

Only in showing that any such account that replaces good with something else must miss the point.

Moore's open question ought be used far more often than it is. So much of what appears in the ethics pages falls to it.

Only in showing that any such account that replaces good with something else must miss the point. — Banno

Then, where does that leave us?

If "It is good" means "I think it is good" why wouldn't you just say "I think it is good"? — Moliere

There's no meaningful difference, assuming a sincere speaker, unless one is unsure.