the argument was there, but subtle. It’s to do with how repetition is not truth, literary quality, and the difference between philosophy and nonsense.

What have I said that is nonsense? Where have you argued anything at all? All you do is assert and think that's good enough. All filler, no killer.

What's nonsense - to think a) that values require valuers or that b) values do not require valuers?

It's b that's nonsense, isn't it? And what do I believe? a or b? a. I believe a.

What's nonsense - to think that a) only a subject, a mind, can value something or b) that something other than a mind - a chair say, or a stone - can value things?

It's b that's nonsense, isn't it? And what do I believe? a or b? a. I believe a.

What does putting those two together get us? It gets us to the conclusion that moral value, being a kind of value, requires at least one valuer, and that the valuer has to be a subject, a mind.

Now, if you think that's nonsense, then either you can't reason at all - you just don't see how the conclusion follows (in which case I think you're probably entitled to some kind of government benefit to shield you from the worst ravages of the oh so confusing and hazardous world) - or you think one of those bs is true.

So which is it?

Or perhaps you think the objection - the Euthyphro - that this thread is about is nonsense. But in that case you either think the argument is invalid or you think it has a nonsense premise or a nonsense conclusion. Which?

In the land of the blind, the one eyed man will be considered a fool

To move things on, and because nobody here seems to think there's even a problem called the Euthyphro, I will make another objection to my own view, one that I think most might agree seems to have quite a lot of clout.

This objection is not the Euthyphro, but answering it will show how to answer the Euthyphro.

I have argued that moral values are the values of a god. That is, to be morally valuable is to be the object of a god's valuing attitude.

But isn't it a self-evident truth of reason that whatever is morally valuable, it will be so irrespective of whether any god exists? Surely it is morally bad to torture a kitten regardless of whether there are any gods around? If it is morally bad to torture a kitten, it is bad irrespective of the presence of any gods, not because of one.

Yet if moral values are the values of a god, then that would be impossible. Conclusion: moral values are therefore 'not' the values of a god. That is:

1. If moral values are the values of a god, then if no gods exist, nothing is morally valuable
2. If no gods exist, some things are still morally valuable
3. Therefore, moral values are not the values of a god.

The argument is valid and both premises appear to be true.

I didn't mention God. — Bartricks

The number of things you didn't mention would make a long list. Fortunately, I am not confined to rearranging your words. Unfortunately, your topic though interesting is deprived of most of its virtue by your unpleasant manners.

What does putting those two together get us? — Bartricks

He was thoughtful and grave—but the orders he gave
Were enough to bewilder a crew.
When he cried "Steer to starboard, but keep her head larboard!"
What on earth was the helmsman to do?

the argument didn't mention God. Anyway, I find self righteousness insufferable. Byeeee

I find self righteousness insufferable — Bartricks

:lol:

1. If moral values are objective, then moral values with be contingent, not necessary
2. Moral values are necessary, not contingent
3. therefore, moral values are not objective — Bartricks

You are not reading "necessary" in the right way. Necessary here means "for the purpose of". And since there is something which makes them necessary, in this way, they are contingent on that thing.

It appears self-evident to the reason of most that moral truths are necessary, not contingent. How else do you explain why the Euthyphro is considered by virtually all contemporary moral philosophers to be such a damning criticism of subjectivist views??? — Bartricks

When you read "necessary" in the right way, it makes perfect sense to say that moral values are necessary. You've misinterpreted the word, then claimed the statement makes no sense.

From the Platonic perspective, the thing which necessitates moral values, "the good", is an object, a goal, (which because it does not exist as it is what is wanted, or lacking by the subject), is separate from the subject. This is what objectifies moral values.

Poetry now?!? Okay, here's one:

"If p, then q. Oh what to do? The argument doesn't lead where I want it to. No matter. No worry. I know what to do: I'll pretend I know stuff when I haven't a clue, and offer condescending guidance and invalid arguments and just generally be annoying and pompous and silly and ignorant and wrong and bad and a git."

I'll pretend I know stuff when I haven't a clue, — Bartricks

The last of the crew needs especial remark,
Though he looked an incredible dunce:
He had just one idea—but, that one being "Snark,"
The good Bellman engaged him at once.

I thought mine was better. At least I wrote it myself rather than quoting a Victorian paedo.

I wrote it myself — Bartricks

"Come, listen, my men, while I tell you again
The five unmistakable marks
By which you may know, wheresoever you go,
The warranted genuine Snarks.

“....General logic, then, resolves the whole formal business of understanding and reason into its elements, and exhibits them as principles of all logical judging of our cognitions. This part of logic may, therefore, be called analytic, and is at least the negative test of truth, because all cognitions must first of all be estimated and tried according to these laws before we proceed to investigate them in respect of their content, in order to discover whether they contain positive truth in regard to their object. Because, however, the mere form of a cognition, accurately as it may accord with logical laws, is insufficient to supply us with material (objective) truth, no one, by means of logic alone, can venture to predicate anything of or decide concerning objects, unless he has obtained, independently of logic, well-grounded information about them, in order afterwards to examine, according to logical laws, into the use and connection, in a cohering whole, of that information, or, what is still better, merely to test it by them.

Notwithstanding, there lies so seductive a charm in the possession of a specious art like this—an art which gives to all our cognitions the form of the understanding, although with respect to the content thereof we may be sadly deficient—that general logic, which is merely a canon of judgement, has been employed as an organon for the actual production, or rather for the semblance of production, of objective assertions, and has thus been grossly misapplied.

Different as are the significations in which the ancients used this term for a science or an art, we may safely infer, from their actual employment of it, that with them it was nothing else than a logic of illusion—a sophistical art for giving ignorance, nay, even intentional sophistries, the colouring of truth, in which the thoroughness of procedure which logic requires was imitated, and their topic employed to cloak the empty pretensions. Now it may be taken as a safe and useful warning, that general logic, considered as an organon, must always be a logic of illusion, that is, be dialectical, for, as it teaches us nothing whatever respecting the content of our cognitions, but merely the formal conditions of their accordance with the understanding, which do not relate to and are quite indifferent in respect of objects, any attempt to employ it as an instrument (organon) in order to extend and enlarge the range of our knowledge must end in mere prating; any one being able to maintain or oppose, with some appearance of truth, any single assertion whatever....”

All that to say this.....it is possible for worthy logic to give nothing worthy, it is possible for good logic to give nothing better than.....yeah, so?

And buried in there is a resolution for understanding the Euthyphro problem: for Socrates, in opposing, the analytic, insofar as there is no apodeitic correctness for the base of the charge against him, and for Euthyphro himself, in maintaining, the dialectic, insofar as he just stomps his foot and vacates the field, for the very same lack of apodeitic correctness. As such, the Euthyphro problem doesn’t fail at all, but rather demonstrates a failure.

Exit, stage right.

I am using 'necessary' to mean 'cannot not be the case'. Most moral philosophers think that it is impossible for two worlds to be identical in every way apart from morally. So, two circumstances that are non-morally alike, must - of necessity (they think) - be morally alike too.

I think they are wrong to think that, but I think that they are quite right in thinking that this does appear - rationally appear - to be the case.

You mention the Platonic form of the good - okay, so if this strange obelisk values things (a notion I can make no sense of whatsoever), why is it the case that it could not disvalue the things it values?

Consider those who might make the subject 'God'. They might try and address the Euthyphro criticism by pointing out that God has an immutable nature. But this, I think we can agree, does nothing whatsoever to address it. For the whole point is that if the source of moral values and norms is a person, then independent argument aside, there is no reason to think the person in question could not change their attitudes. All the 'God' person is doing is stipulating, not showing.

Well, that's true of you too if you just stipulate that this Platonic form of the good has an immutable nature and always values the same things across time and space.

For an analogy: take any physical object. It has a shape. But it can have a different one, can't it? Any physical object can have a different shape. No physical object has its shape of necessity. Anything spherical can be square, and so on.

Simply saying "ah, but the Platonic form of the good is not like that - it has the property of disvaluing X, and it can never do anything other than disvalue X" is like saying "ah, but there are some cuboid objects that cannot be anything other than cuboids".

Well, that seems prima facie false.

I am using 'necessary' to mean 'cannot not be the case'. — Bartricks

The point though, is that this is not how "necessary" is used in morality. It is used to indicate what is needed, what ought to be done for some purpose. If something is "necessary", there is a reason why it is necessary, it is deemed as needed for some purpose. So you are taking the wrong sense of "necessary", one not applicable to morality, and trying to make a moral argument out of it. That's nothing but equivocation.

You mention the Platonic form of the good - okay, so if this strange obelisk values things (a notion I can make no sense of whatsoever), why is it the case that it could not disvalue the things it values? — Bartricks

That's not what I said about 'the good", nor is it what Plato said about 'the good".

No, it is exactly how it is used in moral philosophy. You're the one using it incorrectly.

Most moral philosophers think that if an act - let's pick an obviously bad one, such as setting fire to an innocent person -is bad in this world, then it is wrong in all non-morally identical possible worlds.

That's a thesis that my kind of view has problems explaining - or appears to, I should say.

That's not what I said about 'the good", nor is it what Plato said about 'the good". — Metaphysician Undercover

Okay, what do you say about it, then? If moral truths are invariable across time and space, how does identifying them with the emanations of a Form explain why that is so? Explain without stipulating.

Or do you think that moral values are not invariable across time and space?

if so, what do you do with all those widely corroborated rational intuitions that represent them to be? Just reject them?

No, it is exactly how it is used in moral philosophy. You're the one using it incorrectly. — Bartricks

It seems you haven't read any moral philosophy. Do you recognize a difference between "is" and "ought". "Necessary" in the sense of "cannot not be the case" is based in what "is". "Necessary" in the sense of what is needed for some purpose is based in what ought to be done.

Or do you think that moral values are not invariable across time and space?

if so, what do you do with all those widely corroborated rational intuitions that represent it to be? Just reject them? — Bartricks

How could moral values be invariable across time and space when "ought" refers exclusively to future acts?

No it doesn't, it looks like you haven't.

What is the name of this thesis:

If two worlds are identical in all non-moral respects, then necessarily they are identical in all moral respects?

Anyone who's read a fair bit of moral philosophy knows the name of that thesis, for it is one of the few theses in moral philosophy that nearly everyone agrees is true.

Consider yourself owned.

If two worlds are identical in all non-moral respects, then necessarily they are identical in all moral respects? — Bartricks

How does that make any sense?

i thought you'd read a lot of moral philosophy? Seems you haven't.

It is the basis of the Euthyphro criticism.

Judging by the op, I'd say you haven't read The Euthyphro. In it, Plato relates morality to the gods, not to Reason, or to worlds which are identical in some aspects (whatever that means).

I have read the Euthyphro, but I think you haven't read the OP - not carefully anyway.

This thread is not about Plato's Euthyphro dialogue, but about the famous criticism it inspired.

That criticism is that if moral norms and values are the prescriptions and values of a subject (be they a god, gods or us) then they would not be immutable. They could vary over time.
Yet, in Plato's day as today, moral norms and values appear to be fixed. They are represented to be by our reason. Hence a problem.

Now, if you're not interested in that problem - the problem to do with the supposed arbitrariness that identifying moral norms and values with those of person would confer on them - then simply go to another thread. For this thread is about that problem - the problem contemporary philosophers call 'the Euthyphro'.

Don't dispute that it is called that. It is. But don't dispute it - this isn't a thread about label use and so it will just derail it.

Don't dispute that the criticism is in the original dialogue or tell me what the original dialogue is about. I have read it, I assure you. I have a copy of it - over there, in the bookshelf. But it wouldn't matter if I hadn't.

Just engage with the actual criticism.

That criticism is that if moral norms and values are the prescriptions and values of a subject (be they a god, gods or us) then they would not be immutable. They could vary over time.
Yet, in Plato's day as today, moral norms and values appear to be fixed. They are represented to be by our reason. Hence a problem. — Bartricks

I don't agree that moral values appear to be fixed, not today, nor in Plato's day. The criticism appears to be way off base.

Just engage with the actual criticism. — Bartricks

I did engage with the actual criticism. I pointed out that you were using "necessary" in a way which is inconsistent with the way that it is used in moral philosophy. You insisted that "necessary" means "cannot not be the case", which is some sort of logical principle that has nothing to do with morality, which deals with how people ought to behave. Then you went off on some tangent talking about different worlds with identical features.

If two worlds are identical in all non-moral respects, then necessarily they are identical in all moral respects? — Bartricks

You know that if they are two worlds, then they must differ in some way, or else they would be one and the same world. If they do not differ in non-moral respects, then they necessarily differ in moral respects.

"Consider yourself owned."

Well, why do you think the criticism is considered so damning? Moral norms appear to be immutable. I agree that they're not, but they do appear to be, I think.

Imagine that Tim smacks Susan in the face for a laugh. That act is wrong, right? Now imagine there is another planet exactly like this one - I mean, exactly like it in every physical respect. It contains twins of us, for instance. And in that world Tim's twin - Tim2 smacks Susan2 in the face for a laugh. Now, is that act wrong too? Don't change the scenario in the twin world - don't imagine Tim2 having different motivations to Tim1. No, it is the same act performed with the same intentions, it is just performed by Tim2 not Tim1, a person who is in every way identical to Tim1 except that he is not numerically identical.

Doesn't it have to be wrong too? If Tim1's act of hitting Susan1 was wrong, isn't Tim2's act of hitting Susan2 wrong as well?

Now imagine there is another planet exactly like this one - I mean, exactly like it in every physical respect. — Bartricks

If the planets were exactly the same, then by the principle of the identity of indiscernibles, they would be one and the same planet, and everything which is the case on one would also be the case on the supposed "other", because it wouldn't be "other", it would actually be the very same planet. So your question doesn't make any sense because you are talking about one and the same planet as if it were two distinct planets.

They're numerically distinct. So, just imagine two numerically distinct acts that are, in every other physical, mental and historical way, identical. So, two acts that are performed with the same intention, have identical parallel histories leading up to them, have the same consequences in their respective worlds - will those two acts be morally identical too?