Where do you think Kant's "freedom through morality" approach falls within meta-ethics? — Echarmion
Moral claims tell you what to do regardless of your personal goals. This is often referred to as "objective", but the term "objective" has some unfortunate baggage associated. Perhaps it's better to call it "apodictic". Moral claims are prescriptive claims that establish a general duty you should follow. — Echarmion
What counts as a moral claim, as compared/contrasted to all the other kinds of claims that are not? — creativesoul
moral claims are actually more like imperatives, commands that we're giving each other, but specifically commands that are universalizable: commands that we're committed to issuing and adhering to in all similar circumstances. — Pfhorrest
It's bad, immoral, wrong, and unjust to whack a little old lady in the back of the head with a shovel for no reason whatsoever...
What's the problem here regarding the truth of the above moral claim? — creativesoul
I don’t recall that phrase exactly from Kant, so can you elaborate on that? — Pfhorrest
So "You should drive on the left" is a moral claim? — Isaac
Kant's "groundwork" doesn't so much start with the question "what should I do" as it starts with the question "how can I be free". The categorical imperative is arrived at as the form of the "general law" that one must follow to be free of the vagaries of circumstance. — Echarmion
Could you walk through the logic that helped you reject non-cognitive approaches? It seems you take the Wikipedia article as an exhaustive list of non-cognitive approaches. Personally I have found more nuance in this space. — Adam's Off Ox
You also seem eager to reject all forms of moral nihilism. Is that a logical approach or a reflection of your sentimentality? — Adam's Off Ox
If none of them work sufficiently well then yes. — Pfhorrest
What would working sufficiently well consist in? Is it the extent of agreement with the answer, the extent to which you agree with it? — Isaac
Say, hypothetically, we asked the world "should we give a tithe to charity", by vote. The vote was 60/40 in favour of a tithe. Everyone agreed that this is a fine way to decide. Would that then make democratic vote a 'good' method for you? — Isaac
Meta-ethics isn’t about whether or not that kind of thing is true, but about what it means for something like that to be true (or false). What exactly is a claim like that saying? — Pfhorrest
I see no reason for moral claims to be any different than any other claim in this regard. What I do not get is the confusion regarding what the claim means, or what it is saying. What's not to be understood about what the claim means, assuming we are competent language users? We all know what it means, don't we? If we do not, then we've gone horribly wrong somewhere along the lines in our meta-ethical considerations, because we most certainly used to. — creativesoul
The term "moral" would no longer be being used - on pains of coherency alone - as a value judgement/assessment, and the same is true of utterances of "ought". Rather, "moral" would be used to pick out things that are about acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour. — creativesoul
Take a promise made to plant a rose garden on Sunday. "I promise to plant a rose garden on Sunday" is incapable of being true/false at the time of utterance, but claims about that promise, or based upon that promise are most certainly capable of being so. For example, if one promises to plant a rose garden on Sunday, then "there ought be a rose garden on Monday", is true for the exact same reasons that there ought be a red cup in the cupboard. — creativesoul
Working sufficiently well means not being vulnerable to any reasonable criticism. Whether or not a particular solution is vulnerable to any criticism is up to each particular reasoner to evaluate. In my evaluation, there are sound objections to all the things you listed: people have problems with them and I can see why, their reasons for not completely accepting them seem sound to me. — Pfhorrest
you brought these things up in the context of moral nihilism. To think that any of these actually is morally sufficient is already to reject moral nihilism. Moral nihilism would have it that none of them are and nothing possibly can be sufficient, because the questions are inherently unanswerable. — Pfhorrest
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