Okay, so what is evidence of any implicit values of life and well-being, or where does that obtain/what is it a property of, etc.? — Terrapin Station

The evidence of those implicit values is that a model assuming them makes successful predictions (and, in addition, is explanatory). Suppose that Bob has a bottle of water and a bottle of poison on the bench and that he is thirsty. The bottles are clearly identified. I predict that Bob will drink from the bottle of water, not the bottle of poison. I would predict this, even without knowing Bob or asking him what his preferences are.

“....Empirical principles are wholly incapable of serving as a foundation for moral laws. ..." — Mww

As the above attests to, Kant carved up the world very differently to Aristotle. For Aristotle, eudaimonia is a state of well-being only achieved by practicing virtue.

Consider the example I used earlier of the coin counterfeiter. He may appear to be doing well for himself and might eventually die at a ripe old age without ever being found out. But he did not achieve eudaimonia since that requires one to practice virtue.

Conversely someone may practice virtue but thus far failed to have achieved eudaimonia due to injustice or misfortune and not through any fault of their own.

Consider the analogy to a running event. One has to both follow the rules of the event and cross the finish line to successfully complete it. Neither someone who cheats nor someone that pulls out injured meets that criteria (though obviously for very different reasons).

Here are some things which it makes sense to call natural: trees, grass, oxygen, mountains, rocks, rivers. Morality is like this?? — S

Morality is an abstraction (or pattern or form), not a concrete particular like the above things. However it is an abstraction over particulars and natural processes and so is similarly natural. As a familiar example of a natural abstraction, consider the center of mass in physics.

The particulars in the case of morality are actions like murdering people and kicking puppies. These actions occur in the natural world.

So the issue, I think, is not one of natural versus artificial, but of whether there is a natural moral standard that is well-motivated (and useful) versus standards that are artificial (or subjective).

Which is where Schelling points come in. But I'll leave it there for now in case you disagree with any of the above.

Eudaimonia is popular again. And that's fine - it's a worthy goal. But I would maintain that it's not what might be called a principle good. And I'd argue for that using the open question argument. — Banno

The full argument may not be there yet. But I think we should be able to say that the good has something to do with (sentient) life and well-being. A kicked puppy is not a happy puppy.

Just as knowledge has something to do with belief, reasons and truth, even if it is not straightforwardly reducible to those things (as Gettier showed).

In other words we expect them to feel that value, and we expect their thoughts and actions to reflect that feeling. — Janus

Yes. And even if they do not naturally feel that value (such as with sociopaths and psychopaths) we still expect them to learn and act on that value. Just as we expect a colorblind person to stop at red traffic lights.

Exactly. Yet ethical subjectivism erases just that distinction by treating morality and the Will to Power as categorically equivalent.
— Andrew M

I think you are distorting the meaning of the Will to Power here. The thing is that though there are common moral codes that most of us accept as necessary for harmonious social life, each of us (those who think for themselves at least) has our own variant that diverges more or less from those common moral codes to enact our own conception of our individual flourishing. — Janus

That's fine. But I understand the Will to Power as a wholesale rejection of morality, not a tinkering at the edges. Do I have that wrong?

The evidence of those implicit values is that a model assuming them makes successful predictions (and, in addition, is explanatory). Suppose that Bob has a bottle of water and a bottle of poison on the bench and that he is thirsty. The bottles are clearly identified. I predict that Bob will drink from the bottle of water, not the bottle of poison. I would predict this, even without knowing Bob or asking him what his preferences are. — Andrew M

That's not evidence in support of your claims where there is disagreement. We know that most people value their lives, so Bob will probably choose the water over the poison. That's implicit, sure. As in, Bob hasn't made this explicit, and he doesn't need to for us to accurately predict his behaviour. But I don't think that anyone will disagree with you about that.

Here's the disagreement. What Bob values is just what Bob values. You haven't shown that this is evidence of a value independent of what it is behind the human valuing, namely preference and feeling. Bob probably gets enjoyment out of his life and is not suicidal. Otherwise, he might well choose the poison.

Morality is an abstraction (or pattern or form), not a concrete particular like the above things. However it is an abstraction over particulars and natural processes and so is similarly natural. As a familiar example of a natural abstraction, consider the center of mass in physics.

The particulars in the case of morality are actions like murdering people and kicking puppies. These actions occur in the natural world.

So the issue, I think, is not one of natural versus artificial, but of whether there is a natural moral standard that is well-motivated (and useful) versus standards that are artificial (or subjective).

Which is where Schelling points come in. But I'll leave it there for now in case you disagree with any of the above. — Andrew M

Things in nature have a centre of mass, and that's objective. It doesn't even seem to make sense to say that things in nature have a morality. Objectively? Whereabouts on a rock is a rock's morality? And a natural moral standard seems completely unsubstantiated and a leap in logic, assuming that even makes sense and is not a category error.

I accept that there is a sense in which everything is natural, but not if you make a mutually exclusive distinction between natural and artificial, which is a useful distinction. Suggesting that everything is natural, on the other hand, is not very useful at all. When you brought up monetary value earlier, that's an example of something artificial. Morality, at the very least, definitely has an artificial aspect. We came up with "good" and "bad", moral language, moral rules, moral principles, etc. We came up with moral concepts. If you point to behaviour, and to acts, like, say, kicking a puppy, then that's all you're pointing to: behaviour, actions, a puppy, a person. Where's the morality to be found there, independently, as though it has a place in nature? That strikes me as absurd. If we dissect the kicked puppy, will we discover wrongness inside of it? How could we even test your theory? If I objectively examine kicking puppies, I do not find morality there. I would only find things that you can find in things like physics and biology, like the physics of movement and the biology of canines. I would necessarily have to take into my account subjectivity to find morality stuff. You just seem to be projecting, to be anthropomorphising.

The issue is not whether there is a natural moral standard that is well-motivated and useful versus standards that are artificial or subjective. That's getting ahead of yourself. Well-motivated and useful is irrelevant at this stage where the very suggestion that there's a natural moral standard is in question. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

The full argument may not be there yet. But I think we should be able to say that the good has something to do with (sentient) life and well-being. A kicked puppy is not a happy puppy. — Andrew M

An approach that might work is looking at capabilities. Martha Nausbaum. Usable stuff.

The full argument may not be there yet. But I think we should be able to say that the good has something to do with (sentient) life and well-being. A kicked puppy is not a happy puppy.
— Andrew M

An approach that might work is looking at capabilities. Martha Nausbaum. Usable stuff. — Banno

That's all pretty obvious. It's additional claims and where you take this which could be problematic. Phrases like "has to do with", "looking at", and "usable" would need to be drawn out.

That's fine. But I understand the Will to Power as a wholesale rejection of morality, not a tinkering at the edges. Do I have that wrong? — Andrew M

That's how i understand it. Stepping beyond good and evil, to bring about what it is that one wills.

You are hopelessly befuddled*. Morality is not reducible to biology any more than concepts like 'marriage', 'money' etc, or more to the point, "beauty", "virtue", "the good" and so on. (Speaking of the trivially obvious... ) — Baden

"x is not reducible to biology" . . . that's a claim. What's the support of it?

Concepts are reducible to biology. They're mental phenomena.

The complement nonmental phenomena to subjective experiences are brain states, which are physical configurations of a biological brain. i.e. We can observe/measure brain states with instruments. They are in that sense part of the 'objective' realm. — Baden

I'm a physicalist, an identity theorist. Some brain states are mental states. Some brain states are not mental states. "Subjective" refers to mental states. So it refers to those brain states that are mental states. "Objective" is the complement--everything that exists that's not a mental state--so nonmental brain states, ocean states, office desk states, etc.

I wouldn't say that subjective things are necessarily brain states, by the way, just because mental phenomena might be able to obtain in other substances/structures. We don't know if that's going to turn out to be possible or not, but it very well could be.

Re the series of quotes you reposted, you didn't say anything about them. Maybe be a little more verbose why you're reposting that stuff?

The evidence of those implicit values is that a model assuming them makes successful predictions (and, in addition, is explanatory). Suppose that Bob has a bottle of water and a bottle of poison on the bench and that he is thirsty. The bottles are clearly identified. I predict that Bob will drink from the bottle of water, not the bottle of poison. I would predict this, even without knowing Bob or asking him what his preferences are. — Andrew M

Why couldn't it be that you're predicting what his preferences will probably be, based on knowledge of most persons' preferences?

Yeah, the counterfeiter made the Kantian “better calculation”, and if never found out, there is reason to suspect he was quite thoroughly pleased with himself, and only immoral upon reflection by another.

Nevertheless, the major names in moral/ethical philosophy are usually left with either assuming a naturally innate human quality in order to alleviate rational infinite regress, or, posit an innate human rational faculty with the specific job of alleviating rational infinite regress. For Aristotle, virtue, for Descartes, the evil demon, for Hume sentiment, for Kant the good of the will, Schopenhauer compassion....and so on.

I don't find your claim that goodness is a thing that's conceived of that's not linguistic disagreeable enough to pursue an argument against it. — S

Good.

I asked you to give me an example of what you meant when you said that "not all conceptions of goodness can account for that which exists prior to our conceptions" to help me understand what you're getting at. I brought up a rock, but that didn't seem relevant. You still don't seem to have provided an example. You instead seem to want to skip ahead and pursue your own agenda, turning this back around on me, responding to a question with another question which redirects, which I find quite annoying. — S

I was getting at the question of method.

Some conceptions are of that which exist in their entirety prior to being conceived. That holds for goodness. Thus, we find ourselves asking the question, or a similar one...

If goodness were nothing more than our own personal like/dislikes or something similar that arises from metacognitive endeavors, then it would be existentially dependent upon language, as would our knowledge of it. There would be no difference.

There is.

That's fine. But I understand the Will to Power as a wholesale rejection of morality, not a tinkering at the edges. Do I have that wrong? — Andrew M

I think Nietzsche was concerned with a "revaluation of all values" not a rejection of all values. I read Nietzsche as rejecting what he called "slave morality", which he saw as being based on "ressentiment", and I think his ethics is aestheticised, in rejecting any moral formulae. So, certainly his work is a "wholesale rejection" of moral rules, but I would not say it is a rejection of morality tout court.

Never mind. I can't be bothered to untangle that.

Some conceptions are of that which exist in their entirety prior to being conceived. — creativesoul

It's a mystery to me what that might be saying/what it might amount to.

If goodness were nothing more than our own personal like/dislikes or something similar that arises from metacognitive endeavors, — creativesoul

Likes/dislikes arise from metacognitive endeavors? No idea there, either.

then it would be existentially dependent upon language, as would our knowledge of it. — creativesoul

Likes/dislikes are existentially dependent on language, as is knowledge of likes/dislikes? Again a mystery.

morality consists in rules, Or if you prefer, judgements. So while he might not have had a moral system he might of had an ethical system. But an ethical system that did away with consistency.

Now I’m not sure that that is an ethical system.

Ethics is a synonym for morality. "Ethics" comes from Greek. "Morality" from Latin.

I don't think Nietzsche accepted the validity of systems; where systems are understood to be universal, overarching. It doesn't follow from that that his thinking was not systematic.

I also think there's a significant difference between saying that morality consists in rules and saying that it consists in judgements. Even if it is thought in terms of rules, though, one could have rules that one consistently follows in relation to one's own moral feeling and judgement that determine one's moral behavior, without expecting anyone else to follow those rules; one's rules are for oneself alone; and to each their own.

And one might change one's feelings and then change one's judgements and the rules that proceed from them, and that might from the outside appear as an inconsistency, whereas it is actually a matter of remaining consistent with one's moral feeling. It would be like changing one's aesthetic tastes. The key to understanding Nietzsche is that for him everything is a matter of aesthetics.

Maybe a later day...

You mentioned concepts. I suggest that you be a bit better prepared to defend the notion next time.

Some conceptions are of that which exist in their entirety prior to being conceived.
— creativesoul

It's a mystery to me what that might be saying/what it might amount to. — Terrapin Station

In short... we discover some things. Moreover, that which is discovered exists in it's entirety upon it's discovery. That is not to say that no thing discovered evolves afterwards. All things do and morality 'grows' solely by virtue of it's constitution(thought/belief). Morality existed, in a much less 'refined' way(compared to historical and current moral discourse), prior to our naming and talking about it.

There's much to be learned along such lines of thought.

Never mind the rest, it was poorly put.

I also think there's a significant difference between saying that morality consists in rules and saying that it consists in judgements. — Janus

Indeed. It consists in part of both. It consists entirely of thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and(mostly) behaviour including but most certainly not limited to statements thereof.

Ethics is a synonym for morality. — Terrapin Station

Well it is in layman's terms, not typically in philosophical circles though, I would venture to guess...

Typically, as I understand it, the difference between morality and ethics, is that ethics involves what to do when we're faced with conflicting moralities(conflicting belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour).

I think it boils down more to finding a better way to talk about morality than fundamental disagreements about what it is. — Baden

Perhaps it might boil down to someone, somewhere, offering a better - more adequate - definition(delineation). That would need to include how it emerges unbeknownst to us at the time(because it does), and be capable of explaining how it evolves over time(because it does).

There needs to be a universally relevant, rightfully applicable account of that which underwrites all of the subjective particulars 'across the board'. That which is most important to us all. I've always held that that was to be gleaned through careful examination of language acquisition itself, including how all of us adopt our first worldview, replete with our first moral belief system.

We can even dig a bit deeper than that, and be justified in doing so.

Here's a problem I find common when people are discussing morality. The use of the term "moral" quite often is being used in different senses by different people. The results aren't as productive as they could be. Some use "moral" as a means to indicate judgment/approval. Others use it to indicate a particular class or kind.

As a term of judgment, it is equivalent to what the user finds good/acceptable. It indicates an approval according to their own moral belief system. I most often use it to refer to a particular class or kind of thought, belief, and/or statement. This is commonly done by everyone using the phrase "moral discourse" to indicate the subject matter. I also just classified a kind of belief(moral belief system) earlier in this very paragraph.

Morality, at the very least, definitely has an artificial aspect. We came up with "good" and "bad", moral language, moral rules, moral principles, etc. We came up with moral concepts. — S

We come up with all sorts of names for all sorts of things. It quite simply does not follow from that that all of those things are artificial.

Trees come to mind as an obvious example, or rocks, if you prefer. These are obviously not equivalent to our notions/conceptions of them, obviously not artificial. They are physical things. Only a moron would think that they are existentially dependent upon our names for them, or that they were artificial.

However, there are other things that are not physical objects that we've named, talked about, conceived, and misconceived even. Human thought and belief is one such thing. Morality consists entirely thereof. Thus, if one does not understand the former, there can be little hope of understanding the latter.

Our moral concepts, ideas, rules, and principles can be mistaken/false.

So there is no morality beyond conceived morality? From which it would seem to follow that morality is subjective, since conception is exclusively an activity of subjects, or so we generally think.

I don't think Nietzsche accepted the validity of systems; where systems are understood to be universal, overarching. It doesn't follow from that that his thinking was not systematic. — Janus

Yep.

We will disagree on rules, since private rules are not rules or not private. That's another discussion.

What's interesting here, at least for me, is not the exegesis so much as the notion of someone who has no interest in right and wrong. What might that look like?

I acknowledge the objectivity there, but I don't think that it's necessarily right to call that "immoral". If I am one of those people, and I inadvertently act contrary to my aim of kicking the puppy, then I'm just being unreasonable. But if I have a principle which says that that behaviour is immoral, then sure, it would be immoral accordingly, but only relative to my principle, and only relative to my thoughts and feelings about its application. — S

From my meta-ethical position morality only exists to service existing human values, which is why when given conduct is detrimental to the relevant values in question, it makes some sense to refer to it as "immoral". A more technical way of putting it would be that some actions are more moral than others (or, some actions are more immoral than others) because they serve or damage existing moral values to lesser and greater degrees. If an action leads to worse outcomes than abstaining from that action, it's not hard to conceive of it as a morally inferior action. However, I think this is largely a semantic difference rather than a meaningful meta-ethical one.

It wouldn't apply universally, even if I thought and felt that it should. If other people reject that principle, because they think and feel differently, then I can't demonstrate that they're objectively wrong, since our thoughts and feelings are inherently subjective, and there's no warrant for a transcendent standard to override one of us.

You can get some objective truth in moral subjectivism. That I have never denied. It is objectively true that I feel that kicking puppies is wrong, for example. But the moral subjectivist would be like, so what? — S

You're right, but once we have agreed on a basic moral framework (i.e: it's meant to be a cooperative strategy which serves our moral values), there's still quite a bit of room left for strong moral suasion; the subjectivity/relativity of our moral values is only as harmful to moral practice as there is range and variability between them. Keeping in mind that morality is a strategy in service to human moral values, moral agreements, acts, or principles which more effectively serve those values which are more common (and more highly valued in our various value-hierarchies), are statistically more useful as moral heuristics, and objectively more useful in specific situations where the relevant values are in-fact shared. Where our primary moral values do in fact differ (but don't compete) we're left with a similar task of finding moral strategies which accommodate a diversity of human values more effectively.

Where we have mutually exclusive primary moral values (e.g: puppy kicking vs no puppy kicking), the best we can do is challenge and attempt to influence each other's values. It might seem like a craps-shoot, but since most people do share higher order values (e.g: the desire to go on living), it is often possible to manipulate (with reason) lower order values by appealing to higher order ones. In reality (I think) our value-hierarchies are rapidly fluctuating and poorly considered, making them lucrative targets for persuasion and elucidation, be it rational or manipulative.

Playing that game of moral suasion is sometimes an exercise in objective truth (e.g: should I vaccinate my child?), but it is very often an exercise in objective inductive reasoning (eg: How do we know our moral values are internally consistent? How do we know our moral conduct comports with our desired moral outcomes? How do we negotiate an environment filled with agents with sometimes disparate and competing values (i.e: what is the extent of the mutually beneficial cooperative strategies that we can undertake?). If we tried to answer the question "what should we do?" scientifically (given starting values as brute facts), then these are broad questions we would seek to answer.

Ultimately, if a difference in conflicting moral values cannot be negotiated with reason, then appeal to emotion. If it cannot be negotiated with emotion, then the remaining options seem to be forfeit, compromise, stalemate, or attack. Yes, people do sometimes go down fighting for their moral values, but in how many of these cases did emotion or the absence of reason play the major role? Values disparity might be a problem for the universality of our answers to specific moral situations, but it is not a significant problem for the practical utility of moral systems themselves given how infrequently sound moral reasoning from well ordered values actually necessitates violent conflict or even mutually exclusive values.

Are you basically just saying what @Banno said, namely that despite differences in meta-ethics, normative ethics matters? — S

I'm defining what normative ethics is from my meta-ethical standpoint. I'm also rebuking the "it's all just preference" line. In truth our preferences are mostly aligned, and the majority of moral dilemmas we're faced with pertain to figuring out how or committing to maximizing our nearly universally shared values in the first place. Our best moral theories are merely inductive and approximate models (of ideal strategies) but so are our best scientific theories (inductive and approximate models of observable phenomenon). It might seem trivial to you to persuasively show that normative ethics matters (and that it requires objective reasoning), but in the midst of strong relativism bordering on nihilism I don't think it's that trivial (not pointing fingers). One of the major sentiments that fuels moral absolutism is the knee-jerk fear people encounter when they consider that right and wrong might be in some way conditional, relative, or subjective (and therefore truthless/meaningless).

And then you go on to make some normative points, like that the way that you judge it, we shouldn't be greedy, and we should be considerate of others — S

Any specific normative content I put forward was really only meant as a demonstration of objectively reasoning moral conduct from starting values.

Maybe, like Banno, you judge that morality should be about everyone, about how "one" or "we all" should behave, and not particular, like how I should behave. Why should I care in this context, whether I agree or disagree? That does not seem to have any relevance, meta-ethically. It seems beside the point. — S

I took him to mean "we" as in "we the interested parties" (as opposed to everyone who ever lived). Meta-ethically, morality isn't just about what's best for the individual, it's what's best for the individual in an environment filled with other individuals. Without at some point, in some way, considering the "we", the game of morality cannot begin; otherwise it's just competition.