Observing that pre-linguistic humans find certain behaviours unacceptable. — creativesoul

Ah, so not agreeing that concepts are (necessarily) linguistic becomes important here.

Are you referring to infants, by the way?

thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. — creativesoul

When I talk about feelings in a moral context the above is what I'm referring to. So it's simply using different terms to refer to the same thing.

Observing that pre-linguistic humans find certain behaviours unacceptable.
— creativesoul

Ah, so not agreeing that concepts are (necessarily) linguistic becomes important here. — Terrapin Station

Even more important is what counts as being necessary.

...thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour.
— creativesoul

When I talk about feelings in a moral context the above is what I'm referring to. So it's simply using different terms to refer to the same thing. — Terrapin Station

The above is a textbook example of a situation where an author's ground is purely imaginary. That's not totally unacceptable, unless it is ground for positive assertions that mistakenly presuppose understanding another's language use. You've done exactly that.

The irony here is thick.

You've no idea what the use of "thought/belief" entails on my view. Since you cannot know that, you cannot know that your talk about feelings in a moral context points to and/or further describes the same referent(s) as my notion of thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour.

I can assure you that it does not.

You denied shared meaning in a debate with me on another forum(hence - the source of irony), maybe a year ago? Unless you've changed positions since that debate, our respective positions are irreconcilable. If that still holds good - if you still deny shared meaning - there is no possible way to reconcile your view with mine, for I am committed to a notion of thought and belief that quite simply is incommensurate with such a denial.

You may be lucky and guess what "thought/belief" entails on my view, but you cannot possibly know that - as of right now - either.

When I talk about feelings in a moral context the above is what I'm referring to. So it's simply using different terms to refer to the same thing.

In short...

The above is false.

Contentment and/or discontentment first happens autonomously. Thought/belief first happens autonomously. Emotions first happen autonomously. Thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour first happens autonomously. Wants first drive us autonomously. Needs first drive us autonomously. We first figure out ways to get what we want autonomously. Trust first happens autonomously. Truth is presupposed autonomously. Trusting the truthfulness of the teacher first happens autonomously.

One cannot even suppose that another is lying unless s/he already has a worldview. During initial language acquisition, one does not. There is no ability for such a student to be able to doubt much of anything that they're being taught, including social mores, customs, value systems, etc.

All of these things are true of each and every one of us, regardless of that which is subject to familial, historical, social, cultural, and/or other particulars.

Is this relevant to moral discourse?

It certainly serves as ground to reject contradictory claims/positions.

It certainly places a more appropriate amount of value upon sincerity. Every worldview is existentially dependent upon all these things. These things are all necessary elemental constituents of all world-views.

All moralities are existentially dependent upon trusting the truthfulness of another.

Sincerity matters to everyone.

Meaning matters to everyone.

When one promises to plant rose garden, there ought be a rose garden planted, not because one ought keep one's word(which they ought), but rather because that is precisely what the promise means when spoken sincerely. That is not a vote of approval/disapproval coming from me. Rather, it is quite simply stating the way promises work in common language. That's what making a promise means.

In other words, the reason he picks one over the other is because of his preferences. You don't have to personally query his preferences to make a prediction about which he'll choose with a great chance of success, because that's such a common preference. But that doesn't imply that it's not about a preference he has. — Terrapin Station

The reason Bob would drink the water and not the poison is because he has a physiological need for water. It would not normally even cross one's mind to drink poison, one would instinctively drink the water. He's not deciding between ice cream flavors.

At any rate, the model explicitly predicts what Bob will do, whatever is the case regarding his preferences. And what one does occurs in the world, not in one's mind.

Unless we want to know what we're referring to ontologically re something being valuable. That is, we want to know what's going on ontologically to make that the case if it is.

You can proceed where you don't care about it so you're just not going to bother figuring out what's going on ontologically there, but we can be interested in it. That's what I've been focusing on. — Terrapin Station

I think you misunderstood my comment. Human beings have physiological needs including the need for food and water, therefore food and water is valuable for humans.

So there's nothing that needs explaining if Bob drinks the water. That's just the expected outcome. Bob drinks the water because that satisfies his physiological need for water.

Just as a horse needs water in order to survive. It doesn't have to prefer it or value it (if horses can do such things), it just has to drink it.

In other words when I talk about "feelings" re what we're doing when we make utterances about morality, I'm talking about "thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour." If you think that my usage of "feelings" is saying something different than what I'd be saying with "thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behavior," then you're not understanding how I'm using the terms.

This has nothing to do with shared/not-shared meaning. Meaning is something different than usage and definitions.

Ok. so we both know that we work from different linguistic frameworks. The words "thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour" has a different referent on your view than mine. That may not cause issue. We are aware of it.

Concepts then...

I claim that they are all existentially dependent upon language. The concept of morality is no different. All concepts are. You say otherwise.

Let's flesh it out keeping it relevant to morality.

The words "thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour" has a different referent on your view than mine. — creativesoul

I don't know if that's the case, though, unless you're using belief to necessarily refer to (beliefs) about externals.

You should know, because I'm telling you. What I'm telling you is true. It is about my understanding of thought/belief compared to what you've written here regarding thought/belief. Thus, if you believe me, then you'll know.

...when I talk about "feelings" re what we're doing when we make utterances about morality, I'm talking about "thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour." — Terrapin Station

Feelings are not thought/belief.

I would be willing to bet that what you claim here cannot pass the test of salva veritate. That is, if what you say here is true, then one ought be able to replace all your use of the term "feelings" with "thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour" in all the situations where you are making utterances about morality, and the transformation not suffer any loss of meaning. I seriously doubt that that would be the case...

That's irrelevant really.

Do you want to get into concepts? I would argue that all concepts are existentially dependent upon language. All concepts are linguistic constructs, whereas not everything conceived of is.

Morality, as it is conventionally understood is the rules of acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. That's the basic conventional conception. Here I would argue that we already have some crude unrefined thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour long prior to learning how to talk about it. It would only follow that thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour is prior to our conception(s) called "morality". We form and hold such thought/belief prior to our ability to describe our thought/belief.

Here's what I'm getting at--I probably wasn't being verbose enough about this:

Say that your referent of "thoughts/beliefs about acceptable/unacceptable behavior" is α.

Well, your referent of "feelings" in a context of talking about what we're basing morality on wouldn't be α then, it would be β, since the two terms in quotation marks refer to something different in your view.

So, I was asking how you'd know that my referent of "thoughts/beliefs about acceptable/unacceptable behavior" isn't α.

You can't know based on me saying that that's what I'm referring to with "feelings" in a moral context, because my referent for that could be α, too. Which would imply that we differ on the referent for "feelings" in this context instead. (Or, you were taking me to be talking about something with "feelings" other than what I was talking about.)

That is, if what you say here is true, then one ought be able to replace all your use of the term "feelings" with "thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour" in all the situations where you are making utterances about morality, and the transformation not suffer any loss of meaning. — creativesoul

Are you saying so that grammatically it would work just the same? Or are you allowing that I'd have to change grammatical structures at times, perhaps, to make it grammatically conventional? And the "meaning doesn't change" in whose opinion?

When I'm talking about this sort of stuff--same for when I'm talking about time being identical to change/motion, I'm never making a claim about conventional language usage. I'm doing ontology. I'm not arguing about common language usage.

Do you want to get into concepts? I would argue that all concepts are existentially dependent upon language. — creativesoul

If you want to. I already said that I don't agree with that.

Here's an easy example. I have a concept of "building houses" when musicians are playing together, especially in a jazz context. My concept of that isn't at all dependent on language. It's an abstract concept about ways of playing together/interacting with other musicians (again especially in a jazz context). I could very roughly attempt to put it into words, but that would be rather ad hoc and sloppy. It's not a linguistic concept.

Morality, as it is conventionally understood is the rules of acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. — creativesoul

I don't agree with that either. I'm not necessarily asserting the negation. The problem is that we don't have the survey data we'd need to really be able to assert this. It's just as plausible that morality is conventionally understood as judgments about interpersonal behavior a la acceptable/unacceptable, etc., where those judgments include the idea of rules per se, but where rules do not exhaust it--it includes many things that aren't rules, too. Under this, it would be a moral issue if someone feels that it's acceptable or not for a particular person to act in a particular unique way towards another particular person, even if no one is formulating a rule about that. My suspicion is that that's a far more common way of thinking about what morality is.

There's also the issue of what's going on functionally with respect to how people use terms (like morality/ethics), where that can be different than persons' beliefs and conceptions about something a la how they'd define morality, what they'd state is going on in their opinion, etc.

Say that your referent of "thoughts/beliefs about acceptable/unacceptable behavior" is α. — Terrapin Station

The above is prima facie evidence of misunderstanding being hard at work.

All thought/belief(my referent) consists of the same basic set of necessary elemental constituents. Necessity is determined by existential dependency. Thought/belief cannot be properly accounted for and/or reported upon by a single variable. A single variable cannot properly account for a plurality of things.

You should know because I am telling you. I am offering a report based upon true statements about my thought/belief system... my worldview.

Morality, as it is conventionally understood is the rules of acceptable/unacceptable behaviour.
— creativesoul

I don't agree with that either. — Terrapin Station

Look it up at SEP. Definition of morality.

Your agreement isn't necessary. The conventional understanding exists regardless. I'm granting it for the sake of accepting current convention somewhere.

Why not start there? I mean, it seems as good a place as any. If you would rather not make our discussion about a position that neither of us hold, then that's fine by me too.

:wink:


If you would like to have me go over another conception of morality, say yours?... I would be more than glad to. I've been reporting upon lots of different aspects of my own thought/belief about the subject matter. You could always ask an interesting question about that as well. So, there are all sorts of good options at our disposal.

Here's something we disagree upon...

Not all utterances of ought are equivalent to voicing one's approval/disapproval of the act/behaviour in question. Some utterances of ought lend a voice to expectation. Verification is existentially dependent upon knowing what we ought or ought not see in and under certain conditions if a certain claim(statement of thought/belief) is true.

Given that you argue for emotivism. Here's a direct question.

How do you make sense of and/or reconcile everyday events when a speaker's utterance of ought is not indicative of approval?

It is often the case that when someone says "X ought happen", they are making a prediction based upon pre-existing thought/belief. They are using their own thought/belief as a means to predict the future, even if it is only in some small way. They are doing it nonetheless.

The first solar eclipse that happened after Einstein's second paper was used to make and verify a prediction about the well documented position of a particular celestial body. That is a report of the facts. Those people who were planning upon verifying knew...

They knew what they ought see if Einstein was right. They also knew what they ought not see if Einstein was right. They ought not see the same body in the same place in the sky from the earth's vantage point.

I've already argued for most all of this without subsequent attention from you.

Well, your referent of "feelings" in a context of talking about what we're basing morality upon... — Terrapin Station

It makes no sense whatsoever, on my view, to talk or to think/believe that 'we base morality' upon something.

Rather...

What we base our conceptions of "morality" upon... sure.

All thought/belief(my referent) consists of the same basic set of necessary elemental constituents. Necessity is determined by existential dependency. Thought/belief cannot be properly accounted for and/or reported upon by a single variable. A single variable cannot properly account for a plurality of things. — creativesoul

The variable was simply a way of saying "refers to whatever it refers to for you" but giving that a symbol, so that we could differentiate it from another "refers to whatever it refers to for you"

Look it up at SEP. Definition of morality. — creativesoul

It's not as if I'm going to agree that morality is conventionally thought of as rules of conduct just because the SEP article says that if it does. What determines how something is conventionally thought of is how each individual thinks about it. However most individuals who think about x think about x (at least in population p) determines how it is conventionally thought of (at least in population p).

What the SEP entry author thinks isn't sufficient to establish how most individuals think about x.

If you would like to have me go over another conception of morality, say yours?... — creativesoul

That was in the post you quoted. Maybe we should avoid longer posts until we can get anything running smoothly?

It is often the case that when someone says "X ought happen", they are making a prediction — creativesoul

What you're describing there is "if x is correct, then y should obtain"--what in the world does your example have to do with morality?

I was asking how you'd know that my referent of "thoughts/beliefs about acceptable/unacceptable behavior" isn't α. — Terrapin Station

Rubbish.

You claimed that your use of "feelings" had the same referent as my use of "thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour"...

It doesn't. If it does then we can remove all your use of "feelings" and replace them with "thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour" and not lose/change the meaning of the claim.

According to whom?

That's an ill-conceived question.

If the referent of your use of "feelings" is the same as the referent of my use of "thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour", then the meaning does not change... cannot change.

Fido ate his food.

My dog ate his food.

Your dog ate his food.

"Fido", "my dog", and "your dog" all have the same referent.

In all contexts, when I write "thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour", thought/belief is never equivalent to feelings. That is because feelings are but one of the necessary elemental constituents of thought/belief. Feelings are never equivalent to thought/belief.

If we substitute one for the other the meaning drastically changes, because the referent and the truth conditions of the claim drastically change. All of that is point of view invariant. That's how it works. None of this is the case when the referent is the same.

Thought/belief are not equivalent to feelings.

If you cannot even accept this, there's nothing I see compelling about continuing.

If it does then we can remove all your use of "feelings" and replace them with "thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour" and not lose any meaning. — creativesoul

Yes, which, grammatical conventions aside, we could do in a context of talking about morality.

Is an apple equivalent to an apple fritter?

Is an apple equivalent to an apple fritter? — creativesoul

Not in my usage.

It is often the case that when someone says "X ought happen", they are making a prediction
— creativesoul

What you're describing there is "if x is correct, then y should obtain"--what in the world does your example have to do with morality? — Terrapin Station

That's not a good translation. A prediction need not take if/then form. Most do not... most average people's talk. Rather, these kinds of utterances of ought are the ones that place conventional understanding of morality in question.

She promised to do X. X ought be done.

That is not an indication of moral approval. Thus, not all utterances of "ought" are equivalent to voicing one's moral approval and/or feelings.

Is an apple equivalent to an apple fritter?
— creativesoul

Not in my usage. — Terrapin Station

Good.

Feelings, like apples to apple pies, are necessary but insufficient for thought/belief. Both apples and feelings are an elemental constituent of a more complex constitution.

That's not a good translation. A prediction need not take if/then form. — creativesoul

I agree with that (that a prediction need not take if/then form). However, what you described was an if/then relation, and one that had nothing to do with morality.

She promised to do X. X ought be done. — creativesoul

That's a preference that someone has about behavior in relation to promises. It's a way they feel. If it's moral to them, they approve of following through with promises and do not approve of not following through.

Feelings, like apples to apple pies, are necessary but insufficient for thought/belief. — creativesoul

When we're talking about thought/belief in a moral context, we're talking about ways that people feel about behavior. This has nothing to do with apples/apple fritters.

She promised to do X. X ought be done.
— creativesoul

That's a preference that someone has about behavior in relation to promises. It's a way they feel. If it's moral to them, they approve of following through with promises and do not approve of not following through. — Terrapin Station

No, it's not.

Not all use of "ought" is a voice of one's approval. This is particularly the case when one is giving their word, such as in promising.

I'll use Moliere's earlier example..

Say we have a gambler who owes a lot of money to a loan shark. The loan shark tells the gambler "Since you owe me and cannot pay, I promise you that your family will suffer"...

Anyone who knows what the meaning of that is knows that it ought be the case that the family will suffer.

That is not a voice of moral approval. Rather it is a voice of understanding what the words mean.

Thus, not all utterances of ought are voices of approval, or are equivalent to someone's feelings of approval about the behaviour in question.

Your position cannot account for these cases.

Feelings, like apples to apple pies, are necessary but insufficient for thought/belief.
— creativesoul

When we're talking about thought/belief in a moral context, we're talking about ways that people feel about behavior. This has nothing to do with apples/apple fritters. — Terrapin Station

When we're talking about thought/belief in any context, it is never equivalent to feelings. That was the point with the analogy. I thought you bright enough to understand that.

Say we have a gambler who owes a lot of money to a loan shark. The loan shark tells the gambler "Since you owe me and cannot pay, I promise you that your family will suffer"...

Anyone who knows what the meaning of that is knows that it ought be the case that the family will suffer. — creativesoul

How much would you wager on this:

We take 1,000 random people and tell them the first paragraph. They can't have knowledge of the test we're doing prior to this.

We then ask them, "Agree or disagree: it ought to be the case that the family will suffer"?

There's more to this, but what would you wager on the the majority of respondents saying "agree"? We can talk about why after you answer that.

When we're talking about thought/belief in any context, it is never equivalent to feelings. — creativesoul

It is re the way I'm using "feelings" in this context. That's the whole point I've been making.

How much would you wager on this:

We take 1,000 random people and tell them the first paragraph.

We then ask them, "Agree or disagree: it ought to be the case that the family will suffer"?

There's more to this, but what would you wager on the the majority of respondents saying "agree"? We can talk about why after you answer that. — Terrapin Station

Better to ask them what ought happen if the speaker keeps his promise.

How about answering what I asked you now?