My view is that morality is evolved thought, and in that sense is a something and not a nothing, certainly more than an individual's mere opinion. I'd even argue that to some degree morality is sure as arithmetic, but the world from time to time and here and there lapses into such barbarous immorality that either humanity is at times collectively both stupid and ignorant, or morality ultimately lacks apodeictic certainty (but that has some other kind of certainty). — tim wood

I’m in agreement with you here.
Just because people act in terrible ways does not mean the above isn’t true. The evolution of morality exists to hold communities together because it was the moral factor that constructed them, that they were based on.

If someone offered to cut off your daughters clitoris, would you be interested to know about the boons and benefits she would receive as a result? — VagabondSpectre

No, but I am already absolutely convinced that doing so would be monstrous. I don't need a rational argument either way. I'm not slightly inclined towards mutilating children and standing in need of an evidence-based argument to the contrary. The thought doesn't even enter my head.

What more data are you waiting for? Do you think it slows the spread of STI's or something? That victims of genital mutilation are made more subservient to their future husbands, which justifies the initial harm? Is it that we have to respect a parent's right to decide how and why to raise their children, because a parent knows best? — VagabondSpectre

I'm not waiting for anything. I'm not making the decision, and if I knew anyone who was, I'd do anything within my power to prevent it. I don't understand why, in a debate about moral relativism, you've started asking me questions as if I support continued practice of FGM. I'd happily stop it right now, but I'd do so because I think it's wrong, not because I think everyone else must think that.

makes me wonder whether or not you are arguing from emotion instead of reason. — VagabondSpectre

You're the one rephrasing my argument to make it sound as if there's some question about whether or not I condone FGM. Do you even know what moral relativism is?

so far as they have no evidence/reasoning showing the utility of their moral decisions which I show (with evidence/reasoning) to be harmful (contain anti-utility), I get to carry on as if I'm right, even to the point of arrogance, — VagabondSpectre

What do you think I've been presenting (with regards to vaccines)? Reasoning as to why one might not want to immunise a child. What bit of my responses on the subject do not come under the category of 'reasoning'? It just comes down to the fact that you don't agree with my reasoning, not that I haven't presented any.

This clearly factually inaccurate. My original example was against anti-vax parents. — VagabondSpectre

Exactly. People turning against modern Western culture. I may have only used the term 'non-westerners' here, but I clearly added 'or detractors' in my previous mention, so it's disingenuous to act as if I'm not including those in the West who reject part of it from your target group.

If you want to take this particular tangent in an anti-modernity, anti-western, anti-industrial, or even anti-enlightenment direction, that's perfectly fine, but you'll have to clarify the point you wish to make. — VagabondSpectre

The point was that you had a load of equally 'objective' harms on your doorstep but you chose to condemn groups that are anti-western. It reveals the major problems with so called objective 'wrongs' someone will always twist them to suit their personal agenda. It doesn't get any more basic than that. "All the things I don't like are objectively wrong, all the thing I benefit from a I'll let slide, even if they are objectively shown to cause more harm". Which do you think kills more children, child labour products bought by everyday western consumers or parents who don't vaccinate? But who did you target as immoral?
I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm pointing out that the problem with claiming objective moral laws is that your biases inevitably cloud them. They just become your own set of personal bugbears anyway, only with an undeserved gloss of objectivity over them.

Are you saying that modernity/industry isn't worthwhile given the effects we've had, and will continue to have, on the climate? — VagabondSpectre

Now who's willing to sacrifice virgins? Thousands will be displaced, many die, species become extinct, communities wiped out, but its OK because we've invented the cheeseburger out of it.

vaccines that have undergone clinical trials. — VagabondSpectre

Have you read anything about how "clinical trials' are conducted? I suggest Ben Goldacre's Bad Pharma, or just just read his blog, or the Statistical Society's, or AllTrials, or just about any reputable interest group. Ben's blog has got 37 articles about the misbehaviour of the pharmaceutical industry, and given his other work against homeopathy and and the anti-vax movement, he's hardly trying to bring civilisation down.

When it comes to vaccines that have been in widespread use for long periods of time, we have real world experience to go by (data gathering and statistical analysis has to be trusted on some level, but it can also be "tested" through repetition, — VagabondSpectre

How many though? For a parent, they want to know if the actual drug they are agreeing to inject into their child is going to be worth the risk. Their child, not the average child. So let's say I'm the parent of a five-year old. What epidemiological study should I be looking at to show the long-term benefits for a breastfed child, with a diet high in fresh vegetables, a low stress environment with only small isolated groups of children and good personal hygiene (all of which the WHO list as having significant effect on immune response). Show me a study following that specific group (or even one close to it) and I might be convinced, otherwise it's just about choosing risk categories. As I said, my chances of dying in a plane crash are zero, I don't fly, so why should I learn the safety procedure just because studies show it saves lives?

we can use evidence and reason to rationally appeal to their existing values as a means of persuasion. I don't have any grand illusions that everyone can easily be persuaded; I'm just identifying what I believe is the most effective vector of persuasion. — VagabondSpectre

I have no problem with using evidence and reason. The trouble is, you seem to. I have been presenting evidence and reason as to why a parent might reject vaccination. I've not argued they might reject vaccines without any reasons, I've given reasons and you ignored them all because they don't give you the answer you decided on before the argument even began. A basic understanding of human psychology is all that's required.

You're equivocating. You argue for the seeming uncontroversial "we should use reason and evidence to determine our actions", but what you're actually saying is that reason and evidence, once applied, provide us with a single correct answer, and that's a much more controversial claim which remains unsupported.

Morality...

Everyone has one. The nuance will vary accordingly.

Next. — creativesoul

Yes, but we should all be able to agree on that, and it completely misses the controversy, making no ground whatsoever towards resolving it, which is why saying, "Next", after making that point is full of comic irony. Sometimes it's like you and MU are battling for the position of best inadvertent comedian.

In my assessment, moral relativism makes much better sense of the nuance than moral absolutism.

Do you understand what moral relativism is? — Isaac

That's the key question, really. A lot of these objections can be solved simply by the objector learning about what moral relativism is.

The evolution of morality exists to hold communities together because it was the moral factor that constructed them, that they were based on. — Brett

I agree. I think if we had to explain the striking degree of homogeneity with people's moral judgement, evolved mechanisms to keep communities together would be top of my list of reasons. But I'm not seeing how you're moving from the existence of a cause for moral judgement being the way it is, to the existence of a moral absolute. There's an evolutionary reason why we tend to like junk food, and tend to turn our noses up a boiled veg. It's because we're programmed to seek out high energy return foods. Now, does that make eating junk food mandatory? Is it now the case that we 'must' eat junk food, because we've identified the biological cause of the general preference for it?

I've not doubt that there is some biological basis behind our feelings on moral matters. But there's some biological basis behind all of our feelings and motivations, but that doesn't mean they're all the same, any more than we all have blue eyes.

Are you talking about the practice/concept of FGM or the act of FGM? — VagabondSpectre

Either: it's the same answer. Not immoral in itself, only immoral in the sense of moral relativism.

Moral relativism has a parallel in existential nihilism, so it might help to think about it in that way. There's no meaning in the world itself, the meaning stems from us.

I'm not following why we need relativism to escape the amoral descriptor. I thought what is or isn't amoral was a meta-ethical distinction. — VagabondSpectre

Because moral relativism implicitly acknowledges that it's about our moral judgement in relation to the thing, whereas if you don't do that, then it leads to the absurdity of things being moral or immoral in themselves, independently of our judgement. And that makes no sense.

This is a meta-ethical distinction. I am a meta-ethical moral relativist. We're doing meta-ethics here, or at least we're supposed to be, aren't we? Some people here seem to be getting confused about the appropriate context.

It's my meta-ethical definition which describes in what way moral decisions can be objective, relative to values.

I'm eschewing subjective feelings about what morality is from a meta-ethical standpoint (by defining it as values serving strategies) so that we can have a consistent/objective discussion about how to compare and evaluate competing moral decisions or frameworks. It can't just be subjective feelings all the way up and all the way down; reality needs to be inserted somewhere.

If I've given you the impression I'm defending any sort of meta-ethical absolutism then I have miscommunicated. I am however, though not overtly, defending a kind of meta-meta-ethical distinction that I don't yet have the right language for: ethical frameworks are all in service of some sort of value, but predominantly they are arranged to serve a certain range of nearly universal human values, and they continuously adapt toward more optimal values-service. The broad "convergence" of moral decision making which is oriented toward the same ends induces us toward the idea that some ethical and meta-ethical frameworks are more universally applicable than others; it implies that there are some moral frameworks that will be more agreeable and persuasive to our moral decisions and intuitions at large. Broadly speaking, ethical frameworks which account for methods, costs, and results (empirical matters) tend to be the most widespread and communicable. Reason based moral arguments might not always persuade individual proponents of X, Y, or Z moral framework, but they have stuck around because they're objectively effective at promoting human welfare per our environments, and they transmit well because they are based in shareable empirical fact-checking behavior rather than subjective whim.

Your meta-ethical definition focuses on the very fact that there is no "objective moral 'truth'" as a starting point that defines it ontologically as a realm of relative subjective truth (where truth conforms to values and beliefs). My own meta-ethical definition focuses on what it is moral activity is attempting to do more holistically: it's not just serving values, it's trying to serve them well. Under my view also, moral "truth" doesn't necessarily point to anything meaningful beyond the existence of relative values. And like any proposition designed to navigate uncertainty (any strategy), there are no "true or false" decisions to begin with, only "statistically better and worse decisions" (though there is an objective truth to the ramifications of our decisions, even when we're lucky we can only approximate it with strong induction). Even if a decision is 100% guaranteed to be the worst decision, it could only be "false" if we went out of our way to frame it as a truth statement (it is false that X move will create the desired outcome)., Though we cannot access truth with objective certainty (as Isaac will never let me forget), we can indeed often approximate it with objectivity. (e.g:if Isaac was "objective" and gathered facts, then he would come to realize that FGM has no meaningful benefit to individuals or society.) — VagabondSpectre

Your reply is too lengthy! :rage:

So you're just being annoying by differing from me semantically? You have yet to learn that I'm always right, and that there should be a single unified meaning, namely my own meaning. One day I'll become a dictator and enforce my own unified meaning, like in 1984.

I do think that we're talking past each other to an extent, and I blame you for that more than I blame myself. In a nutshell, you seem to be saying something like that there are some moral frameworks which are generally more useful than others, and which generally serve our interests better than others. But to me that is beside the point. It doesn't matter whether it is true or false, because the problem is that it is irrelevant. It is actually fallacious if you're appealing to the consequences in a meta-ethical context. For example, if you were to suggest that we should all believe that morality is objective, because if we do, then that would serve our interests better. That's appropriate in normative ethics, but inappropriate in meta-ethics. Meta-ethics is firstly about what's the case, then what's the best way of speaking about it. (That's actually what most if not all topics in philosophy are about, or what they should be about). So I conclude moral anti-realism, but then conclude moral relativism over error theory or emotivism. The differences between the positions I mentioned have much to do with how we should interpret moral language, but also about what is actually the case.

But I'm not seeing how you're moving from the existence of a cause for moral judgement being the way it is, to the existence of a moral absolute. — Isaac

That is a big question, and probably entails more work than I can be bothered with to try and explain. It’s not that I can’t be bothered addressing your question, it’s just that it’s a complicated area, and after all, I’m not out to reshape our thinking, nor do I necessarily have the skills.

But, the incest taboo is an interesting area to think about. Why is it there?

But 2) is just an unsupported claim. — tim wood

The support is the fact that morality is simply an expression of individuals' preferences of interpersonal behavior. There's zero evidence that it's anything else.

But why would you care, after all, nothing is absolutely true or false? — tim wood

I care because the whole point of doing philosophy is to get right what the world is like.

I agree. I think if we had to explain the striking degree of homogeneity with people's moral judgement, evolved mechanisms to keep communities together would be top of my list of reasons. But I'm not seeing how you're moving from the existence of a cause for moral judgement being the way it is, to the existence of a moral absolute. There's an evolutionary reason why we tend to like junk food, and tend to turn our noses up a boiled veg. It's because we're programmed to seek out high energy return foods. Now, does that make eating junk food mandatory? Is it now the case that we 'must' eat junk food, because we've identified the biological cause of the general preference for it?

I've not doubt that there is some biological basis behind our feelings on moral matters. But there's some biological basis behind all of our feelings and motivations, but that doesn't mean they're all the same, any more than we all have blue eyes. — Isaac

Excellent points.

this is an actual question not an argument. How does the language of moral relativism work? These are still judgments being made, and qualitative words are used to express them, good or bad right or wrong true or false. Now I understand that all of those words have some amount of degree, things can be righter, or wronged, but at the basic level the are either dichotomous or meaningless. Good can not be bad, right can not be wrong, etc.

So is the moral relativist using words with a high degree of objective meaning to declare their position?
And if that itself is not inconsistent, how can such words have any meaning at all, if they can be used interchangeably by anyone about anything. Can one event be both good and bad, and if so what does that do to the concept of truth?

If moral relativists disagree about if an action is right or wrong, does that mean that both are true? That neither are true? That there is no such things as truth in moral judgments?

Nothing is absolutely right or wrong.
— Terrapin Station

You completely miss the boomerang effect of this, don't you. And it's not trivial. Indeed it's a linchpin of your argument. Like this:

1) If nothing is absolutely right or wrong, then no moral proposition is absolutely right, or wrong.
2) Nothing is absolutely right or wrong.
3) No moral proposition is absolutely right, or wrong.

But 2) is just an unsupported claim. The syllogism is valid, just not true. But why would you care, after all, nothing is absolutely true or false? You can have what you want. Btw, does everyone benefit from this argument of yours? Or does it only work for you? — tim wood

This is easily resolved in favour of the sceptic of moral absolutism, rather than the proponent of moral absolutism. One could just retract the stronger claim that nothing is absolutely right or wrong, and instead just point out that there seems to be no credible evidence or reasonable argument in favour of moral absolutism, only dogmatism and bad logic.

You would be just as guilty as he is with your own bare assertion that his argument is unsound because the second premise is not true. You haven't shown that it is not true, and you also just keep assuming absolutism, which renders your criticism trivial and ineffective.

Moreover, whether or not everyone benefits from his argument is irrelevant. Why do you keep confronting people like myself and Terrapin Station with irrelevancies, as though they are not irrelevancies? Are you so eager to attack our position that you're not thinking things through properly? It has seemed that way from the very beginning. You seem to have few qualms about throwing the logic rulebook out of the window if it seems to you that by doing so you'll gain the upper hand over your moral relativist opponents.

So, for me, first you might have noticed that I don't buy that meaning is objective.

And I've stated a number of times, including in this thread, and I'm pretty sure in response to you, that moral stances are not the sorts of things that are true or false.

In a moral context, "x is wrong," " x is bad" or "one should not do x" is an expression of disapproval by the utterer. The utterer doesn't like people doing x, it doesn't sit well with them, or they don't think that doing x is a good idea, because they don't like the notion of the sort of world that they believe allowing x will produce. That's the conventional "meaning," per functional analysis, of "is wrong/is bad/should not do."

So yes, the same thing can be right/wrong, good/bad to different people. That doesn't affect the conventional meaning of right/wrong or good/bad.

I'm basically an emotivist, and that provides a good analogy here. It's easy to understand that people might yay or boo the same thing--supporters of a team are going to yay them as they score, supporters of the opposing team will boo the first team as they score. We're not mystified in that situation what yaying or booing mean (otherwise you'd not be able to figure out who in the crowd supports which team).

Is it true that yay Red Sox? That should seem like a nonsensical question. It's the same with morality. That doesn't imply that yay Red Sox is meaningless, that it's not important to people, etc.

The evolution of morality exists to hold communities together because it was the moral factor that constructed them, that they were based on. — Brett

Completely irrelevant given the context. The context is about what morality is, not what morality is good for. Why is it that so many people in this discussion seem blind to what the discussion is supposed to be about? A subtle red herring or a subtle missing of the point are still problems.

There's an evolutionary reason why we tend to like junk food, and tend to turn our noses up a boiled veg. It's because we're programmed to seek out high energy return foods. Now, does that make eating junk food mandatory? Is it now the case that we 'must' eat junk food, because we've identified the biological cause of the general preference for it? — Isaac

I think we eat junk food because it’s easy. We dont need junk food to give us a high energy return when we gave other food that we’ve eaten for years.

If instead of junk food you said morality, and that our survival and successful evolution was dependent on ideas of morality that evolved and held together our co-operative communities, then yes, we must keep morality intact today, because without it we would lose the glue that holds communities together.

What morality is? Don’t be so arrogant. If it doesn’t have a purpose, what it’s good for, then why would it exist?

How does the language of moral relativism work? — Rank Amateur

I'm very much a 'meaning is use' person when it comes to language, so the problem you're outlining doesn't even arise. 'Good' when used of a moral type of action, simply doesn't mean the same thing as 'good' when used of a lawnmower, or 'good' when used of an answer to a maths sum. We use words to make something happen in the world and that varies with circumstance.

To give an example, I might say "murder is wrong" to someone about to kill a non-combatant in my platoon. By that I would really mean something like "I'm betting you think murder is wrong too and I'm reminding you that killing a non-combatant is technically murder".

Alternatively I might say "raising interest from loans to poverty strike nations is evil" by I which I mean "I'm in the camp of people who think this is evil and I want people to know it"

Like most language, it depends on the circumstances.

As far as truth is concerned, I'm pretty much a deflationist when it comes to truth values too, so the statements, of the form above, don't really have any bearing on 'Truth'. The truth they express (small 't' truth) is simply that of reporting my state of mind.

I think we eat junk food because it’s easy. We dont need junk food to give us a high energy return when we gave other food that we’ve eaten for years. — Brett

Evolutionarily, we have a physiological response that produces positive feelings in response to foods with high fat content, etc., because it wasn't easy to acquire such foods for most of our history, and it's a substance that's important to have, especially when we're doing a lot of exercise, which we routinely did when we were nomadic and had to forage and hunt for food.

What morality is? Don’t be so arrogant. If it doesn’t have a purpose, what it’s good for, then why would it exist? — Brett

No, not arrogant. Logical. Don't make irrelevant personal remarks about my character.

Yes, what morality is. That's a different issue to the issue your following questions get at. It is not about purpose, what it is good for, or why it would exist. That's a red herring.

If it doesn’t have a purpose, what it’s good for, then why would it exist? — Brett

In general, not just re morality, because it can, and there's nothing (namely a survival-until-procreation disadvantage) to effectively deselect it.

So you think you can work out what morality is with no context?

So you think you can work out what morality is with no context? — Brett

Why "no context"? Who is proposing anything like that?

If instead of junk food you said morality, and that our survival and successful evolution was dependent on ideas of morality that evolved and held together our co-operative communities, then yes, we must keep morality intact today, because without it we would lose the glue that holds communities together. — Brett

Firstly, you've just repeated Moore's open question argument without showing how you resolve it. You've argued "we must keep morality intact today, because without it we would lose the glue that holds communities together.", but now you need an argument to show why we must keep communities together.

Secondly, and I think most importantly here, what makes you think our survival was dependent on one single morality. It certainly wouldn't appear to have been reliant on one single personality type, or physical type. In fact, there's a very good argument in favour of the evolutionary advantage of neurodiversity within communities. So what makes you think one set of moral rules would be right for everyone, even from a purely biological point of view?

Why "no context"? Who is proposing anything like that? — Terrapin Station

Clearly he has trouble making the right logical connections and keeping on point.

so if there is no truth value in any relative moral judgment, why make them? It just turn all such judgments to preference. Murder or not murder is the same as vanilla or chocolate.

I don't understand why, in a debate about moral relativism, you've started asking me questions as if I support continued practice of FGM. — Isaac

But you do understand why, really. The explanation is that other people are not as logical as we are.

I'm pointing out that the problem with claiming objective moral laws is that your biases inevitably cloud them. They just become your own set of personal bugbears anyway, only with an undeserved gloss of objectivity over them. — Isaac

Yes! Tim Wood and Banno are perfect examples of this.

Because, from my point of view, morality is inherent in man. It had a purpose that enabled him to evolve successfully. Otherwise there would be no communities as we know them. That’s the context.

Would you say "There's no truth value in 'Yay Red Sox,' so why root for them? Red Sox or Yankees--it makes no difference"?

With your flavors analogy, you don't figure that people just buy any arbitrary flavor because it's not objectively the case that one flavor is better than another, do you?

And so far no one has been able to say what morality is, despite all the contorted formulations I’ve read.

And so far no one has been able to say what morality is — Brett

We've said, but you don't agree.

None of you agree.