Whether the act was objectively, universally wrong is simply beside the point; all that matters, as far as me holding people morally responsible, is how I relate to the incident. — SophistiCat

But whether you think that its wrongness is objective/universal, rather than just a matter of opinion, is a part of how you relate to it.

I don't like strawberries. But I understand that liking strawberries or not is just a matter of opinion; I don't think anybody is incorrect in their assessment of strawberries just because they like them while I don't. But if someone asserts that your friend being beaten and robbed was perfectly fine and not wrong at all, you wouldn't just take that like you would take a disagreement in food tastes, right? You would think their assessment of the morality of that situation is incorrect, not just different from yours, no? You don't take each of your respective assessments of the morality of the situation to just be expressions of your respective tastes for battery and robbery -- where some people might like it, while you don't, and that's fine for them, it's just not your thing -- do you? If you did take it that way, then blaming someone for doing something you merely dislike but don't think is actually wrong in a universal, objective way, doesn't seem like it would make any sense. I don't blame people for eating strawberries, even though I dislike strawberries.

you wouldn't just take that like you would take a disagreement in food tastes, right? You would think their assessment of the morality of that situation is incorrect, not just different from yours, no? — Pfhorrest

Why do you see these as the only two options - either 'like trivial preferences' or 'objectively and universally wrong'?

If you did take it that way, then blaming someone for doing something you merely dislike but don't think is actually wrong in a universal, objective way, doesn't seem like it would make any sense. — Pfhorrest

In what way would it not 'make sense'. What is the sense you're expecting it to make? When we say some sentence doesn't 'make sense' we mean it doesn't conform to the arbitrary grammatical rules our language happens to have. When we say an action doesn't 'make sense', we mean something like that it can't be explained in terms of the actor's objectives... I can't see here what you could mean by it not making sense.

To put it another way - Assigning moral blame is a speech act (or sometimes a more physical act), and it lets the person know, as well as any other people who might be watching, what your feelings are about their actions such that they might refrain from repeating them. That all seems perf3ctly functional and rational to me. I'm not seeing what about it doesn't make sense.

Of course if you believe strongly in an objective morality of some sort you're not going to agree with that assessment. But that's a very different matter from it not making sense.

Why do you see these as the only two options - either 'like trivial preferences' or 'objectively and universally wrong'? — Isaac

Because the difference between those is binary: can multiple contrary opinions on the same thing be simultaneously warranted, or not?

If you think yes, then you’re treating it like it’s not objective — and also, since you think the different opinions are warranted, you have no motive to blame others for their disagreement, to treat them like their opinions are wrong and they are deficient somehow for holding them.

If you think no, then you’re treating it like it’s an objective matter. If you’re blaming someone for something, you’re treating them like their implicit opinion that their actions are okay is wrong, unwarranted, and they are deficient for thinking so — in other words, treating the matter as an objective one, where it’s possible to be wrong, not a mere difference of opinion.

That’s all independent of whether it really is an objective matter or not. This is just about whether you’re treating it like one, and what the act of blaming implies about that.

Because the difference between those is binary: can multiple contrary opinions on the same thing be simultaneously warranted, or not? — Pfhorrest

It was the triviality I was questioning - sorry, should have made that more clear. To reformulate - why must it be trivial that we have disagreements of opinion? That I love my wife is just a matter of my opinion, but it is far from trivial.

since you think the different opinions are warranted, you have no motive to blame others for their disagreement — Pfhorrest

I've just explained the motive - it might get them to change their behaviour to one you find preferable. What's not a motive about that?

The problem is the statment is not rational unless there something wrong with the action. It's not rational for someone to do what you want, to act to achieve your goals, unless that action and goal ought to happen , even for oneself-- goals are normative in nature, they are an account its true something ought to occur.

Now, it's true one doesn't need the ought to be to exist with goals or act to achieve them. Those are states of the world which happen regardless of whether they ought to, by one's existence. In this space though, the goal has no more rational force then an alternative. It makes as much sense for existence to produce a person who doesn't achieve their goals as much as it does. Existence is just as capable of creating a person who doesn't want kill anyone, but goes around shooting up large crowds.

The problem is the statment is not rational unless there something wrong with the action. It's not rational for someone to do what you want, to act to achieve your goals, unless that action and goal ought to happen , even for oneself-- goals are normative in nature, they are an account its true something ought to occur. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Of course it's rational. If everyone in your group thinks your behaviour is despicable then continuing to behave that way is going to get you ostracised and so lose the benefits of group membership. It's therefore entirely rational for you to stop behaving in ways your group disapproves of.

That's just a popularity and how others treat you for it-- questions of existence only. Again, any outcome of the world makes as much sense as another here. Existence where you are ostracised is just as logically coherent as one where you are not.

It's only rational for you to stop if there is an ought: that you ought not get ostracised. Then we would actually have a reason to prefer an existence of not being ostracised over being so. Yes, it is rational, but only to a world in which you ought not be ostracised.

Existence where you are ostracised is just as logically coherent as one where you are not.

It's only rational for you to stop if there is an ought: that you ought not get ostracised. Then we would actually have a reason to prefer an existence of not being ostracised over being so. Yes, it is rational, but only to a world in which you ought not be ostracised. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Why not a world where you'd rather not be ostracised - why are your own personal objectives being ignored here?

Because they aren't truthful without an ought. Just because I exist wanting something is not a reason I must have it. The existence of my desire does not automatically mean it is truthful my desire should be fulfilled.

Of course, we may have a world in which I rather not be ostracised and this reflects what ought to happen, and so has a rational force, but this invoves an ought. My personal objective reflects what ought to happen, and so has rational force.

The existence of my desire does not automatically mean it is truthful my desire should be fulfilled. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This just begs the question. That there are things which truthfully ought to be the case is the matter being debated - you here are assuming it.

I have not assumed it. My point is the exact opposite: we don't just have a fact that I should get what I want. If I exist with a desire, it does not entail I should (and have rational reason) to get it. I'm not arguing oughts are so here.

The point is that if I think my desire should happen, that is rational I get it over its absence, then I believe there is an ought. The ought is somemthing my thought and its supposed rationality cannot be posited without.

Now, I might be wrong in this believe. Maybe the ought is untrue, it being false that I ought to get my desire and it has a rational presence over the opposite. I could be believing a falsehood in thinking getting my desire was the rational outcome.

My point isn't that the ought must be. It's that if it's true getting my desire is the rational outcome, then an ought is so.

My point is the exact opposite: we don't just have a fact that I should get what I want. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I agree. I'm not sure what I've written that might make you think otherwise.

My point isn't that the ought must be. It's that if it's true getting my desire is the rational outcome — TheWillowOfDarkness

I'm not at all sure what you mean by 'rational outcome' here. I usually take the expression to mean something like the result of a sound logical thought process, but that can't be right here because logic cannot prove it's own premises right.

What is the truthmaker in "if it's true getting my desire is the rational outcome"?

Also, I'm not sure how any of this relates to the argument about assignation of blame being an objective-oriented speech act. In order for such an argument to be plausible, it only need be the case that the speech act is effective at it's objective. That being so, you can almost guarantee that people will use it that way and so it becomes, de facto, what the speech means.

That I love my wife is just a matter of my opinion, but it is far from trivial. — Isaac

Sure, but it's also not something you're going to try to convince other people to agree with you about, right? You love your wife, I don't, and that's fine isn't it? There's no feeling like you need to get me on the same page as you about your wife?

That's the binary difference I'm on about. Does it matter that we disagree, or not? If it matters, then you're treating it like it's an objective or universal matter, where we all need to come to the same conclusion lest at least one of us be wrong (and deserve blame if we act wrongly because of that). And if it doesn't matter, then there's no point blaming someone for acting on their different opinion, because their different opinion doesn't matter. I'm not swooning over your wife and buying her gifts or whatever, but that's not something you'd want to blame me for, right?

If it matters, then you're treating it like it's an objective or universal matter, where we all need to come to the same conclusion lest at least one of us be wrong (and deserve blame if we act wrongly because of that). — Pfhorrest

This is the bit I don't get. Where's the connection between it mattering and me treating it as objective fact? If I was tied to five other people it would really matter that we agreed on which direction to walk (I might get injured if we don't all agree), but none of us would consider the chosen direction to be objectively 'right', we might as easily have tossed a coin for it.

There's not a necessary logical connection between agreement mattering and the subject of that agreement being treated as an objective fact. There's a step you're missing.

This is the bit I don't get. Where's the connection between it mattering and me treating it as objective fact? — Isaac

I think this just shows how you’re importing something much more to the sense of “objective” than I am, because all I mean by “objective” is that it’s not a topic where disagreement doesn’t matter: it’s something where in any disagreement at least one party (and possibly all parties) is at least partly wrong.

I don’t know what more exactly you take it to mean by that.

If I was tied to five other people it would really matter that we agreed on which direction to walk (I might get injured if we don't all agree), but none of us would consider the chosen direction to be objectively 'right', we might as easily have tossed a coin for it. — Isaac

If you trying to walk to somewhere for some reason, then there is an objectively right way to do that, first of all in the sense of a way that will most effectively get you where you want to go for whatever reason you’re going there, but also in the sense that the choice of where to go and why accounts for all of your separate needs to go different places for different reasons.

Getting hurt because you’re trying to go different ways is a problem, sure, but also if one of you needs to get to their inhaler and another of you needs to get to their insulin, etc, there is some best route or another for you all to walk that will get the most urgent things done quickest etc. And it matters that you can all come to agreement not just on anything whatsoever to avoid hurting each other in the process of walking, but that you all agree to whatever that best walking route is to get all of your needs met.

all I mean by “objective” is that it’s not a topic where disagreement doesn’t matter: it’s something where in any disagreement at least one party (and possibly all parties) is at least partly wrong.

I don’t know what more exactly you take it to mean by that. — Pfhorrest

Simple. an objective fact is one about which it's possible for all parties to be wrong. A decision on which agreement matters is not such a thing - if all parties reach the same conclusion it is right.

If you trying to walk to somewhere for some reason, then there is an objectively right way to do that, — Pfhorrest

Yep.

I see we've simply reached the point where you've previously abandoned the conversation, so that's probably it, but on the off-chance I'll repeat the same objection I raised last time...

accounts for — Pfhorrest

most urgent — Pfhorrest

needs met — Pfhorrest

Are all subjective judgements and so do not produce a conclusion which is any more objective (or inter-subjective, even) than simply asking "which way should we go?".

In a disparate, socially estranged group (of ten such people), you'll get ten different answers as to which way to go. Ask which route satisfies everyone's needs, you'll get ten different answers (based on different ideas about hierarchies of need). Ask which solution best 'accounts for' everyone's instinct or feelings about the solutions, you'll get ten different answers (based on different judgements about whether, and to what extent, a solutions has 'accounted for' the needs concerned).

Ask a socially unified group (joint culture, joint interests, feelings of companionship between them) which 'best accounts for' everyone's needs you'll more likely get a single answer (or close), but then you would have more likely gotten a single answer from the original question in the first place "which way should we go?"

Simple. an objective fact is one about which it's possible for all parties to be wrong — Isaac

That's what I just said.

I see we've simply reached the point where you've previously abandoned the conversation — Isaac

Because we've gone over and over and over and over and over this a zillion times and I'm tired of struggling to figure out exactly how to communicate the apparent misunderstanding between us, because your objections sound to me like the kind of things that would apply (and be rebuttable) equally as much to descriptive matters, yet you don't deny objectivity there. It's just not worth the effort of trying to figure out how to convey to you the difference between the things you take me to be saying, whatever those are, and what I'm actually trying to say.

Different kinds of people in different contexts observe different things and interpret those observations differently in part through the influences of their different cultures -- a whole bunch of subjective disagreement there, and not to do with morality at all, but with reality -- yet we're nevertheless able to take all that subjectivity and distill an ever-better approximation of objectivity out of it with time and effort. All I advocate is to do exactly the same thing with the experiences, interpretations, cultural influences, etc, that are of a prescriptive rather than descriptive nature, as well.

And all I'm able to pull out of your responses to that is just "but you can't do that, it doesn't work, they're different", without any clear elucidation of why, what is fundamentally different about them. At least not one that isn't question-begging, e.g. that 'you can do that with descriptive matters because there is an objective reality that we can compare our descriptions to but there's not an objective morality to compare our prescriptions to' -- when the whole thrust here is that objectivity of either reality or morality is something we can only assume (or not), methodologically, and then try to work towards from the inescapably subjective perspectives that are our only connection to either. Objectivity is a choice that we make about our methods, not a condition that we find out there somewhere.

Yes, I get that the starting point for the moral decision-making process I advocate is a bunch of subjective stuff. So are all our starting points for the natural sciences. Yet we (seemingly) agree that the latter can get ever closer to objectivity, if we do it right. I just say to do that exact same kind of thing, but with an opposite direction of fit to all of the subjective pieces we start from. And of course people who don't agree to use that kind of process (like the strangers tied together in your example) aren't going to agree with its conclusions. People who don't agree to use scientific methods can end up thinking the Earth is flat, or any other kind of pseudo-scientific nonsense, too.

Sociological and psychological issues getting in the way of people making progress toward an unbiased, universal, objective account of things is not exclusive to prescriptive matters; it happens in descriptive matters too. But if people care to, they can work around it, and make progress toward objectivity... on either matter, descriptive or prescriptive, reality or morality. And if people don't care to, then yeah, of course, the endeavor toward objectivity is fucked... on either matter, prescriptive or descriptive, morality or reality.

The reason you seem to think otherwise is because you are still ascribing people have a rational reasonof taking action, absent the presence of the ought. You are still acting like people still have reasons for taking on action or another when there is no ought, as if the mere presence they existed seeking an outcome was sufficient to suggest it should be achieved.

My point is this cannot be true. People don't just get to say it is true an outcome ought be achieved just because they exist wanting it. That's the same leap as someone who thinks getting an outcome must be an objective truth just because they exist wanting it. Without an ought, their failure will make just as much sense as their success.

What is the truthmaker in "if it's true getting my desire is the rational outcome"? — Isaac

The fact the existence of your desire does not equal that it ought to be achieved. You only have reason to prefer your own success if it ought to be over your failure. Otherwise, it makes just as much sense for you to be one who fails and never gets their desires fulfilled, even from your own point of view .

Also, I'm not sure how any of this relates to the argument about assignation of blame being an objective-oriented speech act. In order for such an argument to be plausible, it only need be the case that the speech act is effective at it's objective. That being so, you can almost guarantee that people will use it that way and so it becomes, de facto, what the speech means.

The objective is the problem: it supposes an ought. If there is no ought, then we have no reason for uttering this speech act to achieve this outcome over any other. The effectiveness doesn't matter because , without the ought, failure in this goal makes as much sense as success.

People will, of course, act to achieve success because they want it, but this doesn't ground the action a preferable or the rational option. It's just describing how people exist acting to get what they want. That one has "the might" and uses it does not amount to an action being preferable, either in terms of ethics or the rational.

all I mean by “objective” is that it’s not a topic where disagreement doesn’t matter: it’s something where in any disagreement at least one party (and possibly all parties) is at least partly wrong. — Pfhorrest

Yeah, but I just explained how you're missing a step from the first half of that sentence to the idea of potentially all parties being wrong.

With our current models of reality, there's an external source of our sense data about which it is possible for all parties to be wrong. Everyone in the world could assume the source was some way (flat earth), but everyone was wrong (it's actually round).

With a system of 'objective' morality where 'objective' just means that agreement matters, it is not possible for all parties to be wrong. So long as there's agreement, they are right, by fiat. We don't have a model whereby they might all be wrong.

The significance of this difference is that in the former, accord with this external source is the truthmaker - inter subjective agreement is just a proxy for it. We assume that widespread inter subjective agreement about an observation makes it more likely that it is in accordance with the external source.

With morality, in this sense, inter subjective agreement is not a proxy for accordance with some external source of data. Inter subjective agreement is all there is to it. Nothing more.

I have to say that generally I can't make much sense of what you've written, so I've little faith that the following will actually address it, but I'll have a go...

People don't just get to say it is true an outcome ought be achieved just because they exist wanting it. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I agree. Again, I'm not sure where I've said anything that might make you think I wouldn't.

The fact the existence of your desire does not equal that it ought to be achieved. — TheWillowOfDarkness

So if the truthmaker is that it ought to be achieved, I cannot marry that with your response when I said...

That there are things which truthfully ought to be the case is the matter being debated - you here are assuming it. — Isaac

...where you replied...

I have not assumed it. My point is the exact opposite — TheWillowOfDarkness

It seems now that you are saying that there's an objective 'ought', afterall.

You only have reason to prefer your own success if it ought to be over your failure. Otherwise, it makes just as much sense for you to be one who fails and never gets their desires fulfilled, even from your own point of view . — TheWillowOfDarkness

I don't need a reason to prefer success over failure. It's literally the meaning of those words in this context. I could not possibly prefer failure because by doing so it would become success, I would have just misused the word 'failure' in that context.

without the ought, failure in this goal makes as much sense as success. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Failure or success in a goal isn't the sort of thing that can make sense. Sentences make sense, actions makes sense (in respect of their objective). Labelling ('failure'/'success') is just a categorisation exercise. It might be wrong or right, but not sensical or nonsensical.

People will, of course, act to achieve success because they want it, but this doesn't ground the action a preferable or the rational option. It's just describing how people exist acting to get what they want. That one has "the might" and uses it does not amount to an action being preferable, either in terms of ethics or the rational. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Yeah, I'd generally go along with that. Not seeing what I've said that is contrary to this.

But whether you think that its wrongness is objective/universal, rather than just a matter of opinion, is a part of how you relate to it.

I don't like strawberries. But I understand that liking strawberries or not is just a matter of opinion; I don't think anybody is incorrect in their assessment of strawberries just because they like them while I don't. But if someone asserts that your friend being beaten and robbed was perfectly fine and not wrong at all, you wouldn't just take that like you would take a disagreement in food tastes, right? — Pfhorrest

This example is a red herring. The contrast here is between moral and amoral (morally neutral) actions, not between moral simpliciter and objectively/universally moral (whatever that might mean).

You would think their assessment of the morality of that situation is incorrect, not just different from yours, no? — Pfhorrest

I would consider other people's assessments incorrect if and only if they are different from mine. This is a trivial tautology; you can't base any argument on it.

It sounds like the part of my model that still hasn’t gotten through to you is my differentiation between appetites and desires or intentions, which is analogous to the difference between sensation and perception or belief. NB that these are not claims about any particulars of human psychology or neurology, these are just different concepts.

We don’t ask people what they believe or perceive to determine what is real. That would be just as problematic as you say my approach to morality is — because you take my approach to morality to be analogous to that. But it’s not.

The “external source” in our judgement of reality, if we’re not just going to beg the question here, is our senses, which are still subjective — we can’t ever discover whether or not there really is an objective reality on the other end of our senses, we can only assume it one way or the other. But unlike beliefs or perceptions, sensations per se cannot be completely irreconcilable with each other, because senses by themselves do not declare that a state of affairs is the case, they just give us some data points that the real state of affairs must conform to, and like it’s always possible to draw an arbitrarily complex curve through any set of data points, it’s always possible to come up with some state of affairs that matches (satisfies, accounts for, etc) all of those different sensations. It might be difficult, but it’s always possible.

Likewise, by “appetites” I mean the “sensations” of pain, hunger, etc. These do not directly tell us (or constitute us thinking) that particular states of affairs ought to be the case, so they cannot conflict with each other, just like sensations cannot conflict with each other, only perceptions or beliefs can. It’s only when we interpret those appetites into desires and intentions that we end up targeting different and possibly conflicting states of affairs. Asking people what they desired to figure out what’s moral would be like asking people what they perceive to figure out what’s real — it’s not guaranteed that you could put all the answers together in one coherent picture, so that’s not going to work, in either case. And that’s not what I’m advocating.

But you can put everyone’s different sensations together as the data points to fit a descriptive model to, and the limit of the series of such models that we progress through with adding further sensations to the data is what we take to be objective reality.

Objective reality isn’t something we just have on hand to compare our beliefs to. It’s merely the whatever-it-is that lies in the direction that our ever-growing accumulation of sensations is headed.

And you can likewise put everyone’s different appetites together as the data points to fit a prescriptive model to. The limit of the series of such models that we progress through with adding further appetites to the data is what we take to be objective morality.

On my account objective morality was never meant to be something we would just have on hand to compare our intentions to. It’s only ever been meant as the whatever-it-is that lies in the direction that our ever-growing accumulation of appetites is headed.

This is what I mean about you begging the question. We no more just have objective reality given to us than we do objectively morality, but you just assert that we have one but not the other, while we “have” neither. In both cases we are inescapably stuck in our subjective experiences. But it’s equally possible in either case to choose to eschew our conflicting intuitive interpretations of those experiences and try, however hard it might be, to piece together a unified model that fits all the raw experiential data itself. It’s that choice that makes for objectivism, not anything handed down to us from somehow outside of our subjective experiences.

The contrast here is between moral and amoral (morally neutral) actions, not between moral simpliciter and objectively/universally moral (whatever that might mean). — SophistiCat

Non-objective “morality” is simply not morality at all, so that’s the same distinction. Making “moral” judgement without acting like it applies to everyone is just expressing a preference with room for disagreement, not making moral judgement at all.

I would consider other people's assessments incorrect if and only if they are different from mine. This is a trivial tautology; you can't base any argument on it. — SophistiCat

The point is that you don’t do that for all assessments about all things, like on non-moral matters of mere taste. It’s precisely the taking of disagreement as not merely different but incorrect that makes it a moral assessment.

People will, of course, act to achieve success because they want it, but this doesn't ground the action a preferable or the rational option. It's just describing how people exist acting to get what they want. That one has "the might" and uses it does not amount to an action being preferable, either in terms of ethics or the rational. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Bringing this back to the theme of the OP, what is your view of Gergen’s social constructionist treatment of ethics? Do you agree that moral claims cannot justify themselves to the extent that they attempt to ground themselves on the basis of anything outside of contingent normative practices? And does this fact not deprive would-be enforcers of moral norms their justification for blameful finger-pointing?

I do not agree.

Moral claims were always justified by something other than the fact a person makes a claim, by an ought significance which is truth independent of whether people make claims for it. The moral was never a contingent normative practice-- that's why they are still true even when contingent normative practices are the opposite or the moral (e.g. instances of stealing still being wrong, even when people are practising it all the time).

A moral justification (ought)is a different truth to contingent normative practices (the existing states of our actions and what we believe about actions). That's why we cannot bootstrap an ought or absence or an ought simply on the existence of a practice or culture.

Failure or success in a goal isn't the sort of thing that can make sense. Sentences make sense, actions makes sense (in respect of their objective). Labelling ('failure'/'success') is just a categorisation exercise. It might be wrong or right, but not sensical or nonsensical. — Isaac

This is the mistake. Actions do not just makes sense to given objective. Someone doesn't just have reason to do something because they exist with a related objective. It would make as much sense, in terms of existence, for them to fail. They actions to success only make sense if their is an ought.

Otherwise, it makes as much sense for them to fail in respect to their objective as succeed

I have to say that generally I can't make much sense of what you've written, so I've little faith that the following will actually address it, but I'll have a go...

My point is about what is believed if someone has a rational preference. I wasn't suggesting here it was the there was an ought. I was saying any postion which holds their is a rational course of action holds there is an ought, as it is a logical requirement of actions being rationally preferable to others.

I thought you were a fan of Nietzsche.

Indeed, but Nietzsche neither accounts for everything nor equates value with merely existing.

By "independent" I do not mean of something other than the living being, some transcendent force or some such. I just mean one's value is a different truth than just being a state of existence.

If I have reason to act because it is valuable to me, it is not the same truth as merely existing.

I would consider other people's assessments incorrect if and only if they are different from mine. — SophistiCat

The point is that you don’t do that for all assessments about all things — Pfhorrest

You are confused. Of course I do - how could I not? Assuming, of course, that they are assessments of the same thing.

Do you agree that moral claims cannot justify themselves to the extent that they attempt to ground themselves on the basis of anything outside of contingent normative practices? — Joshs

This is a classic naturalistic fallacy, an instance of is/ought confusion. The natural origin of morality is not the same as the grounding for moral claims. A constructivist may believe (rightly or wrongly) that normative beliefs come about as a result of social construction. But that is neither here nor there as far as what that same constructivist believes ought to be the case.