We all agree to the fact that coffee is delicious, and a great way to start the day. Despite the fact that cockroaches are disgusting and terrifying, some folk keep them as pets. While it is a fact that Germany is a wonderful country to visit, I would prefer to visit Turkey. The fact is I tried shopping at a market near me, but everything was overpriced. So now I travel looking for bargains. Thanks, .

Note that I do not accept the idea that 'truth' and 'fact' are exact synonyms. — Leontiskos

Nor do I, and that's not what I have been suggesting. I am pointing out that there is a truth functional equivalence between them. P is true IFF P is a fact.

That's fine, but there can be a big difference between the various ways that such truths are understood. — Michael

I agree. From the concurrent thread on deriving an ought form an is:

I do agree that there is a difference between what is the case and what ought be the case. I think that better captured by Anscombe's shopping list. The difference is that of direction of fit; when we say what is the case, we change our words to fit the way the world is. When we say what ought be the case, we are changing the way things are to match our words. — Banno

Direction of fit does a much better job of differentiating ought from is, than a simplistic, scientistic refusal to acknowledge that ought statements, and moral statements generally, have a truth value. It has the advantage of displaying the difference of intentionality.

Now the logical characteristic of antirealism is that one way or another it rejects divalent logic. That is, it claims that, one way or another, there are other truth values besides true and false. I am not here rejecting that possibility. There may be some benefit in using a non-standard logic in Ethics.

My gripe is with the first sentence of this thread:

I think that Hume’s Guillotine can be deployed to validly extinguish the existence of moral facticity, if ‘moral’ language signifies ‘what one ought to be doing’, since in any event of reasoning about ‘what one ought to do’ it is going to be grounded in non-facts. — Bob Ross

The phrase I have bolded is much stronger than antirealism. It claims that there are no moral facts. My simple argument shows this to be wrong.

That one ought not kick puppies for fun is a moral statement.
It is a true statement that one ought not kick puppies for fun.
Facts are true statements.

Therefore there are moral facts. — Banno

it's a commonplace that an evaluation (a 'normative' statement) must be assumed in any argument with a normative conclusion. A close look at Ross' argument shows that he assumes that normative statements are not factual at P1.

It surprises me that no one else¹ has pointed this out.

He doesn't prove his thesis; he assumes it, then allows it to ride into his conclusion on the back of normative statements.

He does this again, explicitly, in his updated version:

P2-A: All prescriptive statements (P) which dictate ‘what one ought to do’ (D) are non-factual (T). — Bob Ross

I'd say that it's error theory which demonstrates how ethical propositions can be truth-apt, but false. So they can take on logical forms but they cannot form sound inferences. — Moliere

Why pay this any heed, when it is clear that there are moral facts, and that we can and do use them to make inferences? Mackie's argument from queerness just confuses being objective and direction of fit. We all agree that one ought not kick puppies for fun, and so objectivity is irrelevant.

...we're not just asserting our convictions... — Moliere

But isn't "asserting our convictions" what we do in physics as well as morality? We engineer planes from what we believe to be true. Why shouldn't we do the same thing in Ethics?

¹ Appart form @Leontiskos

I’m not trying to prove that one ought not harm another. I’m trying to make sense of moral realism. Moral realists claim that there is something like an objective, mind-independent fact that one ought not harm another, and that because of this fact the proposition “one ought not harm another” is true.

I understand, but I am saying that simply because there is a mind-independent fact that "one ought not harm another" it does not follow that it is of moral signification.

So this could have been summed up by, "I agree with Hume." Yet the forum is filled with critiques of Hume. I thought you were attempting to go beyond Hume in one way or another.

In a nutshell, “P2-A*1: If Hume’s Guillotine is true, then P2-A is true.” is going beyond Hume and, consequently, the entire argument: Hume never actually argued that moral facts cannot exist because of the is-ought gap, nor that normative facts cannot exist either.

As I said in my first reply to you, you are begging the question.

Which premise begs the question?

P2-A is the contentious premise, and it receives no defense/justification

A premise being controversial does not make it question begging. However, I did give justification for it:

P2-A*1: If Hume’s Guillotine is true, then P2-A is true.
P2-A*2: Hume’s Guillotine is true.
P2-A*C: Therefore, P2-A is true.

Which ties right back into the neo-Humian analysis I gave at the top of the OP.

It seems like, and correct me if I am wrong, you are disagreeing with P2-A*1, no? The way I see it, you either have to deny that Hume’s Guillotine is true or that it entails that P2-A is true—but you didn’t attempt either of those in your response. Are you saying I need to provide another syllogism for P2-A*?

Edit: This seems to be your argument in a simplified form:
1. Anything which depends on non-facts is a matter of taste.
2. Moral claims depend on non-facts.
3. Therefore, moral claims are a matter of taste.

This isn’t my argument (and I think I gave a much more robust argument in my updated OP), but let me address some of the problems I see with it.

Firstly, I would clarify that in #1 “depends” means “direct contingency”. It is not enough that someone had to use their subjective values and intentions to argue that what was derived doesn’t latch onto something factual—otherwise everything would have to be a taste, which is not what I am arguing.

#2 is false in relation to my argument, because I am claiming that anything ‘moral’ signifies non-factual normative claims, and it is not that moral claims simply depend on non-facts. If ‘moral’ language signifies ‘what one ought to be doing’, then none of the normative facts I could provide myself carry with them ‘moral’ signification because they do not tell me what I ought to be doing, even if I grant them as true.

I am basically allowing, in my argument, for the moral realist to posit normative facts, but not letting them get off easy calling them moral facts—due to Hume’s Guillotine, they simply don’t supply us with what we ought to be doing (and most moral realists just skip over this). It is not enough for the moral realist to prove there are normative facts to prove there are moral facts—the latter does not necessarily follow from the former.

(2) needs to be defended by something more than a mere appeal to Hume.

If you are referring to P2-A*1, then I can write out another syllogism for justifying that premise.

We get ‛T is a normative true statement’, and what we want to know is whether asserting this is equivalent to asserting the truth of T

I suppose, if I am understanding correctly, that the ‘state of affairs’ would be the correspondent that T would be latching onto (i.e., referencing properly) if it is true. That’s how I would interpret it. If I am right (on that), then I don’t see any issue here. If one accepts that ‘T is a normative true statement’ is true, then T is true because the claim itself is that it is true—i.e., that it corresponds correctly to the ‘state-of-affairs’ you are talking about. What am I missing here?

If we’re allowed to use statements as bound variables – that is, if Ex can quantify over “facts” and “statements”, not just “objects” or “states of affairs” -- then it looks like we can quote the statement without committing ourselves to its truth, or even to whether it’s true-or-false.

I don’t see how it is possible to accept the proposition which expresses that a statement is true without thereby affirming the statement is true and thereby accepting whatever that statement references about reality (i.e., ‘state-of-affairs’). Is the idea that, if it were possible to only quantify over statements then someone could object to my argument by saying “T is a normative fact/statement” could be true and T be false?

But if only states of affairs can count as existing, then we have to make what is (to me) an awkward translation

To my understanding, T being a normative statement was meant to convey that T is a prescription which exists mind-independently, and the normative statement or fact-of-the-matter latches onto that existent prescription. I think, perhaps, the confusion lies in that (I guess) I am not using the term ‘statement’ the same as ‘fact’: the former is just an utterance we make which may not correspond to any state-of-affairs, whereas the latter does correspond correctly. So I probably should refrain from using ‘T is a normative statement’: it should be ‘T is a normative fact’.

Where I would like some help is in understanding whether Banno's objection, quoted above, must be correct. Are we making a normative statement in the sense that we're talking about truth, or in the sense that we're talking about whatever the normative behavior is? Does it require both truth and normativity to create a normative statement? Have I even made a meaningful distinction? I think so, but . . . see above re my logical competence.

I am not sure if I am completely following (admittedly), but let me give it a shot:

To say of some normative statement, that it is true, is itself to make a normative statement, isn't it?

No, not at all! I can say “there is a state-of-affairs out there which contains a prescription such that ‘this being should eat X amount of food’” (S for short) without claiming that ‘this being should eat X amount of food’ (N for short): the former (S) is a mere observance of a prescriptive fact, carrying with it no normative utterance from myself (as the observer), and the latter (N) is an actually normative utterance (i.e., I am saying that this state-of-affairs should transpire). As far as I understand Banno here, to admit that S is true thereby commits that person to N, which I don’t see why that would be the case at all. Descriptions of prescriptions are not prescriptions.

Now, back to your questions about it:

Are we making a normative statement in the sense that we're talking about truth, or in the sense that we're talking about whatever the normative behavior is?

What do you mean by “normative behavior” vs. “truth”? I would say that we are talking about, in the case of a normative fact, if a prescription exists mind-independently (which would be in the truth), and I don’t see how merely explicating a normative fact would entail any sort of normative behavior, in and of itself, from me nor anyone else (unless it is contrived out of confusion and ambiguity). There’s always going to need to be at least one other prescription, which is a non-fact, that is a hypothetical imperative.

Does it require both truth and normativity to create a normative statement?

I wouldn’t say so. It is possible, in principle, that one utters a prescriptive statement and it latches onto nothing in reality nor one’s own psyche, such that it isn’t truth-apt (e.g., emotivism). I am a moral cognitivist, but I don’t see how normativity, as a concept, is necessarily dependent on truth.

The phrase I have bolded is much stronger than antirealism. It claims that there are no moral facts.

Moral anti-realism is the position that there are no true moral facts.

A close look at Ross' argument shows that he assumes that normative statements are not factual at P1.

It surprises me that no one else has pointed this out.

He doesn't prove his thesis; he assumes it, then allows it to ride into his conclusion on the back of normative statements.

He does this again, explicitly, in his updated version:
P2-A: All prescriptive statements (P) which dictate ‘what one ought to do’ (D) are non-factual (T).

P2-A is derived from P2-A*, which you conveniently left out.

Also, P2-A is not the conclusion: that all prescriptive statements which dictate ‘what one ought to do’ are non-factual does not entail that all moral statements are non-factual. The whole argument I gave is required to get to that conclusion; and, again, P2-A is derived from P2-A*: it is not assumed.

Moral anti-realism is the position that there are no true moral facts. — Bob Ross

So understood, moral anti-realism is the disjunction of three theses:

moral noncognitivism
moral error theory
moral non-objectivism — Stanford

and

Non-objectivism (as it will be called here) allows that moral facts exist but holds that they are non-objective. — loc cit

My bolding.

Again, "true fact" is redundant.

P2-A is derived from P2-A* — Bob Ross

P2-A* (fucksake!) is not an argument, it is an assertion. As has already been explained.

But isn't "asserting our convictions" what we do in physics as well as morality? We engineer planes from what we believe to be true. Why shouldn't we do the same thing in Ethics? — Banno

This strikes me as an important point in these conversations.

P2-A* (fucksake!) is not an argument, it is an assertion. As has already been explained. — Banno

:lol:

---



Sure, you should try to defend P2-A*1 if that is how you wish to defend P2-A. Give us a persuasive reason to accept your thesis.

defend P2-A*1 — Leontiskos

Yes, we need at least P2-A*1i and P2-A*1ii...

:grimace:

I'd say that it's error theory which demonstrates how ethical propositions can be truth-apt, but false. — Moliere

Why pay this any heed, when it is clear that there are moral facts, and that we can and do use them to make inferences? — Banno

Right. I sketched a thread related to this idea and used part of it in <this post>.

But isn't "asserting our convictions" what we do in physics as well as morality? We engineer planes from what we believe to be true. Why shouldn't we do the same thing in Ethics? — Banno

Additionally, it is widely recognized that in epistemology there are simple truths and complex truths (e.g. Locke's simple and complex ideas). I don't see why this shouldn't also be the case when it comes to morality. It seems that Anscombe took things like, "Do not harm the innocent," to be something like simple moral truths, and I see no problem with this approach.

()

The point at issue is that one cannot simply present a theory as a justification for excluding facts. — Leontiskos

This needs to be said far too frequently, and surprisingly most often to those who advocate some form of empiricism...

Yes, we need at least P2-A*1i and P2-A*1ii...

:grimace: — Banno

Shit, I'm going to need to grab my wristband pretty soon. (link) (link)

...my wristband... — Leontiskos

Mine look more like this...

We all agree to the fact that coffee is delicious, and a great way to start the day. Despite the fact that cockroaches are disgusting and terrifying, some folk keep them as pets. While it is a fact that Germany is a wonderful country to visit, I would prefer to visit Turkey. The fact is I tried shopping at a market near me, but everything was overpriced. So now I travel looking for bargains. Thanks — Banno

All I see proven here is that one can convey their meaning while using words casually, liberally or dubiously.

While none of those "facts" you listed are actual facts, it's just a casual statement, no need to get bogged down in such details. When you use the word "fact" to make the claim that "moral facts" exist in the context of philosophy, then the nuances of the word are being emphasised, and in a context where nuance matters greatly.

What you have done with these examples though, is prove that indeed, in your eccentric usage of the word, statements with truth conditions that differ by person can be facts. This means that by your logic, "moral facts" are whatever moral statements a person agrees with, which completely undermines the term. Why should the term "moral facts" exist if all moral opinions are moral facts?

...eccentric usage... — Judaka

They are all well-formed sentences of English. What's eccentric here, if anything, is the insistence that there can be no moral truths.

Why should the term "moral facts" exist if all moral opinions are moral facts? — Judaka

"Should"? The term exists and has a long standing place in English despite your misgivings.

It remains that we can and do commonly assign truth values to normative statements. We also use these truth values to perform deductions. The oddity here is the denial of all this because of philosophical ideology.

They are all well-formed sentences of English. What's eccentric here, if anything, is the insistence that there can be no moral truths. — Banno

By your understanding, valid and mutually exclusive facts co-exist since a statement can be true by one's preferences, interpretations and feelings. Even facts that are substantiated with no credible evidence, just one's aversion or preference for an animal are "facts". That understanding totally undermines how the word is used, there's nothing left to differentiate it from mere opinion.

Your stance would make sense if you were shitting on the term.

"Should"? The term exists and has a long standing place in English despite your misgivings. — Banno

Did you miss the "if"?

My claim is that your stance completely undermines the word's purpose. A fact is on the same level as an opinion according to you. Moral statements always have truth conditions that differ by person, they cannot be proven or substantiated, and there's nothing else but opinion. It should be impossible for you to offer any "moral fact" that doesn't correlate 1:1 with your own opinion.

By your understanding, valid and mutually exclusive facts co-exist since a statement can be true by one's preferences, interpretations and feelings. — Judaka

Certainly not. I don't think I've made any such claim. Cite me. Nor is that an implication of what has been said - if it is, show your argument.

Did you miss the "if"? — Judaka

No. Did you not see the Ngram?

Take a step back and look again. Your argument is that moral truths are intractable, therefore you will save yourself some trouble by simply asserting that they do not exist.

What I have done is to show that there are true moral statements, however uncomfortable that makes you. What we do after and about that remains open.

Certainly not. I don't think I've made any such claim. Cite me. Nor is that an implication of what has been said - if it is, show your argument. — Banno

You definitely didn't make the claim, but if statements that are true by the circumstances of each speaker are facts, then you're going to have logically valid answers that contradict each other. It can be a fact that cockroaches are terrifying and also a fact that they're not terrifying.

Your argument is that moral truths are intractable, therefore you will save yourself some trouble by simply asserting that they do not exist. — Banno

"Moral facts" or "moral truths", are just terms, just words. I'm not interested in whether they "exist". My view is that "moral truths" are meaningless and logically indistinguishable from opinion. I don't have an unconditional reverence for truth, the reasons are what's important.

Even if we lived in a society that was 100% devoted to the idea of moral truths, absolutely nothing would change, because moral truths are exactly 1:1 to opinion. "I think X is a moral truth (my opinion)" and you say "I think Y is a moral truth (your opinion)". Alternatively, "We agree X is a moral truth, but I think it applies to circumstance Z and you don't. And so on. That's exactly the same way that a society that adamantly rejected the notion of moral truths would act.

It remains that we can and do commonly assign truth values to normative statements. We also use these truth values to perform deductions. The oddity here is the denial of all this because of philosophical ideology. — Banno

:up: :up:

Why pay this any heed, when it is clear that there are moral facts, and that we can and do use them to make inferences? Mackie's argument from queerness just confuses being objective and direction of fit. We all agree that one ought not kick puppies for fun, and so objectivity is irrelevant.
...we're not just asserting our convictions...
— Moliere
But isn't "asserting our convictions" what we do in physics as well as morality? We engineer planes from what we believe to be true. Why shouldn't we do the same thing in Ethics? — Banno

The argument from difference gets me more than the argument from queerness. It strikes me that there would be more agreement if ethics were real. (not scientific, here, or even empirical or anything of that sort -- I've been trying to be careful in laying out the case).

I don't think it's as much of a "shouldn't" as a suspicion that it's not going to work the same way. The direction of fit is what marks the difference between physics and ethics while still using facts in our reasoning. But how would you demonstrate to someone that "One ought not kick puppies for fun" is different from "One ought to take the sacrament"? Direction of fit takes care of ought-statements. Which of all the moral propositions are the ones which should be considered?

Suppose there was a book of all the moral propositions which disagrees with our commitment. I don't think any of us would change our minds on how we should treat puppies just because we have the book of moral propositions. In fact I'd say we already have such a book in our culture and we call it The Bible yet we clearly don't interact with that book in the same way. So given that how is it that we make ethics work as a discipline based in fact, or at least makes us able to make cases and demonstrate their truths?

It's in the weeds that my doubts grow. Error theory is just a challenge to the notion that because we make demonstrations we can conclude that there are facts to the matter since there are other such ways of talking which do the same but which we wouldn't say are really factual. We're able to fool ourselves into thinking we're speaking about real things. How is it that we know ethical talk isn't just an important game of astrology?

And this is important because it could be why it is we disagree so deeply on ethical matters: if it's not factual then we're not going to be able to prove to someone else that they are wrong. And here I just mean demonstrable in a way other than merely agreeing that something is true. This turns ethics into a kind of race for ears or as a kind of game where we can prove our point; but I'd suggest that reading all the viewpoints is what makes one more capable of judging ethically. It's not truth and agreement as much as being willing to listen to another's viewpoint and finding what works that marks the path to a working ethic -- but in so doing that, and seeing how much disagreement there is, I feel doubt that there are truths as much as we're emotionally connected to some propositions. It's a matter of heart, so it seems to me.

But what's more this actually makes room for philosophy. It's because we cannot form a discipline where we have experts which generate knowledge of the ethical that the practice of philosophy remains relevant. We care about ethics, and reason about it, and even more so I think we like to be able to reason about it. Why else would there be so many tracts on right living if it weren't a concern of ours? But philosophy is that discipline which allows us to reflect upon the complicated things in life, and train our judgment.

I know it's counter-intuitive, but in a lot of ways anti-realism actually seems better for ethical talk than realism. The path of realism just has people trying to prove to one another that they are the better ones, and they were right all along, and its this impulse which anti-realism is good at taking the wind out of.

We all agree to the fact that coffee is delicious, and a great way to start the day. — Banno

Coming in a little late on this, but help me out: I know you can't mean, literally, that everyone agrees that coffee is delicious. So what is the use of "fact" here? Are you saying that, if absolutely everyone really did agree about this, it would be a fact?

So this might be the better way of putting things -- the anti-realist position sets doubts which a realist position may attempt to overcome, but I haven't been able to figure out how it is that you do that while accomplishing the goal of making a body of ethical knowledge (not producing it, just in a big-picture, philosophy kind of way). Rather it seems we have many different ways of life, many different possibilities which work for some and don't work for others. We can list a few things we agree upon but this agreement does not overcome the disagreement elsewhere. The direction of fit is important for the purposes of persuading people. Usually, by "fact", we mean world-to-word, rather than word-to-world. So how is it that the ought statements can be persuasive as they are in other disciplines which we count as knowledge?

I wouldn't want to foreclose the possibility of moral realism. I'm not so sure it's necessarily wrong. But I think it worthwhile to either accept that it's a matter of faith -- a faith which we can then reason about, and even seem to benefit some from doing that -- or be able to articulate how it isn't a matter of faith.

”The concept of “fact”, the primary intended meaning of that which the word represents, being empirical, shouldn’t be adjoined to that human condition having no definitive empirical predication whatsoever.”
-Mww

I agree: so where does that leave moral realism, then? — Bob Ross

Either the moral isn’t real as conditioned by fact, or, the moral is real but conditioned by non-empirical fact, a contradiction. For a non-empirical fact to carry non-contradictory implication yet retain certainty, it is merely a subjective truth, from which follows that the moral is real iff conditioned by subjective truths.

All of which solves nothing, in that it remains contentious that the merely subjective can be real, which reflects on whether the moral, when conditioned by subjective truths, can be real. But if morality is a human condition, in which every human of otherwise rational constitution thinks himself a moral character, and if every human in moral circumstance thinks himself as properly according himself to it, then it must seem to him that he really is a moral agent. Even so, it is still suspect that the moral in and of itself, is real, when it is the subject that merely thinks he is being moral by some self-determined expression of a condition intrinsic to his human nature.

So….where does that leave moral realism? In a great big pile of odiferous philosophical bullshit. There never was a need or a good reason to imbue the moral with the real, especially when the real had already been well-established as representing EXACTLY what the moral is not.

Which gets us, finally, to this: when, pray tell, did you ever, in any arbitrary, albeit immediate, moral circumstance whatsoever, make a statement about it? If you never did…and of course you actually never did….moral statements are nothing but cum hoc ergo propter hoc critiques or judgements of moral activity in general, from which follows it isn’t a case of the truth of the statements at all, but the correspondence of the moral activity to its critique or judgement. Now, the subject, to which both the act and the critique belong, must already be fully conscious of both and the truth is given regarding that correspondence, and for that subject to which the act does not belong but the statement does, for instance when someone not you makes statements about something you did, he cannot possibly be conscious to the same degree nor in the same manner, and therefore the truth in that correspondence cannot ever be given.

So say you do make a moral statement, not in immediate relation to a circumstance but before or after an act representing the circumstance. If before, it cannot be a true statement representing the act because the act hasn’t happened and may not happen, and if after, it is true statement only because the act made it so, which transfers the quality of “true statement” to mere “account”.

Yeahyeahyeah….I know. The word “statement” can be bastardized to represent “act”, in which case a moral statement is slipped sideways, shoehorned if you will, into representing a moral act, and from which it follows that any moral act is a moral statement. But here, we have the absurdity of an act being either one or the other moral or immoral immediately upon its implementation, an expression of morality itself, in juxtaposition to a statement being true or false with respect to an act being moral or immoral whether or not it is ever implemented, an expression relative possibility hence not of morality itself. The former is necessary, the latter contingent; they have no legitimate connection to each other, that irresponsible flights of fancy hasn’t heaped upon the unguarded.

Just another stupid language game, dreamed up by those who couldn’t improve what had already been done. Of which I could be similarly accused, so…..there ya go.

We all agree to the fact that coffee is delicious — Banno

Who is this "we"? My college roommate hated coffee (although it's unlikely he's reading this). :razz: :grin:

Traditionally, to hold a realist position with respect to X is to hold that X exists objectively. On this view, moral anti-realism is the denial of the thesis that moral properties—or facts, objects, relations, events, etc. (whatever categories one is willing to countenance)—exist objectively.
…
So understood, moral anti-realism is the disjunction of three theses:

moral noncognitivism
moral error theory
moral non-objectivism

What you quoted states that moral anti-realism comes in three general flavors (listed above): that’s what ‘disjunction’ signifies in that sentence you quoted—viz., a moral anti-realist either is amoral non-cognitivist, error theorist, or non-objectivist (i.e., subjectivist).

Non-objectivism (as it will be called here) allows that moral facts exist but holds that they are non-objective.

Correct, that’s why I don’t think stanford should have described the third moral anti-realist as ‘non-objectivism’, because that term is used in entirely different ways depending on the person. In the first quote (above), it is referring to subjectivism; in this quote (of yours) it is referring to non-naturalism.

Again, "true fact" is redundant.

That’s fine. Moral anti-realism, even by your sources (standford), is, at its basic level, the view that there are no moral facts.

What I was trying to convey with ‘true fact’ was just that error theorist do consider morality objective—just objectively false; but I understand this could be also conveyed with ‘objectively false that there are moral facts’.

P2-A* (fucksake!) is not an argument, it is an assertion. As has already been explained.

It is absolutely an argument: it is a valid syllogism that has a major and minor premise meant to necessitate, if agreed as true, the conclusion. Which premise do you disagree with?

But isn't "asserting our convictions" what we do in physics as well as morality? We engineer planes from what we believe to be true. Why shouldn't we do the same thing in Ethics? — Banno

This strikes me as an important point in these conversations.

The difference is that in physics we are using our convictions to attempt at latching onto a fact-of-matter about the world; whereas, according to moral anti-realism, we not using convictions to get at moral facts-of-the-matter.

Sure, you should try to defend P2-A*1 if that is how you wish to defend P2-A. Give us a persuasive reason to accept your thesis.

I think I am understanding more what you and @Banno are talking about—so I added an Updated 2 section to the OP. Let me know what you think.

My view is that "moral truths" are meaningless and logically indistinguishable from opinion. — Judaka

This seems to me to be the nub of our differences. Opinions are not meaningless. If they are logically indistinguishable from moral truths (they are not...) then moral truths are not meaningless, either.

All I would show in this thread is that there are moral statements that have a truth value. The argument has two parts: there are statements that we think of as true or as false, that say how folk ought behave; and we make use of these statements in deductions.

My thesis here does not involve setting out a method for determining that truth or falsity.

That it is easier to reach agreement in physics than in ethics is not an argument for ethical statements not having a truth value.

Again, we cannot reason about ethics unless we acknowledge that ethical statements have truth values.

We are repeating an argument that occurred after the war in Oxford and Cambridge, notably between Ayer and his intellectual children, and the "four women", Anscombe, Foot, Midgley and Murdoch. In the wake of the war, many philosophers could not accept the view that morals were no more than expressions of disquiet or preference. There was a renewed insistence on treating ethical themes rationally. This was part of the rejection of Positivism.

It's not so much a matter of faith as of grammar.

I'm happy for "Everyone likes coffee" to be false. It still has a truth value.

Are you saying that, if absolutely everyone really did agree about this, it would be a fact? — J

Well, yes. If everyone likes coffee, then it is a fact that everyone likes coffee.

Thanks for attempting to clarify. I rather think the argument has left your syllogisms behind. I'm also not that bothered with whether you call it antirealism or not, so much as with showing that ethical statements can have a truth value. Which, despite the objections, I think I have done.