So you agree with me that your theory of emotion-subjectivism is not a (cognitive) science? — Leontiskos
To lay my cards on the table, I don't really want to argue over a thesis that you don't hold, especially when that thesis has no authorities to legitimate it. It doesn't seem to me that it will be fruitful. I would rather talk about a thesis that you actually hold, such as error theory or a theory of emotion or a theory of moral 'oughts', etc. It would be different if the thesis had philosophical authorities behind it, but I don't see that moral subjectivism does. — Leontiskos
Have you given examples? I searched for "wants to be" on the first five pages on the thread and didn't find any occurrences. — Leontiskos
a person who is surrounded by people who shame them can feel guilt for that particular thing and want to change, or they can feel anger and define themselves against that group, and perhaps they can feel both at the same time in roughly similar proportion (and this is where the sense of free will comes from). Each leads to a kind of articulatable ethic that justifies the choice
Either the choice leads to the ethic or attachment to the ethic leads to the choice. It can't be both, because two things cannot simultaneously cause each other. — Leontiskos
But you aren't appealing to his anger, you are appealing to the justification of his anger, like I said <here>. This is not appeal to emotion; it is appeal to something which justifies an emotion. — Leontiskos
Yes. I'd say that one can be a cognitivist without thinking that ethics is a cognitive science. I don't think ethics is a science. — Moliere
Not with those words, no -- to be fair to you I'm trying to make a position mostly to understand the idea, so I'm changing my position as I go along; I'm engaged in a creative endeavor. I don't have some firmly worked out idea here, though through the game we have managed to touch upon some possible interesting avenues of conversation. — Moliere
at least in the sense of using "wants to be". In the scenario where he acts on anger "X wants to be alpha", or perhaps something more personal like the person insulted his wife: "X wants to be defender"
Where he backs down "X wants to be friend" -- he's promised, and friends keep promises.
Where he's guilty "X wants to be accepted" — Moliere
Why not? — Moliere
Gravitation works that way. The earth pulls on the apple, and the apple pulls on the earth -- it's just the earth is bigger so it's a more noticeable pull, but they simultaneously cause each other to meet. — Moliere
I'm appealing to his anger. It's the right kind of anger. The words we make up after the fact notice the distinction between the right kind and the wrong kind, but the words aren't the appeal. — Moliere
But this might be back to philosophy of emotions. — Moliere
They are binding socially (normatively) only insofar as most normal people hold to them. So, I am not advocating moral subjectivism or skepticism, but rather a kind of moral inter-subjectivism. What is morally wrong is what most people would find to be so. Of course, I don't deny that this position has its weaknesses, and I think these show up in the case of social mores, like sex before marriage, but when it comes to significant moral issues like murder, rape, child abuse, theft, and so on I think it works well enough. — Janus
I think the reason moral subjectivism is basically non-existent in professional philosophy is because it is recognized that even if nothing supports moral propositions better than attitudes, it remains the case that attitudes are insufficient to support moral propositions. — Leontiskos
It seems that if the subjectivist is a correspondence theorist, and they accept P2, then they have an inconsistency. But is that inconsistency fatal to the overall idea?
The first sentence seems to rely on peer pressure for bindingness; the third sentence seems to rely on the idea that the consensus of a large enough sample of human opinion will tend to be correct (I forget the name which is often given to this idea). The problem with consensus-based views is that consensus is not in itself a truthmaker. The claim that consensus is a truthmaker for moral propositions therefore requires additional explanation. — Leontiskos
Normative does not equate to imperative. — Janus
I've already said that individual moral feeling is motivating, and that communally shared moral feeling is doubly so. — Janus
They are not tautologies; people don't have to be thus motivated. — Janus
They are binding socially (normatively) only insofar as most normal people hold to them. — Janus
I cannot remember a single time in Nietzsche's work where he references a pluralist idea or notion of truth. Not a single time; in fact, he thought it was nonsense (just like pretty much every other philosopher out there). — Bob Ross
I am one thing, my creations are another... But I should regard it as a complete contradiction of myself, if I expected to find ears and eyes for my truths to-day: the fact that no one listens to me, that no one knows how to receive at my hands to-day, is not only comprehensible, it seems to me quite the proper thing. I do not wish to be mistaken for another—and to this end I must not mistake myself. — Nietzsche
I refuse to be a saint; ... But my truth is terrible: for hitherto lies have been called truth. The Transvaluation of all Values, this is my formula for mankind's greatest step towards coming to its senses—a step which in me became flesh and genius... — Nietzsche
In view of this liberal compliment which I have just paid myself, permission will perhaps be more readily allowed me to utter some truths about "woman as she is," provided that it is known at the outset how literally they are merely—MY truths. — Nietzsche
What you mean to say is—simplifying even further to highlight the tautology—people do (moral) things because they believe they should do (moral) things. This doesn't say anything at all. It certainly doesn't amount to a moral theory. — Leontiskos
People are motivated by their moral feelings and thoughts, but they may not always follow them. There is nothing tautologous in any of that. — Janus
Anyone who understands what feelings and thoughts are understands this. — Leontiskos
Then you should realize there is no objective morality and stop pretending you have a theory or could have a theory of objective moral truth. — Janus
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