But do you see how you are toeing the line between normativity and non-normativity, which I have complained about several times throughout this thread? — Leontiskos

No, I can't say that I can see how I'm toeing the line. AFAICT everything I have been saying has been descriptive, not normative.

Should we act according to our moral sensibility or not? Should we listen to our conscience or not? — Leontiskos

These are your questions, not mine. I think we probably should, but that is not the focus here.

Yes, people often do listen to their conscience. Conscience is just how one's moral sensibility expresses itself to ourselves. "Listening to one's conscience" means acting according to our moral sensibility.

Of course.

You say that a subjective conscience morality is normative, but that anti-realist theories (including subjectivism) seldom if ever intend to be normative. Is your subjective conscience theory intended to be normative? — Leontiskos

No. I would say not that one should listen to their conscience, but that one does.

I think that is a fine description of moral obligation. To refresh, my question was a response to:

I would say that, by the very substance of anti-realist metaethics, obligations aren't obligatory [...] If the anti-realist theory intends to be merely descriptive, then it is denying the existence of true obligations and substituting some faux placeholder. — Leontiskos

In the sense of obligation you described, how does moral subjectivism fail to provide "true obligations", where moral subjectivism is defined as "moral values and judgements are personal, but are deeply informed by both enculturation (moral training) and moral instincts (empathy and a sense of justice/fairness)."

I think this is the strongest argument against hard realism:

Looking at @Michael's options:

a) no moral sentence is truth-apt
c) no moral sentence is true
e) some moral sentence is true if everyone believes so
f) some moral sentence is true even if nobody believes so


f stands out as requiring a separate kind of thing in the universe: moral facts. That puts supporters of f at a unique disadvantage. If we are going to introduce a new ontological category, then there should be something only that new kind of thing can explain, or direct evidence of its existence, for the addition to not be gratuitous. But hard realists can furnish neither. Therefore f should be discarded.

This parallels the deism debate. It is famously hard to prove the non-existence of an (also ontologically novel) being. But it is up to the deists to provide direct evidence, or something that cannot be explained without a deity.

This thread is fast becoming inane. — Banno

Your participation is profoundly optional.

I would say that, by the very substance of anti-realist metaethics, obligations aren't obligatory. If the anti-realist theory intends to be normative, then this makes it incoherent. If the anti-realist theory intends to be merely descriptive, then it is denying the existence of true obligations and substituting some faux placeholder. — Leontiskos

It might be helpful if you substantiate your notion of "obligation". I'm not aware of any normative account where moral imperatives are literally obligatory. If so there would be no moral questions, people would simply act as morality dictates.

Even if morality were a subjective matter, just personal preference, your own conscience carries a normative weight, and violating it comes at a cost.

Also, I'll note that anti-realist theories seldom if ever intend to be normative.

Is it this idea? — Leontiskos

Yes. The claim is that these sort of objections you and Banno give only apply to moral theories, not theories about morality.

I'm working on being kind to fools. It's not easy. — Banno

Please be kind to yourself.

This discussion is on meta-ethics, not descriptive ethics, and your post seems to be discussing the latter. — Michael

Certainly not descriptive ethics. If you don't like my instinct example, go with your version of moral subjectivism:

"One ought do X" is true when everyone believes it's true.

It is not a valid objection to say "Why ought I do something just because everyone believes I should?".
Because it is not an ethical theory that says "You ought to do what everyone believes you should".
It is a metaethical theory that says "The truth of ethical propositions arises from everyone's belief in them".

Raising an ethical objection to a metaethical theory is a mistake. Because it is an is theory, not an ought theory, even though its subject is ought statements.

This is a very clear layout of the possibilities (though it must seem quite "convolute" to our poor @Banno).

But why is it a response to my post? Was it just the term "moral reasoning"? If I replace it with "moral obligation" I don't know that anything would change otherwise.

meanwhile still hasn't grasped the concept. Which is odd, given his very extensive readings of the literature. He must have encountered it dozens of times by now!

"Society said so, therefore I ought to obey," is a false statement. — Leontiskos

Valid and coherent, but it erroneously divorces morality from oughtness, as noted above. Society saying something does not intrinsically obligate anyone to obey. — Leontiskos

I keep seeing this mistake. Banno also makes it when he says "that we do cooperate does not imply that we ought cooperate."

You are confusing metaethical theories for ethical ones. A metaethical theory, unlike an ethical theory, is under no obligation to itself be ethically compelling. That is because it is claiming what ethics is, not what you ought to do. The fact might be that ethics originates from something that is not ethical at all.

For instance, suppose someone proposed that all ethical reasoning was instinctual. You might agree or disagree, but you can't say, "just because I have instincts doesn't mean I should obey them". The theory isn't saying that. It says, when you moralize, you are following instincts. Its just the fact of the matter, nothing to do with what you ought to do.

And you can't escape it. If the theory were true, and you say, "well, then I am under no obligation to be ethical, since I have no obligation to follow my instincts", the ethical reasoning which led you to reject instincts as a suitable ground for ethical reasoning would itself be instinctual.

Do you see the difference?

Well, you did make a series of silly mistakes. — Banno

Hilarious, when your posts pointing out my "silly mistakes" have been rats nests of mistakes.

A peace sign, not a victory sign — Leontiskos

:lol:
Thanks.

No one here is being as escalating or trollish as you are. — Leontiskos

See:

↪hypericin I find myself constantly lowering my expectation of what you understand of philosophy. — Banno

When pressed why, he gave his usual confused gibberish. I have a negative history with him over several discussions.

With you, I may have misconstrued you as dismissing my view on ethics because subjectivism is "chimerical" (I think its subjectivism, but the borders between these "isms" get blurry). This combined with some mounting frustration with you, and what I felt was an arrogant, dismissive attitude, your victory laps... But, this happens, these kind of frictions sometimes build in the course of a discussion. I apologize, you didn't deserve that.

You'll be sending me the hemlock, then? — Banno

No, you're no Socrates, I'm afraid.

"Yes, it is a metaethical claim, not an ethical one."

Was a response to

"And it's poverty is that it fails completely to tell us what we ought to do."

Which is a nonsensical requirement of a metaethical claim. All your obfuscation to the side.

The naturalistic fallacy is a response to ethical naturalism, how does it even apply to moral anti-realism, or subjective realism?

I think you're a rude troll that isn't a fraction as clever or knowledgeable as you pretend. Kindly "piss off".

Looks like it was the one where I said that @unenlightened claim was metaethical.

Absurd, right? Do tell.

The distinction which right here you seem to have no clue about:

For others it is incoherent because in being a response to moral issues it pretends to tell us what we ought to do, and yet it only tells us what most people do. — Banno

Moral subjectivism isn't a "response to moral issues", it is a metaethical theory.
It doesn't "pretend to tell us what we ought to do", nor does it "tell us what most people do", it is a statement on the nature of moral claims.

Do you just fling insults when you've got nothing better to say?

Can you give us an example of a moral truth that is not a truth? — Banno

Oops, I somehow misread that as "all moral claims are true".

Anyway, instead of being an asshole, why don't you tell me what was wrong with my previous post? Or not.

I find myself constantly lowering my expectation of what you understand of philosophy. — Banno

:rofl: :rofl:

All moral truths are true. — Banno

You've already hit rock bottom buddy.

nd it's poverty is that it fails completely to tell us what we ought to do. — Banno

Yes, it is a metaethical claim, not an ethical one.

Nothing in the story here is incompatible with realism. We may well have "conventionalized system devised to punishes uncooperative behavior and reinforce cooperative behavior", and yet it is still open to us to ask if such a system is indeed moral. — Banno

The idea is that all of our notions of morality, of what is and isn't moral, are themselves are a part of this system. There is no sense of asking if something is moral independently of this system any more than asking about chess rules independently of the rules of chess.

This shows, yet again, that what you are calling "antirealism" is not what the rest of us are calling antirealism. — Banno

And I thought it turned out that what you were calling "realism" was not what the rest of us were calling realism.

If moral realism is correct then it is perfectly appropriate to ask "what if they're wrong?"

So to simply use this example of socially advantageous behaviour as a refutation of realism is to beg the question. — Michael

The virtue of this account is that it fully explains our moral notions, without need of some separate ontological category. Introducing it anyway is simply gratuitous. It does not explain anything additional that is not already explained without it.

Our beliefs may be wrong. — Michael

On this account, our moral beliefs and intuitions are an expression of this cooperative system. To ask, "but what if they are *wrong*?", independently of the system, is to reintroduce moral realism, which this account leaves no room for.

"Such-and-such is socially advantageous behaviour" and "such-and-such is morally wrong" seem to mean different things. — Michael

That might be because "Such-and-such is socially advantageous behaviour" is a third-person perspective and "such-and-such is morally wrong" is a first person perspective.

Imagine you are an alien anthropologist observing the hairless apes of earth. You conclude that their moral conventions are a socially advantageous strategy designed to foster cooperation. This account in no way requires that the apes themselves take this view. To them, morality might seem primordial, and there may even be philosopher-apes who formalize this perception.

:ok:

Nope. Are you just a self-important child?

Like 'subjective truth', 'moral subjectivism' is chimerical. — Leontiskos

Great. You think it's "chimerical". Wow. Everyone take note, Leontiskos thinks moral subjectivism is chimerical.

Like so many of your "devastating critiques" or whatever you like to call them, this is empty of content.

From another thread:

Imagine a tribe of smallish monkeys in a jungle environment; they have various calls of social identification, and perhaps some to do with dominance and other stuff, but in particular, they have two alarm calls, one warning of ground predators, and one warning of sky predators. One day, one rather low status monkey, who aways has to wait for the others to eat and often misses out on the best food, spots some especially tasty food on the ground, and gives the ground alarm call. The tribe all rush to climb up high, and the liar gets first dibs for once on the treat. This behaviour has been observed, but I won't trouble you myself with references.

Here, one can clearly see that dishonesty is parasitic on honesty. Overall there is a huge social advantage in a warning system, but it is crucially dependent on honesty, and is severely compromised by individual dishonesty. Hence the social mores, that become morality. Society runs on trust, and therefore needs to deter and prevent dishonesty. And this cannot be reversed because the dependence is one way, linguistically. If dishonesty were ever to prevail and be valorised, language would become non-functional. The alarm call would come to mean both 'predator on the ground', and 'tasty food on the ground'. that is, it would lose its effective warning function and its function as a lie. — unenlightened

This to me is a good example of an anti-realist account. Morality is a conventionalized system devised to punishes uncooperative behavior and reinforce cooperative behavior. If moral claims are to be considered "true", they are only true in terms of this system.

Anti-naturalists like @Michael, @Banno, @Leontiskos have to demonstrate why accounts like this fail so utterly that, ontological parsimony be damned, it is preferable to introduce a whole new category of reality.

What characterises the mindset associated with dishonesty? My first impulse is to notice that the mindset must typically include a notion that some advantage will accrue, either personally or tribally.

Consider the deceptive body of a stick insect. It (metaphorically) declares to the world and particularly to its predators "Ignore me, I am a stick." The Blind Watchmaker learns to lie, and simultaneously in the evolution of the predator, tries to learn how to detect a lie. Such is communication between species, in which morality plays no role. Nevertheless, the advantage of deception is obvious.

Imagine a tribe of smallish monkeys in a jungle environment; they have various calls of social identification, and perhaps some to do with dominance and other stuff, but in particular, they have two alarm calls, one warning of ground predators, and one warning of sky predators. One day, one rather low status monkey, who aways has to wait for the others to eat and often misses out on the best food, spots some especially tasty food on the ground, and gives the ground alarm call. The tribe all rush to climb up high, and the liar gets first dibs for once on the treat. This behaviour has been observed, but I won't trouble you myself with references.

Here, one can clearly see that dishonesty is parasitic on honesty. Overall there is a huge social advantage in a warning system, but it is crucially dependent on honesty, and is severely compromised by individual dishonesty. Hence the social mores, that become morality. Society runs on trust, and therefore needs to deter and prevent dishonesty. And this cannot be reversed because the dependence is one way, linguistically. If dishonesty were ever to prevail and be valorised, language would become non-functional. The alarm call would come to mean both 'predator on the ground', and 'tasty food on the ground'. that is, it would lose its effective warning function and its function as a lie. — unenlightened

:clap:
Great post!

How do you think this account of morality meshes with inequality?

You describe dishonesty as a tool of the low status, as a means of achieving a more equal share. Moral norms are introduced to counter the dishonesty strategy, and in general all the strategies that benefit the individual at the cost of the group (this for me is just our notion of "evil"). This moral system imposes a cost on uncooperative behavior. This cost can take the form of loss of social capital, loss of privileges, at the extreme, exclusion and death, and today loss of property and freedom.

But then, given the initial, natural state of inequality of social (therefore hierarchical) species, morality only exacerbates the inequality. The high status can well afford the social capital cost of immoral acts (and today, the financial costs as well). Moreover, to be high status means that just as benefits are disproportionally maximized, costs are disproportionally minimized. So they can very easily afford the discounted costs. Therefore, the high status are able to exploit immorality to entrench and increase their positions.

Whereas, for the low status, immoral acts become a very risky gambit. They can hardly afford the costs. Failure can easily mean exclusion, injury, and therefore death (and today, devastating financial costs and prison terms). Therefore, the low status are ill equipped to exploit immorality as a means to normalize their low status.

What do you think? Is increasing inequality an inherent feature of moral systems?

3. It would not be wrong to eat babies if everyone were to say so (subjectivism) — Michael

This feels like a narrow account of subjectivism that few would endorse.

In my view, people ultimately make moral judgements and decisions according to their own values and moral sense. These values and this sensibility are in turn informed by enculturation and group-think, but also by biologically based moral instincts (innate senses of fairness and justice, empathy), as well as individual experiences and preferences. This is "subjectivism" as none of these are objective features of the world (right?), but seems poorly captured by "if everyone were to say so".

All moral truths are true. — Banno

"You should kick puppies" is true, and "You should not kick puppies" is true. Something seems wrong here.

Yes, I notices you moving the goalposts. It doesn't help you, unless you can show how you hold a value without holding that value to be true, in which case we are entitled to conclude that you think values truth apt. — Banno

I'm not moving the goalposts, I never believed this was a moral statement. I can hold a moral value without holding that it is true in the same way I can have a taste preference without holding that the preference is true. I can believe "coffee is better than tea", it is true that "I believe coffee is better than tea", without believing "coffee is better than tea" is a true fact of the objective world.

What is it you think moral realism amounts to, if not that there are moral statements that are true or false? — Banno

"It is true that I hold this value" is not a moral statement. It is a statement about my personal values.

Just as "It is true that I believe in evolution" a not a statement about biology. It is a statement about my beliefs.

"I believe in evolutionary theory", "Evolutionary theory is true", are totally different claims, and have independent truth tables.

You can be a realist about the first sort of claim (who isn't), while being anti-realist about the second.

["It is true that I like ice cream"] would be taste realism. Taste anti-realists would say that "hypericin likes ice cream" is not truth-apt.. — Banno

Who thinks this is realism? What anti-realist would say that?

@Michael @@Leontiskos
Are you agreeing with this??

"It is true that I hold this value" is not moral realism any more than "it is true that I like ice cream" taste realism.

And the person in my analogy perceives no difference between himself and those who claim they can see. For those who can see the difference is enormous. — Leontiskos

Lol. What is this difference? Keep in mind we are talking about behavior.

Though to be fair, moral realists are the ones who have always committed the moral disgrace of imposing their values by force "because they are true".