It's not that simplistic. I have no "access" to your parents and yet I know that they're different. — Michael
Ok, but, like I said before, someone being in the event of making moral judgments (“considering what counts as acceptable or unacceptable behavior”) is not a moral fact in any meaningful sense. — Bob Ross
Literally every moral anti-realist position agrees that there are people “considering what counts as acceptable or unacceptable behavior”--the disagreement is about whether those considerations are about mind(stance)-independently existing morals. Your view, I think, just completely sidesteps the actual metaethical discussion....
I get that you define ‘moral fact’ in a way such that a promise is one, being an event which has to do with “considering what counts as acceptable or unacceptable behavior”, but that, again, is just sidestepping the issue... is that promise, or that “considering what counts as acceptable or unacceptable behavior”, about something objective? It seems as though your use of ‘moral facticity’ just doesn’t find this question relevant...
If moral facts are just events where someone is considering what is acceptable/unacceptable to do, then it isn’t necessarily the case that their judgment (conclusion they make) about what is acceptable/unacceptable corresponds to what mind(stance)-independently exists. Hence, it is not necessarily the case that ‘moral facts’ exist in any metaethically meaningful sense of the term.
↪hypericin Good article. You should consider starting a thread specifically on it. It might be fun. — Banno
Seems to me that such positions are inherently flawed in that they are untenable and/or self-defeating.
— creativesoul
Sorry, just to be clear, you're indicating a Kantian "We know we don't see things as they are" position is untenable? — AmadeusD
i will explore every alcove on the way down haha — AmadeusD
Interesting. As you'll have seen, It appears i must necessarily be heading toward that conclusion. But i will explore every alcove on the way down haha — AmadeusD
...nothing is objective. — AmadeusD
My problem is that I don’t think there are any moral facts, period. — Bob Ross
So, correct me if I am wrong, a moral fact is an event such that there is someone in that event that is considering what counts as acceptable or unacceptable behavior? Am I on the right track? If not, then please elaborate on that portion (of the quote above). — Bob Ross
Promising is voluntarily entering into an obligation to make the world match your words. Are you denying that much?
No, that’s fine; but I am only not going to break that obligation (when push comes to shove) if I have obligated myself to fulfilling my professed obligations (promises): are you denying that?
What are you saying you are setting out to do? Setting out to denote how hard it is to nail down what counts as morally factual?
Either way, you should be able to give a definition of what is a moral fact, no?
To satisfy a moral arealist such as Bob Ross I think they must be context independent. — hypericin
I have no problems with that SEP article: I think it is a good outline of the landscape. — Bob Ross
...you are trying to imply that there are moral facts simply because there are people engaging in morally signified events... — Bob Ross
Do you have an obligation to do X after you've made the promise?
No. I only have an obligation to do X upon promising X if I am equally obligated to fulfill my promises. — Bob Ross
It is worth noting that, while moral realists are united in their cognitivism and in their rejection of error theories, they disagree among themselves not only about which moral claims are actually true but about what it is about the world that makes those claims true. Moral realism is not a particular substantive moral view nor does it carry a distinctive metaphysical commitment over and above the commitment that comes with thinking moral claims can be true or false and some are true. Still, much of the debate about moral realism revolves around either what it takes for claims to be true or false at all (with some arguing that moral claims do not have what it takes) or what it would take specifically for moral claims to be true (with some arguing that moral claims would require something the world does not provide).
The debate between moral realists and anti-realists assumes, though, that there is a shared object of inquiry—in this case, a range of claims all involved are willing to recognize as moral claims—about which two questions can be raised and answered: Do these claims purport to report facts in light of which they are true or false? Are some of them true? Moral realists answer ‘yes’ to both, non-cognitivists answer ‘no’ to the first (and, by default, ‘no’ to the second) while error theorists answer ‘yes’ to the first and ‘no’ to the second. (With the introduction of “minimalism” about truth and facts, things become a bit more complicated. See the section on semantics, below.) To note that some other, non-moral, claims do not (or do) purport to report facts or that none (or some) of them are true, is to change the subject. That said, it is strikingly hard to nail down with any accuracy just which claims count as moral and so are at issue in the debate....
They are not the sorts of things that can be true/false. Rather, they are part of what makes it possible in order for truth apt things to be so.
— creativesoul
Can you elaborate on this a bit? I note a distinction in a way that one could be 'telling the truth' that they believe something which runs counter to a fact of the matter.
But I can't see how this removes the element of 'truth' in a given fact (if established as such) — AmadeusD
So are you saying that the moral facts are events which are of acceptable or unacceptable behavior, but that acceptable vs. unacceptable behavior is non-factual? — Bob Ross
I don’t have an obligation, prior to promising X, to do X—its not a moral fact that I ought to do X. — Bob Ross
I see. So the problem I have is that promises are not normative statements which exist mind-independently, so I wouldn't say they are even normative facts: it is a hypothetical imperative--i.e., it is a subjectively utterance of obligation. Moral facts are about obligations which are true independently of what a subject obligates themselves to do (viz., independently of what they decide to promise or not). What do you think? — Bob Ross
You seem to be talking about normative ethics, applied ethics, and/or descriptive ethics. I'm talking about metaethics. — Michael
The starting point of any metaethics is the question "what do moral statements mean?". — Michael
I see. So the problem I have is that promises are not normative statements which exist mind-independently, — Bob Ross
So, you've said a lot since I last posted. I wonder if you saw Hume's answer to the question you've posed?
— creativesoul
I posted 2x quotes from Treatise of Hume, and also added some explanations to them on how the belief arises on the existence of the External Word / Bodies. — Corvus
I agree with you points, although personally I feel also our memory and inductive reasonings in some degree play part working with imagination for invoking beliefs in the existence of unperceived existence. — Corvus
But here it may be proper to remark, that though our conclusions from experience carry us beyond our memory and senses, and assure us of matters of fact, which happened in the most distant places and most remote ages; yet some fact must always be present to the senses or memory, from which we may first proceed in drawing these conclusions. A man, who should find in a desert country the remains of pompous buildings, would conclude, that the country had, in ancient times, been cultivated by civilized inhabitants; but did nothing of this nature occur to him, he could never form such an inference. We learn the events of former ages from history; but then we must peruse the volumes, in which this instruction is contained, and thence carry up our inferences from one testimony to another, till we arrive at the eye-witnesses and spectators of these distant events. In a word, if we proceed not upon some fact, present to the memory or senses, our reasonings would be merely hypothetical; and however the particular links might be connected with each other, the whole chain of inferences would have nothing to support it, nor could we ever, by its means, arrive at the knowledge of any real existence. If I ask, why you believe any particular matter of fact, which you relate, you must tell me some reason; and this reason will be some other fact, connected with it. But as you cannot proceed after this manner, in infinitum, you must at last terminate in some fact, which is present to your memory or senses; or must allow that your belief is entirely without foundation.
It seems evident, that men are carried, by a natural instinct or prepossession, to repose faith in their senses; and that, without any reasoning, or even almost before the use of reason, we always suppose an external universe, which depends not on our perception, but would exist, though we and every sensible creature were absent or annihilated. Even the animal creation are governed by a like opinion, and preserve this belief of external objects, in all their thoughts, designs, and actions.
E 12.24, SBN 161-2
There is, indeed, a more mitigated scepticism or academical philosophy, which may be both durable and useful, and which may, in part, be the result of this Pyrrhonism, or excessive scepticism, when its undistinguished doubts are, in some measure, corrected by common sense and reflection.
Hume's writing can be deceptive in Treatise, and it can be tricky to pinpoint what he was actually trying to say. — Corvus
...it is about how our mind and belief works... — Corvus
You are correct in that you have no immediate reason a posteriori to believe in the existence of the world in the absence of perception. It is still the case you have mediate reason to believe a priori, in the existence of the world, iff you’ve a set of cognitions from antecedent perceptions. And it is impossible that you do not insofar as you’re alive and functioning, so…..
The logical and epistemic arguments for a priori justifications has been done, and is in the public record. They serve as explanation for not having to re-learn your alphabet after waking up each morning, given that you already know it. — Mww
it would... ...involve you in a performative contradiction when you go on to council us unperceived beings... — Fooloso4
Think of when you've watched another sleep. People sleep. We watch. We're part of the world. The world exists while they sleep. If you agree, but still doubt your own experience, then you're working from double standards. Special pleading for your case.
— creativesoul
It wasn't about other people sleeping. It was about the question, do I believe the world exists, when I am asleep? The point is not about the existence of the world. It is about the logical ground for believing in something when not perceiving. There is a clear difference. — Corvus
We cannot change the tree on the road with our words alone. It does not follow from that that we cannot change the world with our words. Strictly speaking we do always change the world with our language, if for no other reason than we've added more examples of language use to it.
— creativesoul
X cannot do Y. That doesn't mean X cannot do Y? Is this not a contradiction?
What is the point trying to create a well with just Austin's linguistic analysis on Ayer?...
<snip>
...Wouldn't the water in the well go stale soon with the prejudice and narrow mindedness rejecting all the relating issues, analysis and criticisms? — Corvus
There is no logical ground for me to believe the world exists during my sleep, because I no longer perceive the world until waking up to consciousness. Therefore perception is prior to language. — Corvus
Do we always change the world? With language?
Can you change the tree on the road with your words? — Corvus
...the point was that whether it is 'direct' or 'indirect' is a matter of looking at it from different perspectives, using different definitions of 'direct' and 'indirect'.
I actually second the notion that it is important to understand Ayer’s idea of “perception” and not bring a preconceived notion to our reading... — Antony Nickles
I think it's more a matter of philosophers finding new and novel ways to imagine things; the "problem" only arises when the demand that there be just one "correct" way of viewing things is made.
— Janus
It is possible that more than one way of thinking about things is valid, in one way or another. But surely some sort of selection will be needed sooner or later. — Ludwig V