pemerton said:
Alzrius, I don't know what you're trying to prove, but you don't seem to have understood my posts very clearly.
I understood your posts just fine; I just don't think that they're very cogent. Though you don't seem to have understood my objections to your vague references to other works that you claim support your positions, without actually citing how they do.
pemerton said:
First, you complain about a lack of citations. I have offered multiple works. Do you want page numbers for A Theory of Justice? Look up "reflective equilibrium" in the index. Do you want to read Raz's account of the interest theory of rights? From memory, it's in chapter 8 of The Morality of Freedom. These are actual examples of actual moral argumentation by leading contemporary figures who regard morality as objective.
Do you want to read a defence of non-objective morality? Then read Blackburn's Spreading the Word and Ruling Passions. Do you want to read a devastating critique of Blackburn? Then read Bob Hale's essay "‘The Compleat Projectivist’, The Philosophical Quarterly 36 (1986): 65–84. (This doesn't deal with Ruling Passions, which is a more recent work, but Hale's objections are easily extended to cover Blackburn's later work - if you PM me I can send you my relevant unpublished work.)
If you want to read the most sophisticated version of moral anti-objectivism out there, I recommend a paper I've already cited upthread: Stephen Barker, "Is Value Content a Component of Conventional Implicature?", Analysis 60 (2000): 268–79.
You don't seem to understand the nature of citing supporting evidence, which is rather odd for someone who claims to be so deeply involved in this field. If you want to state how a particular work backs you up, you have to actually quote the relevant passage, and then cite where that quotation appears. You seem to finally start doing that here in terms of citations - now if you'll actually reproduce the passages in question, then you'll finally have entered them as evidence insofar as the debate we're having.
pemerton said:
You seem strangely obsessed with quotes, as if pages of argument can be boiled down to a bumper sticker. For reasons of copyright, among others, I can't cut and paste 12 pages from Analysis, 20 from The Philosophical Quarterly and 300+ from Harvard or Oxford University Press. But do you really think I'm lying about the contents of these works? From my point of view, you're in the same situation as someone who, when told that they can learn about natural selection in Darwin's Origin of Species or Dawkins's The Blind Watchmakr asks for a quote to prove the point!
If you call "asking you to produce the works you keep referencing" to be "strangely obsessed," then you must meet a lot of obsessed people in your line of work! That said, you're now shying away from actually quoting the works you cite, which undercuts your reasons for citing them in the first place. It's not a question of honesty - that's simply a matter of common sense (and common courtesy) insofar as holding a debate goes. If you can't quote the works you're referencing, regardless of the reasons why, then you're not in a position to reference them to begin with. In other words,
you mentioned them, so
you need to do more than just drop a name. Why that's apparently so offensive to you remains a mystery.
pemerton said:
Moving from citations to some of the assertions that you make: You might regard your refutation as "deft". I can tell you that it probably wouldn't pass in an undergraduate essay.
A mild ad hominem attack here, which is not the hallmark of someone who actually thinks that they have a strong position. You tend to do this a lot, I've noticed.
pemerton said:
You are getting hung up on matters of "burden of proof" that have no relevance to the discussion.
They are, in fact, highly relevant; more on this below.
pemerton said:
For instance, you claim that you don't have to prove anything because you are simply denying a positive assertion, namely, that morality is objective. Well, I can play that game too, if I want: I can deny that morality is subjective, thereby - by your logic - putting the burden on you to prove that it is subjective!
Leaving aside that you think the most basic of the principles of debate is a "game," this is such an elementary proposition that I'm rather surprised you brought it out at all. How does one prove that morality is subjective? Simple. Person A says that "I think X is good." Person B says "I think that X is bad." We note the lack of any objective moral criteria to say which is more correct than the other - and any such criteria you enter would fall victim to the same principle of "it's a positive statement that morality is objective, which can be critiqued and found to be lacking" - and ergo, we find that morality is subjective.
In other words, the subjective nature of morality is plainly self-evident. Trying to say that there's an objectively true element to morality, by contrast, places a much larger burden of proof on you because there is no such self-evidence in play; the first person who disagrees with you on any moral matter puts that proposition to rest!
pemerton said:
There are some arguments where burden of proof matters, but this is not one of them. You are advancing a theory of the semantics of moral discourse and the metaphysics of morals. Your theory is as affirmative as that of any objectivist. If you want anyone to take it seriously, you have to provide reasons for it.
This is incredibly backward. This is indeed an argument where the burden of proof matters - if you say that there's an objectively true morality, then it's incumbent on you to demonstrate that. You're proposing an objectivist notion of morality, and then being critical of the idea that that same level of objectivist thinking can be used to poke holes in the idea. It's hard to take that seriously if you posit that such a line of thought affirms your stance, but can't be used to critique it.
pemerton said:
That's what Blackburn, Gibbard, and their predecessors such as Russell, Ayer, and Hume do. Even the existentialists, who are less interested in technical argumentation than analytic philosophers, give reasons for thinking that there are no objective criteria for value. (I mean, Being and Nothingness is notorious for its length. What do you think Sartre is doing in all those pages, if he doesn't feel the need to show that his anti-objectivist conception of value is correct?)
Again, quote the relevant sections or stop appealing to other works. Demonstrate the points you feel that they're making, rather than alluding to them.
pemerton said:
Moving onto your actual claim to have refuted me: you don't even seem to know what you're refuting. You seem to think you are providing reasons why morality is not objective - though I haven't actually noticed any (eg you haven't pointed to any facts of usage, any metaphysical considerations, etc - I think you are gesturing at an argument to best explanation, but you are not engaging with any of the relevant data points that such an argument would have to deal with).
At this point, it's simply enough to note that you have yet to demonstrate your claim that morality could be considered objective under any particular circumstances. Since making such a claim is incumbent on your demonstration of evidence to that effect, and no such evidence has been put forward yet (which can stand up to scrutiny, at least), then your position has yet to advance. Hence why I've pointed out that your stance has been refuted.
pemerton said:
But in any event, I have not asserted that morality is objective. Nor have I denied that it is. As I stated a long way upthread, I am not interested in having that argument on this board (and, as I have also stated, I am happy to circulate my relevant work by PM if you are interested).
This is a semantic distinction, as you have made attempts to demonstrate the manner in which an objective morality could supposedly be determined.
pemerton said:
All I have done is to point out that (i) the mainstream view among analytic moral philosophers is that morality is objective, (ii) there are certain reasons for that view, draw mostly from considerations of usage of the sort I have pointed to, (iii) objectivist moral philosophies aren't just hand waving, but rather have theories of epistemic acces to moral truth, and of methodology in moral reasoning, and (iv) relativist/subjectivist views face a non-trivial challenge that I have labelled the hypocrisy objection.
Likewise, all I've done is (i) express some degree of skepticism to that effect, since you're claiming to speak for a majority without showing why that'd be the case (beyond "it's in some books/journals. Really.") (ii) I don't doubt that there are reasons, but rather I question the cogency of that line of reasoning, (iii) I'm not saying that objectivist moral philosophies are "hand-waving" per se, but rather are dependent on them meeting the high bar of showing how one demonstrates an objective moral truth - the very fact that their theories are questionable is a major strike against them, as the whole point of something objective is that it maintains its existence even if disbelieved. Since moral truths don't sustain that level of existence, those theories are therefore insufficient in terms of the advancing the point that they're arguing, and (iv) the hypocrisy objection does not survive scrutiny, because the recognition of moral relativism does not necessitate that having a personal moral doctrine, while still recognizing the subjectivity of such doctrines, be hypocritical when it clashes with another doctrine that holds different moral views.
pemerton said:
You haven't given any reason to doubt (i) - for instance, you haven't identified any mainstream analytic moral philosophers who are anti-objectivist. I believe that's because you don't know of any. For instance, my guess is that you've never read Simon Blackburn or Allan Gibbard or Terrence Horgan or Mark Timmons, and so don't recognise them as leading moral anti-objectivists. (And, for that reason, as opponents of the mainstream view.)
I would also point out that, contrary to what you say in your post, the question of whether a certain view is mainstream among a group of academics is an objective matter of fact, whether the academics are philosophers or geologists.
Saying "my opinion is the norm" is not a question of doubt - as I've mentioned many times before, if you want to say that something is the way it is, you're the one who needs to demonstrate that. You're purporting that you speak for a majority of people in a given field; that's a major claim to make, and saying that it's self-evident does not live up to the standard that you seem to think it does. You drop a name or two, and are under the impression that that somehow satisfies the burden of evidence that you've taken upon yourself. This is rather odd, considering that you even seem to then admit that the point of view you claim to represent is not so obvious as the consensus regarding physical facts.
pemerton said:
You have not seriously enaged with (ii). For instance, you haven't addressed the difference between falsehood predication in the context of first-person pronouns (which are subjective in meaning) and in the context of moral argument. And your claim that it is "outlandish" to claim that "and" is a truth-conditional operator - a view which has been mainstream at least since Frege - suggests that you've not taken an introductory course in either logic or philosophy of language.
The last sentence is more ad hominem nonsense - if your argument hinges on "oh really, you know less than X," then it's already a weak argument. It's notable that once you remove that, you really have no counter-claim in this entire paragraph, other than the fact that you must use the conjunctive "and" in one particular way and only that way. If your point can't survive having the assumptions that it rests on questioned, then your point can't survive at all.
pemerton said:
You have not engaged at all with (iii). For instance, you haven't given any reason to think that moral truths can't be derived from facts about human nature (for instance, what is your argument against the claim that going to school rather than working as a bonded labourer in a carpet factory does not, in the typical case, give a child an objectively more flourishing life?).
Once again, it's up to you to showcase that moral truths could possibly be derived from facts about human nature, which you haven't done. The very fact that the example you posit has to use the clause "in a typical case" showcases the invalidity of that argument - if something were objectively held to be true, it would not be "typical" but absolute. Since your phrasing inherently denies that level of certainty, it therefore can't be held to derive a fact regarding an objective moral truism.
pemerton said:
With regards to (iv), the mod warning is such that I'm not going to post a reply here, which is a shame.
pemerton said:
Nietzsche, and some who follow him, are prepared to deny these distinctions, but they recognise that this is radical revisionism. I'm not sure you've really given the issues the same depth of thought.
I recognize your uncertainty, and would like to reassure you that you're incorrect here.
BenK said:
Alzurius - I'm trying to make sense of the paragraph starting 'It's actually a powerfully developed argument', but I'm having trouble making headway. If A says of B 'What they are doing is wrong' and B say 'We are not doing wrong' I can see two possibilities:
1. The A's claim that B's actions have the property of being wrong is correct, and therefore B's claim that their actions do not have the property of being wrong is incorrect;
2. B's claim that their actions do not have the property of being wrong is correct, and therefore the A's claim that their actions do have the property of being wrong is incorrect.
This is a false dichotomy - since there is no objective metric by which one can measure the property of correct or incorrect in each case, the initial premise in each of those two outcomes ("have the property of being wrong") cannot be reached, which undercuts the findings that are then concluded. Hence the subjective nature of what constitutes the properties or morally right and wrong.
BenK said:
In the case of the second possibility obtaining - B's actions having no property of being wrong - it could be that some actions do have the property of being wrong, and B's actions do not happen to have that property, or it could be that no such property exists at all (in which case all claims that any action 'is wrong' are simply false.)
I'd amend that last point to say that "simply false" is operating under the presumption that there must be something objectively true or false. The subjective nature of an idea - which is what morality is - is such that one person can hold a proposition to be moral, and another person can hold that same proposition to be immoral, and they can both believe themselves to be right and the other wrong, with no inherent contradiction therein.
BenK said:
Obviously, perceptions of right and wrong - as are all perceptions by definition - are subjective. But if someone claims that something _is_ right or wrong, the claim is either true or it isn't. If 'right' and 'wrong' aren't properties that actually exist, then claiming some action or state of affairs have those properties is simply an error, no?
Claiming something has an objective state, when no such objective state can be conclusively shown to exist to begin with, would be a statement of belief that's purporting to be a statement of fact. The very action of claiming that something
is right or wrong is a perception unto itself.
