D&D 5E The Multiverse is back....

[Parmandur]

Looks like the DMG is chock full of Planar material, and how to link your home brew to standard settings.

 

[Hereticus]

For what it's worth... when I created the planar cosmology for the game I DM, and I've used a similar system since AD&D, I wanted the the following factors to come into play:

- Resembles what is in the book.
- Includes a home plane for all creatures.
- Simple for the DM to use and explain.
- Easy for the players to grasp.
- Almost every plane can be adventured on.

Two infinite and separate multiverses exist; the astral (philosophical) and the ethereal (physical). Where the two overlap, primal planes form (such as our home plane). There could be millions of different ones. Every other plane was either a sub-plane or a realm attached to the two multiverses. It fir better with AD&D, and in no way comes close to matching any of the later editions. However it works for me and my players, it's simple, and everything is playable.

 

[Alzrius]

Alzrius:

I assume that you accept that there is such an academic discipline as analytic moral philosophy.

I assume that you also accept that the practitioners of this discipline - moral philosophers - have opinions about, and debate about, the semantics of moral utterance and the metaphysics of morals.

From those two premises, it follows that one of the three alternatives is true:

1) The mainstream view among these philosophers is that morality is objective;

2) The mainstream view among these philosophers is that morality is subjective;

3) There is no view that is mainstream among these philosophers.​

So far that seems fairly uncontroversial. Your model here seems to ignore a fair amount of nuance that one would expect to be present, but insofar as setting up a basic framework for the discussion, it suffices.

Now, with resepct to these three alternatives, there are three epistemic possibilities:

A) The true alternative is known;

B) The true alternative is not known but is knowable;

C) The true alternative is not known, because unknowable.​

It's here that we come to a problem, since all three of these possibilities presume that there must be a "true alternative" to begin with; I say this is problematic because simply labeling an alternative as being "true" requires that we accept the inherent premise as to what "truth" is - namely, that truth or falsehood is a question of objective existence (hence why we never talk about opinions as being true or false, unlike (what we accept to be) physical facts). Simply having multiple alternatives available, insofar as personal beliefs that do not deal with (what we accept to be) facts does not necessarily require that only one of them be the "true" alternative.

I assert (A) that the true alternative is knowable, and is known, and also (1) that the mainstream view among these philosphers is objective.

Now, having made these assertions, it is incumbent on you to demonstrate why they are so.

I assume that you are not asserting (C) - it would be odd to say that this particular fact of human opinion was unkowable.

Are you asserting (B)? On what basis - an inference from the fact that it's not know to you to the conclusion that it's not known to anyone? Are you asserting (2)? On what basis?

As demonstrated above, I believe that the possibilities you've laid out are flawed, since they still confine themselves to a limited true/false dichotomy that doesn't necessarily apply where beliefs such as personal opinions are concerned. If you were to hold that morality is subjective, then someone else talking about a "true alternative" is going to be an inherently invalid concept, because the nature of a subjective belief is that its subjectivity means that questions of whether it is true or not are necessarily inapplicable.

In general, the opinion of a member of a group is good evidence of what that group thinks. I don't really understand on what basis you reject my testimony as to the mainstream view of members of my discipline. (You also seem to be assuming, with no evidence, that I share that mainstream view.)

I suspect that we'll need to agree to disagree here, since a sample size of 1 is not good evidence of any sort of sampling, even leaving aside the basic understanding that claiming to speak on the behalf of others is an action that is understood to require verification (as a generality).

Also, as for this argument:"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."

Here is a parallel argument: "Person A thinks that the number of fleas on Cleopatra's cat the day before she died was an even number. Person B thinks that it was an odd number. We note the absence of any basis for determining which is true. Therefore, the (so-called) fact that the number of fleas on the cat was either odd or even is purely subjective".

My argument is actually stronger than yours, because - in asserting the lack of any objecive moral criteria you simply and flagranty beg the question against those who believe that there are such criteria, whereas there is no criteria (and no one thinks otherwise) for determining how many fleas were on a cat that died some two thousand years ago.

This is a terribly weak argument, far weaker than the one of mine that you quoted - the issue with the number of fleas on a cat is not subjective; it is unknown. That is not the same thing. We can ascertain a methodology by which we could determine the number of fleas on the cat (e.g. you count them), even if we can't put that method into practice (e.g. the cat, and the fleas, are dead) - both parties will agree that such a methodology would be an objective method of determination. No such objective method of determination can be reached insofar as the example I posted, since we recognize the lack of any objective moral criteria to determine whether X is good (as Person A said) or bad (as Person B said).

Likewise, you don't seem to understand what begging the question means. It's an instance of including conclusion you're seeking in the premise that you're positing. Leaving aside that this is exactly what your A-B-C framework, posted above, does (you'll remember that it talks about a "true" alternative to the question of whether morality is objective or subjective), that's not what's going on with the example I posted. Simply put, noting the lack of any objective moral criteria does not beg the question against those who believe there are, because that necessarily points out that this is still a belief on their part.

(Just reiterating the point about begging the question - has it not occurred to you that those who believe that morality is objective do not note that there are no objective critiera? That they in fact point to reasons that might tell in favour of one or the other of person A or person B?)

If they're positing the existence of an objective moral criteria, then I presume that they have evidence to support that positive assertion. So far, I've yet to find any that stand up to scrutiny insofar as being demonstrably true (which is to say, that they can be shown to be objective), rather than being a state of belief, which is a state of subjectivity. One presumes that reasons that might tell in favor of an objective moral truth would demonstrate an objective existence regardless of belief.

Nevertheless, my argument is probably not sound. The only mainstream philosopher I know of who accepts a version of it is Michael Dummett (perhaps also some of his followers, like Crispin Wright). Most people think that there can be an objective fact even though we have no means of ascertaining it.

Again, it's problematic to hold forth that you're speaking for most people.

As I have said, burden of proof really is not relevant to the metaphysics of morals. It's about 2500 years too late for it.

Likewise, I've said that burdens of proof are highly relevant when you're claiming that your metaphysics are objectively true. Claiming that there's some sort of statute of limitations on that is patently absurd.

 

[Sadras]

@pemerton
Do you believe that field of moral philosophy has changed/evolved over time?

If it did, would the 'moral truth' , you speak of, not then also be seen to have evolved? and

What factors affected this evolution process/change in the field?

 

[Greg Benage]

If they're positing the existence of an objective moral criteria, then I presume that they have evidence to support that positive assertion. So far, I've yet to find any that stand up to scrutiny insofar as being demonstrably true (which is to say, that they can be shown to be objective), rather than being a state of belief, which is a state of subjectivity. One presumes that reasons that might tell in favor of an objective moral truth would demonstrate an objective existence regardless of belief.

My advice: Every time pemerton uses the word "objectivity," read it as "intersubjectivity." As humans, we exist in a community of other humans and that community is contingent upon and bounded by biology, historical experience, culture, traditions, norms, social relationships and power, etc. Our moral notions are not, therefore, simply a matter of personal opinion or individual subjectivity. All of the above are real: We're not free to simply pick our views of "good" or "bad" out of a subjective vacuum. This intersubjectivity contains within it the force of duty, obligation, COMMANDMENT. So Gadamer (not an Anglo-American analytic philosopher, but smarter than most of those guys) writing after the experience of WWII and the Holocaust, says, "The principle that all are free never again can be shaken." Moral truth.

Today, the Anglo-American academy has decided that this notion of "human flourishing" is the objective foundation of morality. It's important to note that the academy discovers and agrees upon some such notion every generation or so and thereby "solves" the problem of the objective foundations of morality for a while. Our intersubjectivity (our "thought community" or whatever buzzword you like) isn't static, though, so the "solution" is never built to last. Someone like David Hume will come along and bust it up, and then a new (this time for REAL!) objective foundation of morality will need to be discovered anew by a new generation.

Just understand that this notion isn't accepted as "objectivity" by most anyone in Continental Europe or Asia. It's certainly not what you seem to mean by "objectivity." On the other hand, it's not pure subjectivity, either. Pemerton won't concede anything I've just written, but maybe it'll help.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=93631]Greg Benage[/MENTION] - you're right that I'm not a Gadamer guy! But like [MENTION=8461]Alzrius[/MENTION], you seem to be making assumptions about my philosophical views. I haven't indicated whether I am in the mainstream of analytic philosophy or not; I have made any comments about my own view. My point is that there is a mainstream view in the community of anaytic moral philosophers, that that view is one of the objectivity of moral truth, and that view isn't held in a simplistic or unreasoned manner. From your post, you seem to agree at least with the first bit of that, even if you think the reasons for that view are overly simplistic.

Also, in at least some of the Continental tradition, the scepticism about objective morality extends to scepticism about objective or "mind-independent" truth more generally, which means that the contrast that Alzrius regards as self-evident - between (say) physical and moral truth - will still not be accepted by them.

Do you believe that field of moral philosophy has changed/evolved over time?

<snip>

What factors affected this evolution process/change in the field?

Yes, the field has evolved over time. In that way it resembles every other intellectual field I can think of. What factors affect that evolution? The same sorts of factors as affect other fields - broader cutural trends, the emergence of new technical methods, plus fashions among what is, in many ways, a rather small community.

As a literary discipline, the patterns of evolution and development are probably more like those in history or (non-statistical) social science rather than mathematical sciences.

If it did, would the 'moral truth' , you speak of, not then also be seen to have evolved?

I'm not sure what it means for truth to evolve.

For instance, astronomy has obviously developed since Ptolemy's time, and since Keppler's time, an even since Einstein's time. Few people, though, would say that astronomical truth has evolved. Rather, they would say that astronomical learning has improved.

It's at least tempting to say that when many Greek and Roman thinkers thought that widespread slavery was consistent with flourishing societies, they were simply wrong about that fact. Which would mean that I woudn't describe the truth about "slaves by nature" has evolved since Aristotle wrote his Politics. I would just say that Aristotle was wrong.

the issue with the number of fleas on a cat is not subjective; it is unknown.

It is also unknowable. And unverifiable. Which was the basis on which you asserted that moral truths are subjective - that there are no "objective criteria" for resolving moral disagreements.

We can ascertain a methodology by which we could determine the number of fleas on the cat (e.g. you count them)

What methodology would that be - time travel? How do you propose to count the number of fleas on a cat that has not been alive for thousands of years?

I should also point out that, for exactly this reason, what you describe as a "pretty weak argument" is put forward by Michael Dummett, in "Truth" and other essays in his collection Truth and Other Enigmas, as part of a general attack on realist conceptions of the distant past. A J Ayer also advanced a version of the argument in Language, Truth and Logic, although he later changed his mind on the point (the essay, "Statements About the Past", is published in his collection Philosophical Essays). CS Peirce also advanced a version of the argument, although in this case I can't give you a citation (but you will find one in Ayer's discussion of the point in The Origins of Pragmatism).

we recognize the lack of any objective moral criteria to determine whether X is good (as Person A said) or bad (as Person B said).

Who recognises that? Immanual Kant doesn't. JS Mill doesn't. Joseph Raz doesn't. Peter Singer doesn't. Michael Smith doesn't. Frank Jackson doesn't. I'm pretty sure that many non-academics don't, too. It's not as if a handful of philosophers are the only people in the world who think that morality is objective.

It's true that they don't agree on what the correct methodology is, but nor do historians all agree on the best methodology to work out what Cleopatra might have been thinking when she died (nor to work out whether or not she owned a cat, and if so whether or not it had fleas). Yet that doesn't entail that historical truth is subjective.

you don't seem to understand what begging the question means. It's an instance of including conclusion you're seeking in the premise that you're positing.

<snip>

noting the lack of any objective moral criteria does not beg the question against those who believe there are, because that necessarily points out that this is still a belief on their part.

You are asserting, without any argument, that "we note the lack of any objective moral criteria". To note that X entails that X is true; a person can't note what is false. (In this respect "note" is like "perceive" and "know" and unlike "belief" or "assert".)

Hence, your argument begins from an unargued assertion that trivially entails the point which those who believe that morality is objective deny. And, of course, as I've pointed out, those people don't agree that "we note that there are no objective criteria". At best, they note that there is no general consensus on what those criteria are. But they will point out that the same is true in psychology, sociology, history, some branches of natural science, etc.

If they're positing the existence of an objective moral criteria, then I presume that they have evidence to support that positive assertion.

I've pointed to the evidence - namely, that natural language practices around truth and falsehood predication, negation, contradiction, conjunction, etc do not differentiate betwee sentences stating moral claims and other sentences.

Here's more evidence - everyone, including most children older than 3 or 4, recognise that there is such a thing as giving reasons for an action, as providing a justification. That "I did it because I wanted to" isn't, on it's own, a good reason for doing something. Contrast, in this respect, "I did it because I wanted to, and I wasn't hurting anyone else." That is the provision of a justification - namely, that the action was permissible because there was no countervailing reason against it (ie doing it didn't hurt anyone else).

If you read a libertarian like Hayek or Nozick, they do not argue that "because I wanted to" is a sufficient reason for action. It also must not infringe anyone's rights. That is, they recognise that permissible actions are constrained by the claims or entitlements of others.

This practice of being ready to give reasons is regarded by some people as constitutive of human beings. Whether or not that is so, it is certainly pretty ubiquitous. And it is another piece of evidence that those who believe in objective morality can point to. What are reasons, after all, than non-subjective considerations that tell in favour of or against a certain course of action?

a sample size of 1 is not good evidence of any sort of sampling, even leaving aside the basic understanding that claiming to speak on the behalf of others is an action that is understood to require verification

<snip>

Again, it's problematic to hold forth that you're speaking for most people.

I'm not "speaking on behalf of others". I'm telling you what people in a certain community, of which I am a member, typically think.

It's frankly bizarre to talk here about sampling - though I believe that David Chalmers has done some (I haven't seen the results). That's not the only way to work out what people think. I know, for instance, what the bulk of my colleagues think about our university administration because I talk to them about it. I know whether or not the kids in my daughter's class like Frozen because I pay attention to what they do and say. I learned that most people in my community will respond to an outstretched hand with a hand shake without sampling them. In all these cases, my knowledge isn't statistically-grounded, it's culturally grounded. Similarly, I learn what moral philosophers think because I talk to them at papers and conferences, read what they publish, read their comments on my material when they review it for publication, etc.

I can tell you that if you walk into the Philosophy Department at Oxford University and tell them that you want to write a thesis defending a relativistic account of morality, their ears will prick up! If you publish a paper setting out a non-objectivist account of moral utterance, Mark van Roojen will write a paper trying to tear it down in pretty short order!

If I couldn't give my research students advice on what opinions are widely accepted, what are controversial, etc, what sort of supervisor would I be? For instance, I wouldn't send a thesis defending a broadly Rawlsian conception of political justice to be examined by [MENTION=93631]Greg Benage[/MENTION]!

 

[BenK]

Pemerton - your prose is brilliant! Such a knack for clarity. You teach at a university somewhere? I think you see that this discussion is pointless, but you seem to be enjoying yourself.

So, Rawls in Sigil. Rawls sits down a bunch of Angels and Devils and so forth and explains to them that to act ethically, they must act according to rules which they all would consent to, if they did not know which member of the planar multiverse they were going to be - djinni, celestial, demon, whatever. All the critters agree, and draw up a code of rules for all the planes.

Now, I agree that Rawls could make a good case that he has a truly objective standard against which to judge their code of rules, although it may not be strictly knowable: what would the group consensus actually be if no member knew what role would be theirs? (In fact, we can imagine a high level Wizard or Cleric might be able to fashion a spell to find out.)

So we have an objective standard for establish rules all the planars would agree on. We can imagine the Angels and Demons even agreeing on the rule set as they don't know what perspective will be theirs once the rules are in place.

However, can he give the Demons any reason why, having agreed to the rules, they should follow them? It seems to me guys like Singer or Rawls can propose useful frameworks for public policy discussion, but they can't give compelling reasons for people to act accordingly.
​

 

[Alzrius]

My advice: Every time pemerton uses the word "objectivity," read it as "intersubjectivity." As humans, we exist in a community of other humans and that community is contingent upon and bounded by biology, historical experience, culture, traditions, norms, social relationships and power, etc. Our moral notions are not, therefore, simply a matter of personal opinion or individual subjectivity.

The last sentence here does not follow after the first. The fact that we have a community does not necessitate that our moral notions are not inherently subjective to the individual. The connections we have via community are not hard-and-fast commandments that we are inextricably tied to, at least insofar as our moral notions go. Rather, they can be likened to suggestions, which can be utilized or discarded or otherwise altered at will. In other words, their exactly as influential as we allow them to be, and thus subjective.

All of the above are real: We're not free to simply pick our views of "good" or "bad" out of a subjective vacuum.

It doesn't matter if there's a vacuum or not. We are indeed free to pick our views of good or bad; the fact that there are a multiplicity of other such views out there, including popular ones throughout a given culture, has little bearing on that - that we can still freely pick what we find to be good or bad exemplifies the subjective nature of morality, even if most everyone around you happens to pick the same thing.

This intersubjectivity contains within it the force of duty, obligation, COMMANDMENT. So Gadamer (not an Anglo-American analytic philosopher, but smarter than most of those guys) writing after the experience of WWII and the Holocaust, says, "The principle that all are free never again can be shaken." Moral truth.

All of the things you listed there have no force - they're voluntary assumptions that we can recognize or discard at will. Hence, this is not at all moral truth; or at least, it's not an objective moral truth.

Today, the Anglo-American academy has decided that this notion of "human flourishing" is the objective foundation of morality. It's important to note that the academy discovers and agrees upon some such notion every generation or so and thereby "solves" the problem of the objective foundations of morality for a while. Our intersubjectivity (our "thought community" or whatever buzzword you like) isn't static, though, so the "solution" is never built to last. Someone like David Hume will come along and bust it up, and then a new (this time for REAL!) objective foundation of morality will need to be discovered anew by a new generation.

Just understand that this notion isn't accepted as "objectivity" by most anyone in Continental Europe or Asia. It's certainly not what you seem to mean by "objectivity." On the other hand, it's not pure subjectivity, either. Pemerton won't concede anything I've just written, but maybe it'll help.

I think that you're making a good point here, but I'm not entirely sure that the middle ground you're positing is one that could be useful in resolving this particular debate. The quality of state of objectivity is typically defined as being binary - it's either an objective existence, or it's not. Saying that something is, in essence, widely regarded as an objective truth due to what can be characterized as massive community pressure on its own members, seems to fall under the notion of still being subjective.

It is also unknowable. And unverifiable. Which was the basis on which you asserted that moral truths are subjective - that there are no "objective criteria" for resolving moral disagreements.

It's important to remember that the the position of the subjectivity of morality is not one that necessarily requires an assertion, due to its self-evident nature. It's inherently recognized that people have personal opinions about things, and that these opinions are inherently going to vary from one person to the next. Even the moral objectivists recognize that - they simply posit that there is an objective morality beyond that; that's the actual assertion, and as such requires evidence to affirm.

What methodology would that be - time travel? How do you propose to count the number of fleas on a cat that has not been alive for thousands of years?

You seem to be under the impression that because the methodology can't be actively utilized, it's therefore invalid. As I've previously stated, however, this is not the case - both people would agree that there's a valid method for determining the number of fleas on a cat, that being "counting them." They simply can't put that methodology into effect in this particular example, even though both agree that it would be an objective determinant if they could. By contrast, there is no such methodology for the determination of an objective moral truth, regardless of the particular circumstances of application. Hence, the example you posted is not at all comparable to the one I posted.

I should also point out that, for exactly this reason, what you describe as a "pretty weak argument" is put forward by Michael Dummett, in "Truth" and other essays in his collection Truth and Other Enigmas, as part of a general attack on realist conceptions of the distant past. A J Ayer also advanced a version of the argument in Language, Truth and Logic, although he later changed his mind on the point (the essay, "Statements About the Past", is published in his collection Philosophical Essays). CS Peirce also advanced a version of the argument, although in this case I can't give you a citation (but you will find one in Ayer's discussion of the point in The Origins of Pragmatism).

You were doing so well with not making vague, uncited references to the works of others in your last post, too. I'll simply reiterate that if you're not giving a direct quote, and not backing that up with a citation, then you're not actually providing evidence to support a given point when engaging in a debate. But then again, I've pointed that out many times now.

Who recognises that? Immanual Kant doesn't. JS Mill doesn't. Joseph Raz doesn't. Peter Singer doesn't. Michael Smith doesn't. Frank Jackson doesn't. I'm pretty sure that many non-academics don't, too. It's not as if a handful of philosophers are the only people in the world who think that morality is objective.

See above. Name-dropping does not make your point so.

It's true that they don't agree on what the correct methodology is, but nor do historians all agree on the best methodology to work out what Cleopatra might have been thinking when she died (nor to work out whether or not she owned a cat, and if so whether or not it had fleas). Yet that doesn't entail that historical truth is subjective.

This doesn't apply to this particular point, since no one is asserting a subjective nature regarding historical truth. In essence, attempting to define an objective moral truth by saying that it has the same epistemic existence as an aspect of the physical world (e.g. the past) is an attempt that fails to live up to the burden of proof issue. Within the limits of empiricism, we can determine that a past exists, and as such we can determine a methodology for interacting with it. This has never been the case for a supposed objectively moral truth.

You are asserting, without any argument, that "we note the lack of any objective moral criteria". To note that X entails that X is true; a person can't note what is false. (In this respect "note" is like "perceive" and "know" and unlike "belief" or "assert".)

You're misunderstanding the nature of that statement here - to note the lack of any objective moral criteria is to examine the proofs of the positive assertion of the existence of an objective moral criteria that others have made, and in having done so, found them to not stand up to scrutiny insofar as providing evidence of an existence beyond being purely subjective. To critique the arguments of others is different from making an assertion of your own.

Hence, your argument begins from an unargued assertion that trivially entails the point which those who believe that morality is objective deny. And, of course, as I've pointed out, those people don't agree that "we note that there are no objective criteria". At best, they note that there is no general consensus on what those criteria are. But they will point out that the same is true in psychology, sociology, history, some branches of natural science, etc.

As per the above, my argument begins from the position that something that is held to be objective requires evidence to prove that that is so. Likewise, those people who don't agree that "there are no objective criteria" must therefore produce some, which can then be examined and critiqued. The very fact that there is no consensus severely undercuts any claims that such assertions can withstand scrutiny, since one of the characteristics of an objective existence is that it can be demonstrated with at least circumstantial evidence to exist despite not being believed in. This speaks to the methodology of determination, rather than results; hence the difference between what can be physically observed, versus a metaphysical belief.

I've pointed to the evidence - namely, that natural language practices around truth and falsehood predication, negation, contradiction, conjunction, etc do not differentiate betwee sentences stating moral claims and other sentences.

And I've examined that evidence, and demonstrated how it fails to live up to the assertions it's held to make. Specifically, that natural language merely reflects the truth and falsehood beliefs of the ones using it, and that this merely demonstrates a conflation between (what's held to be) physical facts with metaphysical beliefs, which does not make those beliefs become imbued with the asserted factual nature of a spoken physical instance. Hence why saying "Germany lost World War II and this was good" fails to demonstrate any morally objective truth to the fact that it was good that Germany lost the war.

Here's more evidence - everyone, including most children older than 3 or 4, recognise that there is such a thing as giving reasons for an action, as providing a justification. That "I did it because I wanted to" isn't, on it's own, a good reason for doing something.

Notice the difference between the first and second sentences, here. The first is essentially a restatement of cause-and-effect relationships. The second sentence, however, tries to slip in a level of justification not found in the first sentence; suddenly it's not enough to have a reason, but now a good reason is required. The goalposts have been moved.

Contrast, in this respect, "I did it because I wanted to, and I wasn't hurting anyone else." That is the provision of a justification - namely, that the action was permissible because there was no countervailing reason against it (ie doing it didn't hurt anyone else).

This is the result of said moved goalposts - it's predicated on the goodness of the reason, rather than having a reason at all. This is where this argument falls apart, because now it's working under the implication that such a justification requires meeting an ill-defined moral justification, instead of simply examining the cause behind an effect.

If you read a libertarian like Hayek or Nozick, they do not argue that "because I wanted to" is a sufficient reason for action. It also must not infringe anyone's rights. That is, they recognise that permissible actions are constrained by the claims or entitlements of others.

This is a belief; I'm not sure if you're trying to say otherwise here, and as such I don't see how this advances a claim that there can be a methodology for determination of an objective morality that withstands scrutiny.

This practice of being ready to give reasons is regarded by some people as constitutive of human beings. Whether or not that is so, it is certainly pretty ubiquitous. And it is another piece of evidence that those who believe in objective morality can point to.

Again, this evidence does not survive being examined to see if moves beyond the boundaries of being a personal belief. Just because something is regarded by some people does not mean that it's an objective truth that demonstrates even the most circumstantial evidence of being true when it's not believed in. Being "pretty ubiquitous" - which is to say, popular - is not the same state as being objectively so. There are many cases where people don't give their reasons, and where, when they do, others don't regard those reasons as being good (e.g. sufficient justification) even though the person giving them would hold that they are. Hence, this fails to move beyond the subjective.

What are reasons, after all, than non-subjective considerations that tell in favour of or against a certain course of action?

There's nothing to say that they're non-subjective. Indeed, reasons are another word for beliefs, which are recognized as being inherently subjective.

I'm not "speaking on behalf of others". I'm telling you what people in a certain community, of which I am a member, typically think.

That's claiming to represent the beliefs of others.

It's frankly bizarre to talk here about sampling - though I believe that David Chalmers has done some (I haven't seen the results). That's not the only way to work out what people think. I know, for instance, what the bulk of my colleagues think about our university administration because I talk to them about it. I know whether or not the kids in my daughter's class like Frozen because I pay attention to what they do and say. I learned that most people in my community will respond to an outstretched hand with a hand shake without sampling them.

Those are all a far cry from saying that you're able to adeptly summarize the viewpoints of the majority of all English-language philosophers.

In all these cases, my knowledge isn't statistically-grounded, it's culturally grounded.

Except that by your own admission, this is not true; these are grounded in personal experiences with the people in question - you've directly observed these results from interacting with the people in question.

Similarly, I learn what moral philosophers think because I talk to them at papers and conferences, read what they publish, read their comments on my material when they review it for publication, etc.

Whereas here - unless you're making the claim that you've met and read the works of 51% or more of English-language philosophers - you're making the jump from material you've personally ascertained to deciding that what you've experienced yourself is representative of a much larger group. That's a tricky claim to make with regards to attitudes and beliefs, since these have such a wide variety among people.

I can tell you that if you walk into the Philosophy Department at Oxford University and tell them that you want to write a thesis defending a relativistic account of morality, their ears will prick up! If you publish a paper setting out a non-objectivist account of moral utterance, Mark van Roojen will write a paper trying to tear it down in pretty short order!

You're moving from the general to the specific, here. Dealing with a small group of specific people, or even one specific individual, is very different from saying that you represent more than half of every English-language philosopher.

If I couldn't give my research students advice on what opinions are widely accepted, what are controversial, etc, what sort of supervisor would I be? For instance, I wouldn't send a thesis defending a broadly Rawlsian conception of political justice to be examined by Greg Benage!

See above. The larger the group whose opinions you claim to represent, the more it's incumbent on you to demonstrate that you're able to be so certain that all of those people are being accurately represented by you.

 

[Greg Benage]

@Greg Benage - you're right that I'm not a Gadamer guy! But like @Alzrius, you seem to be making assumptions about my philosophical views. I haven't indicated whether I am in the mainstream of analytic philosophy or not; I have made any comments about my own view.

I don't think I've presumed. If I were to presume, based on what you've written in the thread, I'd presume that you're a Christian (probably Roman Catholic) traditional realist of the sort I studied with at St. Thomas, and that you're deploying (via shout-out, if not actual argument) Anglo-American analytic philosophy to attack a certain kind of vulgar subjectivism and relativism that no one (outside of dorm-room philosophy debates) really subscribes to anymore. I'd presume that if you put your cards on the table, your commitments would lead you to much stronger claims about objectivity than most analytic philosophers would accept. I'd put a little money on this presumption, but not a lot because I don't know you. You just sound really familiar.

 

[Zhaleskra]

OP: The Multiverse never went anywhere. Perhaps you mean "official" multiverse, whatever that means? Whose official multiverse?