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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 6416304" data-attributes="member: 8461">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.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.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.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.They are, in fact, highly relevant; more on this below.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!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.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.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.This is a semantic distinction, as you have made attempts to demonstrate the manner in which an objective morality could supposedly be determined.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.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.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.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.With regards to (iv), the mod warning is such that I'm not going to post a reply here, which is a shame.I recognize your uncertainty, and would like to reassure you that you're incorrect here.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.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.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.</blockquote>

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