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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6416507" data-attributes="member: 42582">[MENTION=8461]Alzrius[/MENTION]: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.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.I assert (A) that the true alternative is knowable, and is known, and also (1) that the mainstream view among these philosphers is objective.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?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.)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.(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?)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.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.</blockquote>

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