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Thread: Purgatory: What's the point of anger, protests, indignation, petitions and justice...
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
When people talk about tastes, they usually say the cake tastes LIKE coffee, or chocolate. Not tastes OF.
This may be a pond difference.
Tastes of:
Did I use enough coffee/ coffee flavouring? Yes, it tastes of coffee.
Do you like Gran's pudding? Yes/no, it tastes of coffee.
Tastes like:
What does chicory taste of? It tastes a bit like cheap coffee.
Is that coffee or tea? It tastes like coffee.
Well, I'm nowhere near "the pond" but I take the point. The general thrust still stands, though. It is in theory possible for Gran's pudding to give a taste impression of coffee even if it has no coffee in it - exactly the same way that chicory can taste like coffee despite having a completely different composition.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
Pre-cambrian - hang on, it's Marvin who is saying that "I acknowledge I might be mistaken" is functionally equivalent to "Right and wrong are arbitrary". I was disagreeing with that equation.
I'm saying that "I acknowledge I might be mistaken" is not what I mean by "moral subjectivism". Maybe it would be better to avoid the phrase completely as people seem to be using it in completely different senses.
I agree that "acknowledging that I might be mistaken" is essential for any useful debate to take place with those who disagree. Heck, even Cromwell urged the Scots to have this attitude.
But the idea that "morality is arbitrary" rather destroys the possibility of debate, as there is no intellectually compelling reason to switch from one arbitrary morality to another.
Who ever said subjective was the same as arbitrary. As far as I can tell the only people claiming this are those like EE and Dafyd who seem to be building this case against a target they simply do not understand.
quote:
Justinian - as you say, you need an method of ordering! If you say "Seven is greater than three" and someone else says "No, three is greater than seven" then you must be using a different ordering, a different use of the word "greater". It's the absence of a consistent "ordering" that I would regard as problematic. It's the acknowledgement that things can, in principle, be ordered, that I'm after.
They can, in principle, be ordered. This is not a point of disagreement.
The problem is that there are many ways to order things. If you tell me "three is greater than seven" I'm going to look at you as if you are crazy unless you produce a fascinating train of logic behind it. If on the other hand you tell me "Minus seven is greater than three because it is further from zero" I'm going to look at my eyes and rephrase it as "The absolute value of minus seven is greater than the absolute value of three" which is a perfectly true statement and even fits with normal definitions.
Where things get interesting is what happens when we hit two dimensions. Most moral basics are pretty much shared in my experience. "Don't hurt people". "Don't lie". Those are two obvious ones - and both normally come with scales. The fascinating moral questions arise when you get moral scales that run into conflict with each other. Where does "lying to save someone's life" fit? (Probably a good thing). As far as I know, without ducking the issue and saying "Never go below 0 on any scale" (which only solves one part of the problem) or establishing a hierarchy of categorical imperatives that lead to decidedly weird results there isn't a moral system ever invented that will resolve all such issues.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo
Of course it's not a crime. But it does rather curtail debate.
Funny, but last time I looked there were over 100 responses on this thread. And it appears that there is quite a vigorous debate. So what are you talking about??
quote:
Although, in this particular case, you appear to have done an excellent job of finding people who disagree with your point of view strongly enough to tell you so. Whether or not they have any expectation that they might succeed in changing your views is something you'd have to ask them.
Well, waddya know? Purg is actually functioning as it's supposed to. People disagree with me! Well I never....
I am certainly open to changing my views, if a coherent and irrefutable argument is presented. Perhaps one of my detractors would like to present one? (Although it's very difficult to imagine what a coherent argument would look like within a subjectivist epistemology!). And, of course, I hope that you will inform these other contributors that they should also be open to changing their views.
Or is your protest just a subtle roundabout way of saying that you disagree with me, while trying to appear open-minded? (In other words, have you come to this debate with fixed conclusions yourself, and are just annoyed that my conclusions don't tally with yours?)
[ 19. July 2012, 17:18: Message edited by: EtymologicalEvangelical ]
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Permit me to shove my oar in, but I refer you to this post.
I think you are conflating two separate senses of the word "objective". Dafyd, AIUI, is saying that morality is objective in sense 1 but not in sense 2.
I should have replied to the post you linked - it was one of the more interesting sidenotes. And your analogy is interesting - but I'd change the analogies used:
In sense 1 the third planet orbiting Procyon Beta in the universe one to the right has a mass 1.2136 times that of the earth (assuming it is). This is a fact - but it is untestable by humans - we can not see into that universe. So it is true in sense 1 but not in sense 2.
The subjectivists would say to any attempt to link this fact or others like it to morality "so what?" As I understand it the objectivists are fine with facts such as that for a basis for morality. (Your example of the failing memory is one which tested the memories not what actually happened).
The thing is that Dafyd is making two fundamental mistakes. The first is he isn't saying why he doesn't join the other side - he's out and out defining what the side opposed to him means. Not even why their approach is dangerous but literally what they mean. The second is sloppy logic and a poor understanding of what subjective and objective mean (as I have demonstrated).
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Or is your protest just a subtle roundabout way of saying that you disagree with me, while trying to appear open-minded? (In other words, have you come to this debate with fixed conclusions yourself, and are just annoyed that my conclusions don't tally with yours?)
Nope. You hinted at this before, so it's worth responding to head you off (and didn't you notice that last time I had a problem with your arguing style, I specifically indicated that I agreed with your conclusion that God existed while finding your means of arguing for his existence thoroughly unconvincing?)
The objection was to the mode of discourse, not the content. My consideration of methods and my consideration of content are uncoupled a lot of the time. For example, I get pretty annoyed/embarrassed when people who agree with me in say, the political sphere adopt bad tactics to advance "our" cause. The means have to be right as well as the end.
I also don't cheer if a sporting team I support wins by cheating. Nor (and I'm sure I've raised this particular example on the Ship before) did I join in when about 20,000 people booed a referee for sending one of our guys off, because I'd seen as clear as day that our guy had stomped on an opponent's head.
And you should have seen the looks I got for expressing the view that actually, the penalty Italy got against Australia in the 2006 World Cup was probably a correct decision. Ay-ay-ay, how "un-Australian" was I for expressing THAT view the morning after the game...
I'm not trying to paint myself as some kind of superior being here, I'm simply pointing out that I have a recurring history of treating agreement with a conclusion and agreement with the method of arriving at the conclusion as two very separate questions. You should not, ahem, draw any conclusions about my conclusions just because I don't agree with your methods of arguing. I'm not saying I won't arrive at the same destination, I'm only saying that I won't be following the same route.
[ 19. July 2012, 17:34: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd
Morality, for a moral subjectivist, is a sophisticated way of saying 'do it because I say so'.
I would phrase it more as "I think you should do this because I think it is better than what you're currently doing, and here are my reasons for thinking so. But I'm interested in hearing your reasons for thinking the things you do are better - let's have a chat about it and see if one of us can't persuade the other that they're right."
I am rather confused as to how this approach is "subjective". If two people are trying to persuade each other to come to a better moral position, then surely there must exist something outside the minds of each of these people (i.e. something "objective") to which they appeal in order to win the argument. How can I persuade someone that my view is correct if my only argument is: "I want you to accept my position because I think it"? That is absurd. I could not possibly appeal to a subjective principle in order to persuade others. What I would say is: "I would like you to consider my view, because it makes sense out there in the real world, and we both acknowledge that it is inherently right to care for people rather than harm them." In other words, I would be appealing to two objective principles: what works in the external world, and an objectively recognised moral sense of care for people. On this basis we can both assess which moral positions are better than others.
But how can "better" be defined simply on the basis of the subjective: "I think it. Period." (Which is what subjective means: relating entirely to the mind of the subject).
quote:
Objective morality says "these laws shall be the ones we use, regardless of whether anyone likes them or the impact they have on society, and they can never ever change regardless of any new ideas or evidence that might come along."
This is certainly not my view. To acknowledge an objective basis to our morality does not mean that we cannot frame laws with reference to a changing context. But how can we decide which laws are most suited to the context unless there is an unchanging underlying moral agenda, by which we select the most appopriate laws? Let me give you the analogy of a tennis match. Roger Federer doesn't use the same shot every rally does he? He changes his tactics throughout the game depending on the conditions of each rally, game and set. He does this because he is pursuing an unchanging goal: to win the game. The goal of winning the game according to the rules is his "objective position" whereas the constant change of tactics and shots is the complex method he uses to achieve this end. The idea that "objectivity" involves employing a single tactic or shot on every point is, of course, absurd. But this is what you seem to be suggesting.
quote:
Subjective morality says "OK, we've got to set some laws. Let's work out between ourselves what we think the best way to structure our society is, and then once we've reached a consensus and/or a set of laws that most people can be happy with we'll go with them. But we'll keep in mind that there might be a better way of doing things, and we'll always be open to changing our laws if someone comes along with a persuasive reason why we should."
See my point above re your response to Dafyd.
quote:
Do you see the difference?
Clearly I do.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
What I would say is: "I would like you to consider my view, because it makes sense out there in the real world, and we both acknowledge that it is inherently right to care for people rather than harm them." In other words, I would be appealing to two objective principles: what works in the external world, and an objectively recognised moral sense of care for people. On this basis we can both assess which moral positions are better than others.
Those two principles seem to have quite different bases, though. The idea of what works in practice is capable of a kind of assessment - one where people may reach different conclusions if you've got something that is more prone to qualitative measurement rather than quantitative, and one where the proposition can be falsified by measurement/evidence that shows that actually, it isn't working.
Whereas the idea of something being 'inherently right' simply isn't falsifiable by evidence. It's a value judgement. An axiom.
To describe BOTH of those things by the one word, 'objective', tends to demonstrate that just having two categories of 'subjective' and 'objective' isn't really cutting it.
[ 19. July 2012, 18:17: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian
That's just an attempt to use God of the Gaps. Morality can be explained as an evolutionarily advantageous thing for any social animal and an emergent property of any society with individuals interacting.
In other words, "evolution (or naturalism) of the gaps". Or, begging the question.
quote:
And how the naturalistic fallacy is relevant is something you're going to explain.
It's completely relevant. You made an appeal to empiricism, and I question whether morality can be ascertained by that naturalistic method. It cannot. Hence my reference to dynamite. If the only reference we have is nature - i.e. the physical realm - then it clearly cannot be the source of our morality. So morality must come from elsewhere: a non-empirical realm such as a supernatural reality (e.g. God) or our own minds / consciousness.
Therefore your comment about not hearing, seeing or touching God is irrelevant, as concerns moral authority. We cannot hear, see or touch our own minds or consciousness, but presumably you think that that is the source of our morality.
All your comments about dynamite are irrelevant. We cannot ascertain what we ought to do with dynamite from its empirical properties. You say:
quote:
But a simple look at the properties of people and the unsafe building will give us the answer.
No it won't. I am sure that Al-Qaeda operatives have a simple look at the properties of people and their environment and decide to use explosives in a destructive way. Nothing about the empirical properties of people and buildings tell us how we ought to relate to those entities.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical
So empiricism gets us nowhere morally. Therefore your criticism of my answer makes no sense.
You might as well say that looking at a horse's tail and only its tail gets you nowhere in telling you how fast the horse runs. And therefore looking at a horse is useless.
That is a category error. If I looked at every single atom and sub-atomic particle in the entire universe - and, of course, this would include analysing every aspect of a horse's anatomy and functioning - I will not discover whether I ought to ride a horse in order to charge and injure a child or whether to give that same child a free riding lesson.
So your argument is irrelevant. You cannot discover morality by observing nature.
quote:
(And yes, the properties of the dynamite are relevant - blowing up dynamite in a crowded area is very different to blowing up a water bomb in a crowded area).
So Al-Qaeda ought to go for dynamite then, yes?
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Then why on earth do you claim that your morality is objective when it is very clearly a mix of your subjective perceptions and some things you consider to be objective?
Where have I said "my morality is objective"? I've used F3 to search this thread and I can't find it.
If I did say that, I retract it as being a nonsensical thing to say.
Are we perhaps talking past each other? Do you think that by 'objective' I mean 'unbiased'?
When we say 'morality is objective' (no possessive pronoun) I mean that moral judgements say something that is objectively there independently of our judgements about it. And when I say that moral judgements are objective I mean the same thing: the truth or falsehood of a moral judgement depends on some set of morally relevant facts independent upon that judgement. Therefore, I do not mean to say that moral judgements are unbiased.
Clear?
When we say that morality is subjective we mean it is not the kind of thing that can be false or in error.
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Taste of cake is subjective. Chemical composition is not subjective.
You determine the chemical composition of molecules using your perceptions. Your perceptions are not entirely free of subjective elements. Therefore, by the same boolean logic that determines that moral statements are subjective chemical statements such as statements of chemical composition are subjective.
Except... your argument for the boolean nature of objective/subjective makes perfect sense if by objective you mean 'unbiased' and by 'subjective' you mean 'biased by personal psychology'. But it makes no sense to say that chemical compositions are not biased by personal psychology. It only makes sense to say chemical compositions are not subjective if you're using subjective in the way that I'm using it. But then your argument for the boolean nature of objective/subjective falls apart completely.
Could you elucidate your argument to make it clear that you're not falling victim to your own fallacy of ambiguity?
quote:
And trivial is not the same thing as meaningless. "Concentrated Hydrochloric Acid is corrosive" is trivial - but that doesn't mean sticking hazard warning labels on bottles is meaningless.
it is worth repeating that it it is trivially true every time someone tries to tell you something trivially true is in fact false.
That's not what I mean by trivial. An illustration: Suppose somebody is subjected to an operation whereby the input from their green and blue cones is redirected to the red part of their brain. They see every colour as red.
So to tell them that something is red is trivial and completely uninformative. Everything is red. And if somebody tells them that something is blue that's not even in fact false. They cannot be misled by being told that something is blue since the blue/red distinction just doesn't exist for them.
The analogy for the way I use 'trivial' is going around sticking labels on all the bottles in a laboratory that say 'may contain chemicals'.
If the physical sciences are just as subjective as morality then it becomes meaningless to say that morality is subjective because the objective/subjective distinction just doesn't exist. Saying morality is subjective is like complaining that our drinking water contains lots of chemicals.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Nothing that you're saying so far requires the use of moral language.
Neither does it preclude such use.
I don't see why the best approach to morality can't be discussed in the same way as the best approach to shipping food overseas.
That's not quite my point. My point is to ask why introduce moral considerations at all.
But also... the best approach to morality? Does 'best' mean 'morally best' or does it mean 'best' in some other, amoral, sense?
If it means morally best then discussing the best approach to morality is inherently begging the question. If it means 'best' in some other sense what sense is that? What standard is being used?
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Where have I said "my morality is objective"? I've used F3 to search this thread and I can't find it.
If I did say that, I retract it as being a nonsensical thing to say.
You haven't. You have, however, quite deliberately waded into what is essentially a two sided argument and fired off broadsides right from the get-go entirely saying that subjective morality makes you a bad person (never mind the fact that all you are showing is that by redefining the language you can project things on other people) while saying absolutely nothing bad about objective approaches to morality.
I offered you simply claiming your morality to be neither in the very post you are replying to and also said why I consider it not reflective of your reasoning.
quote:
When we say that morality is subjective we mean it is not the kind of thing that can be false or in error.
I have demonstrated why this is the humpty-dumpty school of debating. You may use language that way but I and an entire half of this argument do not. And I find it not to be in line with the common use of the English language.
Now stop attempting to define terms to claim victory when I have laid out very clearly what the terms as I use them mean and why your attempt to redefine them is not compatable with my ordinary understanding of the English language.
You can, of course, define the terms for yourself in your own essays. But to attempt to define how the other side is using them when orfeo and I have both said how we are using them is a cheap rhetorical trick and entirely unworthy of you.
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You determine the chemical composition of molecules using your perceptions.
You might. If I'm trying to determine the chemical composition of molecules I use a mass-spectrometer - my eyesight certainly isn't sharp enough. One of the purposes of using a mass-spec is to make sure that my senses have as little a distortionary impact as possible - and where they do mean I differ from someone else's reading one of us is right and the other wrong.
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That's not what I mean by trivial. An illustration:
Having read your illustration, what you mean by trivial is irrelevant. Mathematics isn't subjective. What actually happened at a time isn't subjective - even if what we saw happening and even how it was taken by the participants is.
quote:
Saying morality is subjective is like complaining that our drinking water contains lots of chemicals.
I convinced my physics teacher to sign a petition to ban DiHydrogen Monoxide many years ago...
And part right on the "drinking water contains lots of chemicals" issue. Saying our morality is subjective, at least from my perspective, is only necessary when someone representing a water company tries to claim that the water is absolutely pure and objective. I don't feel the need to say that humans evolved unless there is a creationist claiming otherwise. I don't feel the need to say that morality is objective unless someone speaking for a religion (or one of Ayn Rand's followers) tries to claim that morality is objective.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Ramarius
Shipmate
# 16551
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Posted
@Justinian. You reckoned that objective + subjective = subjective.
Nope. I'm seated on a chair (objective). The colour of the chair is pleasing to me (subjective). How does my subjective view of the colour of the chair make the fact I'm sitting on it subjective?
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Ramarius
Shipmate
# 16551
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Posted
@Pre Cambrian. You wrote 'Firstly, of course, to say that morality is subjective is not to say that one's views of "right and wrong" are arbitrary. That is an unmerited slur on how people have arrived at their moral views.'
Hmmm.....no. The validity of a view doesn't depend on how you come by it. That's the genetic fallacy. You can come to an entirely correct conclusion by an entirely arbitrary route.
Read Drew's post up thread. And Daffyd's 'When we say 'morality is objective' (no possessive pronoun) I mean that moral judgements say something that is objectively there independently of our judgements about it. And when I say that moral judgements are objective I mean the same thing: the truth or falsehood of a moral judgement depends on some set of morally relevant facts independent upon that judgement. Therefore, I do not mean to say that moral judgements are unbiased.' ...also sums up the issue nicely.
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Posts: 950 | From: Virtually anywhere | Registered: Jul 2011
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TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Who ever said subjective was the same as arbitrary. As far as I can tell the only people claiming this are those like EE and Dafyd who seem to be building this case against a target they simply do not understand.
You didn't, but some people do take this line - Marvin, for example, now seems to be saying that indeed, "subjective" is basically the same as "arbitrary".
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originallyposted by TurquoiseTastic:
Justinian - as you say, you need an method of ordering! If you say "Seven is greater than three" and someone else says "No, three is greater than seven" then you must be using a different ordering, a different use of the word "greater". It's the absence of a consistent "ordering" that I would regard as problematic. It's the acknowledgement that things can, in principle, be ordered, that I'm after.
They can, in principle, be ordered. This is not a point of disagreement.
I think indeed you and I are agreed on this. But not everyone is agreed on this.
quote:
The problem is that there are many ways to order things. If you tell me "three is greater than seven" I'm going to look at you as if you are crazy unless you produce a fascinating train of logic behind it. If on the other hand you tell me "Minus seven is greater than three because it is further from zero" I'm going to look at my eyes and rephrase it as "The absolute value of minus seven is greater than the absolute value of three" which is a perfectly true statement and even fits with normal definitions.
OK. But here, in order to resolve the disagreement about ordering, we are carefully thinking about the objective mathematics behind it - defining things like "absolute value". As you say, we have to "produce a fascinating train of logic". And ultimately we have to agree on our terms.
Similarly if we want to tease out the roots of a moral disagreement, we have to think about the roots of our morality and work out what principles it is based on.
quote:
Where things get interesting is what happens when we hit two dimensions. Most moral basics are pretty much shared in my experience. "Don't hurt people". "Don't lie". Those are two obvious ones - and both normally come with scales.
What would we do if confronted with someone who didn't accept these "obvious" principles though? There do seem to be a small but significant number of such people around.
quote:
The fascinating moral questions arise when you get moral scales that run into conflict with each other. Where does "lying to save someone's life" fit? (Probably a good thing). As far as I know, without ducking the issue and saying "Never go below 0 on any scale" (which only solves one part of the problem) or establishing a hierarchy of categorical imperatives that lead to decidedly weird results there isn't a moral system ever invented that will resolve all such issues.
But we still generally try to "do the right thing" - most people make a judgement that "lying to save someone's life" is indeed normally the objectively right thing to do. I don't think the proponents of "objective morality" on this thread would have a problem with that.
Posts: 1092 | From: Hants., UK | Registered: Jan 2005
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ramarius:
@Justinian. You reckoned that objective + subjective = subjective.
Nope. I'm seated on a chair (objective). The colour of the chair is pleasing to me (subjective). How does my subjective view of the colour of the chair make the fact I'm sitting on it subjective?
That's not objective + subjective. That's objective + irrelevant.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
But also... the best approach to morality? Does 'best' mean 'morally best' or does it mean 'best' in some other, amoral, sense?
If it means morally best then discussing the best approach to morality is inherently begging the question. If it means 'best' in some other sense what sense is that? What standard is being used?
"Best" as in "what is most likely to lead to the sort of society we want to live in".
Of course, first we have to decide what sort of society we want to live in. That's the hard part, and if we can't all agree on the basic structure we want our society to have then it'll have to either go down to popular vote or result in the society splitting into two.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
When we say that morality is subjective we mean it is not the kind of thing that can be false or in error.
But it also cannot be true! You're focusing on the part of it that means we can't say anyone else is definitely wrong, while ignoring the part that means we can't say we are definitely right!
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ramarius:
I mean that moral judgements say something that is objectively there independently of our judgements about it.
No.
An example: someone has been killed. That is objective fact. The question of whether it is moral that they were killed is subjective - there is no "good" or "bad" that is objectively there independently of our judgements about the situation.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
The subjectivists would say to any attempt to link this fact or others like it to morality "so what?" As I understand it the objectivists are fine with facts such as that for a basis for morality. (Your example of the failing memory is one which tested the memories not what actually happened).
The thing is that Dafyd is making two fundamental mistakes. The first is he isn't saying why he doesn't join the other side - he's out and out defining what the side opposed to him means. Not even why their approach is dangerous but literally what they mean. The second is sloppy logic and a poor understanding of what subjective and objective mean (as I have demonstrated).
My own perspective is that I'm not sure what people mean when they call themselves moral subjectivists. My impression from this thread is that they mean several different things. ISTM that EE is basically arguing against existentialism, which is indeed a form of moral subjectivism, but I don't think I've ever met an existentialist in real life.
AIUI, the terms 'subjective' and 'objective' come from Kant. In Kant, if you take a sentence like 'Friedrich sees the tree', the tree-in-itself is described as 'objective' (because it's the object of sight), and the sensory impressions produced by the tree are 'subjective' (because they affect the subject of the sentence, i.e. Friedrich). And Friedrich cannot actually perceive the tree-in-itself, but only the sensory impressions it produces. This has the consequence that the entirety of human knowledge is subjective, or (to put it another way) we can only know about subjective sense-impressions, never about objective things-as-they-are.
IME, when people actually say 'subjective' and 'objective', that is not quite what they mean, but the degree to which they deviate from Kant depends on the degree to which their philosophy differs from Kant's.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Where have I said "my morality is objective"? I've used F3 to search this thread and I can't find it.
If I did say that, I retract it as being a nonsensical thing to say.
You haven't. You have, however, quite deliberately waded into what is essentially a two sided argument and fired off broadsides right from the get-go entirely saying that subjective morality makes you a bad person (never mind the fact that all you are showing is that by redefining the language you can project things on other people) while saying absolutely nothing bad about objective approaches to morality.
1. Is 'deliberately waded in' an irregular verb? I contribute to a discussion on a discussion board; you deliberately wade in? My post to which you originally replied was a reply to Croesos. Would you say that you were deliberately wading in to an argument between me and Croesos?
2.a. In the post you cite I was deliberately using exactly the same words that Croesos had just used of believers in objective morality. So if you think the phrasing was offensive take it up with Croesos.
2.b. What I said didn't amount to saying that subjective morality makes someone a bad person. Moral subjectivism is a theory about what people are doing or talking about when they are using moral language - i.e. they are expressing personal preferences. That does not, according to most moral subjectivists, imply that people who believe it are any less moral than anybody else. (To the best of my knowledge the leading philosopher advancing the line of thought that I'm criticising is a Guardian-reading liberal and a perfectly decent person.)
3. I said nothing about approaches to morality either objective or subjective. I am talking about morality, not about approaches to morality.
quote:
I offered you simply claiming your morality to be neither in the very post you are replying to and also said why I consider it not reflective of your reasoning.
The F*** you did. The answer I gave was that your question was based on "fallacious" premises because "you cannot collapse the objective and subjective components of a judgement into a single component". You put the word 'undefined' into my mouth on the basis of your bare unsupported assertions that I'm not allowed to give an answer that isn't Boolean.
quote:
quote:
When we say that morality is subjective we mean it is not the kind of thing that can be false or in error.
I have demonstrated why this is the humpty-dumpty school of debating. You may use language that way but I and an entire half of this argument do not. And I find it not to be in line with the common use of the English language.
Anyway, from dictionary.com
quote:
1. existing independently of perception or an individual's conceptions: are there objective moral values?
2. undistorted by emotion or personal bias
3. of or relating to actual and external phenomena as opposed to thoughts, feelings, etc
Now, EE and I are using 'objective' in senses 1 and 3, which are closely related. That is, when I talk about 'objective morality' I'm using it in sense 1; when I talk about 'objective judgements' I'm using it in sense 3. A judgement is objective (sense 3) when it is about something that is objective (sense 1). (My hardcopy dictionary doesn't even bother to distinguish between senses 1 and 3.) And I'm using 'subjective' as the antonym in both cases. These are the senses that are relevant to philosophical discussion. This is a philosophical discussion. I do not think it is unreasonable to use the words in those senses.
Sense 2 is unrelated. A judgement that is subjective in sense 2 may be about something that is objective in sense 1 and therefore objective in sense 3.
As far as I can tell you are treating senses 1 and 3 as if they are interchangeable with sense 2. There's a clear instance of you doing just that further down in your post. But that's a fallacy of equivocation because the two senses have no logical link between them. (Whereas sense 1 and 3 do have a logical link between them.)
quote:
Now stop attempting to define terms to claim victory when I have laid out very clearly what the terms as I use them mean and why your attempt to redefine them is not compatable with my ordinary understanding of the English language.
I am attempting to define terms to achieve clarity. Not to claim victory.
And no, you haven't even started to make it clear what the terms as you use them mean.
If you are referring to your sentence, "If taste isn't subjective then nothing involving the senses is." then that is nothing more than a sentence using the word 'subjective'. It certainly doesn't do anything to make it clear whether you're distinguishing between senses 2 and 3. And the rest of that post goes on in the same vein, using the words as if their meaning is already settled and clear, without doing anything to clarify them.
quote:
But to attempt to define how the other side is using them when orfeo and I have both said how we are using them is a cheap rhetorical trick and entirely unworthy of you.
If you are not using the words in the sense in which I am using them then you are not the other side. The only way in which you can qualify for membership of the other side is if you disagree with what I am saying in the sense in which I am using the words.
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quote:
You determine the chemical composition of molecules using your perceptions.
You might. If I'm trying to determine the chemical composition of molecules I use a mass-spectrometer - my eyesight certainly isn't sharp enough. One of the purposes of using a mass-spec is to make sure that my senses have as little a distortionary impact as possible - and where they do mean I differ from someone else's reading one of us is right and the other wrong.
If combining subjective and objective is a Boolean operation then it doesn't matter how little distortionary impact your senses have. If they have even the most miniscule idiosyncratic impact at all - and as the mass spectrometer is not wired directly into your brain they do - the entire operation is just as subjective as if you'd hallucinated the whole thing. Because there are no degrees of subjectivity if subjectivity is Boolean.
This is ridiculous, and the ridiculousness is derived from treating subjective/objective as Boolean.
quote:
What actually happened at a time isn't subjective - even if what we saw happening and even how it was taken by the participants is.
What happened at a time isn't subjective in sense 1. What we saw happening and how it was taken by the participants are subjective in sense 2. It would be nonsense to interpret the first half of the sentence in sense 2 and nonsense to interpret the second half of the sentence in sense 1.
As I said above, you are equivocating within the course of one sentence.
quote:
Saying our morality is subjective, at least from my perspective, is only necessary when someone representing a water company tries to claim that the water is absolutely pure and objective.
A case study. Vince Cable is studying whether to allow News International to take over BSkyB. It turns out that he already believes that News International has too much influence on public life already, and on the basis that he has a prior prejudice, the task is taken away from him and given to Jeremy Hunt. Jeremy Hunt it turns out is best pals with News International executives.
So there would have been subjective factors (his prior opinions about News International) entering into Vince Cable's decision. Either his decision was distorted by subjective factors or it was undistorted. 0 or 1, subjective or objective. There were subjective factors, so 0.
There were subjective factors (his pallyness with News International) entering into Jeremy Hunt's decision. Either his decision was distorted by subjective factors or it was undistorted. 0 or 1, subjective or objective. There were subjective factors, so 0.
Conclusion: if you are right that objectivity is either 0 or 1 then Jeremy Hunt's decision was no more distorted by subjective factors than Vince Cable's would have been. So I reject your application of Boolean algebra to subjectivity and objectivity.
If there are no degrees of objectivity it is impossible for the mainstream media to be any more objective than Fox News. And certainly that's what Fox News says. I disagree. So I reject your application of Boolean algebra to subjectivity and objectivity.
Fox News gets away with its 'all bias is equal' fallacy by trading on people's "ordinary understanding of the English language". Because "ordinary understanding of the English language" fails to distinguish between the senses of words and so leads people to fallacious conclusions.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Anyway, from dictionary.com
quote:
1. existing independently of perception or an individual's conceptions: are there objective moral values?
2. undistorted by emotion or personal bias
3. of or relating to actual and external phenomena as opposed to thoughts, feelings, etc
Now, EE and I are using 'objective' in senses 1 and 3, which are closely related. That is, when I talk about 'objective morality' I'm using it in sense 1; when I talk about 'objective judgements' I'm using it in sense 3.
OK then, if morality exists independently of any individual's perception and/or conception, then show me some of it. Just one molecule of morality would be enough to persuade me that it's something that can exist independently of human thought. Or maybe it's a fundamental force like gravity or magnetism - can you demonstrate its strength? Which SI unit is it measured in?
If there were no people to believe that iron exists, it would still be there in the ground. If there were no people to believe that gravity exists, the stars, planets and moons would still orbit one other. But if there were no people around to believe morality exists, there would be no such thing as morality.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If there were no people to believe that iron exists, it would still be there in the ground. If there were no people to believe that gravity exists, the stars, planets and moons would still orbit one other. But if there were no people around to believe morality exists, there would be no such thing as morality.
The answer which I think EE is pushing for is that it must exist in the mind of God.
That is, anyone who believes in objective (sense 1) morality must be either a theist or logically inconsistent.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
...if morality exists independently of any individual's perception and/or conception, then show me some of it. Just one molecule of morality would be enough to persuade me that it's something that can exist independently of human thought. Or maybe it's a fundamental force like gravity or magnetism - can you demonstrate its strength? Which SI unit is it measured in?
If there were no people to believe that iron exists, it would still be there in the ground. If there were no people to believe that gravity exists, the stars, planets and moons would still orbit one other. But if there were no people around to believe morality exists, there would be no such thing as morality.
You are assuming that the philosophy of naturalism is true, and therefore you are interpreting external realities in purely empirical terms. Of course, morality is not something material, but who said that the only reality external to all human minds is material / natural?
I would argue that the necessity of the objective basis for both morality and reason constitutes evidence that a non-natural - or rather super-natural - reality exists external to any human mind. In fact, this is the only explanation which makes logical sense.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
That is, anyone who believes in objective (sense 1) morality must be either a theist or logically inconsistent.
I'd certainly agree with that. Of course I'd also point out that religion, being a matter for faith and belief rather than proof and knowledge, is itself a subjective thing.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
You are assuming that the philosophy of naturalism is true, and therefore you are interpreting external realities in purely empirical terms. Of course, morality is not something material, but who said that the only reality external to all human minds is material / natural?
Depends what you mean by "reality".
quote:
I would argue that the necessity of the objective basis for both morality and reason constitutes evidence that a non-natural - or rather super-natural - reality exists external to any human mind.
You haven't successfully argued that there is a need for an objective basis for both morality and reason yet. All you've done is stated your belief in that claim and treated it as if it's absolute truth.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
Of course I'd also point out that religion, being a matter for faith and belief rather than proof and knowledge, is itself a subjective thing.
A point with which I would disagree (especially considering that "faith and belief" are not necessarily opposed to "proof and knowledge").
By the way... you seem to be implying that "knowledge" is something objective. But knowledge can only exist in minds. So how can it be objective, if "objectivity" is defined as that which is external to human minds?
quote:
You haven't successfully argued that there is a need for an objective basis for both morality and reason yet.
Apparently I have, if the lack of refutation is anything to go by.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
1. Is 'deliberately waded in' an irregular verb? I contribute to a discussion on a discussion board; you deliberately wade in? My post to which you originally replied was a reply to Croesos. Would you say that you were deliberately wading in to an argument between me and Croesos?
I apologise for the waded in comment - on reviewing the thread it turned out that you had been involved in the thread for a couple of posts before you launched a full broadside and massively raised the temperature of the thread by declaring what those you were objecting to meant.
quote:
2.a. In the post you cite I was deliberately using exactly the same words that Croesos had just used of believers in objective morality. So if you think the phrasing was offensive take it up with Croesos.
It was partly offensive because it is incoherent and missing the target. "reality is what the believer in subjective morality says it is" doesn't follow from anything and isn't in fact true. It may be true in some cases (it may even be true in Creosus' case).
2.b. What I said didn't amount to saying that subjective morality makes someone a bad person. Moral subjectivism is a theory about what people are doing or talking about when they are using moral language - i.e. they are expressing personal preferences. That does not, according to most moral subjectivists, imply that people who believe it are any less moral than anybody else. (To the best of my knowledge the leading philosopher advancing the line of thought that I'm criticising is a Guardian-reading liberal and a perfectly decent person.)
quote:
3. I said nothing about approaches to morality either objective or subjective. I am talking about morality, not about approaches to morality.
And that, I see, as a distinction without a difference unless you argue a perfect understanding of morality to have been poured ex nihilo into your skull.
quote:
The F*** you did. The answer I gave was that your question was based on "fallacious" premises because "you cannot collapse the objective and subjective components of a judgement into a single component". You put the word 'undefined' into my mouth on the basis of your bare unsupported assertions that I'm not allowed to give an answer that isn't Boolean.
Then you can define it. As neither objective nor subjective I trust. It is currently undefined within the frame of this discussion.
quote:
Anyway, from dictionary.com
quote:
1. existing independently of perception or an individual's conceptions: are there objective moral values?
2. undistorted by emotion or personal bias
3. of or relating to actual and external phenomena as opposed to thoughts, feelings, etc
Better.
1: You're not talking about specific moral values - you're talking about morality, which includes those values and their application. It can't not include their application because the map is not the territory. So it fails here.
2: This is an ideal to aim for. "I'm trying to be objective about this case". It's not something you can actually achieve.
3: If thoughts don't have a place in morality, wtf?
Morality fails to be objective on all three counts.
quote:
Now, EE and I are using 'objective' in senses 1 and 3, which are closely related. That is, when I talk about 'objective morality' I'm using it in sense 1; when I talk about 'objective judgements' I'm using it in sense 3. A judgement is objective (sense 3) when it is about something that is objective (sense 1). (My hardcopy dictionary doesn't even bother to distinguish between senses 1 and 3.)
And as I've said above it fails in the cases of points 1 and 3. It isn't objective. It needs to be processed through your brain.
And as for sense 3, show me a lump of morality. An atom will do. Show me it is objectively there.
quote:
Sense 2 is unrelated. A judgement that is subjective in sense 2 may be about something that is objective in sense 1 and therefore objective in sense 3.
Sense 2 is off to one side - and it's the one you mess up later in the post. An ideal to aim for (like a frictionless surface) may not be possible. But that doesn't make it less of an ideal.
quote:
I am attempting to define terms to achieve clarity. Not to claim victory.
"reality is what the believer in subjective morality says it is" sounds like definition to me.
quote:
And no, you haven't even started to make it clear what the terms as you use them mean.
If you are referring to your sentence, "If taste isn't subjective then nothing involving the senses is." then that is nothing more than a sentence using the word 'subjective'. It certainly doesn't do anything to make it clear whether you're distinguishing between senses 2 and 3.
Sense 3. Sense 2 is the one that's best expressed as an ideal.
quote:
If combining subjective and objective is a Boolean operation then it doesn't matter how little distortionary impact your senses have. If they have even the most miniscule idiosyncratic impact at all - and as the mass spectrometer is not wired directly into your brain they do - the entire operation is just as subjective as if you'd hallucinated the whole thing.
The output of a mass-spec is, I believe, digital - meaning that you are objectively right or objectively wrong with respect to what you are reporting from it. And one of the points of scientific apparatus is to get as close as possible to the objective. Objectively wrong is possible. It is possible for your reading of the screen to not match the objective numbers displayed. The second you throw in a value judgement the whole thing becomes subjective.
quote:
A case study. Vince Cable is studying whether to allow News International to take over BSkyB. It turns out that he already believes that News International has too much influence on public life already, and on the basis that he has a prior prejudice, the task is taken away from him and given to Jeremy Hunt. Jeremy Hunt it turns out is best pals with News International executives.
So there would have been subjective factors (his prior opinions about News International) entering into Vince Cable's decision. Either his decision was distorted by subjective factors or it was undistorted. 0 or 1, subjective or objective. There were subjective factors, so 0.
There were subjective factors (his pallyness with News International) entering into Jeremy Hunt's decision. Either his decision was distorted by subjective factors or it was undistorted. 0 or 1, subjective or objective. There were subjective factors, so 0.
Conclusion: if you are right that objectivity is either 0 or 1 then Jeremy Hunt's decision was no more distorted by subjective factors than Vince Cable's would have been. So I reject your application of Boolean algebra to subjectivity and objectivity.
And you do so by the fallacy of the excluded middle. There were subjective factors involved and the decision was ultimately made on a subjective basis. That is why you need to take precautions to minimise the impact of those factors. What matters is not just whether it was subjective (yes it was) but what the subjective factors were and how much impact they had.
Any claim that it was objective is spurious. Any claim that they tried to be objective (i.e. objective as in sense 2) backed up by evidence for this is to be lauded.
quote:
If there are no degrees of objectivity it is impossible for the mainstream media to be any more objective than Fox News. And certainly that's what Fox News says. I disagree. So I reject your application of Boolean algebra to subjectivity and objectivity.
Tell me that when the rest of the mainstream media goes to court to support its right to lie on air. Fox News doesn't even attempt to be objective.
That something is subjective means that it is flawed and may be wrong. This is not a call to give up all hope of mitigating the errors that will inevitably creep in - an attempt to be objective despite the fact it is doomed to fail still has meaning. It is an acceptance that you will be wrong and should continually be on guard against it. In Christian terms it is a statement about this being a fallen world.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
When we say that morality is subjective we mean it is not the kind of thing that can be false or in error.
But it also cannot be true! You're focusing on the part of it that means we can't say anyone else is definitely wrong, while ignoring the part that means we can't say we are definitely right!
Yes! Somebody who disagrees with me understands me. ![[Axe murder]](graemlins/lovedrops.gif)
Yes, up to a point. If you put it the other way round you get we can't say we might be wrong and we can't say that they might be right.
The argument goes like this: what does it mean to say that somebody else is right? Or that what they say is true. Basically, according to the argument it is just repeating what the other person says. 'When Alice says, "penguins waddle" Alice is right' means the same as 'penguins waddle'. So saying that something is right is just saying something equivalent to 'I agree' or 'I endorse that' or 'I recommend you adopt that opinion' or '+1' or 'hooray'.
So 'When I say "David Cameron is Prime Minister" I'm right,' is just an emphatic way of saying 'David Cameron is Prime Minister'.
And so, by the same token, 'When I say "killing kittens is bad" I'm right' means exactly the same as 'killing kittens is bad'.
And 'wrong' if you accept that argument means 'I disagree'.
So the argument goes that since by definition you agree with yourself by definition you must think you are right.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
Of course I'd also point out that religion, being a matter for faith and belief rather than proof and knowledge, is itself a subjective thing.
A point with which I would disagree (especially considering that "faith and belief" are not necessarily opposed to "proof and knowledge").
By the way... you seem to be implying that "knowledge" is something objective. But knowledge can only exist in minds. So how can it be objective, if "objectivity" is defined as that which is external to human minds?
quote:
You haven't successfully argued that there is a need for an objective basis for both morality and reason yet.
Apparently I have, if the lack of refutation is anything to go by.
Or you just haven't been paying attention. I've refuted that in my exchanges with Dafyd.
Subjective + Objective = Subjective
Your reasoning is subjective. The world is objective. So is what is written in any given copy of the Bible. How you interpret that is subjective. (Yes, even if you call yourself a literalist). And unless you have a code of morality big enough to encode every decision you will ever make your reasoning is a necessary part of your morality.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian
Or you just haven't been paying attention. I've refuted that in my exchanges with Dafyd.
Subjective + Objective = Subjective
Your reasoning is subjective.
If you say that reasoning is subjective, then how can you claim to have refuted another person's position. What are you appealing to in order to claim a refutation?
That looks to me like a total absurdity. You want to have it both ways, which demonstrates to me that your argument has collapsed.
As for your claim that "subjective + objective = subjective": this can easily be shown to be false.
Let me take an example from the Olympics.
There are basically two methods of scoring: the "objective" method, such as that used in the timing of the 100m sprint; and there is the method influenced by a certain degree of subjectivity for sports such as gymnastics. There is clearly a fundamental difference between these two methods of scoring: the former relies on a device that is external to any human judge, whereas the latter involves an element of discretion and opinion on the part of each judge on the panel.
Now is it true that the latter method is 100% subjective? Clearly not. That is absurd. It's a mixure of "objective + subjective". There are set moves in gymnastics that are scored in a certain way, and the judges would all have been selected on the basis of some recognised experience in this sport - and that track record is something "objective", because it actually occurred. If the scoring method was 100% subjective, then the judges would just be picked randomly from members of the public, who are then invited to give scores without any reference to the particular moves and disciplines. Furthermore, such a totally subjective scoring method would not inspire any kind of confidence and recognition.
So here is an example of "objective + subjective = objective + subjective".
Therefore I fail to see how you have refuted anything I have written.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian
Or you just haven't been paying attention. I've refuted that in my exchanges with Dafyd.
Subjective + Objective = Subjective
Your reasoning is subjective.
If you say that reasoning is subjective, then how can you claim to have refuted another person's position. What are you appealing to in order to claim a refutation?
Wait, isn't it your position that all reasoning is subjective since it takes place inside the mind?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Croesos
Wait, isn't it your position that all reasoning is subjective since it takes place inside the mind?
No, it's not. That is a misreading of the comment you linked to. "Subjective" relates to what is limited to a person's mind without reference to any external objective factor.
Furthermore, you fail to take into account my affirmation of the role of the mind of God, which establishes the objective validity of reason.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Croesos
Wait, isn't it your position that all reasoning is subjective since it takes place inside the mind?
No, it's not. That is a misreading of the comment you linked to. "Subjective" relates to what is limited to a person's mind without reference to any external objective factor.
Doesn't this refute your original post on this subject regarding broccoli preference.? After all, broccoli and broad beans are both external factors whose existence can be objectively verified. Under your reasoning, this would make any preference for one over the other "objective", contra your orignal position.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Croesos
Doesn't this refute your original post on this subject regarding broccoli preference.? After all, broccoli and broad beans are both external factors whose existence can be objectively verified. Under your reasoning, this would make any preference for one over the other "objective", contra your orignal position.
You are talking about the existence of broccoli and broad beans, a fact which is "binding" on every person (because no sane and informed person can deny the existence of these foods), but I am talking about their taste, which does vary from one person to the next, and is not verifiable externally to any person's claim.
Clearly therefore I have not contradicted myself at all, whereas you are conflating two completely different things.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
On reflection I do not think any further exchange between us is likely to be either constructive or enjoyable. The only reason I can think of to continue is this. I suggest we accept that we differ.
If anybody else wants to take up any of Justinian's points feel free.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
@EtymologicalEvangelical
If you don't mind indulging me I'd like to repost something I said in the "Can Atheism develop an epistemology to live by?" thread.
This is not so much me trying to argue my corner but more me highlighting my difficulty in understanding the argument.
Saying morals exist is an interesting one for me because they don’t exist in the same way as a brick exists. You can't say there is a big solid block of moral that God breaks chunks off of and hands out to us when we are born. Morals are just a label not a thing. A person is affected by their upbringing, environment and brain chemistry. They are confronted by a situation, make a decision and act on it. Other people can then label that action as moral or immoral. (Sometimes their judgement will depend on the long term results of the action and often people will disagree on whether it was right or wrong). So what actually happened here? Did God fashion the environment? Construct and tweak the brain chemistry causing the bout of depression or over confidence that biased the decision?, control the parents?
What I'm trying to get at is that I get confused when people describe morality as given by God as it makes morality sound like a solid thing where as morality is the label given by other people to the results of actions taken by people caused by not one but many variables.
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C.S. Lewis's Head is just a tool for the Devil. (And you can quote me on that.) ~
Philip Purser Hallard
http://www.thoughtplay.com/infinitarian/gbsfatb.html
Posts: 1625 | From: Derbyshire - England | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
1. existing independently of perception or an individual's conceptions: are there objective moral values?
2. undistorted by emotion or personal bias
3. of or relating to actual and external phenomena as opposed to thoughts, feelings, etc
Now, EE and I are using 'objective' in senses 1 and 3, which are closely related. That is, when I talk about 'objective morality' I'm using it in sense 1; when I talk about 'objective judgements' I'm using it in sense 3.
OK then, if morality exists independently of any individual's perception and/or conception, then show me some of it. Just one molecule of morality would be enough to persuade me that it's something that can exist independently of human thought. Or maybe it's a fundamental force like gravity or magnetism - can you demonstrate its strength? Which SI unit is it measured in?
I don't think anybody has suggested that logic and mathematics are anything other than objective. (Well, I suggested that there are people who believe that earlier in the thread, but I personally find the idea hard to even start swallowing.)
Morality, if it has objective existence, presumably has it in the same way as logic or rationality or mathematics do. Can you show me a particle of rationality or mathematics? Or measure logic as a fundamental force?
quote:
But if there were no people around to believe morality exists, there would be no such thing as morality.
To the extent that you're not begging the question by saying that...
Trivially, if there were no people around there would be no such thing as people. That doesn't mean that people have no objective existence or that human medicine is a matter of subjective preference. Morality is presumably some kind of truth about people just as medicine, and therefore there's no real objection to saying that morality wouldn't survive the existence of people any more than medicine or psychology.
Also...
There once was a man who said 'God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no one about in the Quad.'
Dear Sir,
Your astonishment's odd.
I am always about in the Quad.
And that's why the tree
Will continue to be,
Since observed by,
Yours faithfully,
God.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Croesos
Doesn't this refute your original post on this subject regarding broccoli preference.? After all, broccoli and broad beans are both external factors whose existence can be objectively verified. Under your reasoning, this would make any preference for one over the other "objective", contra your orignal position.
You are talking about the existence of broccoli and broad beans, a fact which is "binding" on every person (because no sane and informed person can deny the existence of these foods), but I am talking about their taste, which does vary from one person to the next, and is not verifiable externally to any person's claim.
Actually I was referring to your assertion that something is "objective" if it exists outside the mind. I can't see any way short of solipsism that the flavor of various vegetables don't exist in the vegetables themselves and not the mind.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Unreformed
Shipmate
# 17203
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Posted
quote:
We, in the west, have our moral views about certain practices in parts of the Muslim word, such as FGM and the ban on female education
This is a little unfair to Islam since FGM predates it, and also because it is only practiced on section of the Muslim world (and in these sections, some Christians and Jews practice it too). It's cultural, not religious.
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In the Latin south the enemies of Christianity often make their position clear by burning a church. In the Anglo-Saxon countries, we don't burn churches; we empty them. --Arnold Lunn, The Third Day
Posts: 246 | From: Richmond, VA | Registered: Jul 2012
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
Of course I'd also point out that religion, being a matter for faith and belief rather than proof and knowledge, is itself a subjective thing.
A point with which I would disagree (especially considering that "faith and belief" are not necessarily opposed to "proof and knowledge").
By the way... you seem to be implying that "knowledge" is something objective. But knowledge can only exist in minds. So how can it be objective, if "objectivity" is defined as that which is external to human minds?
I was contrasting "belief" and "knowledge". The two are essentially the same mental process, but one relates to subjective things and the other relates to objective things.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
So the argument goes that since by definition you agree with yourself by definition you must think you are right.
Well yes, of course people believe their opinions are right. But that doesn't mean they are, and I think we should all be very very aware of that fact.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I don't think anybody has suggested that logic and mathematics are anything other than objective.
They are also concepts that exist only within the human mind. If there were no people then there would be no logic or maths.
quote:
Morality is presumably some kind of truth about people just as medicine
No. No no no no no. Medicine concerns the real-life interactions of various chemicals and/or the real-life effects of chopping various bits of a body up and sewing them back together.
Morality, on the other hand, is nothing more than a bunch of people arguing about whose opinion should be considered normative. It's a good thing to have, IMO, but it's not "truth" in anything like the same way medicine is.
quote:
Also...
There once was a man who said 'God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no one about in the Quad.'
Dear Sir,
Your astonishment's odd.
I am always about in the Quad.
And that's why the tree
Will continue to be,
Since observed by,
Yours faithfully,
God.
How quaint. Of course, the existence of God is itself something that may or may not be true and cannot be proved, so is a subjective issue.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
You are talking about the existence of broccoli and broad beans, a fact which is "binding" on every person (because no sane and informed person can deny the existence of these foods), but I am talking about their taste, which does vary from one person to the next, and is not verifiable externally to any person's claim.
Morality is very much equivalent to "taste" in that example, though, as I explored here.
Except, of course, that "taste" still has some chemical basis - the interaction of food and taste bud - and so can be said to be far more "real" than morality which has no such basis.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Well yes, of course people believe their opinions are right. But that doesn't mean they are, and I think we should all be very very aware of that fact.
What would make somebody's moral opinions wrong?
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
Morality is very much equivalent to "taste" in that example, though, as I explored here.
Except, of course, that "taste" still has some chemical basis - the interaction of food and taste bud - and so can be said to be far more "real" than morality which has no such basis.
I suppose if it is just a matter of "personal taste" to regard the actions of the madman in Denver as wrong, then so be it, if that's what you really insist on believing. It seems almost impossible to get through to people who are determined to think along these lines.
But you may perhaps understand why I won't be going along with that particular delusion.
The thing is... I prefer something called "reality".
(And it does seem rather rough to have a justice system based entirely on personal "taste", doesn't it?! Let's incarcerate all those horrid bean eaters!!)
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Actually I was referring to your assertion that something is "objective" if it exists outside the mind. I can't see any way short of solipsism that the flavor of various vegetables don't exist in the vegetables themselves and not the mind.
How about classical empiricism?
(Advance apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs.)
According to John Locke, the qualities we perceive with our senses can be divided into primary qualities and secondary properties. Primary qualities are shape, extension, weight, and so on. Secondary qualities are colour, sound, taste, aroma, etc. The distinction is roughly that if it can be perceived by more than one sense it's probably primary. If only one, secondary.
Now Locke proposed that secondary qualities are caused by the primary qualities of things but themselves have no existence outside the mind.
For example, colour perceptions are caused by light waves of different frequencies entering the eye. Frequency is a primary quality. But the wavelengths are too small for us to recognise them as primary qualities. Instead we perceive them as colours. But those colours are entirely subjective. Likewise, flavours are caused by the interactions of chemicals in the food with receptors in our tongue and nose. Those reactions are determined by the primary qualities of the molecules in the food and the receptors. The flavour sensation is secondary and subjective.
Locke didn't know anything about either of those two mechanisms. But all our current explanations of the mechanism of sense perception - how it gets from the perceived object through the sense organ to the brain - depend upon his distinction. (One of the things that needs to be explained to explain consciousness is how the brain constructs the secondary qualities. Also, there are some problems in explaining how we learn what colour terms mean which I won't bore you with.)
The flavour of vegetables is a secondary quality. It has no real existence outside the mind. It is caused by molecules - but the properties of the molecules that cause it themselves are not flavours but arrangements of atoms interacting with arrangements of molecules in our receptors.
[ 21. July 2012, 09:43: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I don't think anybody has suggested that logic and mathematics are anything other than objective.
They are also concepts that exist only within the human mind. If there were no people then there would be no logic or maths.
The thing is, logic and maths seem to be very good at predicting what will happen outside the human mind. In fact, they seem to be the best tools they have.
Newton's laws of motion (and Einstein's and quantum mechanics) are expressed in mathematical terms. Saying that they would cease to apply once there were no people around because there would no longer be any mathematics seems counterintuitive.
quote:
quote:
Morality is presumably some kind of truth about people just as medicine
No. No no no no no. Medicine concerns the real-life interactions of various chemicals and/or the real-life effects of chopping various bits of a body up and sewing them back together.
Morality, on the other hand, is nothing more than a bunch of people arguing about whose opinion should be considered normative. It's a good thing to have, IMO, but it's not "truth" in anything like the same way medicine is.
Well, yes, that's restating the disagreement between us.
But my point stands: if there were no longer any people there would cease to be any true statements about medicine. But medicine is objective. So it does not follow that from 'if there were no longer any people there would cease to be any true statements about morality' that morality is not objective.
quote:
Of course, the existence of God is itself something that may or may not be true and cannot be proved, so is a subjective issue.
In what sense are you using 'subjective' in that sentence?
Suppose a car crash happens in the rain, and three eyewitnesses each remember it differently, and the rain has washed away any forensic evidence that could decide between the eyewitnesses. So what actually happened is something that may or may not be true and cannot be proved. Is it therefore subjective in the same sense that you argue morality is subjective?
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Newton's laws of motion (and Einstein's and quantum mechanics) are expressed in mathematical terms. Saying that they would cease to apply once there were no people around because there would no longer be any mathematics seems counterintuitive.
Hmm. I don't know that saying Newton's laws can be expressed in mathematical terms is exactly the same thing as saying that Newton's laws "are mathematics".
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
Morality is very much equivalent to "taste" in that example, though, as I explored here.
Except, of course, that "taste" still has some chemical basis - the interaction of food and taste bud - and so can be said to be far more "real" than morality which has no such basis.
I suppose if it is just a matter of "personal taste" to regard the actions of the madman in Denver as wrong, then so be it, if that's what you really insist on believing. It seems almost impossible to get through to people who are determined to think along these lines.
But you may perhaps understand why I won't be going along with that particular delusion.
The thing is... I prefer something called "reality".
(And it does seem rather rough to have a justice system based entirely on personal "taste", doesn't it?! Let's incarcerate all those horrid bean eaters!!)
The example you've raised is a very interesting one.
Because it really does kind of beg the question: is "reality" simply your word for "most people's opinion"?
It's very difficult to say that "everyone" views the actions of the shooter as wrong, because I can think of at least one person who quite probably didn't think the actions were wrong: the shooter. And it's entirely possible that there are other people who don't think is actions were wrong, either. Not a large percentage of the population, I would grant you, but the difficult is that it is a percentage more than zero.
The great difficulty with your propositions about objective morality are not so much happens when 99.9% of the population agree. What happens when 5% of the population don't agree with a proposition? 10%? 45%?
In fact, what happens if the vast majority of the population DON'T agree with a proposition? In fact, even if there isn't a single person on the planet that agrees with the objectively morally correct position, it's still the correct position.
The whole difficulty I have with moral objectivism is not so much the theory that something can be morally correct, but how you discover which propositions are the correct ones. Because majority opinion can't do it, even 99.9% majority. How do you rule out the notion one 'madman' in Denver isn't the one that has discovered the real truth and acted on it?
One answer is "God". But again, that tends to only theoretically solve the problem, not practically solve it, because different people look at God and at what God is saying and reach quite different conclusions. Even taking the same religious text, the same exact version/translation, people don't reach the same conclusions about what it means.
I find myself feeling that objectivism is an attractive theory that's of no practical use whatsoever. Because the fact that nearly everyone agrees with you that shooting cinema patrons is a terrible thing is a consensus, not a proof.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
One answer is "God". But again, that tends to only theoretically solve the problem, not practically solve it, because different people look at God and at what God is saying and reach quite different conclusions. Even taking the same religious text, the same exact version/translation, people don't reach the same conclusions about what it means.
I find myself feeling that objectivism is an attractive theory that's of no practical use whatsoever.
Yep - that's exactly what I said, way up the thread when you all scooted past me. :objective sulk:
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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