Jinto

Now, jbc can claim that a book is defined as "A piece of furniture consisting of a seat, legs, back, and often arms, designed to accommodate one person" and I can claim a book is defined as "A set of written, printed, or blank pages fastened along one side and encased between protective covers." - and I fucking challenge anyone to prove it either way based on external facts.

Reign_Cryogen

Bullshit, Doug. You just wanted to ruin it for everyone.

His Noodly Appendage

Dude, you mean that the information conveyed by a word depends entirely on the mind of the person reading it?

*faints*

No fuckin' way, man! Words resonate with the fabric of the space-time continuum itself, creating a unique and unmistakeable semantic signature that any fool with a particle accelerator and a rubber band can transalte directly into a set of clearly illustrated line drawings demonstrating the concept!

Jinto

Sigh. The point I am making is that if you were to declare morality subjective on the basis that all words are subjective, then there is not such thing as an objective fact. It is not even an objective fact that this statement exists, because by "this" I might mean "that" and by "statement" I might mean "deity" and there is no objective standard for saying otherwise. But when we ask "is X an objective fact" we are NOT asking whether or not the definitions of the words are objective, or whether, if the words meant something completely different than what they do then those same words might refer to something false; we are asking whether one can objectively determine the truth or falsity of the concept the words happen to refer to. To say that which concept those words refer to is subjective is not the same thing as saying that the concept itself is subjective, and to pretend the two are the same thing is a fallacy of equivocation. And since you've now irritated me:

Yes it does. A moral act has the property of being caused by good desires. Good desires have the property of tending to fulfill other desires, irregardless of whose they are. And since both the effects of a desire and whether a desire has been fulfilled can be measured, it is in principle possible to measure the morality of an action.

No, I can prove that DU is correct because it is in fact a tautology. It is no different than showing that all squares have four sides because a square is defined as a four-sided object. The matter of whether the word "square" generally refers to four sided objects or three-sided objects is completely and totally irrelevant in a discussion of whether "A plane figure having four equal sides" is objectively four sided.

You are not describing moral judgement, what you are talking about would be better describe by the word "evaluation". And that says nothing about the morality of an act.

So basically you start with the premise "Morality is just an introspective perception..." and end with this. Jeez... don't you think you're being a bit circular?

Nameless

In my case, it means that my answer will depend on how one defines the terms "objective" and "subjective".

His Noodly Appendage

Unfounded assertion.

Prove that morality is dependent on fulfilling desires, other than by pointing to your statement that morality is dependent on fulfilling desires. You can't.

Like I said, I could declaim in just as pompous a tone that morality of an act is dependent on its conforming with the edicts of Kazoo the Chicken Lord, or on whether it causes objects to be covered with marmalade, but that wouldn't make me any more or less right than you are.

You can easily prove that an act consistent with DU is consistent with DU, and if we accept your axiom that morality = DU, then indeed you can prove that DU = morality. Wheee, aren't you clever.

But there's no reason to accept your axiom. People all around the world base the definition on all kinds of criteria, many of them mutually exclusive. The very definition of the concept is up for grabs.

You can declare that DU can be objective, and I'll go along with it. But I've yet to see the basis for any kind of proof that DU defines morality, which would be needed in order to prove that morality is objective.

The only common factor you can boil out of all the conflicting definitions is that morality is the common property shared by all acts that a given person believes to be moral. That's it. Completely circular. Whatever their personal criteria are defines morality, for that person. As the set of suitable criteria is undefined, it depends entirely on what they think the criteria should be. Ought to be, even - which is even more circular.

Until you can point to a universal physical-world common factor, and successfully discern it from an ad populum argument, until you can show why people must necessarily define morality on that factor, you can huff and puff all you want, but you won't show objectivity.

Jinto

Fascinating: I go to all the trouble of explaining why "X is objective" is not the same thing as saying "the definition of X is objective," and yet to are still unable or unwilling to distinguish between the two. If you really must insist on equivocating, then please justify how anything can be objective, considering that all definitions are fixed by popular usage. Otherwise, stop pretending they are the same thing.

Oh and one more thing - if we really are unable to determine the definition of the word, then we cannot say "X is not objective," the proper phrase is "we cannot determine whether X is objective until you tell us what the hell you mean by X."

Marching Folly

Oops. I voted for "totally objective" but meant to vote for "something in the middle."

the fonz

Jinto, thanks for the help. Good to know that I am not alone in accepting DU. :wave:

I'd like to take some claims others have made and talk about them. First,

"There is no difference between a morally good act versus a morally bad act. That is, except our belief concerning the act."

Imagine an analogous situation. "There is no difference between this forest and one that is believed to be inhabited by unicorns." If, in fact, there were no different property between these two hypothetical forest, then that would prove that unicorns do not exist. It would not prove unicorns "subjective."

Similarly, if there were no difference between a morally good act and a bad one, then that would prove that moral terms refer to fantasy. Not that they are "subjective." (That is, unless you want to define "subjective" as "false") Or, that moral terms constitute a distinction without a difference in which case we should just remove the distinction.

If moral terms refer to fantasy, then moral beliefs are false. If they refer to fantasy, we are to cut them out when we talk about the real world.

Second, if there is "no difference between morally good or bad acts except our opinions towards them" then that has trouble explaining moral debate. In moral debate, people bring forth evidence to prove their conclusions. However, if there were "no difference" between an act being good or bad, then there would be "no possible evidence" that could prove an act good or bad. Therefore, to bring forth evidence in a moral debate would be to make an error.

Next, "How do you know DU is true?" Well, to prove that it is, I would systematically look at all the ethical theories and show where they fail and why DU succeeds. Since I do not have the time to do that, I will summarize.

Moral statements-->P1, P2, P3,...PN (for all properties that moral statements imply.)

I would show that DU-->P1, P2, P3,...PN. I would show that a competing theory-->~Px, ~P(x+1),...~P(x+n) (for all properties that competing theory implies the negation of). Or, I would show that competing theory does not imply P1, P2, P3,...PN. If my theory could imply P1, P2, P3,...PN and not imply the negation of any of those statements, then that would show that my theory provides a better explanation for the properties of moral statements.

Also, the competing theory must not refer to fantasy. If the competing theory refers to Zeus, intrinsic value, natural law, God, etc., then it is a false theory.

Now what are the "properties of moral statements?" There are many but one is that they are prescriptive. According to BDI theory, the most popular theory of action in psychology, our beliefs and our desires cause us to form an intention which causes us to act. A belief that P is a propositional attitude that P is a true proposition. A desire that P motivates the agent to make/keep P a true proposition. Beliefs describe, desires prescribe.

So, moral statements must refer to a set of desires. If they do not, then they are not prescriptive. At that point, they are either not moral statements or they refer to a fantasy such as intrinsic value.

Why desire fulfillment? Well that's because of the definition of "good." Good=is such to fulfill the desires in question. Since virtue is a good thing, it must be that virtue "is such to fulfill the desires in question."

So, moral statements must refer to a set of desires and that they are generally fulfilled. It is not the case that they refer to the speaker's desires. In that case, "Act X is morally right"="I like act X." If that were the case, then since I like eating cheese pizza, I have a moral obligation to eat cheese pizza. Since I do not have such an obligation, this reduction is false.

I'm gonna skip to the end here, it is the case that all desires are relevant when referring to virtue. "Act X is morally right"="Act X would be performed by a person with desires that we have reason to promote." The desires that we have reason to promote are good desires. As explained in my earlier post.

Adrian Selby asks, "Fonz, how do we judge whether any given desire tends to fulfil other desires or not universally? My concern is that the framework by which we judge is itself subjective."

Perhaps that is true. It is true that, in deciding whether a desire tends to fulfill the desires of others, we may falsely believe that desire D1 is stronger than desire D2 when in fact it is not. We may make mistakes, I grant that.

That does not argue against the fact, however, that whether D1 is stronger than D2 is a matter of objective fact. Sure, we may have false beliefs and it may be difficult to determine the truth of the matter but that does not mean there is no truth of the matter.

We make a best guess. An approximation if you will. Now to evaluate whether a good person would kill one who commits a crime. First thing to note is that killing is a very desire-thwarting activity. Most of our desires require our life to fulfill them. Absent a life, I cannot eat cheese pizza or watch a good movie or go skateboarding, etc. Hence, the act of killing is a very desire-thwarting activity. This alone proves that a good person would have an aversion to killing.

Second, we ask if we'd be better off with a society where people are killed for committing a crime. Well, there'd be a great number of us who would be dead for committing a crime since most of us have broken the law somewhere down the line. That counts in favor of it "tending to thwart desires rather than fulfill them."

Third, there is a case to be made that we ought to have a sliding scale with regard to punishment. We want people to have aversions to bad acts, but only so much of an aversion. For example, take a father who goes hiking with his son. His son is stung by a bee and the father must get him to a doctor or else his son will die. He is nowhere near his car and it would take him at least a good half hour to get back to it. There is someone's car nearby with the keys in the ignition. The owner is nowhere to be found. So, the father takes the stranger's car and heads to the nearest hospital. A good person would have an aversion to stealing, but a stronger aversion to his son dying. That is because death tends to be a more desire-thwarting activity than stealing. Hence, the good person would steal the car. A good person would have a stronger aversion to killing than stealing.

If, however, we are to punish people who kill or steal or lie or whatever with the same punishment, then we are promoting the same strength of desire in everyone (basically). But, since some acts are more desire-thwarting than others, we ought not do that. We ought to have a sliding scale ranging from "really bad" to "not so bad."

So, I think there is much argument to be made against killing every person who commits a crime.

His Noodly Appendage

That was exactly my point - the criteria for determining the morality of an act are individually defined. The criteria they choose can be as objective as you want, but the applicability of those criteria is entirely subjective. The question is not just what the hell they mean by it, but also why it should apply to anyone else in the world other than themselves.

The fact that it applies only to the individual in question is what makes it subjective.

People that don't get this generally attempt this kind of reasoning:

A1:
P1: I consider the morality of an act to be dependent on X condoning or proscribing it.
P2: X is very clear aboout the acts that are immoral; opinion does not come into it.
C1: Therefore, morality is objective.

A2:
P3: By A1, my morals are objectively correct
P4: Your morals are not my morals
C2: Therefore, your morals are objectively wrong.
C3: You filthy bastard.

There's nine kinds of fallacy at work there... but it all boils down to a completely unfounded assumption of P1. Let X=bible, and you only need look as far as the nearest fundie for an example.

Let X=DU, and you have a somewhat nicer, but equally deluded person.