Vorkosigan

It seems you have misunderstood my objection. The way I read you, you wanted to make an argument for the existence of objective morals, not the objective exist of moral beliefs. I was merely pointing out that there is no objective definition of what would even constitute an "objective" morality.

Michael

[ April 18, 2002: Message edited by: turtonm ]</p>

Alonzo Fyfe

This is what is meant by the claim that the self is always the subject of the desire -- the thing having the desire.

As far as knowing the desires of others, you can know these in much the same way that you can know the chemical composition of a substance. You look at the observed behavior of the person/substance, and from this you make testable assumptions about the desires/composition. If we see that he spends all of his time watching westerns, we infer that he likes westerns. If he never eats his spinach, we conclude that he does not like spinach.


No, this is when the objective truth or falsity becomes knowable. There is a difference between epistemology and ontology. "Snow is White" is true if and only if snow is white. "Snow is white" is knowable only if snow is white and the appropriate steps have been taken for an agent to observe its whiteness.

tronvillain

99Percent:
Oh please, you never lie? Somehow I manage to lie without the whole foundation of my reality crumbling.

Vorkosigan

No way, Tron. I know you are lying to us here....

Liedts

The definition of an honest person is he who speaks the truth in 85% of the cases.
The definition of a dishonest person is he who lies in 85% of the cases.

99Percent

Sure I lie, everyone lies, but that doesn't mean that lying is rational. I am being irrational when I lie. As a moral person I try not to because I know that by lying and therefore by being irrational and therefore by being immoral I am undermining my own existence being reason the way I can survive as a human being.

I think this is what objective morality is all about. It is objective because the objective reality and therefore the truth is observable by all.

Pomp

bd-from-kg,

I'm not going to respond to the bulk of your comments regarding the abuse of language. Alonzo Fyfe has already dealt with them and, although I am not in total agreement with his views on the topic, his views resemble mine closely enough that I don't feel it to be worth my time to readdress what he has addressed. Here, I will address the question of whether or not I do subscribe to my own moral code.

I assumed that you would eventually clarify that you had a fairly specific “moral code” in mind. But the important point is that you don’t subscribe to it.

I maintain that I do, indeed, subscribe to my own moral code. If I ever finish dealing with the discussion in this thread, I will argue in the thread dedicated to my moral view that a moral code is best regarded as a sort of statistical advisory that doing the "right" thing is the most desirable course of action in most cases where we have insufficient data to accurately judge the consequences of our actions. In this light, I hold that to "subscribe" to a moral code is to judge that its precepts are worthy of compliance, as the default, choice in all situations and that they are only to be violated when there is some clear and compelling reason to do so. I understand that this usage of "subscribe" is somewhat different from your usage of the word and, indeed, from its traditional usage. There is no need to point this out to me or accuse me of abusing language.

As an example, the moral code I will describe includes the precept "Killing a moral agent against that agent's will, except in self-defense, is wrong." Returning to the hypothetical situation where I am considering killing Smith for the contents of his wallet, I hold that, in general, an agent ought not kill Smith except, in cases such as this, when that agent has clear and compelling reason to think that there will be few or no negative repurcussions. Now, obviously, in the real world outside of hypothetical situations, an agent very rarely has this sort of assurance. The moral precept against killing is the result of extensive human experience that killing others leads, more often than not, to undesirable consequences for the killer.

Indeed, you conceive of this “moral code” as being in the nature of a “contract”. (Although it has certain rather peculiar features for a contract: it doesn’t exist; no one has signed or otherwise agreed to it; no one knows what its terms are; most people who are supposedly “bound” by it don’t even know about it; there is no enforcement mechanism; etc.)

This is the most commonly heard and, to my mind, the most shallow critique of contractarianism. A contractarian uses the term "social contract" to describe the largely unspoken agreement between members of a given society regarding what actions are permissable and what actions are not. Granted, this "contract" has some unusual features that distinguish it from "real" contracts, but it these oddities are not relevant to contract theory, as the contract is understood by contractarians to be metaphorical. Perhaps "contract theory" would be more accurately described as "unspoken social agreement theory," but the originators of the theory called it "contract theory," and I'm maintaining their usage.

Regarding your claim that I am using "right" and "wrong" in a purely descriptive sense, in that they describe what actions are allowed and disallowed by the contract, I agree to an extent. The fact that the contract is something that, ingeneral, ought to be obeyed, however, lends a prescriptive meaning to the terms "right" and "wrong," in my view. At any rate, I've already made clear that I view prescriptive statements as a class of descriptive statements, so I'm not sure that this is a valid criticism of my theory.

bd-from-kg

Alonzo Fyfe:

Since PB finds your response to my “abuse of language” argument adequate, I suppose I had better answer it.

But there is nothing whatsoever “wrong” with moral language; it is exquisitely suited to its intended purpose. PB’s usage is not designed to help it to serve that purpose more efficiently, but to mangle it to the point where it is impossible to use it for that purpose at all.

But being consistent isn’t the only reasonable criterion when one is proposing to use language in a nonstandard way. A very important criterion is whether the proposed change promotes more accurate and efficient communication or impedes it. In your example of an atom, the term “atom” had already become attached to a specific kind of thing, though its nature was misunderstood (hence the use of the old Greek word “atom”. which had been virtually unused by English speakers until then). When the nature of this “king of thing” came to be better understood, and it was realized that it was not indivisible, it was more conducive to efficient communication to continue to use the same word for it. But there is no such justification for using “wrong” and “ought” in such a way that it can be truly said that one “ought” to do something that is “wrong”, much less to say that there is no such thing as a “moral obligation”, thereby depriving both the phrase “moral obligation” and the word “promise” of all meaning.

Thank you. A change in usage that impedes communication rather than promoting it should be opposed on that ground. What else do you think “abuse of language” means but a usage that confuses and misleads? Words, after all, do not have an “objective” meaning. There can be no theoretical objection to any proposed usage; the only possible objections are practical ones.

Absolutely. that’s what I’ve been saying for some time. If one thinks that moral language, as it is commonly used, is meaningless (i.e., that it is not used to express propositions), he should say so rather than casually start using the same words in entirely novel ways.

This is not a radical proposal in any sense. It is what “noncognitivists” have been doing for some time, and noncognitivists are probably a majority of moral philosophers today. It is quite possible to understand and use moral language noncognitively while remaining faithful to what I call the “logic of moral discourse”. What I’m saying is that if one does not believe in an objective morality, this is the only reasonable option.

I hope that I’ve made it clear by now why I disagree. What PB calls a “moral philosophy” is that one ought always to do what is in one’s self-interest; nothing more. The rest is just a strategy for maximizing one’s self-interest. The question of how to maximize one’s self-interest is one that has been of intense interest to humans from the beginning of time; the English language (like all human languages) is full of excellent resources for discussing it without hijacking moral language for the purpose.

And as you note, with this “moral philosophy” the moral sense of “ought” becomes identical with the practical sense, making the use of moral language superfluous. (This is why I put “moral philosophy” in quotes above. It really amounts to saying that there is no such thing as a moral philosophy.) Its use also becomes misleading because most people use “moral-ought” in an entirely different way.

Also, this usage reduces virtually all actual moral arguments to nonsense, as I pointed out in my April 17 post to PB. Unless one is prepared to claim that all such arguments really are nonsensical or meaningless, this in itself is a decisive objection against it. It makes it impossible to discuss moral questions using moral language. If this is not an “abuse of language”, what is?

And by the way, I think it’s quite obvious that most moral arguments are not meaningless or nonsensical. It should be clear to anyone above the age of six that they are about something, and something important, even if most people are somewhat confused or unclear as to exactly what this is. The task of the moral philosopher is to try to understand and clarify just what that “something” is, not to propose to change the meaning of moral terms in such a way as to make them useless for discussing that “something”. Just as the task of the nutritionist is to figure out why bread is good for you, not to form mud into a loaf and call it “bread”.

I realize that I have not stated explicitly what the purpose and function of moral language is. I’m hoping that this will not be necessary in this context, since this is a very contentious issue. For present purposes it should suffice that any normal adult has had enough experience of the use of moral language to have a pretty good idea of how it’s used, and in what contexts, and for what reasons and purposes, and that it is perfectly clear that PB’s proposed redefinitions of moral terms would not (to put it mildly) further these purposes or help clarify and refine such discussions. His proposals are not constructive, but subversive.

Alonzo Fyfe

Oh, but there is. We have built a false assumption into the very meaning of our moral terms. Our linguistic practices require that there exists intrinsic moral qualities and that we have an organ or some other faculty for sensing them directly. No such moral qualities exist. No such faculty exist. And this error leads to all sorts of moral mistakes. Mistakes that cost lives. Mistakes that cause undue suffering.


I have learned two things about such debates.

(1) people often confuse the theoretical with the practical, with a fondness for shifting back and forth between the two in order to provide a moving target against any would-be attackers. Tired of this maneuver, I tend to find it more practical to focus exclusively on the theoretical issues, and leave the practical matters for another day.

(2) When people acquire a psycological investment in a particular practical debate turning out one way or the other, then one can argue for eternity and not get them to give up their conclusion. There is no 'hard evidence' that can be provided, and in the absence of 'hard evidence', the holder can clutch an infinite number of straws to keep his conception alive.

And so, I may offer practical suggestions (as I did to PB), I do not find it useful to devote huge quantities of time to these types of issues.

On the practical matters, in everything that follows in your post, I agree with you. As long as you know that these are practical objections for or against the use of certain terms, and not objections that prove that there is a fundamental flaw in the theories these objections apply to.


It is not an objection that a competing theory reduces current practice to nonsense if, indeed, current practice is nonsense.

You can not raise an objection to the critic of the "bad air" theory of disease that if his account were adopted it would mean that the current practice of using perfume to fight infection is worthless if, indeed, it is worthless.

My view is that many moral arguments are based on a false premise, one that requires the existence of these intrinsic moral properties and a faculty to perceive them. It is, in fact, question-begging to say that "the assumptions upon which our practices are based must be true, otherwise those practices would be critically flawed."

(P.S. I, for one, do not hold that those practices are 'meaningless' or 'nonsensical.' They are meaningful -- but false. They make sense -- but they have nothing to do with the real world.)


I think it is obvious that most religious debate is not meaningless and nonsensical -- that it should be clar to anyone above the age of six that they are about something, and something important.

And, yet, they are about something that is not real. The primative tribe arguing about whether the volcano god would prefer a virgin sacrifice or the sacrifice of a woman with experience are similarly arguing about something important. They are not talking nonsense. Yet, they still share a false assumption.

And when the tribal leader shouts at me that "you must believe that the volcano god is real, or this very serious and important debate about what type of woman to sacrifice her makes no sense," I simply answer that I need not believe that the volcano god is real.

[ April 20, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

bd-from-kg

Alonzo Fyfe:

Then why are you so interested in my dispute with PB over his terminology? It was obvious from the start that it involved “practical matters”. The fact that you aren’t interested in such matters is no reason why other people shouldn’t be.

Also, what other people “often” or “can” do is irrelevant. Unless you can cite some examples of my doing these things, bringing up these possibilities is a red herring.
I happen to think that using language in ways that facilitate communication is important. Language is what distinguishes us from the “lower animals”. We must be on the alert for anything that seriously reduces its usefulness. If this subject doesn’t interest you, no one is forcing you to discuss it. But don’t suggest that it isn’t important.

In fact, it is difficult to understand in light of your post here what the point was of your comments on the <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=52&t=000137" target="_blank">Moral Subjectivism: One View</a> thread. for example, you began by saying:

Indeed, in light of your comments here it is clear that this entire post was a criticism of PB’s terminology. in retrospect it is fair to say that your entire criticism can be summed up as: “your [PB’s] terminology is not the same as mine.” It seems rather odd for someone who has little interest in such matters to devote so much verbiage to them.

Not so. It’s true that many people think that there are such intrinsic qualities and that we do have such a faculty, but the logic of moral discourse does not involve any such assumption. Moral discussions are perfectly meaningful in any case. The task of the moral philosopher is to elucidate what moral discussions are about, not to deny that they’re about anything.

What do you mean by a “moral mistake”? What do you mean by “undue” suffering? If someone reading these statements decides that you’re right, do you think that it would be reasonable to expect that he will change his behavior as a result? If so, why? If not, what’s your point?

The only problem is that PB’s “theory” consists almost entirely of his proposed changes in how various moral terms should be used. And these proposed changes are based on the assumption that moral language, as it is presently used, is meaningless. If this assumption is false (as I believe it certainly is) the effect of adopting them would be to make it impossible (or at least unduly cumbersome) to discuss meaningful, important questions. It seems to me that to point this out is to show that there is a fundamental flaw in his “theory”.

No serious moral philosopher, to my knowledge, thinks that all moral arguments are nonsense. This position is simply untenable. The only serious question is what they mean, or if you prefer, what they are about. You argue that since most people have a somewhat confused motion of what moral arguments mean, they don’t mean anything.

The fallacy here can be illustrated by thinking of people in ancient times talking about when “sunrise” and “sunset” would occur. In all likelihood there were something like almanacs even back then with tables for these times (at a given location) for various days of the year. Now almost everyone back then thought that the sun went around the earth, and that the sun really did “rise” above the horizon at sunrise and “set” below it as sunset. Does it follow that these almanacs were nonsensical – that the tables weren’t about anything real?

Another example: a boy is under the impression that a car engine “needs” gasoline in the same way that a baby needs milk; that it will literally “die” if it runs out. However, he knows perfectly well how to read the fuel gauge. One day the boy is sitting in the passenger seat next to you, and after you’ve been driving for a time he remarks that the car “needs” more “gas” or the engine will “die”. You know that his reason for saying so is that he knows from the fuel gauge that there is not much gas left in the tank, but you also know about his fanciful notions about the relationship between the engine and gasoline. Should you conclude that he’s talking nonsense, and that therefore what he says isn’t meaningful, and so ignore him?

It should be clear from these examples that just because someone is confused or mistaken about the correct interpretation of what he’s saying, it doesn’t follow that what he’s saying is nonsensical or meaningless.

Let’s consider a couple of typical examples of moral discussions.

Example 1:

A. The DA should charge Colby with first-degree murder and ask for the death penalty.
B. Why so?
A. Why, he shot a policeman in cold blood!
B. But the policeman had drawn a gun on him and was about to shoot. It was self-defense.
A. The policeman was acting in the line of duty, attempting to arrest Colby for a burglary.
B. But Colby hadn’t actually committed the burglary.
A. That’s no excuse. Colby should have allowed himself to be arrested and hired a good lawyer to defend him.
C. Hey, haven’t you heard? The guy in a police uniform was a phony, and Colby knew it because he recognized him!
A. Well, that changes things. In that case of course the charges should be dropped.

Example 2:

A. Simmons should repay the $5,000 that Taylor loaned him.
B. But that would have worked a serious hardship on his family.
A. That’s no excuse. One should pay one’s debts, just as one should keep all of his promises.
B. But by the time Simmons was supposed to repay, Taylor owed him $5,000 anyway from a legal settlement, which he was legally obligated to pay a month earlier but didn’t.
A. Well, that changes things. In that case Simmons was right not to repay; that just squared things between them.

Now it seems perfectly clear that these discussions are not at all in the same category as a discussion about whether to sacrifice a virgin to the volcano god. They may not be about whether the proposed action has an “objective property” of “rightness”, but they are clearly meaningful. They are not predicated on the assumption that something exists that really doesn’t exist. They are about something real, even if that something isn’t a “property of goodness”. And in both cases A’s reasoning is recognizable valid. Again, the task of the moral philosopher is to analyze in what sense it is valid, and what constitutes validity in moral reasoning, not to toss it all in the rubbish heap.

Finally, it’s very odd to be find someone who claims to “hold an objective morality” also say (by implication) that moral discussions are “about something that is not real”. It would seem that your theory is “objective” only in the sense that it makes moral statements express propositions. But the same can be said of PB’s theory, or of any subjectivist theory for that matter. What’s normally meant by saying that one holds an objective morality is that one believes that moral principles are objectively “valid” in some sense. But it is the very concept of “validity” in connection with moral principles that you seem to be denying. Thus, so far as I can see, according to your way of thinking my proposal to call an action “right” if it enriches Bill Gates even further is just as “valid” as your proposed meaning. It’s just a matter of which terminology one arbitrarily chooses to adopt, isn’t it?