Pomp

Not Prince Hamlet,

"You ought not to beat your child regularly" is a moral statement that I believe in, but is subjective to my belief system.

Would it make any sense if it were removed from your belief system, though? In my view, your belief system acts as an implicit "If clause" to any moral statements that you believe to be true.

Edited for UBB tags.

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: Pompous Bastard ]</p>

Not Prince Hamlet

P.B.,

My belief system consists of the axioms upon which the If statements operate.

Jeff

Pomp

Not Prince Hamlet,

My belief system consists of the axioms upon which the If statements operate.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. Would the statements make any sense if they were divorced from your (or any) belief system, though?

The way I see it, the statement, "You ought not to beat your child regularly," is true to you and true to me because our belief/value systems include the relevant axiom, but false to anyone whose belief/value system does not include that axiom, and meaningless when not considered in conjunction with a particular belief/value system.

Does that make sense?

Not Prince Hamlet

P.B.,

My point exactly. By separating the two, though, you can discuss things more rationally. It's also useful for convincing someone of a conclusion, X.

For instance, if you know that a person believes in an axiom, A, you can show him that:

If A then B
If B then C
If C then D
If D then X

First, you'd get him to sign off of on those conditionals. Usually, people who are resistant to X are still willing to sign off on your conditionals, provided that you take the time to formulate them fairly.

Then you get the person to agree that he does believe in A.

Finally, when you chain them together, you have shown the person that X is indeed true, and by his own set of beliefs.

Or, if you can't show it, at least you'll understand the fundamental reason why he doesn't belief in it. It's not that he doesn't believe in X, you'll discover, but that he doesn't believe in A.

Of course, at the axiom level, there's not much you can really do, except by showing that one of his axioms contradicts another of his axioms: often a difficult task, though.

Jeff

Alonzo Fyfe

Then how can you debate the issue, if you begin with the assumption that your view is true by definition?

It would be like me starting with a definition of "cars" as "green Ford Escort" then entering into a debate over whether there are red cars, by saying it is simply absurd to assert that green Ford Escorts are red.


While I agree that all values that exist are values held by things that can value (have desires), I disagree that this is an apriori truth. It is still conceptually possible that an object (say a painting) can have an intrinsic property of ought-to-be-valuedness.


Again, I agree. In fact, your statement supports my position. The statement 'X is misapprehending its intrinsic deliciousness' makes perfect sense. But it is always false. Why is it always false? Because 'there is no such property.'

Your option 3 is correct. Just as, in deciding answering a question of practical-ought, an individual weighs all of the reasons he has for doing the action and not doing it; moral ought involves an evaluation of all of the reasons that exist for an agent to perform and action or to forbear.


Are you looking for a causal explanation? Desires get encoded into the brain like belief.

There are two types of values -- instrumental values (value as a means), and final values (value as an end).

A person may value A (e.g., a job) because it allows him to acquire B (money), and may value B (money) because it allows him to acquire C (food), but in every such chain there must be something at the end, a final value, that a person desires for its own sake. These are a person's desires, and -- like I said -- they become encoded in the brain just like beliefs.

A person who desires to do the right thing -- be a good person -- ultimately desires it for its own sake, as an end in itself.

Pomp

Alonzo,

It would be like me starting with a definition of "cars" as "green Ford Escort" then entering into a debate over whether there are red cars, by saying it is simply absurd to assert that green Ford Escorts are red.

I see statements about intrinsic worth as more analagous to statements like "jumping is purple." The statement simply does not make sense. It's not a well-formed sentence, so it cannot be true or false. We can disagree here, of course, but I understand value as existing only in relationships between the valuer and the valued. Independent of a valuer, I do not see any way for value to exist.

While I agree that all values that exist are values held by things that can value (have desires), I disagree that this is an apriori truth.

All right. As long as we agree that all existing values are, in fact, held by valuers and not inherent in things-to-be-valued, then we can discuss other matters without worrying about whether or not inherent value is possible.

It is still conceptually possible that an object (say a painting) can have an intrinsic property of ought-to-be-valuedness.

Saying that an object is valued because it has the property ought-to-be-valued has exactly as much explanatory power as the outdated theory that barbituates cause drowsiness because they possess the property of somnolence. It doesn't tell us anything.

Your option 3 is correct.

OK. How does the process work? Are all existing reasons given equal weight?

I said:

Why would P desire (to be a moral person.

You responded:

There are two types of values -- instrumental values (value as a means), and final values (value as an end).

{snip}

A person who desires to do the right thing -- be a good person -- ultimately desires it for its own sake, as an end in itself.

I agree with your analysis of instrumental and final values, but I'n not sure I agree that being a "good" person should be considered a final value. Of course, if someone does hold this value, they will pursue it, but I don't believe that most people hold this value. I personally do not, except as an instrumental value leading toward social acceptance/cooperation. I'd be interested to hear what you would say about someone who does not hold this value at all, or does hold it, but finds that it is usually outweighed by other values.

Now...sleepy time.

Malaclypse the Younger

Technical nitpick. The sentence "jumping is purple" is well formed in that it is syntactically correct (noun verb adjective). However it is semantically meaningless, since "jumping" does not have color properties in general; therefore attributing a specific color property to a "jumping" is a semantic category error.

It is the position of the subjectivist that applying objective value properties to actions is as yet unsupported, and thus fallacious, whereas applying subjective value properties to actions is trivially obvious.

However, it is logically possible for actions to have objective value properties; if a sound argument could be made, then I would change my belief. However, I have not yet seen a sound argument for the actuality of objectivism using both valid reasoning and premises I agree to be true.

Not Prince Hamlet

[Devil's Advocate]

"Guys, let's play a game!" Bob withdrew a deck of multi-colored playing cards from his desk.

"I'll hand out these cards," he said. "Each color represents an action. You have to do whatever action that color says. For instance: running is red, jumping is purple, and singing is green."

[/Devil's Advocate]

Pomp

Malaclypse the Younger,

Technical nitpick. The sentence "jumping is purple" is well formed in that it is syntactically correct (noun verb adjective).

Ah, fuck, you're right. I was trying to make it non-well-formed by assigning an adjective to a verb, but I screwed up and used a gerund as the verb. That's what I get for posting while sleepy.

Malaclypse the Younger

You are exploiting the ambiguity of the english language by using the verb "is" to mean inverse representation. You are not claiming that "jumping has the property of purple", rather it is clear that you mean "purple cards represent jumping". Thus your statement is both syntactically and semantically meaningful; however, your semantic use of the verb "to be" is substantively different from the semantic use in PB's example.

[ March 22, 2002: Message edited by: Malaclypse the Younger ]</p>