John Galt, Jr.

Dr. Retard,

Could you elaborate a bit on your remarks I am not sure that I understand your point(s). Perhaps you could make the same point(s) in other words. Among other things, can you explain how you think a possible thesis about mind-brain identity poses a problem for the 'open-question' argument, if that is what you are suggesting.

John Galt, Jr.

Primal

hinduwoman That is exactly what is being questioned. Also, notice that a statement's failure to be a natural law hardly warrants saying it is subjective, to use your own example, how is "the man is a murderer" a law of nature? Does this lack of being a law make the statement any less objective?

[ October 09, 2002: Message edited by: Primal ]</p>

Dr. Retard

Yeah, I'll give it a shot, though I don't profess to be any expert on the open-question argument. The argument, I take it, goes like this:

1. For any pair of moral properties and natural properties, we cannot see how they entail each other.
2. If two kinds of properties were really identical, then we could see how they entail each other.
3. So, for any pairs of moral properties and natural properties, the two are not identical.
4. So ethical naturalism is false.

This is a generalization of a particular case, which, I take it, goes like this:

1. We cannot see how 'X is pleasure-producing' entails 'X is good' or vice-versa.
2. If 'X is pleasure-producing' were identical with 'X is good', we could see how they entail each other.
3. So they're not identical.

Our inability to see entailments (premise 1) is what makes the question of identity an 'open question'. That's why we can say, "Well, sure, X is pleasure-producing, but is it good?" We can detect no contradiction in the claim that X is bad, even though it produces pleasure. And what goes for 'pleasure-producing' also goes for any other natural properties.

The criticism of the argument to which I adverted attacks the second premise. This is the premise that takes our failure to spot entailments as proof of non-identity. The criticism says, "just because we can't spot entailments doesn't mean they're not identical". And the mind-body problem might provide an illustration of this principle.

Here's how. There is a position in philosophy of mind called identity materialism. It says that mental properties are identical to (some complicated bundle of) physical properties. If premise 2 of the open-question argument were true, then we could refute identity materialism. We could argue like this: Take any physical property that's supposed to be the same as a mental property -- for example, 'the firing of C-fibers' and 'feeling a pain'. We cannot see how the two entail each other. We can see no contradiction in the claim that, while C-fibers are indeed firing, there is no felt pain. If we examine an organism, we might say, "yes, the C-fibers are certainly firing, but I wonder if it's actually feeling pain". This is a lot like the open-question argument.

But, surely, it can't be this easy to refute identity materialism. Surely, mental properties might indeed be identical with physical properties, even though we're unable to see how they entail each other. So we should reject the contested premise, premise 2.

[ October 11, 2002: Message edited by: Dr. Retard ]</p>

bd-from-kg

Dr. Retard:

Your explanation of why questions about the relationship between the mind and body poses a problem for the “open question” argument is based (IMHO) on a misunderstanding of this argument.

You formulate the argument as follows:

But this version of the argument is rather laughable, because it assumes that there is an objective truth about what terms like “good” or “right” mean. But there is no objective truth about what anything means. So this must be a misconstrual of the “open question” argument.

My understanding of the argument is best illustrated by a particular case. We might as well use your example of “pleasure producing”. Then the argument goes:

1. If what you meant by saying that an action is “good” were that it is pleasure-producing, then it would be obvious to you that the question “This act is certainly pleasure-producing, but is it good?” is meaningless or nonsensical, just as you can see immediately that the question, “This polygon certainly has three sides, but is it a triangle?” is meaningless or nonsensical given what you mean by a “triangle”.

2. But you do not consider the question of whether a pleasure-producing act is good to be meaningless or nonsensical. Or to put it another way, you consider the statement that pleasure-producing acts are good to be a substantive claim (whether true or not), not just an empty tautology.

3. Therefore you do not consider “good” to mean “pleasure-producing”.

Of course, a small minority may say that they do regard some question of this kind to be meaningless or nonsensical, and that they therefore deny the truth of premise 2 for some particular natural property. But we are interested here in how these terms are commonly or typically used, so what matters is that almost everyone in fact grants the truth of premise 2, no matter what natural property is substituted for “pleasure-producing”.

Thus the point of the “open question” argument is not (at least directly) that saying that an act is “good” is not logically equivalent to saying that it has some natural property, but that what almost everyone means by saying that an act is good is not that it has some natural property. For example, even if it is true that an act is good if and only if it is pleasure-producing, this is not what we mean by saying that an act is good. In the same way, a polygon is a triangle if and only if the sum of its angles is 180°, but what we mean by saying that it is a triangle is not that the sum of its angles is 180°, but that it has three sides.

Now if what we mean by saying that an act is good is not that it has some natural property, it seems highly implausible (to say the least) that what we mean is logically equivalent to saying that it has some natural property. Perhaps it’s possible that it is, but if one accepts (my version of) the argument, those who claim that there is any such equivalence clearly bear a heavy burden of proof. In any case, once one recognizes that what one means by saying that an act is good is not that it has any natural property, one is likely to begin thinking seriously about just what it is that one does mean. And I think it’s obvious that any such serious reflection will yield the conclusion that one doesn’t mean anything that could conceivably be logically equivalent to saying that it has any natural property.

It’s also worth noting that regardless of whether the argument works in general, it is certainly useful in “filtering out” specific proposals to the effect that saying that an act is “good” means that it has some specific natural property.

doubtingt

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Primal:
<strong>Doubting T

Why? What if objectively "better" simply means preferred?</strong>

The very concept of "preference" refers to the subjective experience of choosing among alternatives, so by definition is not objective.

<strong>I can say "to human beings eating meat,fruits or vegetables is objectively better then eating dung."</strong>

You can say, but it in no way means that their preference for fruit is objectively better.
Your statment means nothing more than humans have a subjective preference for fruit over dung.

<strong>Or that "person X is objectively better at running then person Y."</strong>

And right here is where you prove my point. Better at running can refer to something objective that has nothing to do with a subjective mind. Better can mean a higher velocity from point to point, greater efficiency of energy output to distance, etc. This is just the opposite of your dung example where better refers to a preference and preference cannot exist except in reference to a subjective mind.

<strong>What makes psyhcological evaluations different then other phsyical descriptions? Nothing really. </strong>

Your description of anothers state of mind and your description of a rock are both references to objective qualities of things outside your own mind. However, this has nothing to do with what we are talking about. The issue is that your preference for something refers to your subjective relationship with that thing, it does not refer to objective properties of the thing itself. Therefore, a preference tells us nothing about the objective properties of the thing only about your subjective attraction or repulsion caused by your perception of the object.

<strong>If you are going to maintain that there is the burden of proof is on you because that is dualism.</strong>

It has nothing to do with mind/body dualism.
It is simply a definitional truth that preferences cannot be separated from the preferer, whereas length, width, etc., are properties of the objects themselves.

doubtingt

Find me a single example in all of history where anyone has used the the concept of "moral" in a way that did not refer to what "ought" to be done.

You can base your preference on what ought to be done on objective properites of the options (social benefits, utility, etc.) Fine.
That in no way makes your preferences objective.
They cannot be objective, because ought and preference cannot and never have been used without reference to a subjective mind that experiences positive or negative affect towards the options.

You can weasal ought of this by claiming that morals are not inherently "oughts". Fine.
But then you have eliminated any ability to link morality to goals, rewards, punishments, rules, law, etc. In other words, you have defined morality in a way that almost no one in history has and in a way that no one would care about.

Furthermore, the word "moral" has nothing to do with it. So if you want the word, fine. It does not change the fact that subjective preferences and oughts exist in the subjective minds of human beings and that by definition these preferences
do not constitute conclusions about the objective properties of objects and therefore it is senseless to ask about the accuracy (truth or falsehood) of these conclusions.

Primal

Nothing questionable or inconsistent about that premise.

1) The issue of what to define good as is exactly what is being questioned. The open question argument presuposses an answer.

2) Majority opinion on the matter means very little when the experts themselves lack a consensus. Many people would likewise define atheism as "Immoral denial of God." This means very little though.

3) The question really wouldn't make sense to a sizable majority once it's full implications had been realize, for at this point you would lose all utilitarians,virtue theorists,Objectivists and probably even Marxists. Basically all naturalist-moralists.

Primal

[quote] The very concept of "preference" refers to the subjective experience of choosing among alternatives, so by definition is not objective.
quote]

I reject the strong version of such a definition of preferences.

That's kind of like saying "Well you can't say which running is better, or which pleasure is."

I can say though what is better at serving the overall preferences.


Yes I know, but is the mind really so subjective? I question this. It is just as much a part of the objective world as everything else, subject to the same laws, composed of objective cells.

Just as we can, using our subjective mind say whether something is "green" or "blue", we can say whether some action is better for our preferences or worse, or "right" or "wrong" given our prefences are the type we would call "morality."


What about a description of my own mind? And why is the mind being given such special treatment? Can I describe another's leg as objective but not my own because that would be "outside my own leg"?

Quite right, I am speaking of the objective properties of both interacting in an objective way.

Actually it can tells u about the thing depending on the subjective experience in question. For example I taste something sweet, I know it has sugar. Especially if it is a desert. Or I taste something sour, I know it's acidic.


But it is nonetheless a dualism, and if you going to say this data says nothing about the object or that certain aspects of creatures i.e. morality cannot be said to be something natural then you are maintaining a dualism.

Using this reasoning, that because an experience is "subjective" that there is no objective precedence or measurement avaialable, one can reject sight,hearing and touch as "merely subjective."

Primal

Utilitarianism, pleasure for the greatest amount is moral. The claim is not itself an "ought" note but an ought can be derived from it. The two are not one in the same.

Same with commone statements like "Honesty is moral", "John is moral" etc. Oughts of course can be derived from this provided the above is true but there is a difference between "John is moral" and "John ought to be moral." as well as between "John is feeling pain" and "John ought to feel pain."

Ah but they are part of an objective world, are just as material as everything else so are in a sense objective.

But the subjective can be studied in an objective manner. That is what we do when we try to avoid stepping on our pets. We are believing that it is an objective fact that if we step on their tails the animals will feel pain.

The issue is again hotly debated and how do you know nobody would care? Even if they don;t this proves nothing.

bd-from-kg

Primal:

No, the only question of general interest is how the term "good" and other moral terms, are commonly used. If you wish, you can define an act as "good" if it produces more purple turtles than any alternative, or if was done between 6 and 7 PM on a Tuesday, or if it was done by someone over 6 feet tall. But these usages aren't of interest to most of us because they have no relationship to common usage.

Not only does "majority opinion" mean a lot, it's the only thing that does matter. (Or to be more precise, majority usage is the only thing that matters. Most people aren't really very good at giving definitions, or otherwise explaining what they mean.)

As to the experts disagreeing, what they are disagreeing about is how best to interpret common usage of moral language.

Maybe. But if you asked them whether they would call someone who denied God, but not immorally, an "atheist", they would probably say that this is impossible, because to deny God is immoral. In other words, they would agree that the "immoral" bit is redundant or superfluous. On the other hand, if you asked whether they would call someone who was immoral but did not deny God an "atheist", they would say "no". So with a little work you could figure out what their real working definition of "atheist" is.

Not so. Most utilitarians, for example, would say that "an act is good if and only if it promotes the greatest good for the greatest number" is a substantive statement, not a tautology. In other words, they would say that it is a fact that those actions are good which promote the greatest good.

Put it another way. If someone else were to say that an act is good if and only if it is "virtuous" in the sense of satisfying some "criterion of virtue" independent of any consequences, most utilitarians would view this as a substantive disagreement with their theory rather than merely an alternative definition of "good".

I'm not really familiar with Objectivism, but as for Marxism, I find it hard to imagine that many of them would even say that the ends they have in view are intrinsic goods, much less that they define as "good" just those acts that promote these ends. The typical Marxist views these ends as means to more "ultimate" ends, such as happiness or social justice or whatever.