bd-from-kg

99Percent:

Yes. Life and consciousness are necessary preconditions for anything that any rational person values. That is to say, they are instrumental goods. That was my point.

Irrelevant. It doesn’t matter when I decide not to go on living. The decision will in any case be determined by my evaluation of what the remaining years of my life would be like.

To say that life and consciousness are valued as means is to say that they have instrumental value. Apparently you think that it makes a difference that what they are a necessary means for is making moral decisions, or being a moral agent. But I don’t see why this matters. Either making moral decisions (or being able to) is valuable (either intrinsically or instrumentally) or it isn’t. If it isn’t, the argument is incoherent. If it is, the fact that life and consciousness are preconditions for it makes them instrumental goods.

You’re conflating two different meanings of “fundamental”. On the one hand, if X causes Y and Y causes Z, X might be said to be a more fundamental cause of Z than Y. Thus, my grass grows because it gets rain, warmth, and light. But it gets all of these things, in the final analysis, because the sun shines. And the sun shines because of fusion. So the fusion occurring deep in the sun is a more “fundamental” cause of my flowers growing than the rain is. On the other hand, if I want X for the sake of having Y and want Y for the sake of having Z, Z is the more “fundamental” desire. Thus if Johnny wants a baseball glove because it’s a precondition for playing on the team, and he wants to play on the team so that he can impress Susie, and he want to impress Suzie because he hopes that it will make her willing to go out with him, his desire to be with Susie is more “fundamental” than his desire for a baseball glove.

A reasonable moral theory is rooted in the things that are desirable for their own sake, not in the things that are desirable merely as means or preconditions for getting or having these things.

Of course, the question of what is the appropriate sense of “desirable” in this statement is one of the major points of contention in moral philosophy. But the statement itself is not controversial.

By the way, it appears that Alonzo and I are using the term “intrinsic value” in different senses. Alonzo says, “Intrinsic value claims assert that something has value independent of desire - that it just is good, even if nobody cares about it.” But when I say that something has “intrinsic value”, I mean simply that it is valued “for itself”, as opposed to having “instrumental value”, meaning that it is valued because of what it may cause, or be used to produce, or be a precondition for. This sense is compatible with subjectivist theories – i.e., it makes perfectly good sense to say that something has intrinsic value to me but not to you. It is also compatible with the notion that nothing has value independent of desire. This is just a difference in terminology, not a disagreement, but it could cause some confusion for the unwary reader.

[Note: I’m working on replies to both your and Alonzo’s longer posts.]

Alonzo Fyfe

Your main points against 99percent are accurate, but this statement is not precisely true.

Life and consciousness are not necessary preconditions for fulling the desire to be free of pain, for example.

Also -- as in the case of a soldier sacrificing his life for his country or a parent sacrificing his life to save a child -- a person can find themself in a situation where life and consciousness is incompatible with what one values -- such as the welfare of one's children or the need to protect the institutions that allow the people one cares about to live happy lives.

Such a person will, then, sacrifice his life for his country, to save his children, or for some other goal which, to them, is more important than life itself.

But, generally, yes. Whenever the proposition "A has value in order to B" is used, it identifies A as having instrumental value (for the sake of B) and B as having value for its own sake.

(Note: Technically, B can also have instrumental value for the sake of C, and C for the sake of D, and so forth, but somewhere the chain must end -- and that end is that which has value for its own sake.)


It seems that way. An 'intrinsic value' means value independent of how the thing evaluated stands in relation to any external property. Desire is an external property, so desire-dependent value is not intrinsic value. But the phrases "good as an end" and "good for its own sake" have reasonable interpretations that are consistent with desire-dependent value.

[ May 29, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

Koyaanisqatsi

Not accused, per se, demonstrated.

No, of taking my words out of context in order to accuse me of making arguments I did not make.

Do you see the distinction yet?

I would be hard pressed indeed to find a better example of what you've been doing and continue to do.

Of your own making. How typical of what I've been on about.

And even sadder still is the fact that you've forced me to do it yet again.

You mean like what I just did in my last post that you aren't directly addressing?

So, in other words, not from my first post, where I used a personal example to demonstrate the subjective nature of morality, thereby establishing right out of the gate both my position and the support of my position; you know, the first post among all of my posts that you had claimed you read and could find no examples of my arguing and/or demonstrating the lack of objective morality?

Fine. Let's follow your revision of history and see how you take my words out of context again in order to accuse me of arguments that I never made.

Sorry to interrupt, but so far you've made no counter-argument at all.

Everything I posted (including, especially, the details you have been leaving out in support of my arguments) still demonstrates my position perfectly and nothing you have posted counters it, so I'm at a loss so far as to why you consider any of this to have been a response to anything I wrote.

To which I responded by pointing out every single instance in which I was both arguing the lack of objective morality and demonstrating that it cannot possibly exist.

I'm sorry I didn't paint you a picture in bold E Z 2 READ TYPE that connected all the dots back to: therefore, based on everything I have already posted, I have been arguing that objective morality cannot be demonstrated to exist.

I would have thought my direct questions to you regarding just one example of an "objectively moral" scenario that could:
<ol type="A">[*] exist[*] be demonstrated to exist through providing us all with the mechanism of that objectivity[/list=a]

would have done it.

As you had claimed, you aren't an idiot, so pardon me for assuming that my position was abundantly clarified several times.

Again, I didn't accuse you, I demonstrated how you took my words out of their context in order to accuse me of making arguments I did not make.

As I clearly showed in painstaking detail, You accused me of making an argument that I did not make.

Please get it right and never vary from my wording again.

Thank you.

READ IT AGAIN A THOUSAND TIMES!

NO INTRINSIC MEANING IN THE MANNER THAT THEY WOULD IN YOUR ANALOGY.

Your analogy was flawed because there is intrinsic meaning to the statement: It is correct to state that the Earth is X years old!

There is, however, NO intrinsic meaning to the statement: It is correct to state that masturbation is morally wrong!

Hence my very next words:

There is no way to mistake what I was typing and the distinctions I was making in regard to your analogy and why it was neither valid nor applicable.

Nor is there any way that you could not link what I was arguing to my very first post where I demonstrated through the use of personal experience precisely how and why there is no and can be no such thing as objective morality!

Hence my qualifier:

!!!Merde!!!

CHRIST ON A POGO STICK! There you go AGAIN!

From my post:
As you can plainly see, I was deconstructing your analogy in order to demonstrate why it was not valid and not applicable.

GOT IT?

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

YOUR ANALOGY OF THE EARTH'S AGE WAS INVALID AND NOT APPLICABLE, BECAUSE THE AGE OF THE EARTH IS AN OBJECTIVE FACT INDEPENDENT OF WHAT SOMEONE DOES OR DOES NOT BELIEVE.

MASTURBATION BEING MORAL AND/OR IMMORAL, HOWEVER, IS NOT AND CANNOT EVER POSSIBLY BE DESCRIBED AS AN OBJECTIVE FACT INDEPENDENT OF WHAT SOMEONE DOES OR DOES NOT BELIEVE.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE--MEANING NOT POSSIBLE--TO EVER, IN ANY IMAGINED UNIVERSE WITH OR WITHOUT A GOD POSITED AS THE OBJECTIVE MORAL MANDATOR, TO SHOW THAT MASTURBATION IS OBJECTIVELY MORALLY WRONG.

THE TERM "OBJECTIVE MORALITY" IS AN OXYMORON; A CONTRADICTORY, MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE AND THEREFORE INVALID TERM THAT INHERENTLY CANCELS ITSELF OUT AS DEMONSTRATED BY ME, MY ARGUMENTS AND EXAMPLES FROM MY VERY FIRST POST ONWARD.

Is that finally clear now, because that is what I have been arguing either directly, indirectly or tattooed to my friggin' forehead?

NO! I did not. I clearly and readily deconstructed precisely why your analogy was invalid and not applicable and even further clarified my position to Helen in my next posts that you claimed to have read, as I pointed out to you in my last post!

Now I am unquestionably accusing you in my very own words of intellectual dishonesty.

And MY POINT WAS THAT MORALITY IS NOT A "THING" AND THEREFORE CANNOT BE SAID TO BE OBJECTIVELY TRUE!

Is that crystal clear now?

Nice backpedalling, (especially in light of the addendum to your analogy, "It doesn’t follow that there is no objective truth of the matter"), but completely irrelevant to my deconstruction and demonstration of why your analogy was not valid and not applicable to the question of objective morality as has been shown so many times that I'm ready to simply punch my monitor and be done with this.

Your analogy was flawed because the age of the Earth is a fixed number that is either correct or incorrect.

The question of masturbation's morality, however, is not a "fixed number" that is either correct or incorrect, nor can it be since morality is inherently and as a necessary defining quality a personal judgement call.

It can not be demonstrated in any possible universe that masturbation is "objectively good" or "objectively bad," and this extant fact is inherent within the terminology.

If I am incorrect, then I will ask you one last time to provide a single counter argument, because if you cannot, then your statement, "It does not follow that there is no objective truth" is INCORRECT AND MUST BE RESCINDED.

It does in fact "follow" that there is no objective truth behind the declaration, "Masturbation is objectively morrally wrong."

The phrase itself is contradictory and inherently false because it cannot be demonstrated to be true in any possible universe, including one in which a god is posited as the arbitor of objectivity.

Therefore, your statement "It does not follow" and your analogy are, as stated, invalid and not applicable.

WHO CARES? This has nothing to do with anything we have been discussing and certainly nothing whatsoever to do with my deconstruction of your invalid analogy, the apparent only point still in contention.

Beg pardon??

Once again, if you're going to quote me, quote me entirely and in context if you friggin' please!

Here's the entirety of my response:

Clear now, for the third time?

How is my demonstrating that your scenario was inherently subjective "seem" in any way, shape or form to be "yet another way of saying that there are no objective moral truths," and, further, how is your continued evasion from addressing my arguments in this manner at all relevant?

If I demonstrate that there can be no objective moral truths, then I have demonstrated that there can be no objective moral truths!

Correct. "Evaded" is a much better choice of words.

You are doing it here again. Your comment was not a counter-argument at all and amounts to you stating, in essence and substance, nothing at all.

I demonstrated that your analogy was not valid and not applicable by deconstructing the inherently subjective nature of the actual application of your analogy to the question of masturbation being either morally "right" or morally "wrong" and through that deconstruction established a solid counter-argument that shows quite clearly how and why your analogy is not valid and not applicable.

Your response is to say, "This seems to be yet another way of saying that there are no objective moral truths."

No "seems" about it! Deconstructed, demonstrated, left without counter-argumentation.

I shouldn't have to point out to you that saying, "This seems to be yet another way of saying there are no objective moral truths" does not constitute as counter-argumentation or counter-deconstruction, but obviously I must and therefore, just have.

If you will kindly notice the chronology of my responses, you will see you are incorrect:

Compared with:

Clear now? Probably not, so let's keep going...

Ring any bells yet?

Which I then demonstrated by quoting myself from a previous post, a necessity that is getting far too tiresome:

Now pay close attention please to see how I responded to this the first time I addressed it, which, for those keeping score at home is from the same post I've been here quoting on page three:

See the chronology now? Your response to that post was:

Is it getting any clearer now? YOU have been deliberately forcing me to chase after my own tail with this bullshit in order to avoid ever directly addressing any of my arguments!

All I've been trying to do is keep the damn thing straight.

How difficult is it to actually quote me so that you don't constantly rewrite what I wrote?

NEVER USE THE WORD "APPARENTLY" AGAIN WHEN ADDRESSING ANY OF MY ARGUMENTS. STATE SPECFICALLY WHAT MY ARGUMENT WAS AND THEN PRESENT COUNTER-ARGUMENTATION IF YOU PLEASE!

Once again, here's the entirety of what I posted:

Wherein I quoted a previous post once again in order to demonstrate what you were doing, to which you still have not countered:

Etc.

Got it? I doubt it, so I'll highlight the salient points:

That was the "other false argument" you made against me; that all I was doing was stating something repeatedly instead of making any kind of legitimate argument.

I presented my entire deconstruction and the valid reasoning behind it, explaining in detail why your analogy was not valid and not applicable, to which you have not and still will not offer any counter-deconstruction or counter-argument in kind, other than this non-counter-argumentation forcing me to correct your restructuring of posts in order to accuse me of making arguments I never did again and again and again.

It is clearly nothing more than an evasion tactic.

For clarity's sake (and my own headache), bd is referring to his non-argument made previously:

Once again, for clarity, the "false argument" you accused me of was not making any argument; that all I was doing was stating something repeatedly, which was not true.

You are incorrect as has been consistently demonstrated; worse you are obviously belaboring this nonsense so that you don't have to address any of the arguments I have made.

Trivial, pointless, evasion. My position has been and is abundantly clear as is your evasion from both my arguments and my direct questions to you regarding your unsupportable claim that an inherently subjective "belief" scenario like the one you presented does not preclude an objective moral truth.

Then here's a suggestion for you: QUOTE ME DIRECTLY AND ENTIRELY WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF MY ARGUMENT SO THAT YOU NEVER EVER EVER MAKE THIS PATHETIC EVASION ATTEMPT AGAIN.

How's that?

What else does it seem I was arguing? Please, I'm curious as to what else my words will sound like coming out of your mouth, as it were. It's fascinating to watch you justify this pointless evasion tactic of yours, you know? Instead of just directly addressing what I did argue?

You mean, both of the arguments that I seem to have made? Hunh...

And, what of the arguments I actually did make? Will you ever address those? Ever?

Wait, so the arguments that I seemed to have been making weren't arguments at all.

Would that be about the time you came up with your analogy? The one that I demonstrated to be inapplicable and invalid that you have never counter-addressed, only evaded in this manner?

So it would seem to me, that I used a personal example of something that had happened in my life to demonstrate that there is no such thing as objective morality and your response was to apparently say that such a personal anecdote does not necessarily preclude objectivity--using an analogy to illustrate your point--to which I then showed how the analogy wasn't applicable and subsequently asked you (if I've got this right) to demonstrate how an inherently subjective judgment call could possibly be considered either morally objective or how such objectivity could possibly be mandated (in keeping with the fact that I had gone into deconstructive detail regarding the inherent subjectivity of all moral judgment calls as well as the reasoning behind the impossibility and contradictory nature inherent within the oxymoronic term "objective morality") and your entire response, so it seems, is to play this stupid game in order to avoid addressing anything salient from my posts.

Hey, this is fun.

Enough of this. I stated in my second and third posts precisely what my position was and precisely what I was arguing.

And a trivial distinction on your part, as I contend, in order to avoid dealing with anything else I wrote regarding the invalidity and inapplicable nature of your analogy.

More later.

(edited for tone and formatting - Koy)

[ May 30, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

bd-from-kg

Alonzo Fyfe:

When you say that your moral system is “objective”, you seem to mean two things:

(A) Under your system, the question of whether a given action is “right” or “wrong” has a well-defined “correct” answer. That is, at least in principle, anyone with enough information can determine the answer by following a prescribed procedure, and anyone who does so will get the same answer.

(B) This procedure [and thus the moral theory that it implements] is itself “objectively correct”. That is, the answers it gives (and by implication your moral theory) are “objectively true”, and any moral theory that yields different answers is “objectively false”.

In my last two posts I tended to jumble these separate claims, which resulted in a certain loss of focus. In this one I am going to concentrate exclusively on the second.

But first, I want explain why I say that you are making this claim. Although you have never made it explicitly, you have said several things that only make sense on the basis of it.

The first (and strongest) indications are in your May 17, 2:56 PM post. Here you answered the question, ”How do you test the soundness of your theory?”, by saying, ”I look for evidence that any of the propositions within the theory are false or inconsistent.”. Now the “inconsistent” part is straightforward, but unless it is meaningful to say that your theory is objectively true or false, it cannot make sense to talk about “propositions within the theory” being true or false. And of course you contend that you have searched for such false propositions within the theory and found none. And if there aren’t any, all of the propositions within the theory are true, which is to say that the theory itself is objectively true.

A second indication can be found in your May 18, 6:09 AM post:

Here you do not say merely that this is your answer, but that this is the answer that you defend. So far as I can see, the only possible meaning of this is that you consider this to be the correct answer. Otherwise, if someone had a different answer there would be no need to “defend” yours, any more than you need to “defend” your preference for apples against someone who prefers oranges.

So it’s pretty clear that you are indeed claiming that your answer is the “correct” one, and all others are “incorrect”. But how are we to evaluate this claim? How do we distinguish between correct and incorrect answers?

For example, in what sense is the statement “The desires of all white people and only white people are relevant to moral propositions” incorrect, as opposed to merely being different from your answer? And how do we know that it’s incorrect? On this point you have had precious little to say.

Of course, as you’ve pointed out many times, this statement takes a “some things considered” point of view, whereas your moral theory is based on an “all things considered” perspective. But why does this matter? Why is an “all things considered” perspective appropriate for a moral theory while a “some things considered” one is not?

The basic problem here is that you essentially ignore the question of the purpose and function of morality. It is impossible to discuss what is morally relevant intelligibly without reference to this question, any more than it is possible to explain why a bicycle tire is typically filled to a higher pressure than an air mattress without considering the purpose and function of the two.

An excellent illustration of the problem is in your May 17, 2:56 PM post, where you give an example of how you “look for evidence that any of the propositions within the theory are false” by considering an objection that turns on the statement “To say that I ought to do the best all things considered means that I must have some reason to do the best all things considered.” Your “refutation” is simply to deny that this is true:

And why isn’t it true? Why, because your moral theory says so:

This is not very enlightening. What are your grounds for saying that “moral ought looks at all the reasons that exist”? And how does one evaluate the implied claim that moral ought looks only at reasons that “exist” in the sense that some actual person has them? Without some account of the purpose and function of morality it would seem to be impossible to make any progress here, because there is no criterion of “correctness”.

Again, in your May 20, 5:40 AM post you say:

In view of the first paragraph I presume that what follows is intended as a criticism (not merely a description) of agent subjectivism. But what’s the point? Why is the fact that, according to agent subjectivism, B’s well-being is morally relevant only to the degree that A cares about it a defect in this type of moral theory? Why isn’t the fact that under your theory B’s well being is morally relevant regardless of whether A cares about it a defect in your theory?

In this same post you say:

Now of course some subjective theories have the property that the answer depends on who is “doing the sum”. Thus if the “rightness” of an act depends on my attitude toward it (assessor subjectivism) the same act is “right” or “wrong” depending on who is assessing it. But this is not true of agent subjectivism. Nor is it true of cultural subjectivism if there is an objective procedure for determining who is a member of what “culture”.

Thus it appears that your real complaint is not that any one subjective theory necessarily gives different results depending on who is doing the “computation”, but that different subjective theories give different results, which don’t all agree with the results given by your theory. But since this is equally true of any version of agent subjectivism or cultural subjectivism, why isn’t the fact that your theory gives a different result than the one given by (say) some particular version of cultural subjectivism an argument against your theory?

Your analogy with doing a sum is obviously designed to suggest that the “right” answer is obtained by adding all the numbers. But this is hardly self-evident. For example, suppose that the numbers in the list represent the balances in all of the accounts at a given bank, and the question is how much John Q. Smith has on deposit at that bank. In that case the correct answer is obtained by adding only the numbers that correspond to John Q. Smith’s accounts. So again we see that this kind of question does not have a self-evidently correct answer that can be determined without reference to the purpose and function of morality.

To be fair, you have made one comment about the purpose and function of morality, in your May 21, 5:40 AM post:

But this will hardly do. In fact, I see at least four problems with this statement.

1. It is absurd. The ideal way to minimize harm to others is to kill everyone immediately. True, this will be harming them, but it is a harm they will inevitably suffer anyway. And it avoids all of the other harm that they would otherwise suffer in the meantime. Most important, it prevents the creation of still more people who are doomed to suffer harm.

2. It is inconsistent with your own moral theory. Your theory locates all value in the satisfaction of desires, not in minimizing harm. To put it another way, this “purpose and function” entails negative utilitarianism whereas you advocate preference utilitarianism.

Of course, you could “fix” this by revising your account to say that the purpose and function of morality is to maximize the satisfaction of actual, existing desires. But this would serve only to lay bare a more fundamental problem with this sort of account: it is unavoidably question-begging. It specifies the “morally correct” ultimate end of all human action, which is one of the central questions dealt with by moral theories. What I had in mind was something that could be discovered by analyzing the logic of moral discourse, the contexts in which it is used, etc., which left open the question of what moral theory (if any) was “correct”. Otherwise the very questions for which we need such an account in order to make progress are answered by this very account, which is putting the cart before the horse. In the same way, it would be inappropriate to define the purpose and function of physics as “discovering the laws governing the interactions between quarks and gluons”.

3. It contradicts what you said quite recently on the <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=52&t=000165" target="_blank">Morality is Evil</a> thread, as can be seen from the following exchange:

So in particular it applies to the last interpretation, that of inducing or persuading the agent to desire to act in a certain way. But if it is logically incoherent to say that the purpose of using moral language (such as “moral ought”) is to induce or persuade an agent to desire to act in a certain way, it is also incoherent to define the purpose and function of morality as “minimizing harm to others”. Moral language could only minimize harm to others by inducing people to desire to avoid harming others, and according to you it is incoherent to suppose that moral language could have any such function.

4. It fails to distinguish between morality and many other things. For example, a great deal of “positive law” is designed to minimize harm to others. But moral discourse relies strictly on the giving of reasons of a certain kind for acting or refraining from acting in certain ways. As soon as the use of force (or even social sanctions) comes into play one has left the realm of morality, except in the sense that one might morally approve of a given use of force. And not even all cases of “giving reasons” qualify as moral discourse. For example, if I point out that doing something will enhance our friendship, or promise to do something for you in return, or point out that it will be to your advantage to do it, I am not engaged in moral discourse.

In summary, I believe that you have failed to give a remotely adequate reason to prefer your moral theory to others, much less to believe that it is “objectively correct” in any intelligible sense. And I believe that you have no chance of doing so until you can offer a reasonable account of the purpose and function of moral discourse.

[ May 29, 2002: Message edited by: bd-from-kg ]</p>

Maverick

Koy,

Your frustration may be warranted, but that does not give you an excuse to resort to insults and expletives.

Either tone down your posts or remove yourself from the discussion. Additional posts with such language will be deleted regardless of how much work you have put into them.

Maverick - MF&P Moderator

Alonzo Fyfe

(B) is close, but not precisely accurate.

There are two different types of moral theories that I raise objections against. One type presupposes some type of some type of desire-independent moral property, which does not exist, so moral propositions within such a theory are all false. For example, the proposition masturbation is wrong almost always postulates some sort of desire-independent badness in nonprocreative sex. And those types of statements are false. It is hard to argue for a wrongness of masturbation based solely on desire-dependent value.

But there is a second type of theory that allows allows for desire-dependent value, but only considers some subset of desires -- typically, only those of the agent. These some-things- considered moral theories yield true claims -- there is a right answer as to how something stands in relation to this subset of desires. However, their "morality" is one of selfishness, cruelty, violence, abuse, and exploitation, These are members of the "morality is evil" family.

How can different "moral theories" yield different objectively true moral claims? I typically use location as an example. The proposition "the keys are on the table" and "the keys are next to my wallet" can both -- at the same time -- be objectively true. They do not contradict each other.

At which point, you are going to ask me to explain how an "all things considered" description is better than a "some things considered" description. After all, again referring to the location analogy, it is at best odd to say that "the keys are on the table" is more correct than "the keys are next to the wallet" when they are both objectively true.

In answering this question, I call J.L. Mackie to the stand. The word "atom" used to mean "without parts" and used to refer to minute particles of gold, lead, iron, and the like. But we discovered that these minute things were not without parts. Then, we had a choice to make.

(1) To continue to use the word "atom" to mean "without parts" and to say that these bits of gold, lead, iron, etc., were not in fact atoms.

(2) To continue to use the word "atom" to refer to these minute particles of gold, lead, iron, etc. and to change the meaning of the word to allow for the fact that these things do have parts.

(3) Preserve both the meaning and the reference for the word "atom" and assert that the whole of atomic theory is to be discarded because minute particles of gold, lead, iron, and the like that is without parts is a myth -- they do not exist, they never did exist.

Now, at this point, there is no "correct answer" to the question of which option we should take. Language is an invention, and we can invent language as we see fit -- as serves our purpose.

Yet, the absence of a "correct answer" does not make chemistry any less objective. Nor -- as you yourself once pointed out -- does the absence of a "correct answer" imply that there is no "best answer".

Of course, "best" here is a value-laden term, and as such is prone to the same types of issues as all other value-laden terms. The "best answer" must be the most efficient at fulfilling some presumed set of desires. This is all a part of the recursive element of value theory that I have talked about earlier; similar to coherentism in epistemology.

My criticism of some-things-considered moral theories is, as I stated above, that they are an ethic of selfishness, cruelty, violence, abuse, and exploitation. Under a some-things-considered moral theory, these types of acts are ruled out only contingently at best and, at worst, not at all. There is nothing objectively incorrect in defining 'moral' in a some-things-considered sense; language is an invention. Yet, this does not prevent morality -- so defined -- from being a morality of selfishness and abuse.

I cannot say that it is "incorrect" to use the term "moral" in this way, just as it is not "incorrect" to use the word 'atom' to mean 'without parts'. As long as one is willing to accept the implications.

We would also have to seriously alter the types of reasons we offer in moral debate. In these debates, people typically offer reasons that bear no relation at all to the agent's reasons -- they consider everybody. In such a debate, proof of the conclusion "It is morally permissible for A to do X" directly implies that "It would be wrong to prevent A from doing X." This implication makes sense under an all-things-considered theory, but not under a theory that looks only at the reasons the agent has in determining what the agent ought and ought not to do.

Consider the example of Jones killing Smith for his money. In a genuine debate outside of an intellectual forum, this is not a debate over whether Jones has reason or not to kill Smith. It is a debate over whether Smith and the rest of us have a reason to try to stop him. Jones' reasons are considered relevant only insofar as they are reasons we have a reason to encourage or discourage.

This is how it can be wrong for Jones to kill Smith even if he can do so with impunity -- because it remains true that we have reason to try to stop him even if we fail. Such an analysis makes sense of the fact that if we have sufficient reason to try to stop him then he is not, at the same time, at liberty to resist.

You yourself have argued that moral ought has to have something to do with what people have a reason to do. But, again, what justifies the presumption that the relevant question is what Jones has a reason to do, as opposed to a question about what Smith and society at large have sufficient reason to prevent Jones from doing?

In summary, I raise different types of objections against different types of alternative theories.

Moral propositions contained within theories that require some sort of desire-independent value are all false. No such value exists.

Moral propositions contained within a theory that makes evaluations relative only to some desires are capable of being objectively true. But it is also objectively true that they make up a morality of harm, selfishness, cruelty, violence, abuse, and exploitation -- because those who have the desires excluded from moral calculations are mere things to those whose desires are included -- valuable only insofar as they are useful tools for those whose desires are considered. All of these latter terms make unavoidable reference to the desires of the agent's victim, even if we decide to define moral terms in a way that refers necessarily only to the desires of the agent and only contingently to the desires of others.

[ May 30, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

The AntiChris

Koyaanisqatsi

I'm having difficulty understanding your violent objections to bd's responses.

You have said that people disagree about whether masturbation is "correct" or "right". You have used this as an argument that moral truths do not exist.

bd pointed out, using the "earth age" analogy, that it is quite possible for people to disagree about something for which an objective truth exists.

You discount the "earth age" analogy on the grounds that the earth's age is an objective fact whereas the rightness or wrongness of masturbation is not an objective fact.

Can you not see the circularity of this argument?

By the way, for me, the statement "masturbation is wrong" has about as much moral content as the statement "scratching ones genitals in public is wrong". Many of the challeges to the idea of an objective morality seem to focus on the obvious subjectivity of so-called moral statements without defining morality or what actually constitutes a moral statement.

For me the real debate is about whether any useful objective truths (universal desires and values) can be deduced by examining human morality.

Chris

Koyaanisqatsi

Maverick--

Agreed and accepted. My apologies, bd, but nothing pisses me off faster than someone doing the things you've been doing.

It's quite a mess thanks to bd, but my last three posts should have made my objections painfully clear.

No, I have not. Like bd, I would ask you to re-read my posts and quote me directly instead of incorrectly paraphrasing or summarizing in your own words what my posts state.

No, I have not. Again, please re-read my posts. I have no intention of cutting and pasting again.

And I pointed out (aka, demonstrated why) the analogy is not applicable or valid as well as asked bd to provide just one example and the mechanism that mandates this objective morality.

He chose instead to play evasion games with my posts.

Go figure.

Just a technical note: I don't "discount" it, I demonstrate why and how it is invalid and not applicable, to which bd still has not countered.

As with bd, I would ask you to use the proper terminology.

No, I cannot. The Earth's age is not an abstract concept open to interpretation and "exists" independently of the whims of individual belief. The "rightness" or "wrongness" of masturbation, however, is an abstract concept dependent upon interpretation and/or the whims of individual belief, because there is no "fixed number" regarding what is or is not considered to be "right" or "wrong," nor can there ever be a "fixed number" in the same manner as the Earth's age is a "fixed number, even if the factual existence of a god could be proven, since any declaration of that god in regard to masturbation would itself be a subjective declaration.

Contrary and directly to the analogy, even if a god were proved to factually exist, the declaration of that god that the Earth's age is "Y" years old, when we have determined to a reasonable certainty that the Earth's age is actually "X" years old, would not change the Earth's age to "Y" years old.

"Masturbation is wrong," is a decree and inherently subjective, since it is not possible to establish the objective truth of "wrongness."

It is inherently a personal judgment call in all possible universes even if a god were proved to exist, necessarily excluding objectivity by its very nature; therefore "objective morality" is an oxymoron.

As with bd, if you would care to offer a counter argument, please do so, but do not simply state, as bd keeps doing, "That's just another way of saying objective morality doesn't exist," because that is not a counter argument.

Then you concur that "wrongness" and/or "rightness" is inherently a personal judgment call and therefore subjective in nature, excluding the possibility of an objectively true "wrongness" or "rightness" as a necessary quality of the construct, "Morality."

Incorrect. The "challenge" to the idea of an objective morality comes from the fact that the term is self-contradictory.

There cannot. It is an impossibility inherent within the terminology, since "desires" and "values" are also terms that are inherently dependent upon subjectivity.

Do you understand now? The terms themselves describe subjective qualities of our existence. That is their purpose and that is their contingent state.

You might as well say, "I'm interested in finding out what color of white a black horse is."

[ May 30, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

Koyaanisqatsi

To the rest of bd's last post to me, in a calmer tone...

Since you agree with me, I would question why you went on such a pointless and ultimately trivial sidetrack? My very first post demonstrated my position and my second and third clarified my position.

Was it because I demonstrated that your analogy was not applicable and invalid using the exact same analysis that you just used above?

More semantics games?

Considering the hopelessly vague terminology you are using, a positivist wouldn't even get that far. They would simply stare at you awaiting specificity of terms.

Just so long as you specify your terms and stop making analogies that do not apply.

Incorrect as the chronology readily demonstrates.

Considering it was borne out of your posts, that's very big of you.

Strawman and not what I was accusing you of initially, but, regardless, I would only counter by saying, "Then don't do it."

We were having a "discussion?"

As I saw it, you had incorrectly addressed something I had posted and started this whole nonsense right from the beginning, avoiding and evading any direct counter-argumentation/deconstruction as well as my direct questions in response to what you had posted so that you could force me into chasing after my own tail.

We were not. You were posting trivial flak in order to avoid directly addressing any of my counter-posts.

[ May 30, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

Koyaanisqatsi

That's why I asked you the question, "It would serve him better than what and who is the one determining the quality of the 'service' in order to objectively establish that it is, in fact, 'better?'"

Then you used it in the wrong context. This is what you had posited:

Let's plug in your stated meanings to the relevant section to truly test your conclusion that communication can only succeed with an honest exchange that culminates in understanding, yes?

As you can plainly see, by inserting your intended meanings, there is no moral dilemia, just a barely coherent decision. An honest person tells the truth when a lie would have been a superior choice for that person (in an unknown and unqualified state) and a dishonest person tells a lie when the truth would have been a superior choice for that person (in an unknown and unqualified state).

Nothing moral or immoral about it.

The word "better" is a necessarily subjective qualifier, contingent upon personal judgment and the subsequent qualitative application of that personal judgment, as can be readily seen in the example I just provided.

Only when you use the word "better" does the above represent any kind of "moral dillemia," precisely because of the inherent subjectivity the term is contingent upon, as well as the implied comparative quality of the term.

It is "better" than what?

The term is implicitly comparative--regardless of what advertisers have bastardized over the years--that demands qualification.

In your first scenario, for example, by choosing the term "better" you are implicitly arguing that telling the truth for an honest person is qualitatively, judgmentally "better than" telling a lie for that person, yet you offer no rationalle for this qualitative declaration.

What you have so far offered, as my insertion of your intended meanings readily shows, does not cut it.

And little more than another improper use of terminology, but it certainly could be done. For example, a private, because of his rank, would not be subject to the pressures of waging a war as the general would; nor would the private be subject to the possible guilt associated with the necessities of office a general has--the necessary ordering of men such as the private to their certain deaths--and in that manner, it could very well be argued that a private's rank is "superior" to a general's rank, but again, this is a trivial point, made all the more irrelevant due to the words you did use and the inherent meaning they carry with them, as illustrated above.

Incorrect. It has no "effect" on objective facts that are independent of whether or not an individual chooses to believe or disbelieve that they are "objective facts," such as the age of the Earth.

NO ONE can successfully argue or even bring into question in any relevant sense that the age of the Earth is "Not X" once it is known that the age of the Earth is, in fact, "X."

It is a fixed number.

Conversely, the "rightness" or "wrongness" of an action is not a "fixed number" and anyone can and does successfully argue that what one person considers "right" another considers "wrong."

Again, it is inherent within the proper use and application of the terminology; the very purpose of creating the words "right" and "wrong" in a moral sense.

I don't know what you're talking about. Once again, "morality" is not a being that can "communicate itself...whether people accept it or not."

Please clarify.

Once again, you lost me. A "theory" is also not a being that "exists" in the manner you appear to be implying.

Please re-read my question to you.

Um...if you mean that string theory is an example of the use of deductive reasoning, then I concur.

Why do I sense a tremendous amount of straw is about to be stuffed?

Do you mean, the objective age of the Earth is independent of any individual, personal belief? If so, I not only concur, but pointed this out prior.

What do you mean when you say "applied deductively to the specific case to necessitate an objective fact?" Did you dream you were eating and woke up to find your thesaurus half gone?

Do you mean that string theory has been tested sufficiently to be considered reliable in "its" ability to account for universal symmetry and accurately predict particle position?

Non sequitur.

I did explain my comment. Your analogy was not applicable, because morality is an abstract concept, not a theory that can be demonstrated to be true.

String theory can be demonstrated to be true; the "rightness" or "wrongness" of a human action canot likewise be demonstrated to be true, since there is no one "thing" in contention.

With string theory, either the facts support the theory or they do not. It is therefore contingent upon objective facts "out there."

The "rightness" of masturbation, however, is not a theory with facts that can or cannot "support it." What would that theory of rightness be and what would be the facts "out there" that would support it?

Even if anyone were to argue that the "theory of rightness" is that God exists and mandates morality, it still would not be evidence of an objective morality, since God's mandate would be an example of a subjective judgment call on God's behalf.

It would simply be a decree: "Masturbation is immoral."

That decree, however, does not make the immorality of masturbation an "objective fact;" it would simply mean that masturbation has been decreed by God to be immoral.

Take careful note of the words "decreed by God" for the irrefutable evidence of a subjective action.

No, you are not. You are begging the question by simply declaring that "objective morality" exists as a general principle that accounts for an objective "fact."

In other words, you're not using words properly and in the process presenting nothing but hopeless non-sequiturs.

With the majority of the nonsense you post, I have no idea what that means either. What "indoctrination" are you talking about?

You can say it all you want, but until you clarify what the hell you're talking about, it won't make it true.

How does one "participate" in their "destiny" and why would "objective morality" be in any way contingent upon this (beyond the fact that such a construct cannot possibly exist, of course)?

What was that you had said regarding mere "declarations?"

This, too, makes no sense. Technically, there is no such thing as a "self evident" assumption. An assumption by "its" very nature, is not "self evident;" it is contingent.

Please cease with the misapplication of colloquial usage of terms.

If you mean that the PEM asserts that at least one is true, then I concur.

What "general principle" are you talking about? The Principle of the Excluded Middle asserts that, given a statement and its negation, p and ~p, at least one is true, but the PEM must be used in conjunction with the Principle of Non-Contradiction (PNC)--and only together--to assert that exactly one is true.

Both, however, are contingent upon a third principle which asserts their conjunction (unless we're arguing dialetheism, in which case, none of this is applicable).

Again, you're misusing terminology and its ultimate purpose, rendering just about everything you type trivial at best.

Those snips came too late.

You need to stop taking horse tranqulizers and crystal methamphetamine in place of your morning's coffee.

The term "non-sequitur" is self evident. It means that your conclusion cannot be derived from your premises, such as in the above nonsense about the PEM.

Again, I'll demonstrate:

Aka: Given p and ~p, the PEM asserts that at least one is true.

And exactly how do I do this? Deduction is an inference in which the conclusion about particulars follows necessarily from general or universal premises.

You're telling me to apply a principle of logic that asserts either p or ~p is true in a specific given deductively to the "specific case" (which I'll assume to be "masturbation is moral and masturbation is not moral").

PEM asserts at least one of these givens is true (and both can be true), but that does not mean that either of these givens is ultimately true, i.e., valid when plugged into a syllogism.

It is an assertion for the sake of syllogism, not an immutable law of nature, as you are misconstruing, nor does it:

P: Masturbation is moral.
~P: Masturbation is not moral.

PEM assertion: at least one is true (both can be true).

Where does that leave us? Which one do we take as true in order to "apply deductively" to the "specific case" that "necessitates an objective fact"?

An assertion for the sake of argument is nothing more than that, yet you are implying that the principle is somehow applicable outside of its use and purpose in a formal, two-value logical syllogism.

Please justify this misapplication.