Alonzo Fyfe

Not . . . really.

A person certainly can make speech acts that report their own beliefs and desires. "I like beer," and "Do not come in here with those muddy shoes on," are examples of this. One would have to be a fool to say that these types of claims are not possible.

One can say things that do not report their own beliefs and desires. Such as "Jim's car is red." Now, the agent may not say it if she did not believe it (though, she could be lying -- or acting -- or acting like somebody who is lying). Either way, what "Jim's car is red" means has nothing to do with the agent's beliefs or desires, only the explanation for the speech act references the agent's beliefs and desires.

My argument is that "mistreating the cat is wrong" is a statement of the second type. This can be determined by looking at the types of evidence and inference that agents use in making and justifying these types of claims. A statement of the form "I don't like it when you do that" does not require the same types of evidence, nor does it legitimately infer the same types of conclusions as "that is wrong."

The evidence and implications of "that is wrong" support an intrinsic-value theory of meaning, not a personal preference theory of meaning.

Alonzo Fyfe

No, actually, my question about the meaning of words. My statement was that if we were talking about the same thing, you would be saying that these types of questions are "unimportant" or "meaningless". I do not believe that you would say such a thing, therefore we could not be talking about the same thing.

The words carry an evaluative component because ethics does concern values, so you cannot use value-neutral words in talking about ethical matters.

But the argument form makes no use of the evaluative component.


Individuals draw certain implications from their emotions that are invalid.

They would be valid IF they are understood as talking about intrinsic value. But intrinsic value does not exist. What "certain subjectivists" do is admit that intrinsic value does not exist, but they preserve all of the implications that require the existence of intrinsic value to be legitimate.

Namely, these are implications about what others should do. One cannot legitimately infer from the fact that I like X that you should like it, too. Or that everybody should like it. Or that those who dislike it are "evil" or in some way defective.

These implications are legitimate if one takes one's "like" to be signs of an intrinsic value. In this case, the value is in the object, and those who do not perceive it do not perceive the object correctly -- do not perceive what is true about the object. They are defective.

If intrinsic values do not exist, then the inferences that we may legitimately draw from our moral emotions are no different than
the inferences that we may legitimately draw from our preferences for certain types of pizza toppings.

If people simply drew "personal moral codes", from this sort of evidence, the way that they draw a "personal dietary regime," then that would be fine. But these codes are not personal, they are social. People apply them equally to others as they do to themselves. They act as if there is only one right answer and those who do not arrive at the same answer are defective -- and on the basis of this defect may be punished, even killed. Effectively, they are being killed for the crime of "being somebody that I get a kick out of killing."

At this point, I assume that you are ready to charge me with an appeal to emotion. Yet, what I am in fact doing is pointing out a logical inconsistency in the subjectivism. It is offered as a piece of evidence that what subjectivists do is deny the ontological foundation of intrinsic values, while preserving practices that depend on its existence to make sense.

An inconsistency that is caused by doing away with intrinsic-value ontology, but continuing to use intrinsic-value logic.

An inconsistency that says that, because intrinsic values do not exist, the moral emotions we DO have and the moral emotions we SHOULD have are now two different questions.

The AntiChris

Alonzo Fyfe
No?
That's why I said "not....necessarily".
Which is exactly what I think I was saying.

I'm still puzzled as to how you can infer an objective measure of "right" or "wrong" from a statement which says nothing about an agent's measure of "right" or "wrong".
It seems to me that if this were true it would only be at a very superficial level and, even if it were accurate, I still fail to see how you arrive at your "all-things-considered" desire calculation.

Chris

tronvillain

Alonzo Fyfe, the question appears to me to be meaningless gibberish because moral feelings are not evidence of intrinsic value, as I spent the rest of that post explaining. Opinions such as "murder is wrong" are not hypotheses to be supported by evidence, they are facts about how we feel about murder.
Well, those can be extremely complex opinions, potentially involving objective fact as well as subjective feelings, so justification may have a role, but only when it comes to the objective facts. If someone holds the opinion that murders should be executed because a murder living bothers them more than a murder being killed then they have nothing to justify, but if someone holds the opinion that murders should be executed because it acts as a deterrent against future murderers then whether or not their opinion is justified depends on whether or not that is actually the case. Of course, only the second position could be used to persuade someone who does not already hold the opinion that murderers should be executed, but again there is a subjective element in that they must be bothered more by the possibility of future murders than the death of an existing murderer (or suspected existing murderer).
What have you done that there are those who seek your death? Anyway, I would have to say that there is a strong possibility that demanding that those who seek your death justify their opinion is meaningless gibberish. There is probably no way that they could justify their position to you, for the simple reason that you do not share their subjective feelings about the matter - different premises may easily yield different conclusions.

Now, will you not respond to the rest of that post, or to the post which followed it?

Norge

To Alonzo and Dee,

It seems, then, Alonzo, that what you are advocating as the best explanation for morality is simply "behavior." There is nothing really wrong with torture of children per se.

I think that much is clear. There is nothing wrong with torturing children. Hmm. So strongly counterintuitive that it should be questioned.

So what do we have? The best explanation you have is this Desires Theory, trying to explain that "the most desires should be satisfied" is the best way of looking at morality. But remember, the use of the word isn't something that contains a moral imperative at all, it is simply descriptive. You should help someone in need, based on the idea that "should" is related to the fulfillment of desires. There is no transcendental "should" that comes from outside ourselves, since we are simply organisms at the top. No account here then for why dogs are different from humans, which should ring bells also. More on that later.

But surely this doesn't really describe moral theory at all. First, the idea of desire-fulfillment as descriptive of moral beliefs and behavior just isn't accurate. Desires are neither good nor bad, they simply are, aren't they? I desire one thing, you desire another. To say I should do something to fulfill my desire and that encapsulates the "should" contained within moral statements is just false. "I hate blacks so I should hurt them" amounts to a moral statement? Well, no, you reply, because you aren't taking into consideration the other person's desire. But so what? You still haven't accounted for the problem that what this really is is morality driven by simple numbers.

If there is enough hate in the world and desires are sufficiently negative (but numerically greater, more intense, stronger etc), then presumably, according to you, morality would describe a world in which hate would outweigh love (in terms of desires). Indeed, this occurred in Rwanda. Enough hate to kill millions. "I hate the other race, therefore I should kill them," described their idea of morality and it outweighed the desire intensity of the other group. First, since behavior just is, it doesn't contain any "imperative" at all in your view, you have no way of distinguishing why one behavior is preferable to another. What you do instead is simply assume that the greatest number of desires must therefore be "better." But you have no basis for "better" since you deny intrinsic worth and the description itself is left hanging.

In addition, why is it that desire describes morality at all. You made what was a remarkable statement a while back, in which you stated that humans are more "valuable" (while denying intrinsic value) because they are more complex and have more desires. Complexity leads to "value" based on more desires! How can this be? Why should numerical desires lead to any kind of "value?"

This is just hopeless as a way to describe morality. Save a hundred monkeys or one human? Well, a hundred monkeys have more cumulative value, because they have more cumulative desires (numerically) than the human? But if you're going to tell me to save the monkeys and not the human, then I'm going to say there's something wrong with your theory. Obviously.

That's why on your theory of desires, when you place the entire weight of the argument on the idea of "desires" without being able to distinguish between different desires, it becomes hopelessly confused.

The most obvious conclusion here is that when we say "torturing a child is wrong" we're basing it on the value of the child and the intrinsic "wrongness" of the action of torture. The child actually has value. It cannot be on the basis of the value given it by someone else, because torturing an abandoned orphan with no caretakers to love it would be equally wrong. That is simple intuition that tells us that. Once you remove the actual value of something, then you're left with nothing but descriptions of actions without any moral weight behind them. Call it desires, call it brain wiring, according to Dee, but while the details may change in the atheistic account of morality, what it lacks is any kind of undergirding for describing why acting morally is the right thing to do, even though we know full well that we should act morally.

A couple of quick words for Dee. If all it is is wiring, in other words, it is simply our feelings that have been generated by our environment/genetic makeup etc, then there really is nothing wrong with acting on our desires, is there, because after all, I'm programmed by my environment/genetic makeup etc. So you couldn't have any objection to my stealing your furniture. I'm programmed. I have no free will. Now, you may want me arrested etc, but that's not the question. There is nothing you can say to tell me I actually did anything wrong. I didn't do anything wrong. It's amazing to me why this knowledge doesn't give atheists freedom to simply live exactly as they wish.

"But we can't, we're programmed just like you" they reply.

"I know, but you're different. You know now that you're programmed and so you have an opportunity to "turn off" the programming. After all, you only have one life. Why shouldn't you act out of uniquely selfish desires?"

"Because I'm programmed to think that's bad."

"But you now know there is no such thing as "bad." In fact, further than that, there really is no such thing as the objective statement "Mother Teresa is a better person than Hitler." That is simply meaningless in the traditional meaning of the phrase. All it means is that Mother Teresa helped people and Hitler killed people. There is nothing within the phrase describing objective wrongness in Hitler and goodness in Mother Teresa. So, given that that is the case, why not steal a little here and lie a little there. All you have to do is manage the guilt, which must then be false guilt. It is simply programmed, and can be re-programmed "off.""

What is so extraordinary is that atheists may try to argue for the lack of ojbective values but it is simply not possible to live truly like this. I think atheists know perfectly well that objective right and wrong exist. You, like I, live under this all the time, after all. You know perfectly well that Mother Teresa and Hitler are not simply two individuals that made different lifestyle choices with different effects. You may argue for wiring or desires or whatever, but you should know intuitively that this doesn't describe what you see.

It's when these things are actually lived out that you will realise the truth value of statements such as "having an affair and lying to your wife is wrong." It will be no good telling your husband that his actions are wrong, if you don't believe in wrongness. It will be no good telling your wife who does this hasn't taken into account the fullest number of desires. What kind of a response is that?

"Honey, you shouldn't have done that, because you violated the Desires Theory which states that you should take into account other people's desires."

"But we did, we fufilled our own desires, we're two, you're just one. There are more of us than you. What's your point? You yourself know we did nothing "wrong" because you don't believe in right and wrong."

"You're right, I don't. And there are two of you and just one of me. But my pain is greater than your love . . "

This is so obviously hopeless as a way to explain why we shouldn't cheat on our spouses that it is not surprising that atheistic views of morality have singularly failed in the philosophical literature.

Hope you both have a wonderful day! A truly wonderful day!

DRFseven

Yes, I agree that takes place in all societies. However, not ALL people think of the values as intrinsic. A good many think in terms of untility, social contract, etc. What everyone has in common is a system in which they recognize "good" and "bad" bahavior by feeling. We all apply all sorts of rationalization (enter here, your justification) for all sorts of contradictory behaviors, and as far as social laws go, it is might that wins out.

Because those activities are all part of different moral codes and represent people acting upon feelings they can justify. All you have done is given me a list of activities that seem bad to you and me (and, not surprisingly, to most others in our cultural group).



Certainly, emotional links to behaviors aren't fixed. Any experience can occur at any time, resulting in changes in neurocellular action-potential, which translates to a restructuring of mental schema (we experience new things and build new attitudes). But it's an automatic restructuring over which we have no means of control (sensory data comes in and memory associations are struck) and that includes the emotional component, without which, we would simply note behavioral acts but be unable to choose one that seemed better than another.

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Also, even in this culture, there are constant signs of people questioning whether the linkage of a particular (moral) emotion to a particular type of act is legitimate. They question, debate, and (sometimes) even change their mind.

Of course we change our minds, providing new information comes along to change it, and provided previous experiences enabled us amenable to change. But we will never get rid of the emotional experience of morality, or else it wouldn't be morality at all. Did you read those links I provided? Do you think they are bogus, because I can provide more.
I do not disagree with this as an explanation of human action. I believe that these feelings internalized are very effective at causing action.

You have it backwards. If an emotional experience comes along which changes our moral parameters, our reasoning changes to back it up. We are notified by our emotions as to whether we think something is right or not. For years, emotions have taken a bum rap; they are turning out to be way more important to us than we have ever thought, and as Damasio says, they are inseparable from the thought processes.

Alonzo Fyfe

I am puzzled as to what you think I am inferring. You can look at what a person says and infer from his statements what the word "God" means. However, inferring the meaning of the word is not the same as inferring that God exists.

Thus, when I infer that the word "moral" means, in part, having an intrinsic merit (in case of good) or demerit (in the case of bad), I am inferring this as a part of the meaning of the word. I am not inferring that there really is such a thing as intrinsic merit or demerit.

I also do not see what you find inadequate as to my previous explanation. Certainly, you can infer from a person's statement that "Jim's car is green," that the speaker believes that Jim has a green car (provided that there is not other counterweighting evidence that Jim is acting, writing a novel, lying, or the like). The fact that you can infer that the speaker believes "Jim's car is green" is true because of his speech utterance does not imply in any way that the speaker's beliefs have anything to do with the meaning of "Jim's car is green."

Alonzo Fyfe

Actually, I agree with this. What I disagree with is what seems to be a central claim of the limited subjectivists that I argue against, that we cannot make meaningful statements about other peoples' values -- that the only types of statements that we can make concern our own values. Because, while it is true that all value requires a valuer, it is not true that I am the only valuer in the universe, and that no value exists other than the value that I, personally, may assign.


I have made this point elsewhere. The links that form between our emotions and certain types of actions are not only the cause of our behavior, they are also the effects. As effects, they are objects of choice (as much as anything else in the universe may be).


And, thus, when we say, "He should be executed," we are saying, "Man, killing him is going to make me feel soooooo good!"


I disagree. The proposition, "X causes within me bad feelings" and "X is wrong" are logically identical statements, then it should be possible to substitute one for the other in all cases and come out with identical logical implications.

And, yet, it is not generally considered valid to infer from "X causes within me bad feelings" that "You ought to be executed (fined, imprisoned, have your children taken away from you, whatever) for doing X."

My quick response to the section above is actually meant to illustrate this point here. Your theory does not account for punishment, because if your interpretation is correct than the reason for punishment is something that most people find morally repulsive. People are not, in fact, being punished because they did something wrong, but because the punisher gets off on it. (Or, more to the point, "doing something wrong" means "doing something that causes me to want to hurt you.")

It is also the case that when two different people, under this interpretation, are in a situation where one says "X is wrong" and another says "X is right," they are saying two different things. Because they are saying two different things, there is no point of disagreement between them. And, yet, they often take themselves as saying the same thing and the difference is taken as a matter of dispute, at which point each begins to muster the evidence for their side and against the other, as they do in all matters of dispute.

Which, by the way, would be true if they took themselves to be talking about an intrinsic value property. Then, different opinions are, in fact, a matter of dispute requiring the gathering of evidence to resolve.


Yes, but the differences between pies and moral sentiments is that we do not condemn those who like a different type of pie. Yes, subjectivism denies the existence of intrinsic values. And yet subjectivism holds to all of the rituals and traditions that only makes sense if there are intrinsic values.

What you have not done is shown me any way that any of these rituals make sense under subjectivism. Once intrinsic values are cut out of the pictures, the rituals no longer make sense.

Alonzo Fyfe

Strangely, what you describe here is not far from the account that I would give. Except, the mother is not saying that "it bothers me." She is saying precisely, "This harms the cat, plus a person who does this type of thing is a danger to others, plus a person who does this type of thing is a danger to himself because of the harsh treatment he will invite from others, and a person who does this type of thing is doing something that I do not like." She is saying all of these things, and this is what I have called a statement of its "all-things-considered" value.

Except, it is a bit more sophisticated than a simple utilitarian calculation of the act. Because we know, or at least have built into our culture and traditions, the fact that actions are caused by desires. Thus, every statement of the form, "you ought to do differently" implies "you ought to have different desires." And every change of desires has its own consequences. So, tradition has taught us to evaluate actions not by their own consequences, but according to the consequences of the desires that cause them, and not to praise an act with good consequences if it could only have been caused by a bad desire.

Which shows how clever our rituals and traditions have come over time.

Yet, they still contain a mistake of intrinsic value, which causes us to make invalid inferences, and to condemn behavior that is not in fact bad and to praise behavior that is bad, because we take our own emotions as reliable indicators of the overall goodness and badness of the action. This is the mistake of intrinsic value, and this is a mistake that continues to promote needless conflict, suffering, and death.

Because the best way to determine if something is harmful to others is not to look within ourselves and to determine if there is anything within us that gets excited by the action. People can all too easily find joy in the suffering of others. The best test available is to look outside ourselves and to see if others are in fact suffering.

Both objectivism and limited subjectivism make the mistake of having us look in the wrong direction -- of looking inside when we should be looking out. With respect to this mistake, objectivism, in fact, makes the smaller error. Objectivism views the value as intrinsic, and thus tells us to take our perception as possibly flawed, particularly when somebody else disagrees with us. One of us must be wrong, and so we are invited to at least consider the possibility that we are the one who is wrong.

Subjectivism does not allow us to make mistakes. Subjectivism says, "if it gives you a thrill to harm these people, then by all means harm them." It cuts away a significant portion of our moral world -- that portion that invites us to question, "I feel this way about X, but SHOULD I be feeling this way about X?"

DRFseven

I'm curious, Richard; do you not read what I post, or are you just being naughty? Since I've stated several times that the point of objecting or arguing with an individual is that the argument becomes another experience from which new opinions might be constructed, why do you persist in pretending that I assert attitudes are fixed and unchangeable? Who was that who said "Changes R Us?" Was it I? My goodness; what do you know, it was.

And, heavens, who was it who said that we have strong moral feelings about rights and wrongs, that when we do what we perceive is wrong, our conscience hurts us? Could that have been little old me?

So let's just drop the "Gosh, why would atheists/subjectivists/determinists ever bother to do anything but indulge in hedonistic pleasure" gambit; it's tedious, has been answered over and over, and won't work. That dog won't hunt, Richard.



Here's another one I've already answered, but it was again answered especially well, I thought, by tronvillain. "Bad" is that which makes me feel how I feel when I feel like saying something is bad. To say we think there is no such thing as "bad" when you mean we think there is no such thing as intrinsic badness is kind of like cheating to win an argument, isn't it? It would be like me saying, "You don't believe that "bad" is subjectively determined, so that means you don't think any behavior under the sun is bad, because all opinions are subjectively determined. That means you don't think anything is wrong, and that means you think torturing children is actually good!"

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There is nothing within the phrase describing objective wrongness in Hitler and goodness in Mother Teresa. So, given that that is the case, why not steal a little here and lie a little there. All you have to do is manage the guilt, which must then be false guilt. It is simply programmed, and can be re-programmed "off.""

And I, of course, could say exactly the same of you. There is nothing you have said describing subjective wrongness in Hitler, so given that, why not cheat, lie, steal, and murder if it puts you ahead? Sure you have a little guilt, but since you have free will, you can drop that any time you want; what's the problem?



Yet you haven't offered a shred of evidence to back up these completely fanciful assertions. "Know that this doesn't describe what you see."; "...you don't believe in wrongness." I know and believe nothing of the kind; you have made this up in an effort to defend a position that you want so badly to be true because you have learned that it is and you don't want the rug pulled out from under all your beliefs. The judgement is in the head of the judge, Richard. Period.