bd-from-kg

Helmling:

OK, let’s try this one more time.

I would certainly hope that neither you nor most other moral relativists are quite as hopelessly confused as that!

Remember, the claim that we are examining here is not that saying that P1 is a valid moral principle means that one has some feeling or attitude toward it, nor that in saying this one is expressing some feeling or attitude toward it, but that it means that one has some moral belief regarding it. But what moral belief could this possibly be, but the belief that P1 is a valid moral principle? And it is this particular version of moral subjectivism (which you certainly seem to be espousing above) that I am pointing out is logically incoherent. In fact, you will not find a single professional philosopher of the slightest repute who holds this position, for the simple reason that it is unquestionably logically incoherent, and all competent professional philosophers are quite familiar with this fact.

G.E. Moore explains this about as well as it has ever been explained in his fine little book Ethics:

As I said before, this is not merely Moore’s opinion; it is the universal opinion of all competent philosophers.

Huh? (1) If you’re sticking with the idea (which you just affirmed) that moral beliefs are beliefs about one’s moral beliefs, you are claiming that these beliefs are objectively true. Presumably a person really does have the beliefs that he believes he has. (2) If you were saying that moral beliefs can be objectively true in any meaningful sense (i.e., that morality is objective) my criticism would be totally invalid.

All of what assumes this? Your original statement said nothing about whether the person in question believed in an objective basis for morality, You said simply that “One’s personal belief about morality IS that person's morality” and “Morality is a system of belief”. And in the context (you were saying to Longbow that “I don’t know that I would be so comfortable speaking for ‘most people’ were I you”) it’s clear that you were not restricting this to those who believed in an objective morality.

But perhaps you were referring only to the specificmoral belief that “P1 is a valid moral principle”. But I don’t know how else to express the idea of a belief in the sort of thing I have in mind. For example, presumably you have a different attitude toward the principle P1: “All men should be treated the same regardless of race, creed, or color” and the principle P2: “All Jews are vermin and should be exterminated”. One way of expressing this difference is to say that you regard P1 as valid and P2 as invalid. I don’t see why this would commit you to moral objectivism. But if you prefer to use some words other than “valid” and “invalid” to differentiate between the moral principles you accept and those you reject, I have no problem with that. It doesn’t affect the argument in the slightest. The point is that if you say that the difference between your attitudes towards P1 and P2 is that you believe P1 and disbelieve P2, you are committed to moral objectivism. As I said before, a non-objectivist simply cannot talk meaningfully about moral beliefs.

You say:

I’m not sure what you include under the term “opinion”; we were talking about beliefs. And if there is no objective morality, there can be no meaningful moral beliefs. (Of course there can still be meaningful beliefs about morality. By a moral belief I mean a belief that a certain action is, or would be, right or wrong, or a belief that a certain rule or principle regarding what actions are right or wrong is generally valid – i.e., that it gives the correct result in most cases. On the other hand, the belief that there is no objective morality is a belief about morality, but not a moral belief.) If there is no objective morality, there is nothing that moral beliefs can be about, so there is no way that they can be meaningful. By way of illustration, suppose that I claim to have a belief about whether the King of France is currently residing in Paris or Versailles. It may be correct to say that I really do have a belief about the King’s whereabouts, but surely it doesn’t make sense to say that this belief is meaningful, because the subject of the belief doesn’t exist. More generally, a belief is meaningful if it is a belief that P, where P is actually a proposition. Perhaps one can be said to believe that P if one is under the impression that P expresses a proposition, but if P doesn’t express a proposition such a “belief” is meaningless.

As for the meaning being subjective, I’m not sure where you’re getting at. If you mean, for example, that when John believes that capital punishment is wrong, he means something entirely different from what Jim believes when he believes that capital punishment is wrong, or what Larry disbelieves when he believes that capital punishment is right, you’re saying that moral discourse is impossible. One cannot have a meaningful discussion when everyone is talking about different things: no one is either agreeing or disagreeing with anyone else, any more than they would be if John said “I have a headache, Jim said “I have one too”, and Larry replied “well, I don’t”. But if John, Jim, and Larry understand the same thing by “capital punishment is wrong” (thus making it possible to have an actual discussion), the meaning is not subjective.

All of this can be avoided by giving up the idea that moral statements express propositions. It’s possible to disagree in other ways than disagreeing about whether a proposition is true. For example, if John and Jim were to say “Let’s go to a movie” and Larry were to reply “No, let’s go to a restaurant; I’m hungry”, they would be disagreeing (assuming that they all want to stay together). But they would not be disagreeing about a proposition; they would be disagreeing about what to do. Moral statements can be interpreted in a similar way. (This is essentially what the emotive and imperative theories are about.) But if you adopt any such interpretation you must give up any idea that morality is about beliefs of any kind. (And of course these theories have their own problems. The main one is that they are radically inconsistent with the logic of moral discourse, or as Longbow would say, they clearly aren’t describing what most people actually mean when they use moral language; which is to say that they aren’t talking about morality at all as the term is commonly understood.)

K

bd-from-kg:

I think your refutation of Helmling's position only works if he/she had declared that there is no absolute truth to any belief. I don't remember that assertion being made - only that there is no absolute truth to moral beliefs. The belief that morality is relative could be true without itself having to be relative. Just like the belief that beauty is subjective can be true without reducing to the absurdity of a belief about a belief about ...

Helmling, I don't believe you claimed that all truth was relative, but please correct me if I misrepresented your position.

bd-from-kg

K:

Why?

Sure. I’ve already distinguished between moral beliefs and beliefs about morality. It is only the former that my argument applies to. It makes perfectly good sense for a non-objectivist to say that he believes that morality is subjective. Statements like this are part of metaethics – the analysis of what ethical (i.e., moral) statements mean. What a non-objectivist denies is not that metaethical statements express propositions, but that statements like “X should do Y” or “It is generally wrong to act in such-and-such a manner” do. And therefore he cannot consistently talk about meaningful beliefs with respect to such statements.

Frankly, I’m flabbergasted that this simple, straightforward logical point has provoked so much controversy. Please note that this argument is not directed against the statement that morality is relative (or subjective or whatever), but specifically against the notion that one’s morality consists of one’s personal beliefs about morality.

bd-from-kg

Helmling:

At this point I want to go back to something you said earlier to Longbow, which obviously plays a large role in your thinking about morality:

These two statements are not at all incompatible. The fact that a belief or behavior has a nonrational cause does not imply that the belief or behavior cannot be rational. If it did, there could be no such thing as rational beliefs or behaviors, since ultimately everything has a nonrational cause.

And you are talking about ultimate causes. You aren’t saying that the immediate or proximate cause of the belief or behavior is nonrational. So far as your argument is concerned, if a belief were the product of the most thorough possible analysis of mountains of evidence by the most intelligent person, with the best judgement, that anyone could imagine; it wouldn’t matter in the least. You are ruling out the possibility that it could be rational on the basis of the existence of a very long causal string tracing back billions of years, in which the earliest stages could not have had a rational component. But if evolution is incapable of producing cognitive function that supports rational thought and behavior, we are all victims of a fantastic delusion: that we are reasoning creatures capable of deciding what to do and believe on the basis of rational, well-thought-out considerations, when in fact it’s all a matter of molecules colliding randomly in our brains. Of course, it is all a matter of molecules colliding in our brains, and they are doing so in accordance with nonrational physical laws, but it doesn’t follow that their motions are random. And if their motions are nonrandom in the right way (as a result of evolution) our beliefs and actions aren’t necessarily nonrational merely because they are the product of a nonrational process.

So if your only argument that things like Kant’s categorical imperative are arbitrary is that they are the product of minds molded by evolution, you have no argument at all. You might just as well say that your belief that the earth goes around the sun is arbitrary on the same grounds: it, too, is the product of a mind that was molded by evolution. In other words, it can be traced, in the final analysis, entirely to nonrational causes.

This isn’t to say that Kant’s categorical imperative is not arbitrary. It just says that if you want to show that it is arbitrary, you need something better than the fact that it is the product of nonrational causes.

K

bd-from-kg:

And here I think the issue is only in definition. I believe "morality" here is being used to describe the individual's motivation for actions, not the wrongness/rightness of those actions. I would interpret the claim:

One's morality consists of one's personal beliefs about morality.

to mean:

One's motivation to take actions that others may consider moral or immoral consists of one's personal beliefs about morality.

I don't happen to agree with the statement, but I don't find it at all contradictory.

bd-from-kg

K:

Well, first off you're interpreting what someone else said to mean something quite different from what they actually said. Unless you've been communicating with Helmling on the side and as a result are quite confident that this is what he meant, I don't see the point. I think he is quite competent to tell us what he meant.

Second, your interpretation of the statement is absurd. (That is, it's an absurd statement; whether it's an absurd interpretation I'll leave to Helmling.) People's motivation to take actions does not always consist of their personal beliefs about morality. In fact, there are cases on record where a person's motivation was simple self-interest. In other cases people have reportedly been motivated by concern for their own family's welfare without much regard for anyone else's. I know this is shocking, but apparently it really happens.

And assuming that you mean this statement to apply to non-objectivists as well as objectivists, I don't see how you can casually refer to people's "personal beliefs about morality" as though I had not just devoted a considerable amount of space to pointing out that non-objectivists do not have "personal beliefs about morality"? If you're going to reply to me, at least be courteous enough to give some indication that you've read at least my last post or two. If you don't think my arguments are worthy of a reply, don't bother to reply.

K

bd-from-kg:

I also believe Helmling is quite competent to tell us what he/she meant and I also believe I correctly interpreted what he/she did mean. However, I did ask for correction if I did misinterpret.

I didn't say I agreed with the position. I only said it wasn't internally contradictory. And I don't think it's too much of a stretch to call self-interest an individual's morality if that person uses self-interest to make decisions that others would call moral or immoral. But, like I said, I don't agree with the position.

Wouldn't the belief that others' judgements of behaviors as moral or immoral were not based on objective standards count? It may not be a "moral belief", but it certainly seems to be a "belief about morality".

I read your posts and haven't found your argument convincing. It only makes sense when using a definition of morality that assumes objectivity. That's why I provided the definition that I thought Helmling was using.

Also, in my last post, I clearly stated that I didn't agree with the position. I only pointed out that it wasn't internally contradictory they way I read it. So who is guilty of not reading through the other's statements?

Helmling

To K:

I’m not sure if I had claimed that there is no absolute objective truth. If not, I’ll be happy to claim it now.

To bd-from-kg

[Remember, the claim that we are examining here is not that saying that P1 is a valid moral principle means that one has some feeling or attitude toward it,]

I don’t think you see what I’m saying. That *IS* what *I* am saying that describing P1 as a valid moral principle means because as far as I am concerned that is all that it could ever mean.

[In fact, you will not find a single professional philosopher of the slightest repute who holds this position, for the simple reason that it is unquestionably logically incoherent, and all competent professional philosophers are quite familiar with this fact.]

Oh dear, well, we can’t run afoul of the professional philosophers…I mean, they have managed to construct a single, coherent model of ethics and morality by which humankind has come to know and understand itself, therefore we should really trust in their judgments.

You are bringing to bear your assumptions and what appear to be off-the-shelf arguments against subjectivism. This seems to be leading to you not listening to what I’m saying.

Let’s take your G.E. Moore example. It’s a splendid example of the limits of logic. Divorced from reality, logic can also demonstrate how it is simply impossible to reach any destination (i.e. you must reach an infinite series of midpoints). But in reality there is nothing stopping people from holding beliefs that have no logical basis—we all do it all the time. What is the point in discussing potential beliefs as logically incoherent when I have argued that ultimately, there is no logical objective basis for moral beliefs.

[Huh? (1) If you’re sticking with the idea (which you just affirmed) that moral beliefs are beliefs about one’s moral beliefs,]

No, no, you’re mixed up about what I’m saying. I simply said that people have beliefs about their own moral beliefs—generally that their beliefs are the only correct ones. I didn’t intend to define moral beliefs in that fashion.

[you are claiming that these beliefs are objectively true.]

No, I’m not. I’m claiming that a lot of people believe their own morals are objectively true.

[All of what assumes this? Your original statement said nothing about whether the person in question believed in an objective basis for morality, You said simply that “One’s personal belief about morality IS that person's morality” and “Morality is a system of belief”. And in the context (you were saying to Longbow that “I don’t know that I would be so comfortable speaking for ‘most people’ were I you”) it’s clear that you were not restricting this to those who believed in an objective morality.]

No, I certainly wasn’t. But you seem confused about what I meant by the statement. “One’s personal belief about morality,” i.e. what that person believes to be moral and immoral, “is that person’s morality.” Longbow was working with a rather unusual definition of morality. I was explaining my own.

But why are we talking about Longbow in the third person…you’re him, aren’t you?

[ One way of expressing this difference is to say that you regard P1 as valid and P2 as invalid.]

Oh I do, I do! But I don’t harbor any illusions that my estimation of their validity is based on anything objective or logical. My belief is based—like everyone else’s—on my conditioning and on the variance within that conditioning that we can call free will.

[The point is that if you say that the difference between your attitudes towards P1 and P2 is that you believe P1 and disbelieve P2, you are committed to moral objectivism.]

No, not at all. I am as free to disbelieve and believe any P1 or P2 I wish. I simply am not naïve or arrogant enough as to assume that I do so because I have access to some objective truth of P1 and P2. Subjectivism does not strip you of all beliefs, it simply forces you to accept the subjective nature of beliefs, even your own.

[As I said before, a non-objectivist simply cannot talk meaningfully about moral beliefs.]

As I said, that is only true if you work with an objectivist’s definition of “meaningfully.”

[ a belief that a certain rule or principle regarding what actions are right or wrong is generally valid – i.e., that it gives the correct result in most cases.]

Pray tell, what would be the “correct” result of a moral choice?

You see, you are trying to contest me with objectivist definitions. What you mean by “correct” is correct according to an objective standard of morality. What you mean by “meaningful” is “related to what is and is not objectively moral.” You can’t understand my point of view because you are too deeply rooted in your own—you’re using concepts from objectivism, the very concepts I’ve just rejected. You are trying to beat me at Basketball by tucking a football under your arm.

I know we’re in trouble when the old King of France bit makes an appearance. Your analogy is less useful than my sports analogy above. And mine was just a joke. You’re trying to equate beliefs about morality and their “meaningfulness” to statements that are factually incorrect and can be proven to be incorrect. We can work with facts objectively because the very definition of objectivity allows us to. But morality is different. It does not exist within the confines of the law of non-contradiction and the other limitations of logic. Morality is irrational. It has no objective basis, therefore trying to apply objective standards will just get your wheels spinning over nonsensical things like that A is B thing you pulled out of Moore.

[you’re saying that moral discourse is impossible.]

No, only that it is not in the prevue of logical discourse. What any person or people consider to be wrong or right has never been a matter of shared semantics and logical discourse. It has been a matter of conditioning, empathy and emotional investment. Who was it again? Jim, Steve and Pancho? Let’s say they’re all saying something is wrong. Do they mean the same thing by “wrong?” Yes and no. They know what “wrong” means and so they are communicating based on that. But the standard for what actually qualifies as being “wrong” may be completely different.

[One cannot have a meaningful discussion when everyone is talking about different things:]

Well, that’s an ironic statement! We're spinning wheels here. This is what always happens. You want me to play in your arena, I want you to open my rulebook. There is a fundamental philosophical difference. There is only one way to approach it.

You believe there is an objective basis for morality and it colors all your discussion of the issue. I believe there is not.

I believe there is not because I have seen no evidence nor argument to support such a belief.

So what is your argument? What is the objective basis for morality?

bd-from-kg

Helmling:

For the record, I am not Longbow. Longbow and I disagree about a great many things. One of our more serious disagreements is that he is a moral objectivist and I’m not.

I was not arguing (as I pointed out repeatedly) against non-objective moral theories in general, but only against one particular type of non-objective theory. Your speculation that my supposed moral objectivism colors all my thinking and makes it impossible to see your point of view is completely misguided. I understand the non-objectivist point of view perfectly. One of the things that I understand about it that you don’t is that it doesn’t makes sense from this standpoint to say that one has moral beliefs, or that anyone has meaningful moral beliefs. Moral attitudes, or feelings, or stances, yes; beliefs, no. And it doesn’t makes sense from any point of view to say that moral beliefs are beliefs about someone’s moral beliefs.

Actually I’m a logician; I was hoping to introduce a bit of logical clarity into the discussion. But since it has become apparent that you (like most of the other participants here) regard this as an annoying intrusion, there is no point in continuing.

If you don’t care to be bothered about the distinction between saying that moral statements are statements about feelings or attitudes, or statements about beliefs, or aren’t statements about anything, but simply expressions of feelings or attitudes, you have no interest in or knowledge of moral philosophy at all. I, on the other hand, have little interest in the question of the extent to which the average person’s behaviors and attitudes are the product of evolution, as opposed to being the product of genetic traits that are not widely shared and so cannot be properly regarded as a product of evolution, or the product of training, education, and other environmental influences. As I commented earlier, this question has no bearing whatsoever on moral philosophy.

So, I’m outta here. Have fun.

fcs25

Morals arise from the complexity of the brain structure.Some apes have shown very clear signs of possessing morals concerning their own kind.Morals are a by-product of intelligence.