"Permissable pluralism." Nietzsche and James offer Geoff's 'permissable pluralism.' Good conversation. Nice work.

It was a good show and I am looking forward to a discussion on evolutionary ethics.
Kudos to Geoffrey for hinting at the idea of a pursuit of happiness not being this wholly grail of human psychology, ethics and political theory.
It would be interesting if Will invites someone who would probe at the role concept of happiness plays in Wilkinson's own thinking.

Go Heels. That is all.

Hmmm. The verbal fall-out from imputing reality on emptiness is endless. But probably not much choice where we muddle along in the theatre of conventions. Stimulating discussion. Thanks to both. More of this same tenor would be good as a goad to take more inclusive and hence more meaningful macro views of the micro-trivia so often psychically enslaving BHTV "Comments" discussions. EW

Too short! Too short! Who sanctified the hour? Why? Why not two? Why not split it into parts? Why not five?

Quoting Eastwest: Hmmm.
More of this same tenor would be good as a goad to take more inclusive and hence more meaningful macro views of the micro-trivia so often psychically enslaving BHTV "Comments" discussions.
EW

So are you suggesting that you might be open to expanding the parameters of your usual narrow and self-referential interpretation by fiat? As in positing instead of proclaiming, addressing questions instead of deflecting by insisting that only you are the keeper of the flame, whereas we are mere dupes of failed intellect and under the spell of snake oil and false charms?

Quoting graz: So are you suggesting that you might be open to ....

Seems like an unnecessarily contentious response to my comment. Frankly, most of what is frothed over with such fervor in electoral-politics discussions here is a matter of opinion about which ultimate-truth claims are frivolous and absurd. (And, I dare say, a bit boring to boot.) I'm merely suggesting more of a "big-picture" view could conduce to less ego-invested reaction when someone dares to chide you for a cherished view clung to like some religious tenet of huge moral significance. In short: I guess I find gratuitous gutter-language over mere opinions tedious in the extreme. Too much civility is probably not necessary, either, but pretending a disagreeable idea is something to die for is just ridiculous. For a moderately humorous illustration of the analysis-versus-reality dissonance of which I speak skip ahead in this five minute real-audio clip (writer's almanac) to the two minutes from 2:20 to 4:25 (just double-clicking the link should bring up your Real Player): http://www.publicradio.org/tools/med.../2008/04/24_wa Cheers,
EW

You are right about the tone in regard to this particular comment... that would be my point. Anybody who monitors this board probably views responses on a continuum. We all have our preferences, but fail to vest much concern in others approach.
I also agree with your psych profile of the advantage of a big picture approach.
It's all about balance... and there is plenty of falling down around these electoral-politics hot tub sessions. Cheers to you too.
Thanks for the link.

Wow! Geoffrey Sayre-McCord -- what a treat! I recommend his collection of essays on Moral Realism -- I think I've recommended it (or articles in it) before here in the Comments Sewer.
I was a little worried people would find the discussion too abstruse. I'm really relieved to find that reactions have so far been very positive. In the final section of the discussion (about whether moral judgments might be just preferences disguised and the worry about what you do when you face someone who just doesn't care about moral goods), I wish Sayre-McCord had pointed out how difficult it really is for people consistently not to care about rights and fairness etc. It's certainly very easy not to care about other people when we have the upper hand, to just pursue our own interests, treating other people as mere means to our ends. But let someone treat US in that way, and we will quickly discover that we ourselves believe that others treatment of us must be justified in some way TO us. We believe WE are not mere means to others' ends. And when we try to spell out why we are

[quote=Bloggin' Noggin;
I was a little worried people would find the discussion too abstruse. [/QUOTE] Well it was abstruse, and I had to look-up that word in the dictionary also.
The first time through, I was distracted by a competing conversation. I'm really glad I gave it my full attention afterwards. Good stuff indeed.

If they're getting philosophers of the caliber of Sayre-McCord or Knobe, they really ought to get Mike Rea, Dean Zimmerman, Hans Halvorsen, Bas van Fraassen, Al Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, Peter van Inwagen, Fritz Warfield, Robert Audi, Eleonore Stump, Marilyn Adams, or Robert Adams to argue the theistic side against Horgan or Johnson.

How large does a community have to be before it qualifies as having its own morality? Is there any firm place we can point to in between one universal morality for everyone and everyone having their own private morality? How cohesive does a group have to be about its moral sentiments?

I liked Geoffrey's neologism unobtainium. Definitely stealing that. I liked this conversation more as it progressed. The first part was well-characterized by themightypuck. Listening to a half hour of attempts to define terms when you know the conclusion is going to be "we can't really define these terms" gets a little tedious. I know I'm being a bit of a philistine here, but I think it's always important to keep the audience in mind. The second half of the conversation was better, and I wished they could have gotten into some of the evolutionary aspects, too.

Another in an awesome string of fascinating programs by Will!! I'm enjoying the Science Saturday and Free Will weekend on climate change and moral philosophy. A wonderful break from the electoral food fight.

So, did anyone become a moral realist in the course of this? Are there any moral facts? Do we need to invoke moral properties in explaining non-moral facts? Can we explain the holocaust without mentioning Hitler's evil? Could the justice of a society explain its stability (or could injustice explain instability)?

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: So, did anyone become a moral realist in the course of this?

Are there any moral facts?

Do we need to invoke moral properties in explaining non-moral facts? Can we explain the holocaust without mentioning Hitler's evil? Could the justice of a society explain its stability (or could injustice explain instability)?

I will only go so far as to say that I can believe in the existence of moral truths. I'd find it hard to name any specific ones, though. I don't think we need to have a complete and consistent philosophy that is time- and culture-independent to hold a justifiable view of Hitler. He was contrary to what we consider "good," by the standards of our civilization. I am content to use the word "evil" as convenient shorthand for him, and to label his actions and commands in this way for lack of a better term. "Psychopathic" might work equally well, especially in its colloquial sense.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: Can we explain the holocaust without mentioning Hitler's evil?

In evil as with virtue, there are no inherently-existing qualities, just as there are no inherently-existing entities in which they might reside. Assuming it's Spring somewhere by now (not here, yet), here's a poem: Song of the Spring Breeze The breeze of Spring—What feelings does it have
When, at dawn and at dusk, it visits groves and gardens?
Not asking who owns the peach trees or plums,
It just wafts down pink blossoms and utters no words. By the T’ang Dynasty Monk, Ch’i-chi (864-937 ce)
EW

Quoting Eastwest: For a moderately humorous illustration of the analysis-versus-reality dissonance of which I speak skip ahead in this five minute real-audio clip (writer's almanac) to the two minutes from 2:20 to 4:25 (just double-clicking the link should bring up your Real Player):

http://www.publicradio.org/tools/med.../2008/04/24_wa

Writer's Almanac: Best show on radio. And that's a great, entertaining poem. Thanks.

Quoting graz: Well it was abstruse, and I had to look-up that word in the dictionary also.
The first time through, I was distracted by a competing conversation. I'm really glad I gave it my full attention afterwards. Good stuff indeed.

Will really does an amazing job with this series.

Can we explain the holocaust without mentioning Hitler's evil?

Certainly Hitler explained his conduct in moral terms. He subscribed basically (with a little pop Nietzsche thrown in) to the core moral tenets of Western civilization. Our political systems are based on nationalism; Hitler was "merely" an ultra-nationalist. Even his eugenics and anti-Semitism were allegedly for "the greater good" of the German people (Aryans). All the leaders of WWII engaged in acts of evil by the standard of "depraved indifference" and deliberate infliction of death by firebombing and starvation. That goes for Churchill, Roosevelt, the Japanese, the Italians, the Russians and so on. Churchill was an incorrigible racist and imperialist; Roosevelt was an anti-Semite. Truman thought it was okay to drop atom bombs on civilians. Most of the action, as in all wars, was around everyone claiming to be the aggrieved party who was acting in self-defense, to rectify or avenge a wrong. Much as I despise Nazism, I don't think it makes a good test case for grappling with "evil." Hitler really believed Jews were "poisoning" humanity and causing all the world's ills. Anti-Semitism is a set of mistaken ideas. There's no "evil" there. Just bullshit, flag pins and military parade music. It might be

Quoting kidneystones: ...William Ayers....Krauthammer ... broken moral compass of Barack Obama....Ayers-Obama, Wright-Obama and Rezko-Obama...Flag-pins...Indiana Voters... Wright , Rezko and Ayers...flag-pins as a 'distraction'...

Is this post in the wrong thread?
Which diavlog are you watching?

Quoting Wonderment: Certainly Hitler explained his conduct in moral terms. He subscribed basically (with a little pop Nietzsche thrown in) to the core moral tenets of Western civilization. Our political systems are based on nationalism; Hitler was "merely" an ultra-nationalist. Even his eugenics and anti-Semitism were allegedly for "the greater good" of the German people (Aryans).

Is this limitation to concern only for Germans or Aryans morally justifiable? I would say that it isn't, and that if Hitler's justification stops there, then it isn't really a moral justification. All the leaders of WWII engaged in acts of evil by the standard of "depraved indifference" and deliberate infliction of death by firebombing and starvation. That goes for Churchill, Roosevelt, the Japanese, the Italians, the Russians and so on. Churchill was an incorrigible racist and imperialist; Roosevelt was an anti-Semite. Truman thought it was okay to drop atom bombs on civilians. Whether the allies were any better than Hitler is beside the point -- they could be evil too, without threatening the explanation offered (Hitler's evil was a contributing cause to the events of the Holocaust).
However, I will mention two points: 1) A case can certainly be made that Churchill and Roosevelt were morally better

It seems to me that the first steps in building a system of ethics are where all the important questions lie. Deciding what to value is a much harder, and more interesting, set of questions than how to measure the relative value of something. Without having had a discussion the relationship between evolution and the list of things that we might care about, fundamentally, it seem as if questions about an absolute basis for morality are meaningless. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to feel discomfort. I want these things for those I care about. Are there any questions of ethics that can’t ultimately, by some algebra, be reduced to one or more of these fundamental questions? Maybe social dominance? Even that reduces to the first three questions(*), I think. Does believing the above make me a moral relativist? I probably self-identify that way. Added: I'm taking note that I apparently don't know the difference between a question and an assertion.

Quoting bjkeefe: I will only go so far as to say that I can believe in the existence of moral truths. I'd find it hard to name any specific ones, though.

I find that hard to believe. What about the following?
1. It's morally wrong to torture babies just for the pleasure of it.
2. The mere fact that I'd prefer it if Fred died isn't adequate moral reason for killing him.
3. You and I possess moral standing (i.e., our interests cannot morally be discounted in determining how to treat us).

I don't think we need to have a complete and consistent philosophy that is time- and culture-independent to hold a justifiable view of Hitler. He was contrary to what we consider "good," by the standards of our civilization. I am content to use the word "evil" as convenient shorthand for him, and to label his actions and commands in this way for lack of a better term. "Psychopathic" might work equally well, especially in its colloquial sense.

What are "our standards" in this case? Are they part of the very meaning of the word "evil" and "good"? Or are they completely separable from what we mean by "evil" and "good"?
Suppose you come across

Hi Jeff,
Thanks for the answer. A few comments below:

Quoting AemJeff: It seems to me that the first steps in building a system of ethics are where all the important questions lie. Deciding what to value is a much harder, and more interesting, set of questions than how to measure the relative value of something. Without having had a discussion the relationship between evolution and the list of things that we might care about, fundamentally, it seem as if questions about an absolute basis for morality are meaningless.

I don't think we are in any position to "build a system of ethics" from scratch. Just as we start off with a commonsense view of the world (or more accurately a set of commonsense views about different aspects of the world), we start off with certain values. Reflection and further inquiry can modify that initial commonsense view of the world in ultimately quite radical ways, as we see from the history of science. The same goes for our commonsense evaluative thought. We don't start out outside the evaluative realm and try to construct a set of values. We start out within the

As always, thanks for the thoughtful response. Am I missing something important? I think of formal systems of ethics as codifications of something that already exists - worked out to fix the inconsistencies, to the extent that that can be done - much like the relationship between formal grammar and natural language. If that’s a valid point of view, then I don’t think that we do “build” our systems of ethics from scratch any more than we build our languages from scratch. Of course, we can tinker with them, but my hypothesis is that that they’re effects of how we’re built rather than artifacts. I can easily imagine, at one extreme, a society in which eating your neighbors children, for example, is considered highly moral behavior. Conversely, I can imagine one in which ritual suicide is a preferable alternative to offending a peer. I think the differences in detail owe more to happenstance than to the intrinsic value of “goodness” you might assign to a certain class of acts. To the list of “fundamental” motives I think the thing I’d consider adding is genetic survival, in Dawkins’ sense of “selfish genes,” but that seems one step removed. Even if there’s no “ethical algebra,” as such, I think

Quoting AemJeff: As always, thanks for the thoughtful response.

Am I missing something important? I think of formal systems of ethics as codifications of something that already exists - worked out to fix the inconsistencies, to the extent that that can be done - much like the relationship between formal grammar and natural language. If that’s a valid point of view, then I don’t think that we do “build” our systems of ethics from scratch any more than we build our languages from scratch. Of course, we can tinker with them, but my hypothesis is that that they’re effects of how we’re built rather than artifacts.

I see. It sounded to me as though you wanted the moral realist to undertake a kind of Cartesian project with respect to morality -- throw it all out and then see whether it can be re-assembled on skeptic-resistant foundations.
Apparently, you were actually talking about normative ethical theory (or perhaps merely sociology), rather than about meta-ethics in your first paragraph.
There will certainly be a big difference --a difference relevant to the meta-ethical debate -- between formulating general rules of grammar and formulating a normative ethical theory. The grammarian simply

BN:

I find that hard to believe. What about the following?
1. It's morally wrong to torture babies just for the pleasure of it.
2. The mere fact that I'd prefer it if Fred died isn't adequate moral reason for killing him.
3. You and I possess moral standing (i.e., our interests cannot morally be discounted in determining how to treat us).

Probably I'd accept those. I certainly can't envision a scenario whereby #1 would ever be viewed as acceptable. The latter two, it seems to me, are conceivably arguable as specific to our kind of society. That is, I could imagine a much more harsh or rigid culture where they might not apply, at least not uniformly. Certainly, there are plenty of historical examples of societies where doing away with, or discounting, people who thought, looked, or behaved differently was apparently not a troubling notion for those societies. To your next section discussing "standards:" I don't have much to say in response here. Couple of quick points: I'm not sure I accept the idea that "evil" exists as a universal concept if "evil" means different things to different people/cultures. I suppose the suggestion that no matter the culture, one always observes some tendency to categorize behaviors says something, but

Is this limitation to concern only for Germans or Aryans morally justifiable? I would say that it isn't, and that if Hitler's justification stops there, then it isn't really a moral justification.

No, certainly not. But, as I said, Hitler's "justification" is an extension of tribal identity and nationalism. We live in a world in which nation state self-interest and competition is generally viewed as morally good, or at least acceptable. The boundary between Norwegian or Costa Rican nationalism (relatively benign) and Nazi nationalism (resulting in the murder of millions) is not clear in moral terms. All nation states appear to do things which they know are good for themselves but detrimental to other nation states. (Indeed, this is the basis for the Marxist critique of bourgeois capitalism, which I do not, incidentally support). International law, the UN and similar institutions are attempts to reduce the more pernicious expressions of national self-interest and to find frameworks for cooperation rather than competition. But as it stands now, we can only point to allegations of violations of the norms, eg. Sadam invades Kuwait. But Sadam is not going to be caught without a moral argument for the UN in his invasion of Kuwait. He

Apparently, you were actually talking about normative ethical theory (or perhaps merely sociology), rather than about meta-ethics in your first paragraph.

Ouch! What I was about was trying to understand the nature of the types of systems we're discussing. If "ethics" is ultimately descriptive rather than assertive then an exploration of meta-ethics might be (never let it be said that I drop an analogy easily) fairly characterized as something similar to Chomsky's project. There's a lot in your response that I need to internalize, but this (from one of your responses to Brendan):

I think our conception of moral wrongness is closely connected to what we would regard as (not merely unpleasant but) OBJECTIONABLE or UNJUSTIFIABLE if it were done to us.

doesn't square with my understanding. I could quibble with the adjectives “objectionable” and “unjustifiable” which seem open to interpretation and almost make the argument seem circular; but also I don't understand exactly how this definition relates to ideas of sexual morality. (I'm open to the idea that a discussion of sexual morality is on another topic.)

While listening at 40:00, a confluence of Schellenberger's "Break Through" and a critique of retentive materialism struck me. If one retains the retentive materialist view of chairs, one also keeps a door open to retaining evil as a socially regulative tool. But, to change humanity's relationship to nature, away from a subject distinct from nature, one has to abandon retentive materialism. There is Diamond's claim, that humans are a genocidal species, like lions and chimps, that kill members of their own group for territorial expansion. Diamond holds open the possibility, that accepting this disposition allows for establishing social taboos, drawing upon Darwin's distinction between natural and social selection. But, a retentive moral belief might put a hurdle to abandoning the belief in human exceptionalism, thereby opening a back door to evil as we try to retain the good. Alright, break over!

Quoting bjkeefe: BN:
Probably I'd accept those. I certainly can't envision a scenario whereby #1 would ever be viewed as acceptable.

The latter two, it seems to me, are conceivably arguable as specific to our kind of society. That is, I could imagine a much more harsh or rigid culture where they might not apply, at least not uniformly. Certainly, there are plenty of historical examples of societies where doing away with, or discounting, people who thought, looked, or behaved differently was apparently not a troubling notion for those societies.

Apparently you are saying that a moral judgment is true for a particular society if and only if it is accepted as customary by that society. And you are saying that a moral judgment is true without qualification if and only if every society regards it as customary.
I've already pointed out one problem with this to Jeff -- that there are a lot of customs we don't regard as moral (e.g., you should wear a shirt to work at a bank).
Another problem is that you are here using a sociological sense of "moral" which is clearly not the one people employ when they actually

Quoting AemJeff: Ouch! What I was about was trying to understand the nature of the types of systems we're discussing. If "ethics" is ultimately descriptive rather than assertive then an exploration of meta-ethics might be (never let it be said that I drop an analogy easily) fairly characterized as something similar to Chomsky's project.

Why "ouch"? I was simply attempting to understand what your intended meaning. Sorry if it sounded as though I was being dismissive. I really didn't have such an intention.
I take it that by "assertive" above, you mean "normative"? Anthropologists probably do approach ethics descriptively: i.e., they attempt to describe the various customs of a culture. As I pointed out above, not all customs are regarded as embodying moral requirements -- it's not customary to wear speedos to work at a bank, and few people would do it because it would shame them and would hardly further their careers. But we would not regard someone who did this as immoral, and we would certainly not regard a society in which speedos were appropriate bank attire as immoral. On the other hand, we would regard torturing people for the fun of it as immoral, and would not be persuaded

Hi Wonderment, GSR raises this case as an example of a correct moral explanation. The term "evil" tends to raise a lot of red flags, so I kind of wish he hadn't used it. He could have chosen another explanation. I wonder what you would think if he had said, "the holocaust happened in part because Hitler was a bad man." Of course, "bad man" seems like quite an understatement when it comes to Hitler. Gilbert Harman claims that moral properties don't explain anything -- that we can explain the holocaust without supposing that Hitler was a bad man. But can we? We can imagine that Hitler was really a very decent, kindly person who never would have ordered mass murder -- maybe he was just a figurehead and his underlings ordered the holocaust on his authority. But that explanation is clearly not the true one.
Ultimately, the argument is that Harman begs the question against the moral realist by assuming that it's possible to assume that Hitler was monumentally indifferent to millions of human beings, even cruel, without assuming that he was a bad guy. The moral realist should not admit that this is

The term "evil" tends to raise a lot of red flags, so I kind of wish he hadn't used it. He could have chosen another explanation.

Yes, I found that a distraction as well.

I wonder what you would think if he had said, "the holocaust happened in part because Hitler was a bad man."

Well, I even have some difficulty with that, although I respond emotionally to Hitler by being disgusted, shocked, appalled, horrified, etc. But I'm not sure you need "badness" (just a substitute word for "evil"). I think a scientific explanation of HItler suffices. Once biochemistry, neurology and psychology are done with him, there is nothing left. The testosterone-sertonin-whatever levels plus his particular wiring of the brain plus the conditioning of experience (abuse or neglect, low-IQ reading of Nietzsche, love for Wagner, etc.) suffice to explain him. There is no need to bring in the "ghost in the moral machine": badness.

Ultimately, the argument is that Harman begs the question against the moral realist by assuming that it's possible to assume that Hitler was monumentally indifferent to millions of human beings, even cruel, without assuming that he was a bad guy. The moral realist should not admit that this is possible.

Yes. There is no extra "badness" once you've

Whoops, I wasn't taking offense. “Mere sociology” sounds like something the engineering and hard science types I work with use reflexively as a mostly joking put-down. I was reacting in character, trying to be funny.

If I make a promise to be faithful to someone else, then, assuming there are good impartial reasons for keeping promises, I seem to have that kind of reason to be faithful, and the other person would have reason to object to my breaking the promise.

I would argue that this sort of exchange is better characterized as a contractual transaction rather than specifically about sexual morality. It could just as well be about anything. The reason I brought it sexual morality is that, putting aside the discussion of terms, the loose definition you proposed doesn’t seem to cover, for instance, the “immorality” of having multiple partners. If an examination of ethics is normative, then you and I can’t pick and choose which ethical subcategories we believe are valid. I’m still reading your posts but these few questions seemed worth getting out there.

[quote=AemJeff;75559] The reason I brought it sexual morality is that, putting aside the discussion of terms, the loose definition you proposed doesn’t seem to cover, for instance, the “immorality” of having multiple partners. If an examination of ethics is normative, then you and I can’t pick and choose which ethical subcategories we believe are valid.
[quote] I don't understand -- why should normative ethics have to validate every single claim of commonsense morality?
If a scientist studies perception, there will be problems if he winds up showing that sight, hearing and touch are all completely non-veridical. (In that case, science itself would seem to have no basis in evidence.) But nobody expects a study of perception to validate absolutely every sensory experience, from optical illusions to Uncle Fred's lunch meeting with the Archangel Gabriel at Maxim's.
Why shouldn't we be happy if our normative moral theory validates a core set of our most confident moral views and rejects those that seem a lot more iffy?

BN:

Apparently you are saying that a moral judgment is true for a particular society if and only if it is accepted as customary by that society. And you are saying that a moral judgment is true without qualification if and only if every society regards it as customary.

To a first approximation, yes. But it's not really as precise as "if and only if" denotes. There's also a language limitation problem here, in that I am unsatisfied with the phrase "a moral judgment is true." In a lot of ways, I'm not sure a moral judgment can be said to be true. I don't want to try to (can't!) define what I mean by "true," but it seems to me that a moral judgment is always subjective to some degree. I suppose, at base, some moral judgments stem from our biological makeup, and so in this sense, they are "true" for us; e.g., don't abuse children. Or, some moral judgments are so nearly unanimously held that we could agree to call them "true." There's also the problem of different societies. I am not so much enamored of cultural diversity that I feel guilt thinking that, say, the extreme Muslim societies are just

Quoting Wonderment: Yes, I found that a distraction as well.

But I'm not sure you need "badness" (just a substitute word for "evil"). I think a scientific explanation of HItler suffices. Once biochemistry, neurology and psychology are done with him, there is nothing left. The testosterone-sertonin-whatever levels plus his particular wiring of the brain plus the conditioning of experience (abuse or neglect, low-IQ reading of Nietzsche, love for Wagner, etc.) suffice to explain him. There is no need to bring in the "ghost in the moral machine": badness.

First, I can't believe Hitler had low IQ. He played the other powers brilliantly for a long time, and he seems to have had real oratorical gifts. Years ago, when I read _Rise and Fall of the Third Reich_, I was convinced that he was probably a genius or near-genius -- though an evil one.

Anyway, on the main subject, I think you are forgetting the question -- it was not "what explains Hitler," but rather is Hitler's moral badness part of the explanation of the holocaust. I'm not sure what you mean by a "ghost in the moral machine."

How about we switch the question a bit. Suppose that Fred says something that hurts Ginger's feelings. There are a number of

I'm not sure what you mean by a "ghost in the moral machine."

I remember the last time we discussed the self, I suggested reading the views of Thomas Metzinger. I would also suggest you look at his statement here. The key paragraph is this:

There are no moral facts. Moral sentences have no truth-values. The world itself is silent, it just doesn’t speak to us in normative affairs — nothing in the physical universe tells us what makes an action a good action or a specific brain-state a desirable one....it looks like, in a more rigorous and serious sense, there is just no ethical knowledge to be had. We are alone. And if that is true, all we have to go by are the contingent moral intuitions evolution has hard-wired into our emotional self-model...

So I tend to view morality in the same way I view self -- a useful construct with no there there ultimately. In the real world, I'm a typical mix of utilitarian, consequentialist, idealism, relativism and voodoo. I love to discuss ethical issues, I like to read moral philosophers, and I have deep and abiding moral convictions about a variety of issues. But at the end of the

Hi Brendan,
In response to your remarks about frustration, I'd say two things: a) philosophical positions can be quite slippery, and a really helpful discussion is one that focuses on a particular argument -- poking holes in its logic or shoring it up -- or on trying to distinguish different meanings of very fuzzy words like "subjective"; b) many people find this kind of genuinely enlightening discussion exceedingly tedious and not worth the candle. A third point, come to think of it: discussion boards don't really lend themselves to that kind of careful discussion.
Still, let me see if I can proceed more carefully and still keep anybody's interest. Where you accuse me of "binary thinking" below, I have the sense that you present too much of a moving target. How about we try to lay out the alternatives to begin with (there aren't just two). According to Sayre-McCord's definition (which I've been rather forgetting myself), Moral Realism is the claim that there are some moral claims, which taken literally, are literally true.
There are basically two ways for a sentence not to be literally true:
A. It might not be the sort of remark that can be

Quoting Wonderment: I remember the last time we discussed the self, I suggested reading the views of Thomas Metzinger. I would also suggest you look at his statement here.

So I tend to view morality in the same way I view self -- a useful construct with no there there ultimately.

That is Metzinger's view, and I'm sure he's a good scientist. But good scientists are, unfortunately, often terrible philosophers, so I at least don't take his unsupported statement as in any way authoritative on this philosophical question.

In the real world, I'm a typical mix of utilitarian, consequentialist, idealism, relativism and voodoo. I love to discuss ethical issues, I like to read moral philosophers, and I have deep and abiding moral convictions about a variety of issues. But at the end of the day, I think ethics is more like sacred drama than science.

I don't think I would regard ethics as a science either. But I don't think the only other alternative is "sacred drama." (Nor do I think there is some one-dimensional continuum between science and sacred drama, where ethics falls closer to the latter than the former.) The thing Ethics is most like is probably prudence. Is it self-interestedly rational for me to (a) get an education, make friends, find a

BN: Thanks for making the effort to alleviate my frustration.

So, Moral realism (by GSM's definition) amounts to the claim that 1) moral claims are well-formed, intelligible ASSERTIONS and 2) SOME of these assertions are true.

I can accept this definition, although I'd argue that it would be more precise to say "1) moral claims CAN BE well-formed," since it seems to me that pretty much all of us make moral claims from time to time that aren't particularly well-formed. They could be ambiguous, parochial, disagreed with by most others, and so on.

... depends on what you mean by "subjective." Two possibilities:

By "subjective" I meant, mostly, a sense of personal preference or opinion; i.e., more like your first possibility (the truth, btw, is that spinach is good! ;^)). Many moral judgments strike me as having about the same property as your feelings about spinach -- neither true nor false, but just a matter of personal taste. So, yes, it can be a true statement for me to say "I disapprove of action X," but that doesn't make my disapproval itself a truth. At least, not necessarily, and certainly not just because I say so, and not always because a lot of other people say so, either.

I believe you may actually be more taken with a conventionalist

I didn’t say that very well, but I think you managed to get at the issue I was thinking of, which is, in a nutshell: if we can define the scope of the topic such that we define into it those things which our biases favor, but not anything else - that might seem like a pretty flimsy basis for an additional claim that what we’re defining constitutes a norm. I mean, that might be the case, but a sufficiently narrowly defined norm can approach meaninglessness.

BN,

That is Metzinger's view, and I'm sure he's a good scientist. But good scientists are, unfortunately, often terrible philosophers...

Just for the record: "Thomas Metzinger (born March 12, 1958) is a German philosopher. He currently holds the position of director of the theoretical philosophy group at the department of philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz and is an Adjunct Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies. (Wikipedia)" I think your "prudence" idea leaves a lot of elasticity to the moral truth you derive from it. That's fine with me. Prudence seems like a helpful enough device to get one through the moral day. But even your example leaves lots of room for debate and disagreement. Heroin addiction (resulting is a shorter but more intensely pleasurable life) can, and often has been, defended as a good choice. Its advocates would be extreme hedonists (and sometimes creative geniuses in music, literature, etc.), but such people exist with moral freedom. Their moral choice is defensible. I don't think the steak knife example is a good one. First of all, "bad" gets semantically slippery. "I have a bad headache; Hitler's a bad man; that was a bad game for the Dodgers; the steak knife is bad" all

Quoting bjkeefe: BN:

I can accept this definition, although I'd argue that it would be more precise to say "1) moral claims CAN BE well-formed," since it seems to me that pretty much all of us make moral claims from time to time that aren't particularly well-formed. They could be ambiguous, parochial, disagreed with by most others, and so on.

And thanks for coming back.
I should explain that by "well-formed" I meant linguistically well-formed, so that they made a genuine statement (as opposed to "statements like "The is up") -- I didn't mean "justified" or "well thought-out." You really know how to hurt a guy.

Sure, they assert something.

Could be just a personal preference or distaste. Could be an expression of values shared by one's in-group (e.g., us America-hating, godless, Brie-eating liberal elites) or a larger group (e.g., Americans, western civilization, or all the way up to all of humanity).

What I was hoping to get was a kind of "translation" of an actual statement, like "killing people for the pure joy of it is wrong." What do people MEAN when they say that.
Let me elaborate a bit. What you do above tells us not what people MEAN, but what they are (loosely) TALKING ABOUT. For example, someone who tells you, "the witch put a curse

BN:

I should explain that by "well-formed" I meant linguistically well-formed, so that they made a genuine statement (as opposed to "statements like "The is up") -- I didn't mean "justified" or "well thought-out."

Distinction acknowledged.

What I was hoping to get was a kind of "translation" of an actual statement, like "killing people for the pure joy of it is wrong." What do people MEAN when they say that.
Let me elaborate a bit. What you do above tells us not what people MEAN, but what they are (loosely) TALKING ABOUT. For example, someone who tells you, "the witch put a curse on me" is talking about old Mary next door who raised her hand in a menacing way toward him. What he MEANS is that the woman next door has magical powers and has influenced his luck by gesturing and muttering an incantation.
You are telling me that people, when they make moral claims are actually talking about their preferences or their customs. Would you go further and say that all they mean by "killing is wrong" is "killing is condemned by our society's customs"?

When people say "killing people is wrong," I think they are expressing a belief that they hold. I don't

I take it that you regard the answer I gave to that question adequate, then? My view of certain aspects of sexual morality is more a consequence of thinking about what can be rationally justified than a result of my original biases.
That's not to say that I think total promiscuity is an entirely good idea. Human beings tend to be jealous -- even those who think they are beyond all that. And sex really does (in my experience) sometimes give rise to unintended and unexpected affection. There may be moral justification for at least some of our sexual customs.

When you said the following:

I don't understand -- why should normative ethics have to validate every single claim of commonsense morality?

I think you made an important point. The identity sexual morality = proper subset of morality, is open to question. In fact I've made arguments that explicitly contradict that assumption in another "Free Will" thread, in regard to prostitution.

So, I think your conception of individual good is too reductive, but still not sure how you see this as related to moral realism.

I think I’m airing out a theory that “ethics” might be an alias for a set of attitudes that evolved essentially in response to a tropism – the stimuli in this case being related to a short, atomic set of biases. We have a “golden rule,” because the existence of such a rule mitigates the forces, in aggregate, which result from our responses to those stimuli. (I’ll stipulate that you’ve made a good point that the list I submitted could easily be excessively short.) So “moral realism” to the extent that it assumes there’s a larger truth, i.e. an absolute basis for qualitative comparisons between systems of ethics, might really not signify that much. You alluded directly to this here:

If this is what you mean, you might be able to make SOME of the same ethical judgments that others make, but you won't be able to say with the rest of us that our moral views improved when we decided slavery was wrong --at least you won't be able

Quoting Wonderment: BN,

Just for the record:

"Thomas Metzinger (born March 12, 1958) is a German philosopher. He currently holds the position of director of the theoretical philosophy group at the department of philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz and is an Adjunct Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies. (Wikipedia)"

OK, but philosophers are famous for disagreeing. The post you link to doesn't seem to give an argument. If he did offer one, I imagine it would assume an eliminativist assumption (e.g., that there are no tables and chairs or people, just atoms and the void). No doubt Metzinger is more entitled to this assumption than others, in that he apparently accepts eliminativism in a broader range of cases than most people do, but would he deny the existence of the brain? Or he might offer an argument along the lines of Joyce's _Evolution of Morality_. Neither argument seems in the least unanswerable. If he's got some brilliant new argument behind his bald assertion, I'll be interested to hear it.

I think your "prudence" idea leaves a lot of elasticity to the moral truth you derive from it. That's fine with me. Prudence seems

When people say "killing people is wrong," I think they are expressing a belief that they hold. I don't think they are just "talking about" it.

That makes me wonder whether I've gotten my distinction across. I'm distinguishing between what people are saying about the world versus what guides these judgments. For example, when I see a trail in a cloud chamber and say "there's an alpha particle," what is guiding my judgment is the particular kind of visible trail in the chamber plus a lot of theory I was taught in science class. But what I am saying (my meaning) is not about the trail at all -- what I mean is that a helium nucleus just passed through the chamber. I know you think that people's upbringing guides their moral judgments (as, for that matter, does my science-training in the above example), but I'm trying to get an idea of what you think people mean when they say that something is 'wrong'. You don't offer such an explication. Let me offer you one and see what you think of it. First of all, I think it's pretty clear from the function of moral judgments (and

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: I find that hard to believe. What about the following?
1. It's morally wrong to torture babies just for the pleasure of it.
2. The mere fact that I'd prefer it if Fred died isn't adequate moral reason for killing him.
3. You and I possess moral standing (i.e., our interests cannot morally be discounted in determining how to treat us).

I don't think any of these things can be labelled "truths," if by that you mean that they are statements which are undeniable. All of these statements carry with them assumptions and biases. Let me begin with the caveat that I agree with all three statements, but I cannot say that they are unquestionable. Examples #1 and #2 are based on the assumption that person "X" has an inherent value that cannot be injured by person "Y" to achieve purpose "Z." To make either statement, we must first reach a series of judgments regarding the worth of things (living and unliving) and actions. These judgments will very likely be based upon on our own personal and cultural experience. For example,though it seems unconscionable to us, history is filled with examples of people killing those of another tribe, race, ethnicity, etc. for the

If I explain that by "bank" I meant "financial institution" it would be a non sequitur to reply that the same word can mean "side of a river."

Not really. If you said, "I'll meet you at the River Bank," I might ask you if you meant the financial institution on Main Street or the side of the River down Mississippi Lane.

Absolutely not what I'm saying. I'm trying to explicate what this seemingly mysterious notion of a "bad man" amounts to -- just trying to reduce the mystery, not sweep disagreements about what constitutes a bad man under the rug.

I agree that we can reduce the mystery by appealing to several theoretical frameworks. As rational creatures, we will always try to argue out our notions of fairness. Kindergarten children do this, and I think there have been studies of 5-year-olds as "natural" ethicists. And the good news is that we can reach consensus on tiny interpersonal issues, larger civli or criminal dispute issues, and even global issues: slavery is bad, racism is bad, etc. I'd be interested in what you think happens when an ethical issue is, after all the arguments are in, still subject to disagreement. For example, let's take

Quoting Wonderment:
I agree that we can reduce the mystery by appealing to several theoretical frameworks. As rational creatures, we will always try to argue out our notions of fairness. Kindergarten children do this, and I think there have been studies of 5-year-olds as "natural" ethicists. And the good news is that we can reach consensus on tiny interpersonal issues, larger civli or criminal dispute issues, and even global issues: slavery is bad, racism is bad, etc.

I'd be interested in what you think happens when an ethical issue is, after all the arguments are in, still subject to disagreement.

For example, let's take Obama's views on gay marriage compared to mine. Or "choice" vs. "life" on abortion. Or the death penalty. Do you think there is a right answer to these questions? Do you think that if we sort the issues through carefully enough, we can come to the Right Answer?

I certainly feel (emotionally) that I can. I feel very strongly that I am right and Obama is wrong on gay marriage; that I'm right and the Supreme Court is wrong on the death penalty, and that I'm right and McCain is wrong on abortion. I also think that my "right" views are hard-earned through carefully reading, thinking and

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: (Or look at Lincoln's moral arguments against slavery. He points out that if you say "I can enslave these people because they are less intelligent," then you have committed yourself to a principle you wouldn't accept if someone more intelligent than you comes along, for instance.)

I'm sorry if I'm hijacking this thread, but I've never found this argument to be compelling. If an earthworm were smarter than me, I'd treat it much differently. But it's not smarter than me, nor will it ever be, so why would I base my moral code on a situation that does not, and would be extremely likely to ever, exist? Further, how the heck do I know what I would think was "right" if I was an earthworm? And why should I voluntarily relinquish the advantages I currently owe over the earthworm so that we share the same status? In sum, I'm not sure there's a compelling reason to treat someone in a weaker position as your equal unless there is a reasonable possiblity that your situations will be reversed one day (or because doing so serves so other benefit to your own interest).

So, that's what I'd like to ask you for next time (if there is one): Do people who make moral claims take themselves to be offering a kind of reason? And if you agree, do you think they take themselves to be offering impartial reasons?

I don't think there's a yes or no answer to either. I think people don't think -- in the sense of a conscious reasoning process -- about many of the moral claims they make. Many are hard-wired, whether by parental and societal upbringing or human biological nature, or very nearly hard-wired. If you engage them in a discussion about a moral claim, they may be able to talk about it rationally, but I don't think the explanation always gives the full picture, or even that it's even possible to describe the complete impetus in this way, in some cases. To your second question: I do think that many or most people view themselves as being impartial in many of their moral judgments, in the sense of reasoning from some set of principles that are effectively axiomatic. In some cases, we can have the awareness that our moral claims are colored

Quoting Thus Spoke Elvis: I'm sorry if I'm hijacking this thread, but I've never found this argument to be compelling. If an earthworm were smarter than me, I'd treat it much differently. But it's not smarter than me, nor will it ever be, so why would I base my moral code on a situation that does not, and would be extremely likely to ever, exist? Further, how the heck do I know what I would think was "right" if I was an earthworm? And why should I voluntarily relinquish the advantages I currently owe over the earthworm so that we share the same status?

The earthworm bit is rather a red herring. That was not part of my argument. My argument appealed only to the fact that there are people who are smarter than me -- no need to imagines super-intelligent annelids.

In sum, I'm not sure there's a compelling reason to treat someone in a weaker position as your equal unless there is a reasonable possiblity that your situations will be reversed one day (or because doing so serves so other benefit to your own interest).

You seem to be reading interpreting my argument (or rather Lincoln's) as an

Quoting Thus Spoke Elvis: I don't think any of these things can be labelled "truths," if by that you mean that they are statements which are undeniable.

That's not in fact what I meant. There are lots of truths which can be denied. The earth orbits the sun, but that was denied for a very long time -- there may still be people who deny it. But whether people deny it or not, it remains true.

Examples #1 and #2 are based on the assumption that person "X" has an inherent value that cannot be injured by person "Y" to achieve purpose "Z." To make either statement, we must first reach a series of judgments regarding the worth of things (living and unliving) and actions.

I think you are reading a lot of rather "metaphysical" presuppositions into these claims. I certainly think one can believe that torturing babies for fun is wrong without believing in "inherent value" -- if that means anything very mysterious or metaphysically loaded. What it presupposes is that moral justifications are impartial and that (human) babies fall within the scope of moral principles (they have moral standing).

These judgments will very likely be based upon on our own

Hello again, Wonderment,
I'm trying to remember exactly what more I needed to fill in.
I can only think of one thing at the moment. I ended my last post by pointing out that some moral disputes do seem to get resolved rationally. If so, it turns out that the argument from disagreement (in my second formulation) does not rule out there being SOME moral truths.
Your example of Obama shows that there are some disagreements that may persist, even when people are genuinely doing their best to be rational. Even in these cases, of course, it's quite possible that people are being led astray by custom or their emotions. But it's implausible to say this about every case of rational moral disagreement.
But it's hard to see how the fact that SOME ethical disputes are not (currently) rationally resolvable could show that there is no truth in ethics in general. There are plenty of disputes in the sciences that have yet to be resolved rationally, but it doesn't follow that they can't eventually be resolved. And even if we can never resolve the String Theory dispute, it doesn't follow that there's no truth

Are ethical disputes resolved rationally? I think they may be, to our satisfaction, within a closed system with certain arbitrary suppositions. I don't think your homosexuality argument is a compelling one. The new scientific information that homosexuality is not a social choice may or may not be persuasive to people. Yes, people can change their minds on ethical questions, and sometimes the change is determined by new factual information, but it doesn't follow that there's a moral truth emerging from the process.

If so, it turns out that the argument from disagreement (in my second formulation) does not rule out there being SOME moral truths.

I'm quite happy to say that moral truth is not ruled out.

But it's hard to see how the fact that SOME ethical disputes are not (currently) rationally resolvable could show that there is no truth in ethics in general.

My claim is not that strong. It just seems to me, however, that the burden of proof on Truth is on those who argue that there is some to be had, not on those who are skeptical.

There are plenty of disputes in the sciences that have yet to be

Quoting Wonderment: Are ethical disputes resolved rationally?

I think they may be, to our satisfaction, within a closed system with certain arbitrary suppositions.

You think that "'ought' implies 'can'" is an "arbitrary supposition"? I think it would be very hard to deny that sensibly.

I don't think your homosexuality argument is a compelling one. The new scientific information that homosexuality is not a social choice may or may not be persuasive to people. Yes, people can change their minds on ethical questions, and sometimes the change is determined by new factual information, but it doesn't follow that there's a moral truth emerging from the process.

Please note the context. I was NOT proving that there was moral truth, I was REBUTTING an argument you offered that purported to show there was no moral truth. Also, "new factual information" -- i.e., new non-moral information -- was only one of my cases. I also pointed to cases where people find that the principles they accept (or think they accept) commit them to consequences that surprise them.

I'm quite happy to say that moral truth is not ruled out.

Will you be happy to admit that you have no particular argument against the possibility of moral truth? The argument from

Will you be happy to admit that you have no particular argument against the possibility of moral truth?

In the same way that I am happy to admit that I have no particular argument against the possibility of God's existence.

Please prove to me that there is an external world -- I'm skeptical.

There's some room for skepticism about the non-existence of an external world, but a) there's no evidence in support of the theory and b) there's no ardent philosophical interest in investigating such speculations. The speculation doesn't really go anywhere from ancient Indian and Chinese speculation to Descartes to modern theories that we're a computer simulation. WIth ethics, however, there is quite a bit of evidence to lead someone to serious skepticism about the validity of so-called moral truths, and there is a lot at stake.

I think the claim that torturing children for fun is morally right is about as implausible as that I am the only conscious being in the entire world.

Objections to torturing children for fun can be made on non-moral grounds. For example, we have an instinct to nurture the young, to protect them

Hi Brendan,
I'm back.

Quoting bjkeefe: I don't think there's a yes or no answer to either. I think people don't think -- in the sense of a conscious reasoning process -- about many of the moral claims they make. Many are hard-wired, whether by parental and societal upbringing or human biological nature, or very nearly hard-wired. If you engage them in a discussion about a moral claim, they may be able to talk about it rationally, but I don't think the explanation always gives the full picture, or even that it's even possible to describe the complete impetus in this way, in some cases.

I should have been more careful to distinguish between explicit and implicit understanding. I'm sure a lot of people don't think a lot about the nature of morality, and therefore if you ask them what they mean, they may have no answer. People have and employ a lot of concepts successfully without having any kind of explicit definition, and though they employ these concepts perfectly well, a request for a definition would not elicit an instant answer, and it might even elicit a wrong answer or at least a very incomplete one. If

Noggin, Thanks for your thoughtful replies to both of my posts in this thread. Nonetheless, I fear that we are arguing past each other. Maybe it would be best if I laid my cards out on the table, so my position and the basis for my criticisms is apparent. In the great scheme of things, a human being is a woefully insignificant thing. In an infinitely vast universe, we occupy an almost-infintesimally small portion. The known universe has lasted for billions of years, and appears likely to last for billions longer than humanity ever will. One can make a persuasive argument that bacteria is a more important lifeform than humanity, as nothing could exist for very long without it (and it will also be around far longer than us). Additionally, the idea that something so insignificant as humanity matters to a higher power seems to me to be based on wishful thinking rather than reason or evidence. Similarly, moral absolutism and deontology, each based on the idea that there is some "true" moral code that human beings must follow, regardless of the direct consequences, strikes me as incredibly solipsistic, suggesting that (1) our actions and

Noggin, A general reply to both your responses is below, but I just wanted to make two quick points: 1.) I think there's a big difference between the "truth" observable facts (i.e., the Queen has grey hair, the earth is round) and moral-based "truths" (i.e., one should never steal). I believe in the existence of the first, but not the second (or I believe at the very least that one can't demonstrate the second's existence). 2.) On my point about people historically having no compunction about inflicting suffering on others -- all that I meant to suggest was that while it may seem obvious to us that such conduct is bad, it didn't seem so obvious to many people throughout history. If a test of a moral "truth" is its obviousness, then it cannot be said that the examples you give moral truths. I wasn't sure if you were suggesting that was the case, so I raised this point just in case.

BN: I see what you're saying about the difference "between explicit and implicit understanding." I have to say right off that the concept of "implicit understanding" as you use it -- to mean something that one knows in some sense, but finds it hard to explain or define or otherwise articulate -- doesn't sound much like "understanding" to me. I don't want to drift off onto this tangent too much, but I point it out because this speaks to what I was saying before, about these discussions getting bogged down in endless circling back to try to clarify what was earlier said, leading to more ambiguous terms, further needs for clarification, and so on. Loosely, I have a sense of what you mean here, by "implicit understanding," in that I appreciate your example of trying to define what is meant by a chair. It's a bit of an oversimplification, I expect, but essentially, we're talking about the notion of "I know it when I see it." So, if I'm using "implicit understanding" mostly as you mean it, I have no way to answer your question:

I'm asking this: what is our implicit understanding of what we are doing when we say something is wrong. Can we make sense of

Hey Bloggin, I love it when we get these philosophy Diavlogs! I was a moral realist before the diavlog, but the more I'm exposed to discussions/essays about the topic, I wonder if philosophy can say much at all about these things, other than showing us what the intellectual consequences of our beliefs are. So when I say that I'm a moral realist, I mean that this view is more or less what I believe about the world. My philosophy 101 textbook talked about the difference between beliefs based on evidence and "mere belief" which are beliefs justified only by themselves. I try to make sure my beliefs are tested by reason, evidence, experience, trying to make sure I'm honest with myself, etc. What I think is very important to add is that I allow myself to use my own subjective (or primary) experience as evidential. Of course in a very technical sense we all do this, but I mean that I deem admissible my intuitions and experiences which probably couldn't be tested by science, and use I these as intellectual guides. However it seems that our standards of assertability must be *public* standards. And if some part of my beliefs are based on personal experience

Quoting Thus Spoke Elvis: Noggin,

A general reply to both your responses is below, but I just wanted to make two quick points:

1.) I think there's a big difference between the "truth" observable facts (i.e., the Queen has grey hair, the earth is round) and moral-based "truths" (i.e., one should never steal). I believe in the existence of the first, but not the second (or I believe at the very least that one can't demonstrate the second's existence).

That will depend upon what one means by "demonstrate". We cannot "demonstrate" that the Queen has grey hair or that there is an external world at all, if you mean by that, "convicting a determined skeptic of self-contradiction." When people object to moral truths, the standards they employ (at least implicitly, since often they aren't very clear what standards they have in mind) are usually much higher than for other types of facts.

2.) On my point about people historically having no compunction about inflicting suffering on others -- all that I meant to suggest was that while it may seem obvious to us that such conduct is bad, it didn't seem so obvious to many people throughout history. If a test of a moral "truth" is its

Quoting bjkeefe: BN:

I see what you're saying about the difference "between explicit and implicit understanding." I have to say right off that the concept of "implicit understanding" as you use it -- to mean something that one knows in some sense, but finds it hard to explain or define or otherwise articulate -- doesn't sound much like "understanding" to me. I don't want to drift off onto this tangent too much, but I point it out because this speaks to what I was saying before, about these discussions getting bogged down in endless circling back to try to clarify what was earlier said, leading to more ambiguous terms, further needs for clarification, and so on.

It boils down to this: It is quite possible to have a concept without being able immediately and without a good deal of reflection on one's actual practice to give an adequate definition of that concept. The way you get from the concept that you have to the definition is by trying out definitions and then confronting them with cases that still seem to be chairs, yet don't fit the definition or fit the definition but that you

BN: I agree that it is possible to have a concept in mind, and even to reason from that concept, without being able to define or explain the concept itself. I don't really have anything more to add to the first part of your response, except to agree that it's a useful challenge to examine and to try to refine the things we "just know" if they are to be used as the basis for moral reasoning.

Your standard (what all societies agree to) does not seem to support a claim that some people are better than others at thinking about morality (the original claim). The fact that all cultures agree on a certain custom might either be an indication of deeper moral truth that all societies are perceiving, or it could be a totally arbitrary brute fact.

I'm not sure that I made the claim as you portrayed, in this sense of one immediately following from the other. I suppose it's reasonable to say that "morally superior" could be equated to saying "has realized more universal truths." It's also possible that this perception is just another set of

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: That will depend upon what one means by "demonstrate". We cannot "demonstrate" that the Queen has grey hair or that there is an external world at all, if you mean by that, "convicting a determined skeptic of self-contradiction." When people object to moral truths, the standards they employ (at least implicitly, since often they aren't very clear what standards they have in mind) are usually much higher than for other types of facts.

I think you're making a mountain out of a semantic molehill, as I was using the word "demonstrate" is a looser sense than you seem to be. I definitely agree that we can't absolutely prove that our perceptions of the external world reflect reality. The only thing I can be reasonably sure about is my own existence (and even that might be open to question). Nevertheless, both habit and necessity require us to behave as if our perceptions semi-accurately reflect reality, and that reality is not simply an illusion foisted upon us. So yes, when I try to demonstrate something based on empirical evidence (i.e., the earth is not flat), I operate on the assumption that that there is in fact a material

Thanks for putting the cards on the table, Elvis. Responses below:

Quoting Thus Spoke Elvis: Noggin,

In the great scheme of things, a human being is a woefully insignificant thing. In an infinitely vast universe, we occupy an almost-infintesimally small portion. The known universe has lasted for billions of years, and appears likely to last for billions longer than humanity ever will. One can make a persuasive argument that bacteria is a more important lifeform than humanity, as nothing could exist for very long without it (and it will also be around far longer than us). Additionally, the idea that something so insignificant as humanity matters to a higher power seems to me to be based on wishful thinking rather than reason or evidence.

I agree with you that you are talking past me here. When I say that certain moral claims are true (or perhaps, when I add that they are true independently of whether we believe them), you seem to assume that I'm saying this wrongness matters to a "higher power". Or, given that you very likely know I'm an atheist (from my past comments elsewhere here), I guess you may not quite think I'm committed

Hi Jay,
I don't believe there's very much we can have Cartesian certainty about. I also think a strong version of evidentialism drives one to demand Cartesian certainty. The demand that every belief be based on prior evidence obviously leads to an infinite regress. Descartes stops the regress by ending evidential chains in self-evident propositions. Unfortunately, the Cartesian project is unworkable. There may be self-evident propositions, but if there are, there aren't enough of them and they aren't robust enough to justify what we rationally and justifiably believe (including the truths of modern science). Your standard of testing beliefs on the basis of experience and reason is workable. Instead of building foundations, our model should be separating wheat from chaff. We start with a lot of confident beliefs and observations, some of which can't be true (because they conflict). We can't sweep them all out and start over as Descartes wanted to. We have to bring them together and use the contradictions and puzzles that arise to winnow out the mistaken beliefs.
We can try to undertake this process at an individual level, but given the amount of knowledge out

Quoting Wonderment: WIth ethics, however, there is quite a bit of evidence to lead someone to serious skepticism about the validity of so-called moral truths, and there is a lot at stake.

I was responding to your claim that the non-skeptic always has the burden of proof. Now you are back to accepting a burden of proof that ethical claims are particularly dubious. What is your evidence, then? We talked about one piece of evidence (the fact that people disagree over moral claims), but I showed that this argument (as so far formulated) does not establish its conclusion. Do you have a different argument, or a better formulation of the disagreement argument that isn't open to the problems I've so far pointed out?

Objections to torturing children for fun can be made on non-moral grounds. For example, we have an instinct to nurture the young, to protect them from harm.

Pointing out that most people don't want to torture children does not constitute an "objection" to torturing children, though it may be an explanation of why many people don't do so.

Why do we need more than our biological wiring?

Need it for what? And in

Quoting Thus Spoke Elvis: I think you're making a mountain out of a semantic molehill, as I was using the word "demonstrate" is a looser sense than you seem to be.

Not really -- sorry if it sounded like that. My position is this: when people argue that moral claims can't be substantiated, they either simply assume that this is so, or they offer arguments which would equally show that other claims they have no problem with can't be substantiated. They don't realize this because they actually assume what they need to prove -- in trying to establish that there is some special reason to doubt moral claims, they assume that there is some special reason to doubt moral claims. They are "preaching to the choir" or "begging the question."

Morality goes much further, by placing a significance upon empirical events that cannot be scientifically verified.

Here you make two assumptions which are both questionable:
1. Only claims that can be "scientifically verified" are true (or justified?).
2. Moral claims cannot be "scientifically verified." I'm not sure what you mean by "scientifically verified", but I think it's implausible to regard history as a science -- yet well-formed historical claims are clearly

If you want to make morality entirely instinctive, I think you are going to run into a lot of problems. First

I haven't claimed that morality is "entirely instinctive." I am just claiming that there is a biological basis: bonding, nurturing, competition vs. cooperation, kinship groups vs. non-kinship groups. Once the biological features of our non-human primate cousins meet language in all its glorious kluginess (xenophobia, for example) and our ability to conceal our thoughts (lie, tell the truth, keep deals/break deals, deny/confess, etc., etc moral systems are inevitable emerging characteristics of big-braininess. Throw in writing systems and you've got codifiable precepts and a legal system.

...our "instinctive" heuristics seem to include stereotyping and perhaps some degree of xenophobia -

We are only recently learning how klugy xenophobia and racism are. Moral systems can evolve (improve) from utilitarian feedback. You don't need any more explanatory mechanism than "it works." For example, the whole world sees how stupid and counterproductive the Holocaust was; democracy is gradually accepted as a sustainable and preferable form of global goverance.

Second, how are you going to resolve a moral argument between liberals and conservatives over the estate tax by appeal to instinct? It seems we need some way of

Noggin: Our discussion illustrates why I don't post much in threads concerning philosophy -- it ends up being really time-consuming. I'm not going to engage in a point/counterpoint discussion, but I will address a few points/questions you raise. First, as a preliminary matter, my prior post was intended to give a brief overview of my concerns with metaethics generally, and was not meant to be a critique of your position specifically. So while I assumed from your previous posts that you shared my hard agnosticism/atheism, I still thought it important to point out that part of the reason for my moral skepticism is because I don't believe that an ominipotent deity requires us to act in a particular way. It would be hard to be a moral skeptic and religious. And even though I'm aware that there are differences between moral absolutism, daentology, and moral realism, my criticisms of each are based on the same premises. I chose to frame my criticisms in relation to these broad categories, rather than with respect to your particular outlook.
I don't think the examples you give indicate that there can be such a thing as "moral truth." I think it's

Quoting Wonderment: You do it exactly the way it's being done: open debate and discussion on a level playing field, limiting vested interests as much as possible and leaving the settlement of disputes to a system of objective jurists. Now, one can easily see how the system has flaws: legislators beholden to corporations, media advertising manipulating popular opinion, ideologues advancing their extremist opinions through popularity ratings among undereducated members of the population, corruption in high places, the indifference of a population that went to the circus instead of watching CSPAN, and so on. But once you have democracy, you do your best to tweak the dysfunctional aspects.

--And they make their cases by making moral arguments about justice and injustice.

Yes, I mean the kind of apparent "usefulness" that influenced philosophers to develop greatest-good-for-greatest-number sort of theories. What constitutes a "benefit" is indeed debatable. For example, male circumcision among Jews may be seen to be a benefit to the culture; i.e., useful to its members (no pun intended). Outside observers might argue that it's a form of child abuse, mutiliation of an infant who can not give consent. Fine, let them argue it out.

If moral values are like personal

Hi Bloggin, I don't think moral justification is an entirely private matter either. I just think the most "meta" discussions about the ontological status of morality don't go anywhere. The reason I see a difference is that moral justification seems to be partly a public process. But that doesn't mean that our moral claims are similar in kind to empirical claims. And when it comes to "moral truth," it seems that we don't have the same access to testing this truth that we do with scientific claims. I know you've probably covered allot of this ground already in the above posts, so sorry if I'm whipping a dead horse. If you don't reply I'll know I should read up top...Or if you want to refer me to a post or two you've already made, that would work. But before I stop, I just want to say that I certainly don't think that something isn't true simply because it isn't amenable to scientific discovery. I just think that it seems plain to me that we don't have the same epistemic access that we do with claims like "metals expand when heated." I'm not a full-blooded

As I said earlier, empiricism is premised on the unavoidable assumption that the external world is as it appears. Morality makes this same assumption, and then makes several more that cannot be verified through scientific observation. But the acceptance of one assumption cannot be a basis for accepting all assumptions. It does not follow from my assumption that the external world exists that it was created by an eight-headed dragon, when there is no scientific evidence to support this belief. Similarly, the fact that both the empiricist and moral realist assume that the world is as it appears does not mean that the moral realist's assumptions regarding the significance of actions and things of the external world can be proven in the same way properties of the external world are proven to exist through scientific study.

I'm not sure what you mean by "scientifically verified", but I think it's implausible to regard history as a science -- yet well-formed historical claims are clearly either true or false, and it seems that many of them are well justified.

There's a reason why history is labelled a

So, when you asked if we take ourselves "to be offering impartial reasons" when we make moral judgments, I'd say, yes, we do think we're acting that way, usually -- we've got some basis for our reasoning, that basis is not questioned but is just accepted, and we think we're reasoning -- impartially judging -- from that basis. Most of us would like to think we'd come to the same conclusions independent of the particular people involved, to add to the belief in our being impartial. Of course, it never really works out this cleanly.

Suppose, as I think you come close to admitting here, the concept of a morality essentially includes the notion of 'impartial reason' -- that is, suppose that something counts as a moral claim only if it offers an impartial reason for action. If you accept this, then I think you can see how moral claims can be true or false (independently of what any person or group (even all of humanity) believes, and how some moral claims can be better justified than others.
To claim that "X is right in circumstance C" is to claim (at least) that there is an impartial reason to do X -- or

Quoting Thus Spoke Elvis: As I said earlier, empiricism is premised on the unavoidable assumption that the external world is as it appears. Morality makes this same assumption, and then makes several more that cannot be verified through scientific observation.

But the acceptance of one assumption cannot be a basis for accepting all assumptions.

That is certainly not my argument. But if we are taking the world as it appears to us as a first step, then we have to accept that some actions appear right and others appear wrong to us.
You claim that morality makes a lot of extra assumptions of a specially dubious character. If the assumptions actually required by our moral practice were inconsistent with the world view established by science, then there would indeed be a good case for dismissing moral claims as untrue. However, I continue to disagree with you that the assumptions of morality are inconsistent with the scientific world view or that they are especially dubious. You keep acting as though you have established that morality must involve dubious or non-naturalistic assumptions, but you have never established this, and I continue to disagree. It does

Noggin: This is the last one from me, but feel free to give the last word:

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: That is certainly not my argument. But if we are taking the world as it appears, but if we are taking the world as it appears to us as a first step, then we have to accept that some actions appear right and others appear wrong to us.

. If I'm interpreting you correctly, I strongly disagree. It is true our perception of events external from ourselves may provoke an emotional response. But this emotional response is not evidence of an action's genuine rightness or wrongness. I feel a more intense feeling of pleasure and self-satisfaction from riding a roller-coaster than I do helpling a little old lady cross the street. Does that mean that the act of riding a roller-coaster is therefore "better" than helping the old lady?
The fact that we respond positively or negatively to certain acts or events does not mean that others can or should share the same response, or that we would have the same response if our experiences were different. Different cultures and people have different preferences

BN: I don't really have much more to say on this. I'll just make a couple of short points. First, while I do tend to think that there are some moral truths, and it is possible to be impartial in reasoning from them, it's more often the case that we're kidding ourselves (more politely: unable to escape the bounds of our own society's thinking) when we claim something as a moral truth or claim to be reasoning impartially. It seems to me, in most of these cases, that the concepts of moral truths and impartiality are goals to which we aspire, and our approach to these goals is about asymptotic. I can't articulate something that completely avoids conflict with that and also assert that I believe that it's possible for an individual or a society to be morally superior ("more advanced" might be a better way to put it), but nonetheless, that's what I believe.

BN, think the four or five chess games you've got going on this thread will probably wind down soon (although I haven't been following the others except for an occasional glance), but I'll have another crack at my board here.

How do you reconcile a view that moral argument is worth continuing with the claim that there is no such thing as a moral truth to be argued about?

We inhabit an ethical universe. As rational social beings, disputes about fairness, duties, rights and so on are bound to arise. All this has been pretty clearly established by biology, anthropology, evolutionary psychology, etc. So when an issue arises we bring to bear arguments. This is also very elementary, so no need to review with examples. We assess the arguments and decide. Sometimes arguments are proffered that are easily refuted. Sometimes good points are made on both sides of an issue, and one simply leans one way or another. Sometimes more weight is given to one argument over another. You don't need "moral truths" in order to navigate all this. You just need some sense (rationality) and good fluid institutions to facilitate the arguments (like -- in

Hi Brendan,
I'm going to respond briefly, but if you have nothing further to say, please feel free to just leave me with the last word. :-)

Quoting bjkeefe: BN:

I don't really have much more to say on this. I'll just make a couple of short points.

First, while I do tend to think that there are some moral truths, and it is possible to be impartial in reasoning from them, it's more often the case that we're kidding ourselves (more politely: unable to escape the bounds of our own society's thinking) when we claim something as a moral truth or claim to be reasoning impartially. It seems to me, in most of these cases, that the concepts of moral truths and impartiality are goals to which we aspire, and our approach to these goals is about asymptotic.

I can't articulate something that completely avoids conflict with that and also assert that I believe that it's possible for an individual or a society to be morally superior ("more advanced" might be a better way to put it), but nonetheless, that's what I believe.

I have no problem with your first paragraph. I might quibble with you that we are "most of

Quoting Wonderment: BN,

think the four or five chess games you've got going on this thread will probably wind down soon (although I haven't been following the others except for an occasional glance), but I'll have another crack at my board here.

I didn't even think about this until you mentioned it. Bravo, Noggin, for debating so many different people in a thoughtful and intelligent manner. I tip my hat to you.

Quoting Wonderment: BN,

think the four or five chess games you've got going on this thread will probably wind down soon (although I haven't been following the others except for an occasional glance), but I'll have another crack at my board here.

We inhabit an ethical universe. As rational social beings, disputes about fairness, duties, rights and so on are bound to arise. All this has been pretty clearly established by biology, anthropology, evolutionary psychology, etc.

So when an issue arises we bring to bear arguments. This is also very elementary, so no need to review with examples. We assess the arguments and decide. Sometimes arguments are proffered that are easily refuted. Sometimes good points are made on both sides of an issue, and one simply leans one way or another. Sometimes more weight is given to one argument over another.

You don't need "moral truths" in order to navigate all this.

What I'm asking is, how can you make sense of people arguing rationally about fairness if there all positions on fairness are equally false or equally non-cognitive? Or even more importantly, how can THEY make sense of it if they accept your view? If the participants really all

Hi Elvis,
Thanks for the last word -- I'll take it. You can treat the questions I ask you in return as rhetorical or as questions for further reflection.

If I'm interpreting you correctly, I strongly disagree. It is true our perception of events external from ourselves may provoke an emotional response. But this emotional response is not evidence of an action's genuine rightness or wrongness. I feel a more intense feeling of pleasure and self-satisfaction from riding a roller-coaster than I do helpling a little old lady cross the street. Does that mean that the act of riding a roller-coaster is therefore "better" than helping the old lady?

Nothing I said has this consequence. I'm saying, as you appear to concede, that when we see how other people treat us (or others), we sometimes perceive the treatment as wrong -- just as we may perceive a table as square. (That is, we do not have a non-square perception of the table and infer that it is square, we perceive it as square; we often also perceive certain actions AS wrong.)
In my response to Jay J, I explain a bit more why we cannot reject appearances until they

BN: Yes, I think it's about time to close out this thread, at least for me. I did want to note this:

I suspect you also are imagining that the realist is somehow committed to drawing some impossibly sharp line between right and wrong, partiality and impartiality.

and what you went on to say after, alleviated my concern about this:

So I actually don't even why you feel any conflict between your first and your second paragraph.

Thanks.

What I'm asking is, how can you make sense of people arguing rationally about fairness if there all positions on fairness are equally false or equally non-cognitive?

I'm not saying that. I'm saying people argue rationally about facts and they layer these arguments with emotions, preferences, exhortations, soul-searching, self-righteousness, etc. "Fairness" can begin simply by two monkeys instinctually fighting over 4 bananas. Give them memory and math and the next time they'll avoid the painful dispute by divvying up the bananas two apiece.

If the participants really all accepted the view that there was no truth of the matter at all, why would they ever consider moral arguments at all?

Disputes over bananas arise. They have no choice. We have evolved as social animals with constant interactions and conflicts between social and individual interests. We have the soup of thoughts, language and emotions all aswirl with angst and activity. We evolved from other social animals who share food and have social instincts for sharing. We observe monkeys and apes that manifest "inequity aversion." Do you think the monkeys, orangutans and hyenas are moralists? They have a notion of fairness. Humans, with a gift of language, can mold

Hi Wonderment,
Rather than respond point by point, let me use this as an opportunity to kind of step back a bit from all the ins and outs of the various debates I've been engaged in and make a few basic points, then I'll proceed to your chimp-argument.
First, I want to step back to GSM's definition of "moral realism":

Moral realism is the claim that moral judgments taken literally are literally true.

This rules out two views:
A) Non-cognitivism: Moral "judgments", though they take the linguistic FORM of judgments, are not really judgments at all -- not the sort of claim that can be called "true" except as a facon de parler. (They really amount to commands ("If you are a male, do not lie with a male!") or expressions of emotion intended to influence other people's own emotional reactions ("Homosexuality, yuck!).
B) Error theory: Moral judgments are judgments, capable of being true or false. Unfortunately, they all presuppose something false, and therefore must be treated as false. Moral judgments are like judgments about witches or phlogiston. The important point to recognize is that in determining whether one is a moral realist or not, one must determine what claims

You can't abandon materialism. You just think you can. That's Dennett and probably a billion other folk who have spent some time gazing at their navels over the last ten thousand years or so.

Quoting Wonderment: I'm not saying that. I'm saying people argue rationally about facts and they layer these arguments with emotions, preferences, exhortations, soul-searching, self-righteousness, etc.

Well, who would deny that moral arguments sometimes get emotional? I take it you are saying more though. By "facts" above, you mean non-evaluative or non-moral facts. Principles of fairness (e.g., that other things being equal, an equal distribution is more fair than an unequal one) are, on your view, neitehr true nor false, justified or unjustified -- they are just part of the emotions, preferences and exhortations.

"Fairness" can begin simply by two monkeys instinctually fighting over 4 bananas. Give them memory and math and the next time they'll avoid the painful dispute by divvying up the bananas two apiece.

And yet here in this example, you imply an account that makes moral principles themselves seem rational, and that would fit quite comfortably with a view of them as cognitive and sometimes true. Essentially, you treat principles of fairness as rational solutions to a kind of game theory problem. You leave out a very important complication of this problem, which I'll get to, but problems in game theory often do have solutions, and to say that the correct solution is the

BN, I think we probably agree about most things, but at some point you make a little leap of faith that I don't find justified. In any case, let me try to list the things we agree on to try to elucidate what we don't agree on. I think it may be in the last 5 words of point 9. 1) Self-interest, kinship bonds, cooperative adaptations and at least a primitive notion of fairness evolve among social animals to the extent that at least some non-human primates can be said to exhibit "proto-moral" behavior. 2) Human beings, thanks to their big abstraction-facilitating brains, use of language and emotional makeup develop proto-morality into sophisticated systems of rule-governed ethical behavior. 3) Ethical disputes can be resolved rationally based on shared principles. 4) The result of an adequately resolved ethical dispute can be called morally right. 5) Violations of ethical conduct can be called morally wrong. 6) Human ethical behavior in general can be described in terms of approximations to what's morally right and morally wrong, taking into account (or not) all sorts of sophisticated issues of diminished capacity, extenuating circumstances, etc. , etc. 7) Given 6, rational people can disagree about what's right or wrong, depending on how