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Cyan comments on What is Metaethics? - Less Wrong
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Around here we call those "fully general counter-arguments".
ETA: you've misunderstood the grandparent, the point of which is not about a refusal to use language but rather about using it more precisely so as to avoid miscommunication and errors.
I have not noticed NMJabalonski offering a more precise replacement vocabulary.
Probably because he doesn't know what to replace it with. You introduced the words into the conversation. We're trying to figure out what you mean by them.
I did not introduce the words "moral", "good" etc. They are not some weird never-before encountered vocabulary.
You're promoting illusion of transparency. Just explain what you mean, already.
I can only do that if you understand the language I intend to do the explaining in. It's called English. Do you understand this language?
I have access to a number of dictionaries which, while written entirely in English, contain many definitions. Please, emulate them.
morality :concern with the distinction between good and evil or right and wrong; right or good conduct
good:morally admirable
Ethics (also known as moral philosophy) is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality; that is, about concepts such as good and bad, right and wrong, justice, and virtue.
Let me try to guess the next few moves in hopes of speeding this up:
A: Admirable according to whom? (And why'd you use "morally" in the definition of "morality"?)
B: Most people. / Everyone. / Everyone who matters.
A: So basically, if a lot of people or everyone admires something, it is morally good? It's a popularity contest?
B: No, it's just objectively admirable.
A: I don't understand what it would mean to be "objectively admirable"?
B: These are two common words. How can you not understand them?
A: Each might make sense separately, but together no. Perhaps you mean "universally admirable"?
B: Yeah, that sounds good.
A: So basically, if everyone admires something, you will want to call it "morally good." They will probably appreciate and agree to those approving words, seeing as they all admire it as well.
Or...?
C; Now that you have enough of a handle on "morality" to see the difference between a theory of morality and a theory of flight, you can read the literature.
So...
"Something is moral if it is good."
and
"Something is good if it is moral." ?
I think "admirable" might break the circle and ground the definitions, albeit tenuously.
Circularity is typical of ordinary dictionary defintiions. OTOH, it doesn't stop people learning meanings.
We all speak English here to some degree.
The issue is that some words are floating, disconnected from anything in reality, and meaningless. Consider the question: do humans have souls?
What would it mean, in terms of actual experience, for humans to have souls? What is a soul? Can you understand how if someone refused to explain what a soul is, claiming it to be a basic thing which no other words can describe, it would be pretty confusing?
What would it mean, in terms of actual experience, for something to be "morally right"? What characteristics make it that way, and how do you know?
To disbelieve in souls, you have to know what "soul" means, You seem to have mistaken an issue of truth for one of meaning.
I think you are going to have to put up with that unfortunate confusion, since you can't reduce everything to nothing.
Something is morally right if it fulfils the Correct Theory of Morality. I'm not claiming to have that. However, I can recognise theories of morality, and I can do that with my ordinary-language notiion of morality. (The theoretic is always based on the pre-theoretic. We do not reach the theoretic in one bound) I'm not creating stumbling blocks for myself by placing arbitrary requirments on definitions, like insisting that they are both concrete and reductive.
Why do you believe there exists a Correct Theory of Morality?
Why do you believe there exists a Correct Theory of Physics?
As Constant points out here all the arguments based on reductionism that you're using could just as easily be used to argue that there is no correct theory of physics.
One difference between physics and morality is that there is currently a lot more consensus about what the correct theory of physics looks like then what the correct theory of morality looks like. However, that is a statement about the current time, if you were to go back a couple centuries you'd find that there was as little consensus about the correct theory of physics as there is today about the correct theory of morality.
I think "X is what the correct theory of X says" is true for all X. The Correct Theory can say "Nothing", of course.
I understand English. Please proceed. (I can't speak for the other participants, but I infer that they understand English as well.)
Some of them claim not to understand some common words. If that stretches to "define" and "mean". etc, the explanatory effort will be wasted.
Why not try this: imagine an inquisitive nine-year-old asked you what you meant by "morality"; such a nine-year-old might not know what "define" means, but I expect you wouldn't refuse to explain morality on those grounds.
I would only have to point to the distinction between Good Things and Naughty Things which all children have drummed into them from a much earlier age. That is what makes the claim not to have an OL undesrtanding of morality so unlikely.
5, 8, 9, and so on.
Just explain what you mean, already. Otherwise, I've got better things to do.
This summarizes the situation nicely I think. Thanks.
I have not been offering one.
I have been requesting one.
I don't see any substantive, real world connection to words like "good" or "moral" in this context. I am assuming you do mean something real by them, and I am asking you to convey that meaning by using simpler words that we both already understand in concrete terms.
And I think you are as capable as anyone else of seeing the ordinary meanings of these terms. There is no guarantee that they are definable in simpler terms or in concrete terms, since it is likely that some concepts are basic or abstract. You have an unusual inability to understand these terms. and an unlikely background theory of meaning. I think those two facts are connected.
I think you will find my thoughts on this matter are relatively common in this community.
But not in the wider world.