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CuSithBell comments on What is Metaethics? - Less Wrong
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The question was - how do you determine what the moral facts are?
Currently, intuition. Along with the existing moral theories, such as they are.
Similar to the way people determined facts about physics, especially facts beyond the direct observation of their senses, before the scientific method was developed.
Right, and 'facts' about God. Except that intuitions about physics derive from observations of physics, whereas intuitions about morality derive from observations of... intuitions.
You can't really argue that objective morality not being well-defined means that it is more likely to be a coherent notion.
My point is that you can't conclude the notion of morality is incoherent simple because we don't yet have a sufficiently concrete definition.
Technically, yes. But I'm pretty much obliged, based on the current evidence, to conclude that it's likely to be incoherent.
More to the point: why do you think it's likely to be coherent?
Mostly by outside view analogy with the history of the development of science. I've read a number of ancient Greek and Roman philosophers (along with a few post-modernists) arguing against the possibility of a coherent theory of physics using arguments very similar to the ones people are using against morality.
I've also read a (much larger) number of philosophers trying to shoehorn what we today call science into using the only meta-theory then available in a semi-coherent state: the meta-theory of mathematics. Thus we see philosophers, Descartes being the most famous, trying and failing to study science by starting with a set of intuitively obvious axioms and attempting to derive physical statements from them.
I think people may be making the same mistake by trying to force morality to use the same meta-theory as science, i.e., asking what experiences moral facts anticipate.
As for likely I'm not sure how likely this is, I just think its more likely then a lot of people on this thread assume.
If that is true, what virtue do moral fact have which is analogous to physical facts anticipating experience, and mathematical facts being formally provable?
If I knew the answer we wouldn't be having this discussion.
To be clear - you are talking about morality as something externally existing, some 'facts' that exist in the world and dictate what you should do, as opposed to a human system of don't be a jerk. Is that an accurate portrayal?
If that is the case, there are two big questions that immediately come to mind (beyond "what are these facts" and "where did they come from") - first, it seems that Moral Facts would have to interact with the world in some way in order for the study of big-M Morality to be useful at all (otherwise we could never learn what they are), or they would have to be somehow deducible from first principles. Are you supposing that they somehow directly induce intuitions in people (though, not all people? so, people with certain biological characteristics?)? (By (possibly humorous, though not mocking!) analogy, suppose the Moral Facts were being broadcast by radio towers on the moon, in which case they would be inaccessible until the invention of radio. The first radio is turned on and all signals are drowned out by "DON'T BE A JERK. THIS MESSAGE WILL REPEAT. DON'T BE A JERK. THIS MESSAGE WILL...".)
The other question is, once we have ascertained that there are Moral Facts, what property makes them what we should do? For instance, suppose that all protons were inscribed in tiny calligraphy in, say, French, "La dernière personne qui est vivant, gagne." ("The last person who is alive, wins" - apologies for Google Translate) Beyond being really freaky, what would give that commandment force to convince you to follow it? What could it even mean for something to be inherently what you should do?
It seems, ultimately, you have to ask "why" you should do "what you should do". Common answers include that you should do "what God commands" because "that's inherently What You Should Do, it is By Definition Good and Right". Or, "don't be a jerk" because "I'll stop hanging out with you". Or, "what makes you happy and fulfilled, including the part of you that desires to be kind and generous" because "the subjective experience of sentient beings are the only things we've actually observed to be Good or Bad so far".
So, where do we stand now?
Now we're getting somewhere. What do you mean by the work "jerk" and why is it any more meaningful then words like "moral"/"right"/"wrong"?
The distinction I am trying to make is between Moral Facts Engraved Into The Foundation Of The Universe and A Bunch Of Words And Behaviors And Attitudes That People Have (as a result of evolution & thinking about stuff etc.). I'm not sure if I'm being clear, is this description easier to interpret?
Near as I can tell, what you mean by "don't be a jerk" is one possible example of what I mean by morality.
Hope that helps.
Define your terms, then you get a fair hearing. If you are just saying the terms could maybe someday be defined, this really isn't the kind of thing that needs a response.
To put it in perspective, you are speculating that someday you will be able to define what the field you are talking about even is. And your best defense is that some people have made questionable arguments against this non-theory? Why should anyone care?
After thinking about it a little I think I can phrase it this way.
I want to answer the question: "What should I do?"
It's kind of a pressing question since I need to do something (doing nothing counts as a choice and usually not a very good one).
If the people arguing that morality is just preference answer: "Do what you prefer", my next question is "What should I prefer?"
Including the word 'just' misses the point. Being about preference in now way makes it less important.
Three definitions of "should":
As for obligation - I doubt you are under any obligation other than to avoid the usual uncontroversially nasty behavior, along with any specific obligations you may have to specific people you know. You would know what those are much better than I would. I don't really see how an ordinary person could be all that puzzled about what his obligations are.
As for propriety - over and above your obligation to avoid uncontroversially nasty behavior, I doubt you have much trouble discovering what's socially acceptable (stuff like, not farting in an elevator), and anyway, it's not the end of the world if you offend somebody. Again, I don't really see how an ordinary person is going to have a problem.
As for expediency - I doubt you intended the question that way.
If this doesn't answer your question in full you probably need to explain the question. The utilitarians have this strange notion that morality is about maximizing global utility, so of course, morality in the way that they conceive it is a kind of life-encompassing total program of action, since every choice you make could either increase or decrease total utility. Maybe that's what you want answered, i.e., what's the best possible thing you could be doing.
But the "should" of obligation is not like this. We have certain obligations but these are fairly limited, and don't provide us with a life-encompassing program of action. And the "should" of propriety is not like this either. People just don't pay you any attention as long as you don't get in their face too much, so again, the direction you get from this quarter is limited.
You have collapsed several meanings of obligation together there. You may have explicit legal obligations to the state, and IOU style obligations to individuals who have done you a favour, and so on. But moralobligations go beyond all those, If you are living a brutal dictatorship, there are conceivable circumstances where you morally should not obey the law. Etc, etc.
This might have clarified for me what this dispute is about. At least I have a hypothesis, tell me if I'm on the wrong track.
Antirealists aren't arguing that you should go on a hedonic rampage -- we are allowed to keep on consulting our consciences to determined the answer to "what should I prefer." In a community of decent and mentally healthy people we should flourish. But the main upshot of the antirealist position is that you cannot convince people with radically different backgrounds that their preferences are immoral and should be changed, even in principle.
At least, antirealism gives some support to this cynical point of view, and it's this point of view that you are most interested in attacking. Am I right?
That's a large part of it.
The other problem is that anti-realists don't actually answer the question "what should I do?", they merely pass the buck to the part of my brain responsible for my preferences but don't give it any guidance on how to answer that question.
In order to accomplish what?
Should you prefer chocolate ice cream or vanilla? As far as ice cream flavors go, "What should I prefer" seems meaningless...unless you are looking for an answer like, "It's better to cultivate a preference for vanilla because it is slightly healthier" (you will thereby achieve better health than if you let yourself keep on preferring chocolate).
This gets into the time structure of experience. In other words, I would be interpreting your, "What should I prefer?" as, "What things should I learn to like (in order to get more enjoyment out of life)?" To bring it to a more traditionally moral issue, "Should I learn to like a vegetarian diet (in order to feel less guilt about killing animals)?"
Is that more or less the kind of question you want to answer?
Talk about morality and good and bad clearly has a role in social signaling. It is also true that people clearly have preferences that they act upon, imperfectly. I assume you agree with these two assertions; if not we need to have a "what color is the sky?" type of conversation.
If you do agree with them, what would you want from a meta-ethical theory that you don't already have?
Something more objective/universal.
Edit: a more serious issue is that just as equating facts with opinions tells you nothing about what opinions you should hold. Equating morality and preference tells you nothing about what you should prefer.
So we seem to agree that you (and Peterdjones) are looking for an objective basis for saying what you should prefer, much as rationality is a basis for saying what beliefs you should hold.
I can see a motive for changing one's beliefs, since false beliefs will often fail to support the activity of enacting one's preferences. I can't see a motive for changing one's preferences - obviously one would prefer not to do that. If you found an objective basis for saying what you should prefer, and it said you should prefer something different from what you actually do prefer, what would you do?
If you live in a social milieu where people demand that you justify your preferences, I can see something resembling morality coming out of those justifications. Is that your situation? I'd rather select a different social milieu, myself.
I recently got a raise. This freed up my finances to start doing SCUBA diving. SCUBA diving benefits heavily from me being in shape.
I now have a strong preference for losing weight, and reinforced my preference for exercise, because the gains from both activities went up significantly. This also resulted in having a much lower preference for certain types of food, as they're contrary to these new preferences.
I'd think that's a pretty concrete example of changing my preferences, unless we're using different definitions of "preference."
Let's try a different approach.
I have spent some time thinking about how to apply the ideas of Eliezer's metaethics sequence to concrete ethical dilemmas. One problem that quickly comes up is that as PhilGoetz points out here, the distinction between preferences and biases is very arbitrary.
So the question becomes how do you separate which of your intuitions are preferences and which are biases?
There isn't an instrumental motive for changing ones preferences. That doesn't add up to "never change your preferences" unless you assume that instrumentality -- "does it help me achieve anything" is the ultimate way of evaulating things. But it isn't: morality is. It is morally wrong to design better gas chambers.
Rationality is the equivalent of normative morality: it is a set of guidelines for arriving at the opinions you should have:true ones. Epistemology is the equivalent of metaethics. It strives to answer the question "what is truth".
Which is true, and explains why it is a harder problem than physics, and less progress has been made.
I'm not sure I accept either of those claims, explanation or no.
Yes, but we've already determined that we don't disagree - unless you think we still do? I was arguing against observing objective (i.e. externally existing) morality. I suspect that you disagree more with Eugine_Nier.