TimFreeman comments on Pluralistic Moral Reductionism - Less Wrong
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Comments (316)
There's an ambiguity here. A standard can make objective judgments, without the selection of that standard being objective. Like meter measurements.
Such a person would be objectively afoul of a standard against randomly killing people. But let's say he acted according to a standard which doesn't care about that; we wouldn't be able to tell him he did something wrong by that other standard. Nor could we tell him he did something wrong according to the one, correct standard (since there isn't one).
But we can tell him he did something wrong by the standard against randomly killing people. And we can act consistently with that standard by sanctioning him. In fact, it would be inconsistent for us to give him a pass.
Unless A was just asking to be walked through the calculation steps, then I agree B is not answering A's question.
I'm not sure I'm following the argument here. I'm saying that all normativity is hypothetical. It sounds like you're arguing there is a categorical 'ought' for believing mathematical truths because it would be very strange to say we only 'ought' to believe 2 + 2 = 4 in reference to some goal. So if there are some categorical 'oughts,' there might be others.
Is it something like that?
If so, then I would offer the goal of "in order to be logically consistent." There are some who think moral oughts reduce to logical consistency, so we ought act in a certain way in order to be logically consistent. I don't have a good counter-argument to that, other than asking to examine such a theory and wondering how being able to point out a logical consistency is going to rein in people with desires that run counter to it any better than relativism can.
You can stop right there. If no theory of morality based on logical consistency is offered, you don't have to do any more.
I suppose you mean "if no theory of morality based on logical consistency is offered".
Of course, one could make an attempt to research reason-based metaethics before discarding the whole idea.
Agreed and edited.
I observe that you didn't offer a pointer to a theory of morality based on logical consistency.
I agree with Eby: you are a troll. I'm done here.
For one thing, I don't think logical consistency is quite the right criterion for reason-based objective morality. Pointing out that certain ideas are old and well documented, is offering a pointer, and is not trolling.