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Sophronius comments on 2013 Survey Results - Less Wrong
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Well, given that Charlie indeed genuinely holds that preference, then no he is not wrong to hold that preference. I don't even know what it would mean for a preference to be wrong. Rather, his preferences might conflict with preferences of others, who might object to this state of reality by calling it "wrong", which seems like the mind-projection fallacy to me. There is nothing mysterious about this.
Similarly, the person in the original example of mine is not wrong to think men kissing each other is icky, but he IS wrong to conclude that there is therefore some universal moral rule that men kissing each other is bad. Again, just because rationality does not determine preferences, does not mean that logic and reason do not apply to morality!
I believe you have pegged me quite wrongly, sir! I only care about truth, not Truth. And yes, I do have access to some truths, as of course do you. Saying that logic and reason apply to morality and that therefore all moral claims are not equally valid (they can be factually wrong or entirely nonsensical) is quite a far cry from heralding in the Third Reich. The article on Less Wrong regarding the proper use of doubt seems pertinent here.
I am confused. Did I misunderstand you or did you change your mind?
Earlier you said that "should" kind of questions have single correct answers (which means that other answers are wrong). A "preference" is more or less the same thing as a "value" in this context, and you staked out a strong position:
Since statements of facts can be correct or wrong and you said there is no "fact-value distinction", then values (and preferences) can be correct or wrong as well. However in the parent post you say
If you have a coherent position in all this, I don't see it.
I think you misunderstood me. Of course I don't mean that the terms "facts" and "values" represent the same thing. Saying that a preference itself is wrong is nonsense in the same way that claiming that a piece of cheese is wrong is nonsensical. It's a category error. When I say I reject a strict fact-value dichotomy I mean that I reject the notion that statements regarding values should somehow be treated differently from statements regarding facts, in the same way that I reject the notion of faith inhabiting a separate magistrate from science (i.e. special pleading). So my position is that when someone makes a moral claim such as "don't murder", they better be able to reduce that to factual statements about reality or else they are talking nonsense.
For example, "sex is sinful!" usually reduces to "I think my god doesn't like sex", which is nonsense because there is no such thing. On the other hand, if someone says "Stealing is bad!", that can be reduced to the claim that allowing theft is harmful to society (in a number of observable ways), which I would agree with. As such I am perfectly comfortable labelling some moral claims as valid and some as nonsense.
I don't see how this sentence
is compatible with this sentence
I am distinguishing between X and statements regarding X. The statement "Cheese is wrong" is nonsensical. The statement "it's nonsensical to say cheese is wrong" is not nonsensical. Values and facts are not the same, but statements regarding values and facts should be treated the same way.
Similarly: Faith and Science are not the same thing. Nonetheless, I reject the notion that claims based on faith should be treated any differently from scientific claims.
Do you also reject the notion that claims about mathematics and science should be treated differently?
In the general sense that all claims must abide by the usual requirements of validity and soundness of logic, sure.
In fact, you might say that mathematics is really just a very pure form of logic, while science deals with more murky, more complicated matters. But the essential principle is the same: You better make sure that the output follows logically from the input, or else you're not doing it right.
My point is that what constitutes "validity" and "soundness of logic" differs between the two domains.