Suppose you think that 3+4=6.

I offer you the following deal: give me $3 today and $4 tomorrow, and I will give you a 50 cent profit the day after tomorrow, by returning to you $6.50. You can take as much advantage of this as you want. In fact, if you like, you can give me $3 this second, $4 in one second, and in the following second I will give you back all your money plus 50 cents profit - that is, I will give you $6.50 in two seconds.

Since you think that 3+4=6, you will jump at this amazing deal.

I meant the second part: "but when you really drill down there are only beliefs that predict my experience more reliably or less reliably" How do you know that?

That's what I was responding to.

It is not the case that all beliefs can do is predict experience based on existing preferences. Beliefs can also set and modify preferences. I have given that counterargument several times.

Z org: And what pan-galactic value are your objective values? Pan-galactic value is the ultimate value, dontcha know.

I think moral values are ultimate because I can;t think of a valid argument of the form "I should do <immoral thing> because <excuse>". Please give an example of a pangalactic value that can be substituted for ,<excuse>

You just eliminated it: If to assert P is to assert "P is true," then to assert "P is true" is to assert P. We could go back and forth like this for hours.

Yeah,. but it sitll comes back to truth. If I tell you it will increase your happiness to hit yourself on the head with a hammer, your response is going to have to amount to "no, that's not true".

Dictionary says, [objective[ "Not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased."

How can a value be objective?

By being (relatively) uninfluenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased.

Especially since a value is a personal feeling.

You haven't remotely established that as an identity. It is true that some people some of the time arrive at values through feelings. Others arrive at them (or revise them) through facts and thinking.

you are defining "value" differently, how?

"Values can be defined as broad preferences concerning appropriate courses of action or outcomes"

You still don't have a good argument to the effect that no one cares about truth per se.

It's called that too. Are you just objecting as to what we are calling it?

I meant the second part: "but when you really drill down there are only beliefs that predict my experience more reliably or less reliably" How do you know that?

That's what I was responding to.

It is not the case that all beliefs can do is predict experience based on existing preferences. Beliefs can also set and modify preferences. I have given that counterargument several times.

Z org: And what pan-galactic value are your objective values? Pan-galactic value is the ultimate value, dontcha know.

I think moral values are ultimate because I can;t think of a valid argument of the form "I should do <immoral thing> because <excuse>". Please give an example of a pangalactic value that can be substituted for ,<excuse>

You just eliminated it: If to assert P is to assert "P is true," then to assert "P is true" is to assert P. We could go back and forth like this for hours.

Yeah,. but it sitll comes back to truth. If I tell you it will increase your happiness to hit yourself on the head with a hammer, your response is going to have to amount to "no, that's not true".

Dictionary says, [objective[ "Not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased."

How can a value be objective?

By being (relatively) uninfluenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased.

Especially since a value is a personal feeling.

You haven't remotely established that as an identity. It is true that some people some of the time arrive at values through feelings. Others arrive at them (or revise them) through facts and thinking.

you are defining "value" differently, how?

"Values can be defined as broad preferences concerning appropriate courses of action or outcomes"

Sure, people usually argue whether something is "true or false" because such status makes a difference (at least potentially) to their pain or pleasure, happiness, utility, etc.

So you say. I can think of two arguments against that: people acquire true beliefs that aren't immediately useful, and untrue beliefs can be pleasing.

Not quite my point. I'm not talking about what your preferences would be. That would be subjective, personal. I'm talking about what everyone's meta-ethical preferences would be, if self-consistent, and abstracted enough.

My argument is essentially that objective morality can be considered the position in meta-ethical-space which if occupied by all agents would lead to the maximization of utility.

That makes it objectively (because it refers to all the agents, not some of them, or one of them) different from other points in meta-ethical-space, and so it can be considered to lead to an objectively better morality.

There's no particular connection between morality and arithmetic that I'm aware of. I brought up arithmetic to illustrate a point. My hope was that arithmetic is less problematic, less apt to lead us down philosophical blind allies, so that by using it to illustrate a point I wasn't opening up yet another can of worms.

The fact that you are not going to worry about morality, does not make morality a) false b) meaningless or c) subjective. Can I take it you are no longer arguing for any of claims a) b) or c) ?

I've never argued (a), I'm still arguing (actually just informing you) that the words "objective morality" are meaningless to me

You are not actually being all that informative, since there remains a distinct supsicion that when you say some X is meaningless-to-you, that is a proxy for I-don't-agree-with-it. I notice throughout these discussions that you never reference accepted dictiionary definitions as a basis for meaningfullness, but instead always offer some kind of idiosyncratic personal testimony.

and I'm still arguing (c) but only in the sense that it is equivalent to (b): in other words, I can only await some argument that morality is objective. (But first I'd need a definition!)

What is wrong with dictionary definitions?

You have not succeeded in showing that winning is the most important thing.

I'm using the word winning as a synonym for "getting what I want," and I understand the most important thing to mean "what I care about most."

That doesn't affect anything. You still have no proof for the revised version.

And I mean "want" and "care about" in a way that makes it tautological. Keep in mind I want other people to be happy

Other people out there in the non-existent Objective World?

, not suffer, etc. Nothing either of us have argued so far indicates we would necessarily have different moral sentiments about anything.

I don't think moral anti-realists are generally immoral people. I do think it is an intellectual mistake, whether or not you care about that.

Solipsism is an ontological stance: in short, "there is nothing out there but my own mind." I am saying something slightly different: "To speak of there being something/nothing out there is meaningless to me unless I can see why to care." Then again, I'd say this is tautological/obvious in that "meaning" just is "why it matters to me."

Do you cross the road with your eyes shut? If not, you are assuming, like everyone else, that there are things out there which are terminally disutiilitous.

My "position" (really a meta-position about philosophical positions) is just that language obscures what is going on.

Whose language ? What language? If you think all language is a problem, what do you intend to replace it with?

I'm not a naturalist. I'm not skeptical of "objective" because of such reasons; I am skeptical of it merely because I don't know what the word refers to

It refers to the stuff that doesn't go away when you stop believing in it.