This is a linkpost for https://atheistkit.wordpress.com/ethics/
Without commenting on whether this presentation matches the original metaethics sequence (with which I disagree), this summary argument seems both unsupported and unfalsifiable.
Would this be an accurate summary of what you think is the meta-ethics sequence? I feel that you captured the important bits but I also feel that we disagree on some aspects:
V(Elves, ) = Christmas spirity
V(Pebblesorters, ) = primality
V(Humans, _ ) = morality
If V(Humans, Alice) =/= V(Humans, ) that doesn't make morality subjective, it is rather i...
Unpacking "should" as " morally obligated to" is potentially helpful, so inasmuch as you can give separate accounts of "moral" and "obligatory".
The elves are not moral. Not just because I, and humans like me happen to disagree with them, no, certainly not. The elves aren’t even trying to be moral. They don’t even claim to be moral. They don’t care about morality. They care about “The Christmas Spirit,” which is about eggnog and stuff
That doesn't generalise to the point that non humans have no morality. You have m...
Morality binds and blinds. People derive moral claims from emotional and intuitive notions. It can feel good and moral to do amoral things. Objective morality has to be tied to evidence what really is human wellbeing; not to moral intuitions that are adaptions to the benefit of ones ingroup; or post hoc thought experiments about knowledge.
Almost everything. You explain morality by putting forward one theory. Under those circumstances, most people would expect to see some critique of other theories, and explanation of why your theory is the One True Theory. You don't do the first, and it is not clear that you are even trying to do the second.
And to say that only humans have morality. But if there is something the Elves should do, then morality applies to them., contradicting that claim.
That doesn't help. For one thing, humans don't exactly want to be moral...their moral fibre has to be buttressed bty various punishments and rewards. For another "should" and "want to" are not synonyms..but "moral" and "what you should do" are. So if there is something the Elves should do, at that point you have established that morality applies to the Elves, and the fact that they don't want to do it is a side-issue. (And of course they could tweak their own motivations by constructing punishments and rewards).
OK. Now you seem to be saying..without quite making it quite explicit of course, ..that morality is by definition unique to humans, because the word "moral" just labels what motivates humans, in the way that "Earth" or "Terra" labels the planet where humans live. That claim isn't completely incomprehensible, it's just strange and arbitrary, and what is considerably strange is the way you feel no need to defend it against alternative theories -- the main alternative being that morality is multiply instantiable, that other civilisations could have their own versions. like they have their own versions , in the way they could have their own versions of houses or money.
You state it as though it is obvious, yet it has gone unnoticed for thousands of years.
Suppose I were to announce that dark matter is angels' tears. Doesn't it need some expansion? That's how your claim reads, that' the outside view.
Obligatory is a kind of "should" *that shouldn't be overridden by other considerations. (A failure to do what is obligatory is possible, of course, but it is important to remember that it is seen as a lapse, as something wrong, not a valid choice). Yet the Elves are overriding it, casting doubt on whether they have actually understood the concept of "obligatory"
Since anyone can say that at any time, that breaks the meaning of "best", which is supposed to pick out something unique. That would be a reductio ad absurdum of your own theory.
No, no, no...
Every possible creature, and every process of physics SHOULD do XYZ. But practically nothing is moved by that fact.
This sentence means: It is highly valued in the morality equation for XYZ to be the state of affairs, independently of who/what causes it to be so.
Likewise, everything Spiritould do ABC, but only Elves are moved by that fact.
These are objective equations which apply to everything. To say should, spiritould, clipperould, etc., is just to say about different things that they are valued by this equation or that one. It's an objective... (read more)