If you are going to say that John-morality and Mary-morality are different things, that is effectively conceding that they are subjective.
The focus doesn't have to be on John and Mary; it can be on the morality we're referencing via John and Mary. By analogy, we could talk about John's hometown and Mary's hometown, without being subjectivists about the cities we are referencing.
If you have multiple contradictory judgements being made by multiple standards, and you deem them to be objective, then you end up with multiple contradictoryobjective truths. But I don't think you can have multiple contradictory objective truths.
Ok, instead of meter measurements, let's look at cubit measurements. Different ancient cultures represented significantly different physical lengths by 'cubits.' So a measurement of 10 cubits to a Roman was a different physical distance than 10 cubits to a Babylonian.
A given object could thus be 'over ten cubi...
It seems to me I cannot provide him compelling grounds as to why he ought not to have done what he did, and that to punish him would be arbitrary.
When a dispute is over fundamental values, I don't think we can give the other side compelling grounds to act according to our own values. Consider Eliezer's paperclip maximizer. How could we possibly convince such a being that it's doing something irrational, besides pointing out that its current actions are suboptimal for its goal in the long run?
Thanks for the link to the Carroll story. I plan on taking som...
I think the worry here is that realizing 'right' and 'wrong' are relative to values might make us give up our values. Meanwhile, those who aren't as reflective are able to hold more strongly onto their values.
But let's look at your deep worry about fanatics with nukes. Does their disregard for life have to also be making some kind of abstract error for you to keep and act on your own strong regard for life?
OK, but what I want to know is how you react to some person -whose belief system is internally consistent- who has just, say, committed a gratuitous murder. Are you committed to saying that there are no objective grounds to sanction him
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 would...
What I was getting at is that this looks like complete moral relativism -'right for me' is the only right there is
While it is relativism, the focus is a bit different from 'right for me.' More like 'this action measures up as right against standard Y' where this Y is typically something I endorse.
For example, if you and I both consider a practice morally right and we do so because it measures up that way against the standard of improving 'the well-being of conscious creatures,' then there's a bit more going on than it just being right for you and me.
O...
Would you say a person is obligated by facts woven into the universe to believe that 68 + 57 = 125 ? (ie, are we obligated in this sense to believe anything?) Would you say a person is obligated by facts woven into the universe to believe that 68 + 57 = 125 ? (ie, are we obligated in this sense to believe anything?)
No, I wouldn't say that. It would be a little odd to say anyone who doesn't hold a belief that 68 + 57 equals 125 is neglecting some cosmic duty. Instead, I would affirm:
In order to hold a mathematically correct belief when considering 68 + 5...
Strictly speaking, we can exhibit any definition of "good", even one that doesn't make any of the errors you pointed out, and still ask "Is it good?".
Moore was correct that no alternate concrete meaning is identical to 'good,' his mistake was thinking that 'good' had its own concrete meaning. As Paul Ziff put it, good means 'answers to an interest' where the interest is semantically variable.
In math terms, the open question argument would be like asking the value of f(z) and when someone answers f(3), pointing out that f(z) is not ...
If by 'obligated' you mean it's demanded by those who fear being the targets of those actions, yes. Or if you mean exercising restraint may be practically necessary to comply with certain values those actions thwart, yes. Or if you mean doing those things is likely to result in legal penalties, that's often the case.
But if you mean it's some simple fact that we're morally obligated to restrain ourselves from doing certain things, no. Or at least I don't see how that could even possibly be the case, and I already have a theory that explains why people might...
I want a meta-ethics that gives me some comparative advantage in dealing with moral problems, as compared to other sorts of disagreements.
This may be a case where not getting it wrong is the main point, even if getting it right is a let down.
My own view is quite similar to Luke's and I find it useful when I hear a moral clam to try sorting out how much of the claim is value-expression and how much is about what needs to be done to promote values. Even if you don't agree about values, it still helps to figure out what someone else's fundamental values ar...
Pluralistic morality is terrible at translating into a uniform set of rules that all are beholden to.
Why is that the test of a metaethical theory rather than the theory which best explains moral discourse? Categorical imperatives — if that's what you're referring to — are one answer to the best explanation of moral discourse, but then we're stuck showing how categorical imperatives can hold...or accepting error theory.
Perhaps 'referring to categorical imperatives' is not the only or even the best explanation of moral discourse. See "The Error in the Error Theory" by Stephen Finlay.
It's utterly routine for different people to have conflicting beliefs about whether a given act is moral*. And often they can have a useful discussion, at the end of which one or both participants change their beliefs. These conversations can happen without the participants changing their definitions of words like 'moral', and often without them having a clear definition at all.
It may be routine in the sense that it often happens, but not routine in the sense that this is a reliable approach to settling moral differences. Often such disputes are not set...
Well, metaethics isn't supposed to be good for telling us which things are wrong and which things are right. Nor is it supposed to be about providing us with motivation to do good.
The chief role of metaethics is to answer questions about what it means for things to be morally right or wrong or what we're doing when we make moral judgments. In some ways, this is a relatively meek endeavor, which is why it's not completely outrageous for someone to claim it's 'solvable' now.
What could 'right' and 'wrong' mean, beyond the criteria used to make the judgment?
Sure, if you're talking about appealing to people to change their non-fundamental values to be more in line with their fundamental values. But I've still never heard how rea... (read more)