Where is the hope in atheism?

[Silmarien]

I'm not sure you understand what subjective means. Yes, people really do objectively have opinions about moral issues. That means they are necessarily subjective.

(We know that other people have different opinions about those moral issues. Things that are objective do not depend on any particular mind (by definition). Things that are subjective may be different in different minds. Just because someone has the kindness to agree with me on a particular issue is not a warrant for me to declare my opinion objective.)

The fact that opinions are subjective doesn't mean much of anything at all. Just look at this thread. It's abundantly clear that people can have varying opinions about historical issues. This doesn't mean that historical facts are a matter of personal opinion--they are absolutely objective, even if we interpret them incorrectly.

These conversations break down because relativists think that realists are focused on arguing the morality of things like homosexuality. Which is sometimes true. But I'm more interested in whether we can say that there was something objectively wrong about the Holocaust. If people genuinely think that whether something that extreme is right or wrong is a matter of subjective opinion, I don't care how much they say their subjective opinions matter to them. I'm not buying it. Either you really think it was evil, even if that flies in the face of reason, or you don't. There is no middle ground.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Do moral relativists acknowledge that other individuals’ morals exist objectively?

If so, would they acknowledge that if another individual’s morals are good and right then objective morality exists in that individual?

I'm not quite sure what you're asking here...

If they're acknowledging that morals exist objectively...then they aren't a relativist.

 

[Ana the Ist]

The fact that opinions are subjective doesn't mean much of anything at all. Just look at this thread. It's abundantly clear that people can have varying opinions about historical issues. This doesn't mean that historical facts are a matter of personal opinion--they are absolutely objective, even if we interpret them incorrectly.

That information is at least theoretically accessible though. If I wanted to know whether or not Justinian_I was killing non-christians because they weren't christian, I could look for that information written down somewhere.

Now maybe it still exists, or maybe that information is lost to time...but the point remains it did exist.

We can't do this with a supposed moral "fact"...I can't even imagine a method by which one would begin to access such information. If it even exists, it's entirely inaccessible. As such, it has no distinguishing differences from opinion...and no similarities to facts.

 

[Eudaimonist]

As a moral realist myself, I'd grant that morals are "subjective" in the sense that human thought and opinion are necessary aspects of what it is to live morally, but the point behind moral realism is that this is not the whole story. A moral realist regards there as facts of reality that, in principle at least, may form a justification for moral views, thus anchoring them in reality. This is distinct from the meta-ethical position of moral subjectivism, which denies any factual basis for morality (aside from mere psychological observations about actors), and is thus why moral realists aren't likely to describe their views on morality as "subjective", because that doesn't fully capture how they see morality.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I'm not sure what you're claiming here Quid...

Is it?

1. That those killing witches actually thought they were prisoners...not witches?

2. That those killing witches didn't think they were in fact, evil, and that killing them was in fact, good?

Just trying to simplify the conversation and not get bogged down in needless semantics.

That the OT has nothing to do with the origins of witch-hunting until connected to the already existing phenomenon later. The LXX translated poisoner as Pharmakos, while the Vulgate as Maleficus. The latter meant 'wrong-doer' etymologically, so the word came to be connected to the popular conception of witches. However, it was a folkloric usage, not a Biblical one, at play here.

I'd be interested in seeing that argument. You're saying that Hitler didn't see the jews and various other peoples as in fact, inferior/evil, and that eliminating them was in fact a good thing?

Not sure which Soviet killings you're referring to...so I'll wait for you to elaborate.

The Nazis were moral relativists. Their underlying philosophy was based on Schopenhauer and a bastardised form of Nietsche. They believed in Will, in creating your own morality as a Superman, in overshooting by your own power the encumbrance of herd morality that keep the strong hobbled by the weak. They were strongmen.
You see this in their speaking of the Will of the German Volk or why Leni Riefenstahl called her movie 'Triumph of the Will'.

So the Jews were seen as inferior, weaker genetically than Germans. However, they undermined German greatness by defiling the better German genes and working behind the scenes against the betterment of Germany itself, in favour of Jewry. So in their morality that prioritises the German, they were therefore fit to be destroyed. The same argument was used for genetic disease or the mentally ill. He did see them as inferior, and therefore in the created morality by will and superiority, which is beyond good and evil, they are 'evil'. They weren't seen as intrinsically evil, just intrinsically inferior, Untermenschen therefore, so the superior Germans had a right to destroy them for their own good. In that sense, they were evil.

The Communists used similar ideas, based of of Utilitarian ideas of the maximum good ultimately, ie True Communism, so breaking a few eggs before hand was 'moral'. So I was thinking of the Great Ukrainian famine, or Katyn massacre or the Gulags. The same idea was at play in the Great Leap Forward or Killing Fields of Cambodhia. It is killing a few now, so that ultimately everyone would be better of. It grew out of 19th century relativistic thought too, as Marx was a scion of, and such ideas and atrocities were almost prophetically predicted by Dostoevsky and Nietsche years before they occurred.

It certainly does make them moral realists if they view these matters of evil and good as facts external to themselves and not simply matters of their own opinion. Judging by the arguments they made for their respective atrocities...I'd say they're pretty firmly moral realists.

They are only moral realists if they think good and evil actually exist. If they think it a human convention, even if externally determinable, they are relativists. Nazis and Communists are by their own definition moral relativists.

Their reasoning is explained by moral realism....that's not the same as saying moral realism caused their actions though. I'm certain you can understand the difference.

It is not explained by Moral realism. It cannot be supported theoretically thereby. A claim that evil exists, does not mean that any application of that concept to something, was therefore a valid one. So they might be moral realists, but that is immaterial to whether they burned witches or not. As I said, moral relativists killed people just as readily, and the cause of witch-hunting was basic scapegoating, not theoretical logical reasoning. It was a visceral, tribalistic, almost unthinking response. They didn't argue witches must exist and then went off and killed them. They didn't even seek to justify the killing on a theoretical basis really, as philosophers and theologians tended to disagree as to its morality. Your contention is simply untenable.

Indeed, I'd say the vast majority of people in the world view morality from some realist position....in that morals goods and bads are facts external to themselves. The overwhelming number of atrocities committed by mankind were most likely committed by realists.

Most people are Realists, yes, as this is the obvious position. Relativists are responsible for some of the most murderous acts of the 20th century though.
A fact external to themselves does not make you a moral realist if that fact is one you pragmatically and intersubjectively agree upon with another relativist. You are confusing an ontological realism with intersubjective determination of relativism.

I'm not sure why you would think there's no such thing as "good" to a relativist.

There is in their estimation. It is just determined relatively and therefore a rape or murder could also be so construed depending on the reasoning. I however am a moral realist, so such a good I consider nothing of the sort.

Read up on your history...the church's position on slavery at the beginning of the trans Atlantic slave trade was that it was acceptable because Africans weren't christian.

Now, there's some early writings between church leaders condemning slavery...when it's being perpetrated upon Christians...but if I'm not mistaken, the church didn't officially condemn slavery in principle till the late 1800s.

Read up on your history. Many Christians such as Las Casas were opposed as the Slave Trade arose.The enslavement of Indians and importation of Africans was opposed by Jesuits and priests on the ground, but ultimately prevailed on account of economic reasons. The principle of slavery was only unequivocally condemned later, but it was considered a symptom of the fall, not fully moral. It is the same position with money or governments or labour, necessary now, but not ultimately in the original edenic program. The Church just managed to get rid of slavery. The original abolitionists were Quakers and English non-Conformists. It is not coincidence that Europe rejected slavery in favour of other forms of indentured labour, whenever it became Christianised.

The Church condemned the idea of slaves as merely property and its 'rightness' since Paul. Such luminaries as Chrysostom, Augustine and Gregory I explained how it was undesirable, but an unfortunate current state. It was the same type of thinking that had Prohibitionists try to ban alcohol or such.

I would hardly call them immaterial lol.

They are though, whether you'd call them so or not, on the question of the underlying moral acceptability of Slavery. It was the same pragmatic approach the Church took to soldiers who obviously can't turn the other cheek, though that would be the most moral position.

Anyone from any moral position could argue for capital punishment...realist or relativist. The fundamental difference between the two is that the relativist realizes his morals are his opinions...while the realist thinks himself right in fact. Nazis are rather squarely in the realist column.

Please, I'd rather not have to start posting things nazis said about the jews to prove my point. You can look these things up for yourself. They did not see these things as matters of personal opinion, but as matters of fact.

You are wrong. Read Mein Kampf. Read about Nietsche, his sister, and the Nazis. The Nazis were explicitly moral relativists by their own theories, hence the Holocaust, support for Euthanasia, etc. This is merely ignorance of history, which judging by this thread is really not your strong suit. The Jews were seen as factually inferior, but their moral destruction was predicated on ideas of a Will to Power, not a Moral Realist position.

Defunct? How?

Somatoform and Conversion disorders are the current clinical definitions in Psychiatry. Hysteria is not used for anything but the Psychological manifestations within something like a mass panic. Connecting one with the other is not based on current definitions anymore than connecting Hysteria to its old meaning of 'Uppity women' seen as mentally ill accordingly.

The point was made that witch burnings were not conducted by people of sound mind...but by those afflicted by mass hysteria. It's a psychological argument at it's core.

You've got no cause to be upset that I then referred to a psychological explanation of mass hysteria.

They were of sound mind individually. Just not of sound reasoning corporately. Someone can be beholden to a Neuroses or Personality disorder, while being of 'sound mind'. These are psychological factors like ideology, tribalism and scapegoating that came together in a poisonous brew called Witch-hunting. I agree it is a psychological argument, then why on earth do you keep referring to Psychiatric constructs like Conversion disorder? You seem very confused.

The primary difference between the two is that psychiatry is about the clinical practice and treatment of mental disorders and health in general. It has no place in the historical context of witch burnings...but is relevant if we're to discuss modern examples of mass hysteria.

That's why I posted an article from Psychology Today.

That is not the primary difference. Psychiatry is about treating neurotransmitter imbalances and so forth, via drugs, while Psychology treats via behavioural therapy and counselling and the ilk. They are both clinical disciplines, that usually have to utilise each other.
Psychiatry is very much at play historically, if you would decide the cause of something was Schizophrenia or some form of Conversion disorder. This would be diagnosing of of the history provided. You continue to seem thoroughly confused.

At what point did I bring in psychiatry?

Did you even read the credentials of the article's author?

"He holds a doctorate in sociology from James Cook University in Queensland Australia, a Masters in American sociology from the State University of New York at Albany, a Masters in Australian sociology from The Flinders University of South Australia, a BA degree in Communications from The State University of New York at Plattsburgh, and a Certificate in Radio Broadcasting from the State University of New York - Adirondack campus. He has written on an array of topics ranging from human social and cultural diversity, to mass psychogenic illness (aka “mass hysteria”), social delusions, moral panics, fads, collective behavior, the history of tabloid journalism, history of the paranormal, popular myths and folklore."

I'd say he's rather qualified on the topic at hand, wouldn't you? The guy has basically made unusual group behaviours his body of research and work. If he's not qualified to speak intelligently on mass hysteria, then perhaps you'd like to offer up someone who you prefer?

Edit- Just because I'm a nice guy, I looked up another article detailing the psychological view of mass hysteria (you'll see it referenced multiple times)

John Waller on the mystery of mass hysteria

Here's a notable passage...

" In 1749, a contagion of squirming, screaming and trance spread through a German convent; locals inferred the work of a witch, seized a nun as a likely candidate and beheaded her in the marketplace."

So again, when historians talk about mass hysteria being connected to witch burnings, they aren't talking about the people who are killing the witches. I can understand why there might be some confusion on your part regarding this...but I hope it clears things up.
.

You keep talking of Conversion disorder and somehow intimated this to be equivalent to Mass Hysteria. The former is a Psychiatric diagnosis, the latter only a current Psychological one. So you do keep on mentioning Psychiatry. This was why I supplied a medical journal article on the subject, hoping you would read and understand the differentiation currently made, but it appears it was to no avail.

The credentials of your author are a bit incongruent. He is a sociologist, which is neither a Psychiatrist nor a Psychologist. So he talks on these things from a sociological perspective, not a clinical one. So no, he is not an expert at all, but from a related field. This would be as if trusting an historian of the Economic Theory on WWII military history. He may have good insights, he is a historian, but he isn't really talking from the strength of his own subject. I think you are reading too much into what is essentially a piece of pop-journalism anyway.

As to your Nun being beheaded story - that is classic scapegoating to account for a peculiar phenomenon. That is Psychological Mass Hysteria or Panic, as with the Popish plot or McCartheyism. That it started with some form of shared Conversion symptoms is immaterial, as it was the psychological response of the townspeople we are referring to. The response to supposed conversion in this case, not the conversion itself. Witch-hunting was looking for an Other, someone to sacrifice to relieve societal pressures or stressors.

You really do not seem to understand what I or Silmarien was saying, or I must conclude you are trolling. Anyway, I have no further inclination to try and educate further, as it has become far too tedious and I am not sure if my efforts are bearing any fruit, so I bid you good day.

 

[Ana the Ist]

As a moral realist myself, I'd grant that morals are "subjective" in the sense that human thought and opinion are necessary aspects of what it is to live morally, but the point behind moral realism is that this is not the whole story. A moral realist regards there as facts of reality that, in principle at least, may form a justification for moral views, thus anchoring them in reality. This is distinct from the meta-ethical position of moral subjectivism, which denies any factual basis for morality (aside from mere psychological observations about actors), and is thus why moral realists aren't likely to describe their views on morality as "subjective", because that doesn't fully capture how they see morality.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Hey Mark, haven't spoken with you in awhile....how have you been?

Could you give some examples of the facts you're referring to here? I consider myself a relativist...but I also recognize there are facts which can form the basis of moral opinions (though I rarely see them as being the sole basis).

For example, a man is shot and killed. It may be a fact that he had family who are now grief stricken. It may be a fact that his family will now struggle financially. It may be a fact that he was physically attacking the person who shot him....and so on.

That's about the extent of the facts though....that which can be demonstrated or proven. It cannot be a fact, that shooting him was morally "good" or "bad"...which is the kind of thinking, from what I understand, is the basis of moral realism.

 

[essentialsaltes]

The fact that opinions are subjective doesn't mean much of anything at all.

Certainly it does, inasmuch as there doesn't appear to be anything other than opinions on moral topics.

At least, it's a better chain of thought than suggesting that because people really have opinions, opinions are really true or false.

It's abundantly clear that people can have varying opinions about historical issues. This doesn't mean that historical facts are a matter of personal opinion--they are absolutely objective, even if we interpret them incorrectly.

Right, and in the case of history, we have historical bits of evidence from which to determine the facts of the matter (as best we can). Obama either was or wasn't factually born in this country, and the birth certificate is evidence that he was. The birth certificate could be marked Hawaii, or it could be marked Kenya. But there are no certificates that are marked 'right' and 'wrong'.

We can film experiments to determine "Do heavy things fall at the same rate as light things in vacuum?". But we can film hundreds of more or less starving people either choosing to steal or not steal food, and the film will not tell us whether it was right or wrong in any particular case.

History and science are ways of exploring objective reality - a realm that is
"independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind"

Moral judgments don't live 'out there' in the world, independent of minds. They happen inside people's heads. As a consequence, they are subjective.

Either you really think it was evil

Of course, I think it was wrong. I very firmly think it was wrong. But that does not promote my thoughts into being an objective fact about reality. The universe don't care. Moral issues matter to people because they matter to people. When the strong prey on the weak, we feel the immediacy of anger or shame or long for vengeance and justice. These feelings are real, and they inspire action, and they are important in the only way they can be important... to people. The fact that moral judgments are subjective does not mean they don't matter. They matter to us, because they are our judgments.

There are or were Nazis (old and new) who don't think the Holocaust was evil. I could muster my thoughts and present arguments to change their mind (and they could do likewise). But neither of us could point out there in the mind-independent world to a wrong-o-meter that has a red/green indicator for right/wrong.

 

[Silmarien]

History and science are ways of exploring objective reality - a realm that is
"independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind"

History is a lot more slippery than that. A lot of it doesn't involve simply what happened, but why it happened, and what it has to say about the social context of the past, and that is very much interpretative. At a certain level, science also becomes subject to interpretation, since we cannot say with certainty which metaphysical framework best suits the evidence. In fact, the whole endeavor is based upon a network of inferences to the best explanation.

The only thing that history and science really gives us are models of reality, and these are not independent of the mind.

Of course, I think it was wrong. I very firmly think it was wrong. But that does not promote my thoughts into being an objective fact about reality. The universe don't care. Moral issues matter to people because they matter to people. When the strong prey on the weak, we feel the immediacy of anger or shame or long for vengeance and justice. These feelings are real, and they inspire action, and they are important in the only way they can be important... to people. The fact that moral judgments are subjective does not mean they don't matter. They matter to us, because they are our judgments.

I would disagree. If the view that the strong should not prey on the weak is as equally valid as the Nietzschean claim that traditional morality muzzles the strong, who should not be beholden to the weak, then we have a very serious problem. We have a critique of traditional morality that paints it as ultimately immoral--if we cannot defend it against this powerful an attack, then why are we holding it at all? Out of nostalgia? Because we have been indoctrinated to believe such things? I say that any belief that cannot ultimately be justified should be challenged, and this would include magical subjective moral systems untied to reality. If you're going to unchain the earth from the sun, don't close your eyes and pretend that this isn't precisely what you've done.

However, I am not sure that most people here understand what moral realism even is. There are many different versions of it, including naturalistic and non-naturalistic varieties. It isn't necessarily about the universe caring, though I will point out that you are ruling out any number of theistic and pantheistic views when stating that the universe does not care. Which makes sense from your perspective, but is not a metaphysics that even all atheists share, so you should not state it like a fact. I've argued multiple times here that values do seem to be built into the natural world--being healthy, physically or mentally, is objectively better for the organism than being ill, and to deny this is to deny that the most basic physical sensations are grounded in reality. We don't really get to subjectively decide whether it'd be more fun to catch pneumonia or suffer from depression. At the very least, it seems to me that morality could be tied to the concept of human wellbeing, which would toss it outside of the realm of the subjective and make it an objective element of human psychology.

I'd like to hear what @Eudaimonist has to say about it. Given his username, I'm half expecting something a little bit Greek from him too.

There are or were Nazis (old and new) who don't think the Holocaust was evil. I could muster my thoughts and present arguments to change their mind (and they could do likewise). But neither of us could point out there in the mind-independent world to a wrong-o-meter that has a red/green indicator for right/wrong.

There is no such thing as a mind-independent world. That's just residual Cartesianism. The human mind is part of the natural order of things and ought to be treated like it. If we need to point to a universe aside from the one we inhabit to justify moral realism, then we are in trouble since the strictly materialistic universe you are positing no longer exists and perhaps never did in the first place.

To a certain extent, we do have a red/green indicator here: the psychological research behind dehumanization. We know that the ability to hate others in these situations is tied to a psychological trick in which we see them as less than human, and that our perceptions are not matching up to reality. If we can only defend our views by remaining wilfully ignorant of anything that might indicate that we are wrong, then we are in trouble and most likely also trapped in a state of subconscious self-deception. I would consider that a subjective state that is actually bad for us, which begs the question of how can subjective states be good or bad.

 

[essentialsaltes]

I would disagree. If the view that the strong should not prey on the weak is as equally valid as the Nietzschean claim that traditional morality muzzles the strong, who should not be beholden to the weak, then we have a very serious problem. We have a critique of traditional morality that paints it as ultimately immoral--if we cannot defend it against this powerful an attack

If morality is subjective, it's the easiest thing in the world to defend. I've heard you (or Nietzsche) out and remain unconvinced.

Critic A says that Shakespeare is garbage. Whatever, dude, that's just, like, your opinion, man. I don't require aesthetics to be objective in order to defend against people with differing opinions. The critical scholarship about Shakespeare doesn't vanish in a puff of smoke, because some guy disagrees. Neither does his opinion vanish, just because centuries of critical scholarship disagree.

I say that any belief that cannot ultimately be justified should be challenged, and this would include magical subjective moral systems untied to reality.

There's nothing all that magical about having an opinion.

At the very least, it seems to me that morality could be tied to the concept of human wellbeing

It certainly could be. It could be tied to popular vote. Or a particular moral text. Or the categorical imperative. Or the Golden Rule. People can assume all sorts of fundamental axioms to develop their moral ideas.

which would toss it outside of the realm of the subjective and make it an objective element of human psychology.

If we choose a particular moral framework, we can certainly use objective tools to flesh it out. We can build a wrong-o-meter. But that initial choice of moral framework is not founded on anything objective.

There is no such thing as a mind-independent world.

Isn't that solipsism?

The human mind is part of the natural order of things and ought to be treated like it.

Sure, I'm not denying that. We can determine that the pneumonia bacterium causes pneumonia in humans, and removing the hippocampus damages the ability of a human mind to form memories, and the heart pumps blood. We can even infer that damage to certain areas can affect a person's moral sense, as (somewhat exaggeratedly) reported with Phineas Gage. But what we seem to find when we study minds is that people with perfectly functioning moral senses come to different conclusions about the morality of particular actions. It doesn't seem like additional study will tell us anything about a hypothetical objective scale by which we could determine that those in group A have made correct conclusions, while those in group B have made incorrect conclusions.

 

[essentialsaltes]

It doesn't seem like additional study will tell us anything about a hypothetical objective scale by which we could determine that those in group A have made correct conclusions, while those in group B have made incorrect conclusions.

As an example, we can study optical illusions. Some people see that arrow as longer as that other arrow, while other people don't. We might learn a lot of fascinating things about the visual system in studying people in these tests. But by studying the people, we would never learn whether the arrows were really the same length or not.

Probably the experimenters know whether they are the same length or not. But they didn't determine that by looking at the arrows themselves. They used a ruler.

 

[Chriliman]

I'm not sure you understand what subjective means. Yes, people really do objectively have opinions about moral issues. That means they are necessarily subjective.

(We know that other people have different opinions about those moral issues. Things that are objective do not depend on any particular mind (by definition). Things that are subjective may be different in different minds. Just because someone has the kindness to agree with me on a particular issue is not a warrant for me to declare my opinion objective.)

If subjectivity is real, which I believe it is, then it necissarily exists objectively, however, in order to know if a subjective opinion is accurate or not, it must be communicated and accurately reflect reality. In which case, objective correctness or objective morality can be established regardless if others agree with it or not.(sure is nice when it’s agreed upon though )

In short, If someone’s opinion accurately reflects reality then their opinion is an objective fact.

 

[Silmarien]

If morality is subjective, it's the easiest thing in the world to defend. I've heard you (or Nietzsche) out and remain unconvinced.

How so? I remain unconvinced that subjective morality is a position that can be defended at all. Nihilism can be and realism can be, but subjectivism appears to be incoherent.

As for Shakespeare, I don't consider aesthetics to be subjective either. That whole field is intersubjective in a somewhat similar way--you can like or dislike Shakespeare, but whether his work has literary merit is not a matter of personal opinion.

There's nothing all that magical about having an opinion.

If you have an opinion that you refuse to ground in objective facts, then yes. There is.

It certainly could be. It could be tied to popular vote. Or a particular moral text. Or the categorical imperative. Or the Golden Rule. People can assume all sorts of fundamental axioms to develop their moral ideas.

Aside from the popular vote, all of these involve moral realism, though I would argue that they are all less coherent than tying it directly to wellbeing. But if you refuse to tie your moral ideas to any sort of fundamental axiom at all, what do you have? Why do you believe the things you do? How can you be subject to correction or see any improvement in your approach to morality?

If we choose a particular moral framework, we can certainly use objective tools to flesh it out. We can build a wrong-o-meter. But that initial choice of moral framework is not founded on anything objective.

Yes, it is. What could be more objective than psychological wellbeing and saying that things are good and bad for us? If you end up in a situation where you're arguing that anorexia is neither objectively good or bad for someone, but depends upon their subjective values, you are in trouble. As far as I can tell, people who identify as subjectivists have an approach to objectivity that's untenable. If you want to argue that morality can't be reduced to the laws of physics, I would agree, but moral realists are not going to be reductionists.

Isn't that solipsism?

No. I reject mind-matter dualism.

Sure, I'm not denying that. We can determine that the pneumonia bacterium causes pneumonia in humans, and removing the hippocampus damages the ability of a human mind to form memories, and the heart pumps blood. We can even infer that damage to certain areas can affect a person's moral sense, as (somewhat exaggeratedly) reported with Phineas Gage. But what we seem to find when we study minds is that people with perfectly functioning moral senses come to different conclusions about the morality of particular actions. It doesn't seem like additional study will tell us anything about a hypothetical objective scale by which we could determine that those in group A have made correct conclusions, while those in group B have made incorrect conclusions.

Moral realism does not depend upon the existence of a specific code of morality that everyone will always agree with. If there is such a thing as perfectly functioning moral senses, then that alone is sufficient for moral realism. Obviously morality in practice is a complicated thing--people who care about human dignity can be either pro-life or pro-choice; the question is whether the underlying values are a free-for-all. Is a pro-life stance informed by the desire to control women morally equivalent to one grounded in respect for life? I would say that only one of these two things is consistent with perfectly functioning moral senses, and that this is manifested in the way that people behave.

If you toss out moral realism, all you have is the free-for-all. And I am not sure it makes any sense even from the standpoint of evolutionary psychology.

 

[essentialsaltes]

As for Shakespeare, I don't consider aesthetics to be subjective either.

So there is something wrong with people who like Brussels sprouts.

If you have an opinion that you refuse to ground in objective facts, then yes. There is.

I don't like Brussels sprouts, because they taste bad. This is not a magical opinion.

But if you refuse to tie your moral ideas to any sort of fundamental axiom at all

I have not made any such refusal. I simply don't regard axioms as objective truths about reality. They aren't, they are assumptions.

Yes, it is. What could be more objective than psychological wellbeing and saying that things are good and bad for us?

We can certainly measure the difference between disease and health, but it is a category mistake to equate that with a difference between right and wrong.

If there is such a thing as perfectly functioning moral senses, then that alone is sufficient for moral realism.

And my perfectly functioning sense of taste is sufficient to demonstrate that Brussels sprouts really are objectively bad-tasting?

And I am not sure it makes any sense even from the standpoint of evolutionary psychology.

Stepparents kill their non-biological children at rates about 100 times higher than parents kill their biological children. This makes sense from the standpoint of evolutionary psychology. But I don't think we want to make that the basis of our morality. If you can't find morality in physics, I don't see why you would expect to find it in biology.

 

[Ana the Ist]

That the OT has nothing to do with the origins of witch-hunting until connected to the already existing phenomenon later. The LXX translated poisoner as Pharmakos, while the Vulgate as Maleficus. The latter meant 'wrong-doer' etymologically, so the word came to be connected to the popular conception of witches. However, it was a folkloric usage, not a Biblical one, at play here.

Did you intentionally not answer my question? The whole reason I asked it was so you wouldn't get sidetracked by conflicting biblical interpretations. After all, its not as if my claim hinges upon witch burners having a correct understanding of the bible....they could be completely wrong about the biblical position on witches and my point still stands.

The Nazis were moral relativists. Their underlying philosophy was based on Schopenhauer and a bastardised form of Nietsche. They believed in Will, in creating your own morality as a Superman, in overshooting by your own power the encumbrance of herd morality that keep the strong hobbled by the weak. They were strongmen.

I don't appreciate you putting me in this position Quid. I don't like quoting this stuff even to prove a point...

From one of Hitler's speeches, in Munich 1922....

"There are only two possibilities in Germany; do not imagine that the people will forever go with the middle party, the party of compromises; one day it will turn to those who have most consistently foretold the coming ruin and have sought to dissociate themselves from it. And that party is either the Left: and then God help us! for it will lead us to complete destruction - to Bolshevism, or else it is a party of the Right which at the last, when the people is in utter despair, when it has lost all its spirit and has no longer any faith in anything, is determined for its part ruthlessly to seize the reins of power - that is the beginning of resistance of which I spoke a few minutes ago. Here, too, there can be no compromise - there are only two possibilities: either victory of the Aryan, or annihilation of the Aryan and the victory of the Jew."

There you have it...it's hardly the words of a man who is simply sharing an opinion. He clearly believes that Jews are bad, and their annihilation is in fact a moral good.

I'm not going to be quoting him or the nazis themselves anymore. I don't think there's any other quote which more clearly demonstrates the fact that Hitler believed these things to be facts...not simply an opinion, or means to an end, or merely prudent. He viewed the Jews as evil destroyers...and himself as a morally righteous champion who was doing good by annihilating them.

You see this in their speaking of the Will of the German Volk or why Leni Riefenstahl called her movie 'Triumph of the Will'.

So the Jews were seen as inferior, weaker genetically than Germans. However, they undermined German greatness by defiling the better German genes and working behind the scenes against the betterment of Germany itself, in favour of Jewry. So in their morality that prioritises the German, they were therefore fit to be destroyed.

Are you certain you're making an argument against their being moral realists? Because all of this sounds like an argument for it.

You do realize that the moral facts a realist believes in need not spring from the words of scripture or divinity...right?

The same argument was used for genetic disease or the mentally ill. He did see them as inferior, and therefore in the created morality by will and superiority, which is beyond good and evil, they are 'evil'.

This isn't an argument for making a morality from will....it's an argument for believing in a factual good.

They weren't seen as intrinsically evil, just intrinsically inferior, Untermenschen therefore, so the superior Germans had a right to destroy them for their own good. In that sense, they were evil.

One doesn't have to be destroying evil to be doing good. That's the whole basis of eugenics...that a factual moral good comes from creating a genetically superior generation of people. One can be a utilitarian moral realist.

They are only moral realists if they think good and evil actually exist. If they think it a human convention, even if externally determinable, they are relativists. Nazis and Communists are by their own definition moral relativists.

I skipped ahead to this part because I think it's the core of your mistake here. The only thing one needs to believe to be a moral realist is that moral facts exist...the idea that something can be factually good or bad in a similar way that 2+2=4 is a fact.

They don't need to have some external arbiter of this like the bible, or a god....a moral realist need only decide that something is factually good or bad. To my knowledge, that is the only necessary aspect of all forms of moral realism.

So it doesn't matter if we're talking about nazis or communists....they only need to decide that their morals are facts...not opinions.

It is not explained by Moral realism. It cannot be supported theoretically thereby. A claim that evil exists, does not mean that any application of that concept to something, was therefore a valid one. So they might be moral realists, but that is immaterial to whether they burned witches or not. As I said, moral relativists killed people just as readily, and the cause of witch-hunting was basic scapegoating, not theoretical logical reasoning. It was a visceral, tribalistic, almost unthinking response.

You're offering up your opinion at this point...and nothing more. Witches were tried...so while it may have been tribalistic, it certainly wasn't unthinking. Your complaints about their application of the concept of evil being incorrect is immaterial.

They believed witches were evil...and believed they were doing good by killing them. You can call them ignorant, superstitious, etc...but there's no reason to think these were anything but rational decisions.

Most people are Realists, yes, as this is the obvious position. Relativists are responsible for some of the most murderous acts of the 20th century though.

You've yet to offer anything on that point though.

A fact external to themselves does not make you a moral realist if that fact is one you pragmatically and intersubjectively agree upon with another relativist.

No...all you need to be a moral realist is the belief that moral facts exist. That is the very basis of moral realism.

You are confusing an ontological realism with intersubjective determination of relativism.

Don't think I am.

There is in their estimation. It is just determined relatively and therefore a rape or murder could also be so construed depending on the reasoning. I however am a moral realist, so such a good I consider nothing of the sort.

I'm sure you think you don't...yet even a moral realist like yourself has moral judgements about all sorts of behaviors and actions that aren't addressed in the bible, correct? I mean it's not like we can ask jesus for his opinions regarding the morality of computer hacking...so where do those judgements come from for you?

Read up on your history. Many Christians such as Las Casas were opposed as the Slave Trade arose.The enslavement of Indians and importation of Africans was opposed by Jesuits and priests on the ground, but ultimately prevailed on account of economic reasons. The principle of slavery was only unequivocally condemned later, but it was considered a symptom of the fall, not fully moral. It is the same position with money or governments or labour, necessary now, but not ultimately in the original edenic program. The Church just managed to get rid of slavery. The original abolitionists were Quakers and English non-Conformists. It is not coincidence that Europe rejected slavery in favour of other forms of indentured labour, whenever it became Christianised.

The Church condemned the idea of slaves as merely property and its 'rightness' since Paul. Such luminaries as Chrysostom, Augustine and Gregory I explained how it was undesirable, but an unfortunate current state. It was the same type of thinking that had Prohibitionists try to ban alcohol or such.

I'm pretty sure the Atlantic slave trade began with the Portuguese taking the first African slaves...and the pope giving them a decree of some sort validating it for all non-christians.

That you can find a few dissenters on the topic is immaterial.

They are though, whether you'd call them so or not, on the question of the underlying moral acceptability of Slavery. It was the same pragmatic approach the Church took to soldiers who obviously can't turn the other cheek, though that would be the most moral position.



You are wrong. Read Mein Kampf. Read about Nietsche, his sister, and the Nazis. The Nazis were explicitly moral relativists by their own theories, hence the Holocaust, support for Euthanasia, etc. This is merely ignorance of history, which judging by this thread is really not your strong suit. The Jews were seen as factually inferior, but their moral destruction was predicated on ideas of a Will to Power, not a Moral Realist position.

At this point you're not even denying that they saw the jews as factually inferior and their destruction factually good.

Somatoform and Conversion disorders are the current clinical definitions in Psychiatry. Hysteria is not used for anything but the Psychological manifestations within something like a mass panic. Connecting one with the other is not based on current definitions anymore than connecting Hysteria to its old meaning of 'Uppity women' seen as mentally ill accordingly.

I've offered links to two experts on the topic....you'll forgive me for dismissing your opinion.

They were of sound mind individually. Just not of sound reasoning corporately.

If this is your claim...then offer up some kind of evidence for it.

This was why I supplied a medical journal article on the subject, hoping *snip*

I read the whole thing...and at no point did it address mass hysteria. If I missed it, pull the quote.

You really do not seem to understand what I or Silmarien was saying, or I must conclude you are trolling.

I'm not trolling...and I'm sure you know that claiming so is against the rules here.

 

[Chriliman]

I don't like Brussels sprouts, because they taste bad. This is not a magical opinion.

It's not wrong to say it's an objective fact that you don’t like brussel sprouts. Similarly, it's not wrong to say it's an objective fact that the flavor of brussel sprouts will be different depending on the individual, because each individual has a different configuration of taste buds.

 

[Silmarien]

So there is something wrong with people who like Brussels sprouts.

That isn't aesthetics.

I don't like Brussels sprouts, because they taste bad. This is not a magical opinion.

"I dislike Brussel sprouts" is not an opinion. It is a statement concerning your sense of taste. If you are going to start arguing that there is something objectively bad about Brussel sprouts simply because you dislike the taste, then yes, that's a magical opinion.

I have not made any such refusal. I simply don't regard axioms as objective truths about reality. They aren't, they are assumptions.

This sounds like a refusal. If you don't think your axioms are correct, then why would you base anything on them at all? It'd be like saying that we have no reason whatsoever to trust our sensory data, therefore all that exists are our subjective impressions of the world and there may well be no external world at all. In which case even our subjective impressions would cease to matter.

Everything is an assumption. That is part of the human condition. This doesn't mean that we should all toss in the towel and be solipsists.

We can certainly measure the difference between disease and health, but it is a category mistake to equate that with a difference between right and wrong.

I disagree. There is a value judgment involved in determining that health is good and disease is bad. Do we only subjectively associate health with goodness or is there something objectively good about the state of health? I would consider this to be a serious weakness for the claim that values are inherently subjective. Emergent, maybe, but conjured out of nothing by the mind? I think that only makes sense for idealists.

And my perfectly functioning sense of taste is sufficient to demonstrate that Brussels sprouts really are objectively bad-tasting?

Sort of? Presumably tasting bad to animals is part of the brussels sprouts defense mechanism--natural toxins and all that. Which is certainly an objective good for the plant, but it doesn't mean that our sense of taste isn't supposed to be helping to differentiate between edible food and toxins. It's really not like taste is a subjective free-for-all either.

Stepparents kill their non-biological children at rates about 100 times higher than parents kill their biological children. This makes sense from the standpoint of evolutionary psychology. But I don't think we want to make that the basis of our morality. If you can't find morality in physics, I don't see why you would expect to find it in biology.

Because the other half of evolution--the part that actual drives life to stages of greater complexity--is cooperation. Would we have language, would we have ever developed the type of problem solving that led to rationality at all if we were not a social species? Even if our intuitions about morality are based solely on our heritage as a social species, that's enough to justify moral realism. Those intuitions are part of what our species is, and denying them leads to problems, both on the individual and the societal levels.

 

[super animator]

"I dislike Brussel sprouts" is not an opinion. It is a statement concerning your sense of taste. If you are going to start arguing that there is something objectively bad about Brussel sprouts simply because you dislike the taste, then yes, that's a magical opinion.

You are splinting hairs here.

 

[Silmarien]

You are splinting hairs here.

Not really. I would argue that there actually is something objectively bad about the taste of brussels sprouts. We've evolved to dislike the bitter taste of poisons, and many plants have evolved alongside us to produce those tastes that we avoid.

Saying that you dislike brussels sprouts because they taste bad is a tautology, not an opinion, and is not the full explanation if we consider that there are actual evolutionary reasons that brussels sprouts taste bad to us. Our sense of taste doesn't exist in a magical subjective vacuum independent of the external world--it serves an actual purpose. This of course doesn't mean that we can immediately make the jump to saying that brussels sprouts ought to be avoided because their taste identifies them as bad. We know that it's not quite that simple.

Why subjectivists think that moral intuitions just float around ungrounded in reality is really beyond me. It doesn't seem very realistic.

 

[essentialsaltes]

That isn't aesthetics.

Is there any substantive difference if we substitute "the art of Jackson Pollock" for "Brussels sprouts"?

"I dislike Brussel sprouts" is not an opinion. It is a statement concerning your sense of taste. If you are going to start arguing that there is something objectively bad about Brussel sprouts simply because you dislike the taste, then yes, that's a magical opinion.

Right, but I wouldn't do that, since I do not believe there is an objective fact of the matter.

There is a value judgment involved in determining that health is good and disease is bad. Do we only subjectively associate health with goodness or is there something objectively good about the state of health? I would consider this to be a serious weakness for the claim that values are inherently subjective.

I'm only contending that moral (and aesthetic) values are subjective. A tsunami that kills thousands is bad, but it is not a moral evil. We should not equivocate good/bad with morally good/evil.

Can a tsunami kill thousands? Yes.
Ought a tsunami kill thousands? This question doesn't seem to mean anything.

 

[Silmarien]

Is there any substantive difference if we substitute "the art of Jackson Pollock" for "Brussels sprouts"?

What do you mean by substantive? My sympathies are for Neo-Aristotelianism, where form is at least as crucial as matter. Rationality can be seen as transforming the human experience of life--we develop elaborate rituals for something as simple as eating food. A new dimension of existence has emerged, so to speak, where artistically designed French dessert plates are now possible, which can be judged on any number of intersubjective criteria. The term "aesthetic" refers to this rather than to the taste of brussels sprouts.

Right, but I wouldn't do that, since I do not believe there is an objective fact of the matter.

None at all? Is it not an objective fact that brussels sprouts taste bitter--something they share with poisons? The more I think about it, the more I am willing to say that taste is in fact objective as well.

I'm only contending that moral (and aesthetic) values are subjective. A tsunami that kills thousands is bad, but it is not a moral evil. We should not equivocate good/bad with morally good/evil.

Can a tsunami kill thousands? Yes.
Ought a tsunami kill thousands? This question doesn't seem to mean anything.

I am unaware of any theory of moral realism that would actually attribute moral agency to a tsunami. If your stance is that only a subjective actor can be a moral agent, I would agree. A tsunami cannot be a moral evil, but a nation that sits back and does nothing in the wake of a natural disaster most certainly can.

If you think that outside of a moral context, good/bad can be objective values, I would certainly like to hear more. I do not see how you can hold that a tsunami is objectively bad without opening the door to moral facts.