Is there Objective Morality?

[Moral Orel]

Nope.

"Nope" what? You think there is something special about negative claims?

 

[stevevw]

Special Pleading fallacy ^

Here's the claim:

Thus, I find myself in the dilemma of having to act but not knowing how to act. Any theory that leads to this absurd state of mind must be rejected.​

You have two different acts. Eating a hamburger is one act. Eating a hotdog is another act. You must eat. So you are in a state of mind where you must act but you do not know how to act. That is not an absurd state of mind, it's totally normal. Your argument fails.

So therefore are you saying we must accept that "eating a person is not absurd".

 

[Moral Orel]

So therefore are you saying we must accept that "eating a person is not absurd".

Red Herring.

Is it an absurd state of mind to be offered a hamburger or a hotdog and not know which to choose?

 

[durangodawood]

So therefore are you saying we must accept that "eating a person is not absurd".

Its nasty. But not absurd.

 

[zippy2006]

We can do better than that. Moral "facts" can only be demonstrated using reason, ergo arguments. So consider:

We ought not do X.

This cannot be demonstrated in any other way than through argumentation. So we have to form a valid argument to prove any statement of the form "We ought not do X". In order to make that argument valid, we must have an "ought" statement in the premises to link them together. Example:

We ought not harm innocents.
Murder harms innocents.
We ought not murder.

That's valid, but in order for it to be sound we have to prove all of our premises, yes? So we also need to prove that "We ought not harm innocents" is true. And the only way to prove an "ought" statement is through argumentation with an "ought" statement in the premises, and so on. No "ought" statement, and therefore no moral fact, can ever actually be justified. Thanks PSR!

If anyone thinks that the "ought" statement isn't a necessary premise, put it into the argument flipped (positive claim to negative claim or vice versa) and watch how the argument flips too.

In conclusion, it is logically absurd to consider any "ought" statement to be true.

First, I would just repeat myself and tell you to go read Searle's paper, "How to Derive 'Ought' From 'Is'."

Second, you should remember that the purpose of a syllogism is to draw out a conclusion that is only implicitly contained in the premises. For example:

• Premise: People who are honest and friendly get along with other people.
• Premise: You want to get along with other people.
• Conclusion: You ought to be honest and friendly.

Third, again, 'oughts' relate to practical reason, not speculative reason. No practical premise will be provable in the same way that a speculative premise is provable. You're trying to hit a musical note with a baseball bat.

 

[Carbon]

The concrete set of guidelines that constitute the morality of Aristotelian virtue ethics involves things like the classical cardinal virtues of justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude. It involves things like being honest, fair, courageous, rational, etc. It is about becoming the kind of person who acts well with ease, but in order to come to the point where we do something with ease we must begin by doing that thing with difficulty and effort.

I remember spit-balling to a Kantian some years ago, as I think you are suggesting here, that morality works like a muscle. The more we practice a particular virtue the stronger that "virtue muscle" gets. He insisted that from Kant's perspective each moral decision is always necessarily a fresh encounter with your deontological duty to do X, Y, or Z, totally unhindered and unaided by any previous moral encounter. Moral fatigue is now a pretty widely accepted phenomenon so I would say the empirical element has been vindicated there.

Your definitions and claims seem solid enough for my purposes. The challenge I see with virtue ethics in general though is that they feel too low resolution apply to difficult real world situations. We can all agree that honesty, integrity, patience, care for others, fortitude, defense of freedom, etc., are generally good things. But in your view, how would Aristotle's list of virtues tell us what to do when it comes to, say, Covid vaccines? We're both in the US. Should the US enforce vaccine mandates on federal workers, on civilians? Should citizens who oppose the vaccine still get it?

Opposing sides on these questions can both invoke Aristotelian ethics. So I'm not sure those ethics can rise above their undeniably valuable status as rules of thumb to a detailed procedural document for day to day decision making.

 

[zippy2006]

I remember spit-balling to a Kantian some years ago, as I think you are suggesting here, that morality works like a muscle. The more we practice a particular virtue the stronger that "virtue muscle" gets. He insisted that from Kant's perspective each moral decision is always necessarily a fresh encounter with your deontological duty to do X, Y, or Z, totally unhindered and unaided by any previous moral encounter. Moral fatigue is now a pretty widely accepted phenomenon so I would say the empirical element has been vindicated there.

I think that's right, and it's a great point. In fact I think that is precisely where Kant goes wrong. For a Thomist any action we perform must be conceived as desirable, as conducing to our happiness in one way or another. The same goes for any duties that we desire to perform, and this is contrary to Kant.

The further point for those who follow Aristotle is that the muscles themselves ultimately end up taking a kind of precedence over analytic examination. When a difficult situation arises the virtuous person acts virtuously in confronting it because their "muscles" are well-trained. Virtue ends up being something that we embody and intuitively deploy rather than primarily something that is the fruit of discursive reasoning processes.

Your definitions and claims seem solid enough for my purposes. The challenge I see with virtue ethics in general though is that they feel too low resolution apply to difficult real world situations. We can all agree that honesty, integrity, patience, care for others, fortitude, defense of freedom, etc., are generally good things. But in your view, how would Aristotle's list of virtues tell us what to do when it comes to, say, Covid vaccines? We're both in the US. Should the US enforce vaccine mandates on federal workers, on civilians? Should citizens who oppose the vaccine still get it?

Opposing sides on these questions can both invoke Aristotelian ethics. So I'm not sure those ethics can rise above their undeniably valuable status as rules of thumb to a detailed procedural document for day to day decision making.

True. First I would just point to an article by Charles de Koninck that I read last night, "The Revolt Against Prudential Truth." One of the points he makes there is that moral action cannot be prescribed in a perfectly scientific manner. Ultimately moral agents are left to make decisions for themselves, and thus there can be no ultimate guarantee that some person will perform the right action. Indeed, if the person is merely alienating their moral responsibility by blindly taking instructions from some other person, then they are not acting morally even if they are doing "the right thing." Nevertheless, Aristotle gets pretty precise in works like the Nicomachean Ethics, and I think the resolution would be sufficient for the question of vaccination (even if it is less sufficient for some of our complex nation state moral questions that arise).

So the first question I would ask is whether "a detailed procedural document for day to day decision making" is desirable? Second, I would ask whether competing ethical systems are more capable of providing that document than Aristotelian ethics.

Finally, how would Aristotle handle vaccine questions? It seems like a more or less straightforward tension between the good of the individual and the good of the community, and Aristotle's emphasis on the common good would presumably lead him to favor the communitarian need of vaccination. Yet some of the characteristic problems that liberal countries face with vaccine questions are related to vices such as cowardice, selfishness, the inability to perceive and speak what is true without embellishment or understatement, etc. If citizens and policymakers had the corresponding virtues I don't think the process would be so difficult. Nevertheless, given the fact that Aristotle does not favor individualism nearly as much as the U.S. does, he would presumably be much more in favor of strong vaccination programs than we are.

 

[Ken-1122]

Its just an independent fact based on how it devalues and destroys life.

Independent fact? Please provide the facts that proves all acts put under the category of "rape" devalues and destroys life.

 

[stevevw]

Independent fact? Please provide the facts that proves all acts put under the category of "rape" devalues and destroys life.

Where do I start.

Survivors experience diverse negative impacts of sexual assault; there is no list of typical "symptoms" they should exhibit. What is shared is that such impacts are profound, affecting the physical and mental health of victim/survivors, and their interpersonal relationships with family, friends, partners, colleagues and so on. More than this, the impacts of sexual assault go beyond the individual, to have a collective impact on the social wellbeing of our communities.
The impacts of sexual assault on women

from World Health Organisation

Violence against women – particularly intimate partner violence and sexual violence – is a major public health problem and a violation of women's human rights.
Violence can negatively affect women’s physical, mental, sexual, and reproductive health, and may increase the risk of acquiring HIV in some settings.

Impact on children

• Children who grow up in families where there is violence may suffer a range of behavioural and emotional disturbances. These can also be associated with perpetrating or experiencing violence later in life.
• Intimate partner violence has also been associated with higher rates of infant and child mortality and morbidity (through, for example diarrhoeal disease or malnutrition and lower immunization rates).

Social and economic costs
The social and economic costs of intimate partner and sexual violence are enormous and have ripple effects throughout society. Women may suffer isolation, inability to work, loss of wages, lack of participation in regular activities and limited ability to care for themselves and their children.
Violence against women

Need I say more. Rape has many negative effects on the victim, their family including children and society as a whole. By all accounts these negative effects devalue and destroy lives because it treats people (women) as something to use as a means to an end (Kantian ethics) and the victims, familes and society are less viable, and deminished in their capacity to live to their potential as a human.

 

[stevevw]

Its nasty. But not absurd.

I think its absurd as well. Absurd means wildly unreasonable, illogical, or inappropriate. As rational beings it goes against being reasonable and into the absurd. Its certainly inappropriate (not suitable or proper in the circumstances) as it causes sickness for one but also as moral beings it goes against our own intuition that humans are more than cows so it devalues life.

.

 

[Kylie]

Where do I start.

Survivors experience diverse negative impacts of sexual assault; there is no list of typical "symptoms" they should exhibit. What is shared is that such impacts are profound, affecting the physical and mental health of victim/survivors, and their interpersonal relationships with family, friends, partners, colleagues and so on. More than this, the impacts of sexual assault go beyond the individual, to have a collective impact on the social wellbeing of our communities.
The impacts of sexual assault on women

from World Health Organisation

Violence against women – particularly intimate partner violence and sexual violence – is a major public health problem and a violation of women's human rights.
Violence can negatively affect women’s physical, mental, sexual, and reproductive health, and may increase the risk of acquiring HIV in some settings.

Impact on children

• Children who grow up in families where there is violence may suffer a range of behavioural and emotional disturbances. These can also be associated with perpetrating or experiencing violence later in life.
• Intimate partner violence has also been associated with higher rates of infant and child mortality and morbidity (through, for example diarrhoeal disease or malnutrition and lower immunization rates).

Social and economic costs
The social and economic costs of intimate partner and sexual violence are enormous and have ripple effects throughout society. Women may suffer isolation, inability to work, loss of wages, lack of participation in regular activities and limited ability to care for themselves and their children.
Violence against women

Need I say more. Rape has many negative effects on the victim, their family including children and society as a whole. By all accounts these negative effects devalue and destroy lives because it treats people (women) as something to use as a means to an end (Kantian ethics) and the victims, familes and society are less viable, and deminished in their capacity to live to their potential as a human.

That these things happen is not in dispute.

What is in dispute is that there is a set amount of harm which is done, and anything more or less than this is an over-reaction.

In short, the measurement of how much harm is done by rape is not an objective measure.

 

[Carbon]

I think that's right, and it's a great point. In fact I think that is precisely where Kant goes wrong. For a Thomist any action we perform must be conceived as desirable, as conducing to our happiness in one way or another. The same goes for any duties that we desire to perform, and this is contrary to Kant.

The further point for those who follow Aristotle is that the muscles themselves ultimately end up taking a kind of precedence over analytic examination. When a difficult situation arises the virtuous person acts virtuously in confronting it because their "muscles" are well-trained. Virtue ends up being something that we embody and intuitively deploy rather than primarily something that is the fruit of discursive reasoning processes.



True. First I would just point to an article by Charles de Koninck that I read last night, "The Revolt Against Prudential Truth." One of the points he makes there is that moral action cannot be prescribed in a perfectly scientific manner. Ultimately moral agents are left to make decisions for themselves, and thus there can be no ultimate guarantee that some person will perform the right action. Indeed, if the person is merely alienating their moral responsibility by blindly taking instructions from some other person, then they are not acting morally even if they are doing "the right thing." Nevertheless, Aristotle gets pretty precise in works like the Nicomachean Ethics, and I think the resolution would be sufficient for the question of vaccination (even if it is less sufficient for some of our complex nation state moral questions that arise).

So the first question I would ask is whether "a detailed procedural document for day to day decision making" is desirable? Second, I would ask whether competing ethical systems are more capable of providing that document than Aristotelian ethics.

Finally, how would Aristotle handle vaccine questions? It seems like a more or less straightforward tension between the good of the individual and the good of the community, and Aristotle's emphasis on the common good would presumably lead him to favor the communitarian need of vaccination. Yet some of the characteristic problems that liberal countries face with vaccine questions are related to vices such as cowardice, selfishness, the inability to perceive and speak what is true without embellishment or understatement, etc. If citizens and policymakers had the corresponding virtues I don't think the process would be so difficult. Nevertheless, given the fact that Aristotle does not favor individualism nearly as much as the U.S. does, he would presumably be much more in favor of strong vaccination programs than we are.

My Kantian friend wrote a fun paper arguing that George Washington, taking Parson Weem’s apocryphal cherry tree to be true, was not a moral person after all because he “could not tell a lie.” A decision only qualifies as “moral” if a person could have done otherwise, they must consciously select the moral act in the face of alternatives that are both subjectively imaginable and physically possible. Otherwise, no points in the Kantian universe!

Like so many other philosophical disputes this all feels to me like quibbling over names. Clearly, people in the real world make conscious real-time decisions that are more or less in line with their personal values. And people form better or worse habits over time. Kant may want to deny that the habit forming variety of morality is “real morality”, but who cares what we call it? In any case what people do, regardless of how they got there, directly affects the kind of world we live in.

I think we are largely in agreement there, just figured I would share more of the anecdote.

Probably where I would differ from de Koninck is, like both Kant and Aquinas, he emphasizes the role of reason in moral action. Whereas I would be more in line with Hume - while reason is primary in moral philosophy proper, actual everyday moral decision making mainly comes from unthinking force of habit, cultural group think, and selfish alignment to a given situation’s perceived incentives. So while virtue ethics are certainly useful I have my doubts as to how much juice we get from the squeeze.

The de Koninck article sort of lost me when he said communism, fascism, and Nazism are all equally guilty of anti-reason and naive progressivism. But I appreciate him dunking on Hegel!

 

[zippy2006]

My Kantian friend wrote a fun paper arguing that George Washington, taking Parson Weem’s apocryphal cherry tree to be true, was not a moral person after all because he “could not tell a lie.” A decision only qualifies as “moral” if a person could have done otherwise, they must consciously select the moral act in the face of alternatives that are both subjectively imaginable and physically possible. Otherwise, no points in the Kantian universe!

Ah, yes! That's a good way to get at Kantianism.

Like so many other philosophical disputes this all feels to me like quibbling over names. Clearly, people in the real world make conscious real-time decisions that are more or less in line with their personal values. And people form better or worse habits over time. Kant may want to deny that the habit forming variety of morality is “real morality”, but who cares what we call it? In any case what people do, regardless of how they got there, directly affects the kind of world we live in.

Hmm. Well surely Kant would deny that such habitual value-actions have moral worth. Without getting into a long discussion, I think Kant's position is based on a strong notion of freedom, on which we are morally free agents who are capable of acting contrary to our habitual dispositions. Ethicists with lower views of freedom would be less willing to entertain that idea, and that is an anthropological difference of some significance.

Probably where I would differ from de Koninck is, like both Kant and Aquinas, he emphasizes the role of reason in moral action. Whereas I would be more in line with Hume - while reason is primary in moral philosophy proper, actual everyday moral decision making mainly comes from unthinking force of habit, cultural group think, and selfish alignment to a given situation’s perceived incentives. So while virtue ethics are certainly useful I have my doubts as to how much juice we get from the squeeze.

Well on virtue ethics a virtue is a habitus, which is something like a habit. It's more like a well-developed skill that we employ rationally and with ease. So if Kant says a habit is non-moral, and Hume says morality is a practical matter of unthinking habit, Aquinas would say a habitus is both moral and rational. He would not say that every moral act is based on discursive decision making, but rather that even those acts which are less consciously engaged are still the product of habit, and habit is rationally conditioned (e.g. basketball players employ their reason to intentionally foster good habits and skills on the court, and therefore these habits are not non-rational).

The de Koninck article sort of lost me when he said communism, fascism, and Nazism are all equally guilty of anti-reason and naive progressivism. But I appreciate him dunking on Hegel!

Haha! This was the quote:

These ideas appear abstract. Nevertheless, it is time for us to realize in a very practical manner that a generation is being formed, imbued with these doctrines. It has already ensnared powerful nations. These ideas form the substance of communism, fascism and naziism. These ideas are gaining ground even among us.​

By [these ideas] he is referring to the third way he believes modern political movements attempt to guarantee the common good:

(c) Even more subtly, we might refuse to claim our present judgments to be true or false in the present, demanding that they be judged by their repercussion in the future and by the factual results they might entail.
​

The key point is that problematic political approaches which are thought to be opposed to one another each share this common error. He is trying to circumscribe the mentality which sacrifices the present to the future, and then claim that each of those three systems are guilty of this maneuver.

 

[stevevw]

I debunked this in a post you ignored. Post 2416

Prove it. Let's say moral realism is false, but I hate rape and I would very strongly prefer that no one ever rapes anyone else. How would I act differently?

Its not you who we would have to worry about. You just happen to not like rape. But you not liking rape is just your taste and there would not be any basis for this outside yourself. So its really just your personal experiences that your opinion happens to be aligned with not liking rape.

What we have to be concerned about is those who like rape if there is no moral realism. We could not say with any fact beyond the subject that those who like to rape are morally wrong because moral realism is false ie there is no moral truth to what is right or wrong behaviour when it comes to rape. .

So it is because people actually live the morals facts that "rape is wrong" in the world within a system that claims there are no moral facts that is the problem. Because under a non-realist system where there is no moral facts of being morally wrong it doesn't matter what peoples moral view is. Its just like tastes for food and no one is wrong. Everyones preferences for food are equal and valid.

But what we find is people continually undermining the antirealist position and acting as crown witnesses for moral realism to the point that they make it a reality and force everyone to follow certain moral facts even to the point of protesting in the streets, demanding governments to intervene, demanding people be sacked and ostrasized out of society. That would be equivelent to railroading people for liking peas.

 

[Moral Orel]

Its not you who we would have to worry about. You just happen to not like rape. But you not liking rape is just your taste and there would not be any basis for this outside yourself. So its really just your personal experiences that your opinion happens to be aligned with not liking rape.

What we have to be concerned about is those who like rape if there is no moral realism. We could not say with any fact beyond the subject that those who like to rape are morally wrong because moral realism is false ie there is no moral truth to what is right or wrong behaviour when it comes to rape. .

So it is because people actually live the morals facts that "rape is wrong" in the world within a system that claims there are no moral facts that is the problem. Because under a non-realist system where there is no moral facts of being morally wrong it doesn't matter what peoples moral view is. Its just like tastes for food and no one is wrong. Everyones preferences for food are equal and valid.

But what we find is people continually undermining the antirealist position and acting as crown witnesses for moral realism to the point that they make it a reality and force everyone to follow certain moral facts even to the point of protesting in the streets, demanding governments to intervene, demanding people be sacked and ostrasized out of society. That would be equivelent to railroading people for liking peas.

See, I ask a question, and your response doesn't address the question in the slightest. You don't listen to people when they talk to you.

 

[stevevw]

That these things happen is not in dispute.

What is in dispute is that there is a set amount of harm which is done, and anything more or less than this is an over-reaction.

In short, the measurement of how much harm is done by rape is not an objective measure.

But "what set of harm is done" has nothing to do with whether rape causes some harm fullstop. Its wrong regardless of whether a little harm is done or a lot of harm is done. Not being able to measure the exact harm is irrelevant because some harm (even if small) is done which is an objective fact.

As I mentioned before the simple fact that its a violation is also an objective fact. Didn't I already explain this to you.

 

[stevevw]

See, I ask a question, and your response doesn't address the question in the slightest. You don't listen to people when they talk to you.

In other words your saying I should answer the question the way you want me to and not how I think it should be answered. I think individual responses are irrelevant as it would give a skewed picture of how a moral system would work without moral realism.

You are basing the determination of how you will act morally without there being moral realism on the assumption that your present moral position is based on there being no moral truths.

How do we know that you hating rape isn't the result of there being moral truths that we all know of that causes you to hate rape. If there was no moral realism then who knows, you may not have the feeling that you hate rape as there would be no moral truth of that for you to know about.

Its like saying if there were no love in the world how can you know hate in the first place to be able to experience hate of something.

 

[Moral Orel]

In other words your saying I should answer the question the way you want me to and not how I think it should be answered.

No, I want you to answer the question at all. You ignored it completely and went on to talk about whatever you wanted to talk about that was irrelevant to the question.

 

[stevevw]

No, I want you to answer the question at all. You ignored it completely and went on to talk about whatever you wanted to talk about that was irrelevant to the question.

Ok lets play this out. If there was no moral realism then the fabric of reality would change and you may or may not hate rape. That I can't tell as its a hypothetical and I cannot know how reality will then affect people.

 

[Kylie]

But "what set of harm is done" has nothing to do with whether rape causes some harm fullstop. Its wrong regardless of whether a little harm is done or a lot of harm is done. Not being able to measure the exact harm is irrelevant because some harm (even if small) is done which is an objective fact.

As I mentioned before the simple fact that its a violation is also an objective fact. Didn't I already explain this to you.

Once again you run back to your black and white view of morality to avoid actually answering the question.