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Give me an example of something you valued before you experienced it.
I'm sure the genes in most humans cause taste buds to develop in similar ways to create enjoyable experiences with potentially high caloric foods and unpleasant experiences with potentially toxic foods.
Many things valued for rational reasons probably were experienced first. But the value there isnt for the experience, like with the sense pleasure of ice cream. Its for usefulness, or some other rational reason.
I think some of our values originate in non-personal objective facts of the human species. This provides an objective basis for the origin of various human moral statements.
Like for example, you value money because it is useful for purchasing ice cream because of the sense pleasure of ice cream.
Of course there's an origin story for moral statements. That doesn't have anything to do with whether those statements are true or not though.
This reductionism can work both ways.
The question "is morality objective?" is vague and poorly formed because I can correctly answer "yes in many cases" with my objective derivation of morality, and you can answer "no" correctly with your demonstration that "right" and "wrong" lack meaning outside the context of what humans want.
You like semantic arguments, don't you?
Moral Objectivity claims that there are moral facts. Moral facts are moral statements that are true. The question, "Is morality objective?" asks "Are there moral statements that are true?" If you are trying to define Moral Objectivity in some other way than claiming "There are moral statements that are true" then you need to come up with your own label for your own thing. That label is taken.
DNA developed in order to serve desirable experiences? That sounds utterly backwards. Aversions and attractions seem to be survival mechanisms in origin - to serve the propagation of the genome, and not ends in themselves.
If I recall, the only attempt here to formally define it was in that other objective morality thread zippy started, and his definition absolutely is inclusive of mine. Youve set yourself up to back up a difficult negative claim here: that objective morality excludes an objective derivation of morals in the sense I talk about.
Why do you value the things that propagate the genome?
How do you figure it fits?
Its not about what I value. I was just following the causal chain to the core, as you asked. And it seems there was mechanism in play, the propagation of the genome, that precedes any capacity to experience. Aversion and attraction serve the propagation of the genome.
"Should" has a completely legit instrumental sense as well as the normative sense. (We've been down this road). My objective derivation of morals deal with the instrumental sense. Yes, the normative sense is essentially feelings either baked into us by evolution of culture.
It's about why you value whatever it is that you do value. We evolved aversion and attraction because it made us more likely to reproduce. It serves whatever we please since we're rational creatures though. We can reason better ways to feel more good feelings without it having anything to do with passing on our genes. Heck, the invention of the condom is our way of reasoning a way to get more pleasure while directly preventing the passing on of our genes.
If it isn't normative, it isn't a guideline, and it isn't a morality. Is this that stuff where you think you don't need to justify "We should do the most effective thing"?
No, that's what it means for Moral Objectivists too. They just think there are things we ought to value and things we ought not value. When they claim something has "intrinsic value" that's just their way of saying "I have no reason to value this, you just oughta". People come up with all sorts of ways to excuse beliefs that they have no reason to hold.
You way overrate our rational self control. People struggle all the time to eat whats now healthy for us vs what tastes good. And even when we rationally grasp its bad for us, and rationally value abstinence, we so often find it still tastes good. Thats because we inherited a natural attraction.
I'm not a "moral objectivist". There are some core values Ive naturally inherited. We can rationally argue all day long about which secondary values or guidelines will best serve or hinder my core values. But the root values are about "I am", not "I oughta." "I am" does not require justification.
Meh, you way overrate the things we've evolved. You think us fat people haven't tried vegetables before? Of course we have, they're gross. When you start associating stuff with something you feel good about, you like it more.
You're not saying anything new. We can state as an objective fact what people value. So what? At some point you're going to say "I oughta" and then you do need justification. If you never say "I oughta" then you don't have a morality.
Yes of course with some attention and repetition we can train ourselves into new habits. Overcoming biological conditioning takes a bit of effort.
Yes, definitely nothing new. We've been down this road a few times. So you should know by now my position is that what you call justification can be an instrumental assessment. In those cases the "ought" is just additional social conditioning we swim in to keep people in line.
I don't think you have a morality that you're talking about there, bub. What you've got looks more like:
Im saying some important parts of what we traditionally call "morality" emerge from instrumental goal seeking.
How we got to our sense of morality has no effect on whether or not that morality is objective. How we got to our sense of morality is interesting, but frankly, not the topic. The topic isn't some broad, "What's the deal with morality?". You want to explore all that other stuff, that's cool. But let's settle once and for all whether you think you can concoct an objective morality first.
Dude, you're cutting "oughts" out of morality. That's totes invalid.
Nooo all along Ive said how the "oughts" figure into human morality. Feeling the social pressures and biological conditioning guardrails of the "oughts" is critical to human morality. There's no complete explanation of morality without them.
Morals are rules. A morality is a set of rules.
Wind makes sand dunes what they are and causes them to take the shapes they do. Wind is not part of a sand dune.
If thats all it is, then I cant even make sense of the question "is morality objective"?
Dude, come on, Zippy and I both already explained this.
Here's an example moral statement:
First off, should I address you as dude or bub? I'd hate to make a faux pas.
