tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154495438763509967.post8976778991739774092..comments2024-01-28T06:24:50.005+00:00Comments on No Double Standards: Three popular arguments against moral objectivityMartin Freedmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16952072422175870627noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154495438763509967.post-78715972016591039682009-01-23T13:07:00.000+00:002009-01-23T13:07:00.000+00:00Barefoot Bum"I understand your point: the lack of ...Barefoot Bum<BR/><BR/>"I understand your point: the lack of universal agreement might not be a good argument against moral objectivism."<BR/>Well I originally called this "the argument from universal agreement" and it was the <I>universal</I> requirement I originally criticised. Would this make the point I am making clearer to you here?<BR/><BR/>With regard to the rest of your reply I had intended and will cover most of these in the future posts in this series e.g intrinsic value, prescriptive laws and moral intuitionism. I think we would agree on all this but want to make my points as concisely as possible without causing misunderstandings which I might be guilty of here.<BR/> <BR/>Note I was not only talking about moral <I>facts</I> here but narrow (in Nagel's terminology) objectivity in general.<BR/><BR/>With regard to creationism vs evolution, the empirical <I>data</I> overwhelming supports evolution as an empirical <I>fact</I> - it would be perverse to hold otherwise (e.g Gould's famous quote I cant remember now), whereas creationists using the fit theory of confirmation use the same data to <I>claim creationism as an empirical fact</I> - see Stephen's Law's blog (I know you follow it) - this is a very important point with respect to creationism.<BR/><BR/>However I did not want to get into differences or not between data and facts. Maybe I could have suggested other examples, there are numerous ones in parapsychology, dowsers still believe - when asked they regard it as fact - that they can dowse even when they fail tests?Martin Freedmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16952072422175870627noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154495438763509967.post-29967582797691756142009-01-23T12:27:00.000+00:002009-01-23T12:27:00.000+00:00I understand your point: the lack of universal agr...I understand your point: the lack of <I>universal</I> agreement might not be a good argument against moral objectivism. However, empirical facts, i.e. perceptual experiences have a particular pattern, a quality of widespread agreement, a quality that can be described, precisely measured and statistically quantified.<BR/><BR/>I think the argument from disagreement is more precisely targeted as a rebuttal to moral <I>intuitionism</I>, where intuition acts as an analog to perceptual experience. The pattern of agreement of moral intuition is <I>very</I> different from the pattern of perceptual experience.<BR/><BR/>A more than superficial analysis of creationist speech -- especially quote mining and egregious misrepresentation of scientific thought -- argues strongly for a component of outright mendacity as the simplest explanation for the disagreement about what would otherwise be universally accepted as empirical facts.<BR/><BR/>(Keep in mind that 99.9% of global warming denial and 90% of creationist thought does not directly deny the evidence; they rather use invalid and fallacious <I>analysis</I> of the agreed-upon evidence.)Larry Hamelinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08788697573946266404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154495438763509967.post-57920800422235422572009-01-23T08:45:00.000+00:002009-01-23T08:45:00.000+00:00Hi Barefoot Bum"I read this statement as saying th...Hi Barefoot Bum<BR/><BR/>"I read this statement as saying that even when there is agreement over the facts, we can still disagree about the conclusions. I assume you mean that there are creationists and global warming deniers who presumably disagree about the facts. However they do not disagree: they are actually lying (or repeating lies)."<BR/>I now understand your point. Still they do disagree about the facts - their leaders (we think) might be deliberately lying but many of their followers are quite innocently being self-deceived, I do not take the cynical position by default. The point is they do not agree even when there are empirical facts and this argument is about the requirement for universal agreement alone.<BR/><BR/>I welcome your input and will revise this post but want to pursue the series. How I do this will be shown in my next post in this series.Martin Freedmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16952072422175870627noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154495438763509967.post-23961611749852468792009-01-23T00:37:00.000+00:002009-01-23T00:37:00.000+00:00But that is exactly what I was arguing for - that ...<I>But that is exactly what I was arguing for - that we cannot come to agreement about facts!</I><BR/><BR/>You said originally: "However even where there are empirical objective facts there is still no universal agreement - look at creationism and global warming." I read this statement as saying that even when there is agreement over the facts, we can still disagree about the <I>conclusions</I>. I assume you mean that there are creationists and global warming deniers who presumably disagree about the facts. However they do not disagree: they are actually <I>lying</I> (or repeating lies).<BR/><BR/>I don't think it's necessary to allow mendacity and bad faith equal validity in our epistemology; the result would be pure epistemic nihilism.Larry Hamelinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08788697573946266404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154495438763509967.post-75889660352087869552009-01-22T17:51:00.000+00:002009-01-22T17:51:00.000+00:00Hi Barefoot BumOnly one more response for now, sin...Hi Barefoot Bum<BR/><BR/>Only one more response for now, since this post is part of a series and some of your objections will be examined in future planned episodes.<BR/><BR/>"Moral beliefs are not falsifiable by perception... The unfalsifiability of moral beliefs is by itself sufficient reason to reject moral objectivism."<BR/>This was post was not discussing moral <I>beliefs</I> butargumetns against purported moral <I>facts</I>, features of the world supposedly independent of human beings, regardless of what individuals believe.Martin Freedmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16952072422175870627noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154495438763509967.post-75005522206854863912009-01-22T17:44:00.000+00:002009-01-22T17:44:00.000+00:00Hi Barefoot Bum"The claim is not that moral object...Hi Barefoot Bum<BR/><BR/>"The claim is not that moral objectivism is false because we cannot come to agreement about conclusions; the claim is that we cannot come to agreement about any facts, in the sense that we can come to astonishing agreement about empirical, physical facts."<BR/>But that is exactly what I was arguing for - that we cannot come to agreement about facts! Maybe what I wrote was too brief, check the link the original post on this post but maybe that can still be misread? (BTW that original post was triggered by a debate with a positivist to whom I pointed out that the argument from lack of agreement was dismissed and not used by A J Ayer in his argument for non-cognitivism). <BR/><BR/>Thanks for your input, always like to kept on my toes.Martin Freedmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16952072422175870627noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154495438763509967.post-87609191261409359032009-01-22T15:41:00.000+00:002009-01-22T15:41:00.000+00:00You also do not understand the argument from queer...You also do not understand the argument from queerness; you present it as a simple positivist argument, but positivist arguments already fail in ordinary physics.<BR/><BR/>The argument from queerness goes much deeper: If objective morality were to exist, the ontological description would be fundamentally non-materialistic. This is a stronger claim than that objective moral properties are not directly perceivable.<BR/><BR/>Of course, it's logically possible that there are indeed non-material ontological properties. We have found enormous success in finding material bases for <I>physical</I> phenomena, including life, intelligence, thought and consciousness. That moral objectivism would require a non-material ontological foundation would force a very deep change to our ontological system. That deep of an ontological claim incurs an enormous burden of proof.<BR/><BR/>Probably the biggest argument against moral objectivism is that we can explain moral <I>behavior</I> by an appeal to empirical, scientific psychology and sociology. Moral objectivism is — like theology — an explanation in search of an explanand.Larry Hamelinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08788697573946266404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154495438763509967.post-37915674810006346342009-01-22T15:32:00.000+00:002009-01-22T15:32:00.000+00:00You have not accurately grasped the argument from ...You have not accurately grasped the argument from lack of agreement. <BR/><BR/>The claim is not that moral objectivism is false because we cannot come to agreement about <I>conclusions</I>; the claim is that we cannot come to agreement about any <I>facts</I>, in the sense that we can come to astonishing agreement about empirical, physical facts.<BR/><BR/>Moral beliefs are not falsifiable by perception. If I believe it is wrong to kill a child, there's no logically possible experience I could have that would falsify that belief. I'm going to call all the killing of children wrong by virtue of my moral belief.<BR/><BR/>The unfalsifiability of moral beliefs is by itself sufficient reason to reject moral objectivism.Larry Hamelinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08788697573946266404noreply@blogger.com