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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:16
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Assuming that people have private universes is just daft... intelligibility of error
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Ah! This is the very problem you're having. Having a private universe, by which I mean a perception limited to the subjective and arbitrary understandings withother people -> society, does not remove the intelligibility of error since that can still exist though limited by said perceptions, as such it as you have used it requires a redefinition. If you are to be a determinist, then error by definition cannot exist.
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That's false. Sometimes I don't feel any emotion at all... that my moral judgement opposes
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Nein nein nein, but I won't go Freudian on you out the remnants of my desire to be taken seriously on the internet  . I don't refer to conscious emotions, that you might put down on a form if asked "are you happy/sad/angry/horny etc". Emotions are more the way we perceive the world, you could say it's something that predicates empiricalism... if you think of the brain as a computer which has to conform to categorical logical principles like all matter, then emotions in this sense would be a very basic level programming language. It's a poor analogy because the brain works more like an orchestra than a computer but I think you get the picture.
Unfortunately it requires a kind of psychophilosophy/epistomological approach here which can seem a little distant from what is essentially a political question, but then if you package that up in an assumption; namely subjective free will + objective determinism, it makes more sense.
Regardless, I find it hard to accept that in the absense of your conscious emotion, you might apparently be to yourself a logical being (opposing logic and emotion in the colloquial sense), that you are in fact devoid of all emotion in your being. One greets all sensory experiences with emotion, you would recall how colour is supposed to stimulate different areas of the brain and you feel different according to smells, tastes etc, often unknowingly. Accepting for the minute that sensory experiences/perceptions cannot be devoid of emotion on some level, is it so unreasonable to say that morality would be the result of some emotional reaction to a certain chain of events, and a combination of rationalism and religion (sic) does the rest?
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Act utilitarianism... flows from the framework and basis placed before them
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Hmmm I can see how you'd justify that but I still think it falls foul of the is-ought gap, which is to say that the premise does not necessitate a prescriptive conclusion since there is nothing prescriptive in the premises themselves. That goes for all consequentialist arguments that I know of.
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Well except for the is ought thing...
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I think you're confusing an arbitrary "ought" with an objective "ought" in so far as the beholder sees it. The first is unavoidable but I don't see how the latter is necessary, and you'd need to impose a necessary condition here to make your argument; that because of subjective dialogue on morality, relativism is false. Surely that only says that relativism is false between them and by their perceptions? It's quite a geocentric position to take imo.
Apologies for the delay and any typing errors, GayOL doesn't like me at home and the library keyboard is exceedingly evil.
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Kidicious
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Diety of Kidiverse
Mar 2003
time: 21:16
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Originally posted by Whaleboy
Then it isn't absolutely true. It can only be as true as "Socrates was a wise man" in the context of "all bearded men are wise" + "Socrates had a beard". That isn't to say that it was absolutely true, so your use of the word "true" has little relevance to a debate about relativism, unless you seek to demonstrate that which you attack.
*sigh*, things can't be true or false in the same context, but different contexts can self-evidently exist simultaneously. "Sodomy is wrong" may be true in parts of Africa, but is simultaneously false in Europe. You would seek some kind of objective morality to say that, for example, Europe is closer to it than Africa, but you need to provide firstly a basis for it's existence, and an attack on the reasoning for there being no absolute morality (a premise that leads to relativism). All you have done thus far on that latter point is say it is "ridiculous", and no more. You seem hung up on being true/false at the same time, but morality is, as I have said, different from quantifiable logic in that moral propositions do not equate to 2+2=4.
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A thing can only be true or false in different contexts as far as the contexts are different, and just the fact that some people believe different does not make the context significantly different. Just because some one believes that 1+1=3 doesn't mean that it does in the context of themselves. The same goes for moral truths.
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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:16
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Do you beleive that people should be forced to give kidneys?
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That's not act utilitarianism.
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Assumptions don't have to be universally accepted, or anything near universally accepted actually.
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Then they can't be absolute.
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A thing can only be true or false in different contexts as far as the contexts are different, and just the fact that some people believe different does not make the context significantly different. Just because some one believes that 1+1=3 doesn't mean that it does in the context of themselves. The same goes for moral truths.
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True, context changes the predicate, not the subject. However, the predicate-subject relationship is inherent to logic, as is 1+1=2. Morality and 1+1=2 are not equable because the latter, and relativism, are part of logic as a holism whereas morality is an arbitrary logical structure.
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Just because some one believes that 1+1=3 doesn't mean that it does in the context of themselves. The same goes for moral truths.
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No. In order to even begin making this claim, you need to provide me some kind of basis for comparing moral "attempts", so one can be "hotter" than another relative to something that is "hottest". Do enlighten me. As for moral truths being analogous to logical principles, I've dealt with that above.
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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:16
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I think you mean absolutely accepted instead of absolutely true.
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Being universally accepted |= universally true, they cannot be universally true by definition. If they're universally accepted then they may be objective in a human sense, but not absolute since they're as liable to change as the predicate upon which they are based, namely the acceptance of all humans.
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Why not? I thought it would be if two people could live instead of one.
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Sorry my bad, I got act and rule confused for a second... yes act utilitarianism in it's simplest form presents a binary choice, so one (living) person upon who's death the lives of ten depend, should be killed in order to save those ten lives. Act utilitarianism has it's obvious limitations since it is only concerned with the immediate context.
Rule utilitarianism wants you to consider the categorical rule or underlying the notion, so in this case "people should be forced to sacrifice their kidneys for transplants". The rule would create negative utility since many people would not go to the doctors for fear of getting their renal system lifted.
Act utilitarianism as you have presented it, however, was in it's simplest form... there are more complex scenarios that weigh up the question of utility in a more sophisticated manner, for example, one forced death > a marginal benefit to many people (as a logical principle). I don't subscribe to that myself, but it's unfair to use a simplestic ad absurdum against a complex position.
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I'm not trying to prove that any moral claim in particular is true. So the burden is with you to prove that none of them are.
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But you need to establish that there can be an absolutely true moral claim/system, though you needn't be Jesus and tell me what it actually is. Put simply, you need to describe the conditions under which it can exist... like proving that an ocean exists, in which resides a fish.
My argument #1:
Morality exists as a subject-predicate form, dependent upon context
For any supposedly objective moral system, there can always be found a context where it does not apply (a consequence of both determinism and uncertainty principle)
Without context/predicate, all subjects are equally (in)valid, so without the context to say something is +1 or -1, the value is 0.
Adding a context depends upon the beholder
Morality is relative to the conscious beholder
Assumption: All conciousness's are of equal logical value objectively
Morality is relative
As for my somewhat more ontological emotive argument, I've mentioned that earlier.
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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:16
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If that's what he actually meant. Most of our view of him is speculation.
Subjective and Objective are words in human languages with particular uses. They certainly don't imply relativism.
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IMO they do, because they imply context (again the question of predicate). Remove that and any subject is valueless if you accept that Platonic essentialism is BS. If value is therefore dependent upon context then relativism holds, though not necessarily in a loaded context. It's a human view of a logical objectivity, not an prescriptive absolute.
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Subjective judgements are ones where the question of endorsement arises, or where there is no expectation that another will say the same. That is not the case with morality, but only in certain situations.
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IMO you're getting your necessary and sufficient conditions confused here, since it's perfectly reasonable to have a subjective judgement in an endorsement vacuum, accepting that it has a premise.
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But no one actually uses moral words like taste words ? if someone did, they would be violating the rules of the language game.
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Again imo I think you're taking a geocentric view of things, where our conception of morality in the West is still essentially Christian. For example, consider Hebrew or Sanskrit, where particularly in the latter, prescription is indistinguishable from preference. To argue otherwise is to not accept relativism because of the consequences of it, rather than its respective reasoning. This, in my opinion, is intellectual dishonesty, since I think we should concur with that which seems the most valid to us.
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:16
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IMO they do, because they imply context (again the question of predicate). Remove that and any subject is valueless if you accept that Platonic essentialism is BS. If value is therefore dependent upon context then relativism holds, though not necessarily in a loaded context. It's a human view of a logical objectivity, not an prescriptive absolute. |
WTF are you talking about? Sorry this is just meaningless bullshit.
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IMO you're getting your necessary and sufficient conditions confused here, since it's perfectly reasonable to have a subjective judgement in an endorsement vacuum, accepting that it has a premise. |
Uh no. That is not how the words are commonly used in our language.
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Again imo I think you're taking a geocentric view of things, where our conception of morality in the West is still essentially Christian. |
"geocentric". Jesus Christ...
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For example, consider Hebrew or Sanskrit, where particularly in the latter, prescription is indistinguishable from preference. |
That doesn't prove your point.
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To argue otherwise is to not accept relativism because of the consequences of it, rather than its respective reasoning. This, in my opinion, is intellectual dishonesty, since I think we should concur with that which seems the most valid to us. |
Rubbish. None of this has anything to do with relativism. We tend to concur with that which seems most valid to us, but that does not make it so.
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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:16
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quote:
WTF are you talking about? Sorry this is just meaningless bullshit.
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Not at all. Whether something has value (ultimately, relativism says that it is value which is relative), depends entirely upon context. You would have be an essentialist to say otherwise would you not? Stating relativism is not like stating theism, the proposition is does not seek to be absolute, as Kantian prescriptions do. It is thus subject to the same boundaries of abstraction as 2+2=4.
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Uh no. That is not how the words are commonly used in our language.
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Not entirely sure what language you're using, but the one we're using treats subject and object totally different, does it not?
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"geocentric". Jesus Christ...
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Literally, the belief that the Earth is at the centre of the universe. In colloquial use, the idea that something that is true "for all intents and purposes" or apparently true, is true. It's buggery of Wittgenstein essentially, since asking if a proposition makes sense in a context is totally different to using assumptions, i.e., no-one uses moral words like taste words, a statement that is patently wrong in many languages.
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That doesn't prove your point.
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It's not meant to prove my point, it's meant to disprove your assertion that no-one uses moral words as taste words (which even if true would still be geocentric).
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Rubbish. None of this has anything to do with relativism.
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The idea that we should, for the sake of honesty, accept concepts on their merits and not their consequences is rubbish?
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We tend to concur with that which seems most valid to us, but that does not make it so.
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So what does make it so?
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WTF has Whaleboy been smoking? His philosophical posts used to make sense.
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I can see the music man!
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:16
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Not at all. Whether something has value (ultimately, relativism says that it is value which is relative), depends entirely upon context. You would have be an essentialist to say otherwise would you not? |
No. I take it you've never heard of epistemological and semantic holism.
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Stating relativism is not like stating theism, the proposition is does not seek to be absolute, as Kantian prescriptions do. It is thus subject to the same boundaries of abstraction as 2+2=4. |
Stating relativism is misusing language.
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Not entirely sure what language you're using, but the one we're using treats subject and object totally different, does it not? |
No. It's a family resemblance concept for a start. When I say "my belief" or "my judgement" I am not referrring to some private object. When I talk about subjectivity I am not referring to some epistemologically private space, but am expressing a certain feature in the grammar of certain statements.
For example: "looks" statements. When I say "This looks red to me" I am not referring to some private sense object, but I am stating my unwillingness to endorse "this is red" because of other beliefs I have (such as ones about lighting, etc.).
Same for "seems" and other such statements. Relativism tries to equate "is" statements with "seems" statements by ignoring the way they are actually used.
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belief that the Earth is at the centre of the universe. In colloquial use, the idea that something that is true "for all intents and purposes" or apparently true, is true. |
Truth is quite mundane. "Snow is white" is true, if and only if, snow is white. The same goes for "Schnee ist weiss" etc.
You don't have to be an essentialist to acknowledge this. Davidson isn't, and this is his model of truth.
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It's buggery of Wittgenstein essentially, since asking if a proposition makes sense in a context is totally different to using assumptions, i.e., no-one uses moral words like taste words, a statement that is patently wrong in many languages. |
Bullshit.
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meant to prove my point, it's meant to disprove your assertion that no-one uses moral words as taste words (which even if true would still be geocentric). |
Bullshit. People who use moral words as taste words are breaking the rules. There are moral words and there are taste words, and never the twain shall meet. Of course, some moral words are used superficially like taste words, which means that people like relativists get confused.
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The idea that we should, for the sake of honesty, accept concepts on their merits and not their consequences is rubbish? |
Your whole argument is a spurious mishmash of concepts that appears to make no sense.
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So what does make it so? |
Various things: the world, the rules of our language game.
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:16
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Why don't you come up with some argument for relativism using simple examples instead of this pretentious bullshit that appears to have no relevance.
I still don't understand what you really mean.
Do you mean that the same statement is true for one person, but not for another? (e.g. "Snow is white").
If so, how can it mean the same thing for both of them, given the connections between meaning and truth?
Either you say that the meanings remain invariant and the truth values differ, which means that each person inhabits a different possible world (at least that is one way of thinking it).
Or you say that "Snow is White" doesn't mean the same thing for both of them, in which case there is no sense in which they are disagreeing, so it's not relativism.
Or you can say that believing something just makes it true (attr. to Protagoras), but this makes false belief unintelligible, destroys logical consistency, and treats belief as equivalent to knowledge, which everyone knows it isn't.
Obviously there's something wrong with relativism when you have to say such ridiculous things.
Last edited by Agathon on 01-05-2005 at 00:58
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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:16
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quote:
No. I take it you've never heard of epistemological and semantic holism.
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What does that have to do with anything, unless for some strange reason known only to you, languages exist in a vacuum? A holism isn't a self-contained singularity, unless you're a post-structuralist buried nose-deep in the devils dandruff.
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Stating relativism is misusing language.
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So you keep saying, but you're assuming that relativism depends upon a language where prescription and preference aren't reconcilable.
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For example: "looks" statements. When I say "This looks red to me" I am not referring to some private sense object, but I am stating my unwillingness to endorse "this is red" because of other beliefs I have (such as ones about lighting, etc.).
Same for "seems" and other such statements. Relativism tries to equate "is" statements with "seems" statements by ignoring the way they are actually used.
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You're illustrating one of the problems with the Tractatus that Witt. resolves in PI, namely that "is" and "seems" are not mutually exclusive, since both can be said but not necessarily shown. Hell, even Davidson says something similar with DT, namely that you can't define ones beliefs/judgements and preferences from each other. This, imo, thoroughly sodomises an objectivist approach to t-sentences, since the meanings of finite forms of language *still* must be predicated. Your semantic holism issue again, it needs essentialism to defeat relativism.
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Bullshit. People who use moral words as taste words are breaking the rules.
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No they're bloody not! Your own source disagrees with you!
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Your whole argument is a spurious mishmash of concepts that appears to make no sense.
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-Subject is dependent upon predicate/context for meaning
-Predicate/context is dependent upon beholder which (and this is my assumption) is relative to other beholders
-Without predicate/context, something is meaningless/valueless
-Relativism.
And you still haven't addressed emotivism which, if we assume it to be true, makes moral relativism the strongest of all the relativisms imo. And I'm not a cognitive relativist .
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:16
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What does that have to do with anything, unless for some strange reason known only to you, languages exist in a vacuum? |
Because holism allows context to determine meaning or truth without abandoning objectivity. There is no necessary connection between saying that context matters and relativism.
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A holism isn't a self-contained singularity, unless you're a post-structuralist buried nose-deep in the devils dandruff. |
This is meaningless bullshit.
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So you keep saying, but you're assuming that relativism depends upon a language where prescription and preference aren't reconcilable. |
I'm talking about the actual languages we use. Not some airy fairy inventions of yours.
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You're illustrating one of the problems with the Tractatus that Witt. resolves in PI, namely that "is" and "seems" are not mutually exclusive, since both can be said but not necessarily shown. |
This has nothing to do with it. Stop spouting crap. This isn't even Wittgenstein's example.
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Hell, even Davidson says something similar with DT, namely that you can't define ones beliefs/judgements and preferences from each other. |
What the hell does that have to do with it?
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This, imo, thoroughly sodomises an objectivist approach to t-sentences, since the meanings of finite forms of language *still* must be predicated. Your semantic holism issue again, it needs essentialism to defeat relativism. |
No it doesn't. Davidsonian holism is independent of questions of essentialism -- that's his ****ing point.
Belief and meaning are interdependent on Davidson's scheme anway.
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-Subject is dependent upon predicate/context for meaning
-Predicate/context is dependent upon beholder which (and this is my assumption) is relative to other beholders
Without predicate/context, something is meaningless/valueless
Relativism. |
This is meaningless ****. Subject and predicate are grammatical categories. You don't have to take them as indicating some Aristotelian scheme (which Aristotle does).
That is why both Quine and Davidson move to propositions as the fundamental semantic units, rather than names, predicates etc. Neither of them have to care about your argument because languages can manifest ontological relativity - but this doesn't matter for Davidson, since even that does not justify epistemological relativism.
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And you still haven't addressed emotivism which, if we assume it to be true, makes moral relativism the strongest of all the relativisms imo. And I'm not a cognitive relativist . |
Emotivism is crap because it doesn't deal with the obvious feature of moral statements: that they are subject to logical consistency. Expressions of emotion are not. There's nothing wrong with me being entirely inconsistent in the way I feel, but there is something wrong with being inconsistent in my moral judgements.
Emotivism cannot account for inferences using moral statements. That's Metaethics 101 stuff.
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28-04-2005 18:23
@Aggie.
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