Moral Truths

[Meow Mix]

Actually I figured it out.

I'm either object-correspondence or... whatever the one is under that which got cut off (if truth relates to facts).

This is only because I'm not sure what the difference between a fact and an object would be at that level. I guess it depends on if you're picky about calling something a "mathematical object" rather than a "mathematical fact."

Does "object" necessarily have spatiotemporal extension, etc? Because I'm comfortable with "object."

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Does "object" necessarily have spatiotemporal extension, etc?

Not as far as I am concerned.

Because I'm comfortable with "object."

Good enough for me. The table was just a example/guide. Thanks!

 

[Meow Mix]

In light of that, I guess the OP could be summarized as "what the hell is a moral object supposed to be?"

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Reading this thread is kinda...ummm...put it this way. My brain exploded three times. But for some reason I kept reading. Suffice to say I'm completely out of my depth, and understand about 1 word in 3. That being that case, I've decided to have a crack at responding the OP. Ahem. I did kinda make a promise a few weeks ago to jump into a thread I didn't know too much about, and try to expand my mind. Consider that promise met for this month.

*cracks knuckles*

(This was written while at work multitasking, so please forgive the sloppiness and the redundance in a few areas -- it's due to losing my train of thought and then starting over mid-sentence and that sort of thing.)

What would it mean for there to exist a moral truth?

These are two of the most loaded words in all of philosophy, so this thread is probably going to be a fun ride. That being said, I'll present definitions which I think are best to use for these terms; but as this is an open discussion on the subject, feel free to use different definitions so long as everyone keeps which way who's using what term straight. (Ok seriously, "which way who's using what" was fun to type)

I'm a realist, and I use correspondence theory of truth, for instance: for something to be "true," the proposition assented to by the believer must correspond to an external reality. In other words, my belief that there is a keyboard on my desk is only true if my belief about a keyboard on the desk corresponds to reality (only if there "really is a keyboard there").

So there is this demarcation between a truth (which is a special kind of belief in a mind) and a fact (which is a real thing outside of a mind): truths are beliefs we have about facts. There is no such thing as a truth without a corresponding fact: something about reality must be a certain way or contain a certain something in order for a truth to be made about it. Truths are formed by minds and are about facts which are pieces of actual, external reality.

There are facts without truths (those parts of actual reality which we haven't discovered anything about to form beliefs about which correspond to it), but there are no truths without facts. This may seem redundant, but it's just a wildly abstract concept that needs to be pinned down for this discussion to go anywhere.

-----

Okay, so I'm still with you here.

Ok, so what about morals? Whenever we talk about morals, we're generally not talking about things: rocks are understood to be amoral (at least to non-animists, etc.), so are computers, and so on. This is because when we talk about morals we're talking about choices.

Even more than that, aren't we talking about informed choices? If I decide between two alternatives (let's say Nike or Reebok runners) not realising that one was made in a sweat shop and the other wasn't, then....

Bah...who am I kidding? They were both made in sweat shops.

However, they have to be some sort of special kind of choice: choosing between two paths on a trail doesn't generally entail any sort of ascribed moral connotation, nor generally does choosing to drink some water or iced tea.

No, our conception of "morals" get more bizarre because they're used to describe an ought.

Meep. Okay, so your concept of 'ought' is pretty much my informed choice, I guess. I just went a little early.

Most of the time choosing between two garments to buy isn't a moral choice, but as soon as it becomes considered that buying one of them supports slave wagery in a 3rd world country whereas the other one is produced by a company that pays its workers a living wage, the choice is suddenly a moral one, presumably, because a normal person will experience at least a small feeling that they ought to choose one over the other given this new information when previously the garments might have been tied in the buyer's esteem.

Is wagery a word? If not it should be. All good so far. I'm still following.

Not all "oughts" that we experience are moral, though, so we must further distinguish somehow. For instance, we have the categorical imperative and preferences -- if I want to stop being thirsty, then I experience a notion that I ought to drink. This will come in important later.

Hmmm...so the differentiation is around the impact of the action on others? Kinda makes sense in my head. People could define 'others' in different ways, which would lead to moral conundrums in situations where other people wouldn't experience them. Squashing an ant, doing something they think God would disapprove of, etc.

-----
Ok, so then what are moral truths? If a person were to say, "Dropkicking babies is wrong," this is a proposed example of a moral truth -- they are affirming a proposition about something corresponding to reality in a moral way. Since morals are about oughts and ought-nots, we can expand this expression to "It's true that we ought not to dropkick babies."

I think this is where I start to lose it, but I'm guessing it's largely due to my own bias. Tying 'moral' and 'truth' together just seems counter-intuitive to me. I tend to see them more as commonly (or even universally) held subjective morals, whereas talk of moral truths sounds like objective morality. Am I misunderstanding your intent?

However, this is where the problem comes in (fans of Hume likely saw this coming): what is corresponding to reality in order for the statement to be true?

If I say, "[There is a] baby," then it's obvious that what's corresponding to reality in this proposition is the presence of a baby: either there is or is not a baby in reality, external to our minds.

If I say, "[That ball was] dropkicked," then it's obvious that what's corresponding to reality is an event which either happened or did not happen to a particular thing in reality.

Yup. I mean, some might disagree with even those realities as absolute certainties, but that's kind of a dead end philosophically.

But what does it mean to say "[There is an] ought-not?" How can an ought-not be part of reality external to a mind, what does that even mean? In order for that to be true there must be an external fact; but how can an "ought" or an "ought-not" be an external fact of reality?

(Cont-)

 

[lewisnotmiller]

(-Cont)

The closer "oughts" are looked at, the more and more they appear like any other preference.

This was the part that really hooked me in, since as much as I have considered morals as subjective for a long time, I've never equated them to other non-moral preferences in my head. Simple idea, but...

It's incoherent (unless anyone has any ideas) how an "ought" or an "ought-not" can correspond to reality -- what is doing the corresponding?

How useful this is I don't know, but rather than equating the 'ought' or the 'ought-not' to reality, I would instead equate it to our interpretation of reality. Present a dozen people with the same situation, and no two of them will interpret it the same. In some cases the differences may be subtle, in other cases starkly different.

So in your example, our mind takes cues from the baby being drop-kicked, and we then apply a layer to that based on our nature/nurture. Our morals are not reality, but subjective. Some things are almost universal, and amongst those would be protection of defenceless babies. That protection instinct is evolutionary in nature, and hard-wired into our brain, plus then reinforced for many by all sorts of mechanisms, thus equating to a (basically) universal moral instinct which is none-the-less not a truth in reality, but subjective.

(meh...I'm taking a whole lot of shortcuts here, and just giving a chalk-outline of where my heads at with this.)

Someone might say, "That you feel the ought corresponds to reality," and that would be true -- but that alters the subject of the sentence to a feeling corresponding to reality, not an ought. If the feeling corresponds to reality, it gets us nowhere in determining why that feeling is there or why it shouldn't have any other value.

Again, interesting. So, I'm thinking some morals which many hold could just as easily have a different value.
Let's say I am watching a man dousing a Bible in petrol and lighting it up. Depending on my background, and my interpretation of the action, and just as importantly my understanding of the motive behind the action, I could have a wide range of moral truths, all based on the reality of the Bible being burnt.

1) The man is morally bankrupt, and is working directly against the objective moral truth of my religion.
2) The man is misguided and I need to help him, as this is what my religion dictates.
3) The man is righteously demonstrating against hypocrisy and should be applauded for his moral stand.
4) Burning books, no matter the reason, is morally deficient, short-sighted, and unintelligent...

Etc...you get the idea, I'm sure.

I can think of one other situation where this is the case: preferences.

For instance, consider the following statement: "Green is the best color."

Well, what does it mean for "is the best" to correspond to reality? Nothing -- it's incoherent nonsense. "Green is the best color" isn't a truth, then, because nothing is corresponding to reality; there's no fact to it. It's a preference. It's not true that green "is the best" or not in reality because "is the best" is meaningless.

Makes sense...
As a quick sidenote, do you consider any parallels also in the fact that some colours are more commonly appealing, whilst others are commonly less appealing?

However, "Erin thinks green is the best color" does correspond to reality -- and is a truth -- because the subject that's corresponding to reality now is a state of affairs about what Erin thinks: it is the case that either "Erin thinks [something]" or not. The problem, though, is that even if "Erin thinks green is the best color" is true (and it is), it does nothing to tell us where this preference came from or why it doesn't simply have any other value.

That would be a pretty fascinating study. Personally, I've changed my favourite colour several times over the years, mostly when I was a child, before settling on green. Understanding why would be difficult in some of those cases, but it might be a way of looking at preference without the inherent bias I would think impacts in moral testing.

"Oughts" and "ought-nots" behave utterly identically to "is bests" and "is worsts" and -- well, basically, I can find no discernable difference between oughts (be they categorical imperative or ethics related) and preferences.

-----

So, are there any differences between oughts and preferences?

Weight? I changed favourite colours when I was a child on a whim. A moral decision is not something I would change on a whim (no matter that it could be just as subjective). So I kinda return to my premise that for something to be moral, it needs to be effecting 'others', with the understanding that 'others' is a lot broader than just other people (or at least, it often is), and that the definition of 'others' would differ between individuals.

Does anything correspond to reality about "ought" or "ought-not?" If so, what? How?

I suspect yes, but what and how are pretty hard to answer. My thinking is that morals universally held would have a basis in biology. I would still consider them subjective, rather than objective moral truths, since I can't think of a case where any moral truth is absolute to the point of involuntary action, in the way that our heart beating is. But I think the 'reality' is our unconscious, biologically-driven response to certain things which has a major influence on the actions we (as humans) undertake in a given situation.

(Sorry on length, ramble, and massive quoting of OP. It was so many pages ago I thought it was important to give at least SOME context to my response)

 

[Meow Mix]

Hmmm...so the differentiation is around the impact of the action on others? Kinda makes sense in my head. People could define 'others' in different ways, which would lead to moral conundrums in situations where other people wouldn't experience them. Squashing an ant, doing something they think God would disapprove of, etc.

This is true and a good point. All I was really noting though is that we experience a few different kinds of "oughts," and that even if some people define "others" differently, the difference between a moral "ought" and (say) a hypothetical imperative "ought" appears to involve "others" of some kind.

I think this is where I start to lose it, but I'm guessing it's largely due to my own bias. Tying 'moral' and 'truth' together just seems counter-intuitive to me. I tend to see them more as commonly (or even universally) held subjective morals, whereas talk of moral truths sounds like objective morality. Am I misunderstanding your intent?

I agree that it's counter-intuitive. The purpose of the thread is to figure out what a "moral truth" would be if there were such a thing. It may be the case that there isn't such a thing or can't be such a thing. That's what the thread is exploring.

 

[Meow Mix]

How useful this is I don't know, but rather than equating the 'ought' or the 'ought-not' to reality, I would instead equate it to our interpretation of reality. Present a dozen people with the same situation, and no two of them will interpret it the same. In some cases the differences may be subtle, in other cases starkly different.

So in your example, our mind takes cues from the baby being drop-kicked, and we then apply a layer to that based on our nature/nurture. Our morals are not reality, but subjective. Some things are almost universal, and amongst those would be protection of defenceless babies. That protection instinct is evolutionary in nature, and hard-wired into our brain, plus then reinforced for many by all sorts of mechanisms, thus equating to a (basically) universal moral instinct which is none-the-less not a truth in reality, but subjective.

(meh...I'm taking a whole lot of shortcuts here, and just giving a chalk-outline of where my heads at with this.)

This is possible to do, but the goal of the OP is to assume that there is a moral truth that corresponds to actual reality somehow -- and to use that assumption to try to determine what it would be like, how it metaphysically works, whether or not it's coherent or logically possible at all.

Shifting the correspondence to our perception of reality can produce a pragmatic, working theory of ethics; but it wouldn't help pin down what, if it existed at all, a "moral truth" would be.

To say "It's true that most people think they ought not to dropkick babies" is a proposition, a true one -- similar to how "Erin thinks green is the best color" is a true proposition.

But the statement this thread is trying to explore is "It's true that one ought not to dropkick babies" rather than "It's true that people think they ought not to dropkick babies."

Still, that's not to say you didn't have a good insight.

Again, interesting. So, I'm thinking some morals which many hold could just as easily have a different value.
Let's say I am watching a man dousing a Bible in petrol and lighting it up. Depending on my background, and my interpretation of the action, and just as importantly my understanding of the motive behind the action, I could have a wide range of moral truths, all based on the reality of the Bible being burnt.

1) The man is morally bankrupt, and is working directly against the objective moral truth of my religion.
2) The man is misguided and I need to help him, as this is what my religion dictates.
3) The man is righteously demonstrating against hypocrisy and should be applauded for his moral stand.
4) Burning books, no matter the reason, is morally deficient, short-sighted, and unintelligent...

Etc...you get the idea, I'm sure.

Those may or may not be moral "truths," though -- here they are still basically subjective preference statements. Unless we identify some moral "fact" in reality for a moral "truth" to correspond to, you're basically just saying here that you'd prefer for people not to burn books, or prefer people not to offend people, etc.

Makes sense...
As a quick sidenote, do you consider any parallels also in the fact that some colours are more commonly appealing, whilst others are commonly less appealing?

There's probably some sort of evolutionary, physiological, or cultural explanation for why we're more likely to have this preference over that preference. However, that still doesn't make our preferences true in and of themselves -- though we could make a truth statement about them (e.g., "In America, men are less likely to prefer pink.")

That would be a pretty fascinating study. Personally, I've changed my favourite colour several times over the years, mostly when I was a child, before settling on green. Understanding why would be difficult in some of those cases, but it might be a way of looking at preference without the inherent bias I would think impacts in moral testing.

Another interesting notion to bring up regarding that might be the question of doxastic voluntarism: do we choose our preferences (or our beliefs) freely, or do we just happen to have those ones (be it by chance, or fatalism, or determinism, or nature, or nurture, or whatever)?

For instance if I told you I have a living dinosaur in my garage and you understood me to actually mean one of the animals, not a toy or anything, could you force yourself through force of will to actually believe me just based on my saying so? Or would you be unable to help but to be skeptical?

The idea, if doxastic voluntarism is false, is that you don't decide your standard of evidence -- or your preferences, or your beliefs -- you just have them. And chances are my telling you I have a dinosaur in my garage wouldn't meet that standard, so no matter how hard you tried to truly believe me (just imagining that it's "possible" doesn't count, TRULY believe me), it just wouldn't happen until some standard of evidence that you have no conscious control over is met.

If doxastic voluntarism is false, we probably don't pick our moral feelings, or our preferences, or our standards of evidence. We can of course investigate what possibly helped them to be what they are (nature vs. nurture, cultural influences, evolutionary history, whatever), but it seems like we probably had no conscious part in deciding what they are.

Weight? I changed favourite colours when I was a child on a whim. A moral decision is not something I would change on a whim (no matter that it could be just as subjective). So I kinda return to my premise that for something to be moral, it needs to be effecting 'others', with the understanding that 'others' is a lot broader than just other people (or at least, it often is), and that the definition of 'others' would differ between individuals.

That's a good point, yes, moral feelings tend to be held a lot stronger than other preferences.

I suspect yes, but what and how are pretty hard to answer. My thinking is that morals universally held would have a basis in biology. I would still consider them subjective, rather than objective moral truths, since I can't think of a case where any moral truth is absolute to the point of involuntary action, in the way that our heart beating is. But I think the 'reality' is our unconscious, biologically-driven response to certain things which has a major influence on the actions we (as humans) undertake in a given situation.

(Sorry on length, ramble, and massive quoting of OP. It was so many pages ago I thought it was important to give at least SOME context to my response)

Agreed, just because there may be a biological basis that makes some preferences more likely to be held than others doesn't make the preferences true. It just makes statements like "We're more likely to prefer x because of y" true, which solves nothing.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

So, are there any differences between oughts and preferences?

The only difference, so far as I can see, is that with preferences, we're only referring to ourselves and not setting out any prescriptions for anyone else- if I say "I like Pepsi", or "Chocolate is the best flavor of ice cream", I'm expressing a value-judgment, similar to if I say "stealing is wrong"- but in most cases, I'm not implying that YOU (or anyone else) should have Pepsi or chocolate ice cream, only that this is MY preference. With moral statements, on the other hand, we seem to not only be expressing a preference or value-judgment ("stealing is wrong" says, for one thing, that I don't like stealing), but also an imperative- do not steal. Thus, moral statements are not only statements of preference, they are disguised imperatives- "stealing is wrong" says two things; that I don't like stealing, and I don't want you to do it.

Otherwise, you're preaching to the choir here; I feel like some form of moral anti-realism/non-cognitivism is correct, its only a question of which. Moreover, I think that much of the opposition to this view is rooted in fear, rather than rational reasons- we desperately want there to be an objective Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, we want our moral notions to correspond to something in reality, and not be an arbitrary social game.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

The purpose of the thread is to figure out what a "moral truth" would be if there were such a thing. It may be the case that there isn't such a thing or can't be such a thing. That's what the thread is exploring.

I haven't followed the thread closely but I would think that any moral truth would have to exist as a string of words. I can't imagine some vague feeling as a moral truth. I can't only conceive of such a thing as a string of words beginning with 'Thou shalt (not)...."

Do you agree, or do you think a moral truth could exist in another form?

 

[Enai de a lukal]

I haven't followed the thread closely but I would think that any moral truth would have to exist as a string of words. I can't imagine some vague feeling as a moral truth. I can't only conceive of such a thing as a string of words beginning with 'Thou shalt (not)...."

Do you agree, or do you think a moral truth could exist in another form?

I don't think Meow Mix is concerned with whether a moral truth is a linguistic item- it seems fairly uncontroversial that a moral truth is "a string of words", given that it would be a truth, and thus propositional. What she seems to be asking is whether moral truths correspond to anything- something like moral facts (the way that non-moral truths, like "the cat is on the mat", correspond to non-moral facts, such as the cat being on the mat). In other words, are moral statements truth-apt, and if so, what are the truthmakers of moral statements?

 

[Willamena]

So, are there any differences between oughts and preferences?

Yes. Grammatical subjective case.
- Erin thinks green is best.
- Erin ought to think green is best.

The first indicates a subjective case, the second an objective one.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Yes. Grammatical subjective case.
- Erin thinks green is best.
- Erin ought to think green is best.

The first indicates a subjective case, the second an objective one.

In both sentences, Erin is in the subjective case.

 

[Willamena]

In both sentences, Erin is in the subjective case.

So she is.


Edit: *sigh* Although they are treated the same, grammatically they are not. The subjective case is indicative of the subject enacting: Erin enacts the thinking of her preference, or the having of her preference if you like, but she does not enact the "oughting" of her preference. That comes from outside her. She casts it outside as surely as she casts truth outside herself.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

(This was written while at work multitasking, so please forgive the sloppiness and the redundance in a few areas -- it's due to losing my train of thought and then starting over mid-sentence and that sort of thing.)

What would it mean for there to exist a moral truth?

These are two of the most loaded words in all of philosophy, so this thread is probably going to be a fun ride. That being said, I'll present definitions which I think are best to use for these terms; but as this is an open discussion on the subject, feel free to use different definitions so long as everyone keeps which way who's using what term straight. (Ok seriously, "which way who's using what" was fun to type)

I'm a realist, and I use correspondence theory of truth, for instance: for something to be "true," the proposition assented to by the believer must correspond to an external reality. In other words, my belief that there is a keyboard on my desk is only true if my belief about a keyboard on the desk corresponds to reality (only if there "really is a keyboard there").

So there is this demarcation between a truth (which is a special kind of belief in a mind) and a fact (which is a real thing outside of a mind): truths are beliefs we have about facts. There is no such thing as a truth without a corresponding fact: something about reality must be a certain way or contain a certain something in order for a truth to be made about it. Truths are formed by minds and are about facts which are pieces of actual, external reality.

There are facts without truths (those parts of actual reality which we haven't discovered anything about to form beliefs about which correspond to it), but there are no truths without facts. This may seem redundant, but it's just a wildly abstract concept that needs to be pinned down for this discussion to go anywhere.

-----

Ok, so what about morals? Whenever we talk about morals, we're generally not talking about things: rocks are understood to be amoral (at least to non-animists, etc.), so are computers, and so on. This is because when we talk about morals we're talking about choices.

However, they have to be some sort of special kind of choice: choosing between two paths on a trail doesn't generally entail any sort of ascribed moral connotation, nor generally does choosing to drink some water or iced tea.

No, our conception of "morals" get more bizarre because they're used to describe an ought.

Most of the time choosing between two garments to buy isn't a moral choice, but as soon as it becomes considered that buying one of them supports slave wagery in a 3rd world country whereas the other one is produced by a company that pays its workers a living wage, the choice is suddenly a moral one, presumably, because a normal person will experience at least a small feeling that they ought to choose one over the other given this new information when previously the garments might have been tied in the buyer's esteem.

Not all "oughts" that we experience are moral, though, so we must further distinguish somehow. For instance, we have the categorical imperative and preferences -- if I want to stop being thirsty, then I experience a notion that I ought to drink. This will come in important later.

-----

Ok, so then what are moral truths? If a person were to say, "Dropkicking babies is wrong," this is a proposed example of a moral truth -- they are affirming a proposition about something corresponding to reality in a moral way. Since morals are about oughts and ought-nots, we can expand this expression to "It's true that we ought not to dropkick babies."

However, this is where the problem comes in (fans of Hume likely saw this coming): what is corresponding to reality in order for the statement to be true?

If I say, "[There is a] baby," then it's obvious that what's corresponding to reality in this proposition is the presence of a baby: either there is or is not a baby in reality, external to our minds.

If I say, "[That ball was] dropkicked," then it's obvious that what's corresponding to reality is an event which either happened or did not happen to a particular thing in reality.

But what does it mean to say "[There is an] ought-not?" How can an ought-not be part of reality external to a mind, what does that even mean? In order for that to be true there must be an external fact; but how can an "ought" or an "ought-not" be an external fact of reality?

-----

The closer "oughts" are looked at, the more and more they appear like any other preference.

It's incoherent (unless anyone has any ideas) how an "ought" or an "ought-not" can correspond to reality -- what is doing the corresponding?

Someone might say, "That you feel the ought corresponds to reality," and that would be true -- but that alters the subject of the sentence to a feeling corresponding to reality, not an ought. If the feeling corresponds to reality, it gets us nowhere in determining why that feeling is there or why it shouldn't have any other value.

I can think of one other situation where this is the case: preferences.

For instance, consider the following statement: "Green is the best color."

Well, what does it mean for "is the best" to correspond to reality? Nothing -- it's incoherent nonsense. "Green is the best color" isn't a truth, then, because nothing is corresponding to reality; there's no fact to it. It's a preference. It's not true that green "is the best" or not in reality because "is the best" is meaningless.

However, "Erin thinks green is the best color" does correspond to reality -- and is a truth -- because the subject that's corresponding to reality now is a state of affairs about what Erin thinks: it is the case that either "Erin thinks [something]" or not. The problem, though, is that even if "Erin thinks green is the best color" is true (and it is), it does nothing to tell us where this preference came from or why it doesn't simply have any other value.

"Oughts" and "ought-nots" behave utterly identically to "is bests" and "is worsts" and -- well, basically, I can find no discernable difference between oughts (be they categorical imperative or ethics related) and preferences.

-----

So, are there any differences between oughts and preferences?

Does anything correspond to reality about "ought" or "ought-not?" If so, what? How?

Indeed there are differences in oughts and preferences, I can prefer ice in my water, though that does not correspond with an ought towards reality, other than an ought to me (though it does not even necessarily become an ought to me either) -- Consider this, if I preferred drinking Pepsi compared to drinking hot sauce, this does not mean I ought to drink Pepsi instead of hot sauce, it simply means that I choose not to. Although, if I were forced to, I still could and would not consider the act bad, considering it would be good (compared to other circumstances if I hadn't).

Although, some moral absolutists I have talked to responded to that matter that there is an absolute way of measuring it in comparison to other things. That when it comes to the option and no force, and I did happen to drink hot sauce, I would have decided that it was the wrong choice. But, if it were to be between hot sauce and lava it'd obviously be a good choice.

My response to that is, how many lines can be drawn before something becomes so stretched out that it hardly can be considered absolute anymore? "This is right compared to *big list of things" then "This is wrong compared to... *big list of things"

Another thing is, while it reflects reality, it doesn't exactly mean anything. I could say that a hallucination actually happened, although the hallucination itself did not exist. Thoughts actually are there, but as well the thought may not be realistic. Basically, while the indicator exists, the indication does not. If that makes sense.

If not, I'll try one more time: Something subjective can and does exist objectively, although the subject it beholds is legitimately subjective.



BTW, Good to see you posting again.

 

[Slapstick]

I didn't even know what an ought was until I read this thread and I still don't know what an ought is. It sounds like something someone says when they can't speak proper English.

"You ought to get dem dar cloths outta the drier."

 

[Monk Of Reason]

So, are there any differences between oughts and preferences?

Does anything correspond to reality about "ought" or "ought-not?" If so, what? How?

First I want to start by saying this was a very well made OP and I wish more OP's were like this. Its very coherent despite this being a very often confusing or complex issue.

But the first thing that comes to mind when discussing the differences between an ought and a preference is not simply the basis for why we do them but rather the function that provide.

There is no functional purpos for "Erin thinks green is the best color". I think it has already been mentioned that its purely asthetic for the basis of the discussion. While "dropkicking a baby" has real world applicaple function.

Then if we look even deeper at "preferences" many psychologists and neurobiologists agree that we have subconsious reasons even for preferences that have applicable real world function. Both are subjective to evolution and you brought up a very very very good point when talking about what corrosponds to reality. Morality as a "truth" however is a little bit different.

When we think of "moral truth" we don't have to assume that its an external truth or fact in the universe that exist devoid of our own intereaction with it. Its the exact opposite. Moral Truth can only be looked at within our respective interactions.

To explain this more clearly. It is usually assumed it is morally wrong(ought not) for John to stab Suzan. However we at the same time do not find it morally wrong(ought not) for an astroid to hit the planet Venus.

Sentience is required for us to have morality. There must be an empathatic logical reasoning with a predisposition for "survial" to have morality even make remote sense. So with the goal of "survival" there can be moral truths that reflect upon the functional applications and resulting benifits but not otherwise.

However it still stands true that even if there is no sentient beings it would still be universally and morally wrong for [x] to happen to [y+sentient being].

How can a rock or non-sentient object be moral or amoral? How can we have a universal truth about sentient only beings if we cannot use sentient moral beings in the corrospondance?


Though specifically on colors. Some "preferences" do develop evolutionarily without "ought" and "ought-not" with functional applications. What would you categorize them?

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

I don't think Meow Mix is concerned with whether a moral truth is a linguistic item- it seems fairly uncontroversial that a moral truth is "a string of words", given that it would be a truth, and thus propositional.

I find that not everyone seems ready to focus on the string-of-words things and its possible consequences. So I like to ask.

What she seems to be asking is whether moral truths correspond to anything- something like moral facts (the way that non-moral truths, like "the cat is on the mat", correspond to non-moral facts, such as the cat being on the mat). In other words, are moral statements truth-apt, and if so, what are the truthmakers of moral statements?

So her question is: "Do moral truths exist (as strings of words) floating around in space or nestled within the Great Noggin of God?"

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Although they are treated the same, grammatically they are not. The subjective case is indicative of the subject enacting: Erin enacts the thinking of her preference, or the having of her preference if you like, but she does not enact the "oughting" of her preference. That comes from outside her. She casts it outside as surely as she casts truth outside herself.

Then an Oughter is required to serve as the subject, the actor. Would you agree?

Even if it's 'the impersonal universe,' there has to be some entity who cares what we ought to do -- if it is true that we ought to do things. So it seems to me.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Shifting the correspondence to our perception of reality can produce a pragmatic, working theory of ethics; but it wouldn't help pin down what, if it existed at all, a "moral truth" would be.

Yeah...I get you. I have a lot of trouble conceptualising 'moral truth'. Even from a hypothetical standpoint, it's not a concept I can really grasp, to be honest.

To say "It's true that most people think they ought not to dropkick babies" is a proposition, a true one -- similar to how "Erin thinks green is the best color" is a true proposition.

But the statement this thread is trying to explore is "It's true that one ought not to dropkick babies" rather than "It's true that people think they ought not to dropkick babies."

'True' as in grounded in reality. Again, I hear you...in short I not only don't believe in a moral truth, but I can't imagine what one would look like.

Those may or may not be moral "truths," though -- here they are still basically subjective preference statements. Unless we identify some moral "fact" in reality for a moral "truth" to correspond to, you're basically just saying here that you'd prefer for people not to burn books, or prefer people not to offend people, etc.

Basically, yes. As a total, bald-arsed guess, I'd think there are a lot more factors at play which are beyond our control with some moral decisions than with a simple preference statement like choice of colour, but there is no objective difference between them that I can tell.
I guess that's what I was trying to clumsily illustrate. If reality is a guy burning a Bible, and a group of people can interpret that in different ways, yet remain rational within their own worldview, it suggests strongly that morals are entirely subjective, and interpretive in nature. Hence, no moral truths.

There's probably some sort of evolutionary, physiological, or cultural explanation for why we're more likely to have this preference over that preference. However, that still doesn't make our preferences true in and of themselves -- though we could make a truth statement about them (e.g., "In America, men are less likely to prefer pink.")

Definitely. My preference for green can almost entirely be attributed to my love of the Boston Celtics. Ridiculous, I know, but there you have it.

Another interesting notion to bring up regarding that might be the question of doxastic voluntarism: do we choose our preferences (or our beliefs) freely, or do we just happen to have those ones (be it by chance, or fatalism, or determinism, or nature, or nurture, or whatever)?

It might depend on how you define 'freely'. I think we have some limited control over our choices, beliefs and preferences, but that in general terms this control needs to be exercised before the point of decision.

For instance if I told you I have a living dinosaur in my garage and you understood me to actually mean one of the animals, not a toy or anything, could you force yourself through force of will to actually believe me just based on my saying so? Or would you be unable to help but to be skeptical?

I would have no choice but to be skeptical.

The idea, if doxastic voluntarism is false, is that you don't decide your standard of evidence -- or your preferences, or your beliefs -- you just have them. And chances are my telling you I have a dinosaur in my garage wouldn't meet that standard, so no matter how hard you tried to truly believe me (just imagining that it's "possible" doesn't count, TRULY believe me), it just wouldn't happen until some standard of evidence that you have no conscious control over is met.

I can't quite come at that concept. As briefly mentioned previously, I'd think that at the point of action (in this case, you telling me about the dinosaur) the freedom of choice for me has largely passed, in terms of belief. I still have freedom of action, to a degree (I could override my skepticism and act like I believed you) but I couldn't control my thoughts in that way.

It's hard to work my thoughts into your example, since it's a pretty black and white one, but I think we take considered actions throughout our life which impact on our thoughts, morals and beliefs, whether we like them to or not. For example, if I forced myself to sell all my worldly possessions apart from the absolute basics, and devote my life exclusively to caring for the homeless, regardless of my thoughts on the homeless, I think my morals and beliefs around distribution of wealth and related moral issues would change.

I tend to think in psychological terms, rather than hard science (psych major...sorry!) but I'd see important reasons for this as including;

• Cognitive dissonance in shifting my beliefs to the left (ideologically) would be far reduced
• Need to justify to myself and externally my fairly extreme actions
• An element of moral superiority.

If doxastic voluntarism is false, we probably don't pick our moral feelings, or our preferences, or our standards of evidence. We can of course investigate what possibly helped them to be what they are (nature vs. nurture, cultural influences, evolutionary history, whatever), but it seems like we probably had no conscious part in deciding what they are.

Do you think the very act of investigation has the potential to impact and change our standards, preferences, and even feelings though? I would think a higher level of self-awareness would impact on these, if only to a minor degree. And if that investigation is deliberately undertaken with the knowledge that this might be the end result, would that be considered doxastic voluntarism, even thought it's not direct control of choice at the moment of decision?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Edit: *sigh* Although they are treated the same, grammatically they are not.

True. But the difference isn't a matter of case. It's the difference between modality and a mental state predicate.