What is the appeal of "objective morality"

[phiwum]

I never said there is a contradiction I just wanted to be sure of your position.

If moral norms are objective then where do they come from?

Please note, I am not asking you to prove moral norms are objective since you said you can't do that but if morals do not originate in humans then where do they originate?


objective
adjective ob·jec·tive \əb-ˈjek-tiv, äb-\

: based on facts rather than feelings or opinions : not influenced by feelings

philosophy : existing outside of the mind : existing in the real world

Again, I think I've repeatedly addressed this issue.

Here's what I mean when I say a norm is objective: any rational being would agree, at least were he familiar with the relevant argument and any evidence that may be required, that the norm is correct. For instance, I think that it is the case that rationality itself requires that one see the intrinsic value of true beliefs over false.

I think that the dictionary definition you quoted is irrelevant to my understanding of realism.

I don't know how to answer "where they come from" any more than I know how to answer where principles such as the law of excluded middle "comes from".

Can you tell me whether it is your opinion that LEM "originates" in humans?

 

[Leumas]

Again, I think I've repeatedly addressed this issue.

Here's what I mean when I say a norm is objective: any rational being would agree, at least were he familiar with the relevant argument and any evidence that may be required, that the norm is correct. For instance, I think that it is the case that rationality itself requires that one see the intrinsic value of true beliefs over false.

I think that the dictionary definition you quoted is irrelevant to my understanding of realism.

I don't know how to answer "where they come from" any more than I know how to answer where principles such as the law of excluded middle "comes from".

Can you tell me whether it is your opinion that LEM "originates" in humans?

ALL "laws" originated in the human minds.

Nothing in this universe "obeys laws"... only social animals evolve socially and biologically to behave in particular ways so as to appear to be obeying behavioral constraints so as to facilitate the social interaction that facilitate biological survival.

Only people who do not understand anything about mathematics and science think that the "laws" of nature are PREscriptive.... or have been set by something other than the human brain.

 

[phiwum]

ALL "laws" originated in the human minds.

Nothing in this universe "obeys laws"... only social animals evolve socially and biologically to behave in particular ways so as to appear to be obeying behavioral constraints so as to facilitate the social interaction that facilitate biological survival.

Only people who do not understand anything about mathematics and science think that the "laws" of nature are PREscriptive.... or have been set by something other than the human brain.

Yes, that's nice.

 

[annnnoid]

ALL "laws" originated in the human minds.

…and ‘how’ do human minds originate…pray tell (…’the brain dunnit’ does not actually qualify as an answer…)

Only people who do not understand anything about mathematics and science think that the "laws" of nature are PREscriptive.... or have been set by something other than the human brain.

But y’see Leumas…there is this rather trifling question: Why do they work (not to mention…how on earth does the brain create them)…and not only work, but – very often – work remarkably well? As you never stop reminding us, this very forum would not exist were this fact not…a fact.

But nobody knows why (they work…or how they’re created). Is it all just some monumental coincidence???? That’s an awful big gap there…dontcha think! Why don’t we add that to all those other questions that you find so inconveniently unanswerable.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

…and ‘how’ do human minds originate…pray tell (…’the brain dunnit’ does not actually qualify as an answer…)




But y’see Leumas…there is this rather trifling question: Why do they work (not to mention…how on earth does the brain create them)…and not only work, but – very often – work remarkably well? As you never stop reminding us, this very forum would not exist were this fact not…a fact.

But nobody knows why (they work…or how they’re created). Is it all just some monumental coincidence???? That’s an awful big gap there…dontcha think! Why don’t we add that to all those other questions that you find so inconveniently unanswerable.

Okay, we don't know how human minds originated.
Therefore...

Therefore, what annnnoid??? What comes next? What follows from the fact that we don't know how human minds originated?

 

[David Mo]

So, the rule of inference

A
B
So, A & B

Excuse me, but this is a rule of inference. I was speaking of the deduction of sentences in a process of predicate logic.

For example: if “A” and “B” are particular sentences you cannot conclude in terms of universal sentence.
A= A green dog exists.
B= A dog is coward
You cannot include any universal proposition about what all the dogs are. Only that some green dog exist and some dog is coward.
In the same way, if A and B are predicate sentences you cannot conclude in an imperative sentence.

This is logical and simple.

Sorry, I do understand that the is-ought issue is a problem, hence my reference to the essentially Kantian solution of showing that certain values are objective in the sense that each rational being, upon reflection, must accept such values.

Kantian solution is far from be universally accepted. It has many problems. The most important for our discussion: it is merely formal. “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” Everybody can interpret this in his own way. Therefore, its implementation is subjective. Not a good candidate for objective moral maxims.

Your problem: you speak about possibilities. Green dogs are also possible, but my current belief in green dogs is irrational. The possibility of an imperative conclusion drawn from predicative sentences is illogical. Therefore, your claim about objective morality is irrational.

 

[David Mo]

I am not saying that a terrorist has not any moral system. I am saying that his moral system has not any moral contact with ours. Therefore the moral discussion with him is impossible and we have to pass to political measures. Including auto-defense.

Terrorism: violent activity aimed to terrorise people in order to obtain political or economical benefit.

Some exceptions to this rule are possible.

 

[phiwum]

Excuse me, but this is a rule of inference. I was speaking of the deduction of sentences in a process of predicate logic.

Er, right, and that rule of inference can, of course, occur in an argument in predicate logic.

And what you said, by the way, was "in logic, the connectors of the conclusion must be included in the premises." I'm glad to hear that you didn't mean it.

For example: if “A” and “B” are particular sentences you cannot conclude in terms of universal sentence.
A= A green dog exists.
B= A dog is coward
You cannot include any universal proposition about what all the dogs are. Only that some green dog exist and some dog is coward.

Right, so obviously the existential operator is another exception to what you said.

In the same way, if A and B are predicate sentences you cannot conclude in an imperative sentence.

This is logical and simple.

I think that Hume was right about the problem of going from "is" to "ought", but obviously your argument is not helping. You've gone from "The conclusion cannot include any connectives that were not in a premise," to "The conclusion cannot include a universal quantifier that wasn't in a premise. Oh, or an ought." At this point, it seems clear that this is not as self-evident as you first suggested.

Kantian solution is far from be universally accepted. It has many problems. The most important for our discussion: it is merely formal. “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” Everybody can interpret this in his own way. Therefore, its implementation is subjective. Not a good candidate for objective moral maxims.

Your problem: you speak about possibilities. Green dogs are also possible, but my current belief in green dogs is irrational. The possibility of an imperative conclusion drawn from predicative sentences is illogical. Therefore, your claim about objective morality is irrational.

First, I'm not proposing that the categorical imperative is the solution, but rather that an examination of the necessary conditions of rationality may well lead to an objective morality.

As far as your conclusion that objective morality is irrational, I simply do not agree for the reasons we have covered many times.

 

[phiwum]

I am not saying that a terrorist has not any moral system. I am saying that his moral system has not any moral contact with ours. Therefore the moral discussion with him is impossible and we have to pass to political measures. Including auto-defense.

What you said is that this is not a moral problem, which struck me as evidently bizarre.

If what you mean is simply that ISIS and we do not share a common moral system and hence it is difficult to convince them that terrorism is wrong, well, yes, that's true. But that has not much to do with the post to which you were replying.

 

[Leumas]

...
Terrorism: violent activity aimed to terrorise people in order to obtain political or economical benefit.
...

So according to the above "definition" USA and Britain and Israel and Turkey and Russia must be some of the most active terrorist organizations to date.

What about in the 20th century... how many countries would have been considered terrorists by the above "definition"?

Some exceptions to this rule are possible.

What are these exceptions? Who decides them? Who decides who is a terrorist in the first place?

I am not saying that a terrorist has not any moral system. I am saying that his moral system has not any moral contact with ours. Therefore the moral discussion with him is impossible and we have to pass to political measures. Including auto-defense.

Seriously... terrorists are extraterrestrials or something?

They have never been normal human beings who grew up in environments that drove them to conclusions and decisions and actions that eventually brought them to the point they are currently at.... JUST LIKE every human being?

Consider this

The definition of terrorism has proved controversial. Various legal systems and government agencies use different definitions of terrorism in their national legislation. Moreover, the international community has been slow to formulate a universally agreed, legally binding definition of this crime. These difficulties arise from the fact that the term "terrorism" is politically and emotionally charged.[14] In this regard, Angus Martyn, briefing the Australian Parliament, stated,

The international community has never succeeded in developing an accepted comprehensive definition of terrorism. During the 1970s and 1980s, the United Nations attempts to define the term floundered mainly due to differences of opinion between various members about the use of violence in the context of conflicts over national liberation and self-determination.​

Since 1994, the United Nations General Assembly has repeatedly condemned terrorist acts using the following political description of terrorism:

Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them.​

Consider this Council of the European Union decision in COURT OF LAW

General Court case: Hamas
In September 2010, Hamas brought its case before the General Court, challenging its continued presence on the EU terrorist list. In December 2014, the General Court annulled on procedural grounds the Council's decision to maintain Hamas on this list.

At its foreign affairs meeting on 19 January 2015, the Council decided to appeal against the judgment of the General Court in the case Council v Hamas. During the appeal process, the effect of the General Court judgement is suspended.​

So the EU legal system had enough "moral contact" with them to be able to decide whether or not to keep calling them terrorists.

But I ask you... were the people of the following terrorist organizations extraterrestrials who have no "moral contact" point with "us"?

By the way...notice the Spanish terrorism in the list below... not to mention of course Los Conquistadores or the rest of the SORDID Spanish history of TERRORISM in Africa and Las Filipinas etc. etc.

• Irgun (Israel)
  
• Kahane Chai (Israel)
  
• La Résistance (France)
  
• IRA (Ireland)
  
• RIRA (Ireland)
  
• CIRA (Ireland)
  
• Red Army Faction (Germany)
  
• Latvian anti-Nazi resistance movement (Latvia)
  
• ETA (Spain)
  
• The Spanish Army Of Africa (Spain)
  
• Los Maquis (Spain/France)
  
• Kurdistan Workers' Party (Turkey)
  
• Revolutionary Struggle (Greece)
  
• Revolutionary Nuclei (Greece)
  
• Ejército de Liberación Nacional (Columbia)
  
• Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia
  
• Sendero Luminoso (Peru)
  
• Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (Peru)
  
• Japanese Red Army

 

[David Mo]

So according to the above "definition" USA and Britain and Israel and Turkey and Russia must be some of the most active terrorist organizations to date.

What about in the 20th century... how many countries would have been considered terrorists by the above "definition"?


What are these exceptions? Who decides them? Who decides who is a terrorist in the first place?

My definition is a synthetic version of UN's statement. I only added economical motivations.

Of course, there are many examples of State terrorism in history and in our days. I don't intend to begin this discussion with specific names. It would move the debate away from our subject.

No, a terrorist is not an extra-terrestrial. The moral debate with a radical terrorist is impossible because he starts from a radically different system of values. For example, life has a secondary or null importance. Children are not innocent. God orders him to kill children and himself. Suffering is a way to reach the Paradise… Etc.

Exceptions: I know some repented terrorists. Even personally in one case. But the process of repentance happened in special circumstances. I don’t know if the repentance was provoked by moral reflexion or the circumstances were the cause of it.

NOTE: Your list is very strange. I live in Spain and never heard speak about an organization called “Te Maquis” or “The Army of Africa”. Instead I know other terrorist organizations not included here as GRAPO, GAL, AAA… They are fortunately inactive from many years.

 

[David Mo]

You've gone from "The conclusion cannot include any connectives that were not in a premise," to "The conclusion cannot include a universal quantifier that wasn't in a premise. Oh, or an ought." At this point, it seems clear that this is not as self-evident as you first suggested.

Maybe we are using concepts as connective, quantifiers, existential, universal, etc. in different ways.

Example:
Some dogs are green.
Some dogs are coward.

What is the universal conclusion you draw from these two particuar sentences?

 

[phiwum]

Maybe we are using concepts as connective, quantifiers, existential, universal, etc. in different ways.

Example:
Some dogs are green.
Some dogs are coward.

What is the universal conclusion you draw from these two particuar sentences?

I never said that I can infer an arbitrary universal claim from existential sentences. I can't imagine why you think I said that.

(By the way, I can draw some vacuous universal claims, such as "For all x, some dogs are cowards." Note that the bound variable x does not occur in "some dogs are cowards." But this is a trivial little hack, unimportant to our main point.)

I will remind you that your statement was, "in logic, the connectors of the conclusion must be included in the premises." Now, I don't know what you mean by "connectors". So far, it seems that "For all x" is a connector and so is "ought", but "There exists x" and "&" are not connectors.

This is really a digression in any case. I agree the is-ought problem is a real problem. It's just that your argument for it was a bit mangled. It is obviously the case that one can introduce certain logical symbols in a conclusion that were not present in any premise. Nonetheless, it is hard to justify deriving "ought" statements from "is" statements, and this is the point of Hume's rebuttal.

ETA:

For that matter, your claim about the universal quantifier is simply not so in a natural deduction system. The rule of inference

P(x)
So, For all x, P(x)

(given, of course, certain constraints on the variable x) derives a universal statement from a premise with no universal quantifier. I have omitted mentioning this previously, since sometimes you say something about "particular sentences" and it's unclear whether a sentence with a free variable is "particular" in the sense you mean.

 

[David Mo]

The rule of inference

P(x)
So, For all x, P(x)

(

What "rule of inference" is this? I don't recognize this formulation. What is your source?

Particular premises: see here https://www3.nd.edu/~maritain/jmc/etext/logic-54.htm, specially eighth rule.

 

[Leumas]

...
NOTE: Your list is very strange. I live in Spain and never heard speak about an organization called “Te Maquis” or “The Army of Africa”....

I lived in Spain many years too... and have studied its history.

The Army of Africa is the army whose general was General Franco (I hope you heard of him) who led a terrorist attack on Spain and its legitimate government and took over in 1936... aided by Hitler.

Los Maquis are the remnants of the Republicans who fought the civil war after Franco took over (I hope you have heard of that) and they became in turn the terrorists who resisted Franco's new regime Later in France, to where they ran away, they joined with the French terrorist Résistance.

...Instead I know other terrorist organizations not included here as GRAPO, GAL, AAA… They are fortunately inactive from many years.

And were those Spanish terrorists so divorced from the Spanish mores and morals as to not have had any "moral contact point" with "us" and the rest of the Spanish culture? Or were they Spanish human beings with the same morals as the Spaniards and the rest of humanity but have for some reason or another chosen to FIGHT AND KILL and terrorize to achieve their aims?

Do you think armies and soldiers who attack countries and kill and destroy are immoral? Are armies not in "moral contact points" with "us" and the rest of the people of their PATRIA and the rest of the human race?

... The moral debate with a radical terrorist is impossible...

But when they win like in Israel and General Franco... debate become possible... no?

So the impossible has become possible... so it was not impossible after all ...no?

... because he starts from a radically different system of values.

So they were never humans before? They were not part of the population they came from?

For example, life has a secondary or null importance. Children are not innocent. God orders him to kill children and himself. Suffering is a way to reach the Paradise… Etc.

This is the kind of MORALS that all armies and RACISTS have had throughout the existence of human terrorism warfare... have you read the Buybull?

• 1 Samuel 15:3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

Exceptions: I know some repented terrorists. Even personally in one case. But the process of repentance happened in special circumstances. I don’t know if the repentance was provoked by moral reflexion or the circumstances were the cause of it.

So they do have a "moral contact point" with "us" after all... no?

But how about terrorists who win their campaigns of terror?

How about terrorists who are given Nobel Peace Prizes?

How about Nobel Peace Prize winners who then start wars after wars and fund and arm and train and CREATE terrorists.

They obviously had enough "moral contact points" with "us" to be awarded Nobel Peace Prizes.

 

[phiwum]

What "rule of inference" is this? I don't recognize this formulation. What is your source?

Particular premises: see here https://www3.nd.edu/~maritain/jmc/etext/logic-54.htm, specially eighth rule.

Goodness. Is that your intro to logic? A 1912 text? It's a wee bit behind the times.

As far as my source, pick any modern intro text off the shelf. Layman's "The Power of Logic" calls it Universal Generalization, right there on the inner cover (side conditions on the free variable explicitly stated). Hurley's "A Concise Introduction to Logic" puts it on the final page of the book, again calling it UG. I don't have Copi at hand, but that's the text I learned it from.

The idea is that, so long as the variable we're generalizing is free, not derived from an application of EI (Existential instantiation), does not occur free in our conclusion and does not occur free in an assumption for CP (Conditional Proof) or RAA (Reductio), then we can infer (Ax)Px from Py.

With due respect, I think that maybe your understanding of rules of inference is a bit old-fashioned.

 

[phiwum]

From what I can see at a cursory glance, the text David Mo refers to is talking about Categorical (i.e. Aristotelian) logic. This is a kind of logic that is very limited, completely replaced by first order logic.

 

[David Mo]

From what I can see at a cursory glance, the text David Mo refers to is talking about Categorical (i.e. Aristotelian) logic. This is a kind of logic that is very limited, completely replaced by first order logic.

Syllogisms are incorporated in modern Boolean algebra and Venn diagrams. It is not a relic. Here, and universal sentence cannot be concluded from two particular sentences (the concept of particular is also a concept of modern predicate logic).
I think you don't understand well the Rule of Universal Generalization. But this is not our subject and I am not expert in logic.

 

[phiwum]

Syllogisms are incorporated in modern Boolean algebra and Venn diagrams. It is not a relic. Here, and universal sentence cannot be concluded from two particular sentences (the concept of particular is also a concept of modern predicate logic).

But it is just obviously false that you can't draw a conclusion from two existential statements in first order logic. From "Some dogs are green" and "Some dogs are blue" I can obviously draw the conclusion "Some dogs are green and some dogs are blue." You couldn't do that in Aristotelian logic, of course, because it doesn't include the "and".

And, like heck Aristotelian logic is not a relic. It is taught only in courses where either the instructor thinks the full first-order calculus is too difficult, where he thinks that Aristotelian logic is a good introduction to first-order or where he is interested in historical logic. There is literally no use for Aristotelian logic in modern research, aside from historical interests.

(Curiously, Ayn Rand had a deep love of Aristotle, so Objectivism still treats the topic as relevant, but Objectivism isn't really a respected school of philosophy.)

I think you don't understand well the Rule of Universal Generalization. But this is not our subject and I am not expert in logic.

With due respect, I have a bit of a background in logic. I do understand the rules of first-order logic.

 

[David Mo]

But it is just obviously false that you can't draw a conclusion from two existential statements in first order logic. From "Some dogs are green" and "Some dogs are blue" I can obviously draw the conclusion "Some dogs are green and some dogs are blue." You couldn't do that in Aristotelian logic, of course, because it doesn't include the "and".

And, like heck Aristotelian logic is not a relic. It is taught only in courses where either the instructor thinks the full first-order calculus is too difficult, where he thinks that Aristotelian logic is a good introduction to first-order or where he is interested in historical logic. There is literally no use for Aristotelian logic in modern research, aside from historical interests.

(Curiously, Ayn Rand had a deep love of Aristotle, so Objectivism still treats the topic as relevant, but Objectivism isn't really a respected school of philosophy.)



With due respect, I have a bit of a background in logic. I do understand the rules of first-order logic.

Then you should have to recognise that "Some dogs are green and some dogs are blue" is a particular sentence as the two premises. Not a universal.