You didn’t give a reason for thinking there’s a distinction, you just said in so many words that there was a distinction. I, on the other hand, did a fair bit about this in my OP.
And clearly, there is no essential distinction between pragmatic and principalled oughts. For a Consequentialist, any time you have a rule or a principle, the rule or principle itself is justified on pragmatic grounds (i.e., whether it tends toward the better consequences). Even if you are a deontologist, (though this is a source of embarassment for deontologists), your principled oughts are ultimately justified on pragmatic grounds. You know why Kant doesn’t think that acting on many universalizable maxims is what you ought to do? —Because they have bad consequences. He says so himself. Ultimately, I still just don’t think you know what you mean by the terms you’re drawing a distinction between. It’d be helpful if you tried defining both ‘prudence’ and then ‘morality’… and then tried to justify and make sense of that distinction. As I did at the start of my OP.
I’ve already addressed this in the debate, and elsewhere to you specifically. If you need to get where you’re going, then your GPS is dispensing morally relevant facts. And if you don’t need to get where you’re going, then your GPS isn’t even dispensing prudential facts, let alone moral ones. And that I have a difference of degree, and that we use language in that way, and apply terms by degree where there’s no essential difference, accounts for this. Honestly, how much of the debate did you read? There was a whole part about the difference between adult and child, and degrees, and no essential… anyways, whatever.
Mo_, I meant objective when I say universal. I think a context dependent morality is still universal, in the sense that any two people in the same context are bound by the same morality. If that’s not the case, I don’t know how it can be objective either.
This statement is much too strong. Why can’t someone who would stone their daughter recognize that he thinks I’m wrong, and then put the burden right back on me? We can’t both bear the burden, and it’s not useful to talk about a burden if who bears it depends on who you ask, so either we can shift the burden back and forth by mere internal recognition of our own beliefs, or that recognition is not sufficient to determine who bears the burden in the first place.
What about the classic case of stealing the cure for your dying wife or child? This seems to be a clear case of a conflict of morality and immorality in the same way that hiding jews during the holocaust was a conflict between morality and imprudence.
I’m not saying that there’s no difference between prudence and morality, and I don’t think Mo_ is either. We’ve both argued that they are at different places along the same spectrum, which is to say that they’re different in the same way that children and adults are different, or hot and cold are different, or natural and artficial are different. But the ways in which they are the same is significant in all these cases. Moreover, for my position anyway, it’s significant that the line between prudence and morality is somewhat arbitrary and subjective, even though to a great degree the spectrum itself is objective.
To this last point, perhaps looking for borderline cases is the best way to make this argument. Is the existence of a “right to choose” in respect to abortion a moral or a prudent question? I think people will come down on either side. Similarly, look at libertarian arguments for minimizing government and taxation. For some, the question is about what’s prudent: government just makes people worse off, etc. etc… For others, it’s moral: government has no right to restrict our freedom, etc. etc. Here too, it’s not clear cut whether the question is a moral one or a prudential one. It will depend where you draw the line.
He could, I guess. (I was counting on FJ not doing that). In that case, I guess the burden is in no one’s court. And everybody has some explaining to do.
MO_ your first post was tooooooooo long, it could easily be halfed.
Per se it seems that there are no major objective morals, but there are a few, that not to lie, steal, randomly kill, etc, such basic kind of behaviours that will make a society stable.
I read your opening post and FJ’s first post. I doubt there is really much to say about it because it seems too far from my beliefs on the subject of morality. It seems that you and FJ, despite your differences in opinion, started the debate with quite a few fundamental agreements on the subject of morality in general. I’ve been know, for the sake of argument, to refer to morality as relative or subjective, but honestly I don’t even recognize the validity of the term. I didn’t completely understand your opening post, but perhaps it was sufficient for proving morality is objective, assuming it even exists.
Not to make the assumption that this is even an argument you want to get into, but assuming at one time or another it is, I think we’d have to start with an argument on the very existence of objective truths in general. This is a thread on nihilism I made ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopi … 1&t=181472.
It is taking the subject of subjectivity farther than I would wish to go here, where I’m only advocating the lack of belief in objectivity not that one nihilate all their subjective beliefs, but in it you can see where I’m coming from. I’d like at least for you, sometime, to answer these two questions; have you ever thought about a subject, concept, idea, etc. so long that it lost all meaning? And, whether or not you did, would you argue that the meaninglessness this over thinking gives to ideas, etc. is just a psychological illusion or could you think of some other argument? It seems to me this is proof of the meaninglessness of truth, but I wonder how you can refute that.
Stuart, I would think, the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of truths as defined by the lack of substance/value they contain have nothing to do with each other. Purely formal substantive ideas, and "truth" being the idea within your own example, even if TRUTH is nowhere to be found, It still has a possibility, acting as a reservoir for subjective opinions.(As to truth). That said, within a given context 2 people agree on a certain singular definitive value of what that truth is, it gains more objectivity. This implies that absolute objectivity may not even be possible in the same mode, as we were to inquire into the absolute value of "truth". The problem with this type of argument in my opinion, is that we treat objective morality as it were questions of right and wrong on the same plane. There are many sub groups under truth, and seeking the absolute truth is kind of a truism, or ideas based on less generalization. This is where the dichotomy between objective and subjective breaks down, and this is the point where Nietzche tries to dilute the problem with purely objective morality.
It seems to me the main proposal here, VRs, is Objective based on subjective criteria.
We use subjective experiences as the axioms, then try to maximize the good ones and minimize the bad ones.
It’s an objective morality given subjective metrics.
It is not claiming that stars and meteors and alien civilizations or bacteria should also think that what is good for homo sapiens is objectively good.
Yea, perhaps. The important distinction is between “subjectivity” and “subject-dependence”. Morality is subject-dependent, but not subjective. So, what’s the diff?
Analogy: It takes a subject to have physical health. (Physical health is subject-dependent). But whether or not something (e.g., drinking paint) is good for your physical health is not subjective (i.e., it’s not a matter of your opinion).
Morality is subject-dependent—there’d be no way you ought to act without a subject who can act. But morality is not subjective—how you ought to act is not always a matter of your opinion.
It could have been condensed to the morality-strategy conflation. If morals are subjective, then there’s no difference between how one ought to live properly versus how one ought to live successfully. The very reference to morality would be irrelevant.
Daktoria, I agree in a sense. But, it’s not even a question of strategy and “morality” being different. “Morality” is still “important” for most, despite its complete and utter subjectivity, not because of any agreement on the issues, but because for the majority of individuals, they come to the conclusion that thinking in terms of and applying their personal (what else could it be but personal) definition of the word “morality”, whatever relation it has to the words root meanings. I have a sense of the word “morality” that I use, it’s important to me because I grew up with the term, I can’t just get rid of all of its meaning.
Now I like to distinguish between discussions on the subjectivity of the word “morality”, which I’m doing here, and discussions on “moral” issues, which I have done on other threads.
In a discussion on “moral” issues the term “moral” doesn’t necessarily need to be in quotation marks, just like the word “word” doesn’t need to be in quotation marks, because then we wouldn’t be discussing the term, but the issues. Nonetheless, I think a productive discussion (that is for me, I let others worry about its productivity themselves) is one where a general outcome is “agreed” upon as being “good” before discussing how to accomplish it, all the while the term “morality” having no place.
Obe, Moreno and von Rivers despite the differences of opinions you have I think you all seem to be claiming that objectivity exists through two or more subjects being in agreement. That goes back to my original question:
To expand on the question within the context of agreement, I only need to change the wording somewhat:
Have you ever discussed with someone a subject, concept, idea, etc. and felt you both came to an agreement then found out in practice you both never agreed on anything? And, whether or not you did, would you argue that the meaninglessness the application of practice to discussion may show is just a psychological illusion or could you think of some other argument?
I don’t think two people ever agree on anything to a greater extent than to end the discussion amicably or for within the context of the agreement, notwithstanding unexpected events (which may be about as likely to happen as not), to not step on each other’s toes.
This illusion of objectivity within one’s ideas, or within an “agreement with others” I would say just comes down to not “pushing the issues far enough”. I’ve always pushed the issues, but it took me over twenty years of such an inner search for truth, or coherency, of any idea, and an outer search for consistency among any two people to be able to confidentially say that objectivity has no meaning.
This kind of search is not recommended, it may have a “good” effect on those around you, being that it might make you less hypocritical (that is it might), but it is of no use to one’s self.
Just to be clear, I sometimes try to work from what I consider to be Von River’s position, making arguments and clarifications, as if it was the case.
I think his position is immediately confusing when it is saying that morality is objective or seems to say this. What he is referring to as morality, which it will serve as a guide to actions, is not really what most people mean by morality, which includes things like being good, even if one is not performing an action. He is expanding prudence, or effectiveness, to include what has been covered in morality, so that morality can be worked out by things like scientific empiricism, for example.
IOW he is coupling say, Goodness, with organism homeostasis. Which really means, to me, that it is a small ‘g’, rather than the big G.
He may not agree with all this, but I find it interesting, and think this is a defensible position which I play around within, sometimes with a little mocking, but mostly not.
Sure.
Yes, to the first part. Communication is fallible. I think people tend to be naively optimistic about the application of abstract ideas and how well people’s ideas actually match, despite the same language. Also I think there are very entangled issues when one tries to separate out abstraction from application, and often people convince themselves they believe certain things, but once application comes into play, they clearly do not believe them, despite continued insistence they do.
There are ego beliefs. Which are similar to ego ideas about oneself, but include beliefs about ‘external things’ and beliefs about what one’s beliefs are.
Then there is in the unconscious, which has a mass of beliefs people are often completely unaware, but in fact may be clearer guidelines for others to who the person is and what they are going to do or how it will feel to be around them.
I don’t think people change each other’s minds that much, but I do think people can, in fact, agree, and sometimes even if their words are not aligned. They may not even realize they agree.
WEll, agreement and objectivity are not the same thing. But in practical terms it would be a problem if no one really agreed. AS far as I can tell, however, there are groups out there, and they share beliefs in common, and if their beliefs take over a physical area - a corporation, a school, a family, a gathering, etc. - one can make direct predictions about what it will be like and what changes will take place there. Good predictions. And that these shifts matter. At least to me.
This kind of search is not recommended, it may have a “good” effect on those around you, being that it might make you less hypocritical (that is it might), but it is of no use to one’s self.
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