Discord Debate: Objective Morality [1]

A relativist who can't keep things straight. Title has [1] not because there is more for this encounter, but because there will surely be more encounters on this in the future, most likely not with him.

[@benzur3503]

A repeating error in subjectivism arguers is that they’re mixing up categories with particulars. They keep thinking “well mismatches between individual understandings and general categories are possible therefore there can’t be any matching between categories and particulars outside of an individuals cognition”. Jumping from possibility to totality with zero justification, while still appealing to the same damn category in their attempt to say it’s impossible to make use of it.

[@conforzo]

Escaping death is internal to prey-animals. To run away from predators is them striving to Be, and when they succeed maybe they feeel an immense sense of Being in the world, but somtimes they fail. It was good watching your video on the Ideal before watching this, mainly how the abstract figment, the small part made into an Absolute, is ultimately evil. Wanting to protect prey animals from predators is sheer ignorance, these two concepts are definetely utterly depedent on each other, and wouldn't it be basically stopping whatever sublates predator/prey in its self-determination?

[@g.boychev9355]

Asking "Why is the whole system good?" as a being within the system is funny. One has to both assume they're literally God standing outside space and time and yet play humble and claim they only opine subjectively. Like subjectivity is somehow empty, yet somehow substantial."Why is the world good?" - which world? Try to point at it. Where would you be pointing from?

[@grilla4464]

I think the reason he thought you were making an assumption was because he didn't bridge the notion with the thing itself. Like with your car analogy or anything else for that matter, you're not assuming what a thing is by conceiving it according to its own mechanisms, that's just what it is. The confusion that an assumption is being made only occurs when one assumes that the notion is different from reality, that the thing itself is not its own notion and category.
I can understand this confusion too because I experience it in my own thinking, but when I break it down it doesn't make sense to ask "But how do you know this is the definition of a car?" because the question itself assumes that the car would be anything other than itself. Maybe its getting tied up on the label that causes this feeling, I don't know but its strange.

[@AntonioWolfphilosophy]

What you say about why he might have thought this makes sense. If that was the case, then the question of equivocation I made was relevant: he questioned the definition based on a completely irrational assumption that there was measure to look at that allowed him to conceive that there *could* be a mismatch, but he himself already had defined his own position out of having such a capacity, and he did nit understand this limitation he had hung himself with. Since I had not limited myself to that, my position has no problem with that. When asked how I know the thing is what I say, I can appeal to the empirical and logical fact that it independently has made.itself what it is regardless of my ignorance or perception (plants grow themselves, the engine works, etc.).

[@lendrestapas2505]

Wasn’t the issue rather:
With the car example, it‘s clear that then you are describing a car and that you are not making something up or assuming something. But with words like "good" or "free" or "beautiful" this is more difficult. I think he just wanted to know what about self-mechanism is good and AW responded "that‘s just what good is, it‘s the definition of good". But here we can point to other conceptions of Good and that‘s when he would have to argue why his conception of Good is the correct one.

[@AntonioWolfphilosophy]

@@lendrestapas2505 No. Someone can just point out that according to someone else's use of the *word name* car, they mean what I call a banana. He was asking for proof of the concept, which in his own admission was asking for something he did not even believe could exist. He had no problem stipulating his definitions out of thin air without any explanation. I gave a far greater explanation for my reasoning, one in which I even connected the word choice with the everyday common sense usage which any normal person would agree as having some significant overlap with my specific definition. My argument ascends from the everyday usage to an explanation of the unity of everyday usage. I pointed out that he was invoking an objective sense of Good when he said he didn't believe my use was correct, and his response was to double down on equivocation as it suited him. It is nonsense to say you deny a domain, prescribe your own subjective fiction explicitly as fiction, and when someone else presents what to them appears as yet another fiction, invoke incorrectness appealing to the presence of a check of what is and is not this object. The whole argument strategy he was using was self-contradictory in the bad sense, and incompetent. He himself followed along and admitted that what I said was sensical even in his worldview, that is up until I used a word he loaded with meaning he was not warranted, and refused to accept as meaningful as I was using it.
The guy specifically charged me for assuming the conclusion, which a definition is not. Given the definition of the good, I could say what falls in and out of it by mere recognition checks.

[@snowy-g9p]

@@AntonioWolfphilosophy the problem is your position has an assumption the subjectivist did not. As long as we can agree people have values then the argument from your opponent logically follows. Yours however as an objectivist can never prove that the foundation for something is true and as an objectivist you are saying there is a moral foundation that is true.

[@snowy-g9p]

@@AntonioWolfphilosophy regardless of if someone renames the word car to bananas the thing self (what we call a banana or car) are still real. Finally you defined your conclusion in your definition, by saying its true by the definition means that you are including your conclusion in your definition.

[@snowy-g9p]

you lost the interaction here AW there is no bridge between why something like life has value and just saying "why not kill yourself" does not really give a response to why life has inherent value. Even a subjectivist view can simply account that they subjectively value life.

[@AntonioWolfphilosophy]

>there is no bridge between life and value
Because you subjectively believe so with no basis other than opinion? Great argument. Asking someone why they haven't killed themselves the moment they question why being is valuable is a proper argument to the claim that pretends to question this value and does not live what the question really entails in proper doubt.
Philosophy for you people is a word game, and that's why you fail. It's not about words, it's about meaning and consequence both as form and content. That's also why you don't understand performance critiques, since you think that the only thing in play is what one says, not what one does.

[@snowy-g9p]

@@AntonioWolfphilosophyThe level of dishonesty and misrepresentation in the argument is astounding. Nowhere did I call this a word game I am literally saying things exist and are true if you cant address the argument you have no real ground in the first place.

[@AntonioWolfphilosophy]

@@snowy-g9p
> Nowhere did I call this a word game
Did I say you did? Because, my illiterate acquaintance, I took the 30 seconds to read the post I wrote, and mine eyes doth not deceive me.
You really want to be a fool, so be my guest. You're not the first person that tells me this, and completely misses my point no matter how many ways I spin it. I'll repeat it: the issue concerns content-form operations. I will bring into an argument your performance of meaning, not just your stated words. You may not believe that you treat reason as a word game, but you're doing it, and keep repeating that action. I'm pointing it out. Your incapacity to self-reflect is, well, your problem.

[@mono90286]

Morality is subjective, you're wrong. Source: Nuh uh.
I'm joking, of course i will back it up.
So, a distinction can be drawn between what IS, and what OUGHT to be. This is known in philosophy as the is/ought gap. An is can be determined objectively, by observation of the world around us. Oughts cannot in the same way be determined objectively. All oughts are essentially, a value judgement. A value is an ideal, and where the world differs from that ideal is called "evil". The thing is, there is no objective basis to base that value in. There is no reason why you couldn't choose a different value. An ought can be derived from another ought, but not from an is, and since what which is is the only thing that can be determined objectively, oughts cannot be determined objectively.
If there was another humanoid species on mars that viewed murder as perfectly acceptable, there would be no reason why their value judgements are any more valid than ours.
This leads to some pretty unacceptable conclusions, as i am sure we can both agree. Why not allow murder, rape, and all manner of atrocities?
However, i have an answer to this. If there is no objective oughts, there is no objective ought to be rational.
If we are to forsake rationality, we can choose some oughts. We might look at the fact that humans desire to be happy, and (with the premise that we ought to do what humanity desires, since no ought can be derived from an is) conclude that we ought to do what makes us happy. That is our first principle. Now we can derive all manner of other oughts, including that we ought to be rational, since rationality is helpful for compassion.
Sorry for the wall of text. But that is my philosophy on morality, in a nutshell.

[@jackjak392]

The is-ought gap is not a philosophic problem, but a logical fallacy. It is "solved" by not making that fallacy. Same as for all other known logical fallacies.
Morals that are objectively accepted by consensus can be derived from written scripture. If you are inclined to believe such things, they can be decided by gods.
Relative morals can be derived by pure reason, using e.g. the golden rule.
Objective morals cannot be logically derived from anything, or at least no such approach is successful in philosophy so far.

[@mono90286]

@@jackjak392 How is the is-ought gap fallacious?