Hi DT,
In response to your post 133:
I may be wrong, but I think you are misinterpreting what Alan was trying to do with this – he certainly claims you are all misinterpreting him as he said above, whether I am too only he can confirm. I don’t think he is saying that if you think TACTDJFF is morally wrong in all circumstances it is an example of OM BECAUSE you think it,
But I didn't say this. I said that he suggested that anyone who thinks that TACTDJFF is morally wrong(or even morally right) in all circumstances should also logically accept that OM exists.(see his Mess 1312 in the original thread). I am very happy to accept that this is NOT a valid argument for OM in itself because it is simply opinion. I repeat that I have never stated that I believe TACTDJFF is wrong in all circumstances.
rather I reckon he is trying to say that TACTDJFF is an example of something that reveals our basic intuitions about morality such that we couldn’t ever consider it right even if there was only one person around to have a view on it, and that was the psychopath doing the torturing….in other words I think he was hoping this would get people to admit that opinions about TACTDJFF were irrelevant and it had to be considered wrong because of fundamental features inherent in the act itself. He then no doubt wanted to go on and say it is just this intuition – that moral wrongness is inherent in the qualities of the act itself rather than in anyone’s opinions about them that show the objective character of OM.
I have understood this from the start. Indeed, at an early stage, Alan suggested this. He sees the idea of TACTDJFF as being wrong as 'blindingly obvious'(post 83). The problem with this approach is that whatever reasons Alan(or others) have given for justifying the immorality of TACTDJFF, they still remain opinions, and do not necessarily point to the existence of an objective morality which is extraneous to human beings. Furthermore, intuition, I would suggest, is no argument for the existence of OM. That is not to say that morality is not inherent in the act itself, but to suggest that this is so, rather than being a human construct, needs some more objective method for reaching that conclusion.
I think Alan didn’t help himself at times with the way he worded things. Further, I don’t think principles lie at the centre of morality at all, nevertheless this is my interpretation of Alan’s intention I think rather than interpreting Alan as arguing that the objectivity of morality derived from the fact that we all agree about it being wrong.
Fair enough.
Synonym wrote:
That doesn't say that OM exists because of something a person believes. It says that the person ought to believe that OM exists because of something else they believe.
Bang on...which is what Alan was trying to do I think.
I really have no problem with this, as I have explained above. If a person believes something which fits with a definition of OM, then logically they should accept OM.
Depends on the suitably of the point made here. If it is, as HT has taken it, that the very fact our view on OM is our opinion in itself invalidates that it can be OM that’s just a mistake because there is no reason an opinion is only an opinion and that we can’t also have opinions about things that are also facts. If you mean that his argument is invalid unless he can prove OM then this is also wrong because meta-ethics, just as metaphysics, are rarely if ever things that are capable of this sort of proof. Rather we have to test whether how well our theories of morality can explain morality as it is practiced. The nature and character of our moral thought.
On the first part of this paragraph I have already said this when I suggested in Mess 105 of this thread "Of course holding an opinion on anything could be true/false, accurate/inaccurate, valid/invalid."
On the second part, if we are to abandon the sort of proof that I (and others) request, then I would happily agree that our theories of morality have to be tested, and the nature and character of our moral thought have to be studied, and, as a most important rider, we have to also try to find the origins of our moral thought and behaviour.
Well there is ‘evidence’ if an assumption of fact is explicit in our moral discourse, which I have argued it is…it leaves you with either having to accept OM or to argue that all of our sense of morality is a distortion or an illusion. As a metaphysical question if you were looking for a stronger form of evidence equivalent to something in the natural sciences then you are just misappropriating standards of proof from one field of human inquiry to another where they don’t and couldn’t possibly apply.
Well my own attitude to morality is as follows:
I see morality as a human construct based upon the need for social cohesion, driven by the qualities of empathy and altruism and and fashioned by culture, nurture and rationality. I would suggest that my personal morals are a result of these, and capable of wide interpretation given any particular 'moral' situation. I may well be wrong on any particular instance according to others who may take a contrary and opposing view. Indeed I may even change my moral stance if I am convinced that I should do so. I try to follow what I think is reasonable 'moral' behaviour according to the view of morality that I have described.
