All moral arguments are merely battles with words. And all our logic to that end is contrived reinforcement of things we already believe or things we want to believe.
The only good moral argument, the only valid moral argument argument, is the one that’s cleverer, more persuasive than its opposition.
I need some help thinking this through, can I get some corroboration or an explanation of my error?
This is what my mortal enemy, iambiguous, thinks. Whenever I present him with an irrefutable argument—he accuses me of just “using words”… as if we could talk/argue with anything other than words. He is convinced that you can infer from the fact that people disagree, total nihilism. That’s as illegitimate as infering Absolute Truth just from the fact that people agree.
A valid argument is when the conclusion must be true if the premises are. In that sense, persuasiveness has nothing to do with validity.
All arguments are battles with words. If I may state the obvious. Also.
That’s a little oversimplifed. We may have conflicting or even self-contradictory beliefs. Logic is a great aid, here. You just have to apply some diligence to the process, which moral nihilists seem top refuse to do.
You’re throwing terms around with some abandon. Validity and “goodness” are two different things. The diligent philosopher will not use “valid” except as a technical term about the form of an argument, having nothing to do with the content, and “good” for some other quality. Philosophy can help us to win battles against those who do not know the difference, for one thing.
There is no substitute for learning the basics, so that we can at least speak precisely about such matters. But if the gist of your post is that “we”, in some sense, decide what is morally good and what is not, then you are hopelessly correct.
well sometimes actual weapons are used
often, but not necessarily, there actually are times when we don’t know what we believe or want to believe until we have worked through some logic or followed a certain line of reasoning to a conclusion. but more often our moral reasoning is just words backing up some gut reaction we’ve already had.
yeah, but what one usually finds persuasive or clever is simply that which reinforces one’s own previously held biases, so it’s not even a question of the merit of a given argument so much as it’s a question of what we’re predisposed to believe.
LoL
Okay well, as it happens, that is not my inference.
Yes, I’ve taught logic before. I’m redefining validity to make a point. I want to know how my point stands up to criticism.
I don’t understand your response. I’m not sure why the idea I’m talking about cannot account for having contradictory or self-contradictory beliefs.
No I’m quite deliberate in my word choice. See my response to Monooq.
Hm. Yeah. We decide what is good or not, but then we tell other people why said thing is good, as if the goodness belongs to the thing and not our characterization of it. This is how logic to that end is contrived reinforcement of things we already believe or things we want to believe.
My point is that we may desire not to have conflicting beliefs, and so logic will not, if applied well, simply reinforce what we already believe. it may cause us to modify our beliefs, to avoid self-contradiction.
Ahhh - you’re own definitions. Care to share with the class?
We do that? I don’t do that. if you do that, maybe you’d be happier if you stopped.
True, but when we figure out what we believe or what we think we believe or want to believe, we argue for it. And I’m saying those moral arguments are bullshit in that there is no right or wrong although people seem to think so – hence the logic and sophisticated argumentation, as if it proves one person’s or group’s morals are morally better than anyone else’s.
Welcome to the real world, fuse.
Yes, true. Logic can help us sort out contradicting beliefs. But can it help someone to prove that their sense of good or bad is morally superior to another? I mean sure, we can point out mundane fallacies but I don’t see that we can reconcile two fallacy free moral points of view.
What a snarky thing for you to say… 
Class, today I will use the word “validity” in a figurative manner to question whether moral reasoning can actually get to some truth about morality or whether it’s all just posturing and persuasion.
You don’t think many people think this way in general?
I don’t think people think much at all about their moral values. I don’t think it occurs to most people that some of their moral values conflict. In my experience, most people have conflicting and largely unexamined moral values. But they do change these values, mostly when they come up upon a hard case.
There’s the woman who never thought she would have an abortion, until…
Or that man who thought he would never lie to his wife, until…
Or any number of scenarios. I think most people go through life with some vague instructions from their parents, and some peer pressure type stuff, and sort of wend their way through life with a sort of 51% compliance to their own cloudy notions about what is right.
ppl, I see you are hung up on this:
…I’m debasing the term “validity” as it applies to moral arguments…as if to say that arguing about different moral points of view, and thinking one moral sense must be more logical than another, is an illusion…and that one might as well use persuasiveness or cleverness as the new standard of validity for moral arguments.
I agree with you. And yet people argue that other people are wrong about what is good and what is not.
We have Conditional Imperatives such as “If you want nice looking, healthy teeth, then you should floss and brush them.”
But then we have Moral Imperatives, e.g. “You ought not to eat meat.” – the type with which I am concerned – as I don’t see how (beyond simple contradictions and mundane fallacies) one argument can better any other argument about moral imperatives.
Thanks, I’ve been stumbling around here for ages, and not once until now has anyone greeted me with a proper welcome.
Also, I’m going out for a bit, but I’ll check back here later to see what people are saying. Perhaps someone else will point out that I’ve used the term “validity” incorrectly 
I shall keep a tally.
Of course they do. They argue about a lot of things. The philosopher seeks better arguments, is all. Arguments that do not contain internal contradictions are difficult to come by.
Take the current (and soon to be passe) arguments about gay marriage. The anti-gay side is outsmarting itself, as it is arguing over a particular word - “marriage”. Thus, we have gay civil unions. At some point, it’s likely that the US government will get out of the marriage business entirely and exclusively into the civil union business. Marriage per se will mean even less than it does now, which is a neat trick. The anti group had a really bad argument. I think they would be able to hold out longer if they had a better one. it’s not all-or-nothing. Since we all die, time matters.
Two different usages of “imperative.”
“If you want nice looking, healthy teeth, then you should floss and brush your teeth.”
You can take out the “should” without changing the meaning. “If you want healthy teeth, brush and floss.” An imperative is a language form. Science doesn’t really employ those.
Any moral statement implies an imperative. That they are difficult to rank is the reason we have invented gods. Lots of authority in an all-knowing, all-powerful being. But the fact is that morals change over time, and a good argument will sway the undecided better than a bad one. As philosophers we care a lot about morality, but most people care more about Jersey Shore. They may cluck about The Situation’s sexual mores, but they seem to love him nonetheless.
people mostly just try to get their way, but only in that which matters to them. many people approve of gay marriage only because first, they can’t figure out how it affects them and only second because the pro-gay side makes more sense. A good argument is just one piece of the puzzle. As philosophers, we tend to think it means more, but it doesn’t. But it still means something.
All is vanity.
Hm. Yes, we don’t disagree but I might not be expressing myself clearly because I feel like we haven’t got to the crux of what I mean. Will think on it.
I’m at a loss here, because I do not understand that I have made any equivocation on the word “imperative.” And I have no idea what science has to do with any of this (and science doesn’t employ language forms???). You can take out the “should” in the conditional as you have done above and it is still an imperative…
Imperative = “Brush and floss.” …on the Condition that “you want healthy teeth.” Thus, it’s a Conditional Imperative.
Or am I missing your point?
Perhaps this is getting to my sentiments. Will think on it.
Stay classy, trevor.
You can come to that conclusion, that is fine.
But before you can, you need to address MacIntyre’s position.
I’m not saying you have to agree with his position on emotivism. I mean, hell, you could agree with his take on emotivism while disagreeing with his critique of it. But just saying “emotivism therefore nothing” is playing into his hands. At least do something original. I mean, After Virtue came out in 1981. That is 30 years.
30 years.
Be better than trying to argue an issue 30 years settled.