Here’s a hypothetical scenario. Take Charles Manson and Nancy Grace. Say they went strolling down the streets of New York together on a Friday night, when suddenly a man appeared out of nowhere and began sexually assaulting a little girl. Grace began to scream in terror for the little girl, whilst Manson began to cheer the Rapist on. Both Charles Manson and Nancy Grace have witnessed the same action. Both Charles Manson and Nancy Grace are fully aware of how the little girl must be feeling (Manson is many things, but stupid isn’t one of them), yet one finds the act horrific, the other finds the act exhilarating. These facts must not be inherenly horrific or exhilarating. Grace’s Brain must be hardwired to respond to another’s suffering differently than Manson’s brain. What other possible explanation could there be?
That one of them has perceived, and the other failed to perceive, the objective disvalue of the situation.
I could just as easily say that Nancy failed to perceive the objective value of the situation.
What fact of the matter has Manson failed to percieve? He may be a sadist, but he’s arguably not stupid or insane.
Does Nancy have a 6th sense that allows her to see “objective bad” in this scenario? Conversely does Manson have a 7th sense that allows him to see " objective good" in this scenario?
Yes, you could. And, ex hypothesi, one of us would be mistaken.
According to the objectivist, the fact that the action he’s witnessed is objectively bad.
I don’t believe so, but according to one version of the theory you’ve alleged is impossible, the relevant faculty is ‘intuition’.
I wonder how the objectivist believes he can determine who’s mistaken? I don’t think you can.
What queer sort of fact that would be. There’s nothing physical or objective about value. You can’t roll value down a hill, or kick value across a feild. It must be mental or subjective.
Yeah, besides the moral sense theory, there’s the moral intution theory. Once again, Manson’s intuition may be superior to Grace’s.
So what? The fact that we can’t determine which of two mutually contradictory claims is true entails neither that both of them are false (as the error theorist would have it) nor that they’re about the claimants’ mental states (as the subjectivist would have it). It entails merely that we’re doomed to live in ignorance. In any case, the problem for intuition is ultimately no worse than the problem for the physical senses. In the extreme case, if everyone disagreed at every point in the deliverances of their physical senses, there would be no way of resolving the differences between them.
Again, so what? Queerness doesn’t entail, and never has entailed, impossibility. (I see you’ve swallowed a copy of Mackie.)
Fair enough, but I have other arguments.
Take a cake and a rock. Most people consider a cake to be more valuable than a rock. Most people consider a cake to be softer than a rock. A things hardness changes the way it interacts with the physical world. How does a things value change the way it interacts with the world? It doesn’t. Therefore, a things value can’t be part of the physical world, but the mental world. Things that are harder than others are more resistant and durable. Things that are rounder than others can be rolled down a hill. Things that are heavier than others are harder to lift. Things that are supposedly more valuable than others are, what? The value of an object is non physical. All of an object’s properties uniquely affect the physical world in some way, with the exception of it’s value. That’s because value isn’t a property of the physical world, but a property of the mental world.
To Churro
hmmm, I guess it’s possible Charles Manson might have been morally dizzy when he cheered the serial rapist on?
What about my second argument? Do you think it holds any water?
Can you prove that values are more subjective than sensory perception?
Makes sense to me.
You know what is valuable to you. Is the concern about what is objectively valuable not applicable? If the former is not the case, then there is something lacking in you and your ability to function within a system that provides for your survival. If the latter is not the case, you may be ignorant of a system that you can use to acquire what is valuable to you.
You seem to be ignoring the horrendous effects of “upbringing” and medical environment. “Hardwiring” might well have presented the exact same response from both parties if not overshadowed and reprogrammed into a different response.
This doesn’t mean that there is objective value, but rather just that your scenario cannot be taken on face value as evidence of “objective value” either pro or con.
But since the very concept of “value” refers to “value TO someone/thing”, it would be impossible to claim anything as an objective value. It would be like claiming “objective largeness”.
But on the other hand, there definitely are things that always assist any living being (thus always have value), not many, but they exist.
You’ve presented a false dichotomy. There’s a third option: that values are non-natural (i.e. non-empirical).
Perhaps I should make it clear that I am myself a subjectivist. I’m just defending objectivism because I think you’ve made too strong a claim. You’ve mentioned some good reasons for doubting the existence of objective values, but you haven’t shown that they can’t exist.
True, but there are some people who’ve had a relatively normal upbringing and medical environment (Jeffrey Dahmer) who’ve turned out a little different than the rest of us. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we should let these people run loose, I’m just saying that values are subjective. I subjectively feel that people like that should be locked up. It’s normal for a lion to eat it’s step cubs. It’s normal for politicians and monarchs to massacre millions of innocent people. We’re never going to be able to find objective values for everyone, all the time, but we may be able to find subjective values for most of the people, most of the time.
That might be true, I think Remster may have dealt my original arguement a fatal blow, but I have other arguments, so does Churro.
i don’t believe in objective largness, but in objective largerness. If one thing appears larger than another thing to one person, it absollutely appears larger to all persons. If one thing appears uglier than another thing to one person, it’s not necessarily uglier to all persons. Clearly there’s nothing even remotely objective about aesthetics and morality. However, I do believe it’s an objective fact that most people are opposed to the slaughter and consumption of children.
I can’t think of any. I tried oxygen, water, sunlight, but even these things can kill you when consumed in excessive quantities.
Fair enough, I accept your critique.
Okay, so what are these ‘other arguments’ that you’ve declared to James S Saint? Are they intended to show that values can’t be objective, or merely that we have reason to doubt whether there are objective values?
Here’s another one refuting ethical naturalism.
Man has never, nor will he ever be able to manufacture an instrument or device capable of detecting and recording objective value.
Here’s one refuting both, I think.
i don’t believe in objective largness, but in objective largerness. If one thing appears larger than another thing to one person, it absollutely appears larger than the other thing to all persons. If one thing appears (via intuition, esp or sp) uglier than another thing to one person, it’s not necessarily uglier than the other thing to all persons.
Here’s an even better one.
If one person is non naturally detecting beauty in a womans eyes, and another person is non naturally detecting ugliness in the same womans eyes, her eyes must not be beautiful nor ugly, for something cannot be both itself and it’s opposite in the same time and place. Therefore, the only alternative explanation I can think of is; it must be men who are responding to the same womans eyes in a different way.
THAT’S IT. I HAVE SINGLE HANDEDLY REFUTED OBJECTIVE VALUE, IN BOTH IT’s NATURAL AND NON NATURAL FORMS, CONQUERED ONCE AND FOR ALL.
I’m not attempting to defend non-reductive naturalism, so I’ll pass over this one (though you should at least be aware of the idea that certain emotions are a kind of ‘moral sense’).
But the objectivist explains this fact by postulating that some appearances are veridical and others are illusory. Of course, this leaves the problem of determining which are veridical and which are illusory, but we’ve already been through that.
See my last reply. Note that your line of reasoning applies equally (viz. not at all) to perception by the physical senses, where the notion of veridical versus illusory appearances is commonplace.
LOL
I’m not through yet.
If you ask a man what he finds beautiful about a woman, he will likely point to the color of her eyes, or the shape of her breasts, he won’t say; I find her beautiful beautiful. Therefore, beauty at least is based on the physical world. It’s not some psychic property he finds beautiful, it’s her eyes and her breasts. The same eyes and the same breasts aren’t beautiful for everyone, therefore, they’re neutral. Two men can point to the same physical features and disagree over their beauty. That’s because beauty is in the mind of the beholder.
Then there’s the whole you can’t get an is from an ought thing. How can an is inherently be an ought? A red can’t inherently be a blue. A dog can’t inherently be a cat. It is what it is what it is. Am I on the right track Churro? That’s basically the same thing I was saying anyway, from another angle.
So it’s not the act of murder that’s bad, it’s the bad of the murder that’s bad? No one says it’s the bad of the murder that’s bad, they say the murder itself is bad.
How could an is (murder) inherently be an ought (don’t murder)? It makes no sense. Or how could murder inherently be both murder and bad? Murder and don’t murder/badness are three different things.
If it’s the bad of murder that’s bad, like badness was somehow connected with murder, then murder is no more inherently bad than apples are inherently red. What kind of ******** is that? Is that what we’re dealing with here? Then it’s just a coincidence that murder happened to be associated with bad, it could be connected with compassion or cleanliness. At what point does all this amount to a bunch of ********? What about Ockham’s razor? It’s much easier and simpler to say that different people feel differently about similar things.
You never hear people say; well I don’t mind murder itself, it’s the “badness” of murder I don’t like.
Murder is not an “is” pur sang. Killing is an is, murder is a legal(/moral) category for a type of killing. Accidental deaths are not (necessarily) murder, mercy killings are not (necessarily) murder, self-defence is not (necessarily) murder. Murder is causing another’s death in a way not condoned by a legal/moral system; the definition of the word already includes the ‘ought not’. Killing is not inherently ought-not, outside a few religions.