Morality doesn't make sense.

[Kaz1983]

See I just don't understand how people (the same people who believe that reason is essential for morality that is cognitive to exist), I just don't get how they ground their morality. There must be something grounding morality, either it's reason itself but that doesn't make sense because it just leads to an infinite regress or alternatively it's a non-cognitive quality like desire. Man it's like the free will hypothetical, the one asking whether you would choose chocolate ice cream over vanilla ice cream. Like I said without going into an infinite regress, at the end of the day how can you grounds morality in anything other than a non-cognitive state like desire?

Just like David Hume said;

"Reason is the slave to the passions"

[brimstoneSalad]

Why do words mean what they mean? How do you ground them?

[Red]

Why do words mean what they mean? How do you ground them?

I think Kaz is asking something more along the lines of, how do we prove that morality exists and it is objective?

[Kaz1983]

Why do words mean what they mean? How do you ground them?

Words are grounded in our desire to understand the world. Take these statements;

“I need to clean my bedroom”

This is just you expressing a desire to live in a bedroom that is hygienic rather than un-hygienic and that at the end of the day this is to your benefit. This bedroom is somewhere that you will spend a majority of your day. We all desire to not do any cleaning but rather just enjoy yourself watching a movie on Netflix - whilst eating popcorn... short-term we would all desire that more but this desire is outweighed by your desire to live in a hygienic space and be a healthy human being; now to satisfy this desire means that today you need to clean your room.

“I must catch the bus to work”

This is just you expressing a desire to arrive to work on time. Why you desire to arrive to work on time? Maybe it's because you value the income that the job earns not only you but your family too? Look at it this way, I'm sure you desire not to go to work as well - we all desire that!. It's just that the desire to arrive on work is stronger, losing this job that pays you well is not in your best interests and is definitely something that you would desire to avoid happening. You have probably got a mortgage and some car loans to regularly pay, there are probably other reasons unconscious to you that motivate you to get to work on time.

[Kaz1983]

I think Kaz is asking something more along the lines of, how do we prove that morality exists and it is objective?

I believe morality does exist but it possesses no truth value, That said, subjective morality does not make any sense at all but I don't believe it is objective either cos It cannot be grounded without invoking desire which is a non-cognitive state. Neither are convincing.

Anyways, when it comes to non-cognitive morality, take the moral statement; “murder is bad” - If you hold that morality is non-cognative and does not possess any truth value, it is a meaningless statement; Just like how this statement God is real is a meaningless statement, It cannot be verified either way so it is not true nor false, asking me the question about "why do words mean what they mean and how do you ground them" are both really good examples how you are just expressing your desire towards something, using words - which arise from desire. For me desire gives rise to reason. And desire is a non-cognitive state.

That said, I have a problem with cognitive morality. Take the moral statement; “murder is bad” - If you hold that morality is cognitive and truth value, you use rationality to come to the conclusion that this is a true statement and there is nothing wrong with that. It's like going to the shop and buying a box of chocolates. You get home and then open the box and finding out that you have two options, Peppermint cream and Turkish delight; you then sit down and use your reasoning skills think about which one you will choose, But that is beside the point you didn't choose to buy a box of chocolates but just desired to buy the box of chocolates. That is why I don't believe that morality is subjective, Moral statements don't have any truth value because they aren't grounded in reason but desire.

That means that if you use your reason, to come to the conclusion that “murder is bad” – correct? But if you believe morality has truth value (Moral statements can be either true of false),Which I'm guessing you do, did you use your reason to put yourself in a position to use reason to confirm that the statement “murder is bad” is true? How do you ground your moral framework?

[Kaz1983]

Well it seems as tho you cannot explain to me, how the hell do you ground morality if it's based on reason? But hey, if you don't reply I'll just assume that you do not have an argument to defend your position haha

[Red]

Well it seems as tho you cannot explain to me, how the hell do you ground morality if it's based on reason? Unless you believe morality is non-cognitive

He's probably busy these days, chill. Don't be provocative for the sake of a response.

[Kaz1983]

Well it seems as tho you cannot explain to me, how the hell do you ground morality if it's based on reason? Unless you believe morality is non-cognitive

He's probably busy these days, chill. Don't be provocative for the sake of a response.

I'm not the one being all provocative and misrepresenting people, I just would have thought that seeing as though he's been online, I mean it's not like he has had no time to get online or anything.. he would of replied, even if it's just a quick short reply.. so I don't think I'm making a big deal about things.

[Kaz1983]

Anyways he can take his time and leave me a message when he is not busy, I'll check in here in a week.. it's all good.

[brimstoneSalad]

Why do words mean what they mean? How do you ground them?

Words are grounded in our desire to understand the world. Take these statements;

Close, but not quite.

Words mean what they mean because of the teleology of language -- the root of "ought" in any discussion is those prescriptive meanings.
The purpose is principally communication, and although understanding arguably plays a crucial role in that (a word that doesn't make sense can not communicate things) it's not always understanding of the *world* -- understanding of a shared fiction can be just as important to people (e.g. religion) and communication of ideas can occur in those domains too. Things do not have to be true, real, or grounded in the physical to be understood and communicated in the sense to which they are relevant to language, the essential limitations would only be something like the laws of thought (without which understanding really isn't possible no matter how much some people may pretend it is).

If you have a problem with is-ought, the moment you use language you have already presupposed a broad category of oughts as to what words ought to mean. And once we determine what morality ought to mean, we can talk about what it is.

“I need to clean my bedroom”

It's an incomplete thought. "In order to X I need to Y" is the correct hypothetical norm.

Stop expressing incomplete thoughts and the world will make much more sense. I feel like I've explained this to you before, or am I having déjà vu?

Given the definition of morality (which can be objectively established/narrowed down through the teleology of language) we can objectively assert claims like "If you want to act morally in X situation you ought to do Y". Again, a hypothetical norm, but not at all at odds with minimal realism.

Robust realism can be argued for too on some basis (harder questions), but that's beyond the scope here that morality makes sense and you're just being too intellectually lazy to grasp it, like a child complaining in algebra that "math doesn't make sense". Both your original post here and your reply to me make it clear you've made no real effort to deal with the hard questions.

Classic Dunning Kruger. You're acting here like Teo claiming that thermodynamics proves bombs are impossible when instead he should be saying "Obviously bombs exist and scientists are not morons incapable of spotting such a contradiction, so what am I misunderstanding about thermodynamics?"

Sometimes it's you. You need to consider the fact that you are so deeply incorrect about all of your preconceptions that you personally may not be able to understand any of this without starting with some serious unlearning.
And Red is correct that the little fit about me not replying fast enough wasn't impressive. I've had this tab open and had not gotten to it yet, educating a hostile student who thinks he's teacher isn't always priority number one. I'm happy to explain this stuff, but you need to do your part and work on understanding it instead of trying to lecture when you have no idea what you're talking about. It's like you walked into calculus, didn't understand derivatives, and you decided the problem was that the professor needed you to teach him addition.