Objective vs Subjective Morality

[brimstoneSalad]

Because we can touch it.

Touch, like sight, is a sense that can be easily fooled.

Maybe our definitions on what is objective and what is not, aren't the same.

You are very likely using an incorrect definition, yes, but you also seem to fundamentally misunderstand color and weight and the distinction between qualia and actual fact.

Mathematics is an objective truth.

BUT PEOPLE CAN DISAGREE ON IT!
Do you see how that kind of definition is not useful?

All you're doing is employing special pleading to exempt mathematics.
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/special-pleading

You're employing a fallacy. Just admit it's not a good definition and try to find another that does better.

Defining subjectivity as something people can disagree on is a BAD definition, because people can disagree on anything including things that are clearly objective like mathematics or the shape of the Earth.

If you're trying to use a standard dictionary to get insight into a philosophical term you're probably doing it wrong.

No, that's mass. Do you not even know the difference between mass and weight?
You're wrong about everything. Please stop and take some time to do more reading and reconsider this issue.

I used weight as an example.

You said: "It weight the same, regardless of whether a person is on earth or not unlike the perception of colour."

That's false. It has the same MASS whether on Earth or the Moon (or very very near it, we'll ignore relativistic effects), but the weight is different on Earth and the Moon, because weight is relative to the force we experience on something. It's even relative to your velocity; if you're in orbital free-fall you will experience "weightlessness" despite the fact that you're still subject to about the same gravity as somebody stationary on the surface of the planet. You could also make something seem to weigh quite a bit by putting a magnet in it and placing it on an attractive surface. It's how a youtuber made an unliftable Thor's hammer.

You're wrong about everything. Please stop and take some time to do more reading and reconsider this issue.

Just because somebody doesn't agree with you.

No, not because you disagree with ME. Because you are literally wrong about everything you're saying here.
You're wrong about what weight is, you're confusing it with mass.
You're wrong about the definition of objective/subjective (yours is inconsistent and relies on special pleading to exempt things you arbitrarily decide are objective).
You're wrong in not comprehending the distinction between a thing and the experience of the thing (the qualia), and you're wrong in thinking there's something magical about human color perception vs. senses like touch that make it subjective while other senses are not.

Wrong. About. Everything.
At least everything topical to this discussion.

[brimstoneSalad]

I just asked somebody I know, he said colour is nether objective nor subjective. It's objective because it exsists independent of whether we experience it or not and it's subjective in the sense that everybody perceives colours differently

Your friend is almost right. Trouble is, this is a fallacy of ambiguity:
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ambiguity

There are TWO distinct ways we can talk about color.
The OBJECTIVE sense which refers to light, and the SUBJECTIVE sense which refers to the qualia of our experience of "color" (which can even happen for blind people, or for instance like when you rub your eyes or see an optical illusion which creates a false color).

Color is potentially subjective and objective, depending on what you're talking about, but NOT at the same time.

Like a "bat" is potentially a flying mammal or a tool for use in a game of hitting baseballs -- but again, not both at once.

THIS is what I've been trying to explain to you for several posts now, but you keep ignoring it.

it's subjective in the sense that everybody perceives colours differently unlike getting weighed on a scale.

A SCALE is an instrument which can be used for objectively measuring the force you're applying to it; it tells you the approximate weight of something in the place and time.
People can attempt to discern the weight of things without a scale by employing a more qualia-dominated approach of lifting the thing and gauging by their experiences of it.

I can lift a sack of produce with my hand and tell you within a couple hundred grams (force equivalent) how much it weighs in the range of 0 - 3 kg. It's not a magical power, it comes from experience. But it's also subject to many variables, like how tired my arm is (which can throw it off) and even visual biases which can make me think something is lighter or heavier based on expectation (if it looks like rocks or it looks like spun sugar I'm going to think it's heavier or lighter even if it isn't).
This is the subjective qualia of my experience of weight as force, and it's just like my experience with color. It's subject to a number of biases and inaccuracies that a scale is not subject to.

And guess what? A DIGITAL CAMERA is an instrument which can be used to objectively measure the color of light something is emitting, reflecting, or refracting in a particular place and time.

What's a scale again? A SCALE is an instrument which can be used for objectively measuring the force you're applying to it; it tells you the approximate weight of something in the place and time.

In either case I can attempt to discern the fact of the matter with more subjective and biased qualia I experience, OR I can use a more precise machine to tell me objectively what's going on.

So if you're trying to tell me that WEIGHT is objective because people experience it with a scale, despite the fact that it can be experienced more subjectively without a scale with the sense of touch if you're not a total moron, and then you also tell me that LIGHT is subjective because people experience it with their senses of sight for which the experience is a more subjective qualia, despite the fact that it can also be experienced more objectively by looking at the readout from a digital device... well you're not going to get far with that kind of intellectually dishonest bullshit.

If you keep insisting that weight is objective and color is subjective on this basis I'm not going to be impressed.
You can not simultaneously claim ONE of these is exempted because people can use an instrument, but that doesn't count for the other because of your moving goalposts.

Do you understand?

Colour is not completely objective and free of any subjectivity. For something to be completely objective.... IT NEEDS TO BE FREE OF ALL SUBJECTIVITY

And if you think ANY empirical matter is then you're a fool. Even weight.
That doesn't mean we can't arrive at what is a moral certainty. The possibility of being wrong or biased is why the scientific method was developed. And instrument error and dumb luck are why we have things like p-value.

We do not know for sure that we're not just a brain in a vat, all alone in the universe, and experiencing illusions cooked up by a machine or in some crazy dream of our own making. Hard solipsism is unfalsifiable. That does not mean we can not come up with reasonable conclusions based on good epistemology of accepting the best forms of knowledge we have. It doesn't mean we just throw out everything as subjective and reject the existence of objectivity.

I never said there wasn't an element that is objective, what makes up the subjective experience of colour is out there - that is my point.

What makes up the subjective components of color experience isn't *out there*, it's in your head. It's a measure of inaccuracy and bias that muddles up the actual objective fact that you're attempting to perceive. It's very hard to get at objective sensory data without using instruments, from scales to digital cameras.

I just argued that's it's subjective in the way we perceive the "colour of the sky" for example but there is something there to perceive...

Now you're trying to play Motte-and-Bailey.

You were very wrong about a long series of claims you made. There's no harm in admitting that.

Grass is not green and the sky is not blue.... In other words: there is no colour, if nobody's looking at it..

You're very confused about physics.
A Watermelon doesn't weigh 15 "pounds" either, and a car is not traveling 60 miles per hour, but a watermelon CAN weigh 15 pounds of force in a certain place on EARTH, and a car can be traveling at a velocity of 60 miles per hour relative to the ground.

The problem is you're trying to say absolute things about relative terms.

Grass IS green (at least living grass of the sort you're thinking), in the day in sunlight. It doesn't emit light, but it reflects and absorbs it, so it depends on what light is hitting it what color is going to come off it.

Most matters in physics are fundamentally relative, but that doesn't make it subjective. The property of being green as measured in daylight IS a property that the grass has. We actually talk a lot about the color of elements and compounds in Chemistry, and it's the color they are under white light in a lab. It's absolutely a property of the substance, much like mass, and for light reflectivity/absorption/emission of elements it has to do principally with how electrons are configured in their shells.

The fact that it's not all as simple as you think it is (in physics it also includes bands into UV and microwaves and beyond that are invisible to humans) and the fact that you do not understand it doesn't make it any more subjective. It just makes you wrong.

[Kaz1983]

Wrong. About. Everything.
At least everything topical to this discussion.

The fact is that for something to be objective, it's got to be free of all subjectivity or by definition, it's not objective.

I believe that I'm right in saying that if there was no human on Earth, that there would be no colour as we know it.

Yes there would still be physical properties that make you perceive colour but "the sky would not be blue" or "the grass would not be green"

... colour isn't completely objective, nor is it completely subjective. I never said there wasn't an element that is objective, what makes up the subjective experience of colour is out there - that is my point...

This explains simply what I'm trying to say:

And–this is the hard part–colour is not a property of the thing that’s causing the sensation. In other words, grass is not green and the sky is not blue. Rather, they have physical properties that make you perceive green and blue..

Anyways, I said before that I understand where you're coming from - when you tell me that colour is objective.

I'm not trying to claim you don't know anything. I actually agree with some of the things you say tbh.

I just don't agree that colour is objective. Like I said before I just argued that's it's subjective (in the way we perceive the colour of the sky" for example).

Colour is not completely objective and free of any subjectivity. For something to be completely objective.... IT NEEDS TO BE FREE OF ALL SUBJECTIVITY

Just because we all see the same thing, that doesn't mean It's necessarily objective but rather a shared subjective opinion. But like I said, there are objective physical properties out there. If that's what you mean, we agree on but even that - doesn't make it objective and free of any subjectivity. That is plenty of info out there..

It's All About Wavelength

The truth is that color is not actually inherent within any object. Scientists like Isaac Newton noted years ago that the phenomenon of color is not a given; instead, each object’s surface both reflects and absorbs all possible color wavelengths. Only the colors that are reflected from the object are the ones that we can perceive.

https://www.colorpsychology.org/how-the ... ess-color/

How the Eye Sees Color

Color originates in light. Sunlight, as we perceive it, is colorless. In reality, a rainbow is testimony to the fact that all the colors of the spectrum are present in white light. As illustrated in the diagram below, light goes from the source (the sun) to the object (the apple), and finally to the detector (the eye and brain).

https://www.colormatters.com/color-and- ... sees-color

How do we see colour?

Colour is the aspect of things that is caused by differing qualities of light being reflected or emitted by them.

https://innerharbouroptometry.com/how-do-we-see-colour/

[Kaz1983]

Your friend is almost right. Trouble is, this is a fallacy of ambiguity:
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ambiguity

Like a "bat" is potentially a flying mammal or a tool for use in a game of hitting baseballs -- but again, not both at once.

THIS is what I've been trying to explain to you for several posts now, but you keep ignoring it.

The problem is it doesn't matter whether what you just is right or wrong. Why? Because what you're saying is not an objective truth independent of human subjectivity. For example: well-known passage, Semir Zeki writes:

"The results described here . . . suggest that the nervous system, rather than analyze colours, takes what information there is in the external environment, namely, the reflectance of different surfaces for different wavelengths of light, and transforms that information to construct colours, using its own algorithms to do so. In other words, it constructs something which is a property of the brain, not the world outside."

So it talks about how colour is property of the brain and is constructed by it.

In fact, the most popular opinion, at any rate among color scientists, may well be the view that nothing is colored–at least not physical objects in the perceiver's environment, like tomatoes.

Stephen Palmer claims that:

Color is a psychological property of our visual experiences when we look at objects and lights, not a physical property of those objects or lights.

Talking about how colour is part of our visual day-to-day experiences and is subjective.

We know from psychophysical and neurophysiological investigations that color is created somewhere in the brain, although the exact location of this process is still unknown, and we even have no idea what entities the sensations called color are . . . In short, colors appear only at a first naïve glance to be located in objects.

Again, it's talking about how colour is created somewhere in the brain. Another quote:

Although contemporary color science would be quite unrecognizable to Galileo, this is one respect in which he is perfectly up to date:

"I think that tastes, odors, colors, and so on are no more than mere names so far as the object in which we place them is concerned, and that they reside only in the consciousness. Hence, if the living creatures were removed, all these qualities would be wiped away and annihilated."

Similar to what I said about thought experiment,about what if no human being was on Earth etc etc.. would there be such thing as colour. NOT THE PHYSICAL PROPERTIES THAT MAKE UP OUR SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE OF COLOUR.

All are from: http://web.mit.edu/abyrne/www/ColorRealism.html

Ohhhhhhh

You're wrong about the definition of objective/subjective (yours is inconsistent and relies on special pleading to exempt things you arbitrarily decide are objective).

Without posting that link, again - just briefly, what is your definition of subjective and objective?

[Kaz1983]

A. Objective

Means that you are ‘relying on facts’, that are true regardless of what anyone claims to know. For something to be objective, it needs to be free of all subjectivity.

B. Objectivity in science

The results of any test for example must be able to be demonstrated by third parties. Objectivity in science helps advance our collective understanding of the world.

C. Subjective

Means that you are ‘relying on judgement’. These judgements can be individual or collective and involves our opinions/judgements/beliefs, collective or not.
_______________________________________________

Your trying to say B is true, therefore A is true.

I believe both B and C are true.

[brimstoneSalad]

Kaz, I have been VERY clear that there are two matters here, and I have expressed this in multiple posts.

1. The objective fact of light which has color as a quality (the frequency/wavelength of the light) and the objective fact of objects reflecting/absorbing/refracting/emitting etc. that light in certain scenarios which again is a quality of those objects.

2. The qualia that is human perception of color which is subjective. E.g. something can "look blue" even if in objective fact it isn't reflecting any more blue light than red or green and is grey WRT color balance; context can easily create illusions like this.

The problem is it doesn't matter whether what you just is right or wrong. Why? Because what you're saying is not an objective truth independent of human subjectivity. For example: well-known passage, Semir Zeki writes:

"The results described here . . . suggest that the nervous system, rather than analyze colours, takes what information there is in the external environment, namely, the reflectance of different surfaces for different wavelengths of light, and transforms that information to construct colours, using its own algorithms to do so. In other words, it constructs something which is a property of the brain, not the world outside."

So it talks about how colour is property of the brain and is constructed by it.

That referes to the qualia. AGAIN, these are two different things. Stop conflating them.

It's like you don't read anything I write. If you continue to do this, you will be in violation of forum rules. @Red can you read the past few posts and confirm if that's what it looks like to you?
Maybe you can try to explain it to him?

The fact is that for something to be objective, it's got to be free of all subjectivity or by definition, it's not objective.

There's a difference between the thing in itself, which is in principle 100% objective, and our access to objective empirical information about the thing -- the latter is imperfect. I think you have somewhat recognized this.

That said, even if we use a machine to measure something, we still rely on our eyes to read the numbers it's spitting out, and we can potentially be in error. That applies to anything, from the objective properties of color to the objective properties of velocity or mass.
The way we minimize the possibility of this is the scientific method. Blinding, double blinding, triple blinding, and repetition.

We can get the contribution of subjective analysis down to such an infinitesimal amount that any sane and rational person would dismiss it and consider the thing objective for all practical purposes. Indeed, in a well designed experiment today experimental error due to chance is much more likely than an experiment being contaminated by experimenter bias.

When you appeal to this all or nothing bullshit definition, if your definition of "objective" requires absolute perfection in empirical knowledge, then it applies to nothing and you've made the term meaningless.
That is to say your definition is WRONG by vice of it being useless and failing to differentiate the subjective and objective because you conveniently defined one out of existence.

In order to be useful, we need words like these to be able to describe differences between things. We need to be able to point to things that are objective and subjective, or at least MORE objective or subjective than other things. We either need to be able to categorize them in a binary yes or no sense, or as a matter of degrees. You can't say something isn't objective if it's not perfect.

I believe that I'm right in saying that if there was no human on Earth, that there would be no colour as we know it.

There would be no qualia in a universe without any sentient beings, but there would still be color in the sense of the quality of light/objects that reflect it in certain situations.

Again, two different things.

You can't say "no color as we know it" because we know of color in two different ways:
The experience of qualia, and the fact of light.

There would be color as I know it: the frequency/wavelength of light and the property of objects to absorb/reflect and emit certain spectra of light.
There would simply be no beings perceiving color in that universe. There would be no qualia of color, but there would be color.

Yes there would still be physical properties that make you perceive colour but "the sky would not be blue" or "the grass would not be green"

The sky would still be refracting blue light out of the white sunlight much more so than other spectra. The grass would still be reflecting green light and absorbing more so red and blue. The facts of the colors of light of these photons would still be the same, as well as the facts of the materials.

These facts are still true.

Anyways, I said before that I understand where you're coming from - when you tell me that colour is objective.

I'm not trying to claim you don't know anything. I actually agree with some of the things you say tbh.

I just don't agree that colour is objective. Like I said before I just argued that's it's subjective (in the way we perceive the colour of the sky" for example).

You do not understand if you do not agree that there's a common usage of color which is objective, referring to properties of light and objects' interaction with that light that are independent of human perception.
Obviously perception is subjective, I've explained that this is a qualia and a completely different issue.
And obviously *measurement* of the objective property of color is not 100% perfect (you still have to read the display telling you what color it is, for example) but that doesn't negate the fact of the fundamental principle being objective and it doesn't mean that our measurement and knowledge isn't highly objective beyond any reasonable doubt. The error introduced by subjectivity into a well designed experiment is astronomically small.

Color is NOT only a matter of qualia, and it's not inextricably contaminated by that qualia either.

You are conflating two distinct things, and need to admit that one is objective while the other is subjective, and you need to recognize that the same thing applies to things like WEIGHT which also exists as a fact of force and our experience of it, something you claimed falsely to be objective only and without qualia experience.

You can't say color and weight are different in terms of their objectivity. They both have objective facts and qualia to them.

Just because we all see the same thing, that doesn't mean It's necessarily objective but rather a shared subjective opinion.

That isn't at all what I'm saying here.

But like I said, there are objective physical properties out there. If that's what you mean, we agree on but even that - doesn't make it objective and free of any subjectivity.

The thing IS objective. Nothing about human perception or opinion changes the actual wavelength of light coming from the sun.
Measurement and knowledge of the empirical fact is imperfect and can occasionally be contaminated by some tiny amount of human error arising from subjectivity.

That is plenty of info out there..

Grade school level info which you misinterpret or fail to understand.

You're being as arrogant about your misunderstanding of physics here as Teo was in the Flat-Earth thread.

You even quote things that contradict your claims:

How do we see colour?

Colour is the aspect of things that is caused by differing qualities of light being reflected or emitted by them.

https://innerharbouroptometry.com/how-do-we-see-colour/

You're clearly just copying and pasting things at me without understanding what they say.

You do not understand the physics of color, period. Stop pretending you know more about this than I do and that you can quote idiot-level explanations at me as if they support your claims.

You're wrong about the definition of objective/subjective (yours is inconsistent and relies on special pleading to exempt things you arbitrarily decide are objective).

Without posting that link, again - just briefly, what is your definition of subjective and objective?

Did you read the link?

Subjective claims are context-less relative claims where the thing they are relative to is a subject. Objective claims have fact value because relevant context is included.

Subjective: Chocolate is delicious
Objective: Bob thinks chocolate is delicious

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress
Subjective: That dress looks white and gold.
Objective: That dress looks white and gold to Bob

Objective:That dress is actually blue and black (based on the color it reflects under white light).

When it comes to color, there is an objective fact there, and there's also subjective perception, and there's even an objective fact of perception by specific subjects.
When it comes to things like taste, there's no objective fact of deliciousness; it's just a phenomenon of evaluation of qualia.

It's very easy to say whether something tastes good or bad is subjective, but when you claim that color is subjective (without making it clear that only *perception* of color is subjective and the fact of color is objective) what you are doing is in effect rejecting objective fact and mistaking it for mere opinion.

[Sunflowers]

Katz,

Unlike Brimstone salad I actually know what I'm talking about.

'Objective' is ambiguous - it can mean 'goal' (the objective of a project); it can mean 'impartial' (that's the sense in which science is objective); and it can mean "exists extra-mentally".

These are completely diffeerent meanings of the term and so they mustn't be conflated (just as 'bank' can mean 'financial institution' and 'side of a river or hill' or 'turn' - completely different meanings of one and the same term).

'Subjective' is the oposite - the antonym - of one of those meanings alone. it is the opposite of 'objective' when objective means 'exists extra-mentally'. (It is often misused to mean 'biased' - that's not what it means)

So, 'subjective' means 'in the subject', where 'subject' is a mind. So, subjective means 'made of mental states'. Made, in other words, of feelings and that kind of thing.

Pain is individually subjective. It is made of a certain feeling or range of feelings. Thus, if I feel in pain, necessarily I am in pain.

There is debate over whether colour is subjective or objective, which is why thinking about colour is not a good way of gaining insight into morality. But it can be used to illustrate the difference between subjective and objective.

if - if - colour is individually subjective, then if the object appears green to me, it 'is' green to me. There is no 'colour hte object is independent of perceivers' because colour exists as mental states, and mental states can only exist in perceivers (subjects).

That view is controversial, but it is just to illustrate what it would mean for colour to be subjective.

If - if - colour is inter-subjective (collectively subjective) then if the object appears green to the relevant community of subjects (such as those in typical lighting conditions etc.) it is green, for 'being green' on this view just is to be appearing green to that community.

Again, that view is also controversial, so forget wether it is true or not, the point is just to illustrate what it would mean for colour to be inter-subjective.

If - if - colour is objective, then the colour is something had by objects independently of the mental states of any perceivers. So, the object appears green to me, but that does not entail that it is green. It may be good evidence that it is green, but it does not constitute the greeneness.
LIkewise, if the object is objectively green, then even if the entire community of humans see it as yellow, this does not entail that it is yellow, just that the entire community of humans are making a mistake.

But I stress, it is unwise to use colour as a model for morality, for the status of colour is more in dispute than the status of morality. And so you'd be using the less clear to try and illuminate the more clear, which is irrational.

[brimstoneSalad]

Katz,

Unlike Brimstone salad I actually know what I'm talking about.

That's demonstrably untrue from your involvement in the other thread:
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4156&start=50

However, you probably understand the issue more clearly than Kaz (not Katz) does.

'Objective' is ambiguous - it can mean 'goal' (the objective of a project); it can mean 'impartial' (that's the sense in which science is objective); and it can mean "exists extra-mentally".

Not only is it ambiguous, but the precise meaning is a matter of considerable philosophical disagreement. That which is in the vague sense of mind-independence is most contentious; I have explained why that is such a serious issue.

Both what "Exists" means, and what "extra-mentally" mean are serious issues here.
E.g. concepts like mathematics may by some definitions only exist mentally, and yet they can be objective in the most important philosophical senses. That is the sense in which morality is objective.

'Subjective' is the oposite - the antonym - of one of those meanings alone. it is the opposite of 'objective' when objective means 'exists extra-mentally'. (It is often misused to mean 'biased' - that's not what it means)

No, this is not correct. Mathematics isn't generally regarded as subjective despite arguably existing "mentally". Numbers aren't real things out in the world, they're concepts.
Subjective defines a specific category of opinion-based thought and perception, and does not merely encompass everything that could be argued to be founded in cognition (even if objective operators like mathematics performed in the head may be subject to contamination from subjective ones).

As I explained in my post above, Objectivity and Subjectivity in philosophy, in order to be coherent, have more to do with the ability to evaluate claims (that is: fact which can be evaluated as true or false vs. opinion which lacks that) and less to do with their pedigree.

Pain is individually subjective. It is made of a certain feeling or range of feelings. Thus, if I feel in pain, necessarily I am in pain.

The claim that X is painful may be subjective, but the fact that you are in pain is objective.
All subjective claims have corresponding objective facts when framed as facts relative to their subjects.

There is debate over whether colour is subjective or objective, which is why thinking about colour is not a good way of gaining insight into morality.

If that were true you would be right. But there should be no more debate on the issue of color than on the shape of the Earth.
The failure Kaz demonstrates here is a fundamental one of scientific epistemology -- one which, if resolved, may help him understand how morality too can be objective.

[Sunflowers]

Like I say, you don't know your stuff, you just don't know that you don't.


Pain is subjective. it is a paradigm example of something that is subjective.


"I am in pain" is a proposition. It can be true or false.


Whether propositions themselves are subjective or objective is a matter of debate (some think propositions are thoughts, for example, and thoughts - being mental states - are subjective entities).

But you're seriously confused.

[Kaz1983]

We just have to agree to disagree I suppose.