Morality doesn't make sense.

[Kaz1983]

Another example, take the statement Tom is a heterosexual male. This statement is an empirical claim and can be scientifically verified. It is also either true or false. Tom could be bisexual, pansexual, homosexual, or even asexual but the statement that he is heterosexual is either true or false. Let us assume Tom has a goal to date women. From the frame of reference of his sexuality, it can be objectively asserted that is wrong for Tom to date men, since homosexual practices are not conducive toward his goal to have relations with women. If Tom is a heterosexual male, then he ought to use a dating app for heterosexuals to find love. It's not that hard.

For Tom to use the heterosexual dating app over the dating app for homosexuals makes complete sense. That said, this whole "Tom is heterosexual" example begs the question why is Tom heterosexual in the first place? I don't see how he could have used his rationality to come to a conclusion that's "being hetrasexual isn't what I want. For Tom it would have been much more likely to be the feeling that arose when he thought of two men having sex. Feelings like "moral disgust" made it clear to Tom that being homosexual was "not for me". At the end of the day he did not choose to be heterosexual, he just desired to be heterosexual and desire is a non-cognitive thought process.

If you have a problem with robust realism, just make that clear. Instead you appear to be straw-manning moral realism as a whole in a lazy attempt not to engage in ethics.

I don't have a problem with robust realism, just like I don't have a problem with subjectivism. See I have a problem with morality. This idea that you can use moral reasoning to arrive at the right conclusion, doesn't make a lot of sense and seeing as tho "reason" itself must be grounded in a cognitive thought process for the "reason" to be meaningful

[Kaz1983]

1. Psychological harm to yourself. You likely can't murder somebody with your own hands and easily recover from that.

Do you not think that 4 people dying cos you didn't pull the lever, won't do you any psychological harm? Of course it would.

2. Legal consequences if you're culpable.

There are plenty real-world places where there is no law to contend with and therefore no legal consequences.

[brimstoneSalad]

1. Psychological harm to yourself. You likely can't murder somebody with your own hands and easily recover from that.

Do you not think that 4 people dying cos you didn't pull the lever, won't do you any psychological harm? Of course it would.

2. Legal consequences if you're culpable.

There are plenty real-world places where there is no law to contend with and therefore no legal consequences.

I was responding to @teo123.
I believe you still have a post from the first page to respond to.

[Kaz1983]

Words mean what they mean because of the teleology of language -- the root of "ought" in any discussion is those prescriptive meanings.

What words mean rest on the back of non-cognitive desires, it has nothing to do with reason; if we all think something is true, does that mean that it makes it true? See language is based on the back of desire rather than reason, a good example of language being based on desire is something like "I crave to eat chocolate" - that's a statement rooted in the desire to eat chocolate and therefore we come to a conclusion that "if we I want to fulfill the craving of wanting to eat chocolate, we should proceed to eat chocolate" put simply without the desire to eat chocolate, the statement "I crave to eat chocolate" is vacuous.. I'm not saying that the way we approach the use of language is not in some way prescriptive but that it arose from non-cognitive states like desire and therefore is rooted in non-cognitive attitudes.

you're just being too intellectually lazy to grasp it, like a child complaining in algebra that "math doesn't make sense".

Ad hominem.

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?"

You're appealing to scientific consensus

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.

It might be you too.

Maybe *you* need to consider the fact that you are deeply incorrect about what you believe to be true...

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.

I'm not some bloody student that you teach, no you have just grossly overestimated how smart you are, I almost feel sorry for you - some people might say in a lot of ways you're a smart-arse. I mean you're a person who is irritated, don't worry I don't take it personal it you've done it before.. smart-asses behave as if they know everything, that box is ticked. To put it nicely, just stop trying to go around imparting your great "wisdom" upon other people and never be humble and ask questions about why they feel the way they do, it's quite clear that you don't possess the philosophical "wisdom" that you think you do. Don't be a “smart-arse, don't be somebody who is irritating because they act as if they know everything. Don't be somebody who consistently try to catch you out by misleading you. You don't need to act so defensive towards people who disagree with you.

[brimstoneSalad]

I'm not saying that the way we approach the use of language is not in some way prescriptive

Then you understand that language has a purpose -- communication and understanding. You only need a drop of purpose in an ocean to say it has some purpose -- no amount of dilution will ever change that. Thus, you are wrong about everything you're asserting here. Q.E.D.

but that it arose from non-cognitive states like desire and therefore is rooted in non-cognitive attitudes.

First, that's absurd and "non-cognitive" doesn't really mean anything substantive unless it is essentially supernatural -- feelings are very much cognitive in that mental states like that have factual qualities. In musings like yours it's really just a hand wave to refuse to address objective qualities and pretend there is something fundamentally different and transcendent to them.

Second, it doesn't matter if it arose from a fish gurgling in the mud, language is what it is today because of what it's used for. It's a tool of communication and comprehension.

You admit there's prescription innate there: when you pick up language and use it you are already presupposing that. You already have an ought, and it's trivial to get from one ought to another. It's the is-ought barrier that is more contentious. Minimal moral realism is really not controversial in any of its assertions or conclusions -- the only big criticism is that they're not assertive enough to be worth arguing over (e.g. too obvious and philosophers would rather spend time arguing robust realism vs. error theory etc.).

Ad hominem.

No, it's a fact and expression of annoyance at you being childish about me not responding fast enough.

You're appealing to scientific consensus

Incorrect. I'm saying you should reflect on that before embarrassing yourself. It will also help you stay open minded, because if you're facing more humiliation you're more likely to dig your heels in rather than learn.

It might be you too.

It's much less likely when one is on the side of the majority. Also, I already understand your position and you have indicated repeatedly that you don't understand ours -- the side that understands the other and yet still maintains the alternate position is again more likely to be right.

There are occasional situations where I don't understand what's being argued, and those are actually pretty engaging discussions because I get to learn something new. And there's the excitement of potentially being wrong (at least partially) and getting to update my understanding of the world. This isn't one of those cases.

I'm not some bloody student that you teach,

That's your problem, you're so full of yourself you're unwilling to learn. You're unwilling to accept that you don't understand this. You're unwilling to consider that before you dismiss it you might need to invest some time grappling with this and with challenges to your own beliefs. You need to humble yourself and try listening and asking sincere questions for a change to further your understanding. Multiple people in this thread have communicated these concepts very clearly and patiently to you only to be misrepresented by you in reply.

Anyway, I've already shown you why you're wrong. It's up to you to accept the correction and move on graciously or throw a fit and continue to misrepresent everybody here who has been trying to help you.

[brimstoneSalad]

Since you kind of answered the other thing, I'll go ahead and answer this (also because it will probably be of interest to @teo123
and others).

1. Psychological harm to yourself. You likely can't murder somebody with your own hands and easily recover from that.

Do you not think that 4 people dying cos you didn't pull the lever, won't do you any psychological harm? Of course it would.

2. Legal consequences if you're culpable.

There are plenty real-world places where there is no law to contend with and therefore no legal consequences.

You can set up a thought experiment where the psychological harm disparity is reversed and where legal consequences are removed, but you have to be clear about this in your setup or there will be obvious objections.

You have a train and you're going for a ride to the mountain in a lawless country. Choo choo. Along the road you see a broken down car and you stop to see what's wrong; there's a man and his old father whom he is taking to the hospital. You offer to take them there since it's on your way to the mountain. As you come around the corner you find there are a hundred people tied up on the tracks in a row. You will have to watch one by one as your train crushes them into a bloody mess unless you pull the break. But if you do pull the break then the old man won't make it to the hospital and will die.

Obviously you don't pull the break because you're a dogmatic psychopath who can't have on his conscience the death of one person to save a hundred, right? Because that would be wrong?

Thought experiments are often about as useful at deriving correct moral axioms as divisive political rhetoric is at arriving at good government (they can be useful, but often are not). It's all in the framing. Better methodology shouldn't be so vulnerable to such manipulation, better to have a concordance in derivation of the moral axiom and actually learn things about morality by examining the outcomes.

[teo123]

Since you kind of answered the other thing, I'll go ahead and answer this (also because it will probably be of interest to @teo123
and others).

1. Psychological harm to yourself. You likely can't murder somebody with your own hands and easily recover from that.

Do you not think that 4 people dying cos you didn't pull the lever, won't do you any psychological harm? Of course it would.

2. Legal consequences if you're culpable.

There are plenty real-world places where there is no law to contend with and therefore no legal consequences.

You can set up a thought experiment where the psychological harm disparity is reversed and where legal consequences are removed, but you have to be clear about this in your setup or there will be obvious objections.

You have a train and you're going for a ride to the mountain in a lawless country. Choo choo. Along the road you see a broken down car and you stop to see what's wrong; there's a man and his old father whom he is taking to the hospital. You offer to take them there since it's on your way to the mountain. As you come around the corner you find there are a hundred people tied up on the tracks in a row. You will have to watch one by one as your train crushes them into a bloody mess unless you pull the break. But if you do pull the break then the old man won't make it to the hospital and will die.

Obviously you don't pull the break because you're a dogmatic psychopath who can't have on his conscience the death of one person to save a hundred, right? Because that would be wrong?

Thought experiments are often about as useful at deriving correct moral axioms as divisive political rhetoric is at arriving at good government (they can be useful, but often are not). It's all in the framing. Better methodology shouldn't be so vulnerable to such manipulation, better to have a concordance in derivation of the moral axiom and actually learn things about morality by examining the outcomes.

I don't quite understand the point you are trying to make. Such a thought experiment is clearly impossible in real life. First of all, you can't know for certain the old man will die if you pull the break. Second, if there are hundreds of people tied up on the tracks in a row, chances are, an attempt to drive over them will lead to your train jumping out of the tracks, killing both you and that old man. Third, you can't know for sure that old man will survive even if he gets to the hospital.
What do you think about the Drowning Child thought experiment by Peter Singer, arguing that positive moral responsibility doesn't make sense?

[Kaz1983]

I'm not saying that the way we approach the use of language is not in some way prescriptive

Then you understand that language has a purpose -- communication and understanding. You only need a drop of purpose in an ocean to say it has some purpose -- no amount of dilution will ever change that.

I agree communication and understanding is key to people conveying their ideas from one person to another but these ideas did not arise because we all came to a consensus that language plays a very important role in our development of a society, see the ability to rationally inquire about something arose from desire and humans are influenced by our desires and our emotions. These desires and emotions dictate what we apply our reasoning skills towards, as David Hume was quoted as saying “reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions”

The above is similar to how a human takes a dog for a walk. The dog is the slave, just like how reason is the slave to our desires and emotions. The dog might reason that he should walk on the footpath rather than the grass but the only reason why he has the option to choose between the footpath and the grass, is because he is being taken for a walk by the human but is eerily similar to he role desire when it comes to morality . See we do not tell the dog what to do when we take him for a walk, whilst he on the leash we just let the dog do what he wants to do and this then means the dog uses his reasoning skills, with that said we're responsible for him being able to use the reasoning

Thus, you are wrong about everything you're asserting here. Q.E.D.

In your opinion.

.. feelings are very much cognitive in that mental states like that have factual qualities. In musings like yours it's really just a hand wave to refuse to address objective qualities and pretend there is something fundamentally different and transcendent to them.

Emotions and desires are not programmed into our brains but yes, it seems that they are cognitive because of the resulting gathering of information that arises primarily from sense data -things like sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste, but there are others too. These are all non-cognitive and have nothing to do with reason but rather creates “reason” - like how you might prefer to hear rock and roll music over romantic pop songs, this preference for one over another relies on the subject having the ability to reason.

See I do believe that we try to perform the task of reasoning between the two options (what ever they are) but it’s not very effective tho cos our desires and emotions win out every single time. From my experience human beings are primary restricted to following our desires and that includes biological human urges - take the need to breath, it is something we do independently of things like reason, we don't choose to breathe but is something we must do even if we do not want to.

For example is your opinion, choosing to be a homosexual does not have to involve desiring to be a homosexual. Opting to be a homosexual has nothing to do with the rationale behind wanting to be a homosexual, but everything to do with the fulfilment desire of the proposed outcome (i.e being a homosexual) which is what we "want" - but the complete irony of this lies at the fact that you want to be a homosexual in the first place, this process involves the "wanting part" which just exposes your inner desire to the world.

Second, it doesn't matter if it arose from a fish gurgling in the mud, language is what it is today because of what it's used for. It's a tool of communication and comprehension.

I'm not contesting that language can be used as a very effective tool used for communicating our ideas and concepts to other people. I don't get how language could be based on reason though, it’s like what I said about how emotions and desires are a cognitive because of the gathering of information that is primarily from our sense data but say has though there are many senses, for simplicity we will just call them all a desires.When it comes to the words that come out of our mouth, they don't express the reason why we choose to do action X but the underlying desire behind the decision to choose X over Y for example, this thought process leads to other questions like the investigation into whether we want to experience this desire again or not? If the answer to the question is yes, then you've got to pick the best course of action that will result in the fulfillments of said desires. This will involve ought's, sure but just because you use this terminology that doesn't make you a hypocrite if you deem that morality is not-cognitive and does not possess any truth value - which you seem to be suggesting.

No, it's a fact and expression of annoyance at you being childish about me not responding fast enough.

This is just your opinion, which holds no more weight than some idiot in the room yelling “I see dead people”

You need to humble yourself and try listening..

You need to take some of this medicine.

[Kaz1983]

"If you want to act morally in X situation then you ought to do Y" is a verifiable statement.

Without the desire to act morally in X situation, the reason for doing Y completely disappears.

[teo123]

"If you want to act morally in X situation then you ought to do Y" is a verifiable statement.

Without the desire to act morally in X situation, the reason for doing Y completely disappears.

You know as they say, a judge who always likes his judgements isn't a good judge. One whose feelings always agree with his ethical judgements most likely doesn't reason well. I don't like Peter Singer's conclusion that one has no moral obligation to save a drawning child, but it follows logically, so I accept it. I also don't like the conclusion that my parents are in a conspiracy making people believe jails exist, but that's what my reason is telling me. Similarly for my disbelief in afterlife.