12 comments

1. 

   Comment by Hookflash on July 30, 2005 at 2:35 am

   Objective moral fact claims exist.

   With ya so far…

   One set of claims is true, so objective moral facts exist.

   This needs to be defended against the possibility that no moral fact claims are true. In fact (hehe), I think this is the most important point of contention between moral realists and subjectivists.

   To be in accordance with reality is to be factual;
   …
   Facts are apprehensible;

   You seem to be implying that anything which is in accordance with reality is apprehensible, but do we really know this is the case? Couldn’t there be aspects of reality that our finite human minds cannot apprehend; and, even if objective moral facts do exist, what’s to say they don’t reside in those inapprehensible aspects of reality?

   These facts have a source.
   …
   This source is the true source of all objective moral facts.

   Isn’t the universe itself the source of all objective facts? It seems to me that all objective fact claims should have an obvious referent. For example, the claim, “There is a tree in my front yard,” obviously refers to an actual tree in my front yard. So, what’s the referent of objective moral fact claims?

   Anyways, I think you made an admirable attempt to argue for objective morality, but I’m still not quite convinced. I tend to vacillate between moral realism and subjectivism, being drawn to the latter out of intellectual honesty, and pulled to the former out of a desire to legitimate my moral judgements.

   Frankly, I don’t see this issue being resolved any time soon.

2. 

   Comment by Hookflash on July 30, 2005 at 2:46 am

   To put it another way:

   Simple Model:

   * Objective fact claims about unicorns exist;
   * One set of fact claims about unicorns is true;
   * Objective facts about unicorns exist.

   * These facts can be properly apprehended;
   * These facts have a source;
   * This source is the source of all objective facts about unicorns.

   😉

3. 

   Comment by RazorsKiss on July 30, 2005 at 3:09 am

   One set of claims is true, so objective moral facts exist.

   This needs to be defended against the possibility that no moral fact claims are true. In fact (hehe), I think this is the most important point of contention between moral realists and subjectivists.

   To say that no moral fact claims are true is to be a complete amoralist. Not to say “this is true for me, but not necessarily for you”, but to say “there is no such thing as morality, at all”.

   If someone denies the very concept of morality is true, I really don’t hae anything to argue with them about. We’re on two different planets!

   Morality as a concept is something I presuppose for this argument.

   To be in accordance with reality is to be factual;
   …
   Facts are apprehensible;

   You seem to be implying that anything which is in accordance with reality is apprehensible, but do we really know this is the case?

   The defintion of ‘fact” is to be “in accordance with reality.” If it is an objective fact (which has been proven in the sequence already) then it is understandable. If it is understandable, it is apprehendable.

   Read the part about “objective” and “intelligible”. Objects are, by definition, intelligible. To be intelligible is to be apprehensible.

   If it is a compound of these two qualities, it will be both in accordance with reality AND apprehensible.

   Couldn’t there be aspects of reality that our finite human minds cannot apprehend; and, even if objective moral facts do exist, what’s to say they don’t reside in those inapprehensible aspects of reality?

   You’re talking about two different things. If it is not intelligible, it is, by defintion, not an object – qualitatively or quantitatively. If something is known to be fact (the only types of facts that exist) then it is understandable.

   I suppose, though, that you could be right – things that we cannot understand may be lurking in the “inapprehensible aspects”. However, they would not be facts, morals, or objects. So, they do not apply, under your questions.

   These facts have a source.
   …
   This source is the true source of all objective moral facts.

   Isn’t the universe itself the source of all objective facts?

   Moral facts? No.

   It seems to me that all objective fact claims should have an obvious referent. For example, the claim, “There is a tree in my front yard,” obviously refers to an actual tree in my front yard. So, what’s the referent of objective moral fact claims?

   “the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character.”

   It’s a claim to know the standard by which that goodness or badness is judged. The universe, I’ll posit, won’t have much to say about that.

   Anyways, I think you made an admirable attempt to argue for objective morality, but I’m still not quite convinced.

   Sorry. I did try, though. In all reality, though? Arguments only go so far toward convincing someone to believe something. I just happen to believe my argument reflects reality, as far as I can see it.

   I tend to vacillate between moral realism and subjectivism, being drawn to the latter out of intellectual honesty, and pulled to the former out of a desire to legitimate my moral judgements.

   Frankly, I don’t see this issue being resolved any time soon.

   I suppose. I still think subjectivism is logically flawed, and terribly so. Realism holds more logical promise, although, to be honest, I think it is a shallower form than most. Obscure, granted – but things tend to be obscure for a reason.

4. 

   Comment by RazorsKiss on July 30, 2005 at 3:29 am

   * Objective fact claims about unicorns exist;
   * One set of fact claims about unicorns is true;
   * Objective facts about unicorns exist.

   * These facts can be properly apprehended;
   * These facts have a source;
   * This source is the source of all objective facts about unicorns.

   The question, when it comes down to it, is this:

   When you say fact, what IS the objective fact?

   If: The objective fact about unicorns is that they *actually* do NOT exist;
   Then: If unicorns do NOT exist, this claim is true.

   However – check out the various other statements within the expanded model. See if it is still valid when placed within the confines of that model.

   This model does not address whether the fact claim is *actually* true. It addresses whether the *single* fact claim about the subject that IS true, will have a single source, and will be the true source of information about the subject.

   The information could be:

   A. Unicorns DO NOT exist.
   B. Unicorns DO exist.
   C. Unicorns exist ONLY in fantasy novels.
   D. Unicorns exist in both fantasy novels AND imaginations.
   E. Unicorns exist ONLY in imaginations.

   Or et cetera.

   This argument does not address which claim is, in fact, true. It addresses the requirement that one claim must be true, and that this claim have a single source, and that the claim must contain all truth about the subject to be completely true.

   Individual claims may very well be true, in isolation. However, to become actual “truth” about morality (en toto), it must address all aspects of the subject, and do so truthfully in all respects.

   This applies to a “subjective” morality as well (where the *extent of application* is limited to the person forming the truth claim), incidentally.

   I think that a “subjective” morality (I continue to assert that all claims to truth are objective) will be subjective in the extent to which it is applicable, but the model will hold true, as far as these principles go. You can be everything in this model – and still be wrong, ultimately.

   To prove that you are completely true, in actuality, requires omnipotence. We can only deal in probabilities.

5. 

   Comment by Treymiar on August 2, 2005 at 12:50 am

   Eons ago in college, I took a Symbolic Logic course as part of computer science studies. It was actually taught out of the philosophy department, and I have been amazed at how valuable its lessons have been in many areas of life through the years.

   I think that apologist abilities would be greatly enhanced by formal symbolic/predicate logic studies.

   – We speak of “proving” facts and concepts, but we rarely define academically respected sets of tools for making proofs.

   – We successfully critique flawed arguments by pointing out their logical inconsistencies, but we miss opportunities to debunk flawed arguments by addressing argument structures. If a claim can be shown to be structurally invalid, it isn’t always necessary to scientifically prove or disprove each of the elements within the claim itself.

   For example, evolutionists periodically release claims that discovered fossils prove interspecies transitions because they are transitional. A logical proof-conclusion can’t serve as its own premiss. The claim fails before we even get to analyzing fossils.

   Now, I’m delighted to dogfight over the fossils, showing that the evolutionist has excluded neither interspecies analogs nor intraspecies variations. The point is, however, that evolutionists don’t get a free ticket for ‘interspecies transition’ acceptance. They must first prove that the mechanism of interspecies transition exists before they can use it as an argument premiss.

   In the above example, at most the evolutionist could claim that IF transition mechanism exists, IF the fossil is not an analog, and IF the fossil is not intraspecies variation, THEN the fossil COULD represent transition. That’s a far cry from “Interspecies transition is proven because this fossil is transitional.”

   – Gaining fluency or familiarity with symbolic logic gives debaters “smoke tests” with which to test encountered claims. Analyzing argument structures help reveal motives behind their creation, ranging from people making honest mistakes to pulling fast ones.

   Some links of interest :
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_logic
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy

6. 

   Comment by RazorsKiss on August 2, 2005 at 1:12 am

   Current objections collected:

   One set of claims is true, so objective moral facts exist.

   This needs to be defended against the possibility that no moral fact claims are true.

   ~ Hookflash

   To be in accordance with reality is to be factual;
   …
   Facts are apprehensible;

   You seem to be implying that anything which is in accordance with reality is apprehensible, but do we really know this is the case? Couldn’t there be aspects of reality that our finite human minds cannot apprehend; and, even if objective moral facts do exist, what’s to say they don’t reside in those inapprehensible aspects of reality?

   ~ Hookflash

   These facts have a source.
   …
   This source is the true source of all objective moral facts.

   Isn’t the universe itself the source of all objective facts? It seems to me that all objective fact claims should have an obvious referent.

   ~ Hookflash

   There is a crucial assumption in your argument that many philosophers in
   contemporary ethics would deny, namely that there are moral facts.
   “Expressivism”, the more mature cousin of “emotivism”, claims that moral
   claims do not contain any factual content at all. According to
   expressivists, there is no *fact* that backs up a moral claim.

   ~ From Private Correspondence, name excised, pending permission.

   There seems to be a real problem with realist forms of ethics on how these immaterial, abstract, objective facts can interact with our understanding. In your “bonus argument” you say that these moral facts are the means bywhich objective moral facts are properly understood. But it isn’t clear how we access these facts. These ethereal facts, according to non-realists, don’t seem to get much work done. You need to explain how it is possible for these abstract entities to be the source of communication between moral agents before you can say it must be the basis for them.

   ~ From Private Correspondence, name excised, pending permission.

   -How do you know one set of objective moral truth claims correspond with reality? Many will claim there is empirical, sociological evidence to the contrary.

   ~ From Private Correspondence, name excised, pending permission.

   -What’s the difference between “intelligible” and “apprehensible”?
   -Isn’t God “intelligible” without being completely “apprehensible”?

   ~ From Private Correspondence, name excised, pending permission.

   -Information must have a source, but why suppose the source for moral facts are abstract moral facts? Couldn’t it be the case that these facts just happen to exist on the grounds of each individual person (like how most people happen to like chocolate)?

   ~ From Private Correspondence, name excised, pending permission.

   One set of claims is true, so objective moral facts exist.

   * One set of objective moral truth claims is in accordance with reality;
   * To be in accordance with reality is to be factual;
   * One set of objective moral facts exist.

   This seems to me to be an undefended premise. If there are no objective moral truths, then there won’t be one set of objective moral fact claims that will be true. They will all be false. The fact that the claims exist, which is all you showed in the first argument, does not show that one of them is true.

   Consider the analogy of objective claims about which guitar player is the best. Such claims certainly occur. That doesn’t mean one of them is true. There are multiple factors that go into good guitar playing, and perhaps no one has the best level of playing in all the areas, and it may well be that one or more features of good guitar playing depends on who
   is talking and what aesthetic values the person has.

   Aesthetic judgments about beauty are always helpful for understanding how those who deny objective moral value are thinking. If there’s no objective value to whether coffee tastes good, then the possibility of the same being true of morality is at least logically coherent, and no a priori argument will demonstrate objective moral truths. Arguments will have to start with people’s moral intuitions (to show practical inconsistency with the subjectivist theory) or facts about how moral language is used (to show what the words mean).

   ~ From Private Correspondence, name excised, pending permission.

   I’m also having trouble saying that the mere objectiveness of moral truths
   guarantees that we can know them. There are truths of mathematics, I would
   guess, that we just aren’t smart enough even to ask questions about. They
   involve a level of complexity that would take a lifetime even to formulate.
   I’m not sure it’s possible to prove to a moral skeptic that we have moral
   knowledge. We might be able to respond to moral skeptics with an account of
   how knowledge or moral truths happens, but I can’t see how we can prove that
   we have such knowledge. Your response to this seems to be that these
   wouldn’t be facts, but that just doesn’t sound right to me. There are all
   sorts of facts that no one knows about and no one could know about them
   given our current state. Unless you’re going to bring God in and say that
   God’s knowledge of them makes them facts, which seems to get the direction
   backwards, I don’t know how you can maintain the idea that something must be
   observable to be a fact. This sounds like the kind of anti-realist
   philosophy of science that leads people to question whether we know anything
   about theoretical entities on the basis of good, theoretical arguments. See
   how the word ‘fact’ is used in the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on moral
   epistemology, for instance:

   ~ From Private Correspondence, name excised, pending permission.

   The assumptions, several of which are easily assailable do seem to logically lead to the conclusion–though largely by their own definition.

   The “one set” in particular. Why only one? There must come argument that there could not be either no set or many sets. The rest all sits apon this foundation.

   ~GDL_Fox

   3) Can you prove that this source is the true source of all objective moral facts?

   The other aspect of this question is the stumper. If you look at this question another way, it sort of implies that you would have to take a specific source and run it through this question before completing the argument, instead of proving that the “source through which the facts are apprehensible” is the “true source of all objective moral facts.” It’s kind of like trying to prove that x = 10 and therefore y = 10 instead of settling with x = y. Now we’re getting dangerously close to arguments that have run and flamed out before, but I guess that it’s inevitable.

   ~ Semi

   If really provable, it would simultaneously justify Christian intolerance to other life styles and the scripture as the source of what’s acceptable. The corollary is without the proof neither is justified which bolsters the argument that morality is largely subjective depending on the society.

   ~ GDL_Fox

   One thing I realized is wrong with the main argument. It argues that there is such a thing as an objective moral fact.

   Morals are not qualitative, you cannot go from one person to another person and come up with the same qualitative answer to a moral question. Though this is what I was getting at in my examples above, I am spelling it out clearer here.

   You can easily have a qualitative fact, a refrigerator either works or it does not, despite the fact that 99% of its parts work, if it does not produce cold air, it does not work.

   Asking someone if having casual sex before marriage is ok, you can ask 20 people and get a different from each.

   IE a subset of answers could be.

   1. Yes, but only if (which changes the fact in kind)
   2. No, Except when (which isnt a no answer)
   3. Yes (unequivicolly)
   4. No (unequivicolly)

   and each answer to the but only if would change the measure of whether casual sex was “OK” the same with the “Except when”

   Since no fact is truly objective, it would be impossible to have some set of facts be a universal.

   It all comes down to whether what you beleive is the base source of facts you beleive in is true to you enough for you to kill someone over it.

   ~ Buzz_Litebeer

   1) Something can be an objective source without being written down. Namely our inherented instictive psychological makeup–ontop of which we lay morals that try to alter our behavior from what once worked for small tribes and family groups we evolved from but fails in larger groups.

   2) I’m thinking it’s true that unless something can be proven as objective–than by definition it must logically be assumed that it is subjective.

   Surprised Razor even went there– it the kind of question that is best ignored by those that dare not take a hard look at the foundations of their religion–especially the religions that subscribe to only one fixed solution towards achieving salvation or just having an orderly and benevolent society.

   ~ GDL_Fox

   If such a thing were true, especially as described by razorkiss, then it would also follow that there would be an objective, single, and factual understanding of the single source of objective moral facts.

   ~ Buzz Litebeer

   Faith is a philosophical subject, not a logical one – even if one’s faith is derived from logical proofs. The philosophical undertone is that such a person requires a logical foundation in order to have faith – at which point, it becomes quite clear that regardless of the logical exercise, it is still a philosophical approach.

   Razor has (veilied within a discussion of moral objectivity) attempted to reconcile faith with logical expressions – that is a base fallacy.

   ~ XFracture

7. 

   Comment by Treymiar on August 2, 2005 at 3:49 pm

   This needs to be defended against the possibility that no moral fact claims are true.

   This is a self-contradictory assertion, a fracture of logic.
   1. Many identifiable, observable sets of morality exist in our world. They may be subjective, but they satisfy the existential quantifier for both concept and practical manifestation.
   2. To judge any or all of these existing moral sets as being “not true”, this can only be done from the perspective of a “true standard”, the very thing you argue doesn’t exist.

   You seem to be implying that anything which is in accordance with reality is apprehensible, but do we really know this is the case? Couldn’t there be aspects of reality that our finite human minds cannot apprehend; and, even if objective moral facts do exist, what’s to say they don’t reside in those inapprehensible aspects of reality?

   Morality is centered around conduct, the finite, identifiable thoughts and actions of free willed, finite men. Finite, identifiable moral sets can be applied to those thoughts and actions. Now, we might not fully grasp the magnitude of consequence behind violating the moral set, but that rests independently of ascribing a moral set to men’s activities.

   Also, from a Christian perspective, if mankind is created in a God’s image, then perhaps an omnipotent God could bestow awareness and understanding of a moral set?

   Isn’t the universe itself the source of all objective facts? It seems to me that all objective fact claims should have an obvious referent.

   God created the universe. Therefore, God is not isomorphic with it.
   If God created morality, then morality came independently from the created universe.

   There is a crucial assumption in your argument that many philosophers in contemporary ethics would deny, namely that there are moral facts. “Expressivism”, the more mature cousin of “emotivism”, claims that moral claims do not contain any factual content at all. According to expressivists, there is no *fact* that backs up a moral claim.

   I would suggest to those people that they reconsider the “If I don’t see it, it doesn’t exist” stance. Scientifically, that usually ends badly.

   -What’s the difference between “intelligible” and “apprehensible”?
   -Isn’t God “intelligible” without being completely “apprehensible”?

   I adequately apprehend the computer I’m using, even though I don’t possess the intelligible analysis of its circuit/voltage design and metabolism.

   Since no fact is truly objective, it would be impossible to have some set of facts be a universal.
   It all comes down to whether what you beleive is the base source of facts you beleive in is true to you enough for you to kill someone over it.

   How ironic… to declare an objective truth that there are no objective truths.
   Tell me, where does it follow that belief in facts must motivate murder? Where did THAT come from?
   Also, what is with the “true to you enough”? I guess the most devout advocates of absolute truth, mathemeticians, must therefore be a truly dangerous lot. 😉

   1) Something can be an objective source without being written down. Namely our inherented instictive psychological makeup–ontop of which we lay morals that try to alter our behavior from what once worked for small tribes and family groups we evolved from but fails in larger groups.

   Inherited instiNctive psychological makeup? (Enter complication -sin nature.) So much for, “A man’s ways are right in his own eyes.”

   2) I’m thinking it’s true that unless something can be proven as objective–than by definition it must logically be assumed that it is subjective.

   And so much for the scientific axioms like atomic strong force which must be taken ‘on faith’ without an understanding proof.

   Surprised Razor even went there– it the kind of question that is best ignored by those that dare not take a hard look at the foundations of their religion–especially the religions that subscribe to only one fixed solution towards achieving salvation or just having an orderly and benevolent society.

   What an intellectually fraudulent and dangerous thing it is to recommend that people “ignore questions”. So much for free analytical thought.

   Faith is a philosophical subject, not a logical one – even if one’s faith is derived from logical proofs. The philosophical undertone is that such a person requires a logical foundation in order to have faith – at which point, it becomes quite clear that regardless of the logical exercise, it is still a philosophical approach.
   Razor has (veilied within a discussion of moral objectivity) attempted to reconcile faith with logical expressions – that is a base fallacy.

   Declaring faith and logic to be mutually exclusive? I can’t wait to hear the “logical proof” of that! 😉

8. 

   Comment by RazorsKiss on August 2, 2005 at 4:32 pm

   Nice, Trey.

9. Pingback by The Qualitative Argument for the Existence of Objective Moral Facts on December 5, 2007 at 5:29 pm

   […] The Cutting Edge            The Qualitative Argument for the Existence of Objective Moral Facts A response to this set of questions: 1) Can you prove that objective moral facts exists? 2) Can you prove that you are able to properly apprehend these facts through some source? 3) Can you prove that this source is the true source of all objective moral facts? Simple Model: Objective moral fact claims exist; One set of moral fact claims […] Read More Sat, 30 Jul 2005 06:43:31 +0000 in Apologia  on  RazorsKiss.net    https://razorskiss.net/wp/2005/07/30/the-qualitative-argument-for-the-existence-of-objective-moral-fa…  –  Original Article […]

10. 

    Comment by Tucker Lieberman on March 6, 2008 at 11:46 am

    The original question was: “Can you prove that objective moral facts exists?” You answered: “One set of moral fact claims is true.” This is an assumption, not a proof. No one doubts that people make claims about objective moral fact. The very question is whether any of these claims are true, which is the same thing as asking whether these facts exist. Your answer is a fancy way of saying “these facts do exist.” It is not a proof.

    The original question was: “Can you prove that you are able to properly apprehend these facts through some source?” You answered that all objective facts can be understood, and that all understanding is complete or “proper” understanding. This is an assumption, not a proof. It also seems to be a plainly false assumption. There is no passive “ability to be apprehended”; apprehension is an active ability of the one who perceives, and we quite often have an imperfect ability or carry out the apprehension incompletely. For example, it is a fact that many flowers have a color called “ultraviolet,” but I cannot see it because I am not a bee. I apprehend the fact of ultraviolet light indirectly because scientists tell me that a certain wavelength of light exists, and I apprehend it incompletely because my understanding is not as well-developed as that of the scientists themselves; but certainly my apprehension exists, and is of a greater degree than those who have never heard of ultraviolet light at all. This has nothing to do with light’s ability to be apprehended; it has to do with my ability to apprehend. “Can you prove,” as the original question stated, “that you are able to properly apprehend these facts…?” requires a far more complicated answer than the claim that all facts can be correctly apprehended.

    As for the rest of the question, regarding whether you can “apprehend these facts through some source“…
    You replied that moral facts “would” be communicated by a source who gives us information about the moral facts. This might actually be an argument, because of your addition of the concept of Information, from which you arrive at a Source of Information. But I wonder about your use of the word “would”. Are you saying that the Source must make an effort to communicate the moral facts to us, or else they are not truly moral facts? Are you implying that we must be able to fully understand what is communicated to us, or else the information is not morally binding for the one who does not understand it?

    The original question was: “Can you prove that this source is the true source of all objective moral facts?” You answered: “If objective moral fact is supplied, it is supplied as a set” that “cannot contain any moral non-facts,” and this set “has either one source, or multiple sources which agree in all respects.” This is an assumption, not a proof. Why should we assume that all moral facts are pre-packaged together in a coherent set, and that the items in this set were developed by a single author or even by mutually agreeable authors (or, more vaguely, that they had agreeable “sources”)? Perhaps moral facts were not created in a long list that forms an easily identifiable set. Perhaps they are embedded in the structure of things (since they generally govern relationships between things) or perhaps they “pop up” spontaneously in response to new relationships and situations. Consider this moral conundrum: Should I go to fight in the war, or should I stay home and care for my sick mother? The moral fact (i.e. the “correct” answer to this problem) is not obviously part of any set, and the information does not obviously descend from the same source. Morality and ethics is not just rote memorization of divinely revealed rules, but it is a lived response to challenging and complicated situations in which we tend to argue and invent the answers as we go along. (Witness the Letters to the Editor in any newspaper, arguing back and forth just to identify and create the correct approach to the issue du jour.) You would have to do a great deal more work to prove that all moral facts are consistent with each other, and that, even if they are consistent, they come from a single source. Because, if some anthropologists from Mars came here to study us, and you asked them where they thought Earthlings’ moral facts came from, they would tell you they witness diverse moral opinions that humans sometimes share and work together to codify into socially agreed-upon moral facts–these “facts” are developed from the bottom-up, and there’s no apparent top-down source. How would you convince a Martian observer that the true, invisible source of morality disseminates moral information from the top down?

11. 

    Comment by RazorsKiss on March 8, 2008 at 11:32 am

    The original question was: “Can you prove that objective moral facts exists?” You answered: “One set of moral fact claims is true.” This is an assumption, not a proof.

    Really? There is nothing that is true? Are you honestly trying to say that nothing is true? In a world where Not A =/= A, you’re saying there is no A? There is only one set of complete moral facts which is true. That is what this claims. Just like, when looking at a variety of sets of *quantitative* facts, only one set of all possible combinations correspond perfectly with reality. In a similar way, only one set of possible objective moral facts correspond with reality perfectly.

    No one doubts that people make claims about objective moral fact.

    Of course not.

    The very question is whether any of these claims are true, which is the same thing as asking whether these facts exist.
    Your answer is a fancy way of saying “these facts do exist.” It is not a proof.

    It’s a step-by-step argument. You’re confusing a step in the argument with a response to the entire question. They are not identical. When you take one step, and single it out as not answering the entire question alone – I think you’re missing the point. Further, you’re taking the simple model, without looking at the context provided by the expanded model, and taking one step in isolation, even from that. Why is one set of objective moral facts true, per the expanded model? Hint: I explained it above.

    Read the expanded model. It answers all of the above. Why are you using the simple model, as if it stands alone? You haven’t interacted with any of the extended argumentation.

    The original question was: “Can you prove that you are able to properly apprehend these facts through some source?” You answered that all objective facts can be understood, and that all understanding is complete or “proper” understanding. This is an assumption, not a proof. It also seems to be a plainly false assumption.

    If I had just stated what you list above, you’d be justified in what you’re arguing – however, once again, you failed to interact with the argumentation in any meaningful fashion.

    There is no passive “ability to be apprehended”; apprehension is an active ability of the one who perceives, and we quite often have an imperfect ability or carry out the apprehension incompletely.

    I said nothing of the sort. If you search the page for the word “ability”, it only occurs in your comment. So, why are you even bringing this up? Interact with the argumentation provided, please.

    For example, it is a fact that many flowers have a color called “ultraviolet,” but I cannot see it because I am not a bee. I apprehend the fact of ultraviolet light indirectly because scientists tell me that a certain wavelength of light exists, and I apprehend it incompletely because my understanding is not as well-developed as that of the scientists themselves; but certainly my apprehension exists, and is of a greater degree than those who have never heard of ultraviolet light at all. This has nothing to do with light’s ability to be apprehended; it has to do with my ability to apprehend. “Can you prove,” as the original question stated, “that you are able to properly apprehend these facts…?” requires a far more complicated answer than the claim that all facts can be correctly apprehended.

    First, you ignore the argumentation given for the claim – yet again. The word is defined quite clearly, and the reasoning is given quite succinctly. A fact is understood in the context in which it is given. He who gives it, provides the meaning and intelligibility. That’s what the argument says.

    As for the rest of the question, regarding whether you can “apprehend these facts through some source“…
    You replied that moral facts “would” be communicated by a source who gives us information about the moral facts. This might actually be an argument, because of your addition of the concept of Information, from which you arrive at a Source of Information.

    Well, thank you for granting me an argument finally… perhaps. Oy.

    But I wonder about your use of the word “would”. Are you saying that the Source must make an effort to communicate the moral facts to us, or else they are not truly moral facts? Are you implying that we must be able to fully understand what is communicated to us, or else the information is not morally binding for the one who does not understand it?

    No. I’m saying that the source will, and did, do so. For the argument’s sake, however, if there are facts, they have a source – and that source, obviously, will use information. As information is not random, but ordered, it will be in a comprehensible/apprehensible form. Especially since, obviously, this source would be concerned with communicating it. If the source is concerned with communicating it, it will be in such a form as to ensure the possibility of comprehension.

    Whether or not it is fully understood is a function of capacity, not of communication. If the source is communicating it – it is obviously in a form understandable to both parties, unless the source does a poor job of doing so. The party receiving the information might be incredibly stupid, or the source might be inept – but this is not the typical situation.

    I’m not concerned with the question of whether it’s “morally binding” in this argument, and it is not within the scope of the argument at all. It is concerned with the definitional and truth-representational “qualities” of “true” qualitatively objective moral facts.

    The original question was: “Can you prove that this source is the true source of all objective moral facts?” You answered: “If objective moral fact is supplied, it is supplied as a set” that “cannot contain any moral non-facts,” and this set “has either one source, or multiple sources which agree in all respects.” This is an assumption, not a proof.

    Why? If the objective moral facts we are concerned with are the *true* ones – they cannot, obviously, include any moral facts which are untrue; ie: moral non-facts. The set of objective moral facts that is true will agree with each other completely. The source, from the argument, can be multiple sources that agree with each other en toto (complementarity), if not individually on all points within their individual sets – or one source, which reveals the entire of moral facts. I’d argue most strongly for the latter, as we’re forced to pick and choose in the former, with no objective assurance, from our standpoint, which are the factual moral claims or not. In the latter, the source gives us all facts, and those facts are all true.

    Why should we assume that all moral facts are pre-packaged together in a coherent set, and that the items in this set were developed by a single author or even by mutually agreeable authors (or, more vaguely, that they had agreeable “sources”)? Perhaps moral facts were not created in a long list that forms an easily identifiable set. Perhaps they are embedded in the structure of things (since they generally govern relationships between things) or perhaps they “pop up” spontaneously in response to new relationships and situations.

    See, that’s the problem with the former source, above. How shall we determine the non-facts among the individual sets making up the total set, from the facts? We’re back at the beginning. It’s possible, is unlikely and makes it difficult to determine the truth from fiction. In the latter, all facts are presented to you, by one source, and are presented in such a way that comprehensibility is the goal.

    Consider this moral conundrum: Should I go to fight in the war, or should I stay home and care for my sick mother?

    What is presented is a categorical error. What we aren’t told is… anything about the context. Is this really a moral choice we’re speaking of? If so, why? We aren’t told how sick the mother is, whether anyone else can take care of her, whether the war requires the man, or not… there’s a myriad of things this example doesn’t address, and there’s a question about whether this is even a moral choice at all.

    A better question, perhaps.

    “You are in a plane about to crash, there are 3 parachutes and 4 people. Yourself, a black man, a chinese woman and an escaped criminal. Who gets to die?”

    That’s a more obviously moral situation. Or this one:

    “Three people are foolishly on a railroad track at a switch, the train will hit them if you don’t throw the switch, but if you throw the switch you’ll kill another man crossing the other track. Do you throw the switch?”

    The moral fact (i.e. the “correct” answer to this problem) is not obviously part of any set, and the information does not obviously descend from the same source.

    Mostly because it’s not an obviously moral choice, nor is it very informative.

    Morality and ethics is not just rote memorization of divinely revealed rules, but it is a lived response to challenging and complicated situations in which we tend to argue and invent the answers as we go along. (Witness the Letters to the Editor in any newspaper, arguing back and forth just to identify and create the correct approach to the issue du jour.)

    You can assert that, if you wish. Letters to the editor are not necessarily about moral issues, either. In fact, usually, they aren’t. If you invent your moral code as you go, I really fear for those around you.

    You would have to do a great deal more work to prove that all moral facts are consistent with each other, and that, even if they are consistent, they come from a single source. Because, if some anthropologists from Mars came here to study us, and you asked them where they thought Earthlings’ moral facts came from, they would tell you they witness diverse moral opinions that humans sometimes share and work together to codify into socially agreed-upon moral facts–these “facts” are developed from the bottom-up, and there’s no apparent top-down source.

    See, there’s where we depart from the scope of the argument.

    “as it is written, “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE;” – Romans 3:10

    “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”‘ – Romans 1:17

    “And He said to him, “Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” – Matthew 9:17

    Only God is good. God gives us His moral law, and we are obligated to keep it. We cannot, of course – so Christ came to keep it, and die in our stead, as is demanded for the penalty of sin.

    Of course our hypothetical “martian anthropologists” couldn’t find a “source of moral law” – man rejects God, and thus, His moral facts that He has communicated to us. So…

    “Every man’s way is right in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs the hearts.” – Proverbs 21:2

    Of course everyone wants to say that they pick their own morality. Because they reject God, and thus, the only wellspring of moral reality.

    This argument is a refutation of the subjective viewpoint that says moral facts HAVE no source. Except, as we have shown, there IS. It is simply rejected in favor of a set of moral “facts” which suits the person in question.

    How would you convince a Martian observer that the true, invisible source of morality disseminates moral information from the top down?

    Once again – “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”‘ – Romans 1:17

    “Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” – Genesis 15:6

    That’s where our “righteousness” comes from. It is a gift, predicated on God’s fulfillment of “all righteousness”. Romans 3 makes this argument quite well.

    Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law [comes] the knowledge of sin. But now apart from the Law [the] righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even [the] righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. [This was] to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, [I say], of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. Or is God [the God] of Jews only? Is He not [the God] of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one. Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law. ~ Romans 3:19-31

    That is what the Bible tells us about the standard which God gave, why we can never keep it, and why, for those who are being saved, it is the power of God, unto salvation.

    “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” ~ 1 Corinthians 1:18

12. 

    Comment by Tucker Lieberman on March 9, 2008 at 9:25 pm

    Sorry to have given you the impression that I only responded to your Simple Model. I had indeed read the expanded model, and my comment was intended to respond to it. Apologies if that didn’t come across.

    I don’t believe I said anywhere that nothing is true, or that there are no facts. The subject at hand is, specifically, moral fact. It is an assumption to say that “one set of moral fact claims is true” because it is possible that objective moral facts do not exist. Nowhere in the expanded model do you consider this possibility. You haven’t explicitly argued your point.

    When I used the phrase “ability to be apprehended,” I was referring to your word “apprehensible,” whose component parts literally mean “able to be apprehended.” Your phrase was “Objective facts are properly apprehensible.” I am saying that proper or complete apprehension depends at least as much on the one who apprehends as on the fact that is being apprehended. Thus, my example of ultraviolet light; whether it is apprehensible depends on who is looking. You did define the word, but by axiom, not by argument. The example of ultraviolet light was supposed to illuminate an inadequacy of the provided “axiomatic” definition.

    You said: “A fact is understood in the context in which it is given. He who gives it, provides the meaning and intelligibility. That’s what the argument says.”
    Ah. This is additional information that wasn’t included in your original argument. Your Expanded Model said simply that “Objective facts are intelligible”; it didn’t say that the one who communicates the fact is the one who makes it intelligible, nor that context affects its intelligibility or apprehensibility.

    It’s fair to consider questions of what is “morally binding” out of scope. I just wanted to point out that your discussion leads me to the edge of that territory. When you place importance on the communication of a moral claim, the natural next question (for me, anyway) is what happens if the communication is not understood–is the moral fact still binding on, and therefore still true for, the person who didn’t understand it? Just a question, but, as you said, we don’t have to go there.

    I’m getting tripped up by two possible definitions of “set”. One is a set that exists only conceptually, e.g. the set of all prime numbers (including the ones that have not yet been discovered). The other is information or objects that are created and presented together in a more literal package, e.g. a carton of a dozen eggs, or the works of Shakespeare. When you speak about objective moral fact being “supplied as a set,” it evokes, for me, the latter type of set.

    I called the supplied-as-a-set claim an “assumption” because I can’t find the argument demonstrating that Someone has assembled these moral facts into a mutually agreeable set and then supplied them to humans. I also still think it is an assumption that there was only one Someone, or agreeable Someones; why couldn’t the set have been prepared by people who disagreed or who worked anonymously from each other (much as the body of Philosophy has been developed by various people in partial isolation from each other)? I don’t see arguments for these claims.

    I said: “Perhaps moral facts were not created in a long list that forms an easily identifiable set. Perhaps they are embedded in the structure of things (since they generally govern relationships between things) or perhaps they “pop up” spontaneously in response to new relationships and situations.”
    You said: “It’s possible, is unlikely and makes it difficult to determine the truth from fiction.”
    We cannot assume it is false just because it would cause us difficulty. Most people would agree that moral truth is indeed difficult to determine. A complete moral theory will account for this epistemic difficulty (not that either of us is attempting to present a complete moral theory here, but this is one of many issues to be acknowledged). Also, why did you say my proposals seemed more unlikely than your proposal?

    I said: “Should I go to fight in the war, or should I stay home and care for my sick mother?”
    You said: “What we aren’t told is… anything about the context. Is this really a moral choice we’re speaking of?”
    Well, the man in question would know the context quite well. And I don’t see how it is anything other than a moral choice. Why do you think it not obviously so? Because there isn’t enough information; because, even with information, there might still be gray area; or because the choice is revocable? Anyway, my point was simply that moral issues can be difficult and have gray area, and we have to create arguments for our choices, and (on some questions) different people arrive at different conclusions–none of which supports the idea that there is a single set of objective moral fact. It doesn’t contradict it (some people might just be wrong) but it doesn’t support it either.

    Many letters to the editor are about moral and ethical issues. Healthcare, education, clean air and water, immigration, honesty in politics, world peace…people engage in public debates about the right thing to do. Through various discussion forums, they change their minds and change other people’s minds, until, ideally, some consensus or equilibrium is reached. Everyone invents parts of their moral codes as they go along. I ate meat until I became aware of environmental and ethical issues, and for the past 10 years I’ve been tweaking the “rules” about my vegetarianism in an attempt to “do the right thing,” because the right thing is difficult to discern and is context-dependent. There is no need for you to comment “I really fear for those around you.” If I am adjusting my moral code as I go, it’s because I have a new context or new information about my context. I think everyone does the same. Some people who initially supported the US occupation of Iraq now oppose it, and vice versa. I’d be afraid of people who aren’t flexible as circumstance requires, or who ignore intellectual opportunities to update and correct their moral codes.

    Lastly, I believe you missed my point about the Martian anthropologists who only witness people creating their own rules. I wasn’t implying that the people were lawless, chaotic, self-centered, etc. Quite the contrary: I’m saying that, even in a reasonably peaceful and just society, the Martians would witness the people creating their own legal and social order; this order would be under constant revision from multiple sources (judges, philosophers, activists, politicians, etc.); and these sources would not all agree with each other. The alleged single source who creates the one true moral code from on high isn’t at all obvious.

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