FORGIVENESS

[Angra Mainyu]

Honestly, I think you need to reassess what it is you imagine you're supposed to be demonstrating. You've spent a heap of time and effort on tortuous and complicated scenarios and you haven't really shown anything much.

I prefer the term 'showing' rather than 'demonstrating', as the latter might be interpreted in the sense of logical entailment. But details aside, I have shown something. Something that is already obvious, namely that immorality and other properties are attitude independent. Since it was obvious - it's the verdict of a human faculty with no good reasons to mistrust it -, there was no burden on my part. But I chose to go the extra parsec and make an argument anyway.

But all you did was you just came out with what seems to be a questionable claim about the human moral sense being the proper tool to make moral assessments, and that this somehow 'shows independence'.

That is not a questionable claim. It is obviously the proper way. If you want to make color assessments, the proper way is to use the human color sense. It might fail, but that is the proper way. If you want to make assessments of health and illness (i.e., whether someone showing some symptoms is ill), the proper way is to use the human intuitive sense of illness/health. Of course, it might fail. Or it might get insufficient or wrong info. But that is the proper way. And the same for moral assessments. There is absolutely no other reasonable candidate to do that.

That one must be written in The Book Of Angra, chapter 7, verse 25, or something. I don't know whether it's in the same chapter as 'if you're not talking about colour in the everyday colloquial sense then you're not talking about colour', but that verse could be in there somewhere, possibly as a commandment.

That is so insulting. I hope one day you come to realize how wrong you were. Of course, words have meaning. If you change the meaning of 'red' and you define 'red=car' for example, then when you say 'red' you are not talking about color, but about cars. When you want to talk about immorality, permissibility, and other moral properties, it would be a big mistake to redefine the terms - you would be talking about something else.

Nope. Your actual, last-person-left merely deemed his own actions not immoral. That's not independent of his attitudes.

Sure it is. I already pointed out it would be unreasonable to think that what makes his behavior immoral is his attitude of considering it not immoral. And it is apparent that this is not so. But if you want, you can just test that theory. Let us modify S14:

S14: A few centuries into the future, Jack is one of the colonists going to a nearby planetary system. He is a psychopathic serial killer, and is planning to do all sorts of killings for fun. He goes into cryosleep with everyone else, but plants a reprograms his pod to wake up a day earlier than scheduled. He also plants a virus so that no one is warned when he wakes up. So, he does wake up. And he proceeds to murder 3 members of the 4-people crew, one by one, and before they knew what hit them. The fourth one, Sally, he takes by surprise, beats up, and then tortures slowly, to get the codes to access the main functions of the ship. Then, he murders her too. After that, he kills everyone else on the ship, by rigging the cryopods to give them a lethal electroshock. They don't know what hit them, either. He also plans to wreak havoc on the ground, on arrival to planet #294, his destination. He reckons he can't just land with everyone else dead - that would raise questions! So, instead, he programs the ship to collide with the colony. Since the colony is new and still pretty small, a direct hit to the inhabited area will kill everyone, he thinks. He is going to abandon ship on a small pod, and land in an area for landing and launching ships. He will then live there, and lauch again on a different ship, in course to Earth, to kill more people. He thinks his actions are not immoral.
Unbeknown to Jack, while he was in cryosleep, a massive war broke out on Earth, and it got to the colony. Tens of thousands of nukes were used, as well as smart killer robots, and bioweapons. Humans were all killed. As for the colony, a bunch of killer robots got there faster (better propulsion system, no need for life support) and killed everone. All of the other colony ships were also blown up. Result? After he killed everyone else on board, the only human being left in the universe is Jack. There are also no aliens smarter than, say, a frog. So, all of the actions he carried out after he murdered all of the other colonists, where considered fine by everyone in the universe ("everyone"="Jack").

S15: A few centuries into the future, Jack is one of the colonists going to a nearby planetary system. He is a psychopathic serial killer, and is planning to do all sorts of killings for fun. He goes into cryosleep with everyone else, but plants a reprograms his pod to wake up a day earlier than scheduled. He also plants a virus so that no one is warned when he wakes up. So, he does wake up. And he proceeds to murder 3 members of the 4-people crew, one by one, and before they knew what hit them. The fourth one, Sally, he takes by surprise, beats up, and then tortures slowly, to get the codes to access the main functions of the ship. Then, he murders her too. After that, he kills everyone else on the ship, by rigging the cryopods to give them a lethal electroshock. They don't know what hit them, either. He also plans to wreak havoc on the ground, on arrival to planet #294, his destination. He reckons he can't just land with everyone else dead - that would raise questions! So, instead, he programs the ship to collide with the colony. Since the colony is new and still pretty small, a direct hit to the inhabited area will kill everyone, he thinks. He is going to abandon ship on a small pod, and land in an area for landing and launching ships. He will then live there, and lauch again on a different ship, in course to Earth, to kill more people. He thinks his actions are immoral. That turns him on even further.
Unbeknown to Jack, while he was in cryosleep, a massive war broke out on Earth, and it got to the colony. Tens of thousands of nukes were used, as well as smart killer robots, and bioweapons. Humans were all killed. As for the colony, a bunch of killer robots got there faster (better propulsion system, no need for life support) and killed everone. All of the other colony ships were also blown up. Result? After he killed everyone else on board, the only human being left in the universe is Jack. There are also no aliens smarter than, say, a frog. So, all of the actions he carried out after he murdered all of the other colonists, where considered fine by everyone in the universe ("everyone"="Jack").​

Now, in S14, Jack's attempt to kill everyone in the colony for fun, was immoral behavior, even though he believed it was not immoral. But in S15, Jack's attempt to kill everyone in the colony for fun, was immoral behavior, which he believed was immoral. So, the immorality of Jack's attempt to kill everyone in the colony for fun is independent of his beliefs on whether it is immoral.

Ideal observers, eh? This is where I start to smell something that's starting to smell a bit like woo-type-stuff, especially if the ideal observer's moral sense is supposed to be 'the proper tool to make moral assessments', and that this 'shows independence'.

Not at all. The woo is always in your head, falsely accusing me of it, even though you will never realize that. No, you misconstrue my words. I said I was not arguing against an ideal-observer theory, not that I was proposing it. I am not. But furthermore, ideal observer theory is not remotely like that. It is not in general woo - it might take that form, but usually it does not.

How does it do that last thing, one wonders. Are we talking about an ideal, independent observer that might start to resemble a god, that can have 'all the facts', know everything, and know what's best and right and wrong about everything?

No, that's your woo-false-accusation emitter at play. I am not even proposing such a theory. I am saying that I was arguing against the theories that say that immorality depends on the beliefs, attitudes, etc. of actual people ('actual' in the scenario), not against ideal observer theories. I did not say I was proposing it. At any rate, generally those theories do not involve woo, though some might.

Your 'ideal observers' just seem to be doing their own deeming, that's all. That's not independent of attitudes.

First, no, those are not my ideal observers.

Second, it would not be independent of attitudes in a sense (because it is the attitude of the ideal observer), but it would for all intents and purposes work exactly like moral realism (e.g., if someone says 'X is immoral' and someone else says 'X is not immoral', one of them is mistaken, some behaviors are immoral, etc.), and it would be independent of attitudes in the sense we are discussing here, so I'm not trying to knock it out.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Okay, so let us address the remaining issues, specifically the test I proposed. Before I begin, and to be clear, I do not believe this test is at all needed to show independence. I think it is much more immediate - it is intuitively clear that independence holds. But if you do not see it, take a look at how humans regularly behave on the face of moral disagreement. They take disagreement to be true disagreement, rather than 'no fact of the matter'. They tell each other they are mistaken. They try to persuade each other by means of providing arguments, and in most cases - at least, when they're not doing religion, ideology, or an unjustified philosophy (and they usually are unjustified) -, they try to convince each other of the nonmoral facts, trying to get others to agree with them on the moral facts by means of agreement on the nonmoral ones.

Still, I say this just so as not to give the impression that I think much hinges on this test. It's one more test one can properly make. The reason I thought of this particular test is that I got the impression that you were proposing it in the first place. I realize that was not so, and you were only impling that if T1 is false, then independence if false, but not that if T1 is true, then independence is true. But I think it's a nice test anyway, so that is why I'm using it now.

What I'd like you to address is my critique of your proposed test:

I have, but below I provide a much more detailed reply.

The problem here is that if you're not assuming the very thing you're attempting to prove (that A's doing X is impermissible attitude-independent), how do you explain, in a non-question-begging way, how we can know that A's doing X was immoral in the first place?

Let us split the argument in two parts:

Part 1: I will argue that the human moral sense intuitively yields that the property of immorality (at least in some cases; I would argue in all, but on different grounds) is independent of attitudes or beliefs.

Part 2: I will argue that we should trust our moral sense, barring specific evidence to the contrary (empirical evidence, arguments, etc.).
​

Now, the test I used is meant to support Part 1. Part 2, I already argued on other grounds. But let us focus on Part 1, as you are challenging the test (if you intend to challenge Part 2, we can discuss that later, but I think Part 1 comes first, as it is what you are challenging now).

As I've explained, it seems to me you have two options and they both have their problems:

1) You know it is immoral because the behaviour has the attitude independent property of being immoral. The problem here is that your test becomes circular (what everyone in the universe believes is irrelevant).

or

2) You have made a personal assessment and concluded that the behaviour is immoral. The problem here is that this does not count as an attitude-independent assessment so your test fails (it simply means that you disagree with everyone in the universe).​

My option is different, and simple:

First, I contemplate the behavior of Jack (Ahmed) consisting in attempting to kill everyone in the colony for fun (because they were infidels). Upon contemplating them, my moral sense reckons the behavior is immoral. Note that my moral sense reckons that the behavior is immoral, not that it is immoral in someone's opinion - just as my sense of health/illness will tell me a person showing some symptoms is ill, not just ill in my opinion or whatever. In short, what pops into my head is just 'immoral'.

Second, I use my moral sense as a guide to what the human moral sense normally yields. There is ample evidence to do that - I am human -, but then, I also invite you and others to use their respective moral senses, and see whether their respective moral senses yield the same verdict. I cannot guarantee of course that all will agree. But I expect that, as long as they are using their moral senses rather than religion, ideology or a philosophy they might be in the grip of, they'll reckon the behaviors were immoral (and I'm pretty sure your moral sense also yield 'immoral', regardless of whether you add an 'in my opinion').

Third, since everyone in the universe believes the behavior is not immoral, this shows that our human moral sense intuitively holds that a behavior can be immoral independently of anyone's attitudes, beliefs, etc. Now, someone might say: 'But what about the attitudes of us, the people making the assessment?' Well, actually, we do not exist in the scenario. We are making an assessment about the morality of a behavior in a scenario that does not contain us.

Granted, if 'X is immoral' just meant 'I do not like X', or 'I disapprove of X' (or some other crude form of anti-realism), the test would clearly not work, so in proposing this option, I am implicitly assuming that a view like that does not hold. This is true, but I think I have provided more than enough grounds through the thread to show this to be the case. Regardless, I can provide more. For example, moral disagreement provides conclusive evidence. Here is an example:

Alice: McConnell's behaved immorally when he supported Kavanaugh's nomination.
Bob: You are mistaken, he did not behave immorally when he supported it.
​

This would be a normal dialogue (you can find plenty of examples of the sort on the internet). But try to test one of those theories, for example:

Alice: I disapprove of McConnell's support for Kavanaugh's nomination.
Bob: You are mistaken, it is not the case that I dissaprove of Kavanaugh's nomination
​

Surely, that would not make sense, and it would be transparent that it does not make sense, so that is not the meaning of the expression 'immorally' (and similar ones).

How about somewhat more sophisticated views under which also whether X is immoral depends on the attitude/belief/etc. of the person making the moral assessment?
The first part of my reply would be that, as mentioned before, S12 and S14 (and S13 and S15 for contrast) are scenarios in which all of the people making the assessment are in error.

Alright, so you might think: but how about some sophisticated view in which whenever we make moral assessments, we are attributing some property to ourselves, or claiming some relation between us (i.e., the person making the assessment) and the person whose behavior we are assessing?

Actually, those scenarios are handled in the same way as the crude ones, save for details. For example (for relations, unitary properties are no different):

Alice: X=McConnell's support for Kavanaugh's nomination and I are in relation R(X, Alice).
Bob: You are mistaken, it is not the case that R(X, Bob) holds.
​

That makes no sense, either.

Granted, this is not done by the test itself, so I am using different arguments. True, the test works under certain hypotheses, some of which I mentioned before (e.g., regarding non-theism, etc.), and against some forms of attitude-dependence. But the hypotheses can be defended independently (as I am doing now), and the forms of attitude-dependence that the test does not catch can be disposed of straightforwardly in other ways (as I am doing now).

Aside from all of that, there is another point I would like to raise. Let us go back to something you said earlier:

You've taken one particular interpretation of what I said which avoids the uncomfortable logical conclusion of your view. I'll be explicit.

Given Angra Mainyu's view that an action is moral/immoral independent of anyone's beliefs, feelings, attitudes or opinions, it follows that in principle it is possible that a behaviour could be immoral even if everyone in the universe thought it was fine (not immoral).

So, you considered that the possibility that a behaviour could be immoral even if everyone in the universe thought it was not immoral, was an uncomfortable consequence of attitude-independence. I already argued against that claim of uncomfortableness. But let's leave that aside now, and let us imagine that whether a behavior is immoral depends on the attitude of the person making the assessment among us, not in the scenarios/universes/etc. that we consider (i.e., the sort of attitude-dependence I just argued against above, in this post, whether crude or a bit more sophisticated). Surely, that is not the case (as I just argued above), but that aside, assuming this possibility holds, then it seems a behavior could still be immoral even though everyone in the universe thought it was fine (not immoral), as the assessment that it is immoral only depends on us, or rather, each of us, even when making assessments about other universes.

So, it appears this consequence is not only a consequence of attitude-independence, but also a consequence of the forms of attitude-dependence that are not ruled out by the test. So, the uncomfortableness if there were any is just as much with (this sort of) antirealism as it is with realism (not that there is any uncomfortableness, as argued earlier).

 

[ruby sparks]

It is obviously the proper way. If you want to make color assessments, the proper way is to use the human color sense. It might fail, but that is the proper way. If you want to make assessments of health and illness (i.e., whether someone showing some symptoms is ill), the proper way is to use the human intuitive sense of illness/health. Of course, it might fail. Or it might get insufficient or wrong info. But that is the proper way.

I see. So.......... fallible human subjectivity, intuitions and introspection are the proper tools to use for human enquiry.

Can I ask you a question. Are you posting here from the 4th Century AD? You know, before the scientific method? If you are, it would explain a LOT.

If you change the meaning of 'red' and you define 'red=car' for example, then when you say 'red' you are not talking about color, but about cars. When you want to talk about immorality, permissibility, and other moral properties, it would be a big mistake to redefine the terms - you would be talking about something else.

Except that I'm not talking about something else. I'm still talking about colour. I'm just not only talking about it using the everyday language that is apparently common in the pre-scientific era that you seem to live in.

Sure it is. I already pointed out it would be unreasonable to think that what makes his behavior immoral is his attitude of considering it not immoral. And it is apparent that this is not so. But if you want, you can just test that theory. Let us modify S14:

S14: A few centuries into the future.......[snip]....... So, the immorality of Jack's attempt to kill everyone in the colony for fun is independent of his beliefs on whether it is immoral.

Well, it seems that you have at last shown what you said you were showing.

No wait. You didn't. You just wasted even more time on tortuous scenarios that show nothing other than in each case Jack deemed something one way or the other, but that you, and I and AntiChris, and probably most people, from outside the scenario, deemed, or would deem something, as well. So far, it's all deemings one way or the other, by humans, and not independent of them or their attitudes.

Have another try. Maybe do a scenario where Jack lives in the 4th Century AD. At least then you will be much more familiar with the relevant underlying standards of enquiry. Those were the days when human brains were often thought to be coated in some sort of special magic sauce.

 

[The AntiChris]

As I've explained, it seems to me you have two options and they both have their problems:

1) You know it is immoral because the behaviour has the attitude independent property of being immoral. The problem here is that your test becomes circular (what everyone in the universe believes is irrelevant).

or

2) You have made a personal assessment and concluded that the behaviour is immoral. The problem here is that this does not count as an attitude-independent assessment so your test fails (it simply means that you disagree with everyone in the universe).​

My option is different, and simple:

First, I contemplate the behavior of Jack (Ahmed) consisting in attempting to kill everyone in the colony for fun (because they were infidels). Upon contemplating them, my moral sense reckons the behavior is immoral.

What exactly is it that your moral sense is sensing? What you say next suggests that you believe you sense the attitude-independent moral property of the behaviour:

Note that my moral sense reckons that the behavior is immoral, not that it is immoral in someone's opinion - just as my sense of health/illness will tell me a person showing some symptoms is ill, not just ill in my opinion or whatever. In short, what pops into my head is just 'immoral'.

As symptoms are clearly attitude-independent properties of the patient, it seems you are saying that you 'sense' the attitude-independent moral property of the behaviour.

If I've understood you correctly, this is exactly my option "1" above which you rejected ("my option is different"). I'm confused.

...moral disagreement provides conclusive evidence.

I know you believe this, however as you will undoubtedly be aware there are competing theories about the meaning of moral discourse which is why the realist/anti-realist debate is still a live issue in moral philosophy.

I'm not going to attempt to argue against the points you make. We simply have different interpretations/opinions.

Aside from all of that, there is another point I would like to raise. Let us go back to something you said earlier:

You've taken one particular interpretation of what I said which avoids the uncomfortable logical conclusion of your view. I'll be explicit.

Given Angra Mainyu's view that an action is moral/immoral independent of anyone's beliefs, feelings, attitudes or opinions, it follows that in principle it is possible that a behaviour could be immoral even if everyone in the universe thought it was fine (not immoral).

So, you considered that the possibility that a behaviour could be immoral even if everyone in the universe thought it was not immoral, was an uncomfortable consequence of attitude-independence. I already argued against that claim of uncomfortableness. But let's leave that aside now, and let us imagine that whether a behavior is immoral depends on the attitude of the person making the assessment among us, not in the scenarios/universes/etc. that we consider (i.e., the sort of attitude-dependence I just argued against above, in this post, whether crude or a bit more sophisticated). Surely, that is not the case (as I just argued above), but that aside, assuming this possibility holds, then it seems a behavior could still be immoral even though everyone in the universe thought it was fine (not immoral), as the assessment that it is immoral only depends on us, or rather, each of us, even when making assessments about other universes.

So, it appears this consequence is not only a consequence of attitude-independence, but also a consequence of the forms of attitude-dependence that are not ruled out by the test. So, the uncomfortableness if there were any is just as much with (this sort of) antirealism as it is with realism (not that there is any uncomfortableness, as argued earlier).

I think what you're trying to say here is that even if we accept that the external-to-the-universe observer's moral assessment is attitude-dependent (i.e. anti-realist), it remains the fact that a "behavior could still be immoral" even though everyone in the universe thought it was fine.

The phrase "behavior could still be immoral" is imprecise/misleading. What it more accurately means, given the attitude-dependent assessment, is: "a behaviour could still be immoral in the opinion of the external observer". With this in mind, all that is demonstrated is a difference of opinion between the observer and everyone in the universe.

The point here is that for a moral anti-realist, a behaviour is never, of itself, simply immoral - it's always immoral in the opinion of the speaker (or from the viewpoint of a particular individual).

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I see. So.......... fallible human subjectivity, intuitions and introspection are the proper tools to use for human enquiry.

Can I ask you a question. Are you posting here from the 4th Century AD? You know, before the scientific method? If you are, it would explain a LOT.

No, you really are confused. Obviously, if you want to make color assessments, the proper way is to use the human color sense. That is how it was always done, well before science, and humans knew what color stuff was. But if scientists want to make a machine to detect color, they have no way of doing so except...to use the human color sense to calibrate it! (obviously).

If you want to make assessments of health and illness (i.e., whether someone showing some symptoms is ill), the proper way is to use the human intuitive sense of illness/health. How do modern medicine does it? Exactly in that way. Medicine was developed in order to treat illnesses, etc. But the human sense of illness/health is what tells us what an illness is. And so on.

.

So you claim. But as has been explained many times, there are reasons why analogies between morality and other things (illness, colour, wavelengths, etc) are potentially problematic.

No, it is just the only possible proper method in all cases as a basis. Any other method depends on it in a crucial manner.

Except that I'm not talking about something else. I'm still talking about colour. I'm just not only talking about it using the everyday language that is apparently common in the pre-scientific era that you seem to live in.

That is something else

Have another try. Maybe do a scenario where Jack lives in the 4th Century AD. At least then you will be much more familiar with the relevant underlying standards of enquiry.

I hope that one day you realize how wrong you were, and realize that your attacks were unethical.
That said, I am almost certain you will never realize that.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

What exactly is it that your moral sense is sensing? What you say next suggests that you believe you sense the attitude-independent moral property of the behaviour:

My sense just says 'immoral', as it would say 'ill', or 'red'. Of course, I believe in independence, and this is one of the arguments for it.

As symptoms are clearly attitude-independent properties of the patient, it seems you are saying that you 'sense' the attitude-independent moral property of the behaviour.

First, all of those properties are clearly attitude-independent.
But leave that aside. In this context (i.e., this argument), it is a mistake to think I'm making a parallel between those symptoms and immorality. Rather, the parallel is between the symptoms that are observed and the behavior (i.e., attempting to kill people for fun), whereas the assessment that a person with those symptoms is ill is compared with the assessment that a person who behaves in that manner acts immorally.

If I've understood you correctly, this is exactly my option "1" above which you rejected ("my option is different"). I'm confused.

I'm afraid you have not.

I know you believe this, however as you will undoubtedly be aware there are competing theories about the meaning of moral discourse which is why the realist/anti-realist debate is still a live issue in moral philosophy.

But live issues do not mean that one of the sides does not have conclusive evidence. It is a live issue whether Jesus rose from the dead (in philosophy of religion), whether there is an omnipotent, omniscient morally perfect creator (in metaphysics and philosophy of religion), and it's not even a live issue whether some gender nonsense is true.

The phrase "behavior could still be immoral" is imprecise/misleading.

It is the phrase you chose originally not I, but no, as I already explained, the 'immoral' in that expression is not misleading or imprecise (the 'could' might be, but as explained, this is not relevant, as I provided scenarios in which it is immoral, and thus it could be immoral).

What it more accurately means, given the attitude-dependent assessment, is: "a behaviour could still be immoral in the opinion of the external observer". With this in mind, all that is demonstrated is a difference of opinion between the observer and everyone in the universe.

No, that is not what it means.

I already provided further argumentation. Note that if a person uses the expression 'X could be immoral' to mean 'X could be immoral in the opinion of the external observer', the word 'immoral' is used in the second expression to mean something other than in the first, and - if it is not further defined, to mean e.g., 'cat', then in the second expression, 'immoral' takes the ordinary meaning in English.

Indeed, if the word 'immoral' meant the same in both expressions, we would have that a person uses 'X could be immoral' to mean 'X could be immoral in the opinion of the external observer' to mean 'X could be immoral in the opinion of the external observer in the opinion of the external observer', then 'X could be immoral in the opinion of the external observer in the opinion of the external observer in the opinion of the external observer', and you get vicious infinite regress, un less you do not mean the same by 'X is' in both expressions, which would be utterly absurd as well.

But leave that aside, though. Let us say that anti-realists regularly use the expression 'X could be immoral' to mean 'X could be immoral in the opinion of the external observer'. Let us further say that by the latter you mean something that makes sense, rather than the vicious circularity above. For example, you mean that anti-realists actually are talking about themselves when they make moral assessments, like when people say after tasting some food item (in many, not all contexts) 'hmmm...this tastes good'. Also, by "regularly", I mean that they use it in their ordinary moral talk, when they make moral assessments, etc., rather than when they are talking about their RIP. Then, there are two options:

Option 1: Anti-realism is true. Why? Because when a person says 'X could be immoral' and another person says 'it is not possible that a X could be immoral', then they can both be correct. So, anti-realism holds, and that is it. Realists can only hope to save realism for talk amongst realists, but not in general in English.

Option 2: Anti-realists are misusing the word 'immoral'. In other words, they are using to mean something other than what the word means in English, without realizing that they are doing so.

Of course, you have not provided any good reason to even suspect that either of those options holds, even though you have made claims that imply that at least one of those holds. Both are extraordinary claims, the first essentially rejects a human faculty, and the second doesn't match how people talk (even anti-realists in the wild).

The point here is that for a a moral anti-realist, a behaviour is never, of itself, simply immoral - it's always immoral in the opinion of the speaker (or from the viewpoint of a particular individual).

That is not even true of the theory that anti-realists hold.

For starters, moral error theorists are anti-realists who generally agree with realists about the meaning of the words, and indeed agree that it means that X has the property of being impermissible. But furthermore, other antirealists are expressivists of one variety or another, noncognitivists, etc., and would reject any kind of reduction of moral expressions to something like 'X could be immoral in the opinion of the external observer'.
In fact, I have not found a single anti-realist philosopher who believes that 'X could be immoral' means 'X could be immoral in the opinion of the external observer'.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

The AntiChris,

I will classify the different types of attitude-dependence that might exist, in order to further clarify my position and arguments:

Suppose agent A does X in some possible world W (or scenario, or whatever one calls it).

AD1: Whether A's doing X in W is immoral depends on the attitude towards A's doing X of some agent(s) B1,...Bn (for some positive integer n); one option is n=1 and B1=A, but there are other options) that exist in W.
AD2: Whether A's doing X in W is immoral depends on the attitude towards A's doing X of the person assessing whether X is immoral.
AD3: Whether A's doing X in W is immoral depends on the attitude towards A's doing X that some ideal observer G would have.
​

As I explained in my reply to ruby sparks, my test was a means of arguing against AD1, leaving aside weird things like the thesis that God exists necessarily or things like that (which I would handle differently).

As for AD2, it fails on the basis of conceptual analysis, as seen by the examples of disagreement.

As for AD3, I'm not arguing against AD3. Whether is a form of moral realism or anti-realism is a controversial matter. But for all intents and purposes, this would be like realism (in particular, there would always be a fact of the matter as to whether some actual behavior was immoral, some behaviors would be immoral as we are not talking about error theories, etc.)


All of those theories fail as argued above. The best argument for 'no fact of the matter' anti-realism (that also fails, but it's much less bad than the others) is not about attitudes or beliefs of the speaker or some other agent towards a behavior. Rather, it's about tracking different properties.

Let me give you an example. Is there a fact of the matter as to whether an individual is a lion?

Sure, right?

For example, let C(0)=Cecil the lion. Let C(1) be his father, let C(2) be C(1)'s father, and so on, until we reach C, a common ancestor with Dolly the Sheep.
Now, C(0) is a lion (well, was a lion, but 'is' as in sort of thing, not in a temporal sense). But C is not a lion. Is there an integer k<n such that for all j in {1,..,k}, C(j) is a lion, but C(k+1) is not a lion?

Arguably, there are some animals in the sequence for which there is no fact of the matter as to whether they were lions. That would be a way of saying that our language is not precise enough to be used in that manner, in two senses:

First, the concept of 'lion' in the head of different competent English speakers would likely be slightly different, and that would result in a different classification even when the concept each person has in the head is properly applied.

Second, even for a single person, the concept is not precise enough for the classification

Now, if I'm wrong about lions, then try 'fly', or 'frog', or things like that.


So, this does not threaten that there is a fact of the matter as to whether something is a lion in general, but still, arguably there are some actual cases (which we do not actually encounter, but they exist in the past) for which there is no fact of the matter (of course, if we actually encountered those animals and wanted to talk about them, we would coin new words to make our classification more accurate).

A way to argue for 'no fact of the matter' in the moral case would be to say that our respective moral senses are tracking different properties, and that results in conceptual differences between your concept 'immoral' and my own that are much greater than between your concept of a lion and mine (and the same for other people's concepts). This - one would argue - would not make whether A's doing X in W is immoral depend on the attitude of the person making the assessment - it would still be a property of A's behavior, or more to the point A's mind -, but the property that would be attributed would vary from one person making the attribution to another.

Of course, this would have to be argued for, since our moral sense says this does not happen, so arguing against one of our faculties would require a lot of evidence to make serious doubts rational. Also, there is the question of whether, if this happened, we would have 'no fact of the matter' as in the lion case, or a moral error theory and nothing is immoral. One difference would be how different the concepts would be (the antirealist would argue here that the differences between your 'immoral' concept and mine are much greater than between our respective 'lion' concepts). Another difference is: we could redefine 'lion' to gain accuracy if we were to encounter all of the C(j), and achieve our communicational goals. But how do we redefine 'immoral'?

At any rate, whether 'no fact of the matter' or error theory (substantive in this case), the burden would fall entirely on the anti-realist, who would have to go with an argument from apparent disagreement to miscommunication. I reckon it fails because of what I've been saying regarding the patterns we see in moral disagreements. But in any case, that would be a more serious argument. The other ones are more easily disposed of (see above).

 

[ruby sparks]

.. the human sense of illness/health is what tells us what an illness is.

Rubbish.

If something kills you, you're dead, regardless of what anyone thinks, and no matter what you thought about or what your attitudes towards the illness were beforehand, or whether the illness was thought to be fatal or not, or even if neither you nor anyone else in the universe knew, sensed or thought that you were even ill at all before you died, or whether you or anyone even noticed any symptoms whatsoever. Same is true of some illness that causes damage but not death.

It's the same, and independently the case, for any disease that kills or damages any living thing, animal, plant or whatever, whether they know about it or not.

 

[ruby sparks]

My sense just says 'immoral', as it would say 'ill', or 'red'. Of course, I believe in independence, and this is one of the arguments for it.

Saying, 'so with illness, as with morality' is potentially flawed though, because 'illness' and 'morality' may fundamentally differ, seem to fundamentally differ from each other, in the ways repeatedly described.

You'd be better comparing 'morality' to something else, 'beauty' perhaps, and asking if there are, despite disagreements, at least some aesthetic facts, and whether, if there are, they are or aren't independent of human deemings about them. There are aesthetic realists as there are moral realists. Like morality, beauty is (at least for humans) sensed/perceived, and also involves a value judgement, often a conscious one, but not always. Illness is not be like that (people, other animals, plants and all living things can die of or be damaged by diseases that neither they nor anyone else even sensed they had). You could even, if we introduce the idea that the concept of the aesthetic is arguably based on the concept of taste ('liking' or 'not liking') return to your earlier comparisons with gustatory taste.

 

[The AntiChris]

If I've understood you correctly, this is exactly my option "1" above which you rejected ("my option is different"). I'm confused.

I'm afraid you have not.

Then I have no idea what you're trying to say.

What it more accurately means, given the attitude-dependent assessment, is: "a behaviour could still be immoral in the opinion of the external observer". With this in mind, all that is demonstrated is a difference of opinion between the observer and everyone in the universe.

No, that is not what it means.

Ok I give up.

The point here is that for a a moral anti-realist, a behaviour is never, of itself, simply immoral - it's always immoral in the opinion of the speaker (or from the viewpoint of a particular individual).

That is not even true of the theory that anti-realists hold.

The common factor which unites anti-realists of all stripes is that they all reject objective moral values. This entails that they believe there are no attitude-independent moral properties. It follows from this that, in the view of the anti-realist, all moral evaluations are attitude dependent and therefore opinions.

For starters, moral error theorists are anti-realists who generally agree with realists about the meaning of the words, and indeed agree that it means that X has the property of being impermissible.

But the error-theorists don't actually believe attitude-dependent properties exist -they agree that moral evaluations are in reality attitude-dependent (they're opinions whether the speaker realises it or not).

But furthermore, other antirealists are expressivists of one variety or another, noncognitivists, etc., and would reject any kind of reduction of moral expressions to something like 'X could be immoral in the opinion of the external observer'.

They all agree that moral evaluations are attitude-dependent (opinions).

In fact, I have not found a single anti-realist philosopher who believes that 'X could be immoral' means 'X could be immoral in the opinion of the external observer'.

Well they certainly don't believe X could possibly have the attitude-independent property of immorality (and therefore any moral evaluation is, in reality, an opinion).

____________________________________________

This is going nowhere, so I'll leave it there.

Thanks for the chat.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

The common factor which unites anti-realists of all stripes is that they all reject objective moral values. This entails that they believe there are no attitude-independent moral properties. It follows from this that, in the view of the anti-realist, all moral evaluations are attitude dependent and therefore opinions.

The expression 'objective moral values' is obscure, but whatever you mean by it, you are making false claims about anti-realists.
First, consider moral error theorists - substantive error theorists, that is. They believe there is a fact of the matter as to whether any behavior is immoral. They believe that the fact of the matter is that it is not immoral. They reject the idea that moral evaluations are attitude dependent. They believe that moral evaluations assert the existence of independent properties that happen not to exist.
Second, consider moral expressivists of different sorts. They reject the idea that attitude-dependence is the same as 'opinion'. Their views a varied, but generally, they have some odd theories of truth, and are very willing to say that someone who disagrees with their views is mistaken, etc.

Those two camps seem to compose most of the anti-realist philosophers. As for non-philosophers, they usually do not have any coherent view. Those who do say they say there no fact of the matter (or something like that) are not therefore implying that they are making attitude-dependent claims (see my lions example).

But the error-theorists don't actually believe attitude-dependent properties exist -they agree that moral evaluations are in reality attitude-dependent (they're opinions whether the speaker realises it or not).

Error theorists believe that moral assessments assert the existence of attitude-independent moral properties. On that, they agree with moral realists. Moral error theorists believe that those properties do not exist. And no, moral error theorist do not believe that it's a matter of opinion, there is no fact of the matter, etc. Essentially, for a moral error theorist, claims like 'Hitler behaved immorally' are like claims like 'The Earth is less than 10000 years old'. They are plain old vanilla false claims. That's at least for a substantive moral error theory (and some other forms), which covers nearly all error theorists I have found.
That aside, if you have an example of an error theorist who agree with you, I would ask you for a name or link.

But furthermore, other antirealists are expressivists of one variety or another, noncognitivists, etc., and would reject any kind of reduction of moral expressions to something like 'X could be immoral in the opinion of the external observer'.

They all agree that moral evaluations are attitude-dependent (opinions).

What do you mean by 'opinions'?
If you say they believe moral assessments are 'matters of opinion', 'no fact of the matter', etc., they usually disagree with that.

Well they certainly don't believe X could possibly have the attitude-independent property of immorality (and therefore any moral evaluation is, in reality, an opinion).

The first part is true, the second does not follow.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

My sense just says 'immoral', as it would say 'ill', or 'red'. Of course, I believe in independence, and this is one of the arguments for it.

Saying, 'so with illness, as with morality' is potentially flawed though, because 'illness' and 'morality' may fundamentally differ, seem to fundamentally differ from each other, in the ways repeatedly described.

You'd be better comparing 'morality' to something else, 'beauty' perhaps, and asking if there are, despite disagreements, at least some aesthetic facts, and whether, if there are, they are or aren't independent of human deemings about them. There are aesthetic realists as there are moral realists. Like morality, beauty is (at least for humans) sensed/perceived, and also involves a value judgement, often a conscious one, but not always. Illness is not be like that (people, other animals, plants and all living things can die of or be damaged by diseases that neither they nor anyone else even sensed they had). You could even, if we introduce the idea that the concept of the aesthetic is arguably based on the concept of taste ('liking' or 'not liking') return to your earlier comparisons with gustatory taste.

Obviously, the moral sense and the ill/health sense differ in some ways and are the same in others. But in the part you are replying to, I was pointing out that the moral sense makes moral judgments like the sense of health/illness makes judgements about, well, that. The sense of beauty does that as well, but there is a difference: namely, that it is not part of our intuition that beauty is always independent of observer in ordinary settings. I mean, take a look at how people discuss beauty. Sometimes, they do say that the other person is mistaken - as in the moral case - but often they do not. This is not what happens in the moral case.

As for aesthetic realists, sure, there are some. But moral realists are essentially the entire human population. Our moral sense says that realism holds, and you reject a human faculty if you claim otherwise. This is not what we see in aesthetic judgments - more like, it dependns on the judgment.

Illness is not be like that (people, other animals, plants and all living things can die of or be damaged by diseases that neither they nor anyone else even sensed they had).

Actually, illness is like that. People can be damaged by viruses they never sensed they had. They can be damaged by bacteria they never sensed they had They can be damaged by cancers they never sensed they had. However, the assessment that those conditions are illnesses is very much like the assessment that Ted Bundy was a morally bad person, or that a human who rapes others for fun behaves immorally, and so on.

You could even, if we introduce the idea that the concept of the aesthetic is arguably based on the concept of taste ('liking' or 'not liking') return to your earlier comparisons with gustatory taste.

Sure, and in some cases, you would be correct. It is a matter of looking at the language, and how people talk. When it comes to beauty or gustatory taste, sometimes they are willing to say the people who disagree with them are mistaken, and sometimes they would just say that there is no fact of the matter (so it's not a real disagreement). On the other hand, when it comes to morality or health/illness, this is not so. People disagree (sometimes violently) and will not just say there is no fact of the matter (save for a minuscule proportion of the population).

 

[Angra Mainyu]

.. the human sense of illness/health is what tells us what an illness is.

Rubbish.

If something kills you, you're dead, regardless of what anyone thinks, and no matter what you thought about or what your attitudes towards the illness were beforehand, or whether the illness was thought to be fatal or not, or even if neither you nor anyone else in the universe knew, sensed or thought that you were even ill at all before you died, or whether you or anyone even noticed any symptoms whatsoever. Same is true of some illness that causes damage but not death.

It's the same, and independently the case, for any disease that kills or damages any living thing, animal, plant or whatever, whether they know about it or not.

You are mistaken about my point. Your reply does not even touch you. Of course if something kills you, you are dead regardless of what anyone thinks. That is irrelevant. The human sense of illness/health is what we use to ascertain whether a condition is an illness or not - and, for that matter, whether a condition is damage or not; we can tell by a similar intuition.

 

[ruby sparks]

The human sense of illness/health is what we use to ascertain whether a condition is an illness or not - and, for that matter, whether a condition is damage or not; we can tell by a similar intuition.

That’s either trivial, obvious and pointless (because EVERYTHING humans know about anything comes through experience, in the final analysis) or it’s nonsense.

Because in a world where there were no humans and never had been (eg the vast majority of the history of life on earth) living things would still have had diseases, and suffered damage as a result.

No intuitions or attitudes or judgements involved.

 

[ruby sparks]

....when it comes to morality or health/illness, this is not so. People disagree (sometimes violently) and will not just say there is no fact of the matter (save for a minuscule proportion of the population).

More apparent nonsense. And again, the comparison with health/illness is very dubious.

Because once we move away from what are generally considered (deemed) and widely agreed (by humans) to be very clear moral wrongs, there are a lot of deemed-to-be-lesser behaviours that are considered to have a moral aspect, but it is often agreed that there is no independent moral fact of the matter about them either way.

For example, people will frequently say, "it depends on your personal morality, or your culture, or whatever, as to whether you think X [eg polygamy, obeying parents (or husbands), having pre-marital sex, divorce, marrying someone of a certain (young) age or a certain age in relation to your own, marrying 'outside your social class/caste' or your ethnic group, whether to marry at all (and possibly have children outside of marriage), whether to have children at all (or when), possibly even at a pinch abortion and euthanasia (when discussed among tolerant, non-judgemental observers), circumcision, eating meat, killing other animals, accumulating excessive personal wealth and how much to give to charity, etc, and of course most relevantly here, whether to punish or forgive] is right or wrong."

And things like "what consenting adults do behind closed doors is no one else's moral business but theirs."

And sometimes, "how parents choose to bring up (including how and when to discipline) their children (given agreed-to-be-reasonable limits) is their choice based on their own personal (jointly agreed) moral values and how they view what is the right and wrong way to do that."

Obviously some (in certain cases possibly many) people will have strong views on some or all of those, perhaps extending to thinking that there is an independent moral fact about them one way or the other (people can have strong views about discipling children for instance, particularly physical punishment such as smacking) but the point is that many also won't for many of the above issues. So your survey of human attitudes is incomplete and your use of the word minuscule is again questionable.

Much of the above is also arguably at the core of moral relativism, which is nowadays a very widely-held position in tolerant, liberal, multicultural societies.

 

[Torin]

Much of the above is also arguably at the core of moral relativism, which is nowadays a very widely-held position in tolerant, liberal, multicultural societies.

It's worth noting that moral relativism is perfectly consistent with brutally forcing your beliefs and values on everyone else: If there are no values that are true for everyone, it's not true for everyone that we should be tolerant.

You're not wrong that moral relativism is often taken to imply that tolerance is a virtue, though.

 

[ruby sparks]

Much of the above is also arguably at the core of moral relativism, which is nowadays a very widely-held position in tolerant, liberal, multicultural societies.

It's worth noting that moral relativism is perfectly consistent with brutally forcing your beliefs and values on everyone else: If there are no values that are true for everyone, it's not true for everyone that we should be tolerant.

You're not wrong that moral relativism is often taken to imply that tolerance is a virtue, though.

I think subscribing to either extreme relativism or extreme realism could be deemed to justify and be consistent with brutally forcing your beliefs and values on everyone else.

The main problem may, as often, be to do with (a) taking things to extremes, and/or (b) people with a strong urge to force stuff on others, whatever their position on moral relativism or realism.

It may be that there are strong and weak versions of moral relativism and realism. Personally, I don't think I'd call myself an outright or strong relativist or an outright or strong realist. And I might even say it would make a difference what moral issue or behaviour, or type of it (and/or the severity or import of it or consequences, potential or actual, associated with it) we are talking about.

I would start with a claim such as: "morality in humans is an evolved capacity (and can be influenced by environment also) that is ultimately about 'my/our' continued existence, but gets complicated after that", and work from there. I'd be broadly in favour of a scientific approach, with input from what I might call 'pure' philosophy, because on the whole I think high-quality philosophy involves more rigorous reasoning, at least in some ways, than science. They can usefully complement each other, in other words.

My main point to Angra, you may have appreciated already, was in relation to his claim that people generally agree there is an independent fact of the matter when it comes to moral issues generally. They often don't. And it's not that they necessarily view the issues as non-moral, or have no moral opinions themselves about such things, it's that they will defer to or at least allow for different individual or cultural moral judgements by others.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

The human sense of illness/health is what we use to ascertain whether a condition is an illness or not - and, for that matter, whether a condition is damage or not; we can tell by a similar intuition.

That’s either trivial, obvious and pointless (because EVERYTHING humans know about anything comes through experience, in the final analysis) or it’s nonsense.

Because in a world where there were no humans and never had been (eg the vast majority of the history of life on earth) living things would still have had diseases, and suffered damage as a result.

No intuitions or attitudes or judgements involved.

First, you often talk about a "final analysis", but that is only limited to some claims on your part. Where is the analysis?

Second, that is irrelevant. The point is that the human sense of illness/health is what tells us what an illness is. Whether there were illnesses before humans (there were) is irrelevant. You are simply changing the subject.

Let us take a look at that part of the exchange:

https://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?20677-FORGIVENESS&p=767897&viewfull=1#post767897

But all you did was you just came out with what seems to be a questionable claim about the human moral sense being the proper tool to make moral assessments, and that this somehow 'shows independence'.

Here, you question that the human moral sense is the proper tool to make moral assessments, though you provide no evidence for your claim - which, of course, goes against ordinary human experience.
My reply?

https://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?20677-FORGIVENESS&p=768472&viewfull=1#post768472

That is not a questionable claim. It is obviously the proper way. If you want to make color assessments, the proper way is to use the human color sense. It might fail, but that is the proper way. If you want to make assessments of health and illness (i.e., whether someone showing some symptoms is ill), the proper way is to use the human intuitive sense of illness/health. Of course, it might fail. Or it might get insufficient or wrong info. But that is the proper way. And the same for moral assessments. There is absolutely no other reasonable candidate to do that.

Note how the debate is about the proper way of making moral assessments. I give the examples of color and health/illness as other cases in which this holds. What do you say?

https://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?20677-FORGIVENESS&p=768519&viewfull=1#post768519

It is obviously the proper way. If you want to make color assessments, the proper way is to use the human color sense. It might fail, but that is the proper way. If you want to make assessments of health and illness (i.e., whether someone showing some symptoms is ill), the proper way is to use the human intuitive sense of illness/health. Of course, it might fail. Or it might get insufficient or wrong info. But that is the proper way.

I see. So.......... fallible human subjectivity, intuitions and introspection are the proper tools to use for human enquiry.

Can I ask you a question. Are you posting here from the 4th Century AD? You know, before the scientific method? If you are, it would explain a LOT.

You display your hostility and mock the proper way of making moral assessments, and also assessments of color, and also assessments of health and illness.
It is important to stop here and look at what you are doing: you are clearly denying that the proper way of assessing whether someone showing some symptoms is ill or not, etc., is to use the human sense of illness/health. You call that - which is obviously the proper way, of course - something like the 4th Centure CE. So, what is my reply?

https://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?20677-FORGIVENESS&p=768523&viewfull=1#post768523

No, you really are confused. Obviously, if you want to make color assessments, the proper way is to use the human color sense. That is how it was always done, well before science, and humans knew what color stuff was. But if scientists want to make a machine to detect color, they have no way of doing so except...to use the human color sense to calibrate it! (obviously).

If you want to make assessments of health and illness (i.e., whether someone showing some symptoms is ill), the proper way is to use the human intuitive sense of illness/health. How do modern medicine does it? Exactly in that way. Medicine was developed in order to treat illnesses, etc. But the human sense of illness/health is what tells us what an illness is. And so on.

And next, you keep denying the fact point that the human sense of illness/health is what tells us what an illness is. Let us take a look at your reply:

https://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?20677-FORGIVENESS&p=768529&viewfull=1#post768529

.. the human sense of illness/health is what tells us what an illness is.

Rubbish.

If something kills you, you're dead, regardless of what anyone thinks, and no matter what you thought about or what your attitudes towards the illness were beforehand, or whether the illness was thought to be fatal or not, or even if neither you nor anyone else in the universe knew, sensed or thought that you were even ill at all before you died, or whether you or anyone even noticed any symptoms whatsoever. Same is true of some illness that causes damage but not death.

It's the same, and independently the case, for any disease that kills or damages any living thing, animal, plant or whatever, whether they know about it or not.

Now we are getting closer to the current post. Let us see my reply:
https://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?20677-FORGIVENESS&p=768791&viewfull=1#post768791

You are mistaken about my point. Your reply does not even touch you. Of course if something kills you, you are dead regardless of what anyone thinks. That is irrelevant. The human sense of illness/health is what we use to ascertain whether a condition is an illness or not - and, for that matter, whether a condition is damage or not; we can tell by a similar intuition.

And now let us see what you say:

https://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?20677-FORGIVENESS&p=768840&viewfull=1#post768840

The human sense of illness/health is what we use to ascertain whether a condition is an illness or not - and, for that matter, whether a condition is damage or not; we can tell by a similar intuition.

That’s either trivial, obvious and pointless (because EVERYTHING humans know about anything comes through experience, in the final analysis) or it’s nonsense.

Because in a world where there were no humans and never had been (eg the vast majority of the history of life on earth) living things would still have had diseases, and suffered damage as a result.

No intuitions or attitudes or judgements involved.

You do not realize it, but you just changed the subject completely. You were challenging - repeatedly denying, even mocking - my point that the human sense of illness/health is what tells us what an illness is. Now you are saying it's either "trivial, obvious and pointless" for some obscure unexplained reason about a never-given "final analysis", or else it's nonsense (for no given reason), and decide to talk about something else instead, namely that there were living things with diseases in a world without humans.

Again, you just lost track of the exchange, and changed the subject. But no matter, let us take a look at your claim:

Because in a world where there were no humans and never had been (eg the vast majority of the history of life on earth) living things would still have had diseases, and suffered damage as a result.

No intuitions or attitudes or judgements involved.

Obviously, there were living things with diseases. Many of those actually did make assessments of health and disease, even if they did not have language. But regardless, that is also irrelevant. For that matter, in a world without humans, for there were red fruits, and green leaves, for millions of years. You deny that obvious fact of course, though you do not deny the also obvious fact that there were illnesses. But that does not change the fact that what we use to ascertain whether something is red or green or whatever color is the human color vision (under normal circumstances). And the same applies to illness and health.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I address your hypothetical examples below, but how about this?
You pick an example of an actual moral debate (in this forum, or another, your choice), and we then discuss whether a realist or a non-realist analysis of their claims and arguments is more adequate, by looking at what they actually say (instead of saying what people often say or don't say). The only things I would ask is that the debate be current and open to the public so that one can ask the participants of the debate when clarification when needed.

More apparent nonsense. And again, the comparison with health/illness is very dubious.

Because once we move away from what are generally considered (deemed) and widely agreed (by humans) to be very clear moral wrongs, there are a lot of deemed-to-be-lesser behaviours that are considered to have a moral aspect, but it is often agreed that there is no independent moral fact of the matter about them either way.

No, that only happens to people in the grip of some ideologies, and even then, it only happens when their ideology is getting in the way of their moral sense, so they are confused. Usually, even those people make moral assessments, and debate the matters (more below).

For example, people will frequently say, "it depends on your personal morality, or your culture, or whatever, as to whether you think X [eg polygamy, obeying parents (or husbands), having pre-marital sex, divorce, marrying someone of a certain (young) age or a certain age in relation to your own, marrying 'outside your social class/caste' or your ethnic group, whether to marry at all (and possibly have children outside of marriage), whether to have children at all (or when), possibly even at a pinch abortion and euthanasia (when discussed among tolerant, non-judgemental observers), circumcision, eating meat, killing other animals, accumulating excessive personal wealth and how much to give to charity, etc, and of course most relevantly here, whether to punish or forgive] is right or wrong."

But that is not a problem - not per se.

There is a difference between moral rules (which apply to all humans) and local rules (which do not). Local rules are sometimes coded in written laws, but actually the vast majority of them are not (plenty of rules of expected behavior, e.g., etiquette laws) and existed long before there were written laws. And the connection is that usually it is immoral to break the local laws. More generally, the moral obligations that a person has do depend on the information available to her, and that includes information about how others will likely react to her behavior, which is a culturally variable matter.

On the other hand, there local rules it is okay to break. But let me give you an example. The relativists in question usually will not be willing to say Bob behaved immorally when he had consensual sex with Tom (both adults, no threats or other undue pressure from one on the other) just because Bob and Tom were raised in right-wing fundamentalist Protestant families. They will consider that those right-wingers are in the wrong, both mistaken about the morality of the behavior of Tom and Bob and behaving themselves immorally for punishing Tom and Bob.

Now, granted, left-wingers tend to have a blind spot for fanatics from other societies, in particular Muslims. But that too is not a problem for moral realism. Indeed, even if those left-wingers were correct, that too is of course compatible with realism. In other words, it is perfectly compatible with realism that it is immoral for Bob to have sex with Tom if and only if Bob and Tom live in a place where the local rules ban sex between two men. What would make their behavior immoral in some cases would be that they are breaking the local laws. Now, I believe this is not the case. But this is a disagreement to have within realism, not a challenge to it.

And things like "what consenting adults do behind closed doors is no one else's moral business but theirs."

Excellent example!
When people say things like that, even if they do not realize it, they are making a vanilla moral assessment, and they are implying that those who promote the belief that that it is immoral to, say, have same-sex sex, are both mistaken and behaving immorally!!! ]

And sometimes, "how parents choose to bring up (including how and when to discipline) their children (given agreed-to-be-reasonable limits) is their choice based on their own personal (jointly agreed) moral values and how they view what is the right and wrong way to do that."

Actually, I'm not very familiar with that one. I would need more context, but this may well be an ordinary moral assessment that it is "their choice", meaning that the government should not interfere. This is an ordinary moral judgment, compatible with the belief that the parents in question may well be mistaken. Of course, the people making this sort of assessment would also say that if the parents choose to bring up up their children with the moral beliefs of right-wing Protestant groups, teaching them that e.g., gay people deserve to and will in fact burn in Hell for eternity, those parents would be behaving immorally.

Much of the above is also arguably at the core of moral relativism, which is nowadays a very widely-held position in tolerant, liberal, multicultural societies.

Well, there are different varieties of moral relativism. But the sort of leftist relativism you are talking about is not particularly tolerant. They just claim that they are. But they of course claim and argue - using some words or others - that their opponents like right-wing Protestants (see example above) are both mistaken in their beliefs about the morality of same-sex behavior (and of Hell), and behaving immorally by promoting their beliefs and by raising their children as they do.

On the other hand, those leftist relativists tend to have a blind spot for Muslims, who are overall even more their opponents than Christians are, but are instead seen as allies. Ideology does get people to make mistaken assessments very often. But regardless, the vast majority of relativists engage in nonrelativist moral assessments all the time.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I think subscribing to either extreme relativism or extreme realism could be deemed to justify and be consistent with brutally forcing your beliefs and values on everyone else.

What is extreme realism, or extreme relativism?
But in any case, what is your argument for that?

The main problem may, as often, be to do with (a) taking things to extremes, and/or (b) people with a strong urge to force stuff on others, whatever their position on moral relativism or realism.

Again, what is extreme realism, and how would that have anything to do with willingness to force stuff on others?

It may be that there are strong and weak versions of moral relativism and realism.

Definitions?

There are different definitions of moral realism. I would go with a simple one - which would be accepted by some but not all philosophers:

1. There is a fact of the matter as to whether a moral assessment (e.g., whether Ted Bundy was a bad person) is true (this should be understood with some tolerance for vagueness, e.g., there is a fact of the matter as to whether an animal is a lion - but there might be some vagueness, as mentioned earlier).

2. There are moral properties, e.g., some humans sometimes behave immorally, some humans sometimes behave in a morally praiseworthy manner.
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Is that extreme? If so, how would any of that result in trying to impose your beliefs on others?