I'm not a moral realist. I am a moral nihilist, although I think the term "amoral" is better.
Of course, I agree that Wendell's argument is bogus. He assumes that moral nihilism is somehow absurd, simply because it is moral nihilism. That is like saying "The atheist's position is absurd, because the atheist cannot make any claims about God."
However, his argument is not based on a false dichotomy. If you reject the existence of an objective/cosmic value standard, you have rejected morality. You could still have moral intuitions, but you would have to recognize that they are not the awareness of a cosmic value standard, and thus not "moral".
Let me rework your magic bean analogy. Someone says "These are magic beans (cosmic values)", and I say "No, they are just beans (moral intuitions, acquired by living in society)". Yes, the beans (some kind of values) exist, but they are not what the person believes they are. They are the internalization of social/cultural values.
The point of moral claims is precisely that they supposedly are about a cosmic value standard. That's what makes them "moral". If someone says "X is evil", he means that X violates a cosmic standard, not that X violates a social, cultural or personal standard. He believes that the standard applies to everyone. Morality is used as a pseudo-foundation, much like the notion of God. To have that memetic function, it must be an external, cosmic source of authority.
Humans have a sense of morality, just like we have a sense of hearing, smelling, a sense of balance, and a sense of justice.
We can sense, within objective reality, whether something is right or wrong by way of a physiological response.
Our ability to detect this, and the response itself, are both complicated.
But the concept is not complicated. Distinguishing the difference between right and wrong is not complicated.
Just like how your eyeball works is complicated, and the process of absorbing light and color and rods and cones and neural connections is all very complicated... but the act of seeing is not.
Do you see it? Or not?
Can you see this text? Or not?
By the time we are about 6 years old, our sense of right and wrong has developed.
In fact, most 6 year olds are a better judge of right and wrong than most adults because they haven't been programmed and brainwashed in a 1000 ways to diminish their ability to sense right and wrong.
Morality is objective. Something is right or its wrong. It's not based on opinion. It's not based upon what someone's subjective experience is.
Just like this text is here, for all to see, even if you personally are blind. Even if you.... or everyone else on the planet.... has lost their eyesight.... it's still here.
We have an ability to sense objective reality. That includes morality.
Now, I know that poses a problem in terms of arguing. One person can say "I sense that this is wrong" and another can say "i sense that this is right" and there'd be no way of really telling who's lying.
You could have a long convoluted conversation trying to corner the other person, get them to slip up, contradict themselves, etc... but at the end of the day, if someone says "there's nothing wrong with X" and you sense there is, then you actually KNOW you're right.
The only thing that trips us up are so-called "moral dilemmas." You've heard things like..... if a subway train is headed for 5 people, but you can change the track so that it hits 1... would you?"
All of these moral dilemas are essentially the same. They pit survival against morality. The two are not the same.
Do you steal a loaf of bread to feed yourself?
Do you sacrifice one to save many?
All of these take a situation where choosing the right thing negatively affects survival.
In real life, nothing is this simple, there's always more to the story.
The simple answer is that... choosing between killing 1 person and killing a million are morally equivalent. Taking life is wrong.
But in terms of survival, killing a million people would be a greater blow the our survival as a species.
Very simple when you separate the two.
Right and wrong are simple. It's not a matter of intellectual thought and processing. All that stuff actually gets in the way.
The courage to honestly search your feelings and not lie to yourself... the will to do good... to accept inconvenient truths... to face your own guilt and shame... those are powerful forces that turn our mind's against us.
Yes, there are objective a priori methods to test the logical consistency of thought (they exist independent of mind). A thought that satisfies such logical consistency is an objective thought, and if it’s a contradiction then it’s not.
We can appear to an objective exteral judge to test whether our concepts make sense and say something exists when it’s internally consistent. We can’t dismiss internal subjective ideas. Let me know if the above makes sense or if I should clarify anything.
"Whether a person’s views are logically consistent or not depends on that person’s views. And whether a person believes something in particular depends, trivially, on what that person believes. "
This is untrue, the logical consistency of a set of beliefs can be analyzed objectively, using methods independent of mind, to confirm whether there is a contraction.
A person who believed that 1=1 and 1=2 would have logically inconsistent views, regardless of what they believe.
I think you misunderstood me. I could have worded what I'm saying more clearly. I'm saying that in order for two beliefs to be logically inconsistent with one another, a person has to actually hold those beliefs.
If I believe P, but I don't believe not-P, then someone else insisting not-P is true couldn't accuse me of having a "logical inconsistency" in my views. If I don't believe not-P, my belief that P isn't logically inconsistent with the belief that not-P, because I don't believe that not-P.
I'm not a moral realist. I am a moral nihilist, although I think the term "amoral" is better.
Of course, I agree that Wendell's argument is bogus. He assumes that moral nihilism is somehow absurd, simply because it is moral nihilism. That is like saying "The atheist's position is absurd, because the atheist cannot make any claims about God."
However, his argument is not based on a false dichotomy. If you reject the existence of an objective/cosmic value standard, you have rejected morality. You could still have moral intuitions, but you would have to recognize that they are not the awareness of a cosmic value standard, and thus not "moral".
Let me rework your magic bean analogy. Someone says "These are magic beans (cosmic values)", and I say "No, they are just beans (moral intuitions, acquired by living in society)". Yes, the beans (some kind of values) exist, but they are not what the person believes they are. They are the internalization of social/cultural values.
The point of moral claims is precisely that they supposedly are about a cosmic value standard. That's what makes them "moral". If someone says "X is evil", he means that X violates a cosmic standard, not that X violates a social, cultural or personal standard. He believes that the standard applies to everyone. Morality is used as a pseudo-foundation, much like the notion of God. To have that memetic function, it must be an external, cosmic source of authority.
I enjoyed your discussion about Sam Harris, btw.
Humans have a sense of morality, just like we have a sense of hearing, smelling, a sense of balance, and a sense of justice.
We can sense, within objective reality, whether something is right or wrong by way of a physiological response.
Our ability to detect this, and the response itself, are both complicated.
But the concept is not complicated. Distinguishing the difference between right and wrong is not complicated.
Just like how your eyeball works is complicated, and the process of absorbing light and color and rods and cones and neural connections is all very complicated... but the act of seeing is not.
Do you see it? Or not?
Can you see this text? Or not?
By the time we are about 6 years old, our sense of right and wrong has developed.
In fact, most 6 year olds are a better judge of right and wrong than most adults because they haven't been programmed and brainwashed in a 1000 ways to diminish their ability to sense right and wrong.
Morality is objective. Something is right or its wrong. It's not based on opinion. It's not based upon what someone's subjective experience is.
Just like this text is here, for all to see, even if you personally are blind. Even if you.... or everyone else on the planet.... has lost their eyesight.... it's still here.
We have an ability to sense objective reality. That includes morality.
Now, I know that poses a problem in terms of arguing. One person can say "I sense that this is wrong" and another can say "i sense that this is right" and there'd be no way of really telling who's lying.
You could have a long convoluted conversation trying to corner the other person, get them to slip up, contradict themselves, etc... but at the end of the day, if someone says "there's nothing wrong with X" and you sense there is, then you actually KNOW you're right.
The only thing that trips us up are so-called "moral dilemmas." You've heard things like..... if a subway train is headed for 5 people, but you can change the track so that it hits 1... would you?"
All of these moral dilemas are essentially the same. They pit survival against morality. The two are not the same.
Do you steal a loaf of bread to feed yourself?
Do you sacrifice one to save many?
All of these take a situation where choosing the right thing negatively affects survival.
In real life, nothing is this simple, there's always more to the story.
The simple answer is that... choosing between killing 1 person and killing a million are morally equivalent. Taking life is wrong.
But in terms of survival, killing a million people would be a greater blow the our survival as a species.
Very simple when you separate the two.
Right and wrong are simple. It's not a matter of intellectual thought and processing. All that stuff actually gets in the way.
The courage to honestly search your feelings and not lie to yourself... the will to do good... to accept inconvenient truths... to face your own guilt and shame... those are powerful forces that turn our mind's against us.
the end.
Yes, there are objective a priori methods to test the logical consistency of thought (they exist independent of mind). A thought that satisfies such logical consistency is an objective thought, and if it’s a contradiction then it’s not.
We can appear to an objective exteral judge to test whether our concepts make sense and say something exists when it’s internally consistent. We can’t dismiss internal subjective ideas. Let me know if the above makes sense or if I should clarify anything.
"Whether a person’s views are logically consistent or not depends on that person’s views. And whether a person believes something in particular depends, trivially, on what that person believes. "
This is untrue, the logical consistency of a set of beliefs can be analyzed objectively, using methods independent of mind, to confirm whether there is a contraction.
A person who believed that 1=1 and 1=2 would have logically inconsistent views, regardless of what they believe.
I think you misunderstood me. I could have worded what I'm saying more clearly. I'm saying that in order for two beliefs to be logically inconsistent with one another, a person has to actually hold those beliefs.
If I believe P, but I don't believe not-P, then someone else insisting not-P is true couldn't accuse me of having a "logical inconsistency" in my views. If I don't believe not-P, my belief that P isn't logically inconsistent with the belief that not-P, because I don't believe that not-P.