Furthering Philippa Foot

Ethics
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I do think @Banno believes ethics is truth-apt, because he keeps saying things like it is obvious that all puppy kicking for fun is wrong. He just won’t explain where “obvious” comes from.

I just don’t think he’s laid out any methodology that could allow him to explain how he reached this obvious conclusion, how he would grapple with an ethical dilemma (the not so obvious), or how he could explain why punishing or preventing people from kicking puppies was ethical in itself (how enforcement of ethical rules is not just might makes right or mob rules).

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Okay, but I don’t see how someone who has no alternative to “might makes right” really thinks ethics is truth-apt. Similarly, if I think there are ethical truths but no ethical falsities, and I do not think that ethical deliberation is real, necessary, and fruitful, then do I really think ethics is truth-apt? Or am I just using language in a highly idiosyncratic way when I speak of “ethical truths”?

We could go right back to @Count_Timothy_von_Icarus’ point about “gustatory truths.” Suppose I think there are gustatory truths but no gustatory falsities, and I do not think that gustatory deliberation is real, necessary, and fruitful. In that case do I really think taste is truth-apt?

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No, they don’t. Not at all. It is being endlessly hung up on this want that stops the few here from saying anything interesting about Banno’s position (and mine, to be fair). If you simply accept that it could be done away with, several versions of what Banno says become reasonable responses.
We get on just fine understanding that most people agree on certain things (or, more properly put, most people will have a natural inclination against certain things). This does not give us anything objective in a metaphysical sense, but it does, indeed, throw some “truth” into the prop “kicking puppies for fun is wrong”. There literally no is metaphysical claim to be made about morals without God. You can try all you like…

Had this been “Kicking puppies is bad” we would have more to say. But we all know that sentence is incomplete, and actually says something like “If you want to live in a civil society, then you accept that kicking puppies is bad (for your ability to live among those who accept the benefits of a civil society)”. It all ends up contingent.

@Banno has readily accepted there’s not an objective ethical grounding for propositions (as he’s said in response to you). That’s not hte sort of truth he’s claiming, as best I can tell.
It seems the three or four who still don’t understand the position (i’m sympathetic.. it’s taken me at least two years) are hell-bent on not actually reading what Banno has to say very clearly.

It is not possible, in the Western world, to say “Kicking puppies for fun is right” and be understood as moral or upstanding. That gives us a truth claim about that proposition. It is not an objective one in the way you want, but it faithfully, objectively, reports the state of affairs we live in.

I want, again, to point out very clearly that “normativity” is not something which requires “truth”. It encompasses standards, traditions, rules, relational contingencies and the like. Claims about objectively, timeless moral truths are one possible way of treating hte concept. Leon would do well to remember that.

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I’ve already explained this to you here and you had no response.

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I understand that you think you have. There was a very good reason I did not bother to reply to that response.

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You’re collapsing all sorts of things together. Whether you can have a functional society and subjectivism wasn’t the point under consideration, nor was the truth of subjectivsm.

Where is the “truth” getting thrown in exactly? The truth of “x prefers y” or “x prescribes y” is indexed to the individual (or community). No one denies that these are descriptive. They are statements about individuals’ preferences. They are not “ethical truths” under any normal usage of the term any more than “Socrates thinks it is true that the world is flat,” is a statement about the true shape of the world. What is true or false here relates to ‘Socrates’ beliefs about the world,’ not the world. Likewise, in the translations being offered, the relevant truth is always about “what x prefers/prescribes.”

If “ethical truths” are just preferences or beliefs about actions that people feel ought to be taken, then they are truths about individuals’ psychological states, not about ethics.

It seems like a torturous work around to try to avoid the subjectivist or nihilist labels by “affirming ethical truths,” only to restate subjectivism in formal terms, while simultaneously trying to still argue for “ethical truths” by claiming that statements of ethical preferences commit us to something like their objective (i.e., not indexed) truth.

First, this is another example of an indexed claim (this time it is indexed to dominant norms within a particular community). Plenty of theories work that way. That’s fine. But the truth condition for that claim relates to the norms of a particular community, not ethics.

Also, that is not always how a sentence like that is intended. It seems like a leap to say that this is what it “really means.” Are all the people who believe in objective ethical truths simply unaware of what they are actually saying and intending? Are they oblivious to the real content of their own thoughts?

Wouldn’t it be much easier and more plausible to simply say that they make claims about ethical truths and that they are simply wrong about them, and that all such claims about ethical truths are false? This is much simpler than adding all sorts of extra content and indexing to their claims in order to make the claims conform to your own view. Simply translating people so that they agree with you also does not seem like a very fair move.

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Thank you.

The most absurd part of this thread is the repeated, apparently wilful misreading by @FireOlogist , @TheEudemian and @Leontiskos.

@Count_Timothy_von_Icarus at least tries to engage with the actual account give. But it is becoming very difficult to understand his posts.

No, @FireOlogist, the thesis is not that “charity is valuable”. No, @TheEudemian, it’s not based just on my preferences.

All previously explained. No rephrasing of the argument will be understood well by those that set out to misunderstand. Hence there is a point at which there is no purpose to further discussion.

I’m still here, if anyone wishes to engage with what I’ve said.

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Still waiting for your explanation of how ethical deliberation is supposed to work on your subjectivist approach.

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“People ought not kick puppies for fun” is not a statement of an individual preference.

If people ought not kick puppies for fun, then “people ought not kick puppies for fun” is true.

Pretty simple.

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Thanks. I guess I had just forgotten, “If X, then X.” That clears everything up. We should let all of the ethicists of the last three centuries know, “If X, then X.” They would be enlightened and eternally grateful for this knowledge.

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And that’s the belief direction of fit. If it were the desire direction of fit, the statement would have to be indexed to someone who prefers a world where puppies aren’t kicked. That is, if we accept that the “ought” in that statement represents a world to mind fit (i.e., a demand as to how reality should be), then, by definition, we have placed the origin of that demand inside a mind. Without a mind to hold the prescription, the mind side of the mapping is empty. It would be a “world to nobody in particular” fit.

To say that such a claim can be true or false without any indexing implies, in analytic parlance, that there must be a “mind-independent” fact being tracked. That’s precisely the fit for beliefs though, and one can be wrong about beliefs because of this relation.

One option then is to claim that true ethical statements are indexed to an idealized mind with pure intentions and perfect information. But if this option is taken, then people can indeed be wrong about ethical truths. They would be wrong whenever they deviate from the idealized mind.

In either case, the truth is prior to the individual and people can be right of wrong. But if people can be right or wrong about ethical truths, then surely a good ethics is build on truths instead of errors. Whereas if such truths are unknowable, some account of why is surely warranted. But you cannot answer this with an appeal to direction of fit and indexing if you’re also claiming that the truths aren’t indexed.

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You mean word to world? It would be better to stick tot he accepted phrasing, perhaps. Yes, “people ought not kick puppies for fun” is not a description of how things are, but sets out how things ought be.

It’s not an indexical. So what you mean by it being indexed is unclear. Talk of things being “mind-independent” suffers various fragilities, foremost of which is the myth of the given.

But we might bypass all that. What we have is a truth about how things ought be.

No need to summon “an idealized mind with pure intentions and perfect information”. Your view will suffice. If you agree that kicking puppies is bad, then we can move on to talking about what to do with puppy-kickers.

Why you think puppy kicking bad doesn’t enter into the discussion.

All this has been explained previously, several times.

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First, you’ve stressed repeatedly that nothing in the world, no fact about what is, can ever tell us how it ought to be. So where exactly is this ought to be found? What is this “word” that is not being spoken by anyone? How can one know such a truth?

Ok, and if we have that then it follows that people can be wrong about such truths. So, there are relevant ethical truths that are prior to debate, language games, etc. And a good ethics presumably affirms ethical truths and not falsehoods.

All you’ve explained is that you don’t feel any need to give an explanation. And your objections to teleology all flowed from the claim that ethical statements had to be second-order (you seem to have dropped this) and then that they are indexed. But now we seem to have objective ethical truths…somehow.

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It’s a good question, which is why I asked it and gave Foot’s answer for consideration, in the OP of this thread.

This is a thread about recognising the ethical import in a situation.

This is a non sequitur. Right and wrong do not reside outside of the debate, the language games, the form of life; they reside in what we do, in the form of life, in the discourse. Yes, the puppy-kickers are wrong.

The explanation is there. Can you do more than hand-waving?

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I’ve quoted you verbatim, at length, in my posts. I’ve asked you if my restatements are close characterizations or not, and I’ve offered my opinion.

That’s so unfair.

What more can I do, if I’m trying to understand you? Re-reading and citing your posts where “all” was “previously explained” isn’t working.

“Willfull mischaracterization…” Sounds unethical. I have an idea how you might engage me a little on your end. Instead of “kicking puppies for fun” let’s start using “@fire.ologist willfully mischaracterizing @Banno ” . Throw this puppy a bone.

I don’t know what that means or how to use it to clarify something precisely relevant. What can I say besides, I’m asking for more help. I’m interested in your thoughts.

You’ve said that a few times. I’ve read all your posts. So, it’s not based on just your preferences, but it’s not based on what’s objective, or objectivity has nothing to do with it.

I can’t see how you can say this given various other things you say. If the “not my preferences” part cashes out in other people’s preferences, isn’t it all still preferences? If the “not my preferences” part is cultural, historical, education, other disposition plus other people…, and these sources don’t contain what is true and good in any reliable (truth-apt) sense, it’s still just other people or just as unreliable as whatever gives rise to the ethical dilemma leaving you with only your preferences again; OR, you have opened the door to something else to guide the evaluation of goodness, whatever that is, as long as it isn’t called objective.

I’m not trying to recharacterize what you say, I’m telling you what it means to me, and how that doesn’t come together for me.

Am I making sense to anyone else? @Count_Timothy_von_Icarus @Tom_Storm @Leontiskos @AmadeusD

If you mean to say, ethical choices are made gathering educational, cultural and situational information from the world, evaluating that according to my preferences, and that this evaluation appends “good” in my preference towards the world and its dealings with others, and once deciding and acting on my evaluated good in the situation in the world (the “not just my preferences part), I create a new situation, another public event in the world for the ethical analysis to resume if I so evaluate ethics is implicated, etc. etc. and the beatings go on….

I’m trying my best to understand you, and the above is the best I can do to show my work. (In as few words as possible.

Willfully trying to get along and learn your position.

Same questions over and over because you won’t engage with me.

How about “kicking Fire for fun is something one ought not do”. I like “fire willfully mischaracterizing…” better, but I’m not sure why. Dilemma: is it ok to kick Fire while he’s mischaracterizing Banno? Another thread maybe.

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The thesis is not based just on personal preferences.

See

There is a difference between “People ought not kick puppies for fun” and “Boo, puppy-kicking!”.

I hope you can see that, but if you cannot, there’s not much more I can do for you.

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Yes I see that. What I can’t see is what use “people ought not kick puppies for fun” serves in our dealings with puppy kickers. Why would anyone who loved kicking puppies care at all? How do you make “ought” work in your dealings with others?

But I see the difference. Without more information about how “ought” works (or what it means), you could be pointing out the differnce to make many points, including some that have nothing to do with ethics. You are mostly doing logic and linguistics, some epistemology, and flirting with metaphysics. Wherefore “ought” is used to make the difference?

How does that explain “it’s obvious kicking puppies for fun is wrong” as practical, applicable wisdom that resists any reference to an objective world?

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If ethical truths exist “inside” a particular language game then it seems that they would be indexed to them. Norms, hinge beliefs, and language itself varies across epochs and cultures, and core ethical beliefs often contradict one another. So, if these were the ground of ethical truths, then either such truths are indexed to their ground (to disparate cultures) or we’d have a panoply of contradictory truths. Elsewise, if “x is wrong” is true regardless of the particular culture one finds oneself embedded in, then there must be a master set of norms to which all cultures are answerable to, and whose ground is not any particular culture or “form of life.” Or, I suppose, one could claim there is only one “form of life” and one set of hinges and one “language game” and it is continuous with the world, but then that basically undercuts all the work those terms do.

Second, if no “is” can ever get us to any “ought,” then how exactly are ethical truths existing exclusively “inside” the structure of a “form of life” or language game? These are surely facets of the world (an “is”). Yet if ethical truths flow from these, then they are dependent upon the “is” of the world, precisely the relationship you’ve consistently denied. It is for this reason that Kant blocks off such a relationship as heteronomous. If we cannot get “oughts” from biology or teleology, which you’ve objected to many times in this thread, it’s unclear why we can get them from Wittgensteinian sociology, which is no less of a description (a setting out of what is). Likewise “what we do in our form of life” is also a state of affairs, an “is.”

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So you want an argument that would convince the puppy-kicker not to kick the pup. “Come hear, my good puppy-kicking friend, and sit awhile, for I have an argument of such power and eloquence as to dissuade you of your predilection!”

I’m afraid I have no such argument. The sanction of the community will have to suffice.

I’m doing metaethics.

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As they do, yes? And yet there are good reasons from Davidson and others to suppose that they are not therefore incommensurate.

And relativism certainly does not follow. “People ought not kick puppies for fun” can be applied to those in other jurisdictions as much as to one’s own. Sure, there’s chauvinism inherent in that; so be it. Our values are our values.

Now you are finally getting to the topic of this thread.

We recognise the situation as wanting.

That is, we have on the one hand the description, with a word-to-world direction fit; and on the other, we recognise an ethical import, with a world-to-word direction of fit. A description of the puppy-kicking and a revulsion towards the puppy-kicking.