6 ms·

Here's a simple proof that moral nihilism is false. 1. Suppose moral nihilism is true. 2. Then it would be incorrect to think that boiling a human child alive

Here's a simple proof that moral nihilism is false. 1. Suppose moral nihilism is true. 2. Then it would be incorrect to think that boiling a human child alive for pleasure is morally wrong. 3. But clearly (2) is false. 4. Therefore (1) is false. You might wonder how we can know (3). The answer is that (3) appears to us to be true, and we have no good reason to think it is not true. This has been called the "Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism" in philosophy books, and it's the same principle that justifies our belief in physical/scientific facts (e.g., that tables exist, or that evolution is true). But it also implies that moral facts exist as well! Of course, sometimes things appear to us to be true, but we eventually discover reasons strong enough override those appearances. For example, if you stick a pencil in a cup of water, it appears to us that the pencil is broken in half. But through scientific rigor, we have learned that this appearance is just an illusion. But this is not the case with (3). It both appears us that it is wrong to cause needless harm to children for fun, and any reason we might consider to doubt this fails to be strong enough to persuade us otherwise.

Retric 5y ago
Your argument boils down to saying I believe something therefore I am correct. Which isn’t an argument as someone else saying they have a different belief provides exactly as much evidence. In other words the mere existence of nihilism inherently disproves your argument. Also, that’s really not why scientific facts are considered true. Science is based on positive evidence as in a prediction is made and it turns out the prediction was accurate. Simply presupposing something is true isn’t considered evidence that it is true.
- georgewsinger 5y ago
  > Your argument boils down to saying I believe something therefore I am correct. No it doesn't. It boils down to something appearing to be true to me (or "us") and there being actually no good reasons to think that it is not true. > Also, that’s really not why scientific facts are considered true. Science is based on positive evidence as in a prediction is made and it turns out the prediction was accurate. You're wrong, and here is why: first I would ask you what counts as positive evidence that a prediction made was verified. You would give me some theoretical explanation (depending upon the context), and then I would keep asking you more detailed questions about your explanation. Eventually I would ask a question that you wouldn't really be able to answer, other than "look, it just appears to me that such-and-such counts as predictive evidence!" (or something like that). So for example if we had a scientific theory that all red cars cannot exceed 100mph, and you said "that's not true, for look at my red car going 105mph!", I could ask you "well, yeah, your speedometer reads 105mph, but how do you know you're actually going faster than 100mph?" You would give me an explanation about how speedometers work, and I would say "well yeah, but how do you know that theory can be generalized to this particular case <blah blah blah>". Eventually after this chain of questioning you would be left relying on some sort of mere appearance being true. And of course that is rational. The problem is that this chain of reasoning can also be applied to moral theories as well. > Simply presupposing something is true isn’t considered evidence that it is true. I'm not merely presupposing something is true. I'm observing that something first appears to be true, asserting there are no good reasons to think it is not true, and then supposing it is true. Contrast these two cases: 1. It appears to me that 2+2 = 4, and I can think of no good reasons at this moment to doubt otherwise. I guess, therefore, that 2+2 really is 4. 2. I shall pressuppose that 2+2=5! You're acting as if I'm taking the strategy of (2), but I am actually taking the strategy of (1). And in fact you are as well. Here's a really simple way to see why. Suppose you thought of some argument that showed that the Principle of Phenomenal Conservativism was false. But why should you, after pondering that argument, believe that argument? Because it appears to you to be true, and you can give no plausible retort for why it's false. Thus in "refuting" the Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism, you must use it! This shows that it is self-defeating to argue against the Principle. The Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism has to be true for other reasons as well. For example, the following are all statements that I'm sure you agree are true: 1. 1 = 1. 2. The law of non-contradiction is true. 3. Empirical theories which make testable predictions are more likely to be true than empirical theories which can't. 4. The keyboard in front of you actually exists. But why do you believe these statements? You won't be able to insert some other empirical theory to justify them. They are instead just sort of raw appearances that we suppose are true (because we can't think of any good reasons to doubt them). We make use of our sensory instruments to do this (e.g, our eyes, our non-moral intuitions, etc). But this is exactly like me asserting that "it's wrong to torture children for fun", which relies on a moral intuition that it is wrong (plus the fact that we can't think of any good reason to think otherwise). All of this is to say: you can't be a scientific realist without also being a moral realist at the same time, or at least if you can, it's because of some argument I haven't yet considered :]
  - Retric 5y ago
    > Eventually you are left relying on mere appearances. And of course that is rational. No, I am relying on a prediction of appearances. If I predict an instrument will show blue I don’t need to go through anything below that level. It’s now on someone else to make a different prediction and show new evidence. > Contrast these two cases: There is zero difference between them 2 + 2 = 5! could be true. 2 + 2 = 4 could be true, or they could both be false and 2 + 2 = 7.629. We define math as things that follow from initial assumptions. 2 + 2 alone doesn’t have a definite answer, it only has a specific answer in a specific context. We generally don’t need to list the underlying assumptions to build a chain like 2 + 2 = 2 + 1 + 1 = 3 + 1 = 4, but that’s simply based on an assumed context. > 3 Empirical theories which make testable predictions are more likely to be true than empirical theories which can't. Again no, being testable has nothing to do with being correct. Suppose I come up with a theory that has absolutely no direct or indirect impact on anyone or anything ever. Why exactly should we care about it? Anyway, moral intuition isn’t a sensory perception. If I say “camp fire” you might remember warmth but you can’t avoid actually freezing from remembering fire. Similarly ask a cannibal their moral intuition around eating people and you don’t get the same responses where everyone could actually be burned by an actual fire.
Josteniok 5y ago
For #2 if we say "Then it would be incorrect to think that X is morally wrong" is there an "X" that is always true in all places and for all times? I ask because "boiling a human child alive for pleasure" seems to be safely chosen to be something that everyone in all places ought to be able to agree is wrong but there have been other chosen Xs at other times in our own culture that have changed and are now no longer considered "morally wrong". This would seem to indicate that the X is subjective. How subjective is it? What is it a function of?
- georgewsinger 5y ago
  Scientists disagree with each other on whether scientific theories are true. In fact the history of science is the history of overturning well-established theories for better theories that best fit the body of available evidence. But it would be absurd to think that scientific disagreement implies that there are no scientific facts. Analogously, it is absurd to think that moral disagreement implies that are no moral facts.
  - Josteniok 5y ago
    I happen to agree with you. But I still wonder, can we figure out what these moral facts are and what the criteria are for them or are they worse than the n-body problem referred to in another front page article and impossibly complex with no closed solution? I don't like the answer of "Because this X is obviously true" since the "obviously true" part changes so much. Do we think that morals that are "obviously true" are proceeding forward, like science, and are based on an increasing body of knowledge? There certainly doesn't seem to be the same kind of rigor applied to moral knowledge as there is to scientific knowledge.
    - georgewsinger 5y ago
      1. Yes, we can use our moral intuitions + philosophical analysis (just as we use our sense data + scientific analysis in science). 2. I believe we can resolve a lot of moral questions, as well as a lot of scientific questions. Some might be out of our grasp (just as some scientific theories might be out of our grasp of testing, given technological limitations over time, or what have you). 3. There is evidence that we have an increasing body of moral knowledge (aka "moral progress"). For example, 500 years ago it would have been an insane position to think that a society should be governed by a non-King, that slavery was unjustified, that women should have the right to work in all fields, etc. If you zoom out, moral positions across all cultures on earth seem to be converging to something. This is evidence that that something is actual moral truth. 4. Things seeming "obvious" to one but not "obvious" to another is just moral disagreement. But moral disagreement doesn't imply moral nihilism, just as scientific disagreement doesn't imply scientific nihilism. All we can do is keep better watch over our moral intuitions, explore counter-arguments/thought experiments, etc, and try to converge to reflective equilibrium/moral truth. Just as all we can do in science is to make better/simpler theories that best fit our sense data, and keep conducting scientific experiments.
DangitBobby 5y ago
Imagine that we are lobsters having this conversation, and they got to 2) Then it would be incorrect to think that boiling a lobster child alive for pleasure is morally wrong. They would probably get through 3 and 4, but many humans would not agree with them. So the proof is not universally applicable.
- georgewsinger 5y ago
  I actually side with the lobsters in this example (e.g., I believe it is wrong to boil a lobster alive for the mere sensory enjoyment of eating the lobster). But yes, many other humans don't. But that doesn't mean there aren't moral facts. It could instead mean that either the humans or the lobsters are wrong, and there is a good argument that one of them hasn't considered as to why they are wrong. If you disagree, then you must not believe that there are scientific facts either? After all, two separate people can disagree over which scientific theory is true/best fits the evidence (which is a process that boils down to asking which theories best comport with our raw sensory appearances, BTW). But if mere disagreement implies that there can't be truths in a domain, then this would mean there are no scientific facts, which is of course absurd. It's a much more plausible position to think that there are controversial scientific theories which we are less certain of, that one (or both) parties to scientific disagreements are just mistaken, but that there are after all scientific facts. Similarly, it is much more plausible position to think that there are controversial moral theories which we are less certain of, that one (or both) parties to moral disagreements are just mistaken, but that there are after all moral facts.
  - HKH2 5y ago
    Not the GP, but I don't see a problem with rejecting scientific absolutism as readily as moral absolutism. Is not skepticism part of science?
  - DangitBobby 5y ago
    My point was not that the conclusion (there are absolute moral truths, thus moral nihilism is false) is necessarily incorrect; it's that the arrival to the conclusion is based on a something I disagree with ("I have a ready example of an absolute moral truth."). I think there may be absolute moral truths, but that explaining them fully would be incredibly difficult or maybe impossible, and disproving moral nihilism that way would be intractible. I also side with the lobsters, BTW :)
Barrin92 5y ago
This isn't convincing because the power of the argument comes from conflating different ways in which things are true. Intuitively some moral claims are 'true' yes. But they're psychologically or socially true. All normative statements are only 'true' or 'false' to us in a cultural sense, they're not claims about facts in the world. That's simple to show. Proof to me that your moral claim is true in the same way you proof a scientific fact, you can't, in fact there's no way to even make sense 'where' that truth or false property of any moral claim is supposed to be located, or how one would go about proving it. Moral nihilism is not the claim that authority or intuitive values or consensus does not exist, moral nihilism is the claim that there are no moral values as such, that there is no finality or meaning to them beyond the one we imprint on it. The moral nihilist may be perfectly fine with accepting that boiling children is wrong the same way not paying your car insurance or cheating at chess is wrong, the world's a more orderly place if people aren't going around boiling kids. What the moral nihilist denies is that this has any meaning beyond that conventional sense, that it is simply a useful fiction.
- georgewsinger 5y ago
  You spent 4 paragraphs reasserting the position that there are no moral truths. Instead, you assert (without argument) that moral talk is just a heuristic for some sort of conventional "social game" because it serves as a "useful fiction" (but "useful" for what? notice that terms like "useful fiction" or "orderly" often strongly smell like they're embedding evaluative content, depending upon the context). In any event, I'll charitably assume that you think moral language sincerely embeds no propositional content whatsoever. Well, just to be clear: I for one am claiming moral language is not just conventional talk. When I say it's wrong it boil someone's child alive for pleasure, I'm asserting it as a propositional fact, with the same truth-status as a statement like "there exist red cars", or what have you. Maybe you think I am the only one who does this, and that most other people don't think of themselves as asserting truths when they speak morally. But there's a mountain of linguistic evidence to the contrary: 1. Moral statements take the form of declarative sentences (as opposed to imperatives, questions, or interjections). Statements like "pleasure is good" have the same grammatical form as "weasels are mammals", and sentences of this form are those used to make factual assertions in other domains. 2. Moral predicates can be transformed into abstract nouns, suggesting they are intended to refer to properties. We talk about "goodness", "rightness", and so on. Again this points to moral realism in our language usage. 3. We ascribe to moral statements the same sort of properties that we do to other truth-bearing propositions. You can say "it's true that I have done something wrong in the past", or "it is false that torture is morally good". Of course, "true", "false", and "possible" are predicates that we apply only to propositions. No one would say "it is true that 'ouch!'", "it is false that 'shut the door'", or "it is possible that 'hurray!'". Again: more evidence that moral talk isn't just some sort of conventional game, but is in fact propositional. 4. Propositional attitude verbs can be prefixed to moral statements. We can say "George believes that the war was just", or "I wish we had more moral laws", or "I wonder whether I did the moral thing". In contrast, no one would say that "Jon believes that ouch", "I wonder whether please pass the salt", or "I hope that hurray for the Broncos!". The obvious explanation is that mental states such as believing, hoping, wishing, and wondering are by their nature propositionally focued, and of course moral statements are propositional (in that they refer to things which take objective truth values). 5. Moral statements can be transformed into yes/no questions. One can can assert "is it true that it's bad to murder?", but one cannot assert "Hurray for the Broncos?", or "Shut the door?". Of course this is because yes/no questions require propositions, and moral statements are propositions that take truth-values. 6. One can combine imperatives and emotional expressions with things that are characterized morally. E.g. "Do the right thing!", or "Hurray for virtue!". Consider a more complex example even: "We shouldn't be doing this, but it feels good, so let's do it anyway". This is perfectly intelligible if you believe that moral statements are propositional, but it's not if, e.g. "We shouldn't be doing this" expressed merely an emotion towards a proposed action or an imperative not to do it. Let's summarize. Each of the following sentences make sense: - I am questioning this act's rightness. - It is true that pleasure is good. - I hope I did the right thing. - Is murder wrong? - Do the good thing. - If pleasure is good, then cake must be good. None of these sentences make any sense if moral statements aren't actually propositional/truth-bearing. Therefore, the idea that moral language is just a conventional way of expressing emotions, or encoding some sort of conventional social game is highly implausible. I have to stop the conversation here, but I will end it with this: do you have an argument for why you think moral statements aren't propositional? If so, ask yourself why that argument couldn't be applied to other domains as well. My main point is that it is really hard to be nihilist about moral facts without also being one about other sorts of facts as well. Most of the arguments for moral nihilism can be re-adjusted and applied straightforwardly to, e.g., scientific nihilism. (For example, what if I asserted that "scientists aren't actually speaking about true and false theories, they're just playing a conventional game with each other because it serves as a useful fiction"). But almost no one wants to be a scientific nihilist (because that's also insane). So either you should be a nihilist about everything, or a nihilist about nothing (broadly speaking).
shrimp_emoji 5y ago
1. Suppose thing is true 2. If thing is true, thing #2 is true 3. But clearly I don't like (2), and neither do you 4. Therefore (1) is false I'll get decompression sickness from coming up for air from such deep philosophical fathoms.
- georgewsinger 5y ago
  In (3), you're conflating "like" with "appears to me/us to be true". There are many things that appear to us to be true, but that which we don't like. (I'm sure many scientists who have banked their careers on various falsified theories will agree). So let's correct the argument from its straw-manned form: 1. Suppose scientific theory T is true. 2. If T is true, then S is also true. 3. But clearly it seems to both of us that S is not true. 4. Therefore, (1) is false. This sounds like a perfectly normal (and rational) scientific discourse. Problem for you: this sort of discourse also applies to moral theories as well. 1. Suppose moral theory T is true. 2. If T is true, then S is also true. 3. But clearly it seems to both of us that S is not true. 4. Therefore, (1) is false. Both are perfectly reasonable/rational sorts of discourses, because there are both moral facts and scientific facts, and the way that we come about both of them is ultimately rooted in appearances (whether those appearances be sense data or moral intuitions).
  - naasking 5y ago
    (1) may be false, or the implication in step 2 is false.

Retric 5y ago

Your argument boils down to saying I believe something therefore I am correct. Which isn’t an argument as someone else saying they have a different belief provides exactly as much evidence. In other words the mere existence of nihilism inherently disproves your argument. Also, that’s really not why scientific facts are considered true. Science is based on positive evidence as in a prediction is made and it turns out the prediction was accurate. Simply presupposing something is true isn’t considered evidence that it is true.

georgewsinger 5y ago
> Your argument boils down to saying I believe something therefore I am correct. No it doesn't. It boils down to something appearing to be true to me (or "us") and there being actually no good reasons to think that it is not true. > Also, that’s really not why scientific facts are considered true. Science is based on positive evidence as in a prediction is made and it turns out the prediction was accurate. You're wrong, and here is why: first I would ask you what counts as positive evidence that a prediction made was verified. You would give me some theoretical explanation (depending upon the context), and then I would keep asking you more detailed questions about your explanation. Eventually I would ask a question that you wouldn't really be able to answer, other than "look, it just appears to me that such-and-such counts as predictive evidence!" (or something like that). So for example if we had a scientific theory that all red cars cannot exceed 100mph, and you said "that's not true, for look at my red car going 105mph!", I could ask you "well, yeah, your speedometer reads 105mph, but how do you know you're actually going faster than 100mph?" You would give me an explanation about how speedometers work, and I would say "well yeah, but how do you know that theory can be generalized to this particular case <blah blah blah>". Eventually after this chain of questioning you would be left relying on some sort of mere appearance being true. And of course that is rational. The problem is that this chain of reasoning can also be applied to moral theories as well. > Simply presupposing something is true isn’t considered evidence that it is true. I'm not merely presupposing something is true. I'm observing that something first appears to be true, asserting there are no good reasons to think it is not true, and then supposing it is true. Contrast these two cases: 1. It appears to me that 2+2 = 4, and I can think of no good reasons at this moment to doubt otherwise. I guess, therefore, that 2+2 really is 4. 2. I shall pressuppose that 2+2=5! You're acting as if I'm taking the strategy of (2), but I am actually taking the strategy of (1). And in fact you are as well. Here's a really simple way to see why. Suppose you thought of some argument that showed that the Principle of Phenomenal Conservativism was false. But why should you, after pondering that argument, believe that argument? Because it appears to you to be true, and you can give no plausible retort for why it's false. Thus in "refuting" the Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism, you must use it! This shows that it is self-defeating to argue against the Principle. The Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism has to be true for other reasons as well. For example, the following are all statements that I'm sure you agree are true: 1. 1 = 1. 2. The law of non-contradiction is true. 3. Empirical theories which make testable predictions are more likely to be true than empirical theories which can't. 4. The keyboard in front of you actually exists. But why do you believe these statements? You won't be able to insert some other empirical theory to justify them. They are instead just sort of raw appearances that we suppose are true (because we can't think of any good reasons to doubt them). We make use of our sensory instruments to do this (e.g, our eyes, our non-moral intuitions, etc). But this is exactly like me asserting that "it's wrong to torture children for fun", which relies on a moral intuition that it is wrong (plus the fact that we can't think of any good reason to think otherwise). All of this is to say: you can't be a scientific realist without also being a moral realist at the same time, or at least if you can, it's because of some argument I haven't yet considered :]
- Retric 5y ago
  > Eventually you are left relying on mere appearances. And of course that is rational. No, I am relying on a prediction of appearances. If I predict an instrument will show blue I don’t need to go through anything below that level. It’s now on someone else to make a different prediction and show new evidence. > Contrast these two cases: There is zero difference between them 2 + 2 = 5! could be true. 2 + 2 = 4 could be true, or they could both be false and 2 + 2 = 7.629. We define math as things that follow from initial assumptions. 2 + 2 alone doesn’t have a definite answer, it only has a specific answer in a specific context. We generally don’t need to list the underlying assumptions to build a chain like 2 + 2 = 2 + 1 + 1 = 3 + 1 = 4, but that’s simply based on an assumed context. > 3 Empirical theories which make testable predictions are more likely to be true than empirical theories which can't. Again no, being testable has nothing to do with being correct. Suppose I come up with a theory that has absolutely no direct or indirect impact on anyone or anything ever. Why exactly should we care about it? Anyway, moral intuition isn’t a sensory perception. If I say “camp fire” you might remember warmth but you can’t avoid actually freezing from remembering fire. Similarly ask a cannibal their moral intuition around eating people and you don’t get the same responses where everyone could actually be burned by an actual fire.

Josteniok 5y ago

For #2 if we say "Then it would be incorrect to think that X is morally wrong" is there an "X" that is always true in all places and for all times? I ask because "boiling a human child alive for pleasure" seems to be safely chosen to be something that everyone in all places ought to be able to agree is wrong but there have been other chosen Xs at other times in our own culture that have changed and are now no longer considered "morally wrong". This would seem to indicate that the X is subjective. How subjective is it? What is it a function of?

georgewsinger 5y ago
Scientists disagree with each other on whether scientific theories are true. In fact the history of science is the history of overturning well-established theories for better theories that best fit the body of available evidence. But it would be absurd to think that scientific disagreement implies that there are no scientific facts. Analogously, it is absurd to think that moral disagreement implies that are no moral facts.
- Josteniok 5y ago
  I happen to agree with you. But I still wonder, can we figure out what these moral facts are and what the criteria are for them or are they worse than the n-body problem referred to in another front page article and impossibly complex with no closed solution? I don't like the answer of "Because this X is obviously true" since the "obviously true" part changes so much. Do we think that morals that are "obviously true" are proceeding forward, like science, and are based on an increasing body of knowledge? There certainly doesn't seem to be the same kind of rigor applied to moral knowledge as there is to scientific knowledge.
  - georgewsinger 5y ago
    1. Yes, we can use our moral intuitions + philosophical analysis (just as we use our sense data + scientific analysis in science). 2. I believe we can resolve a lot of moral questions, as well as a lot of scientific questions. Some might be out of our grasp (just as some scientific theories might be out of our grasp of testing, given technological limitations over time, or what have you). 3. There is evidence that we have an increasing body of moral knowledge (aka "moral progress"). For example, 500 years ago it would have been an insane position to think that a society should be governed by a non-King, that slavery was unjustified, that women should have the right to work in all fields, etc. If you zoom out, moral positions across all cultures on earth seem to be converging to something. This is evidence that that something is actual moral truth. 4. Things seeming "obvious" to one but not "obvious" to another is just moral disagreement. But moral disagreement doesn't imply moral nihilism, just as scientific disagreement doesn't imply scientific nihilism. All we can do is keep better watch over our moral intuitions, explore counter-arguments/thought experiments, etc, and try to converge to reflective equilibrium/moral truth. Just as all we can do in science is to make better/simpler theories that best fit our sense data, and keep conducting scientific experiments.

DangitBobby 5y ago

Imagine that we are lobsters having this conversation, and they got to 2) Then it would be incorrect to think that boiling a lobster child alive for pleasure is morally wrong. They would probably get through 3 and 4, but many humans would not agree with them. So the proof is not universally applicable.

georgewsinger 5y ago
I actually side with the lobsters in this example (e.g., I believe it is wrong to boil a lobster alive for the mere sensory enjoyment of eating the lobster). But yes, many other humans don't. But that doesn't mean there aren't moral facts. It could instead mean that either the humans or the lobsters are wrong, and there is a good argument that one of them hasn't considered as to why they are wrong. If you disagree, then you must not believe that there are scientific facts either? After all, two separate people can disagree over which scientific theory is true/best fits the evidence (which is a process that boils down to asking which theories best comport with our raw sensory appearances, BTW). But if mere disagreement implies that there can't be truths in a domain, then this would mean there are no scientific facts, which is of course absurd. It's a much more plausible position to think that there are controversial scientific theories which we are less certain of, that one (or both) parties to scientific disagreements are just mistaken, but that there are after all scientific facts. Similarly, it is much more plausible position to think that there are controversial moral theories which we are less certain of, that one (or both) parties to moral disagreements are just mistaken, but that there are after all moral facts.
- HKH2 5y ago
  Not the GP, but I don't see a problem with rejecting scientific absolutism as readily as moral absolutism. Is not skepticism part of science?
- DangitBobby 5y ago
  My point was not that the conclusion (there are absolute moral truths, thus moral nihilism is false) is necessarily incorrect; it's that the arrival to the conclusion is based on a something I disagree with ("I have a ready example of an absolute moral truth."). I think there may be absolute moral truths, but that explaining them fully would be incredibly difficult or maybe impossible, and disproving moral nihilism that way would be intractible. I also side with the lobsters, BTW :)

Barrin92 5y ago

This isn't convincing because the power of the argument comes from conflating different ways in which things are true. Intuitively some moral claims are 'true' yes. But they're psychologically or socially true. All normative statements are only 'true' or 'false' to us in a cultural sense, they're not claims about facts in the world. That's simple to show. Proof to me that your moral claim is true in the same way you proof a scientific fact, you can't, in fact there's no way to even make sense 'where' that truth or false property of any moral claim is supposed to be located, or how one would go about proving it. Moral nihilism is not the claim that authority or intuitive values or consensus does not exist, moral nihilism is the claim that there are no moral values as such, that there is no finality or meaning to them beyond the one we imprint on it. The moral nihilist may be perfectly fine with accepting that boiling children is wrong the same way not paying your car insurance or cheating at chess is wrong, the world's a more orderly place if people aren't going around boiling kids. What the moral nihilist denies is that this has any meaning beyond that conventional sense, that it is simply a useful fiction.

georgewsinger 5y ago
You spent 4 paragraphs reasserting the position that there are no moral truths. Instead, you assert (without argument) that moral talk is just a heuristic for some sort of conventional "social game" because it serves as a "useful fiction" (but "useful" for what? notice that terms like "useful fiction" or "orderly" often strongly smell like they're embedding evaluative content, depending upon the context). In any event, I'll charitably assume that you think moral language sincerely embeds no propositional content whatsoever. Well, just to be clear: I for one am claiming moral language is not just conventional talk. When I say it's wrong it boil someone's child alive for pleasure, I'm asserting it as a propositional fact, with the same truth-status as a statement like "there exist red cars", or what have you. Maybe you think I am the only one who does this, and that most other people don't think of themselves as asserting truths when they speak morally. But there's a mountain of linguistic evidence to the contrary: 1. Moral statements take the form of declarative sentences (as opposed to imperatives, questions, or interjections). Statements like "pleasure is good" have the same grammatical form as "weasels are mammals", and sentences of this form are those used to make factual assertions in other domains. 2. Moral predicates can be transformed into abstract nouns, suggesting they are intended to refer to properties. We talk about "goodness", "rightness", and so on. Again this points to moral realism in our language usage. 3. We ascribe to moral statements the same sort of properties that we do to other truth-bearing propositions. You can say "it's true that I have done something wrong in the past", or "it is false that torture is morally good". Of course, "true", "false", and "possible" are predicates that we apply only to propositions. No one would say "it is true that 'ouch!'", "it is false that 'shut the door'", or "it is possible that 'hurray!'". Again: more evidence that moral talk isn't just some sort of conventional game, but is in fact propositional. 4. Propositional attitude verbs can be prefixed to moral statements. We can say "George believes that the war was just", or "I wish we had more moral laws", or "I wonder whether I did the moral thing". In contrast, no one would say that "Jon believes that ouch", "I wonder whether please pass the salt", or "I hope that hurray for the Broncos!". The obvious explanation is that mental states such as believing, hoping, wishing, and wondering are by their nature propositionally focued, and of course moral statements are propositional (in that they refer to things which take objective truth values). 5. Moral statements can be transformed into yes/no questions. One can can assert "is it true that it's bad to murder?", but one cannot assert "Hurray for the Broncos?", or "Shut the door?". Of course this is because yes/no questions require propositions, and moral statements are propositions that take truth-values. 6. One can combine imperatives and emotional expressions with things that are characterized morally. E.g. "Do the right thing!", or "Hurray for virtue!". Consider a more complex example even: "We shouldn't be doing this, but it feels good, so let's do it anyway". This is perfectly intelligible if you believe that moral statements are propositional, but it's not if, e.g. "We shouldn't be doing this" expressed merely an emotion towards a proposed action or an imperative not to do it. Let's summarize. Each of the following sentences make sense: - I am questioning this act's rightness. - It is true that pleasure is good. - I hope I did the right thing. - Is murder wrong? - Do the good thing. - If pleasure is good, then cake must be good. None of these sentences make any sense if moral statements aren't actually propositional/truth-bearing. Therefore, the idea that moral language is just a conventional way of expressing emotions, or encoding some sort of conventional social game is highly implausible. I have to stop the conversation here, but I will end it with this: do you have an argument for why you think moral statements aren't propositional? If so, ask yourself why that argument couldn't be applied to other domains as well. My main point is that it is really hard to be nihilist about moral facts without also being one about other sorts of facts as well. Most of the arguments for moral nihilism can be re-adjusted and applied straightforwardly to, e.g., scientific nihilism. (For example, what if I asserted that "scientists aren't actually speaking about true and false theories, they're just playing a conventional game with each other because it serves as a useful fiction"). But almost no one wants to be a scientific nihilist (because that's also insane). So either you should be a nihilist about everything, or a nihilist about nothing (broadly speaking).

shrimp_emoji 5y ago

1. Suppose thing is true 2. If thing is true, thing #2 is true 3. But clearly I don't like (2), and neither do you 4. Therefore (1) is false I'll get decompression sickness from coming up for air from such deep philosophical fathoms.

georgewsinger 5y ago
In (3), you're conflating "like" with "appears to me/us to be true". There are many things that appear to us to be true, but that which we don't like. (I'm sure many scientists who have banked their careers on various falsified theories will agree). So let's correct the argument from its straw-manned form: 1. Suppose scientific theory T is true. 2. If T is true, then S is also true. 3. But clearly it seems to both of us that S is not true. 4. Therefore, (1) is false. This sounds like a perfectly normal (and rational) scientific discourse. Problem for you: this sort of discourse also applies to moral theories as well. 1. Suppose moral theory T is true. 2. If T is true, then S is also true. 3. But clearly it seems to both of us that S is not true. 4. Therefore, (1) is false. Both are perfectly reasonable/rational sorts of discourses, because there are both moral facts and scientific facts, and the way that we come about both of them is ultimately rooted in appearances (whether those appearances be sense data or moral intuitions).
- naasking 5y ago
  (1) may be false, or the implication in step 2 is false.