Is morality objective or subjective?

[Peter Holmes]

I can experience emotions. I wonder why you wonder.

I had written

I wonder what happens with you when you read a novel or listen to a poem.

But reading a quality novel or poem is not about emotional titillation although emotional titillation may be a side effect. Reading a quality novel or poem is about understanding some theme which as often as not is what it is like to be human, or more, what it ought to be like to be human.

Okay. But 'what it is like to be human' isn't a mysterious, ineffable, undescribable thing. And you seem classically elitist. A 'poor-quality' (?) novel or poem - something to distract the groundlings - could just as powerfully have that effect.

[Terrapin Station]

I wonder what happens with you when you read a novel or listen to a poem.

Depends on the novel or poem (or artwork in general), but I don't usually care very much about the "what it's like to be (a) human" aspect, unless that is broad enough to include things like "entertaining things that humans can imagine/fantasize about," "engaging formal things that humans can construct," etc. I'm not much of a fan of realist drama, especially not when it leans towards soap opera-type stuff.

[popeye1945]

All meaning is subjective.

[Peter Holmes]

All meaning is subjective.

Is the meaning of the assertion 'all meaning is subjective' subjective - merely a matter of opinion?

[popeye1945]

No, we live in a physical world that is utterly meaningless in the absence of life and its consciousness, it is consciousness that bestows meaning upon a meaningless world, and that meaning is relative to the biology of life and its consciousness. Meaning always belongs to the subject, never the object.

[Peter Holmes]

No, we live in a physical world that is utterly meaningless in the absence of life and its consciousness, it is consciousness that bestows meaning upon a meaningless world, and that meaning is relative to the biology of life and its consciousness. Meaning always belongs to the subject, never the object.

Erm. You seem to be saying that the meaning of the assertion 'all meaning is subjective' is not subjective - which is a flat contradiction.

But anyway, the abstract noun meaning isn't the name of a thing of some kind that can be bestowed on anything. It's just a word that we use, along with its cognates, in many different contexts and ways.

[popeye1945]

Sounds like nonsense to me. Where do you think an object acquires its meaning?

[Peter Holmes]

Sounds like nonsense to me. Where do you think an object acquires its meaning?

I think we're talking past each other.

Your argument assumes the metaphysical distinction - which has plagued philosophy for millennia - between perceiving mind/subject and perceived reality/object. It's the mistake that underpins Cartesian dualism, and has informed rationalism and empiricism.

And your claim, that all meaning is subjective, assumes that what we call 'meaning' is a thing or property of some kind that can be somewhere, somehow - 'within' the subject.

Why is the meaning of a gesture, some statistics, or a sentence subjective - a matter of opinion? Is the meaning of these words that I'm writing and you're reading subjective? If so, how can I and you know what they mean?

Sorry, but I think you've been suckered by an ancient religious delusion. Think of people and brains as objects - which is what they are.

[popeye1945]

One question for you, how does an object, any object acquire its meaning? I am not telling you, I wish you to tell me.

[Peter Holmes]

One question for you, how does an object, any object acquire its meaning? I am not telling you, I wish you to tell me.

My point is that the question 'how does an object acquire its meaning?' assumes that 'a meaning' is something that an object could acquire - and that that assumption is incoherent.

I agree with you that there's a radical difference and separation between: features of reality (things and events) that are or were the case; what we believe and know about them - such as that they exist; and what we say about them - which (classically) may be true or false.

It follows that, as you say, the claim that features of reality have any kind of meaning is incoherent - and that includes people. But it's as incoherent to say that reality is meaningless as it is to say it's meaningful. For example, with no given context, a dog is neither meaningful nor meaningless. Neither claim makes any sense.

But the expression 'my dog means a lot to me' makes good sense that most of us understand. We use the word meaning and its cognates in many different ways - and the meanings of signs such as words is in the ways we use them.

Your assertion - all meaning is subjective - has a kind of vast, metaphysical sweep that our actual use of the word meaning belies. For example, the meaning of the word meaning is not subjective.

[popeye1945]

Wow, it is not as if your protest is not well thought out. I am afraid my friend you have gotten lost in semantics. I don't know if this example will be helpful but here it goes. There is an old Buddhist monk standing up in front of his students, he holds up a flower in silence and waits, suddenly a student from the back of the room indicates that he understands, but what does he understand? He understands that the flower in and of itself has no meaning, it just is. To the rest of the class it is still a flower, a rose in fact. There is nothing in the physical world that in and of itself has meaning, meaning is bestowed upon the physical world by biological consciousness, I say biological because other animals are conscious as well.

[Peter Holmes]

Wow, it is not as if your protest is not well thought out. I am afraid my friend you have gotten lost in semantics. I don't know if this example will be helpful but here it goes. There is an old Buddhist monk standing up in front of his students, he holds up a flower in silence and waits, suddenly a student from the back of the room indicates that he understands, but what does he understand? He understands that the flower in and of itself has no meaning, it just is. To the rest of the class it is still a flower, a rose in fact. There is nothing in the physical world that in and of itself has meaning, meaning is bestowed upon the physical world by biological consciousness, I say biological because other animals are conscious as well.

Wow. Please actually pay attention to what I'm saying. I agree that features of reality, such as flowers and monks, 'have no meaning'. But this banal insight seems to have you bewitched. And your grand conclusion, that 'all meaning is subjective', is metaphysical woo-woo. For one thing, the way we use the words 'subjective' and 'objective' is not subjective. So your assertion is obviously and demonstrably false.

[popeye1945]

Well, do enlighten me! How do you use the words subjective and objective, perhaps here we need to define our terms--yes? I do sense some frustration in your response, but you need to clarify. If you disagree that all meaning is subjective, that it is WOO WOO, I watched that debate too, but do tell me where else it lies, this meaning that is not subjective. I not saying your wrong, until I have heard your explanation. So, lets hear some authoritative WOO WOO!

[Peter Holmes]

Well, do enlighten me! How do you use the words subjective and objective, perhaps here we need to define our terms--yes? I do sense some frustration in your response, but you need to clarify. If you disagree that all meaning is subjective, that it is WOO WOO, I watched that debate too, but do tell me where else it lies, this meaning that is not subjective. I not saying your wrong, until I have heard your explanation. So, lets hear some authoritative WOO WOO!

One more time then.

1 What we call objectivity is independence from opinion when considering the facts. So moral objectivism is the claim that there are moral facts.

2 What we call a fact is a feature of reality that is or was the case, or a description of a feature of reality whose truth-value - classically, true or false - is independent from opinion.

3 Moral objectivism is the claim that there are moral features of reality - moral rightness and wrongness - that are or were the case. The burden of proof for the existence of such features of reality is with moral objectivists - unmet so far, to my knowledge.

4 Moral subjectivism is the claim that there are no moral facts - moral features of reality - but only moral opinions expressed by means of moral assertions with no factual truth-value independent from opinion.

Given this argument, I suggest your conflation of what you call confusingly call meaning - as bestowed by conscious 'subjects' on 'objects' - with moral assertions is conceptually incoherent.

[popeye1945]

Hi Peter,

"1 What we call objectivity is independence from opinion when considering the facts. So moral objectivism is the claim that there are moral facts."

1-OK, Objective independence, like the train that hit you is real. Moral objectivism, there are NO moral facts in the sense that an object is a fact.


"2 What we call a fact is a feature of reality that is or was the case, or a description of a feature of reality whose truth-value - classically, true or false - is independent from opinion."

2- A fact by your definition is an object, thus objectivism, thus the physical world as object to a conscious being.



"3 Moral objectivism is the claim that there are moral features of reality - moral rightness and wrongness - that are or were the case. The burden of proof for the existence of such features of reality is with moral objectivists - unmet so far, to my knowledge."

3- There are no moral features to reality, the physical world is meaningless, thus no moral factors. Things, objects just are, and as we experience them the experience tends to become the meanings of that particular object/experience. Apparent reality is a biological readout, a summation of the bodies experience of the physcial world.


4 Moral subjectivism is the claim that there are no moral facts - moral features of reality - but only moral opinions expressed by means of moral assertions with no factual truth-value independent from opinion.

4- Yes, there are no moral facts, no moral features of reality. Through experience and humanities creative process, it trys to establish moral factors, rules, guidelines in the interest of our common biology, which tends to be similar across the board. Reality on an individual level is perception/experience, to the group it is agreement, both are based upon opinion, but the collective tends to be more reliable.



Given this argument, I suggest your conflation of what you call confusingly call meaning - as bestowed by conscious 'subjects' on 'objects' - with moral assertions is conceptually incoherent.
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There was no argument presented, just definitions. Define meaning for me as clearly as you can. You could try being a little less arrogant as well.