What could make morality objective?

[Peter Holmes]

1. Hungry sentient beings suffer unpleasantness if we don't feed them.
2. Unpleasantness is intrinsically bad. (That is, it intrinsically merits an anti-attitude; this is just a fact about pleasantness and unpleasantness - by their very nature, a pro-attitude is appropriate to the first, and an anti-attitude to the second. To take the most obvious case, it is not reasonable to claim that how one feels about a severe and continuing pain is just a matter of personal subjective choice or opinion: severe pain forces on us an anti-attitude - we dislike it - by its very nature.)

What does the word 'bad' mean here?

I've already answered that: it means 'merits an anti-attitude'.

If it just means 'unpleasant', the claim is a tautology.

It doesn't, and so it isn't.

And why does pleasantness (pleasure?) merit a pro-attitude, and unpleasantness (pain?) an anti-attitude?

It's an empirical fact that pain makes you want the pain to stop, and pleasure makes you want the pleasure to continue. These are properties of pain and pleasure, not subjective attitudes or opinions that we foist onto them. Pain is aversive; and the more severe the pain, the more aversive it becomes (i.e. the more you want it to stop). These are simply facts of nature.

There's a long tradition of ascetic denial of pleasure as corrupting and pain as ennobling.

Indeed there is, and it's perfectly possible for these opinions to be correct without endangering my theory. (Whether they really are correct is of secondary importance.) All it would mean is that while pleasure is intrinsically good (i.e. merits a pro-attitude), it can be instrumentally bad (i.e. lead ultimately to pain or some other kind of unpleasantness, which merits an anti-attitude). And the opposite for pain.

Your claim of 'intrinsicness' is a matter of opinion.

My opinion is backed by argument.

And anyway, there's no 'ought' here.

Well, there wouldn't be, would there? We're only in step 2 of a 5-step argument.

3. If we don't feed the hungry and they can't feed themselves, we are allowing badness to continue when we could prevent it, and we are therefore doing evil by omission.

This is your sleight-of-hand dishonesty.

Ah, the ad hominem insult. So useful when you can't actually refute what the other guy is saying.

You slide from unpleasantness to badness to evil.

I don't slide. I note that unpleasantness, as a fact of experience, merits an anti-attitude, and that badness, as a fact of language, means 'merits an anti-attitude'; and therefore, that unpleasantness is bad. You cannot refute these assertions of mine simply by labelling them as 'sliding'. That's not a reasoned rebuttal, it's just a kind of philosophical defamation.

And, of course, we ought not to do or be evil!

Indeed we oughtn't. As I say in the next step, I take this to be self-evident. Once you have crossed the supposedly unbridgeable gulf between fact and value, subjectivism is already lost. What reason could you have to defend an already hopeless position?

Then you retroject that back to unpleasantness: unpleasantness is evil, so we ought not to cause unpleasantness. QED.

Your language is colourful (sliding, retrojecting), but bears no relation to what I actually do in my argument. Once I have reached 'ought' in my argument, I don't return to unpleasantness. I've already dealt with it.

The reason why it's important to strip an argument such as yours down to a simple premise, or simple premises, and a conclusion - is that it can expose the invalidity and/or unsoundness of the argument.

Well, if it ever does that - and I'm deeply sceptical - it certainly doesn't do it in your hands. All it does in your hands is distort my argument out of all recognition.

But I can see why you don't like it.

Whether I like it or not is beside the point. The point is that you use it as an excuse for not confronting my argument properly.

What we count as good or bad (or evil) is a matter of opinion, which is therefore subjective. So that we ought to do something is also a matter of opinion, which is therefore subjective. And facts about human nature have no bearing on the necessary subjectivity of our opinions.

Yes, I'm familiar with the articles of your faith. I just don't happen to believe them.

Here is a reasoned rebuttal of your argument.

1 Unpleasantness and badness are not independent properties of things and events. And that's why one person may find something unpleasant or bad, that another person finds pleasant or good. Just as beauty and ugliness are in the eye of the beholder, so pleasantness and unpleasantness, or goodness and badness (or evil) are in the experience or judgement of the experiencer.

2 It follows that 'meriting an anti-attitude/a pro-attitude' is also not an independent property, because one and the same thing can 'merit' either attitude.

3 But even if unpleasantness/badness/meriting an anti-attitude were indeed independent properties of things and events, that still doesn't entail an 'ought' of any kind - such as that we ought not to inflict unpleasantness on others. That is a moral judgement, belief or opinion, which is subjective.

4 The is/ought barrier is insuperable. An argument that pretends it isn't, or that the barrier doesn't exist, begs the question and is therefore fallacious.

I don't believe I'm merely expounding a faith-position here. But if you can demonstrate that I am, I must reconsider my argument.

[CIN]

1 Unpleasantness and badness are not independent properties of things and events.

You are conflating two different kinds of claim here, viz:

1a. Unpleasantness is not an independent property of things and events.
This is a claim about a matter of natural fact, and is correct.

1b. Badness is not an independent property of things and events
This, unlike 1a, is a claim in meta-ethics. Whether it is correct depends on what you mean. If you mean that badness is not 100% mind-independent, then you are right, because since badness is a matter of a relation between an object and attitudes to the object, and attitudes are mental, badness must have an element of mind-dependence. But if you mean that badness is 100% mind-dependent, then you are wrong, because it is a fact independent of our beliefs that unpleasant experience influences us towards adopting an anti-attitude to the unpleasantness. If the unpleasantness is very great, as in severe physical pain, this influencing becomes overwhelming, as my wife explained to me when she described the pain she was put through in hospital three years ago after breaking her leg; the way she put it was, 'You just want the pain to stop. It's all you can think about.' Her anti-attitude to the pain was caused by the pain itself. This is the kind of thing I mean when I talk about unpleasantness meriting an anti-attitude, or an anti-attitude being appropriate to the unpleasantness.

And that's why one person may find something unpleasant or bad, that another person finds pleasant or good. Just as beauty and ugliness are in the eye of the beholder, so pleasantness and unpleasantness, or goodness and badness (or evil) are in the experience or judgement of the experiencer.

Yes, you can 'find something unpleasant'; but you cannot 'find something bad', because badness, as I explain above, is not entirely mind-dependent.

I agree with you about beauty and ugliness. In aesthetics, I'm an error theorist. IMO, 'that painting is ugly' attributes a property of ugliness to the painting, but is necessarily false, because there is no such property.

The difference between 'bad' and 'ugly' is this: 'ugly' attributes a narrowly aesthetic property to an external object, and on examination of the object, we find no such property. 'Bad' attributes a more general property, and can be used to attribute this property not just to external objects, but also to internal sensations, feelings, etc.. Our sensations and feelings can force an attitude on us, which an external object can't.

2 It follows that 'meriting an anti-attitude/a pro-attitude' is also not an independent property, because one and the same thing can 'merit' either attitude.

It can't if the thing in question is a sensation or feeling, as noted above.

3 But even if unpleasantness/badness/meriting an anti-attitude were indeed independent properties of things and events, that still doesn't entail an 'ought' of any kind - such as that we ought not to inflict unpleasantness on others. That is a moral judgement, belief or opinion, which is subjective.

The idea of 'ought' is the idea of an obligation, and that is essentially the idea of a debt owed. (In Old English, 'ought' was the past tense of 'owe'.) If you are faced with a choice of actions P and U, and P is likely to cause pleasant experiences to someone while U is likely to cause unpleasant experiences to that same person, then if you choose U, so that you are the cause of them experiencing unpleasantness rather than pleasantness, a debt to that person is created by your action equal to the difference between the unpleasantness you actually chose for them, and the pleasantness you could have chosen for them. Therefore, you owe it to them to reimburse them in some way for that debt; which is to say, you ought to make it up to them. This is just a fact. You can choose to acknowledge the existence of facts such as these, or you can choose to believe that they don't exist; it's up to you.

4 The is/ought barrier is insuperable. An argument that pretends it isn't, or that the barrier doesn't exist, begs the question and is therefore fallacious.

I think it is actually you that is begging the question here, by describing any attempt to cross the supposed barrier as a 'pretence'. That is something you can only judge by examining the attempt to see if it succeeds. If you think no such attempt could ever succeed, then the burden of proof that this is so rests on you.

I don't believe I'm merely expounding a faith-position here. But if you can demonstrate that I am, I must reconsider my argument.

Well, the problem I have is that I don't see you arguing in support of the positions you take up, you simply state them as your positions. Perhaps they are not faith positions, but if you don't support them by argument, it begins to look very much as if they are.

[CIN]

I don't believe I'm merely expounding a faith-position here. But if you can demonstrate that I am, I must reconsider my argument.

Please don't bother. I am frankly fed up with philosophy, and am giving it up. I'm posting this so you don't waste any further time on me.

Good luck and goodbye.

[Atla]

2. Unpleasantness is intrinsically bad.

Intrinsically bad to whom or to what?
Watching someone's unpleasantness can be the sadist's pleasure. And the Sun can't feel bad for either of them.
And maybe that someone is going through an unpleasant interview, which will land him a great job. It's bad temporarily, but good overall?

[CIN]

I suppose I'll have to keep coming back from time to time to answer questions about my argument.

2. Unpleasantness is intrinsically bad.

Intrinsically bad to whom or to what?

To the person experiencing the unpleasantness.

Watching someone's unpleasantness can be the sadist's pleasure.

You add the sadist's pleasure to the experiencer's unpleasantness to get net pleasantness, and hence net good or bad.

And the Sun can't feel bad for either of them.

The Sun isn't sentient, and is therefore not morally significant.

And maybe that someone is going through an unpleasant interview, which will land him a great job. It's bad temporarily, but good overall?

The interview is intrinsically bad for the person experiencing it, but instrumentally good. Again, add the good to the bad to get net goodness.

[Atla]

I suppose I'll have to keep coming back from time to time to answer questions about my argument.

2. Unpleasantness is intrinsically bad.

Intrinsically bad to whom or to what?

To the person experiencing the unpleasantness.

Watching someone's unpleasantness can be the sadist's pleasure.

You add the sadist's pleasure to the experiencer's unpleasantness to get net pleasantness, and hence net good or bad.

And the Sun can't feel bad for either of them.

The Sun isn't sentient, and is therefore not morally significant.

And maybe that someone is going through an unpleasant interview, which will land him a great job. It's bad temporarily, but good overall?

The interview is intrinsically bad for the person experiencing it, but instrumentally good. Again, add the good to the bad to get net goodness.

So if sentient persons have to add together what they consider to be good and bad, to get a net goodness, then how do we get to objective morality from here, which is free from such subjective judgments?

[Peter Holmes]

1 Unpleasantness and badness are not independent properties of things and events.

You are conflating two different kinds of claim here, viz:

1a. Unpleasantness is not an independent property of things and events.
This is a claim about a matter of natural fact, and is correct.

Not so. Anything can be described as pleasant or unpleasant. So those words express the attitude of the experiencer. They don't pick out independent properties of the thing being experienced.

1b. Badness is not an independent property of things and events
This, unlike 1a, is a claim in meta-ethics. Whether it is correct depends on what you mean. If you mean that badness is not 100% mind-independent, then you are right, because since badness is a matter of a relation between an object and attitudes to the object, and attitudes are mental, badness must have an element of mind-dependence. But if you mean that badness is 100% mind-dependent, then you are wrong, because it is a fact independent of our beliefs that unpleasant experience influences us towards adopting an anti-attitude to the unpleasantness. If the unpleasantness is very great, as in severe physical pain, this influencing becomes overwhelming, as my wife explained to me when she described the pain she was put through in hospital three years ago after breaking her leg; the way she put it was, 'You just want the pain to stop. It's all you can think about.' Her anti-attitude to the pain was caused by the pain itself. This is the kind of thing I mean when I talk about unpleasantness meriting an anti-attitude, or an anti-attitude being appropriate to the unpleasantness.

As I've said before, this analysis of unpleasantness and badness, their relationship, and the idea of meriting an anti-attitude, is confused, in my opinion. For example, in what way is 'badness...a relation between an object and attitudes to the object''?

My point remains: the claim 'this is bad' is functionally identical to the claim 'this is unpleasant', in that both express attitudes and don't make falsifiable factual claims. It's subjectivity all the way.

And that's why one person may find something unpleasant or bad, that another person finds pleasant or good. Just as beauty and ugliness are in the eye of the beholder, so pleasantness and unpleasantness, or goodness and badness (or evil) are in the experience or judgement of the experiencer.

Yes, you can 'find something unpleasant'; but you cannot 'find something bad', because badness, as I explain above, is not entirely mind-dependent.

Not so. All you can ever do is 'find something bad - or good'. (And I think talk of the mind and dependency here is an unnecessary complication.)

I agree with you about beauty and ugliness. In aesthetics, I'm an error theorist. IMO, 'that painting is ugly' attributes a property of ugliness to the painting, but is necessarily false, because there is no such property.

The difference between 'bad' and 'ugly' is this: 'ugly' attributes a narrowly aesthetic property to an external object, and on examination of the object, we find no such property. 'Bad' attributes a more general property, and can be used to attribute this property not just to external objects, but also to internal sensations, feelings, etc.. Our sensations and feelings can force an attitude on us, which an external object can't.

I'm sorry, but I think this analysis is off the rails. For example, there's no reason why we can't call internal sensations 'ugly'.

2 It follows that 'meriting an anti-attitude/a pro-attitude' is also not an independent property, because one and the same thing can 'merit' either attitude.

It can't if the thing in question is a sensation or feeling, as noted above.

This is just wrong. One and the same sensation or feeling can be described as pleasant or unpleasant, good or bad, meriting a pro or an anti-attitude. There's no foundation here.

3 But even if unpleasantness/badness/meriting an anti-attitude were indeed independent properties of things and events, that still doesn't entail an 'ought' of any kind - such as that we ought not to inflict unpleasantness on others. That is a moral judgement, belief or opinion, which is subjective.

The idea of 'ought' is the idea of an obligation, and that is essentially the idea of a debt owed. (In Old English, 'ought' was the past tense of 'owe'.) If you are faced with a choice of actions P and U, and P is likely to cause pleasant experiences to someone while U is likely to cause unpleasant experiences to that same person, then if you choose U, so that you are the cause of them experiencing unpleasantness rather than pleasantness, a debt to that person is created by your action equal to the difference between the unpleasantness you actually chose for them, and the pleasantness you could have chosen for them. Therefore, you owe it to them to reimburse them in some way for that debt; which is to say, you ought to make it up to them. This is just a fact. You can choose to acknowledge the existence of facts such as these, or you can choose to believe that they don't exist; it's up to you.

No, it's not a fact. Your scenario doesn't introduce objectivity at all. Why ought we to give others pleasant rather than unpleasant experiences? All you can say is: well, we just ought to. And that's okay. At bottom is always a judgement, decision or opinion - which is necessarily subjective.

4 The is/ought barrier is insuperable. An argument that pretends it isn't, or that the barrier doesn't exist, begs the question and is therefore fallacious.

I think it is actually you that is begging the question here, by describing any attempt to cross the supposed barrier as a 'pretence'. That is something you can only judge by examining the attempt to see if it succeeds. If you think no such attempt could ever succeed, then the burden of proof that this is so rests on you.

Here's why the barrier is insuperable: a factual (is) premise can never entail a 'judgemental' (ought) conclusion. In other words, what ought to be the case can never follow deductively from what is the case. Any claim that it can must be a 'pretence', in the form of a question-begging fallacy. So this is not a matter of inductive overreach - needing pragmatic, case-by-case analysis.

I don't believe I'm merely expounding a faith-position here. But if you can demonstrate that I am, I must reconsider my argument.

Well, the problem I have is that I don't see you arguing in support of the positions you take up, you simply state them as your positions. Perhaps they are not faith positions, but if you don't support them by argument, it begins to look very much as if they are.

Okay. I think I have supported my case, so I disagree. Let's leave it here. Thanks.

[CIN]

I suppose I'll have to keep coming back from time to time to answer questions about my argument.

2. Unpleasantness is intrinsically bad.

Intrinsically bad to whom or to what?

To the person experiencing the unpleasantness.

Watching someone's unpleasantness can be the sadist's pleasure.

You add the sadist's pleasure to the experiencer's unpleasantness to get net pleasantness, and hence net good or bad.

And the Sun can't feel bad for either of them.

The Sun isn't sentient, and is therefore not morally significant.

And maybe that someone is going through an unpleasant interview, which will land him a great job. It's bad temporarily, but good overall?

The interview is intrinsically bad for the person experiencing it, but instrumentally good. Again, add the good to the bad to get net goodness.

So if sentient persons have to add together what they consider to be good and bad, to get a net goodness, then how do we get to objective morality from here, which is free from such subjective judgments?

By saying 'what they consider to be good and bad' rather than 'what is good and bad', you are begging the question against objectivism. Of course, if I said 'what is good and bad' without an argument to support objectivism, i would be begging the question the other way; but I have put forward such an argument.

[CIN]

Okay. I think I have supported my case, so I disagree. Let's leave it here. Thanks.

I've been arguing my case in another forum, and have come up against a 5-star idiot, who doesn't merely believe in subjectivism (that's not what makes him an idiot, a lot of intelligent people believe in it, including yourself; I have moods when I almost believe in it myself!), but repeatedly replies to my posts by putting up straw men in place of my argument and then ridiculing me for supporting them - which, of course, I never have. That was why I said I was fed up with philosophy. It would be more accurate to say that I am fed up with some of the people who infest these online forums - people who clearly have never had any proper philosophical training, and don't know how to answer arguments properly.

If you are still interested, I will reply to your latest post and we can continue our debate. But not tonight, as it is once again around midnight and I am too tired.

[Atla]

I suppose I'll have to keep coming back from time to time to answer questions about my argument.

Intrinsically bad to whom or to what?

To the person experiencing the unpleasantness.

Watching someone's unpleasantness can be the sadist's pleasure.

You add the sadist's pleasure to the experiencer's unpleasantness to get net pleasantness, and hence net good or bad.

And the Sun can't feel bad for either of them.

The Sun isn't sentient, and is therefore not morally significant.

And maybe that someone is going through an unpleasant interview, which will land him a great job. It's bad temporarily, but good overall?

The interview is intrinsically bad for the person experiencing it, but instrumentally good. Again, add the good to the bad to get net goodness.

So if sentient persons have to add together what they consider to be good and bad, to get a net goodness, then how do we get to objective morality from here, which is free from such subjective judgments?

By saying 'what they consider to be good and bad' rather than 'what is good and bad', you are begging the question against objectivism. Of course, if I said 'what is good and bad' without an argument to support objectivism, i would be begging the question the other way; but I have put forward such an argument.

But your objectivism is the sum of what's good for the persons, the sum of subjectivisms.

[Peter Holmes]

Okay. I think I have supported my case, so I disagree. Let's leave it here. Thanks.

I've been arguing my case in another forum, and have come up against a 5-star idiot, who doesn't merely believe in subjectivism (that's not what makes him an idiot, a lot of intelligent people believe in it, including yourself; I have moods when I almost believe in it myself!), but repeatedly replies to my posts by putting up straw men in place of my argument and then ridiculing me for supporting them - which, of course, I never have. That was why I said I was fed up with philosophy. It would be more accurate to say that I am fed up with some of the people who infest these online forums - people who clearly have never had any proper philosophical training, and don't know how to answer arguments properly.

If you are still interested, I will reply to your latest post and we can continue our debate. But not tonight, as it is once again around midnight and I am too tired.

Okay. If you want to continue, please could you address these points?

1 A universally held opinion is still just an opinion. For example, that everyone thinks X is morally wrong doesn't make it a fact that X is morally wrong.

2 We can easily explain why we have developed moral values and rules. But they remain values and rules. It is a fact that we have values and rules. But that doesn't mean those values and rules are facts. (That's a category error.)

[CIN]

Okay. If you want to continue, please could you address these points?

1 A universally held opinion is still just an opinion. For example, that everyone thinks X is morally wrong doesn't make it a fact that X is morally wrong.

Obviously.

2 We can easily explain why we have developed moral values and rules. But they remain values and rules. It is a fact that we have values and rules. But that doesn't mean those values and rules are facts.

Agreed, it doesn't. But there's more to be said.

(That's a category error.)

Begging the question against ethical naturalism: if there are natural facts which are also moral facts, then to say that a value or rule is a fact is not a category error.

[CIN]

1 Unpleasantness and badness are not independent properties of things and events.

You are conflating two different kinds of claim here, viz:

1a. Unpleasantness is not an independent property of things and events.
This is a claim about a matter of natural fact, and is correct.

Not so. Anything can be described as pleasant or unpleasant. So those words express the attitude of the experiencer. They don't pick out independent properties of the thing being experienced.

I was actually agreeing with you here.

As I've said before, this analysis of unpleasantness and badness, their relationship, and the idea of meriting an anti-attitude, is confused, in my opinion. For example, in what way is 'badness...a relation between an object and attitudes to the object''?

I maintain that to say 'X is bad' is the same as saying 'X merits an anti-attitude'. So on the one hand you have an object - unpleasantness - and on the other you have a range of possible attitudes to it - dislike, avoidance, etc. My point is that the object here to some extent determines the attitudes. You cannot actually like unpleasantness, or even be neutral to it - it isn't psychologically possible. If something is unpleasant, you dislike it; and unless you have reasons not to do so, you avoid it. So there is a natural fact - that you find something unpleasant - which is also a fact concerning value - that the appropriate response to the unpleasantness is dislike and avoidance. Subjectivism fails to take this into account. There is, in effect, an asymmetry in nature between pleasantness and unpleasantness, and it is therefore not open to us to freely choose what values to put on things - we can only do that to a limited extent. Once you admit that nature pushes you into valuing something, rather than you being free to value it as you choose, you have ethical naturalism.

My point remains: the claim 'this is bad' is functionally identical to the claim 'this is unpleasant', in that both express attitudes and don't make falsifiable factual claims. It's subjectivity all the way.

How is 'this is unpleasant' not falsifiable? If I look at a strawberry and say, 'eating this will be unpleasant', and then I eat it and find it pleasant, my claim has been falsified.

I would also claim that 'this is bad' is falsifiable. This is because I believe 'this is bad' means 'this merits an anti-attitude', and that unpleasantness necessarily merits an anti-attitude; so if something is claimed to be unpleasant, and then is shown to be pleasant, the claim that it is (intrinsically) bad is falsified. To refute this, you have to refute either my claim about the meaning of 'bad', or my claim that unpleasantness necessarily merits an anti-attitude. You have repeatedly contradicted these claims, but a contradiction is not a refutation.

Not so. All you can ever do is 'find something bad - or good'. (And I think talk of the mind and dependency here is an unnecessary complication.)

Again you simply contradict me, but give no reasons to support your contradiction.

I'm sorry, but I think this analysis is off the rails. For example, there's no reason why we can't call internal sensations 'ugly'.

That doesn't refute my position. My thesis about 'bad' is not the same as my thesis about 'ugly'.

2 It follows that 'meriting an anti-attitude/a pro-attitude' is also not an independent property, because one and the same thing can 'merit' either attitude.

It can't if the thing in question is a sensation or feeling, as noted above.

This is just wrong. One and the same sensation or feeling can be described as pleasant or unpleasant, good or bad, meriting a pro or an anti-attitude. There's no foundation here.

You make two mistakes here. You lump together 'pleasant or unpleasant' and 'good or bad', without showing why they should be thought of in the same way; and the fact that something can be described as X does not prove that it can actually be X.

3 But even if unpleasantness/badness/meriting an anti-attitude were indeed independent properties of things and events, that still doesn't entail an 'ought' of any kind - such as that we ought not to inflict unpleasantness on others. That is a moral judgement, belief or opinion, which is subjective.

The idea of 'ought' is the idea of an obligation, and that is essentially the idea of a debt owed. (In Old English, 'ought' was the past tense of 'owe'.) If you are faced with a choice of actions P and U, and P is likely to cause pleasant experiences to someone while U is likely to cause unpleasant experiences to that same person, then if you choose U, so that you are the cause of them experiencing unpleasantness rather than pleasantness, a debt to that person is created by your action equal to the difference between the unpleasantness you actually chose for them, and the pleasantness you could have chosen for them. Therefore, you owe it to them to reimburse them in some way for that debt; which is to say, you ought to make it up to them. This is just a fact. You can choose to acknowledge the existence of facts such as these, or you can choose to believe that they don't exist; it's up to you.

No, it's not a fact. Your scenario doesn't introduce objectivity at all. Why ought we to give others pleasant rather than unpleasant experiences? All you can say is: well, we just ought to.

But that isn't what I say. I say that there is an owing. It's as if you borrow money from your bank. That you then owe that money is a fact. I'm saying that 'ought' is just stating the fact that there is an owing. And if there's an owing, there is an obligation - that again is just a fact.

Here's why the barrier is insuperable: a factual (is) premise can never entail a 'judgemental' (ought) conclusion. In other words, what ought to be the case can never follow deductively from what is the case. Any claim that it can must be a 'pretence', in the form of a question-begging fallacy. So this is not a matter of inductive overreach - needing pragmatic, case-by-case analysis.

Again you make a claim without giving reasons why I should accept it. Give me reasons why I should accept that a factual premise can't entail an 'ought' conclusion.

[Peter Holmes]

1 Unpleasantness and badness are not independent properties of things and events.

You are conflating two different kinds of claim here, viz:

1a. Unpleasantness is not an independent property of things and events.
This is a claim about a matter of natural fact, and is correct.

Not so. Anything can be described as pleasant or unpleasant. So those words express the attitude of the experiencer. They don't pick out independent properties of the thing being experienced.

I was actually agreeing with you here.

As I've said before, this analysis of unpleasantness and badness, their relationship, and the idea of meriting an anti-attitude, is confused, in my opinion. For example, in what way is 'badness...a relation between an object and attitudes to the object''?

I maintain that to say 'X is bad' is the same as saying 'X merits an anti-attitude'. So on the one hand you have an object - unpleasantness - and on the other you have a range of possible attitudes to it - dislike, avoidance, etc. My point is that the object here to some extent determines the attitudes. You cannot actually like unpleasantness, or even be neutral to it - it isn't psychologically possible. If something is unpleasant, you dislike it; and unless you have reasons not to do so, you avoid it. So there is a natural fact - that you find something unpleasant - which is also a fact concerning value - that the appropriate response to the unpleasantness is dislike and avoidance. Subjectivism fails to take this into account. There is, in effect, an asymmetry in nature between pleasantness and unpleasantness, and it is therefore not open to us to freely choose what values to put on things - we can only do that to a limited extent. Once you admit that nature pushes you into valuing something, rather than you being free to value it as you choose, you have ethical naturalism.

My point remains: the claim 'this is bad' is functionally identical to the claim 'this is unpleasant', in that both express attitudes and don't make falsifiable factual claims. It's subjectivity all the way.

How is 'this is unpleasant' not falsifiable? If I look at a strawberry and say, 'eating this will be unpleasant', and then I eat it and find it pleasant, my claim has been falsified.

I would also claim that 'this is bad' is falsifiable. This is because I believe 'this is bad' means 'this merits an anti-attitude', and that unpleasantness necessarily merits an anti-attitude; so if something is claimed to be unpleasant, and then is shown to be pleasant, the claim that it is (intrinsically) bad is falsified. To refute this, you have to refute either my claim about the meaning of 'bad', or my claim that unpleasantness necessarily merits an anti-attitude. You have repeatedly contradicted these claims, but a contradiction is not a refutation.

Not so. All you can ever do is 'find something bad - or good'. (And I think talk of the mind and dependency here is an unnecessary complication.)

Again you simply contradict me, but give no reasons to support your contradiction.

I'm sorry, but I think this analysis is off the rails. For example, there's no reason why we can't call internal sensations 'ugly'.

That doesn't refute my position. My thesis about 'bad' is not the same as my thesis about 'ugly'.

2 It follows that 'meriting an anti-attitude/a pro-attitude' is also not an independent property, because one and the same thing can 'merit' either attitude.

It can't if the thing in question is a sensation or feeling, as noted above.

This is just wrong. One and the same sensation or feeling can be described as pleasant or unpleasant, good or bad, meriting a pro or an anti-attitude. There's no foundation here.

You make two mistakes here. You lump together 'pleasant or unpleasant' and 'good or bad', without showing why they should be thought of in the same way; and the fact that something can be described as X does not prove that it can actually be X.

3 But even if unpleasantness/badness/meriting an anti-attitude were indeed independent properties of things and events, that still doesn't entail an 'ought' of any kind - such as that we ought not to inflict unpleasantness on others. That is a moral judgement, belief or opinion, which is subjective.

The idea of 'ought' is the idea of an obligation, and that is essentially the idea of a debt owed. (In Old English, 'ought' was the past tense of 'owe'.) If you are faced with a choice of actions P and U, and P is likely to cause pleasant experiences to someone while U is likely to cause unpleasant experiences to that same person, then if you choose U, so that you are the cause of them experiencing unpleasantness rather than pleasantness, a debt to that person is created by your action equal to the difference between the unpleasantness you actually chose for them, and the pleasantness you could have chosen for them. Therefore, you owe it to them to reimburse them in some way for that debt; which is to say, you ought to make it up to them. This is just a fact. You can choose to acknowledge the existence of facts such as these, or you can choose to believe that they don't exist; it's up to you.

No, it's not a fact. Your scenario doesn't introduce objectivity at all. Why ought we to give others pleasant rather than unpleasant experiences? All you can say is: well, we just ought to.

But that isn't what I say. I say that there is an owing. It's as if you borrow money from your bank. That you then owe that money is a fact. I'm saying that 'ought' is just stating the fact that there is an owing. And if there's an owing, there is an obligation - that again is just a fact.

Here's why the barrier is insuperable: a factual (is) premise can never entail a 'judgemental' (ought) conclusion. In other words, what ought to be the case can never follow deductively from what is the case. Any claim that it can must be a 'pretence', in the form of a question-begging fallacy. So this is not a matter of inductive overreach - needing pragmatic, case-by-case analysis.

Again you make a claim without giving reasons why I should accept it. Give me reasons why I should accept that a factual premise can't entail an 'ought' conclusion.

I give up. I've explained why your argument begs the question - because your premise is your conclusion: promises ought to be kept, debts ought to be repaid - and so on. And glossing 'ought' as 'owe it' makes no difference. It's still fallacious.

As it happens, Searle tried the same approach - that an 'ought' can be built into an 'is' - equally unsuccessfully.

Thanks for engaging.

[popeye1945]

118 pages -- What could make morality objective? How about the people who create morality, who turn ideas into systems, structures, institutions to serve said ideas that constitute morality.