Are there eternal moral truths?

[Pattern-chaser]

What does it mean for an ought to correspond to reality? I submit that I've never heard of a good way for one to, hence the noncognitivism.

I think that our moral beliefs are preferences. I think we make hypothetical imperatives based on our values (I value life and happiness, so I ought to feed needy people). But I don't think we can ground those hypothetical imperatives because there will always be a microcosm ("well, why ought I value life and happiness?") There will eventually be microcosms for which the answer seems to simply be "because I happen to value x" for any x. But we will never answer why we ought to value x. We just do.

The argument "We just do" (have values based preferences) would be similar to the argument "God did it" in my opinion. It doesn't provide a fundamental explanation for morality (the mentioned 'ought').

This topic asks "are there eternal moral truths?", to which my answer is "no". Others will feel differently, of course. But if there are no such truths, one reason for it might be "we just do". It might be that there is no "fundamental explanation for morality", as the topic title allows-for.

[snt]

This topic asks "are there eternal moral truths?", to which my answer is "no". Others will feel differently, of course. But if there are no such truths, one reason for it might be "we just do". It might be that there is no "fundamental explanation for morality", as the topic title allows-for.

Can it be said that a moral feeling is not true? Most people will argue that moral feelings are plausible based on common sense truth.

When the argument is made that something is 'just done' and that it involves moral feelings, then that is an indication that a truth is involved. The method for determining quality of the nature of feelings would be a different matter, but with moral feelings, most people will consider such feelings plausible based on common sense truth.

Truth, like good, cannot be defined (cannot be Said) but it also cannot be denied to be real. As an example, it is impossible to know the intrinsic nature of things.

Good and truth are equal. One can at most quest into truth with the practice of science and philosophy being examples. Similarly, with morality one can at most quest into good.

There is a slight difference between good and truth in human practice. With science one seeks a 'good of what has become' (intended good) while with morality one seeks 'good that ought to become'.

Because the future is unknown and because good (like truth) cannot be defined, morality concerns an eternal quest into good (a quest for moral truths) in the face of an unknown future.

Morality as I perceive it would concern an everlasting quest into good in the face of an unknown future. The result of that quest is a sort of intellectual light into the world (from the inside out) that empirically can be described as the potential for reason-ableness.

[Pattern-chaser]

This topic asks "are there eternal moral truths?", to which my answer is "no". Others will feel differently, of course. But if there are no such truths, one reason for it might be "we just do". It might be that there is no "fundamental explanation for morality", as the topic title allows-for.

Can it be said that a moral feeling is not true? Most people will argue that moral feelings are plausible based on common sense truth.

Ah, but "most people" aren't philosophers. If they were, they would probably not make such rash statements.

Truth, like good, cannot be defined (cannot be Said) but it also cannot be denied to be real.

...

Good and truth are equal.

...

morality concerns an eternal quest into good (a quest for moral truths) in the face of an unknown future.

You assert much, but you never quite seem to back up what you say, except with more assertions.

[Astro Cat]

Can it be said that a moral feeling is not true? Most people will argue that moral feelings are plausible based on common sense truth.

When the argument is made that something is 'just done' and that it involves moral feelings, then that is an indication that a truth is involved. The method for determining quality of the nature of feelings would be a different matter, but with moral feelings, most people will consider such feelings plausible based on common sense truth.

Truth, like good, cannot be defined (cannot be Said) but it also cannot be denied to be real. As an example, it is impossible to know the intrinsic nature of things.

Good and truth are equal. One can at most quest into truth with the practice of science and philosophy being examples. Similarly, with morality one can at most quest into good.

There is a slight difference between good and truth in human practice. With science one seeks a 'good of what has become' (intended good) while with morality one seeks 'good that ought to become'.

Because the future is unknown and because good (like truth) cannot be defined, morality concerns an eternal quest into good (a quest for moral truths) in the face of an unknown future.

Morality as I perceive it would concern an everlasting quest into good in the face of an unknown future. The result of that quest is a sort of intellectual light into the world (from the inside out) that empirically can be described as the potential for reason-ableness.

I'm fond of a JTB definition of knowledge, and correspondence theory of truth. I don't know what you mean when you say truth can't be defined: something is true if it corresponds to mind-independent reality.

I'm less sure about what an "ought" is outside of the context of a hypothetical imperative (of the form "if I value x, then I ought to do y") though.

[Astro Cat]

I'm fond of a JTB definition of knowledge, and correspondence theory of truth. I don't know what you mean when you say truth can't be defined: something is true if it corresponds to mind-independent reality.

I'm less sure about what an "ought" is outside of the context of a hypothetical imperative (of the form "if I value x, then I ought to do y") though.

This is why I badly need an edit function, I punch the gun too quickly sometimes.

I should clarify for readers, by "JTB" I mean justified true belief as a theory of knowledge.

[Good_Egg]

If a child says "String cheese is tasty!" we might parse that as the first-person equivalent of S2 - a young Astro Cat reporting factually that the pleasure-centres of her brain are positively stimulated by the taste of string cheese...

...But if a nutritional biologist speculates that string cheese is tasty because the body needs salt and fat and thus the desire for both has survival value in an evolutionary context, then they're saying something about human nature. Which remains valid if a few individuals lack this desire.

What you're saying is true, so perhaps I just need to be more careful about what I mean.

S1 is supposed to represent a statement that string cheese tastes good: not that the current taster believes it tastes good, but that the string cheese itself has some property of tasting good.

Seems to me that a young-enough child infers one from the other. Believes that they have discovered by experimentation that cheese strings have an inherent property of tastiness. Because they don't yet know the extent to which other people's equally-valid tastes differ.

And by likening moral judgment to taste preferences, you're suggesting that those who believe in an objective morality are making a similar mistake.

But the nutritional biologist is speculating that cheese strings have inherent properties (salt content, fat content) which make them inherently attractive to humans...

So I'm still not seeing how S1 - now interpreted as a statement about inherent characteristics of cheese strings rather than a statement of personal preference - is not a propositional statement, that has a truth-value. You think it false in the case of the child, and it seems to have the potential to be true or false in the case of the biologist.

In the same way that some people say "one ought not to steal," and we know they don't just mean that they themselves believe one ought not to steal but that in general one ought not to steal,...

Sure - and similarly there are vegetarians who think everybody should be vegetarian and there are vegetarians who are content that it is a good choice for themselves.

But if that's a meaningful distinction, as it seems we both think it is, then how can you think that an ought-statement is identical to or nothing but a statement of personal preference ?

I think our values come in hierarchies: we value some things more than others. In this case, I value life more than I value property. I would probably look the other way if a starving person stole a loaf of bread.

But not if the person they stole it from was also starving ?

Valuing some things more than others seems uncontroversial. If that's all you mean by "hierarchies" then we probably all have those.

And the wrongs that we do (by our own moral code) - we tell lies, for example - when we value what we gain thereby (e.g. the avoidiance of loss of face) more than we value the virtue (honesty, integrity) that we abandon.

But that's a description of what we do do, not of what we should do. And therefore we feel guilt and/or shame afterwards.

Which we don't if we have merely exercised a taste preference for cheese strings over sausage rolls...

[Pattern-chaser]

I don't know what you mean when you say truth can't be defined: something is true if it corresponds to mind-independent reality.

Because I agree with your general approach here, I want to support what you're saying. But this bothers me. Certainly, something is true if it corresponds to that which actually is. But we humans don't have direct and knowing access to 'that which actually is'. So what you say is true, but it is unverifiable, and unfalsifiable, so that your original claim becomes meaningless. What point knowing that there is truth, if you also know that it cannot be verified or refuted?

[Astro Cat]

Seems to me that a young-enough child infers one from the other. Believes that they have discovered by experimentation that cheese strings have an inherent property of tastiness. Because they don't yet know the extent to which other people's equally-valid tastes differ.

And by likening moral judgment to taste preferences, you're suggesting that those who believe in an objective morality are making a similar mistake.

But the nutritional biologist is speculating that cheese strings have inherent properties (salt content, fat content) which make them inherently attractive to humans...

So I'm still not seeing how S1 - now interpreted as a statement about inherent characteristics of cheese strings rather than a statement of personal preference - is not a propositional statement, that has a truth-value. You think it false in the case of the child, and it seems to have the potential to be true or false in the case of the biologist.

What if we change S1 to make its subjective nature more clear:

S1: String cheese tastes better than colby jack cheese.

I think the original works, but perhaps this alleviates objections?

Sure - and similarly there are vegetarians who think everybody should be vegetarian and there are vegetarians who are content that it is a good choice for themselves.

But if that's a meaningful distinction, as it seems we both think it is, then how can you think that an ought-statement is identical to or nothing but a statement of personal preference ?

I don't think that moral statements are exactly like preference statements: I have only argued that they behave similarly philosophically.

As we know, we care more about or moral statements than we do our preference statements. I care more about feeding the hungry than I do about string cheese tasting good. I believe you bring this up yourself down below, so I will speak more on it there.

But not if the person they stole it from was also starving ?

Valuing some things more than others seems uncontroversial. If that's all you mean by "hierarchies" then we probably all have those.

And the wrongs that we do (by our own moral code) - we tell lies, for example - when we value what we gain thereby (e.g. the avoidiance of loss of face) more than we value the virtue (honesty, integrity) that we abandon.

But that's a description of what we do do, not of what we should do. And therefore we feel guilt and/or shame afterwards.

Which we don't if we have merely exercised a taste preference for cheese strings over sausage rolls...

Yes, we feel things like guilt, shame, outrage, shock, etc. when it comes to our moral statements. So, I don't think that moral preferences are the same as food or color preferences. Yet, I do still think our moral feelings are a kind of preference. I think they're preferences that we feel strongly about and which involve concepts like suffering and altruism; whereas other preferences do not. Sort of like an "all rectangles are squares but not all squares are rectangles" sort of situation: moral preferences are (maybe) preferences, but not all preferences are moral preferences.

[Astro Cat]

I don't know what you mean when you say truth can't be defined: something is true if it corresponds to mind-independent reality.

Because I agree with your general approach here, I want to support what you're saying. But this bothers me. Certainly, something is true if it corresponds to that which actually is. But we humans don't have direct and knowing access to 'that which actually is'. So what you say is true, but it is unverifiable, and unfalsifiable, so that your original claim becomes meaningless. What point knowing that there is truth, if you also know that it cannot be verified or refuted?

Well, I feel like that's the whole aim of epistemology. I understand and sympathize with your complaint. But we presuppose that our minds are capable in principle of discerning truth from falsity (we have to, if we're going to engage in conversation). We know that our minds aren't perfect at it, we know that we do the best that we can: what we consider to be truth has a provisional nature to it, at times. It's often the case that when we say "x is true" that we're really truncating the statement "I believe that x is true."

Nevertheless it seems important for us to define what we mean by "true" -- what it is that we believe is happening when we affirm something.

[Pattern-chaser]

I don't know what you mean when you say truth can't be defined: something is true if it corresponds to mind-independent reality.

Because I agree with your general approach here, I want to support what you're saying. But this bothers me. Certainly, something is true if it corresponds to that which actually is. But we humans don't have direct and knowing access to 'that which actually is'. So what you say is true, but it is unverifiable, and unfalsifiable, so that your original claim becomes meaningless. What point knowing that there is truth, if you also know that it cannot be verified or refuted?

Well, I feel like that's the whole aim of epistemology. I understand and sympathize with your complaint. But we presuppose that our minds are capable in principle of discerning truth from falsity (we have to, if we're going to engage in conversation). We know that our minds aren't perfect at it, we know that we do the best that we can: what we consider to be truth has a provisional nature to it, at times. It's often the case that when we say "x is true" that we're really truncating the statement "I believe that x is true."

Nevertheless it seems important for us to define what we mean by "true" -- what it is that we believe is happening when we affirm something.

This all seems perfectly reasonable. I only commented when you introduced uber-absolute certainty via your mention of "mind-independent reality",

[Leontiskos]

How is it not? What is your argument? Apparently it is something like, "You have to give medical care to everyone who needs it, otherwise you are not treating them as an end in themselves." That idea makes no sense to me. Feel free to defend it.

Well, if they are each to be treated as ends in themselves then we surely can't let them die when we could save their lives.

Why?

This is a philosophy forum. Why not try making some arguments?

Why don't you make some arguments to support your contention that 'There is probably no more obvious way to transgress such a principle than to murder someone--to destroy their very existence--as a means to a further end'?

You made your claim first, so I think you should go first. (I'm very polite.)

Okay. To murder someone for their organs is to treat them as a means to an end. The end is organ harvesting.

Your turn.

[Leontiskos]

Well, if they are each to be treated as ends in themselves then we surely can't let them die when we could save their lives. There is probably no more obvious way to transgress such a principle than to let someone die when you could keep them alive.

Not so. The opposite of treating someone as an end in themselves is to treat them as a means to your own end. To treat them as a thing that exists for no purpose other than to he used by you for your purposes.

Yes, or more plainly, to treat them as a means. CIN seems to think that if we ignore someone who needs help then we are failing to treat them as an end in themselves. Rather, the truth is that when we ignore someone we are not "treating" them at all. We are not treating them as a means or an end.

"Treat others as an end in themselves" does not impose some sort of duty to help everyone in need (which would be absurd). Such duties, such as "Good Samaritan Laws," are an entirely different question.

[Leontiskos]

I would like to believe there are eternal moral truths and a moral order. That are actions in this life matter and that no evil can become of a good man. But sometimes I wonder if moral truths are just made up by man and passed down through tradition. But deep down I do believe that things like "always helping a person in need" is a moral truth or good that all people should ascribe to.

I don't think there are moral truths. As a moral noncognitivist, I don't think the utterance "moral truths" has a cognizable referent to reference. Up front, I use correspondence theory of truth in that something is true if it corresponds to something in reality.

Thanks, and welcome to the forum. That was the most cogent presentation of moral non-cognitivism that I have seen on this forum (which incidentally is a forum full of moral non-cognitivists).

Let me just poke at two things:

I think that moral beliefs behave philosophically a lot like preferences. So let me talk about preferences for a moment. When we make a preference statement, it's usually non-controversial to say that the preference statement isn't propositional (it doesn't have a truth value). If I snack on a string cheese and say "String cheese is tasty*," I haven't said something that corresponds to mind-independent reality; it's neither true nor false. It's a preference statement. After all, what corresponds to reality about "being tasty," and how does the string cheese do it? How do we check reality for it even in principle?

(*-by this I mean it tastes good, not just that it has physical properties that activate taste buds)

I am trying to understand your argument here. I have a few options:

• Moral beliefs are non-propositional because moral beliefs are preferences, and all preferences are non-propositional.
• "String cheese is tasty" is non-propositional because it does not correspond to mind-independent reality, and all propositional statements correspond to mind-independent reality.
• There is no conceivable object of correspondence for the assertion, "String cheese is tasty," therefore it cannot be propositional.

Is there one of these that you are more committed to defending than the others?

In the same way that some people say "one ought not to steal," and we know they don't just mean that they themselves believe one ought not to steal but that in general one ought not to steal, S1 is supposed to represent the same sort of general statement in structure.

Sure - and similarly there are vegetarians who think everybody should be vegetarian and there are vegetarians who are content that it is a good choice for themselves.

But if that's a meaningful distinction, as it seems we both think it is, then how can you think that an ought-statement is identical to or nothing but a statement of personal preference ?

I don't think that moral statements are exactly like preference statements: I have only argued that they behave similarly philosophically.

As we know, we care more about or moral statements than we do our preference statements. I care more about feeding the hungry than I do about string cheese tasting good. I believe you bring this up yourself down below, so I will speak more on it there.

[...]

Yes, we feel things like guilt, shame, outrage, shock, etc. when it comes to our moral statements. So, I don't think that moral preferences are the same as food or color preferences. Yet, I do still think our moral feelings are a kind of preference. I think they're preferences that we feel strongly about and which involve concepts like suffering and altruism; whereas other preferences do not. Sort of like an "all rectangles are squares but not all squares are rectangles" sort of situation: moral preferences are (maybe) preferences, but not all preferences are moral preferences.

It is true that some preferences are more strongly held and some preferences are more weakly held, but it seems to me that the difference between Good_Egg's two vegetarians is not merely a matter of preference-strength. Crucially, it is also a matter of intent. Their claims about vegetarianism will differ vis-à-vis intent, and the most proximate difference of intent is whether the prohibition applies only to themselves. Yet this matter of intent strikes me as being more fundamental than strength, for the greater strength of the one vegetarian's prohibition is presumably derived from the different quality of intent with which they give voice to their prohibition (and this would mean that intent is the more fundamental aspect). Granted, one might think that many vegetarians have conflated the strength of their prohibition with the scope of their prohibition, but I see no reason to assume that all vegetarians have made such a mistake.

So an implication of Good_Egg's observation seems to be that you are imputing an intent to the speaker of S1 that contradicts his own intent. That is, when he says that string cheese is tasty he is intending to speak about something beyond his preferences, and yet you have strangely circumscribed his speech to speech about preferences. If you agree with my analysis, then what do you think is going on here? Is the speaker of S1 hopelessly confused?

[Astro Cat]

Thanks, and welcome to the forum. That was the most cogent presentation of moral non-cognitivism that I have seen on this forum (which incidentally is a forum full of moral non-cognitivists).

Let me just poke at two things:

I think that moral beliefs behave philosophically a lot like preferences. So let me talk about preferences for a moment. When we make a preference statement, it's usually non-controversial to say that the preference statement isn't propositional (it doesn't have a truth value). If I snack on a string cheese and say "String cheese is tasty*," I haven't said something that corresponds to mind-independent reality; it's neither true nor false. It's a preference statement. After all, what corresponds to reality about "being tasty," and how does the string cheese do it? How do we check reality for it even in principle?

(*-by this I mean it tastes good, not just that it has physical properties that activate taste buds)

I am trying to understand your argument here. I have a few options:

• Moral beliefs are non-propositional because moral beliefs are preferences, and all preferences are non-propositional.
• "String cheese is tasty" is non-propositional because it does not correspond to mind-independent reality, and all propositional statements correspond to mind-independent reality.
• There is no conceivable object of correspondence for the assertion, "String cheese is tasty," therefore it cannot be propositional.

Is there one of these that you are more committed to defending than the others?

Thanks for the welcome!

Ok, thank you for making me do this. I feel like this helps me understand my own thoughts as much as it might help you understand what I'm even trying to say.

I don't like the first one because it feels really bold. I feel like all preferences are probably non-propositional but it feels like I'd have to do a lot more work to do that one.

I want to agree with the second one, but it contains the issue that's being disputed below, so I'll skip that one for now too. It also feels like there would have to be a lot of work to support the second half. Off the top of my head I feel like I can introspect things about my mind that would be true, then I would have to really nail down what's meant by "mind-independent reality" if I want to be able to say things like "I experience happiness," which feels propositional. So, I'll shy away from that one too.

I think I like this third one best. I should clarify that my non-cognitivism is more provisional, and so I'm making a weaker claim: I have yet to encounter a convincing argument there is an object of correspondence is closer to my position than "there is no..." (e.g., I am unconvinced there is one rather than affirming the negative).

In the same way that some people say "one ought not to steal," and we know they don't just mean that they themselves believe one ought not to steal but that in general one ought not to steal, S1 is supposed to represent the same sort of general statement in structure.

Sure - and similarly there are vegetarians who think everybody should be vegetarian and there are vegetarians who are content that it is a good choice for themselves.

But if that's a meaningful distinction, as it seems we both think it is, then how can you think that an ought-statement is identical to or nothing but a statement of personal preference ?

I don't think that moral statements are exactly like preference statements: I have only argued that they behave similarly philosophically.

As we know, we care more about or moral statements than we do our preference statements. I care more about feeding the hungry than I do about string cheese tasting good. I believe you bring this up yourself down below, so I will speak more on it there.

[...]

Yes, we feel things like guilt, shame, outrage, shock, etc. when it comes to our moral statements. So, I don't think that moral preferences are the same as food or color preferences. Yet, I do still think our moral feelings are a kind of preference. I think they're preferences that we feel strongly about and which involve concepts like suffering and altruism; whereas other preferences do not. Sort of like an "all rectangles are squares but not all squares are rectangles" sort of situation: moral preferences are (maybe) preferences, but not all preferences are moral preferences.

It is true that some preferences are more strongly held and some preferences are more weakly held, but it seems to me that the difference between Good_Egg's two vegetarians is not merely a matter of preference-strength. Crucially, it is also a matter of intent. Their claims about vegetarianism will differ vis-à-vis intent, and the most proximate difference of intent is whether the prohibition applies only to themselves. Yet this matter of intent strikes me as being more fundamental than strength, for the greater strength of the one vegetarian's prohibition is presumably derived from the different quality of intent with which they give voice to their prohibition (and this would mean that intent is the more fundamental aspect). Granted, one might think that many vegetarians have conflated the strength of their prohibition with the scope of their prohibition, but I see no reason to assume that all vegetarians have made such a mistake.

Ok. So, I agree that there's a difference between the strength of a held preference and the breadth of a held preference (e.g., "this is my preference" and "this ought to be others' preference, or even if it's not, they ought to do it anyway"). The intents behind these are different, and important. I agree.

I think regardless of the breadth (whether I believe "I ought not to eat meat" or "Nobody ought to eat meat"), the same sort of thing is going on, so I didn't think it was important to focus on that difference.

What I think is going on is that people have values from which they build oughts out of hypothetical imperatives: if I value x, then I ought to do y. In the case of breadth, the "y" that we do just includes "I ought to tell that guy over there to stop doing that." I think that we're only in charge of our own oughts, but the oughts we can come up with can include feeling like we ought to get others to go with our point of view (I can object to murder not because there's something about the universe that says murder is wrong, but because I value life, and since I value life, I ought to try to preserve it, and that includes telling someone else to knock off that murdering stuff they're trying to do; or putting them in prison so they can't do it any more!)

I think with breadth (when the ought "feels" like it applies to others and not just us), that is where the illusion of moral realism comes from. People feel like the ought is "out there" in the universe, and that the other people are subject to this ought "out there." But really, when we feel moral outrage, we are feeling our own hypothetical imperative to stop them from harming or interfering with what we value. If I value altruism and someone disgustingly rich doesn't even lift a finger to help the less fortunate, I feel outrage because they're harming my value, so I form the hypothetical imperative "if I value altruism, I ought to tell that guy what a cheapskate he is not to tip the waitress." It's not that reality really has an obligation on him to do so, and he obviously forms his own oughts with his own hypothetical imperatives stemming from his own values.

I feel like I haven't typed this very clearly. I worry that I'm unsure how to say what I'm trying to say, I'm somewhat multitasking right now. Perhaps if there's confusion I can come back later to take another stab at clarifying this.

So an implication of Good_Egg's observation seems to be that you are imputing an intent to the speaker of S1 that contradicts his own intent. That is, when he says that string cheese is tasty he is intending to speak about something beyond his preferences, and yet you have strangely circumscribed his speech to speech about preferences. If you agree with my analysis, then what do you think is going on here? Is the speaker of S1 hopelessly confused?

What I'm saying is more like this. I have seen people somewhat jokingly say about this or that thing, "I don't care what anyone says, [some subjective thing] is objectively good." Maybe it's a song, a show, a piece of art, whatever. I get that most of the time people are joking. But I think that sometimes people make S1-type statements without irony because they're not paying attention to the philosophical ramifications of what it would mean. So in a sense, I think it is somewhat hopelessly confused if someone utters an S1-like statement. But my point isn't whether everybody does this or whether anybody does it often. My point is that we can probably all agree that S1 isn't propositional, yet it has the same form as S1a, which some people claim is propositional, often without being able to elucidate why S1a is propositional yet S1 is not.

[psyreporter]

I don't know what you mean when you say truth can't be defined: something is true if it corresponds to mind-independent reality.

This all seems perfectly reasonable. I only commented when you introduced uber-absolute certainty via your mention of "mind-independent reality",

I agree with this. It concerns the idea (a dogmatic belief) that facts obtain outside the scope of a perspective or 'without philosophy'. It is the same idea that lays at the foundation of the idea that repeatability in time - the foundation of 'scientific evidence' - can function as a qualitative differentiator to allow rejection of anything outside of that scope.

Materialists (physicalists) believe that scientific facts are of a special nature in comparison with common truth propositions. It is based on a dogmatic belief in uniformitarianism and the idea that facts obtain independent from a perspective (i.e. 'without philosophy').

An example of a user on this forum.

Facts are states of affairs--ways that things happen to be, or (dynamic) arrangements of things in the world.

Facts obtain whether people exist or not. Truth propositions do NOT obtain whether people exist or not.

Facts in no way depend on any declarations or naming.

I'm an atheist.

I'm a realist and a physicalist (aka "materialist").

What could make a fact otherwise than truth if it is not a belief? It is merely the scientific method (a philosophy) that provides a qualitative differentiator, which is recognizable, but which remains questionable.

A philosophical method is a perspective based on truth conditions. Truth conditions of a perspective on reality are questionable just like the truth conditions of a proposition.

In the case of scientific facts, a truth condition is that facts are synthetic propositions predicated by existence in 'the real world'. Before one could consider this condition one will need to accept a certain truth about "reality" which is questionable.

In philosophy, a state of affairs, also known as a situation, is a way the actual world must be in order to make some given proposition about the actual world true; in other words, a state of affairs (situation) is a truth-maker, whereas a proposition is a truth-bearer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_ ... hilosophy)

"actual world" will need to be established before scientific facts can be determined. "actual world" implies a perspective with truth conditions. One assumes that a certain "actuality" is applicable in time while that may not be correct.

There is no theoretical ground for the idea that facts are intrinsically different from truths in time. Facts differ only on the basis of assumed qualitative value in relation to the human.

While repeatability of science provides one with what can be considered certainty within the scope of a human perspective which value can be made evident by the success of science, at question is if the idea that the facts of science are valid without philosophy is accurate on a fundamental level. If the idea is not valid, then that has profound implications.

The concept repeatability might not be applicable to ESP, consciousness and other concepts, because it concerns an aspect that precedes the potential for a pattern (the potential for a begin).