tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post116088965718769689..comments2023-10-24T04:29:23.693-06:00Comments on Atheist Ethicist: Subjectivist Weekend: Part IIAlonzo Fyfehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-1161102366872269602006-10-17T10:26:00.000-06:002006-10-17T10:26:00.000-06:00Hiero5ant:Fancy meeting you here.How are you doing...Hiero5ant:<BR/><BR/>Fancy meeting you here.<BR/><BR/>How are you doing?<BR/><BR/>I must say, your description of what I believe is false. People can 'use' language for all sorts of things. Just as people can 'use' a magazine to kill bugs or 'use' a stick to kill their neighbor, they can certainly 'use' words in a number of different ways.<BR/><BR/>My interest is in the much narrower concern of eliminating the category of 'true for me' or subjective truth. This is an invention - as much a fiction as God and ghosts.<BR/><BR/>The category of "True OF me" exists - so people can clearly talk about how they feel about things and how things look to them. Yet, there is still an underlying reality - fully captured in objectively true propositions, to account for those facts.<BR/><BR/>In fact, your account would contradict a major part of what I am saying. I describe the use of praise and blame as having the effect of altering desires - and that desires cannot be altered through reason. Truth-bearing propositions can have implications for what a person believes, but not for what a person wants. So, of course, I say we use statements as more than truth-bearing propositions. Yet, not in any way that justifies a category of 'true for me'.Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-1161099328782457412006-10-17T09:35:00.000-06:002006-10-17T09:35:00.000-06:00But just because laughter or tears can be causally...<I>But just because laughter or tears can be causally explained, doesn't mean that the explanation can "replace" the phenomenon itself. To report the objective fact "I am amused" is to engage in a very different sort of action from the direct expression of my amusement through laughter.</I><BR/><BR/>Several posters attempted to explain this to him on IIDB a year or so ago, at considerable length, but it was like water off a duck's back. Alonzo just has this <I>idée fixe</I> that whenever anyone opens their mouth, they simply <B>must</B> be engaged in making truth-functional propositions, because that's the only possible use of language. He always says that anything else is "nonsense" or "a fiction".<BR/><BR/>He never really engages with the expressivists' arguments, because in his universe expressivism can't even be formulated as a position. The upshot of this is that he doesn't have an opinion on the actual claims of expressivism, because the vocabulary for discussing it simply doesn't exist. This problem gets exacerbated because he spends a lot of time responding to random nonphilosophers on the internet who don't know how to formulate it either, rather than engage with the primary literature.Staircaseghosthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02647353730607650698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-1160966755690465602006-10-15T20:45:00.000-06:002006-10-15T20:45:00.000-06:00Hi Alonzo, I agree with you about the superfluity ...Hi Alonzo, I agree with you about the superfluity of "subjective reality" (which is surely reducible to objective facts about various agents, e.g. their beliefs and such).<BR/><BR/>But just because laughter or tears can be causally explained, doesn't mean that the explanation can "replace" the phenomenon itself. To report the objective fact "I am amused" is to engage in a very different sort of action from the direct <I>expression</I> of my amusement through laughter.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, I really just wanted to draw attention to the false dichotomy:<BR/><BR/>"<I>moral claims... are either reporting something that is true in the real world, or they are making false claims about the real world.</I>"<BR/><BR/>Someone might hold that moral expressions are not really claiming/"reporting" anything about the world at all. Nothing you've said here speaks against such a view. Overlooked, "dismissed", whatever -- you haven't argued against it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-1160928844058787092006-10-15T10:14:00.000-06:002006-10-15T10:14:00.000-06:00BillThe short answer to your question of whether t...<B>Bill</B><BR/><BR/>The short answer to your question of whether this is an attempt to dismiss the relative nature of morality is: No.<BR/><BR/>You are correct that desires are as relative as our positions in space and time. I have used this analogy often to show how something can be relative (location in space and time is always described as a relationship between one thing and another), and objectivity (location statements are objectively true or false and are clearly statements that scientists can handle without any difficulty).<BR/><BR/>To illustrate the type of concept that I am talking about, I sometimes compare moral statements to statements about the 'center of population'.<BR/><BR/>Such a concept takes into consideration everybody's desires/location. The result can change as desires/location changes. Yet, there is a 'right answer' that is substantially independent of what any individual happens to desire/where he happens to be standing at any given moment. A person cannot look at his own desires/location and from that alone determine moral truth/center of population. However, over time, and with dramatic changes in circumstances, moral truth/center of population can change.Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-1160922844041326892006-10-15T08:34:00.000-06:002006-10-15T08:34:00.000-06:00RichardPlease allow me to try my response again fr...<B>Richard</B><BR/><BR/>Please allow me to try my response again from a slightly different angle.<BR/><BR/>My claim is that I do not need anything but 'objective reality' to explain and predict things in the real world. I do not need any type of 'subjective reality'.<BR/><BR/>Everything in the real world can be handled by a collection of objectively true statements. That which cannot be handled by a set of objectively true statements are objectively false.<BR/><BR/>A sneeze or a cough can be handled through a set of objectively true statements. A physical object interacts with the physical human body and generates a physical response.<BR/><BR/>If 'ewww' is like a sneeze or a cough, then it too can be fully captured by some set of objectively true propositions having nothing 'left over' that we need 'subjective truth' to explain.<BR/><BR/>Or, if it is a statement of some kind, then it can be replaced by a set of objectively true or false propositions as I described above.<BR/><BR/>I still see no evidence that I need anything other than objectively true or false propositions to explain and predict any phenomena in the real world.Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-1160919685381895802006-10-15T07:41:00.000-06:002006-10-15T07:41:00.000-06:00RichardActually, I did not 'overlook' the view you...<B>Richard</B><BR/><BR/>Actually, I did not 'overlook' the view you mentioned. I dismissed it. Yes, there are people who hold that an expression like 'Ewwww' is something other than a proposition.<BR/><BR/>I argue that they are wrong.<BR/><BR/>Even 'Ewww' has a proposition up the expression.<BR/><BR/>So, 'Ewww' does, in fact, fit inside one of what I say are the only two options.<BR/><BR/>Now, clearly, I am not intending to argue that everything is an expression. A sneeze, a cough, crying, and laughing represent a category of behavior that I am not going to reduce to propositions. At the same time, people do not use this type of behavior as premises in arguments - as ways of arguing in defense of a conclusion like, 'X is good' or 'X is bad' - so they fall outside the scope of the discussion.Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-1160897881431114422006-10-15T01:38:00.000-06:002006-10-15T01:38:00.000-06:00"Ewwww!" isn't a statement at all. An expression o..."<I>Ewwww!</I>" isn't a statement at all. An expression of disgust (or whatever) may be directed, in some sense, at something in the world. But it is not making a claim about how the world is. Nothing truth-assessable is being <I>stated</I> by such an outburst. Observers might be able to infer various facts from it, but that's another matter. (You can infer that the person has vocal chords, and that they find cockroaches disgusting. Both of these propositions may be true, but neither was stated by the expression "Ewwww!", for "Ewwww!" is not any proposition at all.)<BR/><BR/>Expressivists about morality think something similar is going on there. Moral claims, on their view, aren't true or false (not even "subjectively" so). They aim not to describe the world, but to change it. Or something like that.<BR/><BR/>(I don't wholly agree with them, myself. I think moral claims are truth-assessable. But it's an alternative view you seem to be overlooking in this post, when you claim: "<I>Those are the only two options.</I>")Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.com