| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Ted King" |
| Date: |
31 Mar 2004 08:58:26 PM |
| Object: |
Re: Why people like Brian Bilek have no excuse. |
In article <c4ebcs$nii$3@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com> wrote:
Ted King wrote:
In article <c4amg4$4fb$2@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com> wrote:
Ted King wrote:
[snip]
I know, I'm sorry about that. I wish I could put my finger on just what
it is that doesn't quite seem to me to add up. I think the problem for
me may be that I don't have a clear grasp of the difference between what
a "Moral fact" is and what a "moral fact" is.
If you're asking me about my views then the m/Moral divide is
ill-suited, because I wish to assert a distinction between psychological
states and what the states are about but where what the states are about
is not subject-independent and not, themselves, psychological states. My
view is that there are no Moral facts *if* a Moral fact is interpreted
as something independent of subjects. But I do believe in (arrrgggh - I
need something neither lower case nor upper case - I'm just going to use
the term "ethical"!) subject-dependent ethical facts.
Perhaps consider it like this. Suppose you believe that you have a
belief. That belief *makes* itself true. It is a self-fulfilling belief,
a belief that suffices to bring its truth-conditions into existence.
Now, in this case, the *content* of the belief that you have a belief is
a *fact* - it is not itself a belief.
1) (Fact) You believe that you have a belief
2) (content of (1)) = (the fact) *that* you have a belief
Notice that the content of (1) is not a *belief*, it is a fact - the
fact that you *have* a belief. By comparison, there are cars (objects)
and there are facts such as *having* cars (states of affairs that
involve cars).
I am suggesting that certain psychological states (moral beliefs) bring
the truth-conditions of those beliefs into existence - they make ethical
facts. But what they bring into existence are not more psychological
facts, they are ethical facts.
That helps a lot. I think I'm getting closer to what escapes me. If a
belief is the acceptance or conviction of the truth of something and
moral beliefs are psychological states, then a moral belief is the
acceptance or conviction of the truth of something "moral". It seems
that there needs to be that something "moral" *first* to believe in, for
there to be an ethical fact (how can you believe in something before
there is something to believe in?). But what is it that makes these
certain psychological states "moral" as opposed to being just like other
psychological states that are purportedly not "moral"?
I can see the referent of
a "Moral fact"
whoa - Moral facts wouldn't *have* referents, in my opinion. Moral facts
would *be* the referents of moral beliefs.
as being something not dependent on a subject (how
objectivists avoid the "spooky" existence of such things I don't know).
But I don't understand what a "moral fact" is.
On my account, it is a psychological state: an acceptance of a norm, a
belief.
It seems like the
referent is some fact about a subject's mental state, yet I don't think
that is what you mean because that would mean you were talking about a
belief about a mental state, which is what you seem to deny.
Quite. If I believe I ought to do X, then the moral fact is that I
believe that I ought to do X.
One thing is that *belief* (but not preference)
can carry "ought" as it's content very naturally. Preferences aren't
*about* what *ought* to be done, they are preferences that certain
actions *be done*. I can prefer that X be done, but what has *that* got
to do with what *ought* to be done? It is rather strange to talk of me
preferring that X *ought to* be done. It's not clear that I could ever
have reasons for prefering that X ought be done over preferring that
not-X ought to be done. So far as preferences go, they seem to be
satisfied (or not) by what *happens*, not what *ought* to happen.
But beliefs are not like that. They can take *any* state as their
content, including norms and moral states. I can believe that I ought to
do X - no problem.
MG
I'm thinking differently about the terms than that. I'll try to build an
alternate way of looking at this:
One meaning of "should" is "the will to do something or have something
take place".
See I don't see "should" like that at all. The will to do something is
not the same as it being the case that you should do it.
I agree that that is typically the way "should" is taken. I'm not trying
to say that what I am presenting is the *right* way of using the term,
just as another way of using the term if it is accepted that there are
not objective Moral obligations. Your "subjective fact" way of talking
about "ought" is more in line with the common way of using "ought" as an
auxillary modal verb than what I am suggesting - the way I am suggesting
does move "ought" from its standard interpretation as indicating "moral
obligation" and toward "intent" (which is definitely not its standard
use as an auxillary modal verb). I admit I am suggesting a very
idiosyncratic way of thinking of "should" and "ought".
Note: As is probably evident, I did research on "should" as a part of
speech, finding out about how it "works" as an auxillary modal verb, and
what I say here reflects what I learned.
One of the primary meanings of "obligation" is "the act of
binding oneself by a social, legal, or moral tie."
I don't see obligation as an *act*, I see it as a *state*. To ethically
bind oneself is to put oneself into a state (obligation).
So I think we can
construe the meaning of "obligation" as a special kind of "should" where
one wills that they bind themselves to a certain way of acting. And if
"ought" means "used to indicate obligation or duty", then one can mean
"ought" to mean that one has willed that they bind themselves to a
certain way of acting.
I have trouble connecting up willing (an act) with ought or should
(states). It makes little sense to me because we cannot speak about
actions as being true or false, but we can speak about it being true or
false that one ought to do X or that one should do X. There is "willing"
but there is no "shoulding" or "oughting" (there is "obligating, though).
This is really Moore's problem (the "naturalistic fallacy"): you can
tell us the descriptive fact "S wills that X be the case" but Moore can
still say "Okay. But is X morally obligated to do X?" or "Okay. But
should S do X?"
To round out the view, here is a meaning for "prefer" - "to choose or be
in the habit of choosing as more desirable or as having more value."
That seems wrong to me. To prefer is to be in a certain mental state, it
is not, sfaics, an action (like choosing). To have a disposition to
choose is a state, though. To prefer = to find something more desirable
or as having more value.
So
it could be thought that what leads one to will themselves to bind
themselves to a certain way of acting is their preference - the choosing
as more desirable or as having more value, one kind of action rather
than another kind of action. IOW, my preferences lead me to think that I
ought to do such and such rather than so and so (my preferences lead me
to will that I bind myself to a certain way of acting).
Notwithstanding the above concerns, that would be fine - but that would
be a psychological explanation of what *causes* our moral beliefs. But
that would be no more necessarily relevant to Morality than a
psychological causal explanation of our mathematical beliefs would be
relevant to mathematics, unless (as I try to do) one ties the
psychological states to ethics.
MG
I agree - my, ahem, unique take on "should" and "ought" are not relevant
to objective Morality (as it is posited by many).
Ted
.
|
|
| User: "MGodwyn" |
|
| Title: Re: Why people like Brian Bilek have no excuse. |
02 Apr 2004 06:10:11 PM |
|
|
Ted King <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<lodited-31537F.18563131032004@news.la.sbcglobal.net>...
In article <c4ebcs$nii$3@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com> wrote:
Ted King wrote:
In article <c4amg4$4fb$2@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com> wrote:
Ted King wrote:
[snip]
I know, I'm sorry about that. I wish I could put my finger on just what
it is that doesn't quite seem to me to add up. I think the problem for
me may be that I don't have a clear grasp of the difference between what
a "Moral fact" is and what a "moral fact" is.
If you're asking me about my views then the m/Moral divide is
ill-suited, because I wish to assert a distinction between psychological
states and what the states are about but where what the states are about
is not subject-independent and not, themselves, psychological states. My
view is that there are no Moral facts *if* a Moral fact is interpreted
as something independent of subjects. But I do believe in (arrrgggh - I
need something neither lower case nor upper case - I'm just going to use
the term "ethical"!) subject-dependent ethical facts.
Perhaps consider it like this. Suppose you believe that you have a
belief. That belief *makes* itself true. It is a self-fulfilling belief,
a belief that suffices to bring its truth-conditions into existence.
Now, in this case, the *content* of the belief that you have a belief is
a *fact* - it is not itself a belief.
1) (Fact) You believe that you have a belief
2) (content of (1)) = (the fact) *that* you have a belief
Notice that the content of (1) is not a *belief*, it is a fact - the
fact that you *have* a belief. By comparison, there are cars (objects)
and there are facts such as *having* cars (states of affairs that
involve cars).
I am suggesting that certain psychological states (moral beliefs) bring
the truth-conditions of those beliefs into existence - they make ethical
facts. But what they bring into existence are not more psychological
facts, they are ethical facts.
That helps a lot. I think I'm getting closer to what escapes me. If a
belief is the acceptance or conviction of the truth of something and
moral beliefs are psychological states, then a moral belief is the
acceptance or conviction of the truth of something "moral". It seems
that there needs to be that something "moral" *first* to believe in, for
there to be an ethical fact (how can you believe in something before
there is something to believe in?).
That's the intuition that I have to reject. That rejection lies at the
heart of my account. It is clearly true in *almost* all cases, but not
all true beliefs are independent of our believing them. Take the
language example - there simply are no facts about what a word means
before humans believe that certain words have certain meanings. It is
our belief that "cat" refers to those furry meowing creatures that
makes the belief true. And before that belief it simply was not true.
The truth comes into existence *with* the belief. In that case of
belief in the meaning of words it is both necessary and (with certain
caveats) sufficient for the truth of the belief. My account argues
that we should look at moral beliefs along similar lines.
Take also the belief that I have belief. Granted, in that case it is
sufficient to constitute the truth conditions of the belief, and not
necessary, but the point is that we do not always require there to be
facts before the belief in order for the belief to be true. Take
another (rather more *inter*subjective) example: money. Is there money
before people believed that there was money? I would suggest obviously
not. But our belief that there is money is true, and became true as
soon as it was believed, but not before. The existence of money is not
an objective fact as it depends on subjects. Neither is it especially
dependent of pieces of paper, bits of metal, etc. Rather, it depends
upon *an attitude* that we take to pieces of paper, etc. But note that
the attitude is not the money! (unfortunately!). The attitude is
necessary for money, but money is not the attitude, neither is it the
pieces of paer - money comes into existence *through* the attiude
towards bits of paper. Neither is money simply something that we *do*
with paper. That's kinda how I want to see morality: it is
metaphysically dependent on our attitudes towards certain classes of
actions for its existence, but is not identical with or a property of
those attitudes, nor is it identical with or a property of the actions
(considered as material processes).
But what is it that makes these
certain psychological states "moral" as opposed to being just like other
psychological states that are purportedly not "moral"?
What they are *about*: i.e., what one ought to do. That part is the
most intuitive part of my account and satisfies the semantic realist
in me (beliefs are individuated, in part, in terms of what they are
about). The mental states are beliefs exactly as all other beliefs
are, but they are a special kind of belief in that they determine the
satisfaction of their own truth-conditions.
I can see the referent of
a "Moral fact"
whoa - Moral facts wouldn't *have* referents, in my opinion. Moral facts
would *be* the referents of moral beliefs.
as being something not dependent on a subject (how
objectivists avoid the "spooky" existence of such things I don't know).
But I don't understand what a "moral fact" is.
On my account, it is a psychological state: an acceptance of a norm, a
belief.
It seems like the
referent is some fact about a subject's mental state, yet I don't think
that is what you mean because that would mean you were talking about a
belief about a mental state, which is what you seem to deny.
Quite. If I believe I ought to do X, then the moral fact is that I
believe that I ought to do X.
One thing is that *belief* (but not preference)
can carry "ought" as it's content very naturally. Preferences aren't
*about* what *ought* to be done, they are preferences that certain
actions *be done*. I can prefer that X be done, but what has *that* got
to do with what *ought* to be done? It is rather strange to talk of me
preferring that X *ought to* be done. It's not clear that I could ever
have reasons for prefering that X ought be done over preferring that
not-X ought to be done. So far as preferences go, they seem to be
satisfied (or not) by what *happens*, not what *ought* to happen.
But beliefs are not like that. They can take *any* state as their
content, including norms and moral states. I can believe that I ought to
do X - no problem.
MG
I'm thinking differently about the terms than that. I'll try to build an
alternate way of looking at this:
One meaning of "should" is "the will to do something or have something
take place".
See I don't see "should" like that at all. The will to do something is
not the same as it being the case that you should do it.
I agree that that is typically the way "should" is taken. I'm not trying
to say that what I am presenting is the *right* way of using the term,
just as another way of using the term if it is accepted that there are
not objective Moral obligations. Your "subjective fact" way of talking
about "ought" is more in line with the common way of using "ought" as an
auxillary modal verb than what I am suggesting - the way I am suggesting
does move "ought" from its standard interpretation as indicating "moral
obligation" and toward "intent" (which is definitely not its standard
use as an auxillary modal verb). I admit I am suggesting a very
idiosyncratic way of thinking of "should" and "ought".
I would have thought that the "objective fact" way of talking about
ought was more in line with ordinary usage.
[snip]
MG
.
|
|
|
| User: "Ted King" |
|
| Title: Re: Why people like Brian Bilek have no excuse. |
03 Apr 2004 06:48:05 AM |
|
|
In article <165948e8.0404021610.9456cb6@posting.google.com>,
(MGodwyn) wrote:
Ted King <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<lodited-31537F.18563131032004@news.la.sbcglobal.net>...
In article <c4ebcs$nii$3@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com> wrote:
Ted King wrote:
In article <c4amg4$4fb$2@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com> wrote:
Ted King wrote:
[snip]
I know, I'm sorry about that. I wish I could put my finger on just what
it is that doesn't quite seem to me to add up. I think the problem for
me may be that I don't have a clear grasp of the difference between
what
a "Moral fact" is and what a "moral fact" is.
If you're asking me about my views then the m/Moral divide is
ill-suited, because I wish to assert a distinction between psychological
states and what the states are about but where what the states are about
is not subject-independent and not, themselves, psychological states. My
view is that there are no Moral facts *if* a Moral fact is interpreted
as something independent of subjects. But I do believe in (arrrgggh - I
need something neither lower case nor upper case - I'm just going to use
the term "ethical"!) subject-dependent ethical facts.
Perhaps consider it like this. Suppose you believe that you have a
belief. That belief *makes* itself true. It is a self-fulfilling belief,
a belief that suffices to bring its truth-conditions into existence.
Now, in this case, the *content* of the belief that you have a belief is
a *fact* - it is not itself a belief.
1) (Fact) You believe that you have a belief
2) (content of (1)) = (the fact) *that* you have a belief
Notice that the content of (1) is not a *belief*, it is a fact - the
fact that you *have* a belief. By comparison, there are cars (objects)
and there are facts such as *having* cars (states of affairs that
involve cars).
I am suggesting that certain psychological states (moral beliefs) bring
the truth-conditions of those beliefs into existence - they make ethical
facts. But what they bring into existence are not more psychological
facts, they are ethical facts.
That helps a lot. I think I'm getting closer to what escapes me. If a
belief is the acceptance or conviction of the truth of something and
moral beliefs are psychological states, then a moral belief is the
acceptance or conviction of the truth of something "moral". It seems
that there needs to be that something "moral" *first* to believe in, for
there to be an ethical fact (how can you believe in something before
there is something to believe in?).
That's the intuition that I have to reject. That rejection lies at the
heart of my account. It is clearly true in *almost* all cases, but not
all true beliefs are independent of our believing them. Take the
language example - there simply are no facts about what a word means
before humans believe that certain words have certain meanings. It is
our belief that "cat" refers to those furry meowing creatures that
makes the belief true. And before that belief it simply was not true.
The truth comes into existence *with* the belief. In that case of
belief in the meaning of words it is both necessary and (with certain
caveats) sufficient for the truth of the belief. My account argues
that we should look at moral beliefs along similar lines.
Take also the belief that I have belief. Granted, in that case it is
sufficient to constitute the truth conditions of the belief, and not
necessary, but the point is that we do not always require there to be
facts before the belief in order for the belief to be true. Take
another (rather more *inter*subjective) example: money. Is there money
before people believed that there was money? I would suggest obviously
not. But our belief that there is money is true, and became true as
soon as it was believed, but not before. The existence of money is not
an objective fact as it depends on subjects. Neither is it especially
dependent of pieces of paper, bits of metal, etc. Rather, it depends
upon *an attitude* that we take to pieces of paper, etc.
"Money" transfers from account to account - just number changes in
databases.
But note that
the attitude is not the money! (unfortunately!). The attitude is
necessary for money, but money is not the attitude, neither is it the
pieces of paer - money comes into existence *through* the attiude
towards bits of paper. Neither is money simply something that we *do*
with paper. That's kinda how I want to see morality: it is
metaphysically dependent on our attitudes towards certain classes of
actions for its existence, but is not identical with or a property of
those attitudes, nor is it identical with or a property of the actions
(considered as material processes).
The money analogy is a good one. I can see that money is not the pieces
of paper, but I'm not sure about money not being an attitude toward bits
of paper (or numbers in a database). I hope you don't feel I am being
obtuse about understanding your point, but as I contemplate the notion
that "money" is not identical with an attitude, it isn't clear to me
that that is the case. Why isn't it the case that "money" is identical
with an attitude?
But what is it that makes these
certain psychological states "moral" as opposed to being just like other
psychological states that are purportedly not "moral"?
What they are *about*: i.e., what one ought to do. That part is the
most intuitive part of my account and satisfies the semantic realist
in me (beliefs are individuated, in part, in terms of what they are
about). The mental states are beliefs exactly as all other beliefs
are, but they are a special kind of belief in that they determine the
satisfaction of their own truth-conditions.
What, if any, then, is the difference between these uses of "ought":
You know from past experience if you don't eat anything for several
hours after getting up that you will begin to not feel well. On a
particular day you get busy and after quite a bit of time you realize
you haven't eaten yet and though you aren't yet feeling bad, you think
to yourself, "I ought to stop doing this and go eat."
(I would like to note that in this example I think there is something
about the attitude here that is not sufficiently expressed by changing
the "ought to" to "will".)
You are in a grocery store and see a father whack his ten year old son
on the back of the head pretty hard for whining about wanting some candy
and you think to yourself, "That father ought not do that to his son."
Do each of these determine the satisfaction of their own
truth-conditions? If so, are they both moral beliefs?
I can see the referent of
a "Moral fact"
whoa - Moral facts wouldn't *have* referents, in my opinion. Moral facts
would *be* the referents of moral beliefs.
as being something not dependent on a subject (how
objectivists avoid the "spooky" existence of such things I don't know).
But I don't understand what a "moral fact" is.
On my account, it is a psychological state: an acceptance of a norm, a
belief.
It seems like the
referent is some fact about a subject's mental state, yet I don't think
that is what you mean because that would mean you were talking about a
belief about a mental state, which is what you seem to deny.
Quite. If I believe I ought to do X, then the moral fact is that I
believe that I ought to do X.
One thing is that *belief* (but not preference)
can carry "ought" as it's content very naturally. Preferences aren't
*about* what *ought* to be done, they are preferences that certain
actions *be done*. I can prefer that X be done, but what has *that* got
to do with what *ought* to be done? It is rather strange to talk of me
preferring that X *ought to* be done. It's not clear that I could ever
have reasons for prefering that X ought be done over preferring that
not-X ought to be done. So far as preferences go, they seem to be
satisfied (or not) by what *happens*, not what *ought* to happen.
But beliefs are not like that. They can take *any* state as their
content, including norms and moral states. I can believe that I ought
to
do X - no problem.
MG
I'm thinking differently about the terms than that. I'll try to build
an
alternate way of looking at this:
One meaning of "should" is "the will to do something or have something
take place".
See I don't see "should" like that at all. The will to do something is
not the same as it being the case that you should do it.
I agree that that is typically the way "should" is taken. I'm not trying
to say that what I am presenting is the *right* way of using the term,
just as another way of using the term if it is accepted that there are
not objective Moral obligations. Your "subjective fact" way of talking
about "ought" is more in line with the common way of using "ought" as an
auxillary modal verb than what I am suggesting - the way I am suggesting
does move "ought" from its standard interpretation as indicating "moral
obligation" and toward "intent" (which is definitely not its standard
use as an auxillary modal verb). I admit I am suggesting a very
idiosyncratic way of thinking of "should" and "ought".
I would have thought that the "objective fact" way of talking about
ought was more in line with ordinary usage.
[snip]
MG
I think we must be talking past each other about this last bit because I
agree, and I acknowledge that I presented a non-ordinary way of using
"should".
Ted
.
|
|
|
| User: "Ted King" |
|
| Title: Re: Why people like Brian Bilek have no excuse. |
03 Apr 2004 08:32:08 AM |
|
|
In article <lodited-1C0C4B.04460303042004@news.la.sbcglobal.net>,
Ted King <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote:
In article <165948e8.0404021610.9456cb6@posting.google.com>,
godwyn@interchange.ubc.ca (MGodwyn) wrote:
Ted King <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<lodited-31537F.18563131032004@news.la.sbcglobal.net>...
In article <c4ebcs$nii$3@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com> wrote:
Ted King wrote:
In article <c4amg4$4fb$2@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com> wrote:
Ted King wrote:
[snip]
I know, I'm sorry about that. I wish I could put my finger on just
what
it is that doesn't quite seem to me to add up. I think the problem
for
me may be that I don't have a clear grasp of the difference between
what
a "Moral fact" is and what a "moral fact" is.
If you're asking me about my views then the m/Moral divide is
ill-suited, because I wish to assert a distinction between
psychological
states and what the states are about but where what the states are
about
is not subject-independent and not, themselves, psychological states.
My
view is that there are no Moral facts *if* a Moral fact is interpreted
as something independent of subjects. But I do believe in (arrrgggh - I
need something neither lower case nor upper case - I'm just going to
use
the term "ethical"!) subject-dependent ethical facts.
Perhaps consider it like this. Suppose you believe that you have a
belief. That belief *makes* itself true. It is a self-fulfilling
belief,
a belief that suffices to bring its truth-conditions into existence.
Now, in this case, the *content* of the belief that you have a belief
is
a *fact* - it is not itself a belief.
1) (Fact) You believe that you have a belief
2) (content of (1)) = (the fact) *that* you have a belief
Notice that the content of (1) is not a *belief*, it is a fact - the
fact that you *have* a belief. By comparison, there are cars (objects)
and there are facts such as *having* cars (states of affairs that
involve cars).
I am suggesting that certain psychological states (moral beliefs) bring
the truth-conditions of those beliefs into existence - they make
ethical
facts. But what they bring into existence are not more psychological
facts, they are ethical facts.
That helps a lot. I think I'm getting closer to what escapes me. If a
belief is the acceptance or conviction of the truth of something and
moral beliefs are psychological states, then a moral belief is the
acceptance or conviction of the truth of something "moral". It seems
that there needs to be that something "moral" *first* to believe in, for
there to be an ethical fact (how can you believe in something before
there is something to believe in?).
That's the intuition that I have to reject. That rejection lies at the
heart of my account. It is clearly true in *almost* all cases, but not
all true beliefs are independent of our believing them. Take the
language example - there simply are no facts about what a word means
before humans believe that certain words have certain meanings. It is
our belief that "cat" refers to those furry meowing creatures that
makes the belief true. And before that belief it simply was not true.
The truth comes into existence *with* the belief. In that case of
belief in the meaning of words it is both necessary and (with certain
caveats) sufficient for the truth of the belief. My account argues
that we should look at moral beliefs along similar lines.
Take also the belief that I have belief. Granted, in that case it is
sufficient to constitute the truth conditions of the belief, and not
necessary, but the point is that we do not always require there to be
facts before the belief in order for the belief to be true. Take
another (rather more *inter*subjective) example: money. Is there money
before people believed that there was money? I would suggest obviously
not. But our belief that there is money is true, and became true as
soon as it was believed, but not before. The existence of money is not
an objective fact as it depends on subjects. Neither is it especially
dependent of pieces of paper, bits of metal, etc. Rather, it depends
upon *an attitude* that we take to pieces of paper, etc.
"Money" transfers from account to account - just number changes in
databases.
But note that
the attitude is not the money! (unfortunately!). The attitude is
necessary for money, but money is not the attitude, neither is it the
pieces of paer - money comes into existence *through* the attiude
towards bits of paper. Neither is money simply something that we *do*
with paper. That's kinda how I want to see morality: it is
metaphysically dependent on our attitudes towards certain classes of
actions for its existence, but is not identical with or a property of
those attitudes, nor is it identical with or a property of the actions
(considered as material processes).
The money analogy is a good one. I can see that money is not the pieces
of paper, but I'm not sure about money not being an attitude toward bits
of paper (or numbers in a database). I hope you don't feel I am being
obtuse about understanding your point, but as I contemplate the notion
that "money" is not identical with an attitude, it isn't clear to me
that that is the case. Why isn't it the case that "money" is identical
with an attitude?
Let me amplify that last question a bit: it seems plausible to me to
consider that "money" is an attitude, but the utility of the attitude
comes in the intersubjective agreement of what to have the attitude
"money" about (does that imply taking "money" to be a *property* of an
attitude?).
This suggests to me another question - a question about wether or not
there is some relation between intersubjective agreement and realism.
Digging into perhaps a different vein, though this following piece seems
to be primarily about predictiveness, if I could get your thoughts about
it, I think it may help me understand the "subjective realism" you are
expounding:
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/intentionalstance.html
[quote]
Given Dennettıs suggestion that we should understand beliefs on the
model of abstract objects like centers of gravity, he has often been
classified as an instrumentalist. But Dennett, who rejects the usual
either-or dichotomy of realism and instrumentalism, prefers to classify
his view as an in between position that he calls interpretationism.
According to interpretationism, whether a system has a certain belief or
desire depends on our imposing a certain interpretation on the system. A
statement ascribing a certain belief or desire to an organism is true
when the best overall interpretation of that systemıs behavior says that
the organism has that belief or desire. From the intentional stance, we
detect certain patterns that, although partly constituted by our own
reactions to them, are objective. But because these real patterns are
not wholly determinate, the possibility of interpretive gaps will always
remain. Due to such gaps, "there could be two different systems of
belief attribution to an individual that differed substantially in what
they attributedeven in yielding substantially different predictions of
the individualıs future behaviorand yet where no deeper fact of the
matter could establish that one was a description of the individualıs
real beliefs and the other not." (Dennett 1991)
Though interpretationism clearly rejects the "inner-state" view of
intentional states that is usually associated with realism, it also
rejects the instrumentalist characterization of such states as mere
fictions. The patterns detectable by our adoption of the intentional
stance are, according to Dennett, real patterns. Beliefs, though they
can only be detected once we take the intentional stance towards the
believer, are nonetheless objective phenomena. Thus, he considers his
view to be a form of realism, albeit a "soft" or "intermediate" one.
[unquote]
But what is it that makes these
certain psychological states "moral" as opposed to being just like other
psychological states that are purportedly not "moral"?
What they are *about*: i.e., what one ought to do. That part is the
most intuitive part of my account and satisfies the semantic realist
in me (beliefs are individuated, in part, in terms of what they are
about). The mental states are beliefs exactly as all other beliefs
are, but they are a special kind of belief in that they determine the
satisfaction of their own truth-conditions.
What, if any, then, is the difference between these uses of "ought":
You know from past experience if you don't eat anything for several
hours after getting up that you will begin to not feel well. On a
particular day you get busy and after quite a bit of time you realize
you haven't eaten yet and though you aren't yet feeling bad, you think
to yourself, "I ought to stop doing this and go eat."
(I would like to note that in this example I think there is something
about the attitude here that is not sufficiently expressed by changing
the "ought to" to "will".)
You are in a grocery store and see a father whack his ten year old son
on the back of the head pretty hard for whining about wanting some candy
and you think to yourself, "That father ought not do that to his son."
Do each of these determine the satisfaction of their own
truth-conditions? If so, are they both moral beliefs?
I can see the referent of
a "Moral fact"
whoa - Moral facts wouldn't *have* referents, in my opinion. Moral
facts
would *be* the referents of moral beliefs.
as being something not dependent on a subject (how
objectivists avoid the "spooky" existence of such things I don't
know).
But I don't understand what a "moral fact" is.
On my account, it is a psychological state: an acceptance of a norm, a
belief.
It seems like the
referent is some fact about a subject's mental state, yet I don't
think
that is what you mean because that would mean you were talking about
a
belief about a mental state, which is what you seem to deny.
Quite. If I believe I ought to do X, then the moral fact is that I
believe that I ought to do X.
One thing is that *belief* (but not preference)
can carry "ought" as it's content very naturally. Preferences aren't
*about* what *ought* to be done, they are preferences that certain
actions *be done*. I can prefer that X be done, but what has *that*
got
to do with what *ought* to be done? It is rather strange to talk of
me
preferring that X *ought to* be done. It's not clear that I could
ever
have reasons for prefering that X ought be done over preferring that
not-X ought to be done. So far as preferences go, they seem to be
satisfied (or not) by what *happens*, not what *ought* to happen.
But beliefs are not like that. They can take *any* state as their
content, including norms and moral states. I can believe that I ought
to
do X - no problem.
MG
I'm thinking differently about the terms than that. I'll try to build
an
alternate way of looking at this:
One meaning of "should" is "the will to do something or have
something
take place".
See I don't see "should" like that at all. The will to do something is
not the same as it being the case that you should do it.
I agree that that is typically the way "should" is taken. I'm not trying
to say that what I am presenting is the *right* way of using the term,
just as another way of using the term if it is accepted that there are
not objective Moral obligations. Your "subjective fact" way of talking
about "ought" is more in line with the common way of using "ought" as an
auxillary modal verb than what I am suggesting - the way I am suggesting
does move "ought" from its standard interpretation as indicating "moral
obligation" and toward "intent" (which is definitely not its standard
use as an auxillary modal verb). I admit I am suggesting a very
idiosyncratic way of thinking of "should" and "ought".
I would have thought that the "objective fact" way of talking about
ought was more in line with ordinary usage.
[snip]
MG
I think we must be talking past each other about this last bit because I
agree, and I acknowledge that I presented a non-ordinary way of using
"should".
Ted
.
|
|
|
| User: "Ted King" |
|
| Title: Re: Why people like Brian Bilek have no excuse. |
03 Apr 2004 08:43:24 AM |
|
|
In article <lodited-93953B.06301203042004@news.la.sbcglobal.net>,
Ted King <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote:
In article <lodited-1C0C4B.04460303042004@news.la.sbcglobal.net>,
Ted King <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote:
In article <165948e8.0404021610.9456cb6@posting.google.com>,
godwyn@interchange.ubc.ca (MGodwyn) wrote:
Ted King <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<lodited-31537F.18563131032004@news.la.sbcglobal.net>...
In article <c4ebcs$nii$3@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com> wrote:
Ted King wrote:
In article <c4amg4$4fb$2@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com> wrote:
Ted King wrote:
[snip]
I know, I'm sorry about that. I wish I could put my finger on just
what
it is that doesn't quite seem to me to add up. I think the problem
for
me may be that I don't have a clear grasp of the difference between
what
a "Moral fact" is and what a "moral fact" is.
If you're asking me about my views then the m/Moral divide is
ill-suited, because I wish to assert a distinction between
psychological
states and what the states are about but where what the states are
about
is not subject-independent and not, themselves, psychological states.
My
view is that there are no Moral facts *if* a Moral fact is
interpreted
as something independent of subjects. But I do believe in (arrrgggh -
I
need something neither lower case nor upper case - I'm just going to
use
the term "ethical"!) subject-dependent ethical facts.
Perhaps consider it like this. Suppose you believe that you have a
belief. That belief *makes* itself true. It is a self-fulfilling
belief,
a belief that suffices to bring its truth-conditions into existence.
Now, in this case, the *content* of the belief that you have a belief
is
a *fact* - it is not itself a belief.
1) (Fact) You believe that you have a belief
2) (content of (1)) = (the fact) *that* you have a belief
Notice that the content of (1) is not a *belief*, it is a fact - the
fact that you *have* a belief. By comparison, there are cars
(objects)
and there are facts such as *having* cars (states of affairs that
involve cars).
I am suggesting that certain psychological states (moral beliefs)
bring
the truth-conditions of those beliefs into existence - they make
ethical
facts. But what they bring into existence are not more psychological
facts, they are ethical facts.
That helps a lot. I think I'm getting closer to what escapes me. If a
belief is the acceptance or conviction of the truth of something and
moral beliefs are psychological states, then a moral belief is the
acceptance or conviction of the truth of something "moral". It seems
that there needs to be that something "moral" *first* to believe in,
for
there to be an ethical fact (how can you believe in something before
there is something to believe in?).
That's the intuition that I have to reject. That rejection lies at the
heart of my account. It is clearly true in *almost* all cases, but not
all true beliefs are independent of our believing them. Take the
language example - there simply are no facts about what a word means
before humans believe that certain words have certain meanings. It is
our belief that "cat" refers to those furry meowing creatures that
makes the belief true. And before that belief it simply was not true.
The truth comes into existence *with* the belief. In that case of
belief in the meaning of words it is both necessary and (with certain
caveats) sufficient for the truth of the belief. My account argues
that we should look at moral beliefs along similar lines.
Take also the belief that I have belief. Granted, in that case it is
sufficient to constitute the truth conditions of the belief, and not
necessary, but the point is that we do not always require there to be
facts before the belief in order for the belief to be true. Take
another (rather more *inter*subjective) example: money. Is there money
before people believed that there was money? I would suggest obviously
not. But our belief that there is money is true, and became true as
soon as it was believed, but not before. The existence of money is not
an objective fact as it depends on subjects. Neither is it especially
dependent of pieces of paper, bits of metal, etc. Rather, it depends
upon *an attitude* that we take to pieces of paper, etc.
"Money" transfers from account to account - just number changes in
databases.
But note that
the attitude is not the money! (unfortunately!). The attitude is
necessary for money, but money is not the attitude, neither is it the
pieces of paer - money comes into existence *through* the attiude
towards bits of paper. Neither is money simply something that we *do*
with paper. That's kinda how I want to see morality: it is
metaphysically dependent on our attitudes towards certain classes of
actions for its existence, but is not identical with or a property of
those attitudes, nor is it identical with or a property of the actions
(considered as material processes).
The money analogy is a good one. I can see that money is not the pieces
of paper, but I'm not sure about money not being an attitude toward bits
of paper (or numbers in a database). I hope you don't feel I am being
obtuse about understanding your point, but as I contemplate the notion
that "money" is not identical with an attitude, it isn't clear to me
that that is the case. Why isn't it the case that "money" is identical
with an attitude?
Let me amplify that last question a bit: it seems plausible to me to
consider that "money" is an attitude, but the utility of the attitude
comes in the intersubjective agreement of what to have the attitude
"money" about (does that imply taking "money" to be a *property* of an
attitude?).
This suggests to me another question - a question about wether or not
there is some relation between intersubjective agreement and realism.
Digging into perhaps a different vein, though this following piece seems
to be primarily about predictiveness, if I could get your thoughts about
it, I think it may help me understand the "subjective realism" you are
expounding:
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/intentionalstance.html
[quote]
Darn - I should have included this part, which comes just prior to what
I posted below:
In his writings on the intentional stance, Dennett has often made the
controversial further claim that the intentionality of a creature wholly
consists in its behavior being well-predicted by our adoption of the
intentional stance towards it: "all there is to being a true believer is
being a system whose behaviour is reliably predictable via the
intentional strategy, and hence all there is to really and truly
believing that p (for any proposition p) is being an intentional system
for which p occurs as a belief in the best (most predictive)
interpretation." (Dennett 1981) Interestingly, however, Dennett claims
that his view should be considered a sort of realism about the mind. As
he himself notes, this requires a "delicate balancing act on the matter
of the observer-relativity of attributions of belief and other
intentional states." (Dennett 1987)
Given Dennettıs suggestion that we should understand beliefs on the
model of abstract objects like centers of gravity, he has often been
classified as an instrumentalist. But Dennett, who rejects the usual
either-or dichotomy of realism and instrumentalism, prefers to classify
his view as an in between position that he calls interpretationism.
According to interpretationism, whether a system has a certain belief or
desire depends on our imposing a certain interpretation on the system. A
statement ascribing a certain belief or desire to an organism is true
when the best overall interpretation of that systemıs behavior says that
the organism has that belief or desire. From the intentional stance, we
detect certain patterns that, although partly constituted by our own
reactions to them, are objective. But because these real patterns are
not wholly determinate, the possibility of interpretive gaps will always
remain. Due to such gaps, "there could be two different systems of
belief attribution to an individual that differed substantially in what
they attributedeven in yielding substantially different predictions of
the individualıs future behaviorand yet where no deeper fact of the
matter could establish that one was a description of the individualıs
real beliefs and the other not." (Dennett 1991)
Though interpretationism clearly rejects the "inner-state" view of
intentional states that is usually associated with realism, it also
rejects the instrumentalist characterization of such states as mere
fictions. The patterns detectable by our adoption of the intentional
stance are, according to Dennett, real patterns. Beliefs, though they
can only be detected once we take the intentional stance towards the
believer, are nonetheless objective phenomena. Thus, he considers his
view to be a form of realism, albeit a "soft" or "intermediate" one.
[unquote]
But what is it that makes these
certain psychological states "moral" as opposed to being just like
other
psychological states that are purportedly not "moral"?
What they are *about*: i.e., what one ought to do. That part is the
most intuitive part of my account and satisfies the semantic realist
in me (beliefs are individuated, in part, in terms of what they are
about). The mental states are beliefs exactly as all other beliefs
are, but they are a special kind of belief in that they determine the
satisfaction of their own truth-conditions.
What, if any, then, is the difference between these uses of "ought":
You know from past experience if you don't eat anything for several
hours after getting up that you will begin to not feel well. On a
particular day you get busy and after quite a bit of time you realize
you haven't eaten yet and though you aren't yet feeling bad, you think
to yourself, "I ought to stop doing this and go eat."
(I would like to note that in this example I think there is something
about the attitude here that is not sufficiently expressed by changing
the "ought to" to "will".)
You are in a grocery store and see a father whack his ten year old son
on the back of the head pretty hard for whining about wanting some candy
and you think to yourself, "That father ought not do that to his son."
Do each of these determine the satisfaction of their own
truth-conditions? If so, are they both moral beliefs?
I can see the referent of
a "Moral fact"
whoa - Moral facts wouldn't *have* referents, in my opinion. Moral
facts
would *be* the referents of moral beliefs.
as being something not dependent on a subject (how
objectivists avoid the "spooky" existence of such things I don't
know).
But I don't understand what a "moral fact" is.
On my account, it is a psychological state: an acceptance of a norm,
a
belief.
It seems like the
referent is some fact about a subject's mental state, yet I don't
think
that is what you mean because that would mean you were talking
about
a
belief about a mental state, which is what you seem to deny.
Quite. If I believe I ought to do X, then the moral fact is that I
believe that I ought to do X.
One thing is that *belief* (but not preference)
can carry "ought" as it's content very naturally. Preferences
aren't
*about* what *ought* to be done, they are preferences that certain
actions *be done*. I can prefer that X be done, but what has *that*
got
to do with what *ought* to be done? It is rather strange to talk of
me
preferring that X *ought to* be done. It's not clear that I could
ever
have reasons for prefering that X ought be done over preferring
that
not-X ought to be done. So far as preferences go, they seem to be
satisfied (or not) by what *happens*, not what *ought* to happen.
But beliefs are not like that. They can take *any* state as their
content, including norms and moral states. I can believe that I
ought
to
do X - no problem.
MG
I'm thinking differently about the terms than that. I'll try to
build
an
alternate way of looking at this:
One meaning of "should" is "the will to do something or have
something
take place".
See I don't see "should" like that at all. The will to do something
is
not the same as it being the case that you should do it.
I agree that that is typically the way "should" is taken. I'm not
trying
to say that what I am presenting is the *right* way of using the term,
just as another way of using the term if it is accepted that there are
not objective Moral obligations. Your "subjective fact" way of talking
about "ought" is more in line with the common way of using "ought" as
an
auxillary modal verb than what I am suggesting - the way I am
suggesting
does move "ought" from its standard interpretation as indicating "moral
obligation" and toward "intent" (which is definitely not its standard
use as an auxillary modal verb). I admit I am suggesting a very
idiosyncratic way of thinking of "should" and "ought".
I would have thought that the "objective fact" way of talking about
ought was more in line with ordinary usage.
[snip]
MG
I think we must be talking past each other about this last bit because I
agree, and I acknowledge that I presented a non-ordinary way of using
"should".
Ted
.
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "MG" |
|
| Title: Re: Why people like Brian Bilek have no excuse. |
04 Apr 2004 06:36:07 AM |
|
|
Ted King wrote:
In article <165948e8.0404021610.9456cb6@posting.google.com>,
godwyn@interchange.ubc.ca (MGodwyn) wrote:
Ted King <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<lodited-31537F.18563131032004@news.la.sbcglobal.net>...
In article <c4ebcs$nii$3@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com> wrote:
Ted King wrote:
In article <c4amg4$4fb$2@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com> wrote:
Ted King wrote:
[snip]
I know, I'm sorry about that. I wish I could put my finger on just what
it is that doesn't quite seem to me to add up. I think the problem for
me may be that I don't have a clear grasp of the difference between
what
a "Moral fact" is and what a "moral fact" is.
If you're asking me about my views then the m/Moral divide is
ill-suited, because I wish to assert a distinction between psychological
states and what the states are about but where what the states are about
is not subject-independent and not, themselves, psychological states. My
view is that there are no Moral facts *if* a Moral fact is interpreted
as something independent of subjects. But I do believe in (arrrgggh - I
need something neither lower case nor upper case - I'm just going to use
the term "ethical"!) subject-dependent ethical facts.
Perhaps consider it like this. Suppose you believe that you have a
belief. That belief *makes* itself true. It is a self-fulfilling belief,
a belief that suffices to bring its truth-conditions into existence.
Now, in this case, the *content* of the belief that you have a belief is
a *fact* - it is not itself a belief.
1) (Fact) You believe that you have a belief
2) (content of (1)) = (the fact) *that* you have a belief
Notice that the content of (1) is not a *belief*, it is a fact - the
fact that you *have* a belief. By comparison, there are cars (objects)
and there are facts such as *having* cars (states of affairs that
involve cars).
I am suggesting that certain psychological states (moral beliefs) bring
the truth-conditions of those beliefs into existence - they make ethical
facts. But what they bring into existence are not more psychological
facts, they are ethical facts.
That helps a lot. I think I'm getting closer to what escapes me. If a
belief is the acceptance or conviction of the truth of something and
moral beliefs are psychological states, then a moral belief is the
acceptance or conviction of the truth of something "moral". It seems
that there needs to be that something "moral" *first* to believe in, for
there to be an ethical fact (how can you believe in something before
there is something to believe in?).
That's the intuition that I have to reject. That rejection lies at the
heart of my account. It is clearly true in *almost* all cases, but not
all true beliefs are independent of our believing them. Take the
language example - there simply are no facts about what a word means
before humans believe that certain words have certain meanings. It is
our belief that "cat" refers to those furry meowing creatures that
makes the belief true. And before that belief it simply was not true.
The truth comes into existence *with* the belief. In that case of
belief in the meaning of words it is both necessary and (with certain
caveats) sufficient for the truth of the belief. My account argues
that we should look at moral beliefs along similar lines.
Take also the belief that I have belief. Granted, in that case it is
sufficient to constitute the truth conditions of the belief, and not
necessary, but the point is that we do not always require there to be
facts before the belief in order for the belief to be true. Take
another (rather more *inter*subjective) example: money. Is there money
before people believed that there was money? I would suggest obviously
not. But our belief that there is money is true, and became true as
soon as it was believed, but not before. The existence of money is not
an objective fact as it depends on subjects. Neither is it especially
dependent of pieces of paper, bits of metal, etc. Rather, it depends
upon *an attitude* that we take to pieces of paper, etc.
"Money" transfers from account to account - just number changes in
databases.
But note that
the attitude is not the money! (unfortunately!). The attitude is
necessary for money, but money is not the attitude, neither is it the
pieces of paer - money comes into existence *through* the attiude
towards bits of paper. Neither is money simply something that we *do*
with paper. That's kinda how I want to see morality: it is
metaphysically dependent on our attitudes towards certain classes of
actions for its existence, but is not identical with or a property of
those attitudes, nor is it identical with or a property of the actions
(considered as material processes).
The money analogy is a good one. I can see that money is not the pieces
of paper, but I'm not sure about money not being an attitude toward bits
of paper (or numbers in a database). I hope you don't feel I am being
obtuse about understanding your point, but as I contemplate the notion
that "money" is not identical with an attitude, it isn't clear to me
that that is the case. Why isn't it the case that "money" is identical
with an attitude?
Whenever two things are identical what's true of one is true of the
other. Well think about this - if I give you some money, do I give you
some attitude? Is there any part of my attitude towards the bits of
paper (or what have you) that somehow gets transferred with the bits of
paper? You have (I'll suppose) money in your bank account, but do you
have any attitude in your bank account? Surely not. So money is not the
same thing as attitude. The same point can be made the other way - do
you have any money in your head? What is clear is that money is
*dependent on* an attitude. I cannot give you money unless there are
people with the relevant attitudes to whatever I give you. Without those
attitudes all I give you are (say) pieces of paper with green ink on it.
But what is it that makes these
certain psychological states "moral" as opposed to being just like other
psychological states that are purportedly not "moral"?
What they are *about*: i.e., what one ought to do. That part is the
most intuitive part of my account and satisfies the semantic realist
in me (beliefs are individuated, in part, in terms of what they are
about). The mental states are beliefs exactly as all other beliefs
are, but they are a special kind of belief in that they determine the
satisfaction of their own truth-conditions.
What, if any, then, is the difference between these uses of "ought":
You know from past experience if you don't eat anything for several
hours after getting up that you will begin to not feel well. On a
particular day you get busy and after quite a bit of time you realize
you haven't eaten yet and though you aren't yet feeling bad, you think
to yourself, "I ought to stop doing this and go eat."
(I would like to note that in this example I think there is something
about the attitude here that is not sufficiently expressed by changing
the "ought to" to "will".)
I think that such statements are somewhat complex. It seems to me to
firstly *presuppose* a few conditional facts concerning causal relations:
1) If I do not eat I will feel bad
2) If I keep doing this I cannot eat.
I mention these because without these factual presuppositions it is hard
to make sense of the statement.
Also, I think it takes for granted
3) I do not want to feel bad.
Secondly, it contains a conditional imperative:
4) If I do not want to feel bad, then I ought to eat.
From (3) and (4) we get
5) I ought to eat
and from (5) and (2) we get
6) I ought to stop doing this
Combining (5) and (6) we get "I ought to stop doing this and go eat."
But - this is not a moral claim. In fact, I think (4) can be expressed
without the "ought" perfectly adequately via a general claim about
means-ends analysis:
7a) If a want is to be satisfied then all causally necessary conditions
for satisying that want must (causal sense of "must") obtain.
And a further causal fact (based on the contrapositive of (1): If I am
not to feel bad then I eat):
7b) Eating is a causally necessary condition for satisfying a want to
not feel bad.
So if I'm right that (4) can be analysed out as above, then there's no
non-descriptive feature, and hence, no moral feature in "I ought to stop
doing this and go eat". However, I must add at this point that I think
that the sense of "ought" that I express in (4) *may* not fully capture
what you intend in "I ought to stop doing this and go eat". You might
mean to imply something more such as:
8) I ought to do what is in my biological interests.
Where "ought" means more than "if I want to satisfy some desire" but
means simply that it is a morally good thing. If so, then there's
genuine morality in that claim.
You are in a grocery store and see a father whack his ten year old son
on the back of the head pretty hard for whining about wanting some candy
and you think to yourself, "That father ought not do that to his son."
That's a straight-forward moral claim - however, imo, it is not the
claim you probably thik it is - see below.
Do each of these determine the satisfaction of their own
truth-conditions? If so, are they both moral beliefs?
Now you've asked (implicitly) a really interesting question - one that
I've been forced to ponder quite a bit because answering it requires
that I nuance my original position.
Recall that my theory takes the acceptence of a norm as equivalent to a
moral belief, and the moral belief as determining the (subjective) moral
facts. There is nothing in that that requires the moral facts be
*universal* facts applying to anyone else rather than individual facts
applying just to me. Neither does it require that when *I* accept a norm
that my acceptence of that determines the moral facts for anyone other
than myself. In other words, on my account (as it presently stands) I
merely determine what is morally right for *me* to do. I do not
determine by accepting a norm what is morally right for anyone else to
do. So what happens in the above case where, apparently, my belief is
being applied to the actions of others? I think that what happens is
this: I implicitly think to myself "*Were* I that father and *were* that
child my son, it *would be* wrong for me to do that to my child." That
is still a moral fact, but it is a *counterfactual* moral fact about
*me* - it is not a moral fact about the father or the fathers acts.
Notice that this way of putting things is *not* the same as saying that
it is wrong for the father to do that to his son. That's really
important to realise. It does not say that the actual act of the actual
father to the actual son was actually wrong, it says that in the
counterfactual case just described (where it is *me* doing that kind of
thing to *my* son) it *would be* wrong. So I am suggesting that, taken
literally, and if anyone other than the father is holding such a belief,
there are no moral facts *of that kind*.
This is not so strange as it might seem at first. It is commonplace for
us to ask others "what do you think I should do?", and others might say
something like "Well, if I were you, I would ...". When someone says
that we do not tell them "Stop, no - I'm not asking you what *you* would
do if you were me - I'm not asking you to tell me anything about what
*you would* do - I'm asking you what you think *I* should do?".
Now if we did respond like that, what could the person say? Could they
even answer our question if we insist that they stop talking about
counterfactual cases involving themselves and, instead, talk only about
what right for us to do? They would be very puzzled indeed! Because if
we eliminate the counterfactual there really is *nothing* that the other
person can tell us about what we ought to do. This shows, I think, that
all moral pronouncements concerning others proceeds by way of
consideration of counterfactual scenarios about oneself - and they are
not, properly speaking, claims *about* anyone else! The same is true
when we think to ourselves "That father ought not do that to his son".
What we really think is that were I in that circumstance, I ought not to
do that.
This is why I placed emphasis on the *individual* acceptance of a norm
as equivalent to a belief. For me to accept a norm is for me to accept
the norm as a guide for what *I* sould do. I cannot accept a norm on
behalf of anyone else. Suppose that the norm is "don't torture babies" -
the resultant belief is "I ought not to torture babies" and this belief
(on my account) determines a subjective moral fact). My belief is not -
properly speaking - "torturing babies is wrong". The belief "torturing
babies is wrong" is simply the application of my subjective moral belief
(I ought not to torture babies) to the counterfactual scenario of me
being an arbitrary other person: I believe that were I any arbitrary
other person, it would be wrong for me to torture babies. And *that* is
a subjective moral fact - but it is a counterfactual moral fact about *me*.
MG
[snip]
.
|
|
|
| User: "Ted King" |
|
| Title: Re: Why people like Brian Bilek have no excuse. |
04 Apr 2004 11:36:44 AM |
|
|
In article <c4orv0$g1d$2@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com> wrote:
Ted King wrote:
In article <165948e8.0404021610.9456cb6@posting.google.com>,
godwyn@interchange.ubc.ca (MGodwyn) wrote:
Ted King <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<lodited-31537F.18563131032004@news.la.sbcglobal.net>...
In article <c4ebcs$nii$3@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
That's the intuition that I have to reject. That rejection lies at the
heart of my account. It is clearly true in *almost* all cases, but not
all true beliefs are independent of our believing them. Take the
language example - there simply are no facts about what a word means
before humans believe that certain words have certain meanings. It is
our belief that "cat" refers to those furry meowing creatures that
makes the belief true. And before that belief it simply was not true.
The truth comes into existence *with* the belief. In that case of
belief in the meaning of words it is both necessary and (with certain
caveats) sufficient for the truth of the belief. My account argues
that we should look at moral beliefs along similar lines.
Take also the belief that I have belief. Granted, in that case it is
sufficient to constitute the truth conditions of the belief, and not
necessary, but the point is that we do not always require there to be
facts before the belief in order for the belief to be true. Take
another (rather more *inter*subjective) example: money. Is there money
before people believed that there was money? I would suggest obviously
not. But our belief that there is money is true, and became true as
soon as it was believed, but not before. The existence of money is not
an objective fact as it depends on subjects. Neither is it especially
dependent of pieces of paper, bits of metal, etc. Rather, it depends
upon *an attitude* that we take to pieces of paper, etc.
"Money" transfers from account to account - just number changes in
databases.
But note that
the attitude is not the money! (unfortunately!). The attitude is
necessary for money, but money is not the attitude, neither is it the
pieces of paer - money comes into existence *through* the attiude
towards bits of paper. Neither is money simply something that we *do*
with paper. That's kinda how I want to see morality: it is
metaphysically dependent on our attitudes towards certain classes of
actions for its existence, but is not identical with or a property of
those attitudes, nor is it identical with or a property of the actions
(considered as material processes).
The money analogy is a good one. I can see that money is not the pieces
of paper, but I'm not sure about money not being an attitude toward bits
of paper (or numbers in a database). I hope you don't feel I am being
obtuse about understanding your point, but as I contemplate the notion
that "money" is not identical with an attitude, it isn't clear to me
that that is the case. Why isn't it the case that "money" is identical
with an attitude?
Whenever two things are identical what's true of one is true of the
other. Well think about this - if I give you some money, do I give you
some attitude? Is there any part of my attitude towards the bits of
paper (or what have you) that somehow gets transferred with the bits of
paper? You have (I'll suppose) money in your bank account, but do you
have any attitude in your bank account? Surely not. So money is not the
same thing as attitude. The same point can be made the other way - do
you have any money in your head? What is clear is that money is
*dependent on* an attitude. I cannot give you money unless there are
people with the relevant attitudes to whatever I give you. Without those
attitudes all I give you are (say) pieces of paper with green ink on it.
I see your point, but I still wonder if this can be explained in terms
of attitude via the notion of intersubjective agreement. If we have an
intersubjective agreement that a particular kind of paper with a
particular kind of printing symbolizes a value we are transferring from
one person to the another, then what is ontological status of the value?
Is the "transfer" of value anything other than an attitude change
brought about by my subjective choice to enter into an intersubjective
agreement? It seems to me that a bunch of magnetic particles on a hard
drive storing information about symbols of the status of a bank account
are not "money". Does the presence of an attitude suddenly turn the
magnetic particles into money, or are the magnetic particles just
external information holders that are utilized to fascilitate a system
of intersubjective agreement? (And the "money" in the intersubjective
agreement is in the mind of the subjects as attitude.)
But what is it that makes these
certain psychological states "moral" as opposed to being just like other
psychological states that are purportedly not "moral"?
What they are *about*: i.e., what one ought to do. That part is the
most intuitive part of my account and satisfies the semantic realist
in me (beliefs are individuated, in part, in terms of what they are
about). The mental states are beliefs exactly as all other beliefs
are, but they are a special kind of belief in that they determine the
satisfaction of their own truth-conditions.
What, if any, then, is the difference between these uses of "ought":
You know from past experience if you don't eat anything for several
hours after getting up that you will begin to not feel well. On a
particular day you get busy and after quite a bit of time you realize
you haven't eaten yet and though you aren't yet feeling bad, you think
to yourself, "I ought to stop doing this and go eat."
(I would like to note that in this example I think there is something
about the attitude here that is not sufficiently expressed by changing
the "ought to" to "will".)
I think that such statements are somewhat complex. It seems to me to
firstly *presuppose* a few conditional facts concerning causal relations:
1) If I do not eat I will feel bad
2) If I keep doing this I cannot eat.
I mention these because without these factual presuppositions it is hard
to make sense of the statement.
Also, I think it takes for granted
3) I do not want to feel bad.
Secondly, it contains a conditional imperative:
4) If I do not want to feel bad, then I ought to eat.
From (3) and (4) we get
5) I ought to eat
and from (5) and (2) we get
6) I ought to stop doing this
Combining (5) and (6) we get "I ought to stop doing this and go eat."
But - this is not a moral claim. In fact, I think (4) can be expressed
without the "ought" perfectly adequately via a general claim about
means-ends analysis:
7a) If a want is to be satisfied then all causally necessary conditions
for satisying that want must (causal sense of "must") obtain.
And a further causal fact (based on the contrapositive of (1): If I am
not to feel bad then I eat):
7b) Eating is a causally necessary condition for satisfying a want to
not feel bad.
So if I'm right that (4) can be analysed out as above, then there's no
non-descriptive feature, and hence, no moral feature in "I ought to stop
doing this and go eat". However, I must add at this point that I think
that the sense of "ought" that I express in (4) *may* not fully capture
what you intend in "I ought to stop doing this and go eat".
No, I don't intend more than that. I agree that there is no Moral
feature to the situation as I put it. That is why I chose it. It seems
to me that this may be illustrative of there being a meaningful way to
use "ought" as descriptive of attitude that does not involve Moral
valuation. (As to whether or not it involves "moral" as opposed to
"Moral" valuation, I guess that depends on how we want to take the
meaning of "moral". And as to the question of whether or not this can be
folded in on itself as believing I have a belief so that it is truth
liable, I can't say, because, frankly, I still haven't wrapped my head
around that.)
You might
mean to imply something more such as:
8) I ought to do what is in my biological interests.
Where "ought" means more than "if I want to satisfy some desire" but
means simply that it is a morally good thing. If so, then there's
genuine morality in that claim.
You are in a grocery store and see a father whack his ten year old son
on the back of the head pretty hard for whining about wanting some candy
and you think to yourself, "That father ought not do that to his son."
That's a straight-forward moral claim - however, imo, it is not the
claim you probably thik it is - see below.
Do each of these determine the satisfaction of their own
truth-conditions? If so, are they both moral beliefs?
Now you've asked (implicitly)
inadvertently, of course :-)
a really interesting question - one that
I've been forced to ponder quite a bit because answering it requires
that I nuance my original position.
Recall that my theory takes the acceptence of a norm as equivalent to a
moral belief, and the moral belief as determining the (subjective) moral
facts. There is nothing in that that requires the moral facts be
*universal* facts applying to anyone else rather than individual facts
applying just to me. Neither does it require that when *I* accept a norm
that my acceptence of that determines the moral facts for anyone other
than myself. In other words, on my account (as it presently stands) I
merely determine what is morally right for *me* to do. I do not
determine by accepting a norm what is morally right for anyone else to
do. So what happens in the above case where, apparently, my belief is
being applied to the actions of others? I think that what happens is
this: I implicitly think to myself "*Were* I that father and *were* that
child my son, it *would be* wrong for me to do that to my child." That
is still a moral fact, but it is a *counterfactual* moral fact about
*me* - it is not a moral fact about the father or the fathers acts.
Okay, I see that, given your theory of subjective moral facts.
Notice that this way of putting things is *not* the same as saying that
it is wrong for the father to do that to his son. That's really
important to realise. It does not say that the actual act of the actual
father to the actual son was actually wrong, it says that in the
counterfactual case just described (where it is *me* doing that kind of
thing to *my* son) it *would be* wrong. So I am suggesting that, taken
literally, and if anyone other than the father is holding such a belief,
there are no moral facts *of that kind*.
Okay.
This is not so strange as it might seem at first. It is commonplace for
us to ask others "what do you think I should do?", and others might say
something like "Well, if I were you, I would ...". When someone says
that we do not tell them "Stop, no - I'm not asking you what *you* would
do if you were me - I'm not asking you to tell me anything about what
*you would* do - I'm asking you what you think *I* should do?".
It doesn't seem very strange to me - but then maybe that's because I
think somewhat strangely a lot. :-)
Now if we did respond like that, what could the person say? Could they
even answer our question if we insist that they stop talking about
counterfactual cases involving themselves and, instead, talk only about
what right for us to do? They would be very puzzled indeed! Because if
we eliminate the counterfactual there really is *nothing* that the other
person can tell us about what we ought to do. This shows, I think, that
all moral pronouncements concerning others proceeds by way of
consideration of counterfactual scenarios about oneself - and they are
not, properly speaking, claims *about* anyone else! The same is true
when we think to ourselves "That father ought not do that to his son".
What we really think is that were I in that circumstance, I ought not to
do that.
This is why I placed emphasis on the *individual* acceptance of a norm
as equivalent to a belief. For me to accept a norm is for me to accept
the norm as a guide for what *I* sould do. I cannot accept a norm on
behalf of anyone else. Suppose that the norm is "don't torture babies" -
the resultant belief is "I ought not to torture babies" and this belief
(on my account) determines a subjective moral fact). My belief is not -
properly speaking - "torturing babies is wrong". The belief "torturing
babies is wrong" is simply the application of my subjective moral belief
(I ought not to torture babies) to the counterfactual scenario of me
being an arbitrary other person: I believe that were I any arbitrary
other person, it would be wrong for me to torture babies. And *that* is
a subjective moral fact - but it is a counterfactual moral fact about *me*.
MG
Seems right to me given the theory you are operating from. I think there
is, in practice, another important emotional feature that seems to
almost always go along with this counterfactual "imagining" - a desire
to project one's preference beyond oneself - that is, a desire for
others to also accept the norm. And I think maybe it is somewhere in the
dynamics of those desires that the line can get blurred in people's
minds between a subjective sense of ought and an objective sense of
ought.
Ted
.
|
|
|
| User: "MG" |
|
| Title: Re: Why people like Brian Bilek have no excuse. |
05 Apr 2004 06:45:18 AM |
|
|
Ted King wrote:
In article <c4orv0$g1d$2@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com> wrote:
Ted King wrote:
In article <165948e8.0404021610.9456cb6@posting.google.com>,
godwyn@interchange.ubc.ca (MGodwyn) wrote:
Ted King <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<lodited-31537F.18563131032004@news.la.sbcglobal.net>...
In article <c4ebcs$nii$3@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
That's the intuition that I have to reject. That rejection lies at the
heart of my account. It is clearly true in *almost* all cases, but not
all true beliefs are independent of our believing them. Take the
language example - there simply are no facts about what a word means
before humans believe that certain words have certain meanings. It is
our belief that "cat" refers to those furry meowing creatures that
makes the belief true. And before that belief it simply was not true.
The truth comes into existence *with* the belief. In that case of
belief in the meaning of words it is both necessary and (with certain
caveats) sufficient for the truth of the belief. My account argues
that we should look at moral beliefs along similar lines.
Take also the belief that I have belief. Granted, in that case it is
sufficient to constitute the truth conditions of the belief, and not
necessary, but the point is that we do not always require there to be
facts before the belief in order for the belief to be true. Take
another (rather more *inter*subjective) example: money. Is there money
before people believed that there was money? I would suggest obviously
not. But our belief that there is money is true, and became true as
soon as it was believed, but not before. The existence of money is not
an objective fact as it depends on subjects. Neither is it especially
dependent of pieces of paper, bits of metal, etc. Rather, it depends
upon *an attitude* that we take to pieces of paper, etc.
"Money" transfers from account to account - just number changes in
databases.
But note that
the attitude is not the money! (unfortunately!). The attitude is
necessary for money, but money is not the attitude, neither is it the
pieces of paer - money comes into existence *through* the attiude
towards bits of paper. Neither is money simply something that we *do*
with paper. That's kinda how I want to see morality: it is
metaphysically dependent on our attitudes towards certain classes of
actions for its existence, but is not identical with or a property of
those attitudes, nor is it identical with or a property of the actions
(considered as material processes).
The money analogy is a good one. I can see that money is not the pieces
of paper, but I'm not sure about money not being an attitude toward bits
of paper (or numbers in a database). I hope you don't feel I am being
obtuse about understanding your point, but as I contemplate the notion
that "money" is not identical with an attitude, it isn't clear to me
that that is the case. Why isn't it the case that "money" is identical
with an attitude?
Whenever two things are identical what's true of one is true of the
other. Well think about this - if I give you some money, do I give you
some attitude? Is there any part of my attitude towards the bits of
paper (or what have you) that somehow gets transferred with the bits of
paper? You have (I'll suppose) money in your bank account, but do you
have any attitude in your bank account? Surely not. So money is not the
same thing as attitude. The same point can be made the other way - do
you have any money in your head? What is clear is that money is
*dependent on* an attitude. I cannot give you money unless there are
people with the relevant attitudes to whatever I give you. Without those
attitudes all I give you are (say) pieces of paper with green ink on it.
I see your point, but I still wonder if this can be explained in terms
of attitude via the notion of intersubjective agreement.
Sure - I've no problem with that in the case of money. My point is that
money *is* neither simply pieces of paper nor *is* it simply attitudes
(mental states). We can *explain* it by appeal to attitudes, but money
*is not* those attitudes. The difference here is between what brings it
into existence (attitudes towards, say, objects) and what the thing
brought into existence *is* (neither an object nor an attitude).
If we have an
intersubjective agreement that a particular kind of paper with a
particular kind of printing symbolizes a value we are transferring from
one person to the another, then what is ontological status of the value?
It is a *fact*. I take facts to be actual states of affairs - that is
arrangements of things in various relations. Money is a fact constituted
by certain attitudes that people take to green-inked objects (and the
like). In this case, it would be an intersubjective fact. The point here
is that facts are neither identical with the objects nor with the
attitudes (that determine the relations).
Is the "transfer" of value anything other than an attitude change
brought about by my subjective choice to enter into an intersubjective
agreement?
Yes. It isn't an attitude change, but it is entirely determined *by* an
attitude change.
It seems to me that a bunch of magnetic particles on a hard
drive storing information about symbols of the status of a bank account
are not "money".
I agree.
Does the presence of an attitude suddenly turn the
magnetic particles into money,
Yes.
or are the magnetic particles just
external information holders that are utilized to fascilitate a system
of intersubjective agreement?
Those particles hold information (about how much money you have) only in
virtue of the attitudes towards them.
(And the "money" in the intersubjective
agreement is in the mind of the subjects as attitude.)
I think that's just silly for the reasons above. Money really does
exist, and I really have no money in my mind. (I don't have much money
anywhere else, but that's another (depressing) story.)
[snip]
So if I'm right that (4) can be analysed out as above, then there's no
non-descriptive feature, and hence, no moral feature in "I ought to stop
doing this and go eat". However, I must add at this point that I think
that the sense of "ought" that I express in (4) *may* not fully capture
what you intend in "I ought to stop doing this and go eat".
No, I don't intend more than that. I agree that there is no Moral
feature to the situation as I put it. That is why I chose it. It seems
to me that this may be illustrative of there being a meaningful way to
use "ought" as descriptive of attitude that does not involve Moral
valuation. (As to whether or not it involves "moral" as opposed to
"Moral" valuation, I guess that depends on how we want to take the
meaning of "moral". And as to the question of whether or not this can be
folded in on itself as believing I have a belief so that it is truth
liable, I can't say, because, frankly, I still haven't wrapped my head
around that.)
Okay. I think "ought" is perfectly meaningful in such contexts and it
has a perfectly normal (non-moral) use there.
[snip]
It doesn't seem very strange to me - but then maybe that's because I
think somewhat strangely a lot. :-)
Now if we did respond like that, what could the person say? Could they
even answer our question if we insist that they stop talking about
counterfactual cases involving themselves and, instead, talk only about
what right for us to do? They would be very puzzled indeed! Because if
we eliminate the counterfactual there really is *nothing* that the other
person can tell us about what we ought to do. This shows, I think, that
all moral pronouncements concerning others proceeds by way of
consideration of counterfactual scenarios about oneself - and they are
not, properly speaking, claims *about* anyone else! The same is true
when we think to ourselves "That father ought not do that to his son".
What we really think is that were I in that circumstance, I ought not to
do that.
This is why I placed emphasis on the *individual* acceptance of a norm
as equivalent to a belief. For me to accept a norm is for me to accept
the norm as a guide for what *I* sould do. I cannot accept a norm on
behalf of anyone else. Suppose that the norm is "don't torture babies" -
the resultant belief is "I ought not to torture babies" and this belief
(on my account) determines a subjective moral fact). My belief is not -
properly speaking - "torturing babies is wrong". The belief "torturing
babies is wrong" is simply the application of my subjective moral belief
(I ought not to torture babies) to the counterfactual scenario of me
being an arbitrary other person: I believe that were I any arbitrary
other person, it would be wrong for me to torture babies. And *that* is
a subjective moral fact - but it is a counterfactual moral fact about *me*.
MG
Seems right to me given the theory you are operating from. I think there
is, in practice, another important emotional feature that seems to
almost always go along with this counterfactual "imagining" - a desire
to project one's preference beyond oneself - that is, a desire for
others to also accept the norm. And I think maybe it is somewhere in the
dynamics of those desires that the line can get blurred in people's
minds between a subjective sense of ought and an objective sense of
ought.
I wouldn't necessarily say that it is a *desire* to project one's
preference beyond oneself - I would rather suggest that the projection
of our values onto others is simply something that we do, entirely
automatically when we adopt moral attitudes. Rather than saying "I
desire that others accept my norms" I would prefer to say that we think
to ourselves "others ought to accept my norms". I'm not saying that we
don't desire that others accept our norms, I'm just saying that I think
that is not what ethics is about. Saying that there are no moral beliefs
(which saying that morality is not truth-liable entails) strikes me as
very counter-intuitive.
MG
.
|
|
|
| User: "Ted King" |
|
| Title: Re: Why people like Brian Bilek have no excuse. |
05 Apr 2004 10:50:02 PM |
|
|
In article <c4rgs6$kf2$3@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com> wrote:
Ted King wrote:
In article <c4orv0$g1d$2@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
Whenever two things are identical what's true of one is true of the
other. Well think about this - if I give you some money, do I give you
some attitude? Is there any part of my attitude towards the bits of
paper (or what have you) that somehow gets transferred with the bits of
paper? You have (I'll suppose) money in your bank account, but do you
have any attitude in your bank account? Surely not. So money is not the
same thing as attitude. The same point can be made the other way - do
you have any money in your head? What is clear is that money is
*dependent on* an attitude. I cannot give you money unless there are
people with the relevant attitudes to whatever I give you. Without those
attitudes all I give you are (say) pieces of paper with green ink on it.
I see your point, but I still wonder if this can be explained in terms
of attitude via the notion of intersubjective agreement.
Sure - I've no problem with that in the case of money. My point is that
money *is* neither simply pieces of paper nor *is* it simply attitudes
(mental states). We can *explain* it by appeal to attitudes, but money
*is not* those attitudes. The difference here is between what brings it
into existence (attitudes towards, say, objects) and what the thing
brought into existence *is* (neither an object nor an attitude).
If we have an
intersubjective agreement that a particular kind of paper with a
particular kind of printing symbolizes a value we are transferring from
one person to the another, then what is ontological status of the value?
It is a *fact*. I take facts to be actual states of affairs - that is
arrangements of things in various relations. Money is a fact constituted
by certain attitudes that people take to green-inked objects (and the
like). In this case, it would be an intersubjective fact. The point here
is that facts are neither identical with the objects nor with the
attitudes (that determine the relations).
Okay, this seems to have gotten down to one of those pretty fundamental
issues - in this case the nature of existence. I don't know enough about
different views on the nature of existence to discuss it with any
competence, but I have a hunch that your take on what a fact *is* is not
the only view. That said, it wouldn't surprise me, either, that there
may be wide consensus about it amongst metaphysicians (if that is narrow
enough field to be a specialty).
Is the "transfer" of value anything other than an attitude change
brought about by my subjective choice to enter into an intersubjective
agreement?
Yes. It isn't an attitude change, but it is entirely determined *by* an
attitude change.
It seems to me that a bunch of magnetic particles on a hard
drive storing information about symbols of the status of a bank account
are not "money".
I agree.
Does the presence of an attitude suddenly turn the
magnetic particles into money,
Yes.
or are the magnetic particles just
external information holders that are utilized to fascilitate a system
of intersubjective agreement?
Those particles hold information (about how much money you have) only in
virtue of the attitudes towards them.
(And the "money" in the intersubjective
agreement is in the mind of the subjects as attitude.)
I think that's just silly for the reasons above. Money really does
exist, and I really have no money in my mind. (I don't have much money
anywhere else, but that's another (depressing) story.)
(cliche mode on) If you are fortunate to have good friends and
activities that bring you joy, you have wealth in other ways. You
certainly have a life rich in ideas. (cliche mode off) :-)
[snip]
Now if we did respond like that, what could the person say? Could they
even answer our question if we insist that they stop talking about
counterfactual cases involving themselves and, instead, talk only about
what right for us to do? They would be very puzzled indeed! Because if
we eliminate the counterfactual there really is *nothing* that the other
person can tell us about what we ought to do. This shows, I think, that
all moral pronouncements concerning others proceeds by way of
consideration of counterfactual scenarios about oneself - and they are
not, properly speaking, claims *about* anyone else! The same is true
when we think to ourselves "That father ought not do that to his son".
What we really think is that were I in that circumstance, I ought not to
do that.
This is why I placed emphasis on the *individual* acceptance of a norm
as equivalent to a belief. For me to accept a norm is for me to accept
the norm as a guide for what *I* sould do. I cannot accept a norm on
behalf of anyone else. Suppose that the norm is "don't torture babies" -
the resultant | | | | | | |
