For example, if you and I both consider a practice morally right and we do so because it measures up that way against the standard of improving ‘the well-being of conscious creatures,’ then there’s a bit more going on than it just being right for you and me.
OK, but what I want to know is how you react to some person -whose belief system is internally consistent- who has just, say, committed a gratuitous murder. Are you committed to saying that there are no objective grounds to sanction him—there is no sense in which he ought not to have done what he did (assuming his belief system doesn’t inveigh against him offending yours)?
Or, to put the point another way, isn’t having truth as its goal part of the concept of belief? [...] But if this is fair I’m back to wondering where the ought comes from.
Perhaps it comes from the way you view the concept of belief as implying a goal?
Touche.
Look, what I’m getting at is this. I assume we can agree that
“68 + 57 = 125” is true if and only if 68 + 57 = 125
This being the case, if A, seriously pondering the nature of the compulsion behind mathematical judgement, should ask, “Why ought I to believe that 68 + 57 = 125?”, and B answers, “Because it’s true”, then B is not really saying anything beyond, “Because it does”. B does not answer A’s question.
If the substantive answer is something along the lines that it is a mathematical fact, then I am interested to know how you conceive of mathematical facts, and whether there mightn’t be moral facts of generally the same ilk (or if not, why). But if you want somehow to reduce this to subjective goals, then it looks to me that mathematics falls by the wayside—you’ll surely allow this looks pretty dubious at least superficially.
OK, but what I want to know is how you react to some person -whose belief system is internally consistent- who has just, say, committed a gratuitous murder. Are you committed to saying that there are no objective grounds to sanction him—there is no sense in which he ought not to have done what he did (assuming his belief system doesn’t inveigh against him offending yours)?
Touche.
Look, what I’m getting at is this. I assume we can agree that
“68 + 57 = 125” is true if and only if 68 + 57 = 125
This being the case, if A, seriously pondering the nature of the compulsion behind mathematical judgement, should ask, “Why ought I to believe that 68 + 57 = 125?”, and B answers, “Because it’s true”, then B is not really saying anything beyond, “Because it does”. B does not answer A’s question.
If the substantive answer is something along the lines that it is a mathematical fact, then I am interested to know how you conceive of mathematical facts, and whether there mightn’t be moral facts of generally the same ilk (or if not, why). But if you want somehow to reduce this to subjective goals, then it looks to me that mathematics falls by the wayside—you’ll surely allow this looks pretty dubious at least superficially.