What I’m trying to do is to make people question whether “All meaningful statements are reducible, by definition, to facts about the world”. I do this by proposing some categories which all meaningful statements are certainly NOT reducible by definition to.
For starters, what do these categories you mention contain? I didn’t notice them in the Flatland section—I guess I only saw the statements, and not the argument.
Beating up lukeprog’s “is and is not” doctrine is pretty easy but not very representative, I think.
The water argument seems to be more about CEV than reductionism of ethics, and is more convincing, but I think you hit a bit of a pothole when you contrast disagreeing about definitions with “disagree[ing] about what’s important” at the end. After all, they’re disagreeing about what’s “important,” since importance is something they assign to things and not an inherent property of the things. Maybe it would help to not call it “the definition of ‘should,’” but instead call it “the titanic moral algorithm.” I can see it now:
When people disagree about morals, it’s not that they disagree about the definition of “should”—after all, that’s deprecated terminology. No, they disagree about the titanic moral algorithm.
Neither do they disagree about the definition of “the definition of should” (at least not necessarily). So just substitute the right things for the right other things and you’re fine :P
Hm, no, I don’t see it yet. Help me with this:
For starters, what do these categories you mention contain? I didn’t notice them in the Flatland section—I guess I only saw the statements, and not the argument.
A. Nothing
B. Definitions & Logic
C. Also observations, not unobserved or unobservable differences
D. Just the past and present, not the future
which I compare to:
E. Just the physical world, not morality
Doesn’t seem very compelling, frankly.
Oh well. What about my other arguments? Also not compelling?
Less confusing, at least :P
Beating up lukeprog’s “is and is not” doctrine is pretty easy but not very representative, I think.
The water argument seems to be more about CEV than reductionism of ethics, and is more convincing, but I think you hit a bit of a pothole when you contrast disagreeing about definitions with “disagree[ing] about what’s important” at the end. After all, they’re disagreeing about what’s “important,” since importance is something they assign to things and not an inherent property of the things. Maybe it would help to not call it “the definition of ‘should,’” but instead call it “the titanic moral algorithm.” I can see it now:
When people disagree about morals, it’s not that they disagree about the definition of “should”—after all, that’s deprecated terminology. No, they disagree about the titanic moral algorithm.
Right. But they DON’T disagree about the definition of the titanic moral agorithm. They disagree about its nature.
Neither do they disagree about the definition of “the definition of should” (at least not necessarily). So just substitute the right things for the right other things and you’re fine :P