I’m quite unconfident about this whole line of argument, and concerned that we’re heading for some moral conclusions based on appeals to this argument. If you have to get into odd discussions about the truth and meaning of mathematical entities to make a metaethical l argument, I doubt you have a good metaethical argument.
The funny thing is I consider morality subjective objective, just like yummyness. What is subjectively yummy to you is an objective fact about you, just as what is moral to you is an objective fact about you. If we run the You algorithm to evaluate yummyness of a root beer float, we’ll get an answer, depending on a lot of state variables about you. Similarly, we can run your moral algorithm to evaluate a person’s actions, and depending on a lot of state variables, we’ll get an answer there too. Both answers are objective facts about the subjective you.
I’m quite unconfident about this whole line of argument, and concerned that we’re heading for some moral conclusions based on appeals to this argument. If you have to get into odd discussions about the truth and meaning of mathematical entities to make a metaethical l argument, I doubt you have a good metaethical argument.
I don’t know about that. People continually make metaethical mistakes by assuming that “morality is defined by your brain” is the same as “morality is about your brain”, and draw all kinds of faulty conclusions, like that unless there’s a stone tablet somewhere out in space with the Thousand Commandments of Morality written on it, it must be okay for people—in different societies, with different beliefs—to torture children if they want to (because hey, if morality isn’t objective it must be relative, right?). That’s exactly the error being talked about here, collapsing levels, and I think it’s kind of an important one, metaethically.
Not arguing against what you said, but on your view, what, if anything, distinguishes morality from yumminess? Aren’t they, as you describe them, just “what I like”, applied to different classes of things, morality being about dealings with other people and yumminess being about food and drink?
I want to get to the end of the metaethics sequence before pontificating too much, but I’ll say a little.
What is yummy? A sense of taste, an evaluation of a particular sensory modality which impels action—eat more.
What is scary? Well, also an evaluation, but not confined to a particular sensory modality. It’s an evaluation of threat, a fairly complex evaluation, and it impels action too—fight or flight.
What is moral? The moral sense also evaluates—it evaluates the actions and attitudes of people, and it also impels action—attitudes and reward or punishment, for actions, for attitudes about actions, for properly rewarding/punishing actions, for properly rewarding/punishing attitudes about actions, …
I’m quite unconfident about this whole line of argument, and concerned that we’re heading for some moral conclusions based on appeals to this argument. If you have to get into odd discussions about the truth and meaning of mathematical entities to make a metaethical l argument, I doubt you have a good metaethical argument.
The funny thing is I consider morality subjective objective, just like yummyness. What is subjectively yummy to you is an objective fact about you, just as what is moral to you is an objective fact about you. If we run the You algorithm to evaluate yummyness of a root beer float, we’ll get an answer, depending on a lot of state variables about you. Similarly, we can run your moral algorithm to evaluate a person’s actions, and depending on a lot of state variables, we’ll get an answer there too. Both answers are objective facts about the subjective you.
I don’t know about that. People continually make metaethical mistakes by assuming that “morality is defined by your brain” is the same as “morality is about your brain”, and draw all kinds of faulty conclusions, like that unless there’s a stone tablet somewhere out in space with the Thousand Commandments of Morality written on it, it must be okay for people—in different societies, with different beliefs—to torture children if they want to (because hey, if morality isn’t objective it must be relative, right?). That’s exactly the error being talked about here, collapsing levels, and I think it’s kind of an important one, metaethically.
Not arguing against what you said, but on your view, what, if anything, distinguishes morality from yumminess? Aren’t they, as you describe them, just “what I like”, applied to different classes of things, morality being about dealings with other people and yumminess being about food and drink?
I want to get to the end of the metaethics sequence before pontificating too much, but I’ll say a little.
What is yummy? A sense of taste, an evaluation of a particular sensory modality which impels action—eat more.
What is scary? Well, also an evaluation, but not confined to a particular sensory modality. It’s an evaluation of threat, a fairly complex evaluation, and it impels action too—fight or flight.
What is moral? The moral sense also evaluates—it evaluates the actions and attitudes of people, and it also impels action—attitudes and reward or punishment, for actions, for attitudes about actions, for properly rewarding/punishing actions, for properly rewarding/punishing attitudes about actions, …