whilst I presume both [Eliezer and Robin] would deny that, in a case of moral disagreement about who has made the “error” and who has got it right, there is any objective truth of the matter.
I expect otherwise. There is a difference between who has got one’s preference right, and whose preference is right. The former is meaningful, the latter is not. Two people may prefer different solutions, and both be right, or they may give the same solution and only one of them will be wrong, and they can both agree on who is right or who is wrong in each of these cases. There is no objective truth about what is “objectively preferable”, but there is objective truth about what is preferable for a given person, and that person may have an incorrect belief about what that is.
What is preferable for a person here is a two-place word, while who is wrong is a one-place word about what is preferable.
(At least, approximately so, since you’d still need to interpret the two-place function of what is preferable for a given person yourself, adding your own preferences in the mix, but at least where the different people are concerned that influence is much less than the differences given by the person whose morality is being considered. Still, technically, it warrants the opposition to the idea of my-morality vs. your-morality.)
And then, there is the shared moral truth, on which most of the people’s preferences agree, but not necessarily what most of the people agree on if you ask them. This is the way in which moral truth is seen through noisy observations.
I expect otherwise. There is a difference between who has got one’s preference right, and whose preference is right. The former is meaningful, the latter is not. Two people may prefer different solutions, and both be right, or they may give the same solution and only one of them will be wrong, and they can both agree on who is right or who is wrong in each of these cases. There is no objective truth about what is “objectively preferable”, but there is objective truth about what is preferable for a given person, and that person may have an incorrect belief about what that is.
What is preferable for a person here is a two-place word, while who is wrong is a one-place word about what is preferable.
(At least, approximately so, since you’d still need to interpret the two-place function of what is preferable for a given person yourself, adding your own preferences in the mix, but at least where the different people are concerned that influence is much less than the differences given by the person whose morality is being considered. Still, technically, it warrants the opposition to the idea of my-morality vs. your-morality.)
And then, there is the shared moral truth, on which most of the people’s preferences agree, but not necessarily what most of the people agree on if you ask them. This is the way in which moral truth is seen through noisy observations.