“Universal values” is usually understood by way of an analogy to a universal law of nature. If there are universal values they are universal in the same way f=ma is universal. Importantly this does not mean that everyone at all times will have these values, only that the question of whether or not a person holds the right values can be answered by comparing their values to the “universal values”.
There is a separate question about what beliefs about morality people (or more generally, agents) actually hold and there is another question about what values they will hold if when their beliefs converge when they engulf the universe. The question of whether or not there are universal values does not traditionally bear on what beliefs people actually hold and the necessity of their holding them. It could be the case that there are universal values and that, by physical necessity, no one ever holds them. Similarly, there could be universal values that are held in some possible worlds and not others. This is all the result of the simply observation that ought cannot be derived from is. In the above comment you conflate about a half dozen distinct theses.
The idea that physics makes no mention of morality seems totally and utterly irrelevant to me. Physics makes no mention of convection, diffusion-limited aggregation, or fractal drainage patterns either—yet those things are all universal.
But all those things are pure descriptions. Only moral facts have prescriptive properties and while it is clear how convection supervenes on quarks it isn’t clear how anything that supervenes on quarks could also tell me what to do. At the very least if quarks can tell you what to do it would be weird and spooky. If you hold that morality is only the set of facts that describe people’s moral opinions and emotions (as you seem to) than you are a kind of moral anti-realist, likely a subjectivist or non-cognitivist.
There is a separate question about what beliefs about morality people (or more generally, agents) actually hold and there is another question about what values they will hold if when their beliefs converge when they engulf the universe.
This is poetry! Hope you don’t mind me pasting something here I wrote in another thread:
“With unobjectionable values I mean those that would not automatically and eventually lead to one’s extinction. Or more precisely: a utility function becomes irrational when it is intrinsically self limiting in the sense that it will eventually lead to ones inability to generate further utility. Thus my suggested utility function of ‘ensure continued co-existence’
This utility function seems to be the only one that does not end in the inevitable termination of the maximizer.”
“Universal values” is usually understood by way of an analogy to a universal law of nature. If there are universal values they are universal in the same way f=ma is universal. Importantly this does not mean that everyone at all times will have these values, only that the question of whether or not a person holds the right values can be answered by comparing their values to the “universal values”.
There is a separate question about what beliefs about morality people (or more generally, agents) actually hold and there is another question about what values they will hold if when their beliefs converge when they engulf the universe. The question of whether or not there are universal values does not traditionally bear on what beliefs people actually hold and the necessity of their holding them. It could be the case that there are universal values and that, by physical necessity, no one ever holds them. Similarly, there could be universal values that are held in some possible worlds and not others. This is all the result of the simply observation that ought cannot be derived from is. In the above comment you conflate about a half dozen distinct theses.
But all those things are pure descriptions. Only moral facts have prescriptive properties and while it is clear how convection supervenes on quarks it isn’t clear how anything that supervenes on quarks could also tell me what to do. At the very least if quarks can tell you what to do it would be weird and spooky. If you hold that morality is only the set of facts that describe people’s moral opinions and emotions (as you seem to) than you are a kind of moral anti-realist, likely a subjectivist or non-cognitivist.
Excellent, excellent point Jack.
This is poetry! Hope you don’t mind me pasting something here I wrote in another thread:
“With unobjectionable values I mean those that would not automatically and eventually lead to one’s extinction. Or more precisely: a utility function becomes irrational when it is intrinsically self limiting in the sense that it will eventually lead to ones inability to generate further utility. Thus my suggested utility function of ‘ensure continued co-existence’
This utility function seems to be the only one that does not end in the inevitable termination of the maximizer.”