I don’t think that’s true (and it doesn’t sound like a tautology either). For example, Aristotle has a moral system, and in it, he endorses slavery. Suppose slavery is evil. From this, we can say ‘his moral system, insofar as it endorses slavery, is evil’. Another way to put that would be ‘Aristotle’s moral system is immoral.’
Is that true? I think it’s at least in the ball park. In any case, it’s not a contradiction, which the denial of a tautology would be. It sounds to me like ‘moral systems are tautological’ is just kind of an incoherent claim. I can’t even tell what the thought is supposed to be.
Wait, how did you get from the original claim to there?
The original claim should go: “All moral[2] systems are good” or “All moral[1] systems lie somewhere on the spectrum of goodness and badness.”
I mean, you could certainly argue that all “good systems are tautological”, in a sense. You’d be saying that good and bad are defined solely by the speaker, and when I say that “murder is bad”, it is only “bad” because I define it as so. What you’d really be saying is that all moral systems are tautological (as in, they do not represent objective statements about the universe, and are arbitrarily defined).
But that statement doesn’t follow from the original claim, does it?
The point that he is making is that even though morality is arbitrarily defined, it is important that moral systems map onto real world things.
For example, if you are a utilitarian you’ve arbitrarily decided that you want to maximize utility, But you aren’t done yet—“increasing utility” has got to actually mean something. Where/what is the utility, in the real world? How can you know if you have increased or decreased net utility?
Or, if you are a religious person and are against “sin”… What does sin look like, in the real world? How can you measure sin? Etc....
Or, if you are a paper-clip maximizes...what exactly constitutes a paperclip?
There are no “utility” molecules, or “sin” molecules, or “paperclip” molecules. None of these things have coherent, ontologically fundamental definitions—they exist largely in your own head. You yourself must try to figure out what these things are in the real world, if you plan on using them in your moral systems.
In other words, there’s got to be a conceptual umbilical chord connecting arbitrarily defined morality to things that happen in the world. It can’t just be an abstract system … it has to consider meat and neurons and circuits, it has to answer hard questions like “what is a person” and “what is pain and pleasure” before it’s complete.
I see. I disagree with the claim, but I think I do understand it now. Thanks for taking the time to explain (and for being so patient with my incredulity).
I don’t think that’s true (and it doesn’t sound like a tautology either). For example, Aristotle has a moral system, and in it, he endorses slavery. Suppose slavery is evil. From this, we can say ‘his moral system, insofar as it endorses slavery, is evil’. Another way to put that would be ‘Aristotle’s moral system is immoral.’
Is that true? I think it’s at least in the ball park. In any case, it’s not a contradiction, which the denial of a tautology would be. It sounds to me like ‘moral systems are tautological’ is just kind of an incoherent claim. I can’t even tell what the thought is supposed to be.
Oh, that’s just a case of two words sounding the same (like “I can” vs “pick up the can”).
Aristotle’s moral[1] system is immoral [2].
Moral[1] - of or pertaining to good and bad
Moral[2] - good
“Aristotle’s system of identifying good and bad is not good”.
Ah! Okay, so the original claim should be read as something like “All good systems are tautological”.
...Could you explain what that means?
Wait, how did you get from the original claim to there?
The original claim should go: “All moral[2] systems are good” or “All moral[1] systems lie somewhere on the spectrum of goodness and badness.”
I mean, you could certainly argue that all “good systems are tautological”, in a sense. You’d be saying that good and bad are defined solely by the speaker, and when I say that “murder is bad”, it is only “bad” because I define it as so. What you’d really be saying is that all moral systems are tautological (as in, they do not represent objective statements about the universe, and are arbitrarily defined).
But that statement doesn’t follow from the original claim, does it?
Well, the original claim I got confused about was this:
So do you think the original claim is saying that (to some extent) all moral statements are arbitrarily defined?
Yeah, I do think that is what the author meant.
The point that he is making is that even though morality is arbitrarily defined, it is important that moral systems map onto real world things.
For example, if you are a utilitarian you’ve arbitrarily decided that you want to maximize utility, But you aren’t done yet—“increasing utility” has got to actually mean something. Where/what is the utility, in the real world? How can you know if you have increased or decreased net utility?
Or, if you are a religious person and are against “sin”… What does sin look like, in the real world? How can you measure sin? Etc....
Or, if you are a paper-clip maximizes...what exactly constitutes a paperclip?
There are no “utility” molecules, or “sin” molecules, or “paperclip” molecules. None of these things have coherent, ontologically fundamental definitions—they exist largely in your own head. You yourself must try to figure out what these things are in the real world, if you plan on using them in your moral systems.
In other words, there’s got to be a conceptual umbilical chord connecting arbitrarily defined morality to things that happen in the world. It can’t just be an abstract system … it has to consider meat and neurons and circuits, it has to answer hard questions like “what is a person” and “what is pain and pleasure” before it’s complete.
I see. I disagree with the claim, but I think I do understand it now. Thanks for taking the time to explain (and for being so patient with my incredulity).