tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post8009654593941196184..comments2023-10-26T22:06:11.166+11:00Comments on Metamagician3000: Carroll on Carrier on moral ontologyRussell Blackfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-38221709305586605852011-03-22T12:26:49.153+11:002011-03-22T12:26:49.153+11:00@Brian: I liked your first comment too. LOL.@Brian: I liked your first comment too. LOL.GTChristiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14390368105725901371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-34362384813535768282011-03-20T19:58:46.974+11:002011-03-20T19:58:46.974+11:00I wouldn't be quite as harsh as GT, but I agre...I wouldn't be quite as harsh as GT, but I agree that Carrier is not a serious or sophisticated philosopher, and I don't think he should be lauded as if he were. He might have some interesting insights to offer in certain philosophical areas, but I haven't observed that to be the case. In my estimation (see <a href="http://specterofreason.blogspot.com/2011/03/richard-carrier-on-moral-realism.html" rel="nofollow">here</a> and <a href="http://specterofreason.blogspot.com/2010/06/naturalism-defined.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>), he confuses rather than elucidates basic concepts. I think his errors are serious enough to be pointed out, though, if only because he has an audience that should know better.Jason Streitfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06950357341620206095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-16030750848183847402011-03-20T16:11:39.853+11:002011-03-20T16:11:39.853+11:00I feel the same way about Carrier's piece; it ...I feel the same way about Carrier's piece; it is irredeemably awful in every way. <br /><br />He keeps it interesting by intermixing many types of flawed reasoning with incorrect premises, making it hard to tell at a glance if any given sentence is out of place because its somehow wrong, a non-sequitur, or one of several strands of argument carelessly tangled into a Gordian knot, as if woven by a drunken spider playing cat's cradle with a tumbleweed.Brianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11958115795753496384noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-9123820990664840222011-03-19T22:47:15.208+11:002011-03-19T22:47:15.208+11:00Well I don't usually rant but sheesh. On the b...Well I don't usually rant but sheesh. On the bright side, at least the world is not made safe for Moral Realism on <i>this</i> argument. =DGTChristiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14390368105725901371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-84918708234209607472011-03-19T21:21:47.776+11:002011-03-19T21:21:47.776+11:00Wow, GT - that sure sounds harsh. I do want to get...Wow, GT - that sure sounds harsh. I do want to get back to the detail of the article, though I'd rather read the version in the book, which will presumably be tighter.<br /><br />Again, I think his approach is going to take him to some sort of relativism or else to something like Mackean error theory, because he has no non-circular way of guaranteeing total convergence after rational reflection.<br /><br />Now, some people want to call relativist theories of the kind that he is (in my estimation) going to be forced towards "moral realist" theories. I think that's misleading. But be that as it may, I don't see how he can a plausible <i>objective</i> morality out of this.Russell Blackfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-33895135459894696642011-03-19T21:13:00.249+11:002011-03-19T21:13:00.249+11:00To take it a bit further, I have no difficulty at ...To take it a bit further, I have no difficulty at all with morality being built on desire sets (or purposes) that are extremely common or virtually universal among human beings - so much so that we talk about "needs" rather than "desires". In fact, I think that's what they typically are built on. E.g., we need some level of social peace to achieve most of our desires, including our desire to live with a degree of security.<br /><br />We do need oxygen. Although strictly speaking I'd say that oxygen is something we require for a purpose or to meet a desire - the purpose of continuing to live or the desire to stay alive! Needs are relative to some kind of requirement that we have. So when I say, "I need X", someone can reply "What do you need it <i>for</i>?" asking me what goal it will help me meet, or what desire it will fulfil, or what purpose I will use it for. In some cases, I may need it just for my survival.<br /><br />My problem is with the idea of something that transcends these needs and desires - something that <i>just is</i> valuable, not valuable <i>to</i> someone or <i>for some purpose</i>, or whatever.<br /><br />For example, if some kind of behaviour, say phi-ing, is going to cut off the supply of oxygen to us all, sure, we'd all assess that behaviour as "bad". Phi-ing is massively counterproductive to very basic and universal desires or purposes or "needs", and I'd expect every society's moral code to have a rule that forbids phi-ing or drastically restricts it.<br /><br />Similarly, all societies have at least some restrictions, usually pretty severe ones, on killing members of the in-group. Without that sort of restriction we'd miss out on the basic security that we need for our peace of mind and all sorts of other things.Russell Blackfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-89092645944164004582011-03-19T20:55:52.955+11:002011-03-19T20:55:52.955+11:00Oxygen is valuable to us insofar as we wish to sta...Oxygen is valuable to us insofar as we wish to stay alive. It's not valuable to any possible rational creature and it's not valuable to someone who doesn't wish to stay alive. It's valuable relative to a desire set.Russell Blackfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-90852542127140799592011-03-19T16:51:36.087+11:002011-03-19T16:51:36.087+11:00Actually, I find nothing at all mysterious about t...Actually, I find nothing at all mysterious about the notion of something being objectively valuable to humans as humans: oxygen, for example. We are organisms with needs, and our opinions and ideas have bugger all to do with those facts. The tricky part is finding that which is both objectively valuable *and* a sensible basis for what we want from ethical theory (which was the problematic open question I raised last week).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-44890639879959229152011-03-19T13:16:27.679+11:002011-03-19T13:16:27.679+11:00i just read that whole carrier piece and cannot be...i just read that whole carrier piece and cannot believe how awful it is. simply from the standpoint of rhetoric, it is unclear, repetitious, full of non-sequiturs, jumps around, and is generally undisciplined as argumentative exposition. for a writer who claims to be a physicalist, this character is the worst kind of metaphysician: let us treat words as actual things, and then let the words do things that real objects cannot do. He's like Hegel!<br /><br />moreover in the argument itself, despite diminishing the idea that the greatest part of valuation or morality is cultural (and thus relative), he repeatedly references the cultural milieu surrounding various kinds of value. it's all mixed up! there's a word for this kind of thing, and it's not philosophy. i'm sorry to snark on a PHD, but the word i have in mind starts with b-u-l and ends with h-i-t. <br /><br />it is unbelievable that anyone would elevate that article by treating it as worthy of serious response. it is so confused, simply trying to make sense of it well enough to critique it is a complete waste of time. "Moral Realism" AGAIN?<br /><br />the contortions! the twisted logic! join the circus!GTChristiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14390368105725901371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-79147166410555793732011-03-19T10:07:50.223+11:002011-03-19T10:07:50.223+11:00I see. Well, yeah, true. But most of the people wh...I see. Well, yeah, true. But most of the people who seem to have relativist views that have not been deeply developed seem to see it in terms of societies or cultures. But yes, it could be some other group.<br /><br />I think it's more psychologically attractive at the level of cultures and societies because people imagine that it gives a mandate non-interference with other societies/cultures. That seems to be an important part of the attraction - it connects up with a certain kind of inter-cultural tolerance, etc., which may or may not be desirable.Russell Blackfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-81683307371466220912011-03-19T02:16:46.097+11:002011-03-19T02:16:46.097+11:00I see. What I was expecting to see was "onese...I see. What I was expecting to see was "oneself", "one's group" or "the group of people who are in agreement" rather than "one's society".<br /><br />With "the group of people who are in agreement", reflection could possibly make one no longer a part of that group, effectively nullifying the reason to go along with it.Svlad Cjellinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-15833548864674055132011-03-18T16:31:57.477+11:002011-03-18T16:31:57.477+11:00@Anonymous
"...desires, which are more-or-le...@Anonymous<br /><br /><i>"...desires, which are more-or-less by definition individual..."</i><br /><br />I'm not so sure that they are, exactly.Brianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11958115795753496384noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-44667728804714412752011-03-18T16:29:25.952+11:002011-03-18T16:29:25.952+11:00"So even after full rational reflection you m...<i>"So even after full rational reflection you might continue to evaluate car X as "better" than car Y and I might continue to evaluate car Y as better than car X. Both of us may be perfectly rational, and there is no truth as to which of us is correct."</i><br /><br />Neither position "about the cars" is correct. In fact, neither is a position about the cars; both are incoherent as stated or at least incomplete. It's true you may believe that you believe "car Y as better than car X," but this is an wrong belief about a belief, not a belief about cars. As a belief about cars what you stated would be incoherent.<br /><br /><i>"But people do differ and in the end there will always be room for rational disagreement about which is "better" - The Satanic Verses or The Lord of the Rings?"</i><br /><br />The word "better" has insufficient content to have meaning, there is no room for rational disagreement about any specific meaning of "better" once the necessary context is filled in. Our brains are used to saving sentences from meaninglessness by filling in the most obvious meaning from context. Here, none of several meanings is most obvious.<br /><br />The ambiguity is in the word "better", not reality. The ambiguity is in the map, not the territory.<br /><br />About cars, the only correct beliefs of two perfect rationalists Russell and Brian may well be: <br /><br />"The same car is better for both Russel and Brian according to Russell," "The Mazda is better for Russel according to Russell," "The Honda is better for Brian according to Russell," "The same car is better for both Russel and Brian according to Brian," "The Mazda is better for Russel according to Brian," "The Honda is better for Brian according to Brian," are false.<br /><br />"Different cars are better for Russel and Brian according to Russell," "The Mazda is better for Brian according to Russell," "The Honda is better for Russel according to Russell," "Different cars are better for Russel and Brian according to Brian," "The Mazda is better for Brian according to Brian," "The Honda is better for Russel according to Brian," are true.<br /><br />"Neither car is the better car according to R or B," "Neither car is the square circle car according to R or B," "Neither car is the vital dualist epicyclic luminiferous aether car according to R or B," "Neither car is the dfsgsdh car according to R or B," are true.<br /><br />"<i>"The Mazda is the better car," "The Honda is the better car," "Both cars are better," are all incoherent according to R and B.</i>" is true.<br /><br />"No perfect rationalist believes <i>'The Mazda is the better car,' 'The Honda is the better car,' or 'Both cars are better,'</i> regardless of how much information he or she has" according to Russell and Brian. Etc. for other beliefs about beliefs.<br /><br />"Perfect rationalists with identical information will reach the same conclusion," is true.<br /><br />"<i>'Perfect rationalists with identical information will reach the same conclusion,'</i> is true according to R and B ," is true. Etc.Brianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11958115795753496384noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-90734961405047419692011-03-18T14:07:26.677+11:002011-03-18T14:07:26.677+11:00GF, the problem is that I just don't find this...GF, the problem is that I just don't find this idea of something being "objectively valuable" intelligible. To me, something could only be "objectively valuable" if someone who fails to value it is thereby making some sort of mistake about the world or perhaps committing something like a logical error. But I don't see how that can ever be the case. <br /><br />Someone who is fully informed about the world and making no logical error can always ask why she should value something that she just doesn't value - and if, <i>ex hypothesi</i> - she cannot be answered with any facts about the world that she already lacks or with any critique of her reasoning process, she gets to say of anything that we do manage to tell her, "What is that to me?"<br /><br />What if we tell her that something <i>just is</i> valuable, and her failure to appreciate this is the mistake she's making about the world? But this just seems circular. She wants to know what it is that she has wrong, and if that's all we can tell her, we haven't advanced. And by this point the claim that something has this extra property of just being "objectively valuable" sounds downright spooky - I can't get any grip on what it now amounts to. <br /><br />And she can always reply, "Fine, if you say so. But I'm going to go on not valuing it." And when she does that, it's hard to see how she is doing anything wrong (in the sense of mistaken). Certainly she's not making any mistake of instrumental reasoning - she's not doing anything that is somehow counterproductive to her own goals, which don't at all involve obtaining or furthering or respecting or whatevering this thing. So why should she care about our claim? What more is there that we can say to compel her to care about this thing that we've described as "objectively valuable"? If we say "its objective value", again that's circular. She replies, "Whatever," and goes on not caring.<br /><br />I don't think there's any such thing as objective value. We project our evaluations onto the world.<br /><br />There are objective properties of things. There are things and properties of things that are widely valued. There are mutual agreements to treat certain things as having value ("I'll place a value your life if you place a value on mine"). But again, I can make no sense of the further claim that there is this property of being objectively valuable.Russell Blackfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-61286187600018592782011-03-18T13:42:52.313+11:002011-03-18T13:42:52.313+11:00Svlad - it looks to me as if vulgar moral relativi...Svlad - it looks to me as if vulgar moral relativists are committed to something like what I said. I.e. I'm thinking of someone who thinks "morally good" just means "required or encouraged in the culture concerned", but still thinks that terms like "morally good" are action-guiding. If you take that view, it looks to me as if you can reflect all you like but at the end of the day you are supposed to follow the moral code of your own society.<br /><br />But there's a question, I suppose, as to whether anyone has a view <i>that</i> vulgar when you push them. I suspect that most people who seem to be vulgar moral relativists actually have something else going on.Russell Blackfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-33136409229825181752011-03-18T13:23:35.919+11:002011-03-18T13:23:35.919+11:00Sorry, Jason - I misread your comment to say that ...Sorry, Jason - I misread your comment to say that I agree with Carrier, and so misunderstood waht you were getting at. My bad. <br /><br />You actually wrote that I agree with Sean. Yes, basically I do. But I still think we can have these "practical syllogisms" without needing to write in each time:<br /><br />P. It is instrumentally rational to do that which conduces to your desires.<br /><br />What I think we should do is adopt a logical rule (like modus ponens or modus tollens, or whatever) enabling us to go from a premise about desires and a premise about an action conducing to the satisfaction of desires to a conclusion about what it is instrumentally rational to do (and what you "ought" to do in that sense).<br /><br />I suppose you could work with a rule that says you're always entitled to write in Sean's extra premise. They come to the same thing and it looks to me as if you could have two systems of practical logic that handle it in different ways (just as there are different but more or less equivalent systems of first-order propositional calulus).<br /><br />There's doubtless lots of formal work done on this somewhere, but I'm no logician beyond undergraduate standard, so it's not something I'd know about.Russell Blackfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-81306360070574109202011-03-18T13:16:56.373+11:002011-03-18T13:16:56.373+11:00The way you frame this argument depends rather hea...The way you frame this argument depends rather heavily on a somewhat hidden assumption: You seem to be presuming -- without any argument stated here, although I suspect that you could provide arguments when pressed -- that the only value claim premises available are desires, which are more-or-less by definition individual and subjective and therefore only a basis for instrumental ought claims. However, such an assumption rules out in advance the possibility that there are states of affairs which are <i>objectively</i>, as a matter of fact, valuable to any and every human being, whether or not any particular human happens to <i>subjectively</i> value them or recognize them as valuable.<br /><br />The primary problem with Harris' argument is that he consistently muddles the distinction between what is subjectively valued and what is objectively valuable. The problem with your argument is that it is not clear what your basis is for ruling out the very possibility of states of affairs which are objectively valuable to humans irrespective of our desires (which, I think, is what must be ruled out for error theory to be justified). I'm not saying you do not have or cannot produce such an argument; but I have not seen any evidence of such an argument in the many posts you've made in recent months on ethical and metaethical matters.<br /><br />G FelisAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-90985113487769511302011-03-18T13:10:37.851+11:002011-03-18T13:10:37.851+11:00It applies to other things as well - e.g. the stan...It applies to other things as well - e.g. the standards that are used by the Booker Prize jury are not just arbitrary. But that doesn't mean that whatever they decide each year is binding on everyone else, regardless of what it is that we actually want from a novel.<br /><br />Aficianados of novels do, in fact, converge on a lot of agreement in what they want, as they become more sophisticated, but there's no reason to think that all these people will different starting points are going to converge in the end on exactly the same standards of excellence in a novel. So a Booker jury member may make judgments that are not just arbitrary, and may reflect a whole lot about what novels can do to meet the widespread desires of human beings. But people do differ and in the end there will always be room for rational disagreement about which is "better" - <i>The Satanic Verses</i> or <i>The Lord of the Rings</i>?<br /><br />In modern societies, most people more or less accept this about most evaluations, at least when pushed. But most people seem very disinclined to accept it about that set of evaluations that we call moral evaluations.Russell Blackfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-18847399045516727422011-03-18T12:55:51.101+11:002011-03-18T12:55:51.101+11:00I'm sure there's also a useful train of th...I'm sure there's also a useful train of thought in that example, Russell, if you substitute "car" for "piece of music." Certainly, I would like to cudgel some people over the head with it. jussayin.David Mnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-70401080086662715182011-03-18T12:01:55.009+11:002011-03-18T12:01:55.009+11:00Jason, how am I agreeing with Carrier? Aren't ...Jason, how am I agreeing with Carrier? Aren't I saying that you won't get all the way to a fully objective morality via this approach? I've been criticising this sort of moral rationalist position. But it's a very different position from the moral naturalist position that Harris defends, so of course the criticism isn't the same.<br /><br />But I've always thought that Michael Smith has a point, and I read Carrier as putting a version of the same argument. If we reflected rationally most of us would reach a lot of convergence on how to act in any circumstances, C. A lot of the disagreement is surely factual disagreement, inconsistencies in our individual desire sets, etc. But the idea that we'd reach full convergence from different starting points with different desire sets seems to me to be a leap of faith.<br /><br />Consider the car example, which I've used in the past and which Carrier also uses. If we think very carefully about what we want in a car, read road test reports, go for test drives, etc., we will reach a lot of convergence as to what we evaluate as a "good" car and what we evaluate as a "bad" car. Soem of may reach agreement that car X is better than car Y. But it's a leap of faith to think we'll all reach total convergence. For example, some of us just do value fuel economy more than performance, and vice versa. There's no reason to think that a lot of reflection on our desires and a lot of facts will change that. So even after full rational reflection you might continue to evaluate car X as "better" than car Y and I might continue to evaluate car Y as better than car X. Both of us may be perfectly rational, and there is no truth as to which of us is correct.<br /><br />To me, that's an anti-realist position about the goodness of cars. If someone else wants to call it a sophisticated realist position, or a revisionary realist position, well fine. It might be a matter of terminology, and that's not really what I care about. But whatever you call it, it's a position that says:<br /><br />1. Evaluations by Person A are not binding on person B who has a different desire set from Person A even after rational reflection.<br /><br />2. Evaluations of cars leave room for perfectly rational disagreement with no further truth as to who is right and wrong.<br /><br />3. But evaluations of cars can, nonetheless, be perfectly rational.<br /><br />4. When motoring writers, for example, judge the "Car of the Year" they are not using standards that are just arbitrary.<br /><br />If, however, people meant, when making evaluations of cars, that they were enunciating something like facts about the world, something that is objectively binding on others irrespective of their desire sets, they'd be saying something false every time they utter a car-evaluation. Car-evaluations never succeed in doing that. So if that were the correct semantics of car evaluations we'd have to adopt an error theory of car evaluations.Russell Blackfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-86606758283067833012011-03-18T09:24:48.597+11:002011-03-18T09:24:48.597+11:00Hmmm . . . Russell, it looks to me like you're...Hmmm . . . Russell, it looks to me like you're actually agreeing with Sean. Carrier's offering an argument for instrumental utility (in which case the premise "you don't want your car's engine to seize up" is taken to contain a proposition about rational choices, thus justifying the conclusion about instrumental rationality), and Sean is saying that you can't derive moral oughts that way. I think you agree that you can't derive moral oughts that way. So . . . you agree, right?Jason Streitfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06950357341620206095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-87572399930620468832011-03-18T07:36:45.692+11:002011-03-18T07:36:45.692+11:00"we ought to act in a way so as to make happe..."we ought to act in a way so as to make happen things we think ought to happen"<br /><br />This type of 'ought' comes up often when I'm trying to convince people that humans don't have metaphysical free will. To make the argument that we are essentially like robots following a program, I usually give an example like:<br /><br />Say you’re building a deck. You have a lot of screws to screw into the wood. You choose to use a screw gun to do this job instead of a screwdriver. Why did you choose the screw gun? Because it's easier. Why would you choose the easier option?<br /><br />"Uh... because it's <i>easier.</i>"<br /><br />Yes, but why do what's easier? If your goal is to build a deck quickly and effectively, why would you do the thing that is in line with your goals? <br /><br />"It's just common sense!"<br /><br />"Common sense," indeed. That is your program, I tell them. We are programmed to carry out the actions that are in line with our goals. The buck stops here. Saying that "Sean ought to oil his car's engine" or "it is instrumentally rational for Sean to oil his car's engine" is really just acknowledging - it seems to me - that humans naturally agree to a plan of action that is in line with our goals. Because what is the alternative? The alternative would be a person who has the choice between a screwdriver and a screw gun, knows that the latter will be infinitely easier and more effective, <i>wants</i> to get the job done quickly and easily, yet uses the screwdriver anyway! <i>That</i> would be some pretty inconvenient programming to have.<br /><br />So I see this "ought" as something like a verbal expression of a neural rule. "If your thoughts, knowledge, desires, goals, etc. point toward plan X, DO X."<br /><br />We just naturally accept that.<br /><br />I should clarify that I don't see this "ought" as having a whole lot to do with morality, as it is a kind of "logical ought" - different from a "you ought not murder people", which in its unqualified version involves no if/then statement.Tim Martinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-20841464619381858022011-03-18T05:11:02.067+11:002011-03-18T05:11:02.067+11:00My reading of Harris (and most moral realists I...My reading of Harris (and most moral realists I've encountered) is that he accepts the basic is-ought distinction, and isn't actually trying to bridge it, despite his high-level rhetoric.<br /><br />He's shot himself in the foot by saying that the is-ought distinction is bogus, but then arguing exactly as though he accepts it. His high-level rhetoric sucks---it's actually false---but what he's selling is mostly reasonable <i>modest</i> moral realism.<br /><br />His discussion of sociopaths is crucial. He's making it quite clear that he <i>doesn't</i> believe in absolute Objective Prescriptiveness---if you don't have any basic moral values, you can't get to them with logic from non-moral facts.Paul W.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13909647399634037101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-81608456026679328402011-03-18T04:23:32.761+11:002011-03-18T04:23:32.761+11:00Russell, to make your cleaned-up version of the ar...Russell, to make your cleaned-up version of the argument valid by the ordinary standards of logic, you obviously have to add the premise that you are taking as implicit:<br /><br />P3. It is instrumentally rational to do things that cause your desires to be fulfilled. (Or something along those lines.)<br /><br />Now, of course you can say that it is just a definition. If so, that's fine, but definitions can always be removed by replacing the term with its meaning. In which case, what you have actually proven is<br /><br />C''. In order for his desires to be fulfilled, Sean should oil his car's engine.<br /><br />Again, fine, but not all that interesting. The reason I'm being pedantic about this is even when your "oughts" are purely instrumental, logic dictates that some specification of what they are must be included in the premises of your argument. Just a demand of logic, irrespective of the substance of what we're talking about. Of course it really only becomes important or controversial when we start talking about morality, but if we can't get the logical underpinnings right there's not much hope for us.Sean Carrollhttp://cosmicvariance.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-50238443321965106282011-03-18T03:58:22.383+11:002011-03-18T03:58:22.383+11:00It seems possible to justify virtually any action ...It seems possible to justify virtually any action using the car/oil argument.<br /><br />For example:<br />- Henry is seen committing a serious crime.<br /><br />- If Henry allows the witness to live, he will go to jail. <br /><br />- Henry doesn't want to go to jail.<br /><br />- Henry ought to kill the witness.<br /><br />Essentially, the argument boils down to the premise Sean mentioned in his post, “We ought to do that which would bring about what we want.” How is that a moral argument unless you add additional value judgments on top?John Bicehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05002608577409173320noreply@blogger.com