What a fascinating concept.
I had honestly never considered the possibility that metaphorical language might be an indicator of falsehood.
It's not exactly an indicator of falsehood. The inability to state what one means non-metaphorically, however, does raise red flags.
And yeah...I just used a metaphor here.
It's a good counter-example, because I can state what "red flags" means in non-metaphorical terms if I so choose. Before realizing that it was a good counter-example, I opted for the "red flags" metaphor because it was a concise means of communicating what I meant, and I figured you were familiar with the meaning. But if all we had to go on was "red flags" without a pre-existing understanding of what it's supposed to mean, then it'd be reasonable for you to challenge me on it and ask what I meant. If I couldn't explain it outside of the metaphor, then you'd be justified in suggesting that I don't know what I'm talking about.
I an a deep lover of myth and poetry. I have taken many metaphors as central truths in my life. It's hard to conceive of doing anything else.
Metaphors
are useful tools of understanding. They can sometimes convey meaning much more effectively than literal speech could - both to other people, and to ourselves. But the meaning has to come before the metaphor, in order for the metaphor to be meaningful.
I'd also never considered "objective value" incoherent.
It's one of those things we tend to take for granted until it's broken down and analyzed.
Perhaps, but that's equally true of subjective morality
Not so. Because while objective values
[1] may or may not exist, subjective values definitely
do exist. That's what humans hold to.
We have subjective moral opinions. The existence of objective values would not mean that subjective values don't exist. It would only mean that subjective values could be verified as true or false.
[2]the condition of morality mirrors (shows likeness to) the condition of the self.
You and I are ignorant of final objective morals, so I assume that means something about me, while you assume that means something about all of morality
No. I conclude it based on the fact that "final objective morals" is an incoherent idea. Even if it weren't, though, what I would conclude about something that we are inescapably ignorant of, is that it is irrelevant to our existence. In this case, there is no reason to believe that such "final objective morals" have anything to do with what we humans generally understand as "morality".
So then what is the purpose of this argument against the bible that was being spun ont he early pages of this board?
If it's nonsense to make moral judgments relatave to no held values, than to what are you appealing when you tell a christian their Gos is immoral?
To held values, obviously. Held by the writer, and ideally by the one being written to. Try to make a moral argument to someone by appealing to values they don't hold. It's not at all effective, is it?
I would think my personal feelings are more analogous to my judgement of a persons race based on the sense data I receive from my eyes. Rather than that data itself
Then going with the analogy, what
is analogous to "the data itself", in terms of moral values? Is there even anything that fits, in your analogy - other than your personal feelings?
I may be around this board for some time. Are you prepared to have this quoted back to you?
Now that I read what I said, it did sound pretty rude, didn't it? Sorry about that. But to answer your question: Yes, absolutely, if it's applicable. See my first quote-reply of this post - if
all we have is a metaphor, then we probably don't really know what we're talking about. If I really do seem to be using a metaphor whose meaning I don't understand myself, then by all means call me on it. I'm not always right, eh?
Unless of course you are attempting to forward an argument that objectivity is incoherent. In which case I'm all ears
Nah. I never said that objectivity is incoherent in general. In fact, I may have overstated my case, because objective
values are not incoherent in every sense, either. All possible valuations can be said to exist objectively in the Platonic sense, just like every math equation in every system of mathematics can be said to exist objectively, in the Platonic sense. And a subjective valuation by a human being does exist objectively, because the human's brain that's engaged in the valuation exists objectively. But that's not what you mean by "objective value", is it? You meant specific valuations being objectively true while others are false, right?
The problem with that, is that valuations don't resolve as true or false in the first place. We can ask things
about a value - for example, is human survival valued positively in value-set X? - and that will return a true or false value. But the valuation itself is an action, not an assertion. Human survival
is valued positively. Other than how and whether they're happening, actions cannot be true or false. That would be a category error, and yield an incoherent statement.
Ahh... yes that's true.
Granted
So...that's a problem, though, isn't it?
Because if your values might just as well not have anything to do with "objective morality", and my values might just as well not have anything to do with "objective morality", then what does "objective morality" have to do with what we consider to be morality in the first place?
