I see the confusion.
For once I will learn my lesson and attempt to explain to you plainly without another analogy to explain this analogy
They are not identical statements, but they are the same kind of statement, or the same order of statement. Both refer to Beliefs which are either true or false, they simply concern different aspects of the subject in question which in this case is the holocaust.
That much makes sense. You do acknowledge that "I belive X exists" and "I believe that X is good" talk about two different aspects of X, though, right? Let's refer back to the original point of confusion:
I do not believe in the "death penalty" in the sense that i think it is a good thing for governments to do. and neither do i believe in "subjective morality"in the sense that I think that is the final word on the subject.
It is not clear, in the bolded text, which sense of "believe in X" it is that you're using. If you are saying that you don't believe subjective morality to be morally right, then I'm not sure what you mean; you'd have to elaborate. If you are saying that you don't belive morality to
be subjective, then I know that already. You could mean both of them, but you weren't clearly saying one or the other, and the former requires additional explanation.
Does that make sense?
Generaly what youare going to want to do is grant, and then turn. If you argue against anargument and then tell me it helps you it starts to look desperate.
If that was what I was doing, then sure. What I was actually trying to do is to show you that your accusation of circular reasoning is disingenuous, considering that your analogy engaged in it from the outset. I just didn't confront it until after your accusation.
And, separately - if it is your desire to view me as desperate, then that is your perogative. You can even view me as being morally deserving of eternal torture, if that's your thing. Your view, your responsibility.
Regardless. No, within the context of the discussion I was explaining why my perspective was not inherently flawed and meaningless. Explaining how it worked, not insisting that it was true. It is entirely appropriate within that context that I speak matter of factly about the way things are in my belief system (since it is my belief system, and not the condition of reality, about which we are speaking)
When you object to this explanation by offering a contradiction with the real world it's important that the part of the real world you reference as contradicting it is not the very thing which is under scrutiny. Yet that's just what you did
See above. There was confusion regarding your meaning from the outset, due to how you were (or seemed to be) using the word "believe". I was working from the understanding that "I believe X exists" and "I believe that X, if it exists, is morally right" meant two different things. I was under the impression we shared that understanding.
Working on it.
This is a real challenge for me
Well you do have the unfair handicap of being wrong.
Prove it
Your retreat into analogies and refusal to address the specific logical content of "ought" statements despite my bringing up the subject multiple times speaks for itself.
Maybe I'm thick.
Maybe I missed it
Maybe you are just tired of talking
If you want to call it, I won't fault you.
But if you want to keep going, I'm going to have to ask you to provide a quote of the part where you offered an argument I missed.
Well, there was the whole first part of this post:
By the way, regarding your response to ParkingPlace's analogy - your football-team analogy to it misses its point. What does "best colour" mean in the first place? Best at what?
If we ask, "which colour is best at appealing to X demographic of the population in Y context", then that question has an objective answer. If we ask, "which colour is best at promoting red text-visibility as a background on a PowerPoint presentation, then that question also has an objective answer.
Similarly, if we ask "which football team is best at winning", then that question has an objective answer, too.
All of the pieces of text in italics describe goals. Goals are either held, or they are not. To say that one goal is "objectively true" is a nonsense-statement. This is why the concept of "objective morality" is incoherent: It asserts that one goal is true, and the other goals are false. Yet goals have no "true or false" component to them.
Care to address that directly at some point, Lorax?
Other than to hand-wave the entire thing away as a product of my belief system, you addressed none of the reasoning in the post leading up to the last paragraph where I talked about goals directly. That was
the important part, though, Lorax. "Red is the best colour" is an incomplete thought. Best
at what? It's not the best at everything. And that brings us to goals like "
at putting people at ease" or whatever other example, and the fact that that text makes no claims, other than that "putting people at ease" is something that can in principle be done. It's simply not a part of the logic communicated by the text. It doesn't just not make assertions about physical reality (which would be a circular objection, as you've noted). It doesn't make any kind of assertion about anything else, either.
It doesn't even make a
moral assertion. "X is good for achieving Y goal" is an assertion, for sure, but "for achieving Y goal" on its own is not.
