Tretiak
3mo ago
In the view of his young male followers I believe the expression goes "don't care, had sex." They wouldn't see it as exploitation insofar as it gets them what they want. The real exploitation taking place comes from women who end up behaving as useful idiots and reward men for poor conduct and disreputable sexual norms.
Are you new here? Not only is there a nearly perfect correlation between IQ and income, there is no ceiling. A person with an IQ of 150 will (on average) be wealthier than a mere simpleton with an IQ of 120.
If this is going to be a discussion where we're simply hurling academic papers at each other that neither of us are going to read, then I see little point in continuing it.
You can argue about causation all you want, but how could higher IQ not be correlated with higher wealth?
Read the links provided and your question will likely be answered.
My entire point is that I reject your framing of the matter that IQ spells out an aristocracy as well as the proposition that we live in a meritocracy. My counter-narrative to that is that luck matters more than talent. Since you don't directly deny that outright or do much to address it, I suppose I'll take the concessions. But I'll add further on the matter for anyone who isn't satisfied with a dismissive sneer.
To reiterate again, when it comes to wealth, rich people simply aren’t that much smarter than poor people. Zagorsky pointed out that “people with above-average IQ scores are only 1.2 times as likely as individuals with below-average IQ scores to have a comparatively high net worth,” which means, “relatively large numbers” of people with low IQs are rich. And even to the extent that there are more rich people with high IQs than poor, this is 'entirely' explained by luck, not talent. Rich people are only that 1.2 times more likely to be smarter insofar as they were advantaged to develop more of their potential IQ by the fortunes of their environment (like “growing up rich” for example). Once you control for all that, no correlation remains.
Instead of a 1:1 correspondence, high IQ barely helps and the curve is pretty flat. So yes, there is 'some' correlation, but it’s weak. Zagorsky said “the average income difference between a person with an IQ score in the normal range (100) and someone in the top 2% of society (130) is currently between $6000 and $18,500 per year,” or roughly on average just $12,000. That isn't actually a lot. And he says, “the relationship is not very strong.” There is a stronger correlation at the highest incomes, few are so lucky, and the correlation is only notable for any IQ above average, after which more IQ makes little observable difference. “People with above-average IQ scores (> 100) are three times as likely as below-average IQ individuals to have a high (> $105,000) income,” that describes almost no one (only 10% of individuals earn so much), and all one needs to have so good a chance at that is any above-average IQ.
And so I'll reiterate again. Those who end up at the top will be mediocre or slightly above mediocre; not the best and brightest. Look at Zagorsky’s table. Look at how many high IQ people earn less than $30,000 a year, which is less than the U.S. national median. Look at how many earn less than $40,000, the national median for those holding a full time job. Almost all high-IQ people earn less than $60,000 a year, which is below the U.S. national median household income. And yet see how many low IQ people earn more than these amounts. Again, you'll see that luck matters more than IQ. We even know that skills matter more than intelligence (though even what skills you are taught is largely a function of luck, e.g. what social class you get born into, what schools you get sent to, what learning disabilities you're born with, etc) but when studied we find even skills are overwhelmed by luck in any correlation with success.
I think we can cherry pick the data and have it any way we want in picking our specific cases to compare that make our points. I'm not saying talent is irrelevant to success. What I'm saying here is that society-wide, resource distribution is the most important variable to what's being addressed here.
You can try and change the distribution of talents all you want. But that still doesn't override the effects of resource distribution. Whenever any misfortune befalls you, it's increasingly difficult to get back up; whereas if you have better luck as far as initial conditions go, you'll more quickly accumulate enough resources to be able to weather the effects of later misfortunes down the road. This fundamentally is why it's almost impossible to escape poverty no matter how talented you are or how hard you work, and consequently there's a lot that can be said about lazy and useless rich people.
And this phenomenon is pretty well attested to, especially amongst experienced investors. If you simply go and fund one business with a ton of money in hopes of leveraging profit from it, you're highly prone to losing your shirt, and that's because the average rate of business failure simply becomes your probability of losing everything. But if you fund ten businesses with a tenth of that same money each, you'll get ahead, even when several of those businesses fail; since then the average rate of business success simply becomes your return on investment. You have to invest in failure to increase your probability of success.
The same thing rings true when you have ideologues who hold up the failure of the solar panel manufacturers like Solyndra as a reason the government shouldn’t “pick winners and losers” with things like loan programs, and yet they ignore the fact that in this is what 'all' investors do, the net effect of the government’s investments can only be positive if several plays are bet. You expect to lose some, because that’s the only way you win some. People hold up Solyndra as proof of their ideology, by ignoring all the companies funded by the same program that didn’t fail. The government is making a profit on that program.
To your point about IQ, there's actually a respectable body of literature that shows that there is no causal relationship between IQ and wealth; and although there 'is' a correlation between IQ and annual income, the correlation is pretty small and flat. The truth is rich people aren't actually that much smarter than poor people. Once you control for factors like 'being raised in a wealthy household', there's no statistically significant correlation between IQ and wealth. The simple fact is, luck actually produces most of peoples fortunes.
Tretiak
3mo ago
Now we live in a meritocracy and things are much more brutal. Nowadays, the rich are actually much smarter and better looking and more talented than the poor. They studied hard, got into an Ivy, and then got the big job at the bulge bracket bank. Do you suck? It's not because you were born poor, it's because you actually suck. That's a bitter pill to swallow.
This is highly contentious. You've got a lot of work ahead of you still to think it's that easy to adduce the claim that we live in a meritocracy. Birthright status may not be a formal doctrine of our political thinking anymore, but informal relationships, connections and patronage networks still by 'far' play the largest role out of any single variable in success. And thinking Ivy League schools and large bank accounts are a sufficient proxy for merit leaves a lot unaccounted for. Even books like the Bell Curve couldn't adequately control for and factor out the importance of 'luck' as far as their analysis goes. And luck matters far more than talent.
Any ideologies that depend on any version of Just World Theory are false and should be abandoned.
Tretiak
3mo ago
Housing prices aren't a problem that exists in isolation. People's lifestyles and expectations have inflated at a rate that at a 'minimum' is inline with the increase in housing costs, and on average, vastly outstrips it. People tend to live to the maximum of their income. There's plenty of affordable housing all across the United States. It may not be what you're looking for, the jobs may not be as great, but they're absolutely affordable if you're willing to cut back on your spending habits, eating out 3-5 times a week, buying the latest smartphone and wearing expensive clothing; just to name a few. But you're not going to be living the lifestyle that you're told is attainable in celebrity magazines.
Tretiak
3mo ago
Tate's simply pointing out that the emperor has no clothes when he says that. Girls are already out there engaging in that behavior. Tate's just advising young men on how they can get their cut of the action.
Tretiak
3mo ago
On some level JP has to know he's peddling nonsense. You're never going to be successful in simply 'inspiring' a nation to return to tradition without the political mechanisms and social norms that enforce that behavior. Its why I get tired of the red pill message that essentially says "you need to be a man and put your woman in her place!" Oh putting her in her place is easy. Not going to 'jail' is the hard part. And the latter is why the former never happens. For it to work, you need to revive to the social controls that punishment deviant behavior. Good luck with that.
As far as concepts like continuity and identity overtime go, I think you may be interested in Dan Carlin's episode entitled Judgment at Nineveh that explores some interesting concepts surrounding this.
No I don't think many British would've fought for their country, if they knew what type of future it would've been captured by. Certainly there's also an atmosphere of apathy in the US as well that plays a role in people's silent retreat and resignation from participating in the broader society that has continued to recede from the territory it once possessed. It's not unlike what happened in the later Roman times, when the elite retreated to their villa's and saw themselves increasingly distant and isolated, and formed enclaves that separated themselves from the rest of the population and balkanized the empire. That was really when you saw the early stages of the Middle Ages begin to develop.
In the grand scheme of history though, these cycles are all par for the course and there's nothing uncommon about them. People of the 21st century just have a much greater visibility about them, to see the ways in which these historical motions occur and take place. I consider myself as belonging to an ideological wave that missed it's opportunity to have it's time in the sunlight when the broader umbrella that encompassed us still carried the day; and it's very unlikely that I'll live to see it revived again in my lifetime. But I think there is a pendulum effect that partially explains this general way of thinking.
Tretiak
3mo ago
It's from Is reality optional?.
Tretiak
3mo ago
Put five 30-60 year old out of touch midwits in a room and tell them to brainstorm a solution. By 'solution,' what you actually mean is some vaguely pro-social program you can announce to make it seem like you're doing something - the question of whether the problem can be solved never comes up. Also unmentioned are the question of whether the framing of the problem is useful, or even whether the problem exists in the first place. The metric of success is the amount of positive attention generated divided by the cost of the program - or likes/dollar, if you prefer.
I suspect the reason why this is the case has nothing to do with people not being able to imagine a solution. The obvious ones on the table would get them ran out of the room with the tiki torches if any of them dared to say what it was, because it's antithetical to the progressive agenda.
Progressives can't forward a solution to the problem because they don't have a sensible take on gender in the first place. It reminds me of Thomas Sowell's axiom, "Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good." If the benchmark to judge a successful solution to the problem hangs on whether or not it makes people happy, then you're never going to able to come to a resolution. Most of life is about making your way in the world, doing a thousand things every day that you don't want to do. Tate is a moron in my opinion, but his side of the aisle can provide better male role models than almost anything the left can field.
What are Tate's young followers often drawn to about his message? "Subjugate the bitches, keep them in the kitchen, get that paper and work them muscles out." And it isn't just his message they like. A lot of young men can 'relate' to that message, experientially.
Tretiak
3mo ago
I think you're reading way too much into my statement. I was making a very simple, [what I'd have thought was a] very uncontroversial point. Intelligent people gave us climate change. Intelligent people gave us World War 2. Intelligent people gave us atomic weapons. Intelligent people gave us Planned Parenthood. Intelligence may 'not' be among the best mother nature has to offer her creatures, since animals live in relative peace of a kind that vastly outstrips the destruction humanity has wrought on itself throughout history. And your first point addresses something I never said, so that's not relevant.
Incidentally, looking back, I don't think it's a good idea to go around trying to stretch and stuff every sentence with $2 words pulled from a thesaurus, because that's what your statements read like to me, and it's very difficult to read them thinking they're meant to be seriously taken, without eye rolls.
Tretiak
3mo ago
I have absolutely zero idea what in the world this has to do with my original statement.
Tretiak
3mo ago
I'm not sure if you're simply adding to my statement or disputing it. I fully agree with the point you're making here.
Fair enough. However I believe we call that one missing the forest for the trees.
Tretiak
3mo ago
I obviously endorse 4. Intelligence is as close to an unalloyed good as it gets. I do not think 1 is a good idea.
There's a lot of reason to doubt this. I've never seen cats engaged in widespread, highly destructive warfare. I've never seen ants commit infanticide. I've never seen a donkey shoot someone. I've never seen a horse rob a bank. If you're ever in any kind of situation that requires problem solving skills, having intelligence is the best thing you could rely upon, surely. But intelligence is also what produces conflict, disagreement, chaos and dysfunction.
Tretiak
3mo ago
Every regime in power by necessity, has to try and create ideological buy-in with the rest of the population, to draw in their support and compliance that provides them with the legitimacy the seek. But it doesn't have to broadly succeed to be able to remain in power. If you look at the approval ratings of the current administration in the US, I think it quite easily spells out that you can rule over your citizens and subjects, despite strong disagreement and not trusting any of their institutional organs.
With libertarians, there's a tradeoff between resilience and efficiency. Libertarianism works very well in near equilibrium systems, but struggles massively with radical shifts and systemic changes. A lot of inadequate solutions to problems that have politically been punted to economists to figure out often fail, because the nature of the solutions are hopelessly mired at the margins. They deal in smooth, frictionless, 'incremental' changes. When time runs out for gradual change to take place to settle to a solution and you need decisive action, you need the scale of change to take place that's truly revolutionary. In the modern technological world we live in, you need strategic top-down, decisive action. And that often comes in the form of centralized power and authority that can make large-scale, sweeping changes take place.
The problem with a lot of democratic societies is that they often show that they're unable of making effective top-down decisions that are proportionate to the severity of the problem. In fact, they were specifically designed to 'prevent' people from taking drastic actions. This is why at heart I'm an authoritarian and don't have problems identifying with fascist ideology.
Tretiak
3mo ago
I disagree. "Public opinion" means nothing, "democracy" is a sham, the masses are powerless nobodies, the elite holds all the power…
For quite awhile, a good number of my friends pondered why the habit of empires is so persistent, even in nations that define themselves as free and open societies. The answer really isn't all that complex, I think. Every nation, no matter what character or political system they adopt, wants to maximize their share of power in the world. Why wouldn't they? That's the inherent structure of the international system. It's foundational to international relations theory (IR) as well.
Tretiak
5mo ago
No, I did read it. I was hoping for something a bit less conjectural and more technically given.
Tretiak
5mo ago
Again, thank you for such a comprehensive reply! I'll address some of your points here and will have to digest and sit on the rest, before considering a reply. You've given me some juicy things to think about.
A more salient difference might be that even if objective morality somehow exists, I do not see any way to measure it or even recognize it were it to appear before me, which seems to make it a bit moot. What would such a hypothetical mechanism even be like? What might someone, in possession of objective morality, use to convince me of it beyond the fact I find it compelling, which I also accept as a valid means of assessing subjective morality, and hence can't be the sole criterion by which I decide if it's objective or subjective!
I think we largely agree on this. Epistemologically, I think this question remains open and debatable. But I also think that moral facts are empirically discoverable in principle and analyzable.
... while I choose to treat a vivid qualia of a tiger coming for my ass as objective reality, that is not conclusive. Just to make it doubly clear, I think objective reality probably exists, at some level, ignoring things like observer-dependency in QM (I understand, possibly erroneously, that the wave function is objective and unique, while the observed solutions are subject/observer dependent, though in this case a photon or a helium atom count as observers). Even if it doesn't, I consider it useful. Similarly, you won't find me doing anything particularly unethical by public opinion in my normal life, because while I think it's a social fiction, I find it a useful one, while simultaneously not conflating that as making it true.
In other words, I cannot disprove solipsism. But I can and do choose to act as if it's not the case. And so I will, until someone can convince me it's possible to do otherwise.
Hmm. I wasn't anticipating the introduction of the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM to come into this. At a first pass, my only contribution is to say that it's becoming fairly well agreed upon that the CI is bunk pseudoscience, most of which is only taught to undergraduates due to lingering path dependencies and historical happenstances that took place during the development of physics. Most people these days prefer the Many-Worlds Interpretation, which does fully preserve a completely mechanistic, material, objective view of the external world.
Certainly. But the standards are themselves subjective preferences, even if they're convergent because of upstream factors.
Here you're simply talking about the hypothetical imperative. But all categorical imperatives ultimately reduce back down to the hypothetical imperative, and deontology ultimately reduces down to consequentialism. This sits at the heart of the example I was trying to provide at the bottom half of my last statement.
The unpacking of the rest of your response I will have to think about!
That it doesn't have majority representation in philosophical/academic journals is a pretty facile reason for discarding it, IMO. Central to Fyfe's thesis is the notion that beliefs plus desires result in intentional action, therein implying that desires are the only reasons for intentional action that exist. My totally unqualified and layman's understanding of neuroscience and more specifically some of the findings in moral psychology thus far, seem to lend support and credence to something like Fyfe's ultimate conclusion. I've seen no good evidence to the contrary. If you're aware of any substantial critiques of Fyfe or Desirism in particular, I'd love to see them. To me, this isn't it however.
Tretiak
5mo ago
Thank you greatly for such a comprehensive reply. It's much appreciated. I'll admit from the outset, I don't have a fully laid out view on morality that I'm 100% convinced by. Many of these issues aren't even clear in my own head, though I think something 'like' Fyfe style, desire utilitarianism is probably the best moral theory out there; and if that isn't true, I think Error Theory is probably the next most plausible exposition laid out.
I am lost at the moment they say must. It is practically desirable, that consent arises from the governed. That is not the same as objectivity as I understand the term.
In a loose sense of terms, I can see what they're getting at in a way. If "legitimate" is taken to be a synonym for "consent," (as they specify) there is a mutually shared basis for agreement. But I was thinking more along the lines of the way Shelly Kagan defended the argument. I'm not asking you to fully watch the video, but only planting a flag there if your interest is gauged.
I am objecting to the ethicist way of defining objectivity.
Right. You're saying that at bottom, reality is free of normativity. You're saying there are no morally "brute" facts. Morality is a sort of fickle convention, invented by human beings to govern their behavior. It seems strange though that this should be such a strong criticism, given that human beings are themselves the entire subject and focus of our moral reasoning, in relationship to ourselves and other beings. That's exactly what it is. But it seems like you're saying morality must go 'beyond' that in some sense; as if you're looking for a reason 'outside' of morality, to adopt the moral point of view. Because moral facts are about human beings, it's impossible to conceive of morality existing 'apart' from human beings. But I'll try and do as best as I can in the moment to make the distinction clear, as I see it.
This followup post has confused me. I can only apologize, it's 4 am and I'm sleep deprived.
No worries. I'll try and update any corrections you make.
My issue here is that he's claiming objectivity relative to well defined observer.
I'll take this as the starting point from which I'll address the rest of your post.
Everything about us in the universe is only accessed through our subjective experience. But there's 'still' a difference between what's true of that experience, and what we can infer is true about the world from that experience. To go back to your earlier example about colors. Yes, colors only exist subjectively. There's no such thing as "red," out in the external world. It's a fictional product of the innerworkings of our brains; it exists to keep track of what 'does' exist in the external world. It's a lattice of atoms, arranged in a way that they absorb all the photos that vibrate at certain frequencies, and then reflect on the cone cells in our eyes that produce an electrical signal in the brain. That's what color is. Nowhere is there anything that is colored "red," redness is only ever experienced. Nothing exists that is red. But there is at least one objective fact about colors. Wherever a certain physical system exists, 'the experience of colors will exist'. It's an inseparable property of the system. And even if that wasn't true, "colors exist" is still an objective property of the world, because our experience of them is a part of the external world, whatever it happens to consist of.
If the question comes down to "what does it mean to be objective?" The distinction for most people lies between things being "subjective" (i.e. it's a matter of opinion) and "objective" (i.e. something independently observed). The distinction you're asking for is essentially separating what is 'opinion' from 'an opinion being true' in an objective sense. If I make an assertion of "fact" and say "nobody will buy this car," then really it only comes down to having uninformed beliefs about the world. What you're getting at is opinions that can't be false. If I say, "Katy Perry's music fucking sucks!," it could be making a claim to an objective fact, or it could fail to satisfy some mutually acceptable standard. The fact of her music 'at that moment' sucking, is a fact about how that person feels about her music. And that it sucks in that case, can't even 'be' false. It's like seeing the color red.
And yet, it's 'still' the case that there is objectively true fact of the world here. The way that they feel about the music will manifest itself in a physical arrangement, and state of their brain that can 'in principle', be observed by another party, without ever even having to ask them what they thought of the music. There's also objectively true properties of the music that once they are called to your attention, changes the opinion of it. Even then, their opinion still 'only' shifts in reaction to their own individual feelings and responses, and not on anything that’s true of the world apart from themselves and their personal idiosyncrasies. It could simply be the case that an individual hasn’t acquired the mental structures that will ever make that music pleasant to them. And we generally are okay with that.
All of this, I trust you agree with so far, because it's essentially what you're trying to draw my attention to. Now I'm going to shift your focus:
What’s actually at the heart of the issue when people make this objective/subjective distinction, is whether other people should feel obligated to agree with a judgment. If we accept that “this music sucks” is simply a description of how the agent feels, then we can all agree it is an objectively true fact of the world, that that is how that person feels. You and I don’t have to agree that we “should” to feel the same way. That requires an additional step of reasoning in the argument. It requires that “this music sucks” not be simply a description of how the agent feels. It has to be describing something else that other observers can agree is true.
And this is usually what people get hung up on when they argue over whether morality is objective or subjective. What they really mean is, whether they 'should' agree with a moral assertion or not. But then they will proceed to confuse that question, with the entirely 'different' question of whether their access to the objective truths of the world is mediated by and depends on subjective experience. But since 'all' objective truths are done that way through subjective experience, that question is totally moot in the first place. How you 'feel' is one thing. Whether that feeling corresponds to something you should really act upon is another thing entirely. Both are simultaneously objective and subjective facts of the world. If you experience the fear of a tiger trying to kill you, that's an objective fact about your brain. And the danger is only known to exist through your subjective experience of the world.
Mental states like pain and suffering are completely subjective feelings. They are just like the musical proposition. What causes you pain may be different from what causes someone else pain. They might have depression, or a body in a different condition, or a different past history that makes some things more painful than others, or maybe they just genetically have a different pain tolerance than you. But even though anyone’s pain and suffering is 100% subjective, it's all "just a feeling," and different from person to person, there is still an objectively true fact that something is causing them pain. And this doesn't even change if your ontology of the world includes the supernatural or not. Even if you're a divine command theorist, it's 'still' the case that pain is purely and only a “feeling” does not make it irrelevant to a third party’s moral judgment.
Just because the information about moral facts is always accessed subjectively doesn't argue that objective moral facts 'don’t exist'. Any more than it can argue that you shouldn’t fear a tiger running after you. That observation can only be subjective. But there's still an objective fact as to whether a tiger is actually running towards you, and whether you should fear that or not. Both are still objective facts of world.
Now to the next point, the opposite of objective in this case, doesn't at all mean that the facts are relative. That understanding is completely false, because even if every one of the endless “relativisms” people conjure up is true, it's 'still' the case that morality remains an objective fact. There can still be objectively true moral facts for each culture and individual. And situational relativism is no less objective. If I say that velocity is relative. It's relative to my car, it could be zero, when at the same time, relative to the road ahead, it’s sixty miles per hour. Yet both remain objectively true facts of the 'world itself'. And they remain true regardless of what I think, feel, or believe. As most moral systems would agree, whether it’s moral to kill depends on the situation (this is what I was gesturing at in my last post, e.g., homicide vs. self-defense), but that can itself be an objectively true fact of the world. Even in the abstract, it's true 'that': killing is okay in situation A but not in situation B. Because the systems physically differ (in the case of homicide and self-defense) and differ in objectively observable and measurable ways.
What everyone always worries about is that it sounds like we can just make up whatever morality we want. And therefore, there is no moral truth, maybe at best only moral agreement. Morals are just fictional norms that we live by, and of course we can simply invent anything we like. There is no sense in which one is 'better' than the other. That's what people get hung up on when they argue over whether morality is objective or relative. What they really mean is, whether someone else should agree with a moral assertion or not, or perhaps whether they're being a different person or living in a different culture can make them immune to condemnation or correction. But then they always confuse that question with asking the entirely different question of whether there is an objectively true fact about how that other person should behave, even if it’s different from how we should behave.
Take an example like traffic laws, which are obviously culturally relative. Like fictional norms, they're completely invented by each culture however they want. And yet, there is an objective fact of the matter that they realize. There are better and worse traffic systems, when measured by the standard they were invented for. And this remains so regardless of your opinions, feelings, or beliefs. A system in which there was no enforced rule as to which side of multilane roads to drive on would produce far more traffic collisions, and the universally recognized (and universally needed) goal of traffic laws is to facilitate transportation while minimizing collisions. Yes, in some cultures vehicles are expected to drive on the right and in others the left. Which is completely arbitrary. Yet it's an objectively true fact that everyone should drive on the same side of the road, whichever side that happens culturally to be, if they want to avoid traffic collisions. There's no objectively true fact that cars must drive on the right rather than the left to reduce collisions. There is however, an objectively true fact that cars must all drive on the right or on the left to reduce collisions. Even though it's culturally relative whether you drive on the right or the left, when you are in a culture that drives on the right, it is the case that you should drive on the right. Which side you should drive on is an objective fact of which cultural system you are traversing at the time. Moral relativism therefore has 'no' bearing on whether objective morals 'exist'. Objective morals 'might' exist and be relative, to the individual, culture, situation, or species.
If morality is essentially meaningless, then it wouldn't be possible to speak meaningfully about moral propositions, even in the subjective sense of the word. The relevant difference that I think is true in your case is the difference between the epistemological question and the ontological question:
... primarily because I do not see any reason for it to exist...
That's notable for what it doesn't say. Non-cognitivists for instance say that we can't express 'true' right and wrong opinions (which is what you are saying? That's epistemological.). It doesn't say true right and wrong 'don't exist' (that's moral ontology).
I think the truth value of moral propositions, at least independent of an observer, is null, or as incoherent a question as wanting to know the objective best color.
Right. This was essentially Nietzsche's view as well. "There are no moral phenomenon, only a moral interpretation of a phenomenon." You seem to think it's a category error, almost akin to asking to wrong question. Colors are second-order properties that take place in the brain. 'Best' is a term relative to the individual you're asking. But just because that part of the answer is 'situationally dependent' doesn't mean 'color' doesn't exist. Color does, objectively, exist. We can even have discussions about the physics of color, and it's ontological properties. This would almost be like thinking just because someone can abuse mathematics to create logical paradoxes, that therefore proves that logic is illogical.
I still think it's that objective morality has about the same probability of being true as a formally correct proof of there being square triangles or an integer between two and three.
I'd be interested to know what your problems are with Contractarianism and Desirism, more specifically. Both have claims to moral objectivity.
Interesting.
It seems more like you're a non-cognitivist than a moral nihilist. Moral cognitivists believe moral statements have 'a' truth value. That's different from being a moral realist and thinking there's some actual morality stuff floating out there (which seems to me more like what you're shooting at). But not seeing or being persuaded for a reason for its existence is still different from saying right or wrong in 'fact', don't exist.
If you come up with older posts where you've elaborated further on the matter, please direct me to them.
Not sure how you got that out of my statement.
Is it slavery when you get what you want?
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