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That sounds more like non-cognitivism?
A moral nihilist or error theorist believes that all moral statements have a truth-value, and that truth-value is false. The nihilist position is that moral statements are attempting to say someting factual, but they all fail to do so, because there are no moral facts.
A non-cognitivist believes that moral statements are not trying to be statements about truth at all; facts don't come into it. A moral statement is simply a statement of approval or disapproval.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_nihilism
Call me too much of a nerd or computer science-LARPer, but it seems obvious to me that rejecting the idea moral propositions can be true or false independent of the preferences of an observer is better framed as null rather than false. While the statement "objective morality exists" would count as false. That seems like two distinct claims to me, akin to saying "the objective best ice cream is X" is false, versus attempting to find the objective best ice cream independent of an observer is an incoherent/meaningless endeavour (in the opposite order here)
If it makes my stance clearer, I also consider myself a moral relativist (and still a chauvinist). I recognize that my moral preferences are innately subjective and ungrounded in anything but my preferences, which happen to include maintaining internal coherence. I think that they are just as objectively valid as anyone elses, but the level of objective validity happens to be zero. Nothing. Nihil. Whereas, as far as I'm aware, the typical moral relativist says that all moral systems have non-zero objective worth.
The only way I can reconcile this with Wikipedia's definition (which I will assume is authoritative), is if you somehow draw a distinction between:
and your claim that
What else can a truth-value be here if not "right or wrong"? I recognize that you can assign truth values if you specify an observer or system of morality, but not without it.
Dispensing with labels entirely, my beliefs can be summed up as:
Objective morality doesn't exist (with very high certainty).
I still have my own idiosyncratic system of ethics I happen to value for no reason more fundamental or universal than it happens to be mine. In other words, I prefer it.
I do not consider that an impediment to proselytizing it, nor do I particularly oppose others from sharing theirs, as long as they make the concession that neither of us has any claim to objectivity (beyond the claim that there is no objective morality).
I think this is best described as moral nihilism + relativism with a dollop of chauvinism, but if you have a better label I would appreciate hearing it, even if at the end of the day the Labels were made for Man and not the other way around.
Well, I suppose I see a tree something like this?
Are moral statements statements about facts? If no, you're a non-cognitivist, stop here. If yes, proceed:
Are any moral statements true? If no, you're an error theorist, stop here. If yes, proceed:
Are moral statements true absolutely, or only relative to a particular framework? If absolute, you're an absolutist or objectivist. If relative to a framework, you're a relativist.
I suppose you could frame the second one as "are any moral statements true or false?", and put error theory in terms of null rather than in terms of falsehood. To be clear, the position I'm taking is that an error theorist thinks that the statement "Murder is wrong" and the statement "Murder is right" both fail to refer to anything. Neither of them is true, because right/wrong statements cannot be true, because right and wrong are not defensible concepts.
It sounds to me like you're an error theorist who nonetheless takes a relativist approach to daily life?
What kind of moral statements? If in reference to a particular class of observer, then yes. If not, no.
Any? For those that reference a subject, and not "all" possible subjects/observers? Yes.
Ah, you pre-empted me. Or post-empted, since you put this at the end. I'm a relativist then.
Murder is right/wrong, as a statement made in a vacuum? Yes, I agree it is null. If appended to a specific framework, then it may be true or false.
I apologize if I'm repeating myself, but to sum it up, I think the objective moral worth of any system of ethics is zero, including mine, the answer to whether there is any objective morality is thus no, but I grant subjective moral valence to specific systems, and it happens to be the case that my personal system ranks the highest (which is why I adopt it, and it has changed over time, with me either fixing inconsistencies or just lifting things I prefer from other systems of ethics).
I suppose that framing you propose seems correct, or at least I can't see anything wrong with it.
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I'm too zoned out right now, for real, 30 hours of being awake and on call. I'll take a nap and get back to you later if you don't mind.
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