Normative claims depend on reality being described.
I mean, normative claims certainly need to refer to reality, for otherwise they would just be arbitrary assertions. The issue here is that is by itself not enough to yield normativity.
A description of reality can be perfectly accurate without yielding any obligation. For example, "this action will harm you" or "this action will shorten your life" are both descriptions of reality.
The question is what property of reality would turn such descriptions into a claim that someone ought (not) do something.
Reality -> description -> ??? -> normative obligation
So it's like this. 1. We know that morality exists, because it exists as an idea in conscious thought. 2. By definition, an 'ought' must exist, since morality itself is defined by the 'ought'. 3. Just because we may not all agree on what the 'ought' is, does not mean that is does not exist. 4. Therefore, since an 'ought' does exist, so must a moral obligation which binds people, which is expressed by the resulting consequences of whether or not one fills that obligation. It is not necessary that anyone agrees upon or even for one person to follow or even know what the 'ought' is for it to exist, for it exists by the very nature of the idea of morality even existing.
That is a definition of morality in terms of an "ought", concluding that an "ought" exists. But that doesn't answer the question I raised.
For example, I could go and define a "moral rule" as "a rule that people ought to follow". From that description, it would trivially follow that moral rules involve an "ought", but the definition itself does not actually explain why anyone really ought to follow them.
Look at step 1. The fact that morality exists as an idea in human thought does not by itself yield or produce an obligation. Astrology, unicorns, fictional worlds, those ideas also exist, but their existence as ideas does not make them normatively binding.
So what feature of reality would make turn a rule from an idea about behavior into something that a person actually ought to follow?
In the long run, after life, truth and outcomes are the same.
Pushing the convergence of truth and outcome into the afterlife is a move that only works if you accept the premise that such a judgment actually occurs. For someone who does not accept that premise, the structure returns to the earlier problem that outcomes within life remain the only observable constraint.
What would make that rule binding independently of accepting that theological premise?
To accept my premise is to accept that acting “good” would require acting in accordance with this principle, which would be the equivalent of an obligation. As in, failure to achieve these higher orders of fulfillment or flourishing would be “bad” or “wrong,” definitionally.
I don't see how that follows. Like, defining "good" as acting in accordance with the telos does not by itself yield the conclusion that acting in accordance with the telos is obligatory. A description of what counts as flourishing does not by itself explain why a person ought to pursue that in the first place.
The same issue appears in the appeal to aesthetic truths. The notion that certain states of affairs generate obligations simply by their nature is a new premise, and that premise is what you would need to explain.
Again, what property of those states of affairs would make them morally binding rather than simply descriptions of flourishing?
Descriptions of flourishing -> ??? -> moral obligation
["Ethics" and "moral philosophy"] are used interchangeably in the vast majority of contemporary philosophy and in ordinary English.
True, but whether these terms are distinguished or used interchangeably ultimately isn't really important for the thread.
Why would morality be grounded in a description of the world?
Many moral theories attempt to do exactly that. They appeal to various facts about the world and then infer an obligation from them. E.g.:
God commands something -> therefore you ought to obey it
Human flourishing is good -> therefore you ought to promote it
An action increases happiness -> therefore you ought to perform it
Human life requires certain actions -> therefore you ought to perform them
In each of those cases, the structure is the same :
Fact about the world -> therefore a person ought to act in a certain way
The question in the thread is to zoom in on that step and examine what would make the transition from a fact to an obligation valid.
That is to say, I'm not asserting that morality must come from facts, I'm examining theories that claim it does.
God, or a divine God-King.
That's a point that has already been raised several times in the thread.
The short version is that "God -> moral authority -> binding rules" explains who issues the rule, but it does not explain why the command itself becomes morally binding. In other words, find the missing step in "authority -> ??? -> moral obligation"
Everything is valid under relative morality
As much as I personally dislike moral relativism, that statement is incorrect.
Moral relativism does not claim or imply that everything is valid, instead it claims that moral claims are evaluated relative to a framework (as opposed to evaluated universally).
Morality is subjective. Therefore, moral rules are only bound by force, or personal restraint.
That position is clean and internally consistent, but it changes the meaning of "moral rule".
That is, if morality is indeed purely subjective, then a "moral rule" is no longer something that a person actually ought to follow. It becomes either a personal preference or a social rule that's backed by force.
Under moral subjectivism, the conclusion would be that moral rules in the stronger sense, which is usually implied when people say things like "murder is wrong", simply do not exist.
The thread has reached 6 pages, so I'll summarize the different directions the discussion has taken so far
- What makes normative claims actually binding?
- Nothing.
Nothing grounds moral obligation -> moral rules are not truly binding.
- Morality doesn't exist (nihilism)
- Question: If that is true, then why have people spent thousands of years doing moral philosophy in an attempt to explain moral obligation rather than dismissing it?
- Morality is subjective (subjectivism)
- Problem: Under that view, "moral rules" boil down to preferences or enforced norms, which means that moral obligations in the stronger sense simply don't exist. See: nihilism
- Something.
- Teleology / flourishing.
Human nature -> flourishing -> good.
- Problem: It explains what counts as flourishing, but doesn't answer the question.
Flourishing -> ??? -> obligation to pursue flourishing.
- Life.
Life -> self-interest -> rules.
- Problem: At best, self-interest can yield prudence, but not a categorical moral obligation.
Self-interest -> action -> consequence -> accept or avoid consequence.
- Reality itself.
- Reality -> morality exists -> ought exists.
- Problem: Simply asserting that moral facts exist does not explain what property of the facts generates the obligation.
Fact about reality -> ??? -> obligation.
- Why do people follow rules?
Not the question this thread is about.
Every answer has the structure "rule -> consequences -> comply or accept consequences", which describes behavioral incentives, but yields prudential reasoning rather than moral obligation
- Punishment
- Legal enforcement
- Social backlash
- Personal restraint
- Reputation
- Self-interest
- Where do moral rules come from?
Not the question this thread is about.
Explaining who declares a rule does not explain why someone actually ought to follow them. Origin of rule -> ??? -> moral obligation.
- God / divine lawgiver
- Culture and social norms
- Biology and empathy
- Community survival pressures
