What makes a moral rule actually binding? - Discuss the ethics of ethics

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

So by "binding" you mean "applicable." OK.

No. "Binding" does not mean "applicable". Replacing the term with a weaker one and then pretending the problem is solved is just another attempt to dodge the question.
Your repeated insistence that the question was "poorly phrased" is equally baseless. Multiple people in the thread understood exactly what was being asked and attempted to answer it. The only person stuck on this semantic loop is you.

What do you think makes moral rules binding?

As for your attempt to reverse the burden, the thread is not about my personal view. The question posed was what grounds the kind of categorical moral claims that people routinely make. Participants have done exactly that. Some argued that nothing grounds them, others proposed candidate grounds. Both responses are already present in the thread.
What does not move the discussion forward is pretending that redefining words or demanding endless clarifications is a substitute for engaging with the issue itself.

 

[Friend of Dorothy Parker]

No. "Binding" does not mean "applicable". Replacing the term with a weaker one and then pretending the problem is solved is just another attempt to dodge the question.
Your repeated insistence that the question was "poorly phrased" is equally baseless. Multiple people in the thread understood exactly what was being asked and attempted to answer it. The only person stuck on this semantic loop is you.

As for your attempt to reverse the burden, the thread is not about my personal view. The question posed was what grounds the kind of categorical moral claims that people routinely make. Participants have done exactly that. Some argued that nothing grounds them, others proposed candidate grounds. Both responses are already present in the thread.
What does not move the discussion forward is pretending that redefining words or demanding endless clarifications is a substitute for engaging with the issue itself.

Thank you for not answering. Curious.

 

[Cnidarian]

At this point I'd like to pose the question of what actually makes a moral rule binding in the first place?
This is not the same question as "which rules do you prefer?" or "what ethical tradition are you a fan of?", rather it's specifically about the grounding step. Like, the point where a description of the world becomes a claim about what someone must do

The preservation of your own family, which was originally a purely biological claim referring to people that share your recent ancestry, but then generalized into nationality or religion once we agreed on some common cultural ground. This is because morality is impossible without living actors, and any life which you create is part of your family by definition, and even if you were not their parent, their life is still one which you have the most ability to preserve or assist.
Any moral code which does not favor future generations of its believers is a suicide pact. From this comes all other universal values:

1. Health: To uphold your usefulness as a moral agent.
2. Wealth, status, and knowledge: To obtain the most resources to pass into the next generation.
3. Fidelity: To set secure safe grounds for the arrival of your future generation.
4. Tradition: To ensure that all other values can be passed into a future generation.
5. Avoidance of social harm: To give no incentive for others to sacrifice you for the survival of their family.

Any argument appealing to a supernatural judge is a thought-terminating cliche used to protect suicidal services like monasticism or warfare from having their moral value objectively assessed. A deity is only good if they encourage or reward these values, otherwise there is no reason to follow them, and nobody will have any reason to care about any circular appeal to their morals.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

The preservation of your own family, which was originally a purely biological claim referring to people that share your recent ancestry, but then generalized into nationality or religion once we agreed on some common cultural ground. This is because morality is impossible without living actors, and any life which you create is part of your family by definition, and even if you were not their parent, their life is still one which you have the most ability to preserve or assist.
Any moral code which does not favor future generations of its believers is a suicide pact. From this comes all other universal values:

1. Health: To uphold your usefulness as a moral agent.
2. Wealth, status, and knowledge: To obtain the most resources to pass into the next generation.
3. Fidelity: To set secure safe grounds for the arrival of your future generation.
4. Tradition: To ensure that all other values can be passed into a future generation.
5. Avoidance of social harm: To give no incentive for others to sacrifice you for the survival of their family.

Any argument appealing to a supernatural judge is a thought-terminating cliche used to protect suicidal services like monasticism or warfare from having their moral value objectively assessed. A deity is only good if they encourage or reward these values, otherwise there is no reason to follow them, and nobody will have any reason to care about any circular appeal to their morals.

What you described explains why certain values might be useful, but it does not explain what makes them morally binding.
Take your starting point: the preservation of one's family.
Even if it were granted that preserving one's family promotes the survival of a lineage, that is still a descriptive claim about outcomes. The step that still needs explaining is why producing that outcome generates a moral obligation.
"family preservation -> lineage survival" is a causal relationship, and in order to be relevant for the thread, you'd need to find a normative step that explains "lineage survival -> therefore one ought to preserve one's family".
The same issue appears in the list of values you derived from it. All of them can be explained as strategies that tend to help a group persist across generations. But showing that something is an effective survival strategy does not yet show that a person is morally obligated to pursue it. Anyone could consistently say "I do not care about the continuation of my lineage or community." From the perspective of group survival, that may be an imprudent person, but the framework you described still does not describe why their choice would be morally wrong, rather than simply contrary to the goals of that group.

 

[daffodils]

Nothing. <--- YOU ARE HERE
Nothing grounds moral obligation -> moral rules are not truly binding.

False. It just means the random heap of things you consider acceptable candidates for grounding moral beliefs can't do the job.

Looks like it's time to broaden the search. A good start would be to think about the different kinds of true non-moral beliefs and their "grounding".

 

[Cnidarian]

From the perspective of group survival, that may be an imprudent person, but the framework you described still does not describe why their choice would be morally wrong, rather than simply contrary to the goals of that group.

I'll read your post as a thoroughly autistic way of asking why that's a universal law instead of a personal goal, or in other words, "why care about the goyim?"
Everybody was born. All good things in the world are possible because of what somebody has done for their kin.
The ideal person for preserving a bloodline is an empowered free agent in good health of both mind and body.
This is the same for any group, and therefore the best society is one where well-educated children can inherit intergenerational wealth. This gives people the earliest advantage to pursue their subjectively correct goals alongside the objective one. Anything that I want to do, now, depends on other people being in that position so they're able to help me.
Everyone would want kindred that have done their best to help them and a world that was better at enabling them to do that. It's therefore in my best interest, and the interests of all people, for everyone to act on these axioms no matter their religion, nationality, race, or sex, and to allow everyone to act on them.

 

[The Last Stand]

Yes. Everything is. Even a rock is bound by morality. While not able to use morality itself, it can be affected by beings that use morality.

Isn't morality based on knowing "right" and "wrong?" How would a rock itself understand what is "right" or "wrong?" The action a person could do with that rock, i.e. throw it at somebody/somebody, could be judged on morality. The rock itself isn't grounded on any morality. It is just an object.

That's like the age old argument of "GUNS KILL PEOPLE!" A gun itself cannot kill somebody, rather, it is a tool that could be used by somebody to kill.

 

[Tennessee Trash]

Isn't morality based on knowing "right" and "wrong?" How would a rock itself understand what is "right" or "wrong?" The action a person could do with that rock, i.e. throw it at somebody/somebody, could be judged on morality. The rock itself isn't grounded on any morality. It is just an object.

That's like the age old argument of "GUNS KILL PEOPLE!" A gun itself cannot kill somebody, rather, it is a tool that could be used by somebody to kill.

I am not saying the rock is a moral actor, I am saying that it exists in a universe in which morality exists ,and the rock's existence can be affected my morality by proxy of moral agents such as humans. The rock itself is amoral but someone can cause a rock's physical position to change via a 'wrong' moral action. Like gravity. That's my point.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

False. It just means the random heap of things you consider acceptable candidates for grounding moral beliefs can't do the job.

You mean this?

For example, physical structures, biological facts, properties of agents, relations between actions and outcomes, social relations between persons, and so on.

It's not a random heap, all of those are examples for things that obtain in the real world.
Regardless, if none of these things can ground moral obligation, then what does?
"Look elsewhere" isn't an answer unless you can identify the kind of thing that actually grounds a moral obligation.

---

I'll read your post as a thoroughly autistic way of asking why that's a universal law instead of a personal goal, or in other words, "why care about the goyim?"
Everybody was born. All good things in the world are possible because of what somebody has done for their kin.
The ideal person for preserving a bloodline is an empowered free agent in good health of both mind and body.
This is the same for any group, and therefore the best society is one where well-educated children can inherit intergenerational wealth. This gives people the earliest advantage to pursue their subjectively correct goals alongside the objective one. Anything that I want to do, now, depends on other people being in that position so they're able to help me.
Everyone would want kindred that have done their best to help them and a world that was better at enabling them to do that. It's therefore in my best interest, and the interests of all people, for everyone to act on these axioms no matter their religion, nationality, race, or sex, and to allow everyone to act on them.

Same issue as before, really.
everyone benefits from societies that support family continuity and intergenerational stability -> therefore everyone has reasons to support those norms
Where's the moral obligation to support those norms? How is it a moral failure to not support or act on these norms? Anyone can still consistently say "I agree that such a society benefits others, but I would rather pursue my own goals and leave the long-term maintenance of society to someone else."
Such a person would be a free-rider on the system you described, and their behavior might be judged as selfish or parasitic from the perspective of other group members, but everything you laid out does not explain why their choice would be morally wrong, rather than simply contrary to the interests of others.

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

Community -> agreed rules -> expectation/enforcement is an explanation why people comply with rules, but it does not explain why the rule is morally binding.
Under the subjectivist view you described earlier, moral judgments differ from person to person. In that case, the rules enforced by a religion or government would simply be social rules, and not moral obligations in the stronger sense.
Which brings us back to the original question: what would make a rule something that a person ought to follow, rather than simply a rule that a community or law enforcement expects them to follow?

It's been explained to you countless times in this thread, but your autism always prevents you from understanding it. This is a pattern with you and your spergy threads. You keep missing the obvious, so I'll bold it for you.

Morality is entirely subjective

You're not technically bound to follow any specific framework for morality. You can choose to follow the moral frameworks laid out by a religion, or a community or whatever. And/Or you can be legally required to follow the laws of a government (presumably based on their moral code) which you may or may not agree with, but choose to follow to avoid punishments or penalties. In that case you're following it out of self-interest because you are under a threat of force.

So you're not bound to it because of its perceived morality, you're choosing to follow it simply due to the threat of force. And that is why they call them laws, to set them apart from any morality source. The morals themselves are not binding, the laws are. And you're not bound to any other moral framework, you simply choose to follow it or not because it aligns with your personal view on morality.

 

[Red Saltire]

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

I keep trying to tell you that flourishing and the moral imperative to achieve flourishing are ontologically codependent. The ethic is embedded in the nature of the thing. So it's not "Descriptions of flourishing -> ??? -> moral obligation," it's "flourishing itself = moral obligation."

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

I keep trying to tell you that flourishing and the moral imperative to achieve flourishing are ontologically codependent.

Ontological codependence would require that flourishing and moral obligation are mutually entailing properties of reality.
However, what you have presented is merely a functional description along the lines of "given the nature of a thing, certain states count as its flourishing". That yields a descriptive relation between a thing's nature and certain outcomes. What it doesn't yield is an identification of any property of those outcomes that makes them normatively binding.

The ethic is embedded in the nature of the thing.

Care to specify what that property is or why it generates obligation rather than merely describing a condition of flourishing? Because right now you're simply asserting that such a property exists.

it's "flourishing itself = moral obligation."

This is just a stipulation. To fix that, you would need to identify the normative property that flourishing supposedly possesses. You should be able to do that if flourishing and moral obligation were genuinely ontologically codependent.

 

[Red Saltire]

Before I make an attempt, could you give me an example of some other fact you accept as true and its justification/demonstration so that I can know what your bar is?

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Before I make an attempt, could you give me an example of some other fact you accept as true and its justification/demonstration so that I can know what your bar is?

Most of the descriptive claims that have been posted in the thread already meet the standard I have in mind
For instance, take a simple factual claim like "fire burns paper under normal conditions"
That claim is justified through observation and inference. You can put paper in a fire, it starts burning, and the same pattern occurs reliably across repeated cases under similar conditions. The justification comes from observing that regularity and inferring a causal relationship that best explains the observed regularity.
For claims that aren't that easy for a layperson to verify directly, one can always study large numbers of cases, measure correlations, investigate mechanisms, and test conclusions against further observations. This happens to be how many scientific disciplines operate, by extending these same basic methods in a more systematic and controlled way. (Note: Mathematics, theory, etc. ultimately connect back to observation and empirical testing.) In any case, the justification ultimately rests on evidence about how the world behaves and reasoning that connects the evidence to the claim being made.
I'd argue this holds true not just for that one example. "Humans need food to survive", "people tend to avoid pain", "communities punish rulebreakers", all of them are likewise supported by observing patterns in how the world behaves and drawing inferences from those observations.
More generally, factual claims about the world are justified through some combination of: observation -> pattern recognition -> inference -> testing against further observation
That's roughly the standard I have in mind. A descriptive claim is reasonably justified when it is supported by evidence about how reality behaves and by reasoning that connects that evidence to the conclusion. That is, my standard is not absolute certainty or infallibility, merely that it is rationally supported by the available evidence. "Given the evidence and nothing but, I would have to conclude such and such."

Now, the question is whether something analogous can be shown for normative claims such as moral obligations. Specifically, categorical claims, meaning claims that apply to everyone without being contingent on people's goals or preferences. Because that is how normative claims like "murder is wrong" are presented. Not as "murder is wrong in Japan" or "murder is wrong if you happen to care about the sanctity of life", but a plain and simple "murder is wrong". That is, the claim is not merely that murder is imprudent because the murder risks getting punished, nor merely that murder is socially harmful because it undermines communal trust. The claim is that murder is morally wrong, period.
So, if such claims are justified, and not merely asserted or stipulated, then it would mean, analogously, that there must be some feature of reality that generates that obligation. And if such a feature exists, then it should in principle be possible to identify it and explain how the obligation follows from it.

 

[Skitarii]

Your izzat, not so much.

I have nothing to add to this conversation but codetermination has way more izzat AND aura than market socialism

Best Germany > Least Germany

 

[cigint]

Now, the question is whether something analogous can be shown for normative claims such as moral obligations.

Absolutely it can, but for moral empirism we need to zoom outside even considering the motivations and perspectives of the aggressor and the victim. You already explained in your great post why we can't have moral rules like "killing is wrong". In short, we'll always drown in case-lawyering about e.g. self-defense, and different degrees of intentionality. Let's disregard that completely.

Imagine a busy street full of productive individuals. A shady character stalks one of them, then suddenly latches on and a daytime murder appears imminent. But in comes a deputy, chases the culprit down the street, corners him and kills him instead; then, he eats the body. This is a white blood cell. In its society, all moral judgments are made strictly based on a single good, which is the survival of the host organism. And ultimately, the moral tenets of human societies were formed by that very same heuristic, because our society is our host organism, and those host organisms outcompete and extinguish each other. A very peaceful religion about loving thy neighbor for a large empire? Nice. How about a religion about putting a bone through your nose and sacrificing and eating your own babies? Maybe not as healthy. An implicit "selector god" arises, which is as objective of a source of moral ground truth as any personified deity might be.

Now, is this heuristic objective because we can empirically test the success and results of particular societies' rulesets, or is it subjective because the local maxima observed are particular to this species, to this chemistry of life and to this world? It's only a question of how autistic we want to get with these semantics.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

You already explained in your great post why we can't have moral rules like "killing is wrong"

Which is why I never use "killing" and "murder" interchangeably. Anyone who genuinely means "killing is wrong" is a nutjob if you ask me, for they fail to dinstinguish between aggression, defense, and punishment.

In its society, all moral judgments are made strictly based on a single good, which is the survival of the host organism.

That describes a selection heuristic, not a moral obligation. If a set of rules helps a society persist and outcompete others, then those rules may be effective strategies for survival, but effectiveness and obligation are not the same thing.
ruleset -> society survives or outcompetes rivals
Which is a true and honest justifiable descriptive explanation for why certain rules have spread historically. And it does not yet explain why anyone ought to follow those rules. Anyone could consistently say "I understand that these rules help societies persist, but I do not care whether my society persists." Why would their choice be morally wrong rather than simply contrary to the group's interests?

An implicit "selector god" arises,

Renaming the survival heuristic doesn't change the structure of the explanation:
societies with certain rules survive -> those rules spread
So the same step remains: successful survival strategy -> ??? -> moral obligation.

---

As a general aside, many attempts to answer the central question of the thread essentially boil down to "these rules are good because they promote value xyz", be it survival, flourishing, God's favor, stability, and so on.
The problem is that every such value-based moral system is only binding to someone who already accepts that value. Anyone else can simply shrug and say "I don't care about that" and the argument stops right there.
That is, I don't think it's structurally possible for a value-based moral system to end up generating anything but claims that are conditional at the core, like "if you value xyz, then do abc". Which is perfectly coherent, but not the same thing as a categorical "you ought to do abc".

Now, the most common way that people try to avoid this problem is by claiming that the value is somehow objectively real (e.g. survival, flourishing, happiness, etc.) and then treating that as sufficient to generate an obligation. But as I keep saying, even if it were granted that such things are real features of the world, that still only establishes a fact about reality. The remaining step is explaining why that fact generates an obligation rather than merely describing a state of affairs. Without that step, the claim still reduces to "if you care about xyz, then you should do abc".
Another move which I have seen from another philosopher, thankfully not in this thread, is to argue that certain values are implicit in people's actions, meaning that if someone acts in certain ways they are already committed to valuing certain things. I say, at most, that shows that a person happens to act in ways that presuppose or promote some value. It would not explain why they would be morally obligated to continue doing so, or why abandoning that value would count as a moral failure rather than simply a change in priorities.

 

[Red Saltire]

For instance, take a simple factual claim like "fire burns paper under normal conditions"
That claim is justified through observation and inference.

One more question before I effortpost. Suppose I demonstrate the existence of an obligatory moral fact to your satisfaction, would the "truth" of that fact be "binding" in the way you're demanding?

In other words, why does something being "true" matter to you given that there's nothing to say one should privilege truth over falsehood, as choosing either one would just be another arbitrary normative boundary?

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Suppose I had proof of moral realism that met your burden ie I demonstrate the existence of a moral fact to your satisfaction, would the "truth" of that fact be "binding" in the way you're demanding?

No, because that is not the question that is being discussed here.
The issue in this thread is not whether moral facts exist. The issue is what would make a categorical moral rule normatively binding in the first place. They're different questions.
To clarify, a fact is just a true statement about reality. A normatively binding rule is something whose violation counts as a moral failure. And those two are not the same thing.
Like, it is a fact that humans need food to survive. But that fact by itself does not yet yield a moral obligation. At most, it lets you infer what happens when humans are not fed. Likewise, even if someone were to successfully prove that a proposition like "murder is wrong" is true in some sense, the same step would still need explanation: moral fact -> ??? -> moral obligation
That is, even if a moral statement were true, that would still not apply what makes violating it a moral failure than merely describing something about the world. With "proof of moral realism" you'd just be moving the unanswered step one level lower instead of answering the question.

why does something being "true" matter to you given that there's nothing to say one should privilege truth over falsehood, as choosing either one would just be another arbitrary normative boundary?

That is a completely different derailment, and one that destroys the possibility of argument altogether.
The moment you ask a question, request justification, or prepare to write an effortpost, you are already acting on the premise that truth matters, that reasons matter, and that better and worse answers can be distinguished. Otherwise, your own question has no status above random noise.
If truth and falsehood were genuinely on an equal footing, then there'd be no reason to prefer a valid argument over an invalid one, an honest answer over one that is fabricated, a demonstration over a bluff, nor a true premise over a false one. Under those conditions, there would be no point in asking questions, making arguments, or evaluating replies at all.
That is, "why privilege truth over falsehood?" is not some deep or serious challenge for the thread. A self-undermining move is what it is. The act of asking the question already assumes that truth matters. If truth and falsehoods were interchangeable, there would be no reason to ask the question nor to care whether the answer is correct.

tl;dr
"Suppose I prove moral realism" - irrelevant to the question; proving a moral fact exists does not explain what makes violating it a moral failure
"Why privilege truth?" - dead on arrival, anyone who asks that while arguing is already presupposing that truth and falsehood are not interchangeable

 

[Red Saltire]

"Suppose I prove moral realism" - irrelevant to the question; proving a moral fact exists does not explain what makes violating it a moral failure
"Why privilege truth?" - dead on arrival, anyone who asks that while arguing is already presupposing that truth and falsehood are not interchangeable

To clarify, in my hypothetical I meant to ask what would happen if I demonstrated true moral obligation to your satisfaction. If we could agree that this fact was true, why WOULDN'T the next question from your skeptical posture be "Why privilege truth?"

You are quite right that anything that doesn't assume truth over falsehood is "dead on arrival." That is an example of the kind of codependent ontology I'm arguing for. There is something embedded in the nature of "truth" that makes adherence obligatory for us. We seem to agree that there is a such thing as a metaphysical obligation.

If you agree with this characterization, I can try and move from here to moral obligation, but I'd like to hear your thoughts so far.