tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post8384099414240197445..comments2023-10-29T10:32:36.914-04:00Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: The Moral Relevance of Non-Natural PropertiesRichard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-8351335791041372562014-04-28T23:10:58.242-04:002014-04-28T23:10:58.242-04:00Hi, Richard
Thanks for the explanation. Sorry I ...Hi, Richard <br /><br />Thanks for the explanation. Sorry I didn't realize you were talking about about a property of being “important”, instead of what is important to people – or to different agents. <br /><br />Personally, in light of your reply to Jackson (and given your clarification above), I would raise a couple of other objections again non-naturalism, but I don't know whether Jackson would follow up with the line of arguments I would make, and I'm not sure you'd be interested in discussing a line of objections that might not be like the ones he would raise, so I'll just sketch one of the basic ideas; I will elaborate if you like. <br /><br />So, briefly, I would disagree about whether there would be any substantive disagreement with sufficiently different aliens (and also probably even twin earthlings, though more details about their similarity to humans and the causal basis of their judgments might be needed to tackle the case), but assuming that the non-naturalist analysis of <i>what</i> we're attributing is correct, then I would press something akin to (key parts of) Street's Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value (though I disagree with her use of the term “realism” and the varieties of realism worth worrying about, but that's another matter), only that under that semantic assumption, it would turn into an argument for a moral error theory, either substantive or at least epistemic one - and assuming no substantive error theory, then an epistemic one (To be clear, I'm not an error theorist myself, since I don't think our moral discourse has the ontological commitments that your analysis (if I'm reading this right) seems to attribute to it, in particular with regard to substantial disagreement with very different intelligent aliens, AI, etc.; I think we would be talking past each other if we insisted on such a debate. However, I <i>would</i> become an error theorist if I were convinced that the analysis is correct). Angra Mainyuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16342860692268708455noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-89093902007248124462014-04-28T20:21:40.531-04:002014-04-28T20:21:40.531-04:00Hi Angra, the thought was that (for the non-natura...Hi Angra, the thought was that (for the non-naturalist) the property of <i>being important</i> is a "non-natural" or purely normative property. Different people (/aliens) attribute this property to different objects, and (e.g.) that's how we're able to substantively disagree about normative questions such as what's important. The role of non-natural properties is thus "theoretical" rather than "practical" in the sense that they are posited to account for <i>what we're attributing</i> when we attribute importance to some things rather than others; they are posited for this reason rather than the "practical" one of being <i>themselves</i> important in this way.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-78708659668112043872014-04-28T18:18:01.740-04:002014-04-28T18:18:01.740-04:00I agree with the reply to Beckle's objection. ...I agree with the reply to Beckle's objection. <br /><br />As for the reply to Jackson's, I'm not sure one should be (i.e., that one has a moral obligation to be) motivated by the right-making features of acts rather than by rightness (of course, if the naturalists are right, some of the properties involved are the same as rightness, but even so, a person might only be motivated upon figuring out that an action would be right. And that does not strike me as always immoral). <br /><br />But leaving that aside and granting the point, I would like to ask what you mean when you say: "Roughly speaking, the role of non-natural properties is not to <i>be</i> the reasons that justify or properly motivate our actions (or that are directly practically important), but rather to give content to the <i>attribution of importance</i> to these natural properties rather than others. Their role is, in this way, more theoretical than practical."<br /><br />I'm not following the part about giving content to that attribution, in a theoretical sense. <br /><br />Adult humans find some properties important (i.e., they attribute importance to some properties), like the property of being disposed to be kind to people under such-and-such circumstances (a property of agents), or the property of saving the lives of n human children without harming any agents (a property of actions, or potential actions), etc. Well, normally and usually they do. Some humans are psychopaths and they do not care about those properties. And some intelligent aliens from another planet and/or a strong AI may well not care about those properties, but rather about others. <br /><br />But I'm not sure how any of those psychological issues are connected (under the non-naturalist theory you may have in mind) to some non-natural property, even if in some theoretical sense. Angra Mainyuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16342860692268708455noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-45228654079777421082014-04-28T15:57:06.782-04:002014-04-28T15:57:06.782-04:00I am no nonnaturalist, but these strike me as just...I am no nonnaturalist, but these strike me as just the right points to make. The 'glasses' analogy is a bad one, a better analogy would be a pill that allowed you to directly perceive mathematical entities. But then I definitely do not have the intuition that such perception would be irrelevant to the justification of my mathematical beliefs. There's still the background problem of why anyone should care about ANY property, but of course that's not a problem for nonnaturalism in particular.Vanitashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03190524739107446297noreply@blogger.com