@jeeprs,
jeeprs;81709 wrote: Actually New Mysterian has already made the point about the fact that many types of truth assertions can be universally agreed upon and I accept that.
Okay, but I don't recall suggesting that the universal acceptance of some claim entails its objective truth,
if that's what you're implying here.
Quote:It is not as if there is no scientific truth however scientific facts are specific to particular instances or matters. Insofar as they are an expression of 'scientfic law', nobody can actually provide an explanation for why such laws exist. We just know they do.
We
can provide explanations for why such physical laws exist, but whether you find those explanations plausible is, of course, another matter. Here's one possible explanation. Note that we have familiar examples of physical laws--those regulating the workings of DNA, photosynthesis, and sedimentary compression, for instance. Prior to the existence of chromosomes, plants, or rocks, there were no laws of these kinds. The relevant laws came into being just at the point when these things assumed a nature capable of accurate description. No human being authored these laws; indeed, humans didn't even exist at the time when such things first came into existence. They are objectively true.
This is one possible explanation for why such physical laws exist. We can date the origin of physical laws to the origin of the things that such laws cover. Since DNA has not existed eternally, neither do the the physical laws that correctly described its nature and behavior. Indeed,
moral laws could be relevantly like those that govern DNA--they came into being only when the things they describe (moral agents) took on a determinate nature. In other words, when moral agents (i.e., human beings) hit the scene, so did the relevant moral laws, in ways analogous to DNA and the manifestation of its physical laws.
At any rate, the confusion about "how physical laws could exist" arises because we assume that such things existed eternally. However, we have here a plausible explanation for how physical laws could have originated, and originated objectively, i.e., independent of human opinion. Thus, we also have a possible explanation for how moral laws might have originated, and originated objectively, i.e., independent of human opinion.
Quote:But I don't think the same logic can be extended to the ethical realm. You will note all through this discussion that as soon as the question of what exactly is objective about an ethical maxim, is seems it seems to fall back to the idea that a large number of people accept it. I fail to see how this makes it objective.
I can say for my own part that I never once suggested that
consensus about some moral law is what makes it objective. Stated succinctly,
a moral law is objective if and only if it is true independent of human opinion. Pure and simple. This holds for any kind of law with objective status. Personal opinion and collective endorsement determine what an individual or society
believes or
accepts as true, but neither ultimately decides what is true objectively. Just because we believe something to be true doesn't mean that it is.
Some people reject this and insist that we each create our own reality (including what is true objectively). And what could be more appealing than the notion that if we just believe something, it will become true? However, this view is mistaken (i.e., extremely implausible) for several reasons. For one thing, it involves a logical contradiction. If it's true that our beliefs can alter reality, or even fashion reality itself, then what happens when different people have opposing beliefs? Let's say that person A believes
p (a statement about reality), and
p therefore becomes true. Person B, however, believes
not-p, and it becomes true. We would then have the same state of affairs both existing and not existing simultaneously--a logical impossibility. What if A believes that all known terrorists are dead, and B believes they're not dead. What if A believes that the Earth is round, and B believes it's flat? Since the supposition that our beliefs create reality and determine what is objectively true leads us to a logical contradiction, we must conclude that reality is independent of our beliefs.
You have a leaking faucet. You position a bucket to catch the drops. You leave the room. When you return, the bucket is full of water, the sink is overflowing, and the carpet is soaked. Simple events like this--and billions of other experiences--lead us to believe that causal sequences continue whether we're experiencing them or not, as though they were independent of our minds. It's as though such events were causally connected to something outside our minds. The point is that the existence of an independent world explains our experiences far better than any known alternative. We have good reason to believe that the world and its physical laws--which seem independent of our minds--really is. We have little if any reason to believe that the world and its laws is our mind's own creation. Besides, if believing something made it so, the world would contain a lot fewer unfulfilled desires, unrealized ambitions, and unsuccessful projects than it does. There are objective truths, and there
might be objective moral truths as well.
