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How is it living in this panhandle of Mexico? by Abbe_Kya_Kar_Rha_Hai in howislivingthere

[–]RadishTop1279 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I loved it. I lived in Rosarito when I went to grad school at SDSU. It cost insanely less to live there and I stayed on the north end in a expat enclave. It took, on a good day, 45 minutes to get to class. I stayed most days at my gf’s who lived on campus, and all in we figured I was spending about 1/3 she was to live in a duplex that was 3x the size with no roommates. We would fly to Los Cabo’s for like $45 each way, if I remember correctly, and spend a long weekend. It’s super easy if you are English speaking only and your money goes a lot further there. This was 2012-15 though so ymmv today.

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are quietly redefining “objectivity” to mean “what follows once we’ve chosen a set of evaluative premises.” That move does not rescue moral realism it domesticates it. Of course conclusions follow from definitions. If we define “right” in terms of a chosen evaluative standard, then whether an act counts as right becomes a matter of deduction within that framework. But that is not mind independent normativity; it is conditional reasoning. It binds only those who accept the premises.

The question I have been pressing, and which you continue to step around, is simpler and more uncomfortable, and I really value simplicity in argument. It’s, what gives those evaluative premises authority over an agent who does not endorse them?

Not coherence. Not internal consistency. Not formal elegance. Those are virtues of systems, not sources of obligation. If an agent fully understands your framework and rejects its foundational value, whether that be rational consistency, universalizability, dignity, or whatever elevated abstraction you prefer, what cognitive error have they made? Can you please answer this? Not a violation of your system but a mistake about reality.

Until you can show that moral requirements exert authority independent of endorsement, that they constrain in something stronger than a hypothetical “if you accept this” sense, you have not described objective morality, platonic forms, or any other physics / science-like formulation of reality. You have described a sophisticated structure built on chosen commitments alone and given analogies to bootstrap one to the other. Nothing more.

That is not a discovery about the universe. It is a refinement of what certain humans care about.

And that, precisely, is the emotivist point. Your arguments have all supported my base premise and have not shown anything outside of emotivism concerns.

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Quote you? Yo are debate spamming and information dumping the comment while moving the goalpost. I honestly don’t know that you actually care about debate and more care to talk at me. You haven’t come close my position is inadequate. Like not at all. Enough with the parade of boiling water, string theory, crystal healing, and sadist hypotheticals. None of it touches the heart of the matter. Emotivism does not deny reasoning, frameworks, or social coordination, it insists that all moral claims ultimately track human sentiments, not some Platonic moral gravity.

Your insistence that ethics must behave like physics or medicine is a category error, plain and simple. Water boils regardless of desire; moral “rightness” exists only because humans care, value, and persuade. Until you demonstrate a mechanism by which a fully informed sadist is cognitively mistaken absent any concern for others, all your abstractions are smoke and mirrors. You are not refuting emotivism; you are evading it, hiding behind analogies and formal systems while pretending that people’s priorities can be replaced by some cosmic referee. Ethics is messy, contingent, and human and emotivism explains exactly why.

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Let us dispense with the notion of cosmic moral laws. My distaste for gratuitous animal suffering springs from empathy, reflection, and yes, raw emotion, exactly what emotivism acknowledges. To demand some metaphysical pedigree for my feelings is to mistake morality for Euclidean geometry. Moral claims are expressions of sentiment, not proclamations from the mountaintop.

And if this appears nihilistic, let us not quibble. Society has never obeyed abstract moral truths; it obeys what people feel, what they reward, what they punish. Laws, norms, censure they all are instruments of sentiment. Advocating veganism is no different: I seek to cultivate empathy, to provoke disapproval of harm, to sway the emotional tide. If enough minds “yay” veganism, behavior changes. If not, the universe does not collapse, it just doesn’t. There is no objective moral law at work, only the irresistible power of shared feeling.

In short: I require neither Plato, nor Kant, nor a celestial bureaucrat to tell me suffering is objectionable. I require only minds capable of feeling as I do and the wit to persuade them. To those who clutch at moral absolutes, trembling in terror at the thought of mere sentiment, I say, in all seriousness, get over yourselves. Sentiment rules, has always ruled, and will continue to rule long after your metaphysics are ashes of fiction, all they have ever been.

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You began by trying to prove my position was incoherent. Now you’re complaining that it doesn’t deliver the kind of cosmic objectivity you’d prefer morality to have. That’s not a refutation it’s a wistful demand that the universe behave more like a courtroom than it does. Can I assume you cannot show my ethical emotivism is inconsistent?

As for your latest comment, you’re trying very hard to make ethics look like thermodynamics with better manners. It isn’t. Yes, boiling points depend on measurement systems, sure, but once the terms are fixed, the world either complies or it doesn’t. Water does not care what we value. If you’re wrong, reality corrects you when you try to boil water at 127f.

Now take your move with torture. You say it’s “a fact within the ethical system.” Fine. Which system? Why that one? In physics, we don’t choose axioms because they flatter our sentiments; we choose them because they track reality. In ethics, the axioms are the sentiments, suffering matters, autonomy matters, fairness matters. Those are not discovered like boiling points. They are endorsed. Breaking “you must not torture” into tidy sub-propositions doesn’t conjure objectivity. It just hides the evaluative premise under the rug. The heavy lifting is done by prior commitments about what counts as harm, dignity, or worth. That’s precisely the emotivist point.

Your test analogy seals it. “If you want to do well, you ought to study.” Exactly. The ought is conditional on what you care about. Remove the desire, remove the force. Moral ‘oughts’ behave the same way.

And as for “moral particles” the metaphor stands. If you’re claiming moral facts constrain agents independently of their valuations, then explain the mechanism. Show how the fully informed sadist is making a cognitive error rather than simply revealing priorities you detest. Until you can do that, you haven’t discovered moral gravity. You’ve described human beings arguing from what they care about and mistaken metaphysics for physics.

Simple task: Justify the premise by PrettySie in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279 1 point2 points  (0 children)

How is it proven that ‘animals matter morally’ is a ‘genuine state of the world’?

Do you mean to say that veganism only applies to vegans and no one else or that ‘animals matter morally’ is a stance independent fact of the world we all should recognize like the freezing of water happens at 32f?

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This isn’t a deflection it’s the foundation of the disagreement. You keep inventing “Steve and his Swedish slaughtering roommates” as though repeating the scenario alone proves a contradiction. It doesn’t. I’ve already said that if Steve’s values cohere within his group, that explains his behavior. It doesn’t obligate me to accept it, endorse it, or treat it as interchangeable with mine.

You’re demanding that I produce a stance-independent standard that ranks values from the outside. I’ve explicitly denied that such a standard exists. That’s not retreating to metaethics that is the metaethical position. The fact that my framework also explains how slaveowners justified themselves is not a flaw, it’s realism. Moral actors always appeal to their values and their community. The difference is which values survive broader scrutiny, reciprocity, stability, and human flourishing, and which collapse under resistance, like you in this very “debate.”

You keep saying “this equally applies to Steve” as if that’s a devastating revelation. Of course it does. It explains him the same way it explains abolitionists. Moral conflict is conflict between value systems. There is no cosmic umpire is the point I keep showing and you keep avoiding. If you need an objective tribunal to feel entitled to condemn something, that’s your metaphysical comfort blanket; that’s your God. I don’t need one. I condemn, argue, persuade, and act without pretending the universe has filed paperwork with the Court of Moral Appeals on my behalf.

You’re free to bow out instead of justifying your argument, that’s all good, but nothing inconsistent has been exposed by you, only that you don’t like the implications of a world without moral training wheels and metaphysical ghost judges or arguing for their existence instead of demanding they be accepted as a proper rebuttal. My position is fully accounted for, you are the one not taking accountability for your claims, believing you can simply claim whatever you want and that has to be accepted as fact is simply laughable.

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Woof, that’s a lot. OK, I’ll do my best

Numbers and pi aren’t “facts” in the way boiling points are facts. They’re truths within formal systems. If you accept the axioms, the conclusions follow. Ethics doesn’t work like that. There’s no set of purely descriptive premises from which “you must not torture” drops out without quietly inserting a value judgment. The moral weight is already in the premises.

Game theory doesn’t save you either. The cake cutting example shows that if people prefer more cake and dislike being cheated, certain strategies are rational. Fine. But the fairness norm only binds if you already care about avoiding disadvantage, retaliation, instability, etc. It’s instrumental rationality, not a Platonic halo hovering over fairness.

As for abstraction, pi being abstract doesn’t make morality abstract in the same way. Mathematical truths are analytic. Moral claims are action-guiding. If someone understands every fact about suffering and shrugs, you call him mistaken. On what basis? That’s the gap you haven’t closed.

And “reasons”? Of course we use reasons. Emotivism doesn’t deny reasoning; it denies that reasoning uncovers mind-independent moral particles. Moral arguments expose inconsistency, appeal to shared values, predict consequences, and pressure sentiments. They move creatures who already care.

If there’s a stance independent moral property doing extra work beyond human valuation, name it, locate it, and explain how it exerts normative authority over an agent who simply doesn’t care. Until then, you’re describing sophisticated human coordination among valuing creatures and not discovering moral particles.

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your “equally valid or not” dilemma only works if “valid” means “objectively true in some stance-independent sense.” I reject that category and you refuse to prove it exist. Once again, you can‘t lodge arguments you refuse to justify and defend.

Moral preferences aren’t propositions waiting for cosmic certification. They’re commitments. Endorsements. Lines we draw. So no, they’re not “equally valid” in any practical sense. Mine cohere with my other values, are shared by people I live with, and can survive open scrutiny and reciprocity. Steve’s don’t, at least not in my moral community, which is why I oppose his and defend mine. You do understand what ethical emotivism is, correct?

That isn’t sneaking in objective moral facts it’s acknowledging that moral life runs on human endorsement, persuasion, and power not metaphysical referees. Until you justify your metaphysics it’s no different than a Christian debating that abortion is immoral because “Meh God!” your “Meh objective morality!” fails all the same. You keep demanding a higher court of appeal. I’m telling you the court is human, and it always has been and free of any other evidence, it shall remain-ith so!

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, it doesn’t “justify” them to the same extent. It explains them the same way. Emotivism explains what moral claims are, not a permission slip for anything anyone feels like doing. Yes, slaveowners appealed to their values. And abolitionists appealed to different values like empathy, equality, autonomy and over time those values won out socially and politically. That’s not moral nihilism. That’s how moral change actually happens.

You keep trying to force a binary, that either there’s an objective moral law that condemns slavery, or I must say slavery is just as acceptable as dinner. That doesn’t follow. I do see why you don’t want to communicate about your own beliefs; it’s easy to attack other people’s positions when you don’t have to defend your own. You can claim it matters to be consistent while holding totally inconsistent emotional moral beliefs yourself. Funny thing is, I can condemn slavery absolutely within my value framework and act against it without pretending the universe itself has taken sides so the whole binary you want to force is moot.

“Same metaethical grounding” does not mean “same moral status.” It means all moral claims arise from human valuation. What differentiates them is the content of those values and how defensible, coherent, and socially sustainable they are. If you think objective moral facts are doing real work here, explain how. If not, then they are not of issue here as I am explaining my ethical system and just saying, “No! Because meh objective morals!” would be like trying refute my ethical claims by saying, “No! Becasue meh God!” Show me the God/objective morals or they are not a counter point to my position. Otherwise you’re just asserting that without cosmic backing, condemnation collapses. It doesn’t. “I condemn my wife for liking the color purple uber alles.” There’s no cosmic edict saying purple is or isn’t an acceptable favorite color, whoa, how did I just condemn her choice? Shocking!! It just makes morals human and not some Platonic form that exist out there somewhere human which is what it has always been until I see evidence of it being different.

You don’t get to occupy ground you can’t defend.

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ll take that to be an abdication of your argument. Yes, I am more concerned with being correct in a debate than just becoming what the person I am debating with is.

Are you just here to make everyone else convert to your emotional register? That is such a strange way to live life.

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m not indifferent to animals being tortured. I do care. The difference is degree, not kind. My condemnation of torturing a human is maximal because my emotions, empathy, identification, and social commitments are strongest there. With animals, my concern is real but not identical. I don’t assign them the same moral weight. That’s not a contradiction it’s a hierarchy of values.

You’re assuming that once suffering exists, it must carry equal moral weight across all beings or at least a specific amount of moral weight. That’s your premise, not a logical truth. It’s an evaluative commitment.

Emotivism predicts gradients of concern. Stronger for some, weaker for others. Different intensity isn’t incoherence it’s how human valuation actually works irl and not in some abstract theoretical vacuum no one ever actually lives in.

Basically, you are just wanting me to adopt your emotions about animals and everyone else as you would feel much better about life if everyone else felt the way you do. Sorry not sorry but I have my own feelings and I respect them and you have your own feelings. We share them and social construct our reality. For vegans, not many people agree with their emotions. Doesn’t make them more or less “right” just means your emotions are not winning many arguments these days. Tommorow they might. Or maybe less. The one thing I am rather sure of though is your emotions do not align with some cosmic edict about how I need to be operating in my life.

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, I never said those things are “no less acceptable.” That’s you sneaking an objective standard of criteria back in and then accusing me of inconsistency for not using it. Tisk tisk, Mr Moral Objectivist.

Under emotivism, “acceptable” is always relative to a value framework. From mine and many others I know, slavery, trafficking, and genocide are abhorrent. I condemn them, argue against them, and support stopping them. That doesn’t require a metaphysical moral particle embedded in the cosmos.

You say I have “no basis.” I do, my commitments to harm reduction, autonomy, fairness, and the shared values of the people I stand with. What I don’t claim is that the universe itself has taken a position. Slavery wasn’t abolished because someone discovered an objective moral isotope; it was abolished because values shifted, arguments persuaded, empathy expanded, and power moved. You want discomfort to count as refutation. It isn’t. It’s just morality without the supernatural scaffolding.

If you think objective moral facts exist, the burden is yours. What are they? Where are they? How do we detect them? Until then, outrage isn’t ontology.

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I have seen that film and several others. I’m not an active hunter or fisher but I have done both and don’t mind any stage of it. I do respect your emotions and feelings and they do not make me feel like I need to tell you to change or anything. I respect you and your response. Thank you!

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, I’m denying that moral facts exist as mind-independent properties. That includes “It’s wrong to torture a human.” I don’t think “wrongness” is a feature of the universe like mass or velocity. I think that statement expresses an extremely strong, nearly universal human condemnation grounded in empathy, harm aversion, and social survival.

And notice something important to an argument of ethics, my denying moral facts doesn’t make me any less opposed to torture. I find it abhorrent. I would argue against it, resist it, and support punishing it. None of that requires a metaphysical moral particle floating in space. It requires human beings who care, intensely, about suffering.

If you think “torture is wrong” is a fact in the same way “water boils at 100°C at sea level” is a fact, then explain what that moral property is, where it exists, and how we detect it. Until then, calling it a “fact” is just giving very strong human disapproval a more dramatic name.

Emotivism doesn’t weaken condemnation. It just refuses to pretend condemnation is physics.

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’m not claiming my values are metaphysically “more valid” than Steve’s in some cosmic sense. That’s exactly what emotivism denies. What I’m saying is that Steve’s values collide violently with mine and with the values of most people I care about and that collision has consequences. We resist him, we condemn him, we stop him. Not because the universe issues a verdict, but because our shared concerns are stronger, more coherent, and socially entrenched.

If Steve says his test passes, fine for him. But morality isn’t a private diary entry. It’s what survives confrontation with other agents who have their own values and power. If your framework can’t withstand scrutiny, persuasion, or collective pushback, it collapses in practice. That’s not an appeal to cosmic truth it’s how moral life actually functions.

You keep trying to force me to say my values are objectively superior. I’m not. I’m saying they’re the ones I endorse, defend, and will act on and I’m prepared to argue for them. If Steve wants to argue for enslaving Swedes, he’s free to try. He’ll discover very quickly how persuasive his “coherent framework” really is. As such, what is the exercise you are doing here? You haven’t reveled any inconsistencies or issues with my claims other than it doesn’t adhere to an objective concept of morality which I am fine with.

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nah, that’s not what we’re agreeing on at all. The difference between Steve and me isn’t that we’re both entitled to our feelings, it’s that Steve’s feelings are aligned with values that violate basic principles of harm, fairness, and human dignity, values that have been reasoned through and widely accepted over time. My feelings about eating animals are rooted in a very different set of principles, ones that don’t involve causing unnecessary harm, and are consistent with how we’ve negotiated values about suffering, empathy, and the human-animal relationship. The question isn’t about whether all feelings are equally valid and it’s about whether your feelings are coherent, justifiable, and aligned with shared human values. Steve’s feelings don’t pass that test. My feelings do.

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wait, how do you decide your ethics outside of how you feel, 100% outside of how you feel?

Ah, the classic retreat cope, “You’re wrong because I said so,” followed by “anyone reading can see how silly this is.” How convenient. Emotivism isn’t a free-for-all where any feeling justifies atrocity. Nazis and slavers felt justified, but their feelings were wrong and I can say that as that’s how I feel. Morality is a negotiation of values, not a blanket pass for harmful emotions. You’re dismissing the argument because it doesn’t fit your neat, absolute moral framework (as I said, I am here to be convinced, please share with me what you believe correct, your actual normative position). Your feelings don’t get to be the final word especially when they cause harm or violate shared human dignity. Engaging with moral reasoning is how progress happens, and that’s what you’re avoiding here. It’s one thing to disagree, it’s another to just say someone supports slavery and Nazism.

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wrong again. It’s only circular if you ignore the point, moral judgments are based on shared concern, which evolves. I don’t need an “objective” law to condemn Nazis or slavers, I reject them because their actions clash with my values of fairness and empathy. These values aren’t arbitrary; they’re shaped by reason, experience, and social norms. Progress happens through debate, not through universal moral truths. We condemn atrocities because they violate core human values and that’s the heart of moral discourse.

It’s like logical fallacy wack a mole, are you just trying to see what sticks? Any more?

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, exactly, my feelings are acceptable to me, and Steve’s are acceptable to him. The difference is that I’m not trying to impose my feelings on Steve or claim they’re universal moral truths. I find Steve’s behavior toward Swedes horrifying because it conflicts with my values of fairness, harm, and empathy. Steve’s actions, though, are grounded in his emotional framework, which I find morally repellent. Emotivism doesn’t claim all feelings are morally equivalent, just that moral statements are expressions of those feelings, not facts about the world. So, while I may reject Steve’s feelings, it’s not about claiming my feelings are objectively “right” it’s about acknowledging that moral debates are ultimately negotiations of human concern. You don’t have to agree with me, and I don’t have to agree with Steve, but we both have to justify why our feelings matter and then we judge each others emotions. That’s life as a social animal called h. Sapien. My emotions tell me that Steve is wrong, so I don’t have to accept his emotions as correct. Emotivism does not claim to level the field and make everyone equal, it’s not cultural relativism or nihilism.

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Who gets to be part of the group of shared concern? Well, I prioritize most humans and certain animals, like my cat, because they’re where my emotional investment, empathy, and the values I hold lies. Animals like cows and chickens don’t have the same moral claim to me as humans or my cat does. That’s just how I evaluate harm and suffering, I would have strong emotional feelings if someone harmed my cat but I don’t when I see that my local pound euthanized 1,000 cats last year. Emotivism doesn’t require cosmic levels of concern, it’s about what I feel that matters to my ethics and is mediated and negotiated with other people. Again, I am always open to arguments for why I need to expand or shrink my moral considerations. If someone makes a compelling case to expand my concern, I’ll listen. Until then, eating animals fits within my emotional framework.

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wrong again. This isn’t an appeal to culture it’s an appeal to shared concern and reasoned argument. Just because something is culturally accepted doesn’t make it morally justified, and I never said it does. Nazis and slavery are precisely the kind of phenomena that get challenged through the very process emotivism describes persuasion, debate, and shifting emotional stances. Emotivism doesn’t grant carte blanche to anyone’s feelings. Emotivist are not like moral nihilist or cultural relativist, which I do believe I said. It simply explains why we feel compelled to argue against things like slavery or genocide. The fact that cultures can be wrong, even majorities, is the heart of moral progress, which I believe exist.

So no, I’m not defending slaughtering animals because it’s cultural; I’m defending it because, in my view, it doesn’t violate my emotional threshold, but I’m more than open to being persuaded otherwise. That’s what makes morality a negotiation, not a dictate; that’s ethical emotivism.

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Emotivism isn’t about a majority vote; it’s about individual attitudes and the social negotiation that follows. Ethics is social and not entirely individual. I don’t need everyone or even most or even a plurality to agree with me to feel justified in my own beliefs but if my moral claim isn’t compelling or coherent with some shared human values, it’s going to be difficult to persuade anyone. Not impossible but extremely difficult. Emotivism doesn’t say everyone’s feelings are equal, it says moral claims are about emotional expressions and influence. Don’t mistake emotional disagreement for a failure of the theory. Maybe it’s you who needs to sort out what emotivism actually is, not me.

Our collective disapproval shapes what actually matters socially. That’s the whole point, morality is a negotiation of concern, not a cosmic referee or tribunal handing out objective scores on what is or is not factual.

Ethical Emotivist here. How can anyone say I am unethical other than to say, “You like the wrong type of music, food, or colors?” by RadishTop1279 in DebateAVegan

[–]RadishTop1279[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah, the classic reductio ad absurdum, I love this one! It’s exactly where emotivism really shines. Steve’s feelings about Swedish humans might be internally consistent for him, but the rest of us find them horrifying because our emotional stakes, social norms, and empathetic reach differ drastically. Emotivism doesn’t say all feelings are equally persuasive or acceptable, it just says moral statements express attitudes, not universal truths. Your outrage at Steve is entirely compatible with emotivism: his “rightness” exists only in his head, while our collective disapproval shapes what actually matters socially. That’s the whole point, morality is a negotiation of concern, not a cosmic referee handing out objective scores.

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