Is Morality Subjective? - The Latte Argument

[david.molyneux]

This call was difficult to listen to, especially the argument used regarding the need to value life/means more than death/goals up until the moment of death, e.g. the suicide bomber valuing his own life more than anything else, including his ideology, up until the moment he detonates, and particularily the illustration of the latte and the $5.00.

 

You don't value the $5.00 more than the latte the moment you make the decision to go GET the latte. At that point in time you are looking at the money in your hand and thinking, "Yes, I am willing to give this up to get what I want" and then taking the steps necessary to retrieve it. To think that only at the MOMENT of the transaction you value the latte more is mind-bogglingly stupid, in my opinion.

 

By this same logic a mother values her unborn fetus right up until the instant she aborts it, or hunter values a bullet more than he does his prey right up until the MOMENT he pulls the trigger.

 

When a suicide bomber makes the decision to die it is their BELIEFS that they value more than their own life. The temptation of 72 virgins cannot be the ONLY thing that every one of them wants. An asexual, ascetic terrorist may hate the West so much that he is willing to give his life, with no expectation or hope of an afterlife; he values his ideology and his intense hatred more than the prospect of continuing to live, or enact change through living.

[Kevin Beal]

You don't value the $5.00 more than the latte the moment you make the decision to go GET the latte. At that point in time you are looking at the money in your hand and thinking, "Yes, I am willing to give this up to get what I want" and then taking the steps necessary to retrieve it. To think that only at the MOMENT of the transaction you value the latte more is mind-bogglingly stupid, in my opinion.

I don't have context for the call, as I haven't listened to it, but I think you might be misunderstanding the basic praxeological argument.

 

It's about what is logically implied by the act itself, a priori, by definition, and not necessarily a reference to anyone's thoughts, desires or feelings.

 

Consider that if you trade 5 dollars for a friend's rubik's cube and you value the rubik's cube more than your 5 dollars, then that is a distinct and separate act from valuing the 5 dollars more but going through with the deal anyway. The second is more like charity, and less like bartering. By using the words "barter" and "charity" it reveals something about what it is they value while changing ownership.

 

If there is no charity or barter happening, then we can say nothing objective – a priori – about what you do or don't value. How one determines the truth of a proposition like "I value my bullet more than my prey" is purely subjective until that value is logically implied in some kind of action. Whether or not that is true before the shot is fired is not something you or I can comment on, because we're not the hunter.

 

Human action involves intention. For example, there is a difference between doing something accidentally and doing it on purpose, and we describe these acts in different terms. First degree murder and manslaughter are separate acts even if they result in the same conclusion.

 

Philosophy is not concerned with subjectively coming to the truth of propositions. Whether or not your favorite band is Fleetwood Mac (you have good taste, btw) is only something you can determine – it's subjective in that way.

 

We can however come to objective conclusions about subjective things, like by looking at distinctions between charity and barter. By considering their definitions, we already accept certain premises and go from there.

 

Does that help?

[Matthew Ed Moran]

The call was "Is Morality Subjective | Nihilist vs Philosopher"

 

The caller's argument went something like this: preference for life is a universal preference. Since for any end to be pursued, the person must be alive to pursue the end, then living is a universal value; it is a means which must be present to pursue any end.

 

Stefan's counter-example was to point out that some people commit Jihad or suicide. In these instances, life is not valued, since the end being pursued is death, and the means to achieve it is suicide. 

 

The caller insisted that until the moment someone actually is dead from committing suicide, they value life. This would be like saying that for no time before purchasing a latte do I subjectively determine I would prefer a latte to $5. But this actually cannot be true as I argue below:

 

Since an end must be logically chosen before a means to pursue that end, it must be true that there is a time at which the preference for the end exists, and it must be before the means is chosen.

 

To apply this to the case of suicide, it must be true that before the act of suicide is committed (if not immediately in the moments before), life is deemed not valuable and is not preferred, and instead death is preferred to life, and only afterwards are means taken to achieve this chosen end of suicide. Therefore life is not a universal preference.

 

By his example a person could spend weeks planning his/her suicide and be considered "valuing life" at this time. If valuing life is to mean anything objective at all, then for it not to differentiate between someone who is happily enjoying their life, to someone who is at the brink of committing suicide there is something severely indiscriminate between this "value for life," and it would be a kind of circular argument/tautology which provides no philosophical truth.

 

If this were not true, then suicide could not be considered an action. It could only be considered an impulse (because impulses aren't chosen, they are spontaneous, so there is no differentiation between means and ends because it is not consciously chosen behavior). But I think it would be a hard case to say that all suicide is not consciously chosen since people clearly plan their suicides on some occasions and it is not always spur of the moment.

 

Does that make anything more clear at all?

[ThomasTheIdealist]

I'm not sure how this ended up relating to moral relativism unless we was just refuting UPB, but I think it's perhaps the phrasing that makes it nonsense. It's not the latte itself that's being valued more than the $5, it's the prospect of owning the latte. It wouldn't make much sense to value $5 (which you own) less than a latte (which someone else owns). That latte cannot be used or consumed until you own it. But you want to own that latte more than you want to own the $5. This desire never changes during the transaction. However your valuation of the $5 changes the moment you forfeit ownership over it.

 

So when it comes to suicide bombing, you value your life. Suicide bombing wouldn't be possible without your life. The desire to commit suicide in this case doesn't conflict with your desire to live (i.e. be alive).

[david.molyneux]

I'm not sure how this ended up relating to moral relativism unless we was just refuting UPB, but I think it's perhaps the phrasing that makes it nonsense. It's not the latte itself that's being valued more than the $5, it's the prospect of owning the latte. It wouldn't make much sense to value $5 (which you own) less than a latte (which someone else owns). That latte cannot be used or consumed until you own it. But you want to own that latte more than you want to own the $5. This desire never changes during the transaction. However your valuation of the $5 changes the moment you forfeit ownership over it.

 

So when it comes to suicide bombing, you value your life. Suicide bombing wouldn't be possible without your life. The desire to commit suicide in this case doesn't conflict with your desire to live (i.e. be alive).

 

This is really stretching the concept of "value". Suicide bombing also wouldn't be possible without the motivation to perform the action. By your logic, the suicide bomber values that which he fights against, because without it he would not have any reason to blow himself up. The affront to his ideology is every bit as much a critical part of his suicide.

[castus]

Value is subject to one's definition of the truth. This does not make value absolutely subjective.

[david.molyneux]

Value is subject to one's definition of the truth. This does not make value absolutely subjective.

 

I'm not really clear on your point, would you mind clarifying? I'm genuinely interested in what you mean by that.