The Frege-Geach Problem Explained and Debated 

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Hello! I think you might be mixing up the property of being true with the property of being truth-apt. Your example of fictional entities substituted for variables would still imply the statements are truth-apt since their imposition into a compound statement is subject to truth or falsity you when you say, “Harry Potter is the chosen one and is in Gryfrindor house.” The statement can be true or false since the variable is truth-apt; either he is or is not. Now, there is academic debate concerning whether fictional entities substituted in such statements would mean the statement is true or false, depending on if the statement is evaluated relative to its fiction, but nearly all agree that they are at least truth-apt; let us assume that we are interpreting “the tooth fairy put money under my pillow” the statement would still be truth-apt since the statement would be false as the tooth fairy is not real, the imposition of the “tooth fairy” directly effects the truth value of the statement, for example if it had been “my parents” substituted for “tooth fairy” the statement would be true, in the case of meta-ethics error-theory claims exactly this that moral claims are subject to truth or falsity it is just that all moral claims are false, the impossibility of truth of an given proposition does not equal the property of not being truth apt . It is indeed necessary for variables to be truth-apt in evaluating logical validity and inference in most of formal logic. Both 0th and 1st-order logic require you to assess the truth or falsity of the atomic propositions or predicates; each must be given a value of either T or F for the statement to be evaluated for logical validity. For non-truth apt statements to be asserted in for variables, the compound proposition could not be assessed; for example, say if Stealing is wrong, then I should not steal; this translates to “if 😡 stealing, then I should not steal”. However, the key here is that “😡” is not connected to the “if” in the descriptive sense. If moral statements are expressions of attitude, the “😡” is a literal expression of my anger towards stealing and is hence not modified from the “if,” and therefore, the compound proposition cannot be evaluated logically since “😡” is merely my expressing my attitudinal belief, not an abstract description of one holding that belief . Now there are ways emotivists have gotten around this by developing their own system of representation but that is a significant meta-physical cost to your meta-ethic nonetheless.

@@nikhilweerakoon1793 Hey, I wrote that OP a year ago, and I'm trying to understand what I meant. I think your rebuttal to the fictional character works, and I think the example with Harry Potter was a poor one. I'm not sure what was my point, but when I say : "The fact that concepts can be used in logically structured language in no way indicates that these concepts are truth apt" I think this goes right into what you assert here : *"Both 0th and 1st-order logic require you to assess the truth or falsity of the atomic propositions or predicates; each must be given a value of either T or F for the statement to be evaluated for logical validity"* Notice that in logic, variables and formulas do indeed need to take "values", but they need not be *"T or F",* they can be 1 or 0, or 1 or 2 or 3, or G and H... I mean we have "many valued logics", and these values don't need to map on the alethic spectrum (with truth on one end and falsity on the other). The "truth" table of the material implication for example, needs not be in terms of "truth" value. It could be a gastronomical table (pun intended), or an aesthetic table, or an ethical table. This would mean that sentences with conjunctions, disjunctions, negation and all of that (or radically different operators) would indeed need to be "evaluated" to some "value", but that value needs not be in the alethic spectrum. Which means those sentences need not be "truth apt" in order for an inference to go through. They could be "ethically apt" in the sense that they could be evaluated to ethical values which allow some ethical rules of inference to go through. In that sense, the "if" could indeed "modify" "😡". You see what I mean ?

@@MrGustavierHm, yeah, l. I haven't learned much about other logical systems, but that seems reasonable; I suppose the next question would be how the emotivists can lay out such a logical system, which I suppose they do so to an extent with the notion of fractured sensibilities, though I find the current emotivist answer still a bit unsatisfying .

while yes, that is the role of logic, or goal of logic you might say, such a goal has to first be valued cognitively, before you can meaningfully apply the logic. Every axiom that makes logic and reason function, like the law of identity, has to first be accepted by the user. So really, everything in value-laden.

Glad it was helpful :)

There are ways that non-cognitivists translate such logical statements into forms similar to your example but not quite. The issue is the “if” is not a modification of the “I disapprove of” in the relevant sense it might have been slightly misleading for them to represent the emotive translation as this in fact, it should rather be translated as “ if 😡 stealing then 😡 for your little brother stealing “ the problem here is that “😡” is supposed to be an literal expression of your attitudes, emotive statements are not descriptive and hence can not be referred to descriptively it can be akin again as “If “let’s out a scream of genuine anger” then “let’s out another scream of genuine anger” to your little brother stealing. The problem here is in these statements you are obviously not expressing a genuine anger you have but referring to the state of anger abstractly, but then the statements would not be the expressions of attitudes themselves as emotivism claims but rather descriptions of internal attitudes much like a morally relativist perspective as subjectivism.

Yes a noncognitivist would translate it like that. But I think the problem is that that conditional clause implies a truth claim there. So it is no longer non-cognitive, rather it is cognitive. “If I …, then I …” this is either true or false. So it is cognitive.

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed :)

If morality is just what people agree upon as being moral, then I see no problem with this.

@@ponderoustomes9005 1. You may want to clarify your definition of morality (you use moral to define morality). 2. I think you are saying that one can just define morality as the set of action that people agree we should follow as a society. 3. If that is your point, it does not solve the problem, because it is just the collective society that is saying "boo stealing". It would be a group emotional state rather than an individual emotional state. 4. To avoid the problem, you would need to take the cognitivist position and say that society agreeing on morality makes is propositionally true (seems like a hard argument to make). 5. Or the easiest solution if you would like to keep that definition of morality would be to accept the problem, and just say that morality is a useful construct, but has no force behind it. Cognitivism and Non-cognitivism are mutually exclusive, so any way you frame the issue, you're going take one position or the other.

​@@LinebackerTuba Actually, I typically use dictionaries to define words, since words are conventions Since the word "moral" has been used to generally mean "correct behavior within society" then there is no flaw. Source: www.etymonline.com/word/moral "2. I think you are saying that one can just define morality as the set of action that people agree we should follow as a society." No, society defined it as such. This is how words work, most people learned this when they were little kids. "3. If that is your point, it does not solve the problem, because it is just the collective society that is saying "boo stealing". It would be a group emotional state rather than an individual emotional state." Both are true as one tends to become the other. that's like saying that water is either defined by the ocean or a raindrop and that these are mutually exclusive. They feed into each other. 4. To avoid the problem, you would need to take the cognitivist position and say that society agreeing on morality makes is propositionally true (seems like a hard argument to make). By definition, yes, because it has been defined as such by society. It's like you're discovering that fire is called fire because it's called fire by society. It's true in that regard, but I doubt it's true in the sense that there are moral facts outside of what we agree upon being such, nor have I ever encountered morals void of emotions. "5. Or the easiest solution if you would like to keep that definition of morality would be to accept the problem, and just say that morality is a useful construct, but has no force behind it." That's generally how such concepts work. A hammer is useful, doesn't make it true or false, but you can apply it in a useful or less useful or even non-useful way.

@@LinebackerTuba Also, just in case you think I'm using the term morality in an inconsistent way with the word "moral" then here's my definition for that: www.etymonline.com/search?q=morality

If I said 2 vampire plus 2 vampires = 4 vampires that is logical but it doesn't commit me to the existence of vampires.

Thank you, glad you enjoyed.

Thanks, will do!

Can you explain the quasi-realist position on logic?

Hi Avontay, certainly, please email philosophyvibe@gmail.com and we'll respond with the script.

Seems coherent to me :) Good stuff

I believe I agree with your conclusion is valid still--as in, I agree that Expressivism is not squelched by the arguments presented here--but I believe that the framing you presented for taste is not a good analog for the moral argument proposed in the video. Specifically in the sence that the non truth-apt statement is not a premise of its own, and it not the consequent of the conditional. A comparable argument to the one in the video framed with ketchup would be something like: (1) If all things with ketchup on them taste bad, then the burger with ketchup on it tastes bad. (2) All things with ketchup on them taste bad. (3) The burger with ketchup on it tastes bad. Again, I still think your point is valid, just that your taste-centric framing is not equivalent logically to the moral-centric framing in the video. Although I could be mistaken, as I am a fairly new Philosophy student, so I am still getting my grips on all of this.

Yes, that is what is explained in the video. That's what expressivism is.

@@cloudoftime I am confused by your reply. Was your "Yes" affirming that I am technically a cognitivist (given how what I laid out above is truth apt)? Or was your "yes" just you trying to tell me that I am an expressivist, and thus not a non-cognitivist, and that what I laid out above was somehow not truth apt?

@@adamkennedy3800 I totally glossed over the "Does that make me a cognitivist?" line, and was responding just to the first part. An expressivist is a non-cognitivist, not "not a non-cognitivist". That said, what you have described about your thoughts sounds like Ethical Subjectivism. Ethical Subjectivism is the cognitivist position that states moral statements express propositions but the truth or falsity is referring to the attitude of the subject. So, if it is a fact that you have a certain preference, and you are labeling anything you prefer as "good", then "X is good" is true. But this is only true by definition, and doesn't refer to the ontology of some moral fact objectively. Ethical Subjectivism is just moving the goalposts from what people mean when they talk about the truth-aptness of moral language. It's a category error.

​@@cloudoftime Thanks for the response. I have a really hard time understanding what people mean when they say that there are objective moral facts. 1)What do you mean when you say there are objective moral facts? ​I am not at all sure what someone could mean by "right" or "wrong", if it isn't just referring to a type of preference they have, and people refuse to define the terms when I engage with them. 2) What do you mean when you say something is "right" or "good" or "moral"?

@@adamkennedy3800 No problem. You may already understand this, so I don't mean to tell you something you already know, but objective and subjective mean mind independent and mind-dependent, respectively. Again, you probably already know that, but I'm just establishing the terms for the conversation. That said, I run into the same problem you do when asking people what they mean, in regard to the question "what could an objective moral _thing_ possibly be?". Typically, people can't explain it. However, I've run into two kinds of responses that offer some explanation by definition, but not much in the way of other substance: 1. From some physicalists, the idea that there is an undiscovered law of nature, which for obvious reasons isn't supportable through evidence yet. Or, that there are biological imperatives, which, like Ethical Subjectivism, just seems to move the goalposts. 2. From some idealists, the idea that there is a highest possible universal of goodness for any type of being, or group of beings, and if you are the type of being that can only reach the highest goodness (preference satisfaction) based on the goodness of other members in your group, that creates a moral obligation to this group, as that provides you the ultimate goodness, and you always have an obligation to yourself. So, like the position from biology, that your preferences are what they are because of the kind of being you are, and that makes it so there is a best way to be as that kind of being, which may require group interaction (morality). I hope that made sense to you, as this would be much easier to explain vocally. That last one doesn't need to be held by an idealist, but I was making the distinction between the sources.

Quasi Realism and Fictionalism are indeed very similar, some would say practically the same theory. I think Simon Blackburn objected to the idea that they are the same, claiming that Fictionalism was having attitudes to something that is fiction or is not real, where as Quasi Realism takes into account the internal desires of the agent, so the attitude one has almost functions as a personal truth or a personal fact.

@@PhilosophyVibe Right: our moral attitudes are too serious to be make-believe. Projecting attitudes, binding oneself and others to certain behaviors and actions is not play-acting or "as-if" thought; we're tied to a tree in way we never are in fiction; we cannot just abandon the script at will.

You got a like for you name alone

Well, the problem with the problem is that it's merely a loaded word game, in which the moral language is assumed to refer to facts, but hasn't actually been established by the cognitivist to refer to facts. And it's still easy to refute.

@@cloudoftime I think you missed that this was an internal critique. The assumption was, "If the language in both premises of the syllogism is as the non-cognitivist claims it to be, then how do you reconcile the issue as presented?" > Well, the problem with the problem is that it's merely a loaded word game, in which the moral language is assumed to refer to facts, but hasn't actually been established by the cognitivist to refer to facts. You've missed the tree for the forest. The non-cognitivist needs to explain what the moral statement in premise 1 is from their own perspective. That's the challenge being presented, given that the non-cognitivist claims positively (and thus has the burden of demonstrating the internal consistency of their own viewpoint) that the moral statement in premise two is just an expression of someone's preferences. You could claim (as the example in the video does) that it's a chain of regress on preference, but you'd have to answer the final objection in that case. > And it's still easy to refute. You have simply ignored that there is anything to refute, so I'd be interested in hearing what your position is. Based on what I've read from you in other comments, it seems like your position is that this is begging the question, but I think you've misunderstood that the question can't be being begged because the objector is assuming non-cognitivism is true for the sake of argument, meaning that the assumption is that the objection itself assumes that moral language does NOT refer to facts. You'd have to demonstrate either a valid response to the objection or demonstrate that the objector isn't accurately depicting your non-cognitivism (and that this is, by consequence, an external critique, and thus is begging the question). I haven't seen you do either.

@@TimPowerGamer I don't accept that I have done what you claim; I think maybe you're misunderstanding me. The syllogism itself uses language that wouldn't need to be used by a non-cognitivist (at least, I wouldn't use it). _That's_ where I'm saying the loading is. Using the moral word "wrong" would not be an internal critique, as the non-cognitivist (at least myself) would not use the word "wrong", as that word is a cognitivist contrivance. The non-cognitivist will say that when someone uses the word "wrong" what they are _actually doing_ is expressing their preferences. Instead of using the word "wrong", as put forward in the syllogism proposed by the cognitivist, the non-cognitivist can just rephrase more precisely to what they would _actually_ intend to convey (being then an actual internal position) showing there is no problem. The syllogism proposed by the cognitivist is as follows: *P1* If stealing is wrong, then getting your little brother to steal is wrong; *P2* Stealing is wrong; *C* Therefore, getting your little brother to steal is wrong. The rephrased syllogism, as a non-cognitivist could provide, is as follows: *P1* If stealing actually causes Person A to have a negative emotional state, getting Person A's little brother to steal causes Person A to have a negative emotional state; *P2* Stealing actually causes Person A to have a negative emotional state; *C* Therefore, getting Person A's little brother to steal causes Person A to have a negative emotional state. The key here is to remember that a universal is being referred to in both situations, and so it applies to both. In the former, the universal is "stealing is wrong", and "getting [someone else] to steal" would be a subcategory within that universal. Likewise, in the latter, if stealing (universally) causes Person A to have a negative emotional state, then Person A would necessarily be caused to have a negative emotional state from "getting [someone else] to steal", as it is a subcategory within the universal of stealing. I see no problem here. It logically follows that if someone is _actually_ caused to have a negative emotional state from stealing (universal), then they are caused to have a negative emotional state by the included subcategory of getting someone else to steal. The fact that people's emotions can vary throughout time and influence is not unique to non-cognitivism. What people think is "right" or "wrong", in a cognitivist sense too, changes throughout time and influence. That's because "right" and "wrong" are simply referred to from what people _believe_ to be "right" and "wrong". When people change their beliefs about right and wrong, that is then what those people are saying is right and wrong. They are expressing their beliefs _about_ actions, whether or not "right" and "wrong" can be shown to be facts of the world (and so far, they have not been, as I have seen). A big issue I have with the Frege-Geach "problem" (this video at least) is that it seems to assume some credibility to cognitivism based on allegedly "making sense" of the syllogism. However, the soundness of the premises has not been shown by the cognitivist for the syllogism. The "wrongness" proposed isn't a substantiated property. The fact that it is useful for the validity of a syllogism, doesn't make it sound. For example, I could say the following syllogism: *P1* If stealing is ehfrhtf, then getting your little brother to steal is ehfrhtf; *P2* Stealing is ehfrhtf; *C* Therefore, getting your little brother to steal is ehfrhtf. This is valid, but what does ehfrhtf mean? Likewise, what does "wrong" mean? You can claim it is a fact of reality that something is "wrong", but what is it? That said, I realized that this was the video with the "quasi-realism" addition to it, which already somewhat answered this question. The only difference is the speaker at the end made some claim that implied cognitivism came out on top because it refers to facts of the world, whereas emotional states can be inconsistent. Well, the fact that emotional states can be inconsistent, or change, is just how things work. The fact that considering moral statements to be truth-apt makes it convenient to make valid syllogisms, in no way substantiates the claim that moral statements are in fact truth-apt. So, you have a valid syllogism. So what? It's easy to make a valid syllogism. You've got to also satisfy that soundness requirement.

@@cloudoftime Emotivism as you've expressed doesn't seem to be an accurate basis to describe the type of morality humans convey. There are many things humanity has deemed immoral that cause very positive emotional reactions, such as "It's wrong to hit" and also punching someone in the face for insulting your mother and feeling vindicated. Infidelity is another obvious example. People can "cheat" for years with no remorse because of the positive emotions tied to it, but would still tell you it was morally wrong if asked. While this is a metaethical discussion, I don't know that emotivism can properly account for these specific types of situations where a person clearly and intentionally does what they genuinely believe to be wrong precisely because their emotions go against that belief. Especially since the individual in question may not ever come to "feel bad" (negatively emote) about their alleged "wrongdoing" (any given action for which they supposedly have a negative preference), but would still hold to punching people in general being wrong (Expressing the opposite preference verbally without emoting it). There have also been sociopaths who have adhered strictly to moral codes without being able to emote at all (or having severely dampened emotional capacity). While, yes, people do act inconsistently, that's not what I'm referring to in these examples. The issue is that these people in question affirm morality in one sense consistently but don't emote it in that same sense consistently, making emotivism an inaccurate depiction of human morality since what is emoted/preferred and what is held to as a "moral position" don't coincide regularly enough for it to be accurate. (And this is ignoring that people have always done things that they personally didn't prefer and had strong negative emotions towards because they perceived it as "the right thing to do".) To reduce morality to just emotivism requires you to answer why there is this massive disparity between stated moral positions and actual emotion relating to (what people perceive are) moral facets. Unless you're claiming that a person's morality changes when they do something they perceive as wrong (but this doesn't hold either, because I have yet to meet a moral realist that hasn't claimed to have done something they believed was morally wrong at the time they did it at some point in their lives, and I'm sure if you ask them if there was something they did that they considered immoral that they never "felt bad" about, they would also answer, "Yes", mundanely). To state it more succinctly, there can't be a disparity between what one is emoting and morality if the morality just is the emoting, and this is one aspect of what the video is attempting to show. (Thus, the section of the video on fractured sensibilities.)

Yep.

The reason he says noncognitivists still struggle to show how moral statements have logical properties is because noncognitivists use moral arguments all the time. If you're a noncognitivist, you can't get from "Joseph is stealing, stealing is bad, therefore Joseph is doing a bad thing" without logical inference. The noncognitivist then has two choices: 1. Accept that moral language has logical properties, in which inferences can be made from different moral statements. 2. Moral language does not have logical properties, therefore the statements "Joseph is stealing. Stealing is bad. Therefore Joseph is doing a bad thing" are 3 completely separate attitudes about isolated and unrelated situations. There is no logical inference between the three statements, one merely expresses them completely out of arbitrarity and coincidence. They have to accept that the first two statements do not lead, not even in the slightest, to the third statement. The third statement is its own, isolated attitude. Noncognivitists are generally not willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater with choice 2 by biting the bullet that moral language does not logically lead to any conclusions.

@@carnivorous_vegan The real solution is to turn it on its head, and assert that logic itself is a moral language, or rather, a value-laden one. The axioms and principles one uses in logic, though they're taken as necessarily true by most philosophers, still have to be accepted. If we lived in a bizarre fictional universe akin to alice in wonderland, our standard practices of logic would not be accepted. It's not just that they wouldn't be useful, it's that in a deeper sense we wouldn't find them truthful. In this way logic is if not experience-dependent, at the very least it has to be value dependent, as in, the speaker has to first accept the axioms. This way of "accepting" things as true is all the speaker is doing when using moral language. They "accept" that stealing is wrong, however they come to the conclusion, be it by logic, intuition, or pure emotional fiat. Their justifications can still be argued of course, but to say they cannot make sense of morality having logical properties, is to admit they cannot make sense of logic having moral properties, either.

But liking orange or not is not equivalent to murder or theft.

Yep.

well its about feelings, but those feelings are derived from biological and social evolution, which makes us want to avoid causing suffering or being made to suffer and pursue pleasure

The real question is who cares? Why should anyone care about the mental state of conscious beings? The only possible reason from Harris's perspective is that it is useful to take into account how others feel, since that influences there actions, which might affect you. But, this still lacks any objective morality (universal obligations to act "morally"). You have simply defined morality as reducing suffering and increasing pleasure, but given no objective basis for the definition. What if one finds it beneficial to cause others suffering. On Harris's view, there is not reason they shouldn't do this. In short, there is nothing wrong logically with Harris's view, but it is void of any usefulness when it comes to moral duties.

@@LinebackerTuba I think the point of that view is there are no moral duties, everything that feels right or wrong is just a product of evolution and nothing more. Basically just do whatever you want and what makes you feel comfortable and happy

You're a cognitivist lol, in order to start discourse on naturalism vs non-naturalism you must presuppose cognitivism.

This isn't a novel concept from Harris; this is essentially just Moral Subjectivism. Moral Subjectivism, or Ethical Subjectivism is simply the cognitivist position that moral statements are truth apt, but the truth or falsity is based upon the attitude of the subject. So in other words, something is good if it is in line with the attitude of the subject who thinks it is good, therefore, it is a fact because it is a fact that the subject has that attitude which we are referring to as in alignment with that thing. It's like saying, "I am going to call something good if I prefer it. I prefer X, therefore I am going to call X good. Since it is a fact that I have this preference, it is also a fact that X is good, because I am just equivocating goodness with the existence of my preference." I was interested in Ethical Subjectivism for a while, but that was only until I realized it's just moving the goalposts. When philosophers discuss moral philosophy, and when they talk about objectivism and subjectivism, what they are referring to is whether or not the moral thing itself is a fact of the world, not whether the person's subjective preference is itself a fact of the world. It's really just a category error.

You are a moral subjectivist which is a type of cognitivism and not a type of non cognitivism.

Why does it matter what people think?

@@cloudoftime I dont care what others think. I mean i get mocked a lot for my lack of caring. Like i went to the gas station in my shorts sandles and a bath robe. Still dont see the issue tho tbh. I mean if i go without the bathrobe with just the shorts and sandle no one cares yet you add the bath rob and bam..... you are now doing something weird.... People are weird. I say this to a lot of people. The only time you should care what others think is if you care about said someone. Who cares what a stranger thinks? And why should people care when they are insulted. Does that someone matter to you? No... then why care. People are so weird..... then again so am I.

@@cloudoftime did i give off the vibe that i care about what others think? And how so im curious?

@@cloudoftime well.... i dont care what people think, but i am intrested in how they think and why they think like that. Its always intresting to try to creat there persona in your own mind. Even if it is a flawed and not crued replica. Its fun to do... well atleast for me. Does that count as caring what others think?

@@alexhutchins6161 You said, "lots of people think stealing is good". You're referring to what people think, literally. My point was that referring to what people think in regard to this topic is an argumentum ad populum, when attempting to use it as an argument for a position. The fact that any certain percentage of a population of subjects may think any specific way, at any point in time, does not logically entail anything about an objective fact, should there be one. The topic being discussed is whether or not moral statements contain propositions. Saying that people feel different ways shows nothing but that people may not align with some fact of the matter, or they might. It isn't a logical entailment.