Proving Morality

[Kshartle]

If anything exists it exists regardless of God existing.

Saying that we cannot prove morality or objectively right or wrong behavior exists without God is no different from saying we can't prove that anything exists without God, or, if anything exists God must exist.

It's a fallacious argument and there is no basis for the belief that God's existance is required to prove anything exists in reality.

I disagree.  Nothing would exist without God (except God).  However, I cannot prove that, just like it cannot be proven my statement is incorrect.  Modifying your statement slightly, there is no basis for the belief that God's existance is NOT required to prove anything exists in reality.  As I stated earlier, faith in something is required whichever one of those you want to accept.  Then the question is "where does faith come from", or "where does man's reason come from", etc.  Are you going to address those questions?  Upon what deductive reasoning basis do you think objective facts are correct?

... Mountaineer

I don't mean to be difficult, but it is logically necessary that anyone who says "I won't accept a solution that doesn't include X" (for any value of X) is not willing to participate in a discussion in which X is not assumed.

Accordingly, since this discussion does not assume God, and you require that assumption, why are you posting in this thread?

Last week I stated:

8. Either God exists or he doesn't, independant of our opinions.
9. Whether God exists or not does not change whether reality exists. He is either a part of it or not.
10. If he exists he may have created all reality that we can perceive or can't.

Does anyone object to that?

Can we be flexible enough to admit that existance of something that we think is unprovable cannot be a requirement to prove anything? If that's the case then nothing is provable. If you really do beleive that then why engage in discussion? I've said before that with regards to predetermination (or whatever) with regards to all our decisions and the future.....that this might be correct but wasting time dicussing that viewpoint is bizzare since the conclusion is nothing matters anyway!

[Mountaineer]

there is no basis for the belief that God's existance is NOT required to prove anything exists in reality. 

Sure there is. I exist. I can even prove it. You just said you can't prove God exists and I agree with you.

That's pretty good basis for the belief that we don't need to prove God's existance to prove the existance of anything.

I am certainly not a logic guru, but I don't believe you used deductive reasoning to prove you exist (seems to be inductive reasoning) ... or when you began to exist ... and then traced your ancestry back to the "beginning" ... with the ultimate question of where did you (and your ancestors) come from and begin to exist?  Are you saying that just because you look in a mirror and see yourself, and your friends all say you exist, that you really do ... without proof?

... Mountaineer

[Kshartle]

I was going to go down this exact path in a little while. The idea that you can't go from an "is" to an "ought" is completely wrong.

Sorry, nope.

Humans can't breathe underwater without assitance from an object or another person - reality

A human who wants to live who chooses to breathe underwater without assistance because they think they can is incorrectly assesing objective reality.

Ergo, they "ought not" do that (open their mouth and try to breathe underwater). It is objectively wrong behavior/choice/decision.

It depends on their goals.  You're assuming their goal is survival.  In other words, the fully-stated version of your sentence is, "If the person's goal is to survive, then he ought not to breath underwater."

You see how in order to bring in the word "ought", you end up making assumptions, and indeed value judgments, about the person's goals.  You might then say, well, that person's goal OUGHT to be survival.  And there we are: "ought" in an unproven premise.

Xan what if he tells me he can't wait to see his newborn kid but first he has to go underwater for a while and consult his fish bretheren? And then he drowns........

I said in the statement he wants to live. It's an assumption in the scenario not my personal assumption.

[Kshartle]

there is no basis for the belief that God's existance is NOT required to prove anything exists in reality. 

Sure there is. I exist. I can even prove it. You just said you can't prove God exists and I agree with you.

That's pretty good basis for the belief that we don't need to prove God's existance to prove the existance of anything.

I am certainly not a logic guru, but I don't believe you used deductive reasoning to prove you exist (seems to be inductive reasoning) ... or when you began to exist ... and then traced your ancestry back to the "beginning" ... with the ultimate question of where did you (and your ancestors) come from and begin to exist?  Are you saying that just because you look in a mirror and see yourself, and your friends all say you exist, that you really do ... without proof?

... Mountaineer

I thought we agreed that we won't get anywhere if we start getting into the metaphysical (does anything really exist) nonsense.

That stuff might be interesting to some, I consider it a waste of my life to discuss since it renders everything moot and seems 99.9999999999999999999999% certain to be complte and utter BS nonsense crap. I understand if you disagree but I think that's better left for another thread don't you?

[moda0306]

You're welcome to prove me wrong, but such a leap would have to be a non-sequitur.  You can't suddenly switch realms in the middle of an argument.

As an example of moving from "is" to "ought", you can say "Due to the nature of reality, if you want to survive, then you ought to behave in way X." Assuming this is a demonstrably true statement, if the response is "But I don't want to survive", you counter with "In that case, go ahead and die; I'll continue the discussion with someone who wishes to survive."

I was going to go down this exact path in a little while. The idea that you can't go from an "is" to an "ought" is completely wrong.

There are endless examples. I have about two dozen in mind that are so obvious there won't be any confusion. This is the road I was going down with humans expecting a certian outcome from their decisions and basing their decisions on their interpretation/assesment etc. of reality.

Humans can't breathe underwater without assitance from an object or another person - reality

A human who wants to live who chooses to breathe underwater without assistance because they think they can is incorrectly assesing objective reality.

Ergo, they "ought not" do that (open their mouth and try to breathe underwater). It is objectively wrong behavior/choice/decision.

But this is jumping ahead. I want people to get very simple and basic premises that they can agree are objectively true so when we start combining them into bigger concepts they will have to self-contradict to maintain dissagreement and protect their belief systems/bias/ego.

"Wrong" as in immoral, or "wrong" as in an incorrect course of action to reach a certain outcome?

If we're talking a functional claim to reach an outcome, if I want to drown myself, then I "ought" to try to breathe under water.  But it's dependent on my subjective preference, and the logical choices I'll have to make in the world around me to make those preferences reality.

"Oughts," as you're trying to use them in logic require a subjectively preferred outcome.  "Drowning" vs "living" are objective states that can be subjectively preferred.  Without that subjective preference, you can't make your "ought" statements work.  But what anarcho-capitalists argue is that there are "objective preferences," so that we don't need to qualify "oughts" with a subjectively preferred state ("If you want to live," "If you want the car to stay running," etc)... the "preferred state" is objective and oughts now work on their own... or so anarchocapitalists say.

We tend to assign no significant MORAL weight to someone who doesn't act out to logically bring their preferences to reality (unless we say people are "stupid," or "lazy," but those are very loosely connected with true morality).

So we need to get to a point where we can either have objective preferences that drive our "oughts" in logic (otherwise we just have amoralism), or we have to somehow prove some subjective measurements to morality exist... though those always come back to a truly objective underlying statement ("happiness is objectively preferable to other states, so it is "right" to take actions that maximize human happiness"... this may mean different things based on people's SUBJECTIVE situations and consequences, but it focuses on a (potential) objective truth: "Happiness is preferable to other human states.")


Xan (as we seem to agree on this),

Am I meandering too much here?  Does this post make sense or do I need to tighten up my points?

[Kshartle]

As an example of moving from "is" to "ought", you can say "Due to the nature of reality, if you want to survive, then you ought to behave in way X." Assuming this is a demonstrably true statement, if the response is "But I don't want to survive", you counter with "In that case, go ahead and die; I'll continue the discussion with someone who wishes to survive."

I was going to go down this exact path in a little while. The idea that you can't go from an "is" to an "ought" is completely wrong.

There are endless examples. I have about two dozen in mind that are so obvious there won't be any confusion. This is the road I was going down with humans expecting a certian outcome from their decisions and basing their decisions on their interpretation/assesment etc. of reality.

Humans can't breathe underwater without assitance from an object or another person - reality

A human who wants to live who chooses to breathe underwater without assistance because they think they can is incorrectly assesing objective reality.

Ergo, they "ought not" do that (open their mouth and try to breathe underwater). It is objectively wrong behavior/choice/decision.

But this is jumping ahead. I want people to get very simple and basic premises that they can agree are objectively true so when we start combining them into bigger concepts they will have to self-contradict to maintain dissagreement and protect their belief systems/bias/ego.

"Wrong" as in immoral, or "wrong" as in an incorrect course of action to reach a certain outcome?

If we're talking a functional claim to reach an outcome, if I want to drown myself, then I "ought" to try to breathe under water.  But it's dependent on my subjective preference, and the logical choices I'll have to make in the world around me to make those preferences reality.

"Oughts," as you're trying to use them in logic require a subjectively preferred outcome.  "Drowning" vs "living" are objective states that can be subjectively preferred.  Without that subjective preference, you can't make your "ought" statements work.  But what anarcho-capitalists argue is that there are "objective preferences," so that we don't need to qualify "oughts" with a subjectively preferred state ("If you want to live," "If you want the car to stay running," etc)... the "preferred state" is objective and oughts now work on their own... or so anarchocapitalists say.

We tend to assign no significant MORAL weight to someone who doesn't act out to logically bring their preferences to reality (unless we say people are "stupid," or "lazy," but those are very loosely connected with true morality).

So we need to get to a point where we can either have objective preferences that drive our "oughts" in logic (otherwise we just have amoralism), or we have to somehow prove some subjective measurements to morality exist... though those always come back to a truly objective underlying statement ("happiness is objectively preferable to other states, so it is "right" to take actions that maximize human happiness"... this may mean different things based on people's SUBJECTIVE situations and consequences, but it focuses on a (potential) objective truth: "Happiness is preferable to other human states.")


Xan (as we seem to agree on this),

Am I meandering too much here?  Does this post make sense or do I need to tighten up my points?

I posted a premise about what it means to be wrong.

You are reading into this and jumping ahead.

No one has mentioned morality except you and Xan in anything so far. At least I haven't except that I'm trying to prove it...........................

We should stick to the premises or at least not argue against ponts that have not been made (you what that is.....there are fields full of them). 

[Libertarian666]

I was going to go down this exact path in a little while. The idea that you can't go from an "is" to an "ought" is completely wrong.

Sorry, nope.

Humans can't breathe underwater without assitance from an object or another person - reality

A human who wants to live who chooses to breathe underwater without assistance because they think they can is incorrectly assesing objective reality.

Ergo, they "ought not" do that (open their mouth and try to breathe underwater). It is objectively wrong behavior/choice/decision.

It depends on their goals.  You're assuming their goal is survival.  In other words, the fully-stated version of your sentence is, "If the person's goal is to survive, then he ought not to breath underwater."

You see how in order to bring in the word "ought", you end up making assumptions, and indeed value judgments, about the person's goals.  You might then say, well, that person's goal OUGHT to be survival.  And there we are: "ought" in an unproven premise.

The notion of value is logically dependent on the notion of life. If someone's goal is not survival, then they have no need for values, as no values are needed to succumb. Thus, morality is irrelevant to any who don't wish to survive, and we can ignore them in the discussion of the provability of morality.

[moda0306]

I was going to go down this exact path in a little while. The idea that you can't go from an "is" to an "ought" is completely wrong.

Sorry, nope.

Humans can't breathe underwater without assitance from an object or another person - reality

A human who wants to live who chooses to breathe underwater without assistance because they think they can is incorrectly assesing objective reality.

Ergo, they "ought not" do that (open their mouth and try to breathe underwater). It is objectively wrong behavior/choice/decision.

It depends on their goals.  You're assuming their goal is survival.  In other words, the fully-stated version of your sentence is, "If the person's goal is to survive, then he ought not to breath underwater."

You see how in order to bring in the word "ought", you end up making assumptions, and indeed value judgments, about the person's goals.  You might then say, well, that person's goal OUGHT to be survival.  And there we are: "ought" in an unproven premise.

Xan what if he tells me he can't wait to see his newborn kid but first he has to go underwater for a while and consult his fish bretheren? And then he drowns........

I said in the statement he wants to live. It's an assumption in the scenario not my personal assumption.

Sheesh you have got to be kidding.

Moving along.........

It still takes a subjective goal/preference, Kshartle.  It clearly doesn't matter whether it was a guess by you, or a preference by him.

What we're trying to determine is whether some OBJECTIVE preference should drive what we "ought" to do.  So far, you've just shown that to achieve a certain outcome, certain things must get done, due to the logic of the physical world around us.

But it's all subjective, consequential logic so far.  If my desire is to kill someone as soon as possible, then I "ought" to grab the most useful tool to aid in doing so and find the closest person to me.  This isn't moral, nor is it objective.  It's just a statement of the physics of what will logically need to happen for me to complete my subjective goal, which is (I think we can all agree.. even if we can't prove it )) an immoral one.

[Kshartle]

The notion of value is logically dependent on the notion of life. If someone's goal is not survival, then they have no need for values, as no values are needed to succumb. Thus, morality is irrelevant to any who don't wish to survive, and we can ignore them in the discussion of the provability of morality.

With regards to someone who's goal is to end their life....they "ought" to put the gun in their mouth, not point it at their pinky toe. Blowing off your pinky toe to end your life is wrong if they actually thought it was reality that losing their pinky toe would kill them. It was a wrong decision because it was not in accordance with reality (this is not a moral judgement).

[moda0306]

I was going to go down this exact path in a little while. The idea that you can't go from an "is" to an "ought" is completely wrong.

There are endless examples. I have about two dozen in mind that are so obvious there won't be any confusion. This is the road I was going down with humans expecting a certian outcome from their decisions and basing their decisions on their interpretation/assesment etc. of reality.

Humans can't breathe underwater without assitance from an object or another person - reality

A human who wants to live who chooses to breathe underwater without assistance because they think they can is incorrectly assesing objective reality.

Ergo, they "ought not" do that (open their mouth and try to breathe underwater). It is objectively wrong behavior/choice/decision.

But this is jumping ahead. I want people to get very simple and basic premises that they can agree are objectively true so when we start combining them into bigger concepts they will have to self-contradict to maintain dissagreement and protect their belief systems/bias/ego.

"Wrong" as in immoral, or "wrong" as in an incorrect course of action to reach a certain outcome?

If we're talking a functional claim to reach an outcome, if I want to drown myself, then I "ought" to try to breathe under water.  But it's dependent on my subjective preference, and the logical choices I'll have to make in the world around me to make those preferences reality.

"Oughts," as you're trying to use them in logic require a subjectively preferred outcome.  "Drowning" vs "living" are objective states that can be subjectively preferred.  Without that subjective preference, you can't make your "ought" statements work.  But what anarcho-capitalists argue is that there are "objective preferences," so that we don't need to qualify "oughts" with a subjectively preferred state ("If you want to live," "If you want the car to stay running," etc)... the "preferred state" is objective and oughts now work on their own... or so anarchocapitalists say.

We tend to assign no significant MORAL weight to someone who doesn't act out to logically bring their preferences to reality (unless we say people are "stupid," or "lazy," but those are very loosely connected with true morality).

So we need to get to a point where we can either have objective preferences that drive our "oughts" in logic (otherwise we just have amoralism), or we have to somehow prove some subjective measurements to morality exist... though those always come back to a truly objective underlying statement ("happiness is objectively preferable to other states, so it is "right" to take actions that maximize human happiness"... this may mean different things based on people's SUBJECTIVE situations and consequences, but it focuses on a (potential) objective truth: "Happiness is preferable to other human states.")


Xan (as we seem to agree on this),

Am I meandering too much here?  Does this post make sense or do I need to tighten up my points?

I posted a premise about what it means to be wrong.

You are reading into this and jumping ahead.

No one has mentioned morality except you and Xan in anything so far. At least I haven't except that I'm trying to prove it...........................

We should stick to the premises or at least not argue against ponts that have not been made (you what that is.....there are fields full of them). 

We are jumping ahead a bit, but objective oughts are what we're eventually going to get to.  When we say, "confer an ought from an is," we're assuming that it is an objectively moral "ought," not a subjectively functional "ought."

But this is probably semantics for now.

We can save this disagreement for when you attempt to actually carry that ought into the moral realm.

[Kshartle]

Sorry, nope.
It depends on their goals.  You're assuming their goal is survival.  In other words, the fully-stated version of your sentence is, "If the person's goal is to survive, then he ought not to breath underwater."

You see how in order to bring in the word "ought", you end up making assumptions, and indeed value judgments, about the person's goals.  You might then say, well, that person's goal OUGHT to be survival.  And there we are: "ought" in an unproven premise.

Xan what if he tells me he can't wait to see his newborn kid but first he has to go underwater for a while and consult his fish bretheren? And then he drowns........

I said in the statement he wants to live. It's an assumption in the scenario not my personal assumption.

Sheesh you have got to be kidding.

Moving along.........

It still takes a subjective goal/preference, Kshartle.  It clearly doesn't matter whether it was a guess by you, or a preference by him.

What we're trying to determine is whether some OBJECTIVE preference should drive what we "ought" to do.  So far, you've just shown that to achieve a certain outcome, certain things must get done, due to the logic of the physical world around us.

But it's all subjective, consequential logic so far.  If my desire is to kill someone as soon as possible, then I "ought" to grab the most useful tool to aid in doing so and find the closest person to me.  This isn't moral, nor is it objective.  It's just a statement of the physics of what will logically need to happen for me to complete my subjective goal, which is (I think we can all agree.. even if we can't prove it )) an immoral one.

There's nothing subjective about it Moda. I said objectively that the person wants to live. It is not subjective.

Again, you're arguing that I haven't proven what is moral behavior before I've even mentioned what I think is.

Why are you doing that? You are inventing an argument and knocking it down.

[moda0306]

The notion of value is logically dependent on the notion of life. If someone's goal is not survival, then they have no need for values, as no values are needed to succumb. Thus, morality is irrelevant to any who don't wish to survive, and we can ignore them in the discussion of the provability of morality.

With regards to someone who's goal is to end their life....they "ought" to put the gun in their mouth, not point it at their pinky toe. Blowing off your pinky toe to end your life is wrong if they actually thought it was reality that losing their pinky toe would kill them. It was a wrong decision because it was not in accordance with reality (this is not a moral judgement).

Totally agree... though the mere act of stubbing my toe has felt like a near-death experience at times, so I hope this isn't one of your self-evident premises!!



I think we should just move past this... the "ought-is" divide that Xan and I are waiting for is obviously a moral one, and you haven't hit on that yet, so I'll let you keep going.

[Kshartle]

 
We are jumping ahead a bit, but objective oughts are what we're eventually going to get to.  When we say, "confer an ought from an is," we're assuming that it is an objectively moral "ought," not a subjectively functional "ought."

But this is probably semantics for now.

We can save this disagreement for when you attempt to actually carry that ought into the moral realm.

Listen...let's not move past anything you dissagee with. If you disagree with me please point it out now. I'd rather do it sooner than later. I'd rather know you agree now than wonder.

I haven't argued any behavior as moral or immoral so any objection along those lines is a strawman.

[Kshartle]

The notion of value is logically dependent on the notion of life. If someone's goal is not survival, then they have no need for values, as no values are needed to succumb. Thus, morality is irrelevant to any who don't wish to survive, and we can ignore them in the discussion of the provability of morality.

With regards to someone who's goal is to end their life....they "ought" to put the gun in their mouth, not point it at their pinky toe. Blowing off your pinky toe to end your life is wrong if they actually thought it was reality that losing their pinky toe would kill them. It was a wrong decision because it was not in accordance with reality (this is not a moral judgement).

Totally agree... though the mere act of stubbing my toe has felt like a near-death experience at times, so I hope this isn't one of your self-evident premises!!



I think we should just move past this... the "ought-is" divide that Xan and I are waiting for is obviously a moral one, and you haven't hit on that yet, so I'll let you keep going.

Gracias

[moda0306]

 
We are jumping ahead a bit, but objective oughts are what we're eventually going to get to.  When we say, "confer an ought from an is," we're assuming that it is an objectively moral "ought," not a subjectively functional "ought."

But this is probably semantics for now.

We can save this disagreement for when you attempt to actually carry that ought into the moral realm.

Listen...let's not move past anything you dissagee with. If you disagree with me please point it out now. I'd rather do it sooner than later. I'd rather know you agree now than wonder.

I haven't argued any behavior as moral or immoral so any objection along those lines is a strawman.

K,

I really think we're good.

As long as we haven't crossed a morality divide, yet, I am 90% sure we're good, and just as sure it's not worth trying discover something to disagree about quite yet.

[Xan]

My "ought/is" post is more-or-less a sidebar to the main point here.  So please do move along, K; we haven't gotten that far yet.  I was just pointing out a reason that I think what you're trying to do is impossible.  But we'll get there.

[Kshartle]

My "ought/is" post is more-or-less a sidebar to the main point here.  So please do move along, K; we haven't gotten that far yet.  I was just pointing out a reason that I think what you're trying to do is impossible.  But we'll get there.

We'll certainly get somewhere.

I think the sidebar was useful. We've established that it's easy to go from an "is" to an "ought".

[Xan]

No.  We've established that despite desperate attempts, nobody has even come close.

[moda0306]

Let's call a truce here. Ought is a suggested action. Not necessarily moral yet.

With any ought, you have to have an end desire for any suggested action guiding the logic of the suggestion. "Moral behavior" might be one of those.  We still have to prove the concept of morality.

So in philosophy, when we are talking about "oughts," morality as the ultimate goal is implied.  Perhaps this should have been more clearly stated. We're arguing past each other as I see it.

So far, anyway.

I'm laying down my sword on this one.  I'm eyeballing it though for the next set of premises.

[Xan]

Yes, agreed; let's move on.  We're not there yet in the main thread.

[Mountaineer]

If anything exists it exists regardless of God existing.

Saying that we cannot prove morality or objectively right or wrong behavior exists without God is no different from saying we can't prove that anything exists without God, or, if anything exists God must exist.

It's a fallacious argument and there is no basis for the belief that God's existance is required to prove anything exists in reality.

I disagree.  Nothing would exist without God (except God).  However, I cannot prove that, just like it cannot be proven my statement is incorrect.  Modifying your statement slightly, there is no basis for the belief that God's existance is NOT required to prove anything exists in reality.  As I stated earlier, faith in something is required whichever one of those you want to accept.  Then the question is "where does faith come from", or "where does man's reason come from", etc.  Are you going to address those questions?  Upon what deductive reasoning basis do you think objective facts are correct?

... Mountaineer

K,

My question, that I don't think you have yet addressed is bolded and underlined above and bolded below from an earlier post.  Perhaps I'm dense, but I really would like to hear your perspective before we wander down the path a lot further.  Or, just say that you are going to ignore it for now and move on.  Thanks.

So, to add to my previous post that discusses faith, even Kshartle's first premise requires faith.  For me, the question reduces to the simplest version:  Who is going to be God?  God or something else?

It seems the first premise requires faith in man's logic or himself in order to accept some "fact"; i.e. man is going to be God.  God being defined as that which we place our trust in or derive comfort from.  Thus, even though we are now up to a dozen premises or so, it is a faulty assumption from the get-go to make man god.  If ones faith derives from man, to me it is very suspect and subject to error.



... Mountaineer

[Kshartle]

The questions are:

1. Where does faith come from?
2. Where does reason come from?

I'll see if I came up with something tomorrow on these. If anyone else wants to take a stab please help.

Regarding #2.....do you mean "the ability to reason"? Basically what do you mean by the words "faith & reason"?

I think it's best if use the same definitions.


I think the first premise was that something exists and that something is reality. What do I have to have "faith" in to realize that?

[Kshartle]

Let's call a truce here. Ought is a suggested action. Not necessarily moral yet.

With any ought, you have to have an end desire for any suggested action guiding the logic of the suggestion. "Moral behavior" might be one of those.  We still have to prove the concept of morality.

So in philosophy, when we are talking about "oughts," morality as the ultimate goal is implied.  Perhaps this should have been more clearly stated. We're arguing past each other as I see it.

So far, anyway.

I'm laying down my sword on this one.  I'm eyeballing it though for the next set of premises.

Ought is not just suggested. One of your earliest comments was that objectively correct behavior means something we "ought" to do.

If you're starving you "ought" to eat (again provided you prefer to live). This is not a just a suggestion and this is not a small point. There is a real consequence to not doing what you "ought" to do. That's why I think the word "suggestion" is not a good choice here. Does that make sense? It misses the point somewhat.

[Pointedstick]

So, to add to my previous post that discusses faith, even Kshartle's first premise requires faith.  For me, the question reduces to the simplest version:  Who is going to be God?  God or something else?

It seems the first premise requires faith in man's logic or himself in order to accept some "fact"; i.e. man is going to be God.  God being defined as that which we place our trust in or derive comfort from.  Thus, even though we are now up to a dozen premises or so, it is a faulty assumption from the get-go to make man god.  If ones faith derives from man, to me it is very suspect and subject to error.

To me, an unbeliever, the phrases, "Who is going to be God?", "i.e. man is going to be God." and "God being defined as that which we place our trust in or derive comfort from." are collections of words that have no comprehensible meaning. I think I understand what you're saying, but it shows such a difference in thinking that I wonder if it will be possible to bridge the communication gulf. How can I be making man into God if I do not believe in God? Can I make X into Y, where Y is acknowledged to be unprovable and I do not believe in the existence of Y? It just kind of makes my head spin.

[moda0306]

Let's call a truce here. Ought is a suggested action. Not necessarily moral yet.

With any ought, you have to have an end desire for any suggested action guiding the logic of the suggestion. "Moral behavior" might be one of those.  We still have to prove the concept of morality.

So in philosophy, when we are talking about "oughts," morality as the ultimate goal is implied.  Perhaps this should have been more clearly stated. We're arguing past each other as I see it.

So far, anyway.

I'm laying down my sword on this one.  I'm eyeballing it though for the next set of premises.

Ought is not just suggested. One of your earliest comments was that objectively correct behavior means something we "ought" to do.

If you're starving you "ought" to eat (again provided you prefer to live). This is not a just a suggestion and this is not a small point.

If it's not a suggestion, what is it?  A preferred behavior?  A duty?  A behavior that will best realize your goal?

Define ought...

And if you "ought to eat" if you are hungry, what does that say about taking an apple from a vendor?