So, there could be different objective moral facts for different rational beings.

Noting that “could be” here is an analytical fact (it refers to a logical possibility), not an empirical fact (whether there are any such moral facts can only be discovered from empirical studies; it can’t be known from the armchair).

In my Religions article I outline how this might dissolve under circumstantial factuality, such that there is always a universal truth that even relative truths derive from according to circumstance. A traditional example is murder vs. self-defense. The moral fact of the matter depends on circumstances unique to each individual (whether your killing someone is self-defense and not murder); but there is a universal fact determining that (the facts that decide, in conjunction with your circumstances, whether it’s murder or self-defense). So there is always a universal moral fact and relative moral facts really aren’t different moral facts but the same moral facts applied to different circumstances.

This may be true all the way down, such that not only are there universal moral facts in our universe that diverge only in contact with circumstances, but those universal facts hold true in all possible universes. The example I give is of murder always being moral owing to a complete change in its effects (e.g. if it always causes resurrection into a healthier state and no other negative outcome). That may be true in a possible world (not one we live in now). But that really isn’t a relative difference in moral facts but an application of the same moral facts to the new circumstances (e.g. the transworld universal moral fact may be “it is wrong to cause needless harm” or some such forumula, which in contact with an entirely different physics than ours simply produces a different answer there regarding whether “murder” is moral “in that circumstance,” such that if you ever find yourself in that circumstance, that would also be the case, and therefore this is really in fact a “universal” fact).

I don’t claim to have conclusively resolved this question, and it may be a merely analytical (semantic) distinction that doesn’t matter to “what you ought to do” given any particular set of circumstances (those circumstances including your individual abilities, limitations, resources, properties, etc., and not just those external to you). So I keep the qualifier in. I give an example of the alternative possibility in my chapter in TET. If there really is an empirical distinction that doesn’t collapse this way, it could be the case that, for example, one set of moral facts is true for us, and a different set of moral facts is true for the aliens in Alien. But that would not change what the moral facts were for us. So it isn’t relevant to whether there are true moral facts for you. It could be that there is no rational argument (and no evidence) you could ever produce that even logically could “convince” even perfectly rational aliens to behave differently. But that would then entail how you ought behave toward them, which may be “it is a moral imperative to kill them all without negotiation.” And the same may be a moral fact for them.

I actually think this state of affairs is likely to turn out to be impossible (I discuss the Game Theoretic reasons and the rational agent satisfaction reasons in various places, but a good place to start is The Objective Value Cascade). But I have not proved that. So I mention, and thus cover, the other case so I have all possibilities covered. The end result is that the same moral facts remain true for all current human beings. So the possibilities of other species having other true moralities makes no difference to that.

The question keeps coming up as to whether those who initiated the Holocaust were morally wrong.

Note that that isn’t an analytical question but an empirical one. This is why justifiers of the Holocaust have to come up with and push wildly false claims about reality to justify it: they cannot establish it to be moral on actual facts; they need to invent fake facts to get there.

In actual empirical reality, Jews aren’t a sociopathic alien species. When Ripley says “nuke them all from orbit” she is absolutely morally right and everyone can see that. But that’s because in that fictional scenario, she was dealing with the actual thing that the Nazis falsely accused the Jews of being. So the problem you are referring to was not whether “holocausts are moral if x is true” but whether “x is true.” Are Jews relevantly like XX121 Xenomorphs? The answer is, as a matter of objective fact, no.

And that’s basically the end of that line of thinking. Which does get to a different kind of universal fact: Nazis are always liars.

I guess I didn’t make my question clear.

You write:

When you think rationally and are informed of the true facts of the world, you will want, above all things, to be a genuinely fulfilled and happy person, or as close to that as you can come.

And you write elsewhere

But either way, objective moral facts exist—whether they are universal facts about all humans, or facts relative to individuals or types of individuals. (source) 

 

So, there could be different objective moral facts for different rational beings. You seem to be saying that, for a space alien, for instance, it might actually be that a cruel murder/suicide of humans would be an objective moral fact, for that is what makes him genuinely fulfilled. If that made him genuinely fulfilled, would it be morally right for him to do it?

We can say it would be morally wrong for most people to do that kind of murder/suicide, and that all good people would oppose it. But can we say that this space alien is morally wrong?

Similarly, what about some human whose basic wants are so different from ours that even when reasoning soundly from true facts of the situation, he would correctly conclude that a cruel, unjustified murder/suicide is that which would make him most genuinely fulfilled?

Again, we can all condemn and resist the act, but can we say that the person is morally wrong?

The question keeps coming up as to whether those who initiated the Holocaust were morally wrong. Yes, we can say that, for almost all people, if not actually all people, that this act would not lead to genuine fulfillment and would thus be morally wrong for them.

But what about the person whose basic wants were so different from ours that the facts relative to that individual lead to his best genuine fulfillment coming from committing such atrocities? In such an unlikely situation, we could say we should do everything we can to prevent it. But can we say that such a perpetrator was morally wrong?

One question that comes up is what about the person who really has a constitution that is so completely different from ours, such that a cruel, unjustified, illegal murder/suicide would be the thing that would most bring self-satisfaction to that person? Would that act be “morally wrong”?

I don’t understand what scenario you are describing.

But I discuss moral suicide in Sense and Goodness (index, “suicide”). Perhaps that would answer your question.

Or if you mean to ask about people acting irrationally or in ignorance, and how to judge them, then it comes down to questions of negligence or intent, which can only be determined case by case. I have footnotes governing those conditions in my formal peer reviewed chapter on moral theory in The End of Christianity.

We can argue that, if the person was thinking logically from true moral facts, they would most likely not arrive at this conclusion. And for the vast majority of humanity, this is true. Perhaps it is even true for all humanity. But we cannot prove categorically that there would never be a person for whom sound reasoning from true facts based on that person’s ultimate desires would lead in this direction.

And even if no human would ever be this sort of monster, one might ask if an extraterrestrial or future sentient AI monster might be such that sound reasoning led to this result.

Of course, for the rest of us, we would reach the obvious moral conclusion that the proper thing for us to do would be to preemptively prevent the murder/suicide if possible. And, if the murder happens but the murderer survives the suicide attempt, it would be morally necessary to do whatever we could reasonably do to make sure it did not happen again, such as lifetime imprisonment.

But can we say that what this person did was morally wrong? We can — and should — say that, from our perspective, this is a morally despicable act. We can — and should — say that we need to take steps to ensure such acts do not happen. We can — and should — say that this person was most likely not acting in a way that ultimately fulfilled his own self-interest and thus is morally wrong from that person’s perspective.

But can we know that what this person did was morally wrong?

Ultimately, this is just an argument of the definition of “morally wrong”, so it ends up being a question of semantics.

For, when it comes to what we should do about such a person, we can easily all agree.

At places, the Bible actually treats such self-loathing as normal (e.g., Job 42:6)

As I see it, the story of Job was written by the religious hierarchy to illustrate that good people do whatever the religious hierarchy says God wants them to do, even if it leads to misery. The hero, Job, does exactly that, loses everything, and ends up loathing himself. But not to worry, the story implies, all will be well.

That pattern of accepting self-loathing is followed in many other scriptures and in church history. See The Bible and Self-Esteem.

Modern Christianity, by contrast, is committed to fighting self-loathing including the dubious methods of Jimmy Evans. Hence, when I do a google search for Christian psychologists, I get hundreds of hits.

Self-esteem issues are complex and often require professionals. But I think you hit on something that will help many people: Using good reasoning from true moral facts, find out what you ought to do above all else. Then do it.

Indeed.

I appreciate your perspective here. It adds an important example.

And yes:

The difference between true and false moral facts is the difference between true and false things about yourself, the world, and the knowable consequences of your actions.

Thus, a cult can exploit the fact that self-respect and self-loathing modulate moral behavior by connecting them to completely false facts about yourself in the world, thereby manipulating human behavior by conning them into thinking they are evil or good when they are not, and offering a solution to all the ensuing conflicts with reality that this causes.

Hence most evil is delusional (people tell themselves fake stories about how they are always the good guy). The rest is sociopathic and thus dishonest (the sociopath knows they are the bad buy and just pretends not to be). Some is both.

if you become the sort of person you hate, you will perpetually hate yourself, or else subject yourself to self-defeating delusions and behaviors in the effort to deny or avoid that self-loathing

Methods that essentially instruct Christians facing self-loathing to engage in intentional self-deception are quite common in the church. Christians suffering with self-esteem issues are instructed to continuously “meditate” on verses like, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made”, or “I can do all things through Christ.”. I critique a sermon by author Jimmy Evans who expounds this view. What if his listeners realize that these verses are at least partially wrong? Evans instructs them to force such doubts out of their minds and force these verses back into their minds. To me, that is intentional self-delusion.

The resulting insistence that certain verses and morals are true comes across as hubris when seen from the outside. But from the inside, one has a direct link to the throne and simply lives one’s life based on that link to infinite moral knowledge.

I know what this is like both from the inside and from the outside. I have been to both places. I can tell you, from the outside, that a life that modifies its beliefs as needed based on new information and then seeks to live by that new information is far more satisfying than the life that needs self-delusions to verify that one’s chosen path is correct.

the “true” moral values are those you would actually have if and when you were reasoning logically and understood all the relevant facts of the world

This is a powerful statement.

I grew up in a fundamentalist background. When I did wrong, I understood it was because I was a bad person (and thus needed somebody to die on a cross to make up for it). I have long gotten away from that, but it is still sometimes hard to shake the shame after doing wrong.

I find this statement helpful. Whenever I do wrong, it is generally because I was not thinking of all the facts of the situation, or was not reasoning logically from those facts. And the correct response seems to be to recognize what facts or arguments I was missing. I can then make a note to myself that, if I am ever faced with a similar situation, I will try to keep these facts and these logical arguments in mind. And that makes me feel good about myself. For I can now recognize that, though I did wrong, I can see myself as a person who understands why it was wrong, and that I am now the kind of person who seeks to be aware of those facts if it ever comes up again. Even if I will forget again, I can know in this moment that I am the kind of person who is committing to being aware of these facts if I am ever in that situation again.

Yes. Really, most things in life are emergent properties. So that’s not even a remarkable thing to say. But I am wary of over-using “technical” terminology in philosophy, because that often comes with baggage fallacies, so it’s dangerous to start waving around words like “emergent property” when too many people have conflicting ideas in their heads as to what that means.

But on at least one construction of every word you use, your statements are all correct.

All morality is consequentialist (and disputes really only exist over which consequences matter—when of course, they all do), and so “changing the consequences” could (in principle) reverse immoral acts into moral ones (I use the example of murder in my most recent formal study). Some things might not be reversible, or not so in the way someone is trying to get, but that’s case by case.

For example, it can be rational to be irrational, e.g. when playing a game that calls for it, but that does not justify being irrational when matters are serious—there may be no logically possible way to get that outcome. So, similarly, we already know rape can be moral under conditions of consensual non-consent as practiced in the kink community, but that does not justify any other kind of rape—there may be no logically possible way to get that outcome, or ways only hyper-bizarre and thus rarely or never applicable in real life, which reflects logical constraints on how changing consequences can change morality.

And logical constraints are transworld properties, i.e. they are true in all possible worlds. IMO that’s because logically impossible conditions are always physically impossible. But that gets into the ontology of logic.

There is obvious nothing wrong with the penile molecule meeting a vaginal one.

So wrongness is an emergent property just as wetness is, could we say?