Normativity is Still Kicking

So here's Tarun's objection to my earlier post on normativity. In my post, I noted that normativity can be broken apart into a factual component and an "aesthetic" component, which includes values for all sorts of things, not just beauty. Tarun claims that this aesthetic part can't itself be factual, because it can't be confirmed or disconfirmed.

A value-function is really an algorithm. Its inputs are facts gained through the senses, or deducted by logic, and its output is my decision-making. Of course, all of this can be described in factual terms, but Tarun says that because the algorithm essentially issues commands, it should be seen as imperative or perhaps still normative.

Maybe. I don't know. Part of my point was that, just as tastes aren't really subject to proof, neither are values. Values are facts about us, derived presumably from evolution and environment. Normative statements, then, are actually factual statements revealing underlying values, as well as beliefs about the world. As such, they are relative; a normative statement won't have much meaning to someone with a different value-function.

Another objection Tarun brought up is that we don't think it's incoherent when someone says, "Lying is wrong, but I enjoy lying." This implies that there's a separation between tastes and moral (normative) judgments. I don't think so. First, trivially, preferences need not be consistent. Secondly, I don't even think these things are contradictory in my theory. We have different orders of volitions; I may want to lie, but want to want to tell the truth. My value functions will somehow resolve this dilemma and I will lie or not, but I can still honestly say that I disapprove of lying but still enjoy doing it. The analogy would be to white chocolate vs. spinach. I might believe that spinach is better to eat, broadly speaking, but still prefer eating white chocolate. These meta-preferences might be conceptually difficult, but I think they exist.

Finally, moral statements have a huge amount of baggage that makes them difficult to analyze under any system (I think). When I say that lying is bad, do I really mean that every instance of lying is blameworthy? Do I mean that the world would be a better place if no one ever lied? I might return to these subjects in the future, but to be honest they interest me less than another notion: that there are several competing algorithms going on in different parts of the brain, and that a person is thus a messy conglomerate of different individuals struggling for control. More soon, hopefully.