Summary: There are two worlds: the objective and the subjective. The objective includes mutually comprehensible reality and abstractions like math, science, language, logic, and ethics. The subjective includes conceptions of the good and our personal passions, like art, beauty, and love. These are two separate realms that some ethical theories inappropriately conflate.

The objective is publicly observable, articulable, and determined. The subjective is personal, unconscious, and the source of meaning. The objective has no authority over the subjective, since you cannot get an ought from an is. And the subjective has no authority over the objective since the subjective is not mutually comprehensible, and therefore, not justifiable to free parties.

The concept of two worlds is certainly a plausible way to look at things, however I would take issue with some of the distinctions that the article makes.

What is the epistemic basis for the "objective world"? Is it not the subjective world? In that case the subjective is also very concerned with the "is".

Perhaps it would be better to view the objective world as a model that explains (some of) the constraints of the subjective world.

Divide the subjective phenomena into two classes. Those that (what are perceived as) other people speak of as similarly constrained to the way the subject experiences them to be constrained. Call these the evidential basis for the objective world. The remaining subjective phenomena including, but not limited to, value statements, correlate only sometimes and perhaps never to the reports of other people. So leave those all in the subjective realm.

In a way, you can describe all reality to be in the subjective world. It may be accurate to describe objectivity as "shared subjectivity." And the objective world certainly shapes our subjective perception of the world. They interact, but are still separate.

And I would agree, that public verifiable evidence belongs is the objective whereas value judgments are strictly within the subjective.

No. Plato > Aristotle.

People say "subjective" and imply relativity, but if a subjective viewpoint doesn't conform to reality the descriptive capacities it enables fail.

What is a subject if not a type of object? And, as an object in a world of objects, its representation of being to itself must approximate accuracy in order for it to function.

So, for example, someone says that the grotesque is beautiful. For them this may be a true experience while others don't experience it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that aesthetics are relative. What if existence itself is beautiful? Everything is beautiful? Beauty is not made up, but transcendental?

Do you see what I'm getting at? Subjectivity isn't necessarily relative. It's necessarily limited. These are very different.

Objectivity is also limited. After all, subjects are the types of objects capable of knowing, and objectivity is a type of knowing. And, I hope we can agree on this much, subjects are limited.

The difference between subjectivity and objectivity is not the amount of effort put into realizing and eliminating limits of perception, nor the methods of that effort, but the claim of totalization.

Certain circles reserve the right to totalization for objectivity, but my God this is absolutely opposed to the scientific project. Logically and historically we know that our scientific descriptions of the world are limited, imperfect, and provisional.

But, hey, look, they conform to reality well enough to make accurate predictions. That's what makes them objective. Now, what about subjectivity releases it from this demand to conform to reality? That is exactly what every theory of morality (or any other topic the author relegated to subjectivity) seeks to do. They make predictions, and they're either false or true.

The testing ground for moral systems is the same as the testing ground for scientific observations.

So, does goodness exist? Test it. Test if it exists independently of the mind. If you find that it does not exist, fine. That's not what my experiments resulted in, but now we can at least begin discussing truth instead of summarily dismissing the great majority of human thought and experience as relative.

Don't just listen to these people. Go out and see, as best as you can, whether ideals inflect real properties of existence or simply inflect some biological propensities tempered by society and projected over dumb and mute matter.

>someone says that the grotesque is beautiful. For them this may be a true experience while others don't experience it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that aesthetics are relative. What if existence itself is beautiful?

This is what I'm getting at in the article. The subjective experience that the person is having is real and we cannot judge this subjective sense based on the opinions of others. Just because others don't find this same thing as beautiful doesn't make the experience wrong, only unpopular.

Aesthetics isn't contingent on reason, its determined by subjective experience. Existence may be beautiful for some, awful to others, and those sensations are real, yet they exist in a different reality than material or metaphysical truths.

The objective is subject to empirical verification and testing, the subjective is not. There is no way to test whether I believe something, identify as something, or experience something outside of the belief, identity or experience itself. The meaning we impose on life or our personal ethics isn't subject to tests of right or wrong, but are within the realm of our subjective, which we are free to create.

Empirical testing means that hypotheses (predictions based on causal models) are confirmed or denied by carefully designed tests (the test design isolates causality).

The only reason you can't imagine such a test for, for example, the existence of goodness, is that you have already precluded the possibility. Your tautology doesn't allow it (because you treat your definitions as axiomatic, you can only arrive at conclusions that verify what you already belief).

But, if what you say is true, there either are no sufficient tests for the existence of goodness—and/or there are tests that would verify the relativity of goodness (i.e. we can confirm that we are free to create our own subjective evaluations independent of an objective reality, where free means that there would be no misunderstood or misrepresented causal relationships, the misrepresentation of which would become clear as the "real" world acts in a way that denies the validity of the evaluation).

I think you haven't even tried to test your idea.

So, I'm saying to you: Go out into the world and test it. Is goodness real, independently real, transcendentally real, objectively real, as real as sunshine or gravity? Don't base your conclusion on anecdotal evidence or axioms. Test it.

Someone has a meaning X for their lives. How do you test it? What do you test it against?

Not someone, everybody. Not X, goodness. And not me—I've already done my tests—you.

You are testing for a transcendental quality of being. It applies equally to everybody, just like gravity or thermal radiation.

So, alright, I'll design the first test for you. I won't full out define goodness, but the test itself will sort of reveal that.

You need to give up something valuable to you to someone who needs it.

An underlying idea here is that goodness requires sacrifice. Simply giving up something you don't value won't work. Another underlying idea is that need takes precedence over want. Giving someone else something that they want is nice, but not necessarily good.

What do people need? They need food, water, clothes and shelter. That's the bare minimum, so your best bet will be one of those things.

You have to do this because you recognize the value of the person you help.

An underlying idea here is goodness requires appreciation for otherness.

In the course of one full day (sure, I will risk putting a time limit on it, even if that's not the best policy, I can't imagine you doing the experiment otherwise), if you don't receive something of greater or equal value to what you sacrificed, it's a failed experiment.

An underlying idea here is that goodness isn't a one way street. It doesn't mean martyrdom. Reciprocity is also a quality of goodness.

However, the reward shouldn't come from the act itself (feeling good) or the person whom you help. The reward should come from something seemingly unrelated.

It needs to come from something seemingly unrelated because you are not looking for emergent local phenomena. You're looking for laws of nature.

Now, correlation doesn't prove causation, right, so you need to not only be able to repeat this test, but you also need to try to disprove other possible causes of the reward.

That means that, if the first test is a success, try doing the good deed and then isolating yourself. If the reward comes anyway, you might want to start looking deeper into what it means to be human and perhaps designing even more tests. If it doesn't work, at least you will have tested for the existence of a transcendental reciprocal goodness with a one day time limit.

> if you don't receive something of greater or equal value to what you sacrificed, it's a failed experiment.

This is part of the issue. No test can determine value or goodness, which is purely subjective. As explained in the article, the objective can provide the means, but the ends are within the realm of the subjective self.

There is no one way to be human that is to be measured against, but is the individual's responsibility to determine.

> Someone has a meaning X for their lives. How do you test it? What do you test it against?

People who work in Facebook, Google, Twitter, {CorporationX} in the AI / user profiling department may know a thing or two about that topic.

And this is just one approach.

People that think metaphysical reality cannot be measured with any objectivity are way too pessimistic.

Etichs science etc are just concepts created by us to ubderstand the world and so not objective. I belive we are not capable of a true objective perspective. Art and such is maybe closer to objectivity than science. Bear🐻 with me. When we use words we use concepts. If we say leaf 🌿 we are we are refering to the concept of leaf in reality there are no 2 leaves alike. The leaf 🌿 It's a information we obtained with all our senses than converted by our mind in thoughts than we converted it into words (into concepts). So clearly there cant be an objective information transmitted through words and reason. Instead when observing art 🎨 🎭 the information is transimted through your senses it doesn't suffer from so many "translations".

We are now in better agreement.

If I go further, I would say that the objective world is just a model living in the subjective world. It is that part that other agents report to be in agreement.

That the objective is part of the subjective does not imply that it is optional. Much of the subjective seems non optional.

Thanks for the response. I would define the objective as "publicly observable" explainable and even a "shared subjective."

The fact that you are able to articulate your point and I can (try to) understand it , is what I mean by objective. Meanwhile, there are perceptions and experiences that you will have that I could never understand in the same way, no matter how much we were to communicate with one another. Thats the subjective.

>The objective is publicly observable, articulable, and determined.

i kept stumbling into these over generalizations and they detract from taking any of this essay seriously. if you study physics you'll know that the physical world is one based on probabilities; so it is not in a determined state. much of the physical world isn't even observable (i.e. dark matter, etc.)

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>The objective includes mutually comprehensible reality and abstractions like math, science, language, logic, and ethics.

language and ethics are objective? its not possible that they're relative? and subjective? because i speak a different language than some other people do and my ethical behavior can be questioned by people who don't share my values. according to this essay i should be standing up for myself and insisting that my language and ethical values are objective truths that everybody should be using/following. i definitely cannot take that seriously.

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>The objective has no authority over the subjective

so. the real mona lisa (and what she actually looked like) had no impact on her portrait? i would suggest it did.

Thanks for reading over and providing a review.

What I mean by observable is not literally observable by the eye, but "able to be noticed or perceived." The fact that we can understand phenomena like dark matter or abstractions like geometry place it within the world of the objective.

Language falls within the objective since you are capable of understanding different languages. The words you read or hear are presented to you the same way they are to everyone else and are subject to equal comprehension, unlike the subjective, which requires our unique set of innate tendencies and experiences (along with their interactions) to comprehend to the same extent.

The portrait of the mona lisa is material and falls within the objective. Its our perceptions of the painting that are within the subjective. Some may see it and have their lives changed, for others, the painting doesn't do anything.

While it is true that people are capable of understanding different languages, that does not mean it is not subjective. People have greatly different understandings of different words. This has been evidenced in your discussions with various people, I am sure, as many people have different conceptions of the words you use (freedom, objectivity etc.). To say words are presented to everyone equally and with equal comprehension is false. They are comprehended differently, based on everyone's own experiences with the words in the past. This makes them subjective. They may hold similar meaning to what others believe the words mean, but to say they hold they exact same meaning (which is what would be required to call them objective) is false.

People may interpret the deep meaning of a novel differently. However, they are still reading the same intelligible words. Readers can agree on definitions, which are objective, despite their disagreements over the deeper meaning of the novel, which is subjective.