You have 1 post to explain to me why morality is or is not objective

ΚΑΤΑΝΑΛΩΤΗΣ · May 05, 2015, 09:13:14 PM

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Jocephalopod · May 05, 2015, 09:20:03 PM

objectively, you're implying that you are wrong.

the world doesn't matter, you humans just don't get it

were all just Stardust

science is beautiful and religion is for simple minds

my life is worthless BUT THATS OK
because i'm a cool guy

Not Comms Officer · May 05, 2015, 09:20:33 PM

I dunno.

Some.... institutional societal code with values ingrained into us as we grow up?

Mordo · May 05, 2015, 10:00:12 PM

sam harris and meta says its objective so...

aREALgod · May 05, 2015, 10:02:48 PM

Because Meta says so and you can't win an argument against Meta in Serious

Pendulate · May 05, 2015, 10:48:26 PM

Objective. Value judgments are reducible to facts about conscious experiences.

People frequently confuse meta-ethics and practical ethics here.

Verbatim · May 05, 2015, 10:59:07 PM

I'm gonna be really base with you, all right?

1. Sentient beings feel.
2. Feelings create objective value.
3. Value can be either positive or negative*.
4. Morality is derived from this value system.
5. Morality is objective, because the value system is objective.

* Here, the line is drawn at suffering. Or discomfort. Or disutility. Any level of negative experience could be described as an objective negative value.

For example, nobody, not even a masochist, wants to have their arms broken. This has objective negative value. From this, we can infer a given set of "rules" from which we can derive an objective morality:

"Thou shalt not fuck with people's arms, ye crazy cunth."

Any questions?

Pendulate · May 05, 2015, 11:23:05 PM

^ And, even if a masochist did want his arms broken, it would simply be a positive value for him; subjective facts are still facts.

Sandtrap · May 06, 2015, 01:05:22 AM

Morality seems to sit on shaky ground. Take a kid. Raise them to kill, tell them hurting people is a good thing, and that will be their morality. Or a person with psychopathic tendencies. A psychopath can still feel pain, but in the world there are people who neither care when they're hurt and inflict self harm on themselves or they harm others.

So, morality is only defined on a singular person's viewpoint. Their experiences, their environment, how they were raised, and how their brain functions, define their respective morality.

As such, morality is limited solely to each individual. And because people are social creatures and spread social constructs and memes amongst each other, morality is only ever truly defined by the rule of majority.

Look at our past. Certain things that were deemed acceptable in those days are deemed unacceptable now.

As such, morality is not objective. It is only defined by people, and people are subject to change, which therefore negates any form of stability to be achieved or an actual, concrete set of laws that are absolutely positive or negative.

Pendulate · May 06, 2015, 01:41:32 AM

Quote from: Sandtrap on May 06, 2015, 01:05:22 AM

Morality seems to sit on shaky ground. Take a kid. Raise them to kill, tell them hurting people is a good thing, and that will be their morality. Or a person with psychopathic tendencies. A psychopath can still feel pain, but in the world there are people who neither care when they're hurt and inflict self harm on themselves or they harm others.

So, morality is only defined on a singular person's viewpoint. Their experiences, their environment, how they were raised, and how their brain functions, define their respective morality.

As such, morality is limited solely to each individual. And because people are social creatures and spread social constructs and memes amongst each other, morality is only ever truly defined by the rule of majority.

Look at our past. Certain things that were deemed acceptable in those days are deemed unacceptable now.

As such, morality is not objective. It is only defined by people, and people are subject to change, which therefore negates any form of stability to be achieved or an actual, concrete set of laws that are absolutely positive or negative.

Morality and morals are not the same. The former is a concept, latter a set of personal views.

Sandtrap · May 06, 2015, 02:03:17 AM

Quote from: Pendulate on May 06, 2015, 01:41:32 AM

Quote from: Sandtrap on May 06, 2015, 01:05:22 AM
Morality seems to sit on shaky ground. Take a kid. Raise them to kill, tell them hurting people is a good thing, and that will be their morality. Or a person with psychopathic tendencies. A psychopath can still feel pain, but in the world there are people who neither care when they're hurt and inflict self harm on themselves or they harm others.

So, morality is only defined on a singular person's viewpoint. Their experiences, their environment, how they were raised, and how their brain functions, define their respective morality.

As such, morality is limited solely to each individual. And because people are social creatures and spread social constructs and memes amongst each other, morality is only ever truly defined by the rule of majority.

Look at our past. Certain things that were deemed acceptable in those days are deemed unacceptable now.

As such, morality is not objective. It is only defined by people, and people are subject to change, which therefore negates any form of stability to be achieved or an actual, concrete set of laws that are absolutely positive or negative.
Morality and morals are not the same. The former is a concept, latter a set of personal views.

OP asked a question about morality. And I answered it.

"Morality is the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good or right and those that are bad or wrong. Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion, or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal. Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness" or "rightness."

This is almost a word for word description of what you get when defining morals.

They're the same fucking shit, just on different terms. One is personal, one is a concept.

The real reality is, there is no morality. It doesn't exist. It's just a social construct and a meme passed around through people because of our way of percieving things. And both, morals, and morality often contradict one another.

Take a human life in development. A fetus for example. And abort it. Some argue that it's taking a human life. Which it is. Others argue that because its not fully matured yet, that it isn't aware, that it's okay. Yet fundamentally it is still a lifeform.

Morality, and by extension morals, are just wee little tools people designed to bend things in their favor. To mark themselves out and give themselves a perception to adhere to, to adapt to an otherwise meaningless state of living.

The real reality is, that fetus, human or no, mature or no, will die at one point or another. Regardless of what form of life it constitutes as. It will die. Its atomic structure will break down and be recycled into other things, which in turn will eventully die or be destroyed as well. Round and round it goes.

There are no real absolute morals that are right or wrong.

Essentially, all you could chalk morality and morals up to is the latest and greatest trend in human thinking.

Pendulate · May 06, 2015, 02:34:13 AM

Quote from: Sandtrap on May 06, 2015, 02:03:17 AM

This is almost a word for word description of what you get when defining morals.

Yes, but that's not really relevant to my point. Personal morals are obviously derived from a conception of morality, but this says nothing about whether the concept itself can be approached with logic and reason, and whether truths can be discovered as a result.

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They're the same fucking shit, just on different terms. One is personal, one is a concept.

A concept that has right and wrong answers independent of personal opinion.

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The real reality is, there is no morality. It doesn't exist. It's just a social construct and a meme passed around through people because of our way of percieving things.

That would only be true if it was not a description of empirical phenomena. I'm not denying it's conceptual. I think this is the kind of confusion I noted above -- failure to distinguish between meta-ethics (the idea that morals are a metaphysical property independent of reason) and practical ethics (the idea that we can use reason to make factual evaluations of conscious experiences).

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Take a human life in development. A fetus for example. And abort it. Some argue that it's taking a human life. Which it is. Others argue that because its not fully matured yet, that it isn't aware, that it's okay. Yet fundamentally it is still a lifeform.

Yes, but that doesn't mean there aren't right and wrong answers to this issue, based on facts about whether the inherent taking of life causes harm/is a deprivation to the life in question etc. I mean, there's a clear difference between having a baby and aborting it; a blunt assessment would simply be that one results in a baby and one does not. That's essentially what an objective conception of morality is: the assessment of different states of being. It doesn't need to prescribe value to things, because when dealing with conscious experience value is already an integral component. (Let me know if you'd like me to elaborate on this.)

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Morality, and by extension morals, are just wee little tools people designed to bend things in their favor. To mark themselves out and give themselves a perception to adhere to, to adapt to an otherwise meaningless state of living.

I respectfully don't agree.

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The real reality is, that fetus, human or no, mature or no, will die at one point or another. Regardless of what form of life it constitutes as. It will die. Its atomic structure will break down and be recycled into other things, which in turn will eventully die or be destroyed as well. Round and round it goes.

That is not relevant to the fact that some of these 'things' are capable of having subjective experiences that have qualitative values (values that they did not choose to have, mind).

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There are no real absolute morals that are right or wrong.

Absolutism and realism are not the same. The former claims that acts are inherently wrong regardless of circumstance. Realism claims that there are right and wrong answers that can be determined case-by-case, by examining the facts of each.

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Essentially, all you could chalk morality and morals up to is the latest and greatest trend in human thinking.

A bold and rather inflammatory claim. If you admit that conscious experience is, by its nature, a spectrum of qualitative value, then for all intents and purposes you are admitting that there are better and worse answers to how we conduct ourselves in life.

Sandtrap · May 06, 2015, 03:09:28 AM

Quote from: Pendulate on May 06, 2015, 02:34:13 AM

A bold and rather inflammatory claim. If you admit that conscious experience is, by its nature, a spectrum of qualitative value, then for all intents and purposes you are admitting that there are better and worse answers to how we conduct ourselves in life.

Not really. I, personally, choose to live and act in the manners that I do because I think I should do my best to make people around me in my personal life happy. Happy is a good feeling, because it makes us feel "good."

However, that is just my point of view. My point of perception. Another person might not give a shit. Another person might pursue it to a lesser degree. Another person might go the opposite way and make people miserable around them.

But the truth is, beyond my perception, beyond my percieved way of living my life, and beyond those other people I just listed with their own perceptions, there is no good or bad way to do things. Good and bad are just words in response to our feelings.

And you might argue that because I classify my attempts at making people around myself happier, that it negates what I just said because I classify it as good.

Of course I classify it as "good" because it's a paradigm instilled into me since birth. The specific events, the people who raised me, every single thing in my life that has led up to this point, were absolutely neccessary for me to act and think the in the manner that I do currently, therefore enforcing a set shade of ingrained morality and morals to me.

But beyond me, beyond my body and my head, just on a simple and plain, operational universal scale, right and wrong don't exist and therefore that is the true reality because the universe is all around us.

I'll state again. Our current state of morals and morality? The latest and current trend in human thinking.

A few centuries ago, a few thousand years ago, it was fine and dandy to go up to someone, kill them, rape their loved one, kill them or do whatever. And now it's not. In another few hundred years, maybe a few thousand, things will also be different.

If morals and morality exist on such unstable ground then they really have no defining value beyond what singular people assign to them.

People, as we know, love conformity. Because it brings a sense of security. Money in the bank, having a house, etc etc. They're all just contructs that essentially pull the blinds over people's eyes to the bigger picture beyond their sense of perception.

We feel good, and we feel bad. You can live a bad life, or a good life. Doesn't matter. Because you still die. We all have an equal end point no matter who we are. It's an end point that doesn't give a shit about how many infidels you killed or how many people you helped.

The only one that cares, is you.

You define your self existence and your experience, but beyond you, and long after you're dead, existence will continue with or without you, and your actions, "good," or "bad," will be forgotten, rendering the most evil human beings in history as nothing, rendering the most beloved people in history, as nothing.

So, one last time.

Morals and morality are just tools to help people grasp at things and get by through the day. Because without them, with our current level of intelligence and perception, everything would otherwise be completely pointless. But at the end of the day, your morals don't mean fuck all when your number is up.

Sandtrap · May 06, 2015, 03:15:50 AM

And, on that last note.

If actual, morality exists. If there are actual things to be discovered that lean towards "good" and "bad" and point in a set direction as a fundamental way to do things in the universe?

Then that therefore means those laws had to be created or that they formed from a base of something. And that's approaching rapidly on a creator or a god.

And to that I can say this.

Every "god" or creator in our history?

Fuck all of them with a rusty rake.

Pendulate · May 06, 2015, 03:47:07 AM

Quote from: Sandtrap on May 06, 2015, 03:09:28 AM

Not really. I, personally, choose to live and act in the manners that I do because I think I should do my best to make people around me in my personal life happy. Happy is a good feeling, because it makes us feel "good."

That's right -- it has qualitative value. There are things that have better and worse qualitative value, which means value is an integral component of conscious experience. And since consciousness is just as much a part of nature as anything else, value is a part of nature, and therefore can be examined objectively.

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However, that is just my point of view. My point of perception. Another person might not give a shit. Another person might pursue it to a lesser degree. Another person might go the opposite way and make people miserable around them.

Yes, but moral realism accounts for difference of opinion by relying on facts about the subjective nature of experience. If you don't want to be stabbed in the foot because it would cause you undesired pain, then stabbing you in the foot would be considered immoral. However, if someone else enjoyed being stabbed in the foot and wanted me to stab them, it would not be considered immoral. Different scenarios, but the same logical process is applied.

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Good and bad are just words in response to our feelings.

Yes, they are descriptors for qualitatively different states of experience. As I said previously, you do not need to believe in a metaphysical or, as you put it, universal conception of "good" and "bad" to accept moral realism.

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Of course I classify it as "good" because it's a paradigm instilled into me since birth. The specific events, the people who raised me, every single thing in my life that has led up to this point, were absolutely neccessary for me to act and think the in the manner that I do currently, therefore enforcing a set shade of ingrained morality and morals to me.

Okay, but that doesn't mean your "ingrained morals" can't be examined to see whether they actually do produce positive outcomes (positive in the sense of the well-being of yourself and/or others). There are many cultures who have (mis)conceptions of morality that are extremely harmful, and these are not based on logic and reason, but rather tradition and emotionally charged beliefs.

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I'll state again. Our current state of morals and morality? The latest and current trend in human thinking.

I would have preferred you to address my points rather than repeat your own, but okay.

I'm actually wondering whether you took the time to read and comprehend my response though, because the rest of your post is just a reframing of your previous one, and I already quoted and addressed the arguments you made in it. Not intending to provoke you here, but you did seem to ignore everything I said. Could you please put my points in quote boxes and address them one by one, as I am doing for you? That way we can keep this discussion from spinning its wheels.

DAS B00T x2 · May 06, 2015, 06:04:19 AM

Morality is a human construct and therefore relative.

gats · May 06, 2015, 06:11:44 AM

i believe morality is objective although I'm having trouble defining the source, some argue it's god but i dunno wouldn't that make it subjective to those that only believe in god?? hmm

Pendulate · May 06, 2015, 07:06:50 AM

Quote from: DAS B00T DAS B00T on May 06, 2015, 06:04:19 AM

Morality is a human construct and therefore relative.

Sam Harris makes a good comparison to health. Health is a human construct, but it is still contingent on facts -- facts about physiology, anatomy, nutrition etc. And there are clear objective distinctions between good and bad health.

DAS B00T x2 · May 06, 2015, 08:14:13 AM

Quote from: Pendulate on May 06, 2015, 07:06:50 AM

Quote from: DAS B00T DAS B00T on May 06, 2015, 06:04:19 AM
Morality is a human construct and therefore relative.
Sam Harris makes a good comparison to health. Health is a human construct, but it is still contingent on facts -- facts about physiology, anatomy, nutrition etc. And there are clear objective distinctions between good and bad health.

I've thought about that before, and I believe that objective facts about good shape and solid conditioning apply to all things, whereas morality only applies to beings capable of understanding such thought.
I find moral systems similar to economic schools of thought, in which no one is inherently or entirely right, just some are more right than others based upon a positive outcome for the most affected via the system's implementation.

Pendulate · May 06, 2015, 08:35:23 AM

Quote from: DAS B00T DAS B00T on May 06, 2015, 08:14:13 AM

Quote from: Pendulate on May 06, 2015, 07:06:50 AM
Quote from: DAS B00T DAS B00T on May 06, 2015, 06:04:19 AM
Morality is a human construct and therefore relative.
Sam Harris makes a good comparison to health. Health is a human construct, but it is still contingent on facts -- facts about physiology, anatomy, nutrition etc. And there are clear objective distinctions between good and bad health.
I've thought about that before, and I believe that objective facts about good shape and solid conditioning apply to all things, whereas morality only applies to beings capable of understanding such thought.
I find moral systems similar to economic schools of thought, in which no one is inherently or entirely right, just some are more right than others based upon a positive outcome for the most affected via the system's implementation.

Economics is only blunt because we lack the interpretive and predictive abilities needed to make perfect economic judgments. That's not to say there aren't right and wrong answers; it's just saying that they are often beyond our grasp.

Verbatim · May 06, 2015, 10:53:00 AM

Quote from: Sandtrap on May 06, 2015, 03:09:28 AM

A few centuries ago, a few thousand years ago, it was fine and dandy to go up to someone, kill them, rape their loved one, kill them or do whatever. And now it's not. In another few hundred years, maybe a few thousand, things will also be different.

An odd interpretation of our progress. Personally, I would prefer to use words like "advance" or "learned" rather than "different". The fact is, we've made an advance from that time. If we lived in a time where rape was okay, and now it isn't, that's a wonderful thing. To say that it might be "different" in the future, instead of further advanced, is suggesting that we could regress. That there might be a time when rape is looked upon as okay again. Personally, I can't think of any modern examples of ethical regressions. Once we figure out that something is bad, we tend to stick with it. So, yes, future views on ethics will be different, but they will most likely be better.

Quote from: Sandtrap on May 06, 2015, 03:15:50 AM

Then that therefore means those laws had to be created or that they formed from a base of something. And that's approaching rapidly on a creator or a god.

Please, refer to my first post. We create the laws through our sentient existence. You conceded in your previous post that without our sentient experience, everything would be pointless--and you are correct. So, our conscious experience gives all meaning in the universe. Why's that? Because we can feel. We can hurt. This, in itself, outlines our objective moral system.

This is why I hate the word "morality". I prefer ethics, or "objective value system". Because it does have divine connotations. I think we should throw the word "morality" out the window.

Our objective value system is defined by our capacity to derive negative experience from our lives. The ultimate goal is to maximize positive experience, and minimize negative experience for all sentient beings. That's the right thing to do, objectively.

If you've ever watched a good film lately, and paid attention to the villains, the "bad guys", the antagonists, and paid strict attention to their purpose in the story, you might take to notice that, even though they're evil, their philosophies often have some kernel of truth. They might be trying to work for the greater good. Take Ultron for example (I won't spoil it if you haven't seen the film). As outlined in the film, he was created by Tony Stark and Bruce Banner to help the Avengers save the world in future global crises. However, when he is finished, he's bent on destroying humanity instead. He cannot differentiate between saving humanity and destroying it--he thinks they're the same thing.

And there's a great line, but I can't seem to remember how it goes. It went something like:
"The question isn't whether he believes humanity should be destroyed. The question is if he's right."

Something to that effect. Would the world be better off without humans?
Should we stop reproducing and let ourselves go extinct?

There are right or wrong answers to these questions. It's true that we can have our interpretations, but if you're capable of making decisions based on logic (it is logical to not want to break someone's arm, because that's going to create a HUGE deficit in positive feeling), the choices become more and more clear.

Verbatim · May 06, 2015, 11:05:41 AM

Quote from: gats on May 06, 2015, 06:11:44 AM

i believe morality is objective although I'm having trouble defining the source, some argue it's god but i dunno wouldn't that make it subjective to those that only believe in god?? hmm

I'm an atheist, and I don't need a god to tell me that it's objectively wrong to hurt others.

Well, without their consent. Consent is huge. Simply put, you need consent in order to justify anything you do that could potentially harm another person. Otherwise, it necessitates a massive ethical transgression.

The only time lack-of-consent is ever okay is if you KNOW, 100%, that the outcome will be positive. If your wife is being raped, for example, I think it's ethically justifiable to kill the fucker who's raping her. Or otherwise incapacitate him. Stopping someone from being raped is... objectively good. So, it remains consistent with my objective value system, or the objective value system, I should say.

Oh, and by the way, you can't "like" being raped. That's always what I hear. You can't like being raped. You can enjoy a rape fantasy, because it creates a thrill that you can walk yourself out of, but if you were to rape someone who likes to fantasize about being raped, I guarantee that they won't enjoy it.

I feel like I'm firing off in all directions right now--this is kind of a messy subject, but it's a great one to discuss.

Anyone who believes morality is subjective, I'd like to see some counterexamples. You're going to have to illustrate a scenario wherein a nonconsensual act can ever be justified if the outcome results in a negative value experience (ie. justify Pendulate's example--justify stabbing someone in the foot who doesn't want to have their foot stabbed and has no reason to be stabbed in the foot).

Sandtrap · May 06, 2015, 11:14:45 AM

Quote from: Verbatim on May 06, 2015, 11:05:41 AM

Quote from: gats on May 06, 2015, 06:11:44 AM
i believe morality is objective although I'm having trouble defining the source, some argue it's god but i dunno wouldn't that make it subjective to those that only believe in god?? hmm
I'm an atheist, and I don't need a god to tell me that it's objectively wrong to hurt others.

Well, without their consent. Consent is huge. Simply put, you need consent in order to justify anything you do that could potentially harm another person. Otherwise, it necessitates a massive ethical transgression.

The only time lack-of-consent is ever okay is if you KNOW, 100%, that the outcome will be positive. If your wife is being raped, for example, I think it's ethically justifiable to kill the fucker who's raping her. Or otherwise incapacitate him. Stopping someone from being raped is... objectively good. So, it remains consistent with my objective value system, or the objective value system, I should say.

Oh, and by the way, you can't "like" being raped. That's always what I hear. You can't like being raped. You can enjoy a rape fantasy, because it creates a thrill that you can walk yourself out of, but if you were to rape someone who likes to fantasize about being raped, I guarantee that they won't enjoy it.

I feel like I'm firing off in all directions right now--this is kind of a messy subject, but it's a great one to discuss.

Anyone who believes morality is subjective, I'd like to see some counterexamples. You're going to have to illustrate a scenario wherein a nonconsensual act can ever be justified if the outcome results in a negative value experience (ie. justify Pendulate's example--justify stabbing someone in the foot who doesn't want to have their foot stabbed and has no reason to be stabbed in the foot).

I'm curious as to where you've been where people said you can enjoy rape. I mean, there's guy in a field in the middle of nowhere opinions like mine.

And then there's that.

Which is stupid.

Sandtrap · May 06, 2015, 11:22:38 AM

Quote from: Verbatim on May 06, 2015, 10:53:00 AM

Quote from: Sandtrap on May 06, 2015, 03:09:28 AM
A few centuries ago, a few thousand years ago, it was fine and dandy to go up to someone, kill them, rape their loved one, kill them or do whatever. And now it's not. In another few hundred years, maybe a few thousand, things will also be different.
An odd interpretation of our progress. Personally, I would prefer to use words like "advance" or "learned" rather than "different". The fact is, we've made an advance from that time. If we lived in a time where rape was okay, and now it isn't, that's a wonderful thing. To say that it might be "different" in the future, instead of further advanced, is suggesting that we could regress. That there might be a time when rape is looked upon as okay again. Personally, I can't think of any modern examples of ethical regressions. Once we figure out that something is bad, we tend to stick with it. So, yes, future views on ethics will be different, but they will most likely be better.
Quote from: Sandtrap on May 06, 2015, 03:15:50 AM
Then that therefore means those laws had to be created or that they formed from a base of something. And that's approaching rapidly on a creator or a god.
Please, refer to my first post. We create the laws through our sentient existence. You conceded in your previous post that without our sentient experience, everything would be pointless--and you are correct. So, our conscious experience gives all meaning in the universe. Why's that? Because we can feel. We can hurt. This, in itself, outlines our objective moral system.

This is why I hate the word "morality". I prefer ethics, or "objective value system". Because it does have divine connotations. I think we should throw the word "morality" out the window.

Our objective value system is defined by our capacity to derive negative experience from our lives. The ultimate goal is to maximize positive experience, and minimize negative experience for all sentient beings. That's the right thing to do, objectively.

If you've ever watched a good film lately, and paid attention to the villains, the "bad guys", the antagonists, and paid strict attention to their purpose in the story, you might take to notice that, even though they're evil, their philosophies often have some kernel of truth. They might be trying to work for the greater good. Take Ultron for example (I won't spoil it if you haven't seen the film). As outlined in the film, he was created by Tony Stark and Bruce Banner to help the Avengers save the world in future global crises. However, when he is finished, he's bent on destroying humanity instead. He cannot differentiate between saving humanity and destroying it--he thinks they're the same thing.

And there's a great line, but I can't seem to remember how it goes. It went something like:
"The question isn't whether he believes humanity should be destroyed. The question is if he's right."

Something to that effect. Would the world be better off without humans?
Should we stop reproducing and let ourselves go extinct?

There are right or wrong answers to these questions. It's true that we can have our interpretations, but if you're capable of making decisions based on logic (it is logical to not want to break someone's arm, because that's going to create a HUGE deficit in positive feeling), the choices become more and more clear.

See, now this makes sense to me. Pendulum's stuff has gaps in it to me. Stuff doesn't line up and there's particular phrases and words missing from my memory and I don't have all day to trawl through dictionarys to remember them.

So while yes, we define our rules and such, our viewpoints, from an abstract standpoint, removed of emotion or feeling, there's just the functioning universe. It'll do its thing regardless of what we do. That's the barebones reality. That's the big view we've painted over with our own perception of things, which isn't neccessarily wrong because it is, our point of view and our perspective.

But our point of view isn't an absolute, not 100%, because you still have the big picture sitting behind the pretty coat of paint.

More Than Mortal · May 06, 2015, 11:36:32 AM

1. Ethical sentences express propositions.
2. Such propositions are made true or false by objective features of the world.
3. These objective moral features are reducible to non-moral features.

Morality, at some level, has to relate to the well-being of entities which can experience. Specifically things like suffering or distress. Otherwise, you have no justification for not being morally concerned about rocks or volcanoes. Note that this presupposition of well-being as the metric of morality does not negate the objectivity of moral answers to certain questions; certain presuppositions must always be made.

There are objective answers in physics, and yet one must first presuppose empiricism and physicalism to be valid.

Verbatim · May 06, 2015, 12:16:43 PM

Quote from: Sandtrap on May 06, 2015, 11:14:45 AM

I'm curious as to where you've been where people said you can enjoy rape. I mean, there's guy in a field in the middle of nowhere opinions like mine.

And then there's that.

Which is stupid.

Being me, you tend to get a lot of people who will scrutinize everything you say. I merely anticipated some chucklehead to respond to my post asking some inane question like, "But what if you enjoy being raped?" So I made a pre-emptive strike, is all.

Quote from: Sandtrap on May 06, 2015, 11:22:38 AM

But our point of view isn't an absolute, not 100%, because you still have the big picture sitting behind the pretty coat of paint.

Right, hence the whole advancement thing. It's important to discuss ethics so that we can better ourselves in the future, or improve our behavior. I would argue that we all have a sort of ethical obligation to discuss and outline a comprehensive system of ethics. Personally, there's only one ethical question that I have any interest in, and that's the question of whether the human race should continue to exist. I say no, of course. That sort of nullifies everything else, doesn't it? Once you figure out that the human race should stop reproducing, the only thing you really have to worry about is being the best person you can be for as long as you remain.

But of course, since I can't convince the whole of humanity to stop reproducing just yet, I'm forced to move to the next best few things. Should we be in the Middle East anymore, should we have the right to abortion, should we give a fuck with what the government does to our personal information if we're not a criminal. Once again, these questions all have right answers, in terms of... value math. It's like determinism--just because we can't predict the future, doesn't mean the future isn't set in stone. It just means we can't know all the variables. Likewise, just because someone may not agree that having children is wrong, doesn't mean that it isn't wrong--they just haven't grasped it yet. Or maybe I haven't grasped it yet.

But the point is, I think I have a pretty damn good idea.
And that's why we debate.

challengerX · May 06, 2015, 03:09:36 PM

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Verbatim · May 06, 2015, 03:17:04 PM

Quote from: challengerX on May 06, 2015, 03:09:36 PM

Because killing a person for no good reason is wrong.

Yeah, but then you'd have to ask, "what constitutes a good reason," and people are gonna have different ideas. I mean, I agree with you fundamentally, but your response lacks the sort of intensive nuance that the question requires.

gats · May 06, 2015, 03:32:56 PM

Quote from: Verbatim on May 06, 2015, 11:05:41 AM

i completely agree i'd personally argue objective morals exist in the same way 1+1 = 2
but you know, people love being dense

also the point you made about enjoying rape, can it still be considered rape if said person being raped starts to enjoy it?

challengerX · May 06, 2015, 03:53:52 PM

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