(June 24, 2017 at 9:45 am)Little Henry Wrote:

(June 24, 2017 at 9:37 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: No matter what the OP thinks, I derive my morality subjectively and make no claims otherwise.

If this is the case, then moral acts are neither right or wrong. They are just preferences and desires, not right or wrong.

Then you deny that a human can make moral judgements? How, then, do you assert your morality proper?

Humans make moral judgements. If you wish to dismiss those judgements because they don't share your own premises, that's your business. But then at that point you yourself are practicing moral subjectivity -- "their morals are wrong because they aren't based as mine are."

In other words, you insist on equivocating, and I'm unimpressed. *yawn*

(June 24, 2017 at 5:15 pm)wallym Wrote: If someone is trying to rape you, you can stab them in the face, and that would not be wrong in my opinion.  Stabbing someone in the face certainly qualifies as causing harm.  So you'd at a minimum have to sharpen up the idea of 'doing harm'.

That would be an issue of competing moral imperatives.  OFC it's not wrong to stab someone in the face for trying to rape you, if that;s what you have to do to stop someone from raping you.  No one faults -some- terrible things a person might do in defense of themselves.  An objective assessment of the harm caused, in that case, is actually -required- in order to reach a justifiable moral pronouncement on both the attacker...and the defender.

Stab them, wally.  Stab the shit out of them.  But...if that stops them from raping you....don't...then...cut them up into little pieces and serve them as a pie to their family.   Objectively justifiable defense of one's self only goes so far.

Further..one could argue that you have an objective moral -duty- to stab them in the face.......since, if you can defend yourself, and choose not to, you have not only failed to satisfy what would be moral for yourself.....you have failed to do what might stop them from doing it to some other.

(June 24, 2017 at 5:36 pm)RoadRunner79 Wrote: I think I agree.... to take a simple principle and make it absolute no matter what is.... well and oversimplification. 
I don't know that I share in your experience, but I don't think that morality is based on or dependent on the subject.  And most people do not act as if it is.

Right, because you're a moral absolutist (or at least you think you are).  I, however, am a moral objectivist, so I acknowledge that it -does- depend,...objectively, on the subject, the time, the place, the culture. We all act that way (even you) because both moral and subjective moral assessments equally depend on all of those things. You haven't picked up a gun in defense of the fetus, of late.....now have you....?

(please don't, btw)

(June 24, 2017 at 2:18 pm)Khemikal Wrote: All a moral subjectivist needs to claim..is that our moralities are subjective...which they obviously and demonstrably are, not there there is no or cannot be any objective morality.  A moral objectivist can also hold this opinion...and in fact does hold this opinion.  Religious moral theorists -also- hold this opinion...they think that all of those other™ moralities are subjective...theirs being the special case.

Yup.

(June 24, 2017 at 2:18 pm)Khemikal Wrote: Ultimately, even if there were an objective morality, we would still only have subjective access -to- it.

Yup yup.

(June 24, 2017 at 10:20 am)Little Henry Wrote: The words right and wrong ONLY exist in relation to facts.

Not so. They can also be related to feelings -- i.e., subjectivity. "That's just wrong".

You aren't able to get around the fact that different people see different events in different ways.

Is killing always wrong, no matter the context? What say you?

---

Bottom line: even if you shop your morality out to another agency, you're still practicing moral subjectivity. You just don't have the stones to admit the decision.

I, a moral objectivist, subjectively engage in whatever I can grasp of whatever moral objectivity I propose there to be. I physically and literally cannot do otherwise, even if I wanted to...which I do.

More than that...I will, when it's compelling...do something I consider to be objectively evil. I have. I will again - and were not talking about picking the wrong color drapes here. I'm a legitimate danger to my fellow man regardless of the fact that I accept an objective moral schema based on harm.

I.....will....harm....people....... This secular conception of evil is analagous to the religious concept of sin, and it's equally available to the religious absolutist despite being identifiably godless.

(June 24, 2017 at 12:21 am)Little Henry Wrote: It seems when we make moral claims, ie, rape is wrong, murder is wrong, we are saying something with an intent for that statement to be fact. We are not just expressing preferences/likes/desires, but trying to say something that is fact.
. . . . .
But when we talk about morality, we use the words right and wrong with an intent for it to be FACT.

Our intentions in talking about something can be mistaken. When people believed the earth was flat, they talked as if the world were flat. Their intention was irrelevant to the fact. Beyond that, all you've basically done is assert. You know what would show that morality is objective? An explanation of morality that can be demonstrated to be correct. That is how we show that something is objective. Do you have an explanation of morality that can be demonstrated to be correct? I see you making a lot of assertions, but haven't seen anything like an explanation of how morals work. Until you can do that, all you've got is an ipse dixit argument.

In your title you tentatively assert that morality being objective is a properly basic belief. I take that to mean you are employing reformed epistemology as a foundation for your beliefs. I reject reformed epistemology. Any framework that asserts that something is true until it can be shown false is nothing but a wholesale falsehood. In traditional foundationalism, a belief is basic if it is either self-evident or it is incorrigible. The belief that morality is objective is neither of these things.

For what it's worth, I'm not a subjectivist in the sense that you mean because I believe the foundation of our morals lies in evolution, not God. But it does point out an important question about morality. Does our metaphysics not alter what we view as moral and immoral. A middle eastern woman is killed because of being an abomination to God. To those who don't believe in God, this act itself is an abomination. Can we ever have objective facts about metaphysics?

Yay. Yet another thread about objective morality from yet another poster who has mistaken the opinions of the authors (of the buy-bull) for morality.

(June 24, 2017 at 6:17 pm)Khemikal Wrote: I, a moral objectivist, subjectively engage in whatever I can grasp of whatever moral objectivity I propose there to be. I physically and literally cannot do otherwise, even if I wanted to...which I do.

More than that...I will, when it's compelling...do something I consider to be objectively evil. I have. I will again - and were not talking about picking the wrong color drapes here. I'm a legitimate danger to my fellow man regardless of the fact that I accept an objective moral schema based on harm.

I.....will....harm....people....... This secular conception of evil is analagous to the religious concept of sin, and it's equally available to the religious absolutist despite being identifiably godless.

Don't beat yaself up, brotha ... we're all fallen.

#escapehatch

Some of us fell farther than others, lol.

I hit every branch on the evil tree when I fell, but the whole time, I had a definite and purportedly objective idea of evil.   This is why I laugh riotously when people make some comment to the effect of;

"You don't act like what you say is true, is true"

Well no shit...I'm a human being, two hairs away from a chimpanzee on a good day. On a bad day, I'll execute your entire family for giving me the stinkeye.

(June 24, 2017 at 6:17 pm)Khemikal Wrote: I, a moral objectivist, subjectively engage in whatever I can grasp of whatever moral objectivity I propose there to be.  I physically and literally cannot do otherwise, even if I wanted to...which I do.

More than that...I will, when it's compelling...do something I consider to be objectively evil.  I have.  I will again - and were not talking about picking the wrong color drapes here.  I'm a legitimate danger to my fellow man regardless of the fact that I accept an objective moral schema based on harm.  

I.....will....harm....people.......  This secular conception of evil is analagous to the religious concept of sin, and it's equally available to the religious absolutist despite being identifiably godless.

Rhythm, you need help burying a body or something?  Just say so!  ??