(June 26, 2017 at 5:40 pm)Tizheruk Wrote:

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As for his notion that desires are not a basis for morality . That's just dumb . Desires and goals are a primary motivator to morality to deny there role is just idiotic.

In a secular objective morality, the desire to be a good person (or, the desire for bad things not to happen to you, lol..honestly, any number of desires - desire for a fair society, etc) provides the compulsion.  

It takes a moral fact of the matter, an is, like "rape is bad because x and y and z" and turns it into an ought "therefore, you should not do that".

Then, there's more elaborate is-ought conversions, like the hypothetical super-rational being, or blind societal establishment (which i'm pretty sure a mafia like game of forum interaction could be made out of.......lol..basically it shows us how a bunch of completely nasty pieces of work laboring to secure nothing other than their own gain will invariably arrive at a set of rules or moral judgements we would identifiably recognize as empathetic, altruistic and fair in sum..tehe).

I've done some more reading on the 'is morality objective' and there's still a huge disparity. The best answers I could find, sad as they are, are 'yes and no', and 'it depends on what you mean by objective' (the biggest problem I found here). I'm pretty sure none of us are Ph.D's in philosophy so this was all probably an exasperating waste of time.

I promise, it doesn't take a phd.  If it did, one wonders how uncle og managed to employ it.   

(June 26, 2017 at 8:34 pm)Khemikal Wrote: I promise, it doesn't take a phd.  If it did, one wonders how uncle og managed to employ it.   

Well the fact that it's still largely unresolved doesn't fill me with hope or confidence. But then I'm a natural pessimist anyway.

We wasted alot of time bullshitting ourselves with ghost based morality.  Cut a little slack.

(June 26, 2017 at 8:58 pm)Khemikal Wrote: We wasted alot of time bullshitting ourselves with ghost based morality.  Cut a little slack.

Isn't that kind of the purpose of the forum, though? Crapping all over that?

Meh, we're probably not all that important..but sure.  Still..that's been what, a few years against all of recorded history?  The notion of a secular morality was largely unexplored, roundly discouraged, and in some cases punished by excommunication or worse in recent centuries.  To this day there is a completely anomalous view of atheism and atheists, and atheists find -themselves- arguing against things like secular moral objectivism because it either doesn't provide what religious moral schemas claimed but failed to provide (the carrot of easy answers to hard questions)...or what those same religious traditions insisted must -be- supplied to -be- objective (uniform and righteous moral indignation, lol).

The tables weren't titled...someone flipped them right over and then burned down the house they were sitting in.

That said, I think it's a bit better established than your summary lets on. It's not resolved...but neither is the mechanism of the photosynthetic apparatus; it aint for lack of good data and demonstrable facts in either case. It's a commitment to rationality and continuing discussion. If we're doing it right.."it" will never be resolved. There will be no final moral solution. That, again, was a lie held out by people who insisted that pixies gave them the cliff notes.

(June 26, 2017 at 9:06 pm)Khemikal Wrote: Meh, we're probably not all that important..but sure.  Still..that's been what, a few years against all of recorded history?  The notion of a secular morality was largely unexplored, roundly discouraged, and in some cases punished by excommunication or worse in recent centuries.  To this day there is a completely anomalous view of atheism and atheists, and atheists find -themselves- arguing against things like secular moral objectivism because it either doesn't provide what religious moral schemas claimed but failed to provide (the carrot of easy answers to hard questions)...or what those same religious traditions insisted must -be- supplied to -be- objective (uniform and righteous moral indignation, lol).

The tables weren't titled...someone flipped them right over and then burned down the house they were sitting in.

That said, I think it's a bit better established than your summary lets on.  It's not resolved...but neither is the mechanism of the photosynthetic apparatus; it aint for lack of good data and demonstrable facts in either case.  It's a commitment to rationality and continuing discussion.  If we're doing it right.."it" will never be resolved.  There will be no final moral solution.  That, again, was a lie held out by people who insisted that pixies gave them the cliff notes.

True the foolish idea that any of us on this forum are going to solve this debate is just that . Men for brighter then us didn't do it . I predict that long after the WLC or the Sam Harries have been reduced to dust this conversation will still be going.

(June 26, 2017 at 9:25 pm)Tizheruk Wrote:

(June 26, 2017 at 9:06 pm)Khemikal Wrote: Meh, we're probably not all that important..but sure.  Still..that's been what, a few years against all of recorded history?  The notion of a secular morality was largely unexplored, roundly discouraged, and in some cases punished by excommunication or worse in recent centuries.  To this day there is a completely anomalous view of atheism and atheists, and atheists find -themselves- arguing against things like secular moral objectivism because it either doesn't provide what religious moral schemas claimed but failed to provide (the carrot of easy answers to hard questions)...or what those same religious traditions insisted must -be- supplied to -be- objective (uniform and righteous moral indignation, lol).

The tables weren't titled...someone flipped them right over and then burned down the house they were sitting in.

That said, I think it's a bit better established than your summary lets on.  It's not resolved...but neither is the mechanism of the photosynthetic apparatus; it aint for lack of good data and demonstrable facts in either case.  It's a commitment to rationality and continuing discussion.  If we're doing it right.."it" will never be resolved.  There will be no final moral solution.  That, again, was a lie held out by people who insisted that pixies gave them the cliff notes.

True the foolish idea that any of us on this forum are going to solve this debate is just that . Men for brighter then us didn't do it . I predict that long after the WLC or the Sam Harries have been reduced to dust this conversation will still be going.

And that's because of subjectivity, right? It's just an inescapable part of it. No wonder the damn thing has no resolution.

It has to keep going.  So long as things keep changing, the moral facts of a matter will change.  

For example, there is a moral fact of the matter regarding sex in societies (or just relationships) without birth control.  That moral fact of the matter is not the same in societies (or relationships) -with- birth control. The chage is not subjective, or due to any subjectve -anything- in either assessment. It is due to the objective fact of the existence of or access to birth control.