On Moral Authorities

[GrandizerII]

Not much of a problem for people whose true goal isn't god, though, is it?  If you can't figure out why you shouldn't hurt someone apart from gods say so or wishes....it's not as if you possess any moral agency in the first place, so the problem is moot for you before you ever have to realize that being gods say so or wishes wouldn;t make it objective anyway.....

I mean really, wtf?

Well, why not hurt someone? Just because you want to? If so, then it is just an arbitrary choice, right? Isn't is Nietzsche is consistent when he says that it is just plagiarizing Christianity when secular are arguing for love instead of being true to reason alone?

What's arbitrary about not wanting to hurt others? It's actually a very reasonable thing to not hurt others aimlessly.

Also, people were preaching love and no harm centuries before Christ.

[theologian]

Well, why not hurt someone? Just because you want to? If so, then it is just an arbitrary choice, right? Isn't is Nietzsche is consistent when he says that it is just plagiarizing Christianity when secular are arguing for love instead of being true to reason alone?

What's arbitrary about not wanting to hurt others? It's actually a very reasonable thing to not hurt others aimlessly.

Also, people were preaching love and no harm centuries before Christ.

If I follow your logic, then if I have a personal goal which includes hurting and killing other people, it follows that it is allowable to hurt or kill other people.

Before Christ, it was the silver rule only: Do not do unto you...

In Christ, it was the golden rule: Do unto others...

[GrandizerII]

What's arbitrary about not wanting to hurt others? It's actually a very reasonable thing to not hurt others aimlessly.

Also, people were preaching love and no harm centuries before Christ.

If I follow your logic, then if I have a personal goal which includes hurting and killing other people, it follows that it is allowable to hurt or kill other people.

Before Christ, it was the silver rule only: Do not do unto you...

In Christ, it was the golden rule: Do unto others...

Allowable by whom or what rules? Think about what you're arguing here.

As for your second point:

"If people regarded other people's families in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own family to attack that of another? For one would do for others as one would do for oneself." — Mozi (c. 400 BC)

[robvalue]

It's easy to talk about good and bad, and then to boil it down to help or harm; although you've already possibly excluded some people from the conversation with this distinction.

But since most people would agree it's about help and harm, I'm usually fine talking about that. But these are not well-defined, easily measurable concepts. For anything to be objective, metrics must be agreed. You can probably reach almost universal agreement that certain acts are always harmful, but apart from that, it's all one massive grey area. Everyone will have different ideas about exactly how much a particular thing helps or harms, or how you go about assessing those concepts. "Wellbeing" is again not a simple concept, and you'd have to agree how to measure it before you could begin to measure morality. If you can't measure, at least in theory, then it's not objective. We have ways of measuring aspects of reality such as length, and we all agree on ways of doing so because it has practical benefits. Morality and wellbeing are very different; it's the ways of measuring which are themselves the points of disagreement.

Before you even get into specifics, how do animals factor in? If morality is objective, we can decide, without resorting to opinion, how animals should be treated and valued relative to humans. But just like all moral questions, there is no right answer. There are people who say, "If your idea of morality isn't the same as mine, I don't care about yours". That's not being objective, it's being exclusionary and it never furthers discussion.

[robvalue]

Morality is simply a subjective evaluation of actions. There can be no "correct" morality, just opinions backed by reasoning. So a moral authority makes no sense. It's just another opinion.

Is it "correct" to tell the truth?

There's also no reason to think that the most powerful being has intentions that any of us would choose to align ourselves with. It's what puzzles me about religion, the insistence that "God" is unquestionably "good".

Agreed. I wouldn't ever argue in favour of religion, just deism at most.

I don't understand what you're getting at with your first question. The truth is correct in a tautological sense; further than that I don't know how it relates to what I said. Please see my above discussion

[Silver]

Many consider me amoral just because I refuse to adhere to silly outdated customs.

[robvalue]

The idea of being amoral is tricky. Strictly speaking, I'd say it's someone to whom morality is entirely irrelevant. A psychopath, for example. They aren't choosing to be "good" or "bad", and they don't have any internal instincts on the matter, because such terms mean literally nothing to them. We can judge them, of course, but our judgements are misplaced.

Ironically, following any form of supposed "objective morality" also makes you amoral in a sense. You've abandoned all judgement of your own and have become an automaton. That is what makes the idea so dangerous.

[FallentoReason]

All of this

I wouldn;t know, but I know that what you described has little, if anything, to do with my morality.

No need, really, nothing to do with my morality.

Sure is, pewpewpew. I'll parade his skull up and down the street and -still- be a good person, too.

Suppose it depends on the motivations of the person asking for help, eh?

Meh, like I said, kant doesn't describe my morality.

is because you misunderstand Kant, right here explicitly:

It's not an issue of understanding, I just don't think it approaches morality as I apply it in my life. I'm not the sort of hedonist kant had in mind.

He didn't have you in mind because he wasn't a hedonist. He advocated deontology.

-your definition did.....so, yeah, you did. Unless you arent referring to that definition..which wasn't a definition of a moral authority anyway......

Still wrong. Power puts you in a place of authority. That's what the word itself means. Acting rationally makes you a moral authority.

Which, ofc, he never will, since gods don't exist anywhere but Joe's mind.

Besides the point. Joe is still a moral authority. And if you don't

...find joe any more or less credible a moral authority...

because

...moral absolutes [don't have] something to do with available resources.

then you're not understanding, yet. If Kant is correct in that morality can be seen like physical laws, then for the individual it means acting rationally will inherently be morally good. If said individual is in a position of power, then naturally that makes them a moral authority. They're not an authority of morals, but an authority for morals. The former implies they have power over morals themselves, which can't be the case, since they are like physical laws, and thus it is the other way around - laws have power over them, naturally. For a "god", things might be different, but we'll leave that aside for now. In any case, it must be the latter for anything beneath a god. And all it means is they are in a position to be morally good to a grander scale than anyone else.

[FallentoReason]

Is it "correct" to tell the truth?


Agreed. I wouldn't ever argue in favour of religion, just deism at most.

I don't understand what you're getting at with your first question. The truth is correct in a tautological sense; further than that I don't know how it relates to what I said. Please see my above discussion

I meant is it morally right to tell the truth.

[FallentoReason]

It's easy to talk about good and bad, and then to boil it down to help or harm; although you've already possibly excluded some people from the conversation with this distinction.

But since most people would agree it's about help and harm, I'm usually fine talking about that. But these are not well-defined, easily measurable concepts. For anything to be objective, metrics must be agreed. You can probably reach almost universal agreement that certain acts are always harmful, but apart from that, it's all one massive grey area. Everyone will have different ideas about exactly how much a particular thing helps or harms, or how you go about assessing those concepts. "Wellbeing" is again not a simple concept, and you'd have to agree how to measure it before you could begin to measure morality. If you can't measure, at least in theory, then it's not objective. We have ways of measuring aspects of reality such as length, and we all agree on ways of doing so because it has practical benefits. Morality and wellbeing are very different; it's the ways of measuring which are themselves the points of disagreement.

Before you even get into specifics, how do animals factor in? If morality is objective, we can decide, without resorting to opinion, how animals should be treated and valued relative to humans. But just like all moral questions, there is no right answer. There are people who say, "If your idea of morality isn't the same as mine, I don't care about yours". That's not being objective, it's being exclusionary and it never furthers discussion.

You've outlined some great reasons why consequentialism isn't a good way to think about morality. That's why I prefer deontology, such as Kantianism and consequentialism. For Kantianism specifically, you don't need to measure anything. It all comes down to logically achieving your will, which is a 'yes' or 'no' question without the gray areas.