Evil

[robvalue]

When I say someone is "wrong" to do something, I mean it is wrong according to my morality and belief system, nothing more. I can never say it is objectively wrong. Right and wrong mean nothing until defined, that's the whole problem with objective morality. Since no two people would ever completely agree on what "right" and "wrong" mean, any objective standard is useless.

No, I don't think the morality of ISIS is inherently inferior, because I don't think it means anything to say that. It is only inferior once we agree such basic things as human life and wellbeing are of prime importance. They may say serving their God is of more importance. Who gets to say what is "more important"? It comes down to a societal agreement. So they say we are wrong, because our priorities are backwards. If we can't agree on what is important and valuable, we can't compare values. And since ISIS clearly don't agree, we're only judging them from our point of view.

It would be nice to say Western morality is objectively better than Isis, but without first defining exactly what morality means and how it is measured, this is a meaningless statement. My whole point is that these moral values are up for debate, there are no "correct" ones without simply begging the question.

I've said in another thread, I think owning animals and killing them for food is immoral. Society generally says it is not. Who is correct? It depends on how you define morality, and clearly it depends on how treatment of animals figures into it as compared to humans. What is the "correct" way to do this? What is the correct way to value them? I hold that there isn't one.

I realized that morality is primarily concerned with intent. The intention to do the right/wrong thing. If someone thinks what they are doing is right, it is subjectively a moral action, even if we would disagree with them on what is right and wrong. If we simply objectively measure the consequences, we would end up saying machines are moral or immoral because they are helpful/harmful.