Evil

[Mudhammam]

Rob, I apologize for the delayed reply. I've wanted to respond since I first got a chance to read your posts, but life has been a little busy, I've had to put the forum on the back burner, and I didn't want to cheat you out of a thoughtful response. You raise some good objections. At the risk of being too brief now, however, I'll merely focus on a couple of your questions; hopefully we'll figure out a way - if possible, given your thesis (  ) - to move the conversation forward.


You said/asked, 

It's about intent. Can we agree it's about intent? If you don't think morality is about intent, we really are discussing entirely different subjects and it's not surprising we don't agree.

I do think it's about intent - for the most part. I don't want to downplay the role of consequences though. If I had to put a percentage on it, which might be somewhat meaningless - I'd say morality is equally 50/50 both. That's open to revision, of course, but that's my initial impulse.

 If there is some cosmic objectively right way to measure wellbeing but everyone on the planet feels completely differently to it, what use is it, even if it did somehow exist?

Your preceding sentences carry the implication that there is a right or wrong answer to this question, and though factually (as opposed to morally) speaking you seem to hold that there are absolutely (as opposed to relative) true answers to this question (say it is useless, for example), I can't see how the justification doesn't either beg the same question or appeal to the same notion of an objective standard that is "out there", i.e. truth to be discovered rather than invented by the whims of our neurology or societal convention. Assume that we can define our terms so as to meaningfully reach agreement about either the pragmatism or the reality of an objective standard on questions related to the definition of "real" or "existent" - why cannot moral propositions be placed in a similar category of "being"? If not, why not? I think the implications that morality is illusory is likely to have consequences equal or greater to those of other metaphysical questions. Insofar as logic and our capability of reasoning allows us to posit ends to which human beings can maximize their happiness or well-being, there would seem to be objectively true or false statements as there are in other areas of inquiry. If you believe otherwise, I fear we might just have to disagree, though what that means, on your view, I'm not sure I see the significance.