(December 30, 2015 at 3:52 am)robvalue Wrote: There is morality, and there is pragmatism. Often they overlap, which makes total sense, since we have evolved to generally be a cooperative species. Morality, I feel, ultimately comes down to emotion.
You could argue that even pragmatism is rooted in emotion. After all, the desire to do anything at all has to come from somewhere.
When it comes to morality, there are only so many questions you can answer before you are forced to admit that emotion is behind it. I'm not at all saying that is a bad thing, by the way.
Why do I morally object to people being killed for no reason? Because I want them to have an opportunity to live.
Why do I want that? Because it's the only chance they will have, and I value their experiences as well as my own.
Why do I value them? Because to me, ultimately life is all that is important in this reality.
Why is other life important? Because I feel that it is. I have a lot of empathy, and hurting someone else ultimately feels like hurting myself. So I don't want to do that. I don't want other people to do it. It's my nature.
Once I've established what is important to me, I use logic and reason to see how I can best achieve it. But I think it's pointless to deny that at the bottom of it all is emotion. That's why morality will always be subjective.
So what is the difference between objecting morally, and objecting pragmatically?
I would say, pragmatically, I'd say "I'd rather you not do that, as it is against my personal interests."
Whereas you would say, morally, "I'd rather you not do that, as it is against my personal interests, which makes it evil."?
Seems to me, it's the same thing until you tack on the made up part at the end. I don't really understand what woo is, but based on context, that seems like you're adding some woo for no reason.
