RE: My views on objective morality
March 2, 2016 at 6:57 pm
(This post was last modified: March 2, 2016 at 6:57 pm by bennyboy.)
(March 2, 2016 at 1:05 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:(March 2, 2016 at 8:07 am)bennyboy Wrote: I don't think that's quite right. If the DNA is interacting with the environment, and the conscious agency doesn't have control of this interaction, it's still objective.
I disagree. Example: you can have a genetic proclivity for addictive behavior, but because you were raised to despise drug users, your personal feelings kept you from being an addict. A result of environment, yet still intensely subjective.
Morality is no different. Altruism may be wired into our genetics at different levels for different individuals, but one's upbringing influences one's mental attitudes towards the morality of altruism. And when you invoke one's upbringing, you are introducing subjectivity into the process, because experiences do not matter until we mentally process them.
I think this is pretty consistent with the kind of objective morality that CL believes in: there IS an objective morality, and we are aware of it on some level, but we are free to regard or disregard that moral sense. In other words, the individual person isn't guaranteed to express moral predispositions. And that would be where Christian ideas about free will (and punishment/reward) come into play.
I'd also like to introduce the idea of the 7 Deadly Sins as a catalogue of those animal instincts which are most likely to influence people to subject their ability to act morally. If you think, it's kind of a list of those natural motivations which, if we feed them too much, may subvert one's will.