RE: Devil's advocate for why ontology is meaningless and vacuous.
September 10, 2016 at 7:07 am
(This post was last modified: September 10, 2016 at 7:08 am by Edwardo Piet.)
(September 6, 2016 at 7:41 pm)Gemini Wrote: Given that subjective preferences are mediated by objectively measurable neural configurations, I think it's premature to declare morality subjectivity.
Let's assume that "objectively true" means there's an isomorphic map-territory relationship (correspondence theory of truth). If someone empathizes with my mental state--which is to say, simulates my sentiments by experiencing (via mirror neurons) what I'm experiencing, that they have true information about a part of reality (me).
This is not only objectively true, but it entails that the empathizing person will not cause me gratuitous suffering. In order to justify causing other people suffering, we have to shut off our capacity for empathy, by demonizing people, or regarding them as animals, or insane, etc. I think that when you cash it out, this amounts to the kind of moral ontology you get from contractariansim, due to the fact that determining values by emulating the mental states of others via mirror mirror neurons is practically identical to determining values by rational agents behind a veil of ignorance.
This all fascinates me.
Again, the ontological aspect is meaningless.
This would be a weak form of 'knowing' the ontologically objective subjectivity of another. So hmmm... ontology is meaningful to one extent: To distinguish between it and epistemology.
People's subjectivity objectively exists. Without distinguishing between ontological and epistemological objectivity a statement like that can confuse people.
Morality can be objective if defined in a certain way so as to consider disregarding the empathy of others to be bad.
The way I see it is... objective morality is not the same as universal morality. Sure there will always be idiots who are like "I think not giving a shit about people is just as moral" but we can discard them like we discard the idiots who think fossils were placed there by Satan. "You can't prove that empathy and compassion has anything to do with morality" makes as little sense to me as "You can't prove that dogs and cats have anything to do with pets."
