RE: On Moral Authorities
November 10, 2016 at 12:56 pm
(This post was last modified: November 10, 2016 at 12:57 pm by Ignorant.)
The happiest human life consists in ____________.
Consider how you fill in the blank.
The "truer" your version, the better your "moral system".
The more your personal actions concur with the sorts of actions that bring about the happiest of human lives, the "more moral" your actions are.
The only sure moral authority is human happiness. In what does human happiness consist? Your answer to that question (the blank above) depends on what you think a human even is, i.e. to borrow an old word, it depends on what you think about the nature of humanity.
If there is such a thing as human nature, then human nature's perfection (i.e. its fullness, its completeness, its fulfillment) is its purpose. Human nature, on that account, would be the moral authority. If all people share that human nature, then human nature is the universal moral authority for every human. All people, therefore, would be subjects who try to act in ways that would perfect their nature (i.e. the object of their intellectual judgment), in common with every other person, according what they hold true (some holding truer things than others) about the reality of human nature, and therefore happiness.
Nature does not have to mean the aristotelian-thomistic sense. If the nature of humanity includes transcendental reality (i.e. metaphysical goodness and truth and beauty), then evaluations of morality must also include transcendental considerations (i.e. an account of metaphysical goodness and truth and beauty).
If there is no such thing as human nature, then there is no such thing as human perfection in the universal sense. Arbitrary (in the sense that it is not directed [by] any object) individual judgment (i.e. pure subjectivity), on that account, would be the moral authority. If everyone is their own arbitrary moral authority, then there is no actual moral authority beyond those which are able to exert their own arbitrary judgment upon others. All people, therefore, would be subjects who try to act in ways that would conform either to their own arbitrary judgments about their delusions of happiness, or else, in common with their fellow coerced, that would conform to the exerted arbitrary judgments of another.
Consider how you fill in the blank.
The "truer" your version, the better your "moral system".
The more your personal actions concur with the sorts of actions that bring about the happiest of human lives, the "more moral" your actions are.
The only sure moral authority is human happiness. In what does human happiness consist? Your answer to that question (the blank above) depends on what you think a human even is, i.e. to borrow an old word, it depends on what you think about the nature of humanity.
If there is such a thing as human nature, then human nature's perfection (i.e. its fullness, its completeness, its fulfillment) is its purpose. Human nature, on that account, would be the moral authority. If all people share that human nature, then human nature is the universal moral authority for every human. All people, therefore, would be subjects who try to act in ways that would perfect their nature (i.e. the object of their intellectual judgment), in common with every other person, according what they hold true (some holding truer things than others) about the reality of human nature, and therefore happiness.
Nature does not have to mean the aristotelian-thomistic sense. If the nature of humanity includes transcendental reality (i.e. metaphysical goodness and truth and beauty), then evaluations of morality must also include transcendental considerations (i.e. an account of metaphysical goodness and truth and beauty).
If there is no such thing as human nature, then there is no such thing as human perfection in the universal sense. Arbitrary (in the sense that it is not directed [by] any object) individual judgment (i.e. pure subjectivity), on that account, would be the moral authority. If everyone is their own arbitrary moral authority, then there is no actual moral authority beyond those which are able to exert their own arbitrary judgment upon others. All people, therefore, would be subjects who try to act in ways that would conform either to their own arbitrary judgments about their delusions of happiness, or else, in common with their fellow coerced, that would conform to the exerted arbitrary judgments of another.
