(November 11, 2016 at 5:37 am)robvalue Wrote: Well, in my case, the happiness of animals is very important to me too. I try and place it as high on my agenda as I can. You could say that the reason I care about animals being happy is because that makes me happy. This is ultimately true. When you boil down morality, it comes down to emotions. It is about what you want to be the case. [1] Without emotions or desires, morality makes no sense. A neutral, uncaring observer will have no opinion. This is all a tautology really; it's modelling morality rather than seeking to guide or measure it. My idea of human happiness might be so warped that anyone else would consider what I want to be horrific. [2]
Absolutely, yes. I agree living life well is important. You could in theory objectify it, but it would simply be one person's version of what it means to live life well. It's not like measurements where it's of practical use for us to all agree on a certain system. [3]
Discussion is absolutely crucial, yes, for exactly this reason. If I/we consider a moral position to be superior, it's vitally important that every effort is made to try and explain to others why that is. [4] It's in this way that "progress" is made, and eventually societal norms are altered. [5] What is absolutely useless is to simply announce that one moral system is better than another. This achieves nothing except a feeling of self righteousness.
So indeed yes, discussing the very basics of what we are trying to achieve is incredibly important, to find as much common ground as possible. [6]
1) Well, I'd certainly say that is part of it. I would say that morality includes the struggle to reconcile what-you-want-to-be-the-case, what-you-feel, and what-is-ACTUALLY-the-case. In other words: 1) desire/will, 2) affect/emotion, and 3) knowledge/intellect
2) Indeed (see every reductio ad Hitlerum ever). The question this thread considers, then, is "On what basis can we judge the adequacy of your conception of morality?" "Is there an object about which we can approach the truth so that we can guide our actions toward a life well-lived?" I think we can certainly point to certain conceptions of human happiness or human nature and plainly and directly pronounce them so inadequate that they are simply wrong about human life. We share enough about human life, its experience and its history to have a pretty solid idea of what does not lead to good lives.
3) Well, what if it is less normative and legislative, and (embracing human individuality and freedom) more teleological and principled? For example, I would find it difficult for someone to disagree with the principle of "do and seek the good and avoid evil". Moral discourse would revolve more about what is good and true about things, the relationship between our own goodness and the goodness of other things (like other animals), and how our own individuality can participate well in and according-to those relationship... rather than a bunch of "what should be done? What should humans do? what am i supposed to do?"
4) And perhaps that begins with the recognition that "superior" actually means closer-to-the-truth-and-goodness-of-things? It could only be superior if the subjective judgments which it proposes are truer approximations of reality than other subjective judgments.
5) Dare we hope that the society itself may also be altered for the better?
6) Exactly. Imagine if public discourse was like that?
