(April 20, 2017 at 2:34 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:(April 20, 2017 at 2:13 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: Conscience, since the question is so general.
I was intentionally vague since there are various types of authority - moral, expert, civil, etc. At the same time, there is a case to be made that expert and civil authority are in some sense derivative. When should someone defer to expert opinion? Why (or perhaps when) should people respect their civil authorities. As for following one's conscience, how does someone justify privileging his own conscience over the consciences of others? For example, we never say to another person, "You shouldn't do that because it violates my conscience." Instead, we tell others they are wrong by appealing to some shared higher authority - the law, reason, consensus opinion, holy writ, common decency, etc.
Is there such a thing as an expert opinion on moral facts - a respected thinker or group of people, like elders, on whom others should trust over their own personal feelings? And if there are, why should we trust them, if not because of our own judgement that they are reliable. A bit of a dilemma that one.
As an additional wrinkle, I would point out that there is a difference between knowing of a thing and knowing about it (in other words that something is versus what something is.) People can agree that there are moral facts without agreeing on how to determine what they are.
Yep intentionally vague, that is how all good scams work. We know at some point all this long winded claptrap you will use to go "AH HA, now here is what my bible says". You are not the only Christian who tries this tactic, nor are you the only religion with followers who try to do this.
No sorry, morality is ever changing in our species, if morality were static we'd still have slavery and women couldn't vote.
If you want experts in human behavior you would ask scientists, not apologists. You would ask psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists and anthropologists. Those are neutral people who give you ideas on our species knowledge of evolution and how morality has changed over time.
Religious "morality" is an illusion used to do nothing more than protect social norms people are used to, the good thing for our species is that we have over time learned to scrap the more barbaric practices of antiquity. Our more pluralistic west is really only mostly developed over the past century. But even then we still have assholes trying to turn back the clock on LGBT equality and even the voting rights of minorities.
I am sure you can get a right wing Islamic nut to call himself an "expert" on morality and tell you how it is the duty of women to be chattel for men. Malala wouldn't agree with that though.
