Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: June 9, 2024, 2:17 pm

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
morality is subjective and people don't have free will
#95
RE: morality is subjective and people don't have free will
(May 16, 2017 at 2:02 pm)Alasdair Ham Wrote: It's as objective as science. All the arguments made against a science of morality can be made against a science of health.

And no, it's ontological objectivity that is absurd. The idea that morals exist "out there"... apart from our subjectivity. But epistemic objective morality makes sense. The idea that there are right and wrong answers in principle to increasing and decreasing what we all value and care about: i.e. well being and suffering. That's analogous to the idea that there are right and wrong answers in principle to increasing and decreasing what's good and bad for our health.

(May 16, 2017 at 1:53 pm)Aroura Wrote: Also, I can test for the existence of something (harm), but assigning en emotional value to it is what makes it subjective.

Ontologically subjective, but still epistemically objective.

Quote:  I can objectively say that oxygen molecules exist.  Adding that Oxygen is good because mammals breath it, is subjective.

It's an epistemically objective fact that oxygen is good for the ontological subjectivity of all mammals.
I don't know.  I dislike using the word "good" here, I would say necessary.  Oxygen is necessary for the existence of the animal.  But saying it is good, means that the existence of the animal is "good" for the animal, and I know you would debate that point, as you have claimed you are an anti-natalist.

Good implies that the existence of the animals has an objective quality of goodness, but good is an entirely subjective term in the first place.

This appears to much like the supposed conundrum that a doctor cannot determine your pain. But much like a physician saying that your back hurts, the hurt objectively exists.  The doctor can detect the damage that causes your pain.  The quality of the pain is subjective, though, and must be left to the person experiencing it to relay, the doctor cannot objectively tell you what that is.  This is the subjective part, just like with morality/harm/suffering.

The damage/harm is quantitative, measurable.  The suffering/morality we assign it is qualitative; different people or groups of people might assign different suffering/moral values to the same measured damage/harm.  

As far as I can tell, epistemology is irrelevant here.

p.s. I agree many people conflate fatalism with determinism.  We are more than rocks, and even rocks change over time.  We have desires, and can act in accordance with those desires.  But as you've pointed out, having desires and being able to fullfill them do not = free-will.  Compatibilism is silly.
“Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where's it going to end?” 
― Tom StoppardRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Reply



Messages In This Thread
RE: morality is subjective and people don't have free will - by Aroura - May 16, 2017 at 2:20 pm

Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Stuff you have done (that most people haven' t) onlinebiker 54 4488 October 4, 2022 at 2:57 pm
Last Post: The Valkyrie
  Should poor people have kids? BrokenQuill92 78 5869 November 29, 2019 at 11:59 pm
Last Post: BrokenQuill92
  Not another morality post!! Mechaghostman2 5 774 February 18, 2019 at 11:53 am
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  Do you have friends who don’t share your political views? Losty 13 1877 November 19, 2018 at 12:00 am
Last Post: GrandizerII
  Why is there people who bother people for no reason? Macoleco 6 1050 October 2, 2018 at 6:51 am
Last Post: Cod
  Cordless headphones, I don't have the words... Gawdzilla Sama 9 1592 July 9, 2018 at 5:44 pm
Last Post: Gawdzilla Sama
  Dreaming is free,.....and evidence free... Brian37 6 1055 October 2, 2017 at 4:29 am
Last Post: ignoramus
  How Long Does Someone Have to be Dead Before People stop Referring to them as Late? Rhondazvous 10 3182 May 18, 2017 at 11:58 am
Last Post: vorlon13
  Have our lizard people overlords gotten lazy, or arrogant? CapnAwesome 5 1338 March 19, 2017 at 1:19 pm
Last Post: downbeatplumb
  Real world example of "I don't even know what I don't even know" ErGingerbreadMandude 24 4137 January 25, 2017 at 12:34 pm
Last Post: KUSA



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)