RE: Objective morality as a proper basic belief
June 26, 2017 at 10:19 am
(This post was last modified: June 26, 2017 at 10:20 am by Little Henry.)
(June 25, 2017 at 9:00 pm)Astonished Wrote:(June 25, 2017 at 8:53 pm)Little Henry Wrote: How does a feeling or desire make something right or wrong?
So it is a fact that harming living beings is wrong?
It is a fact that it is harmful and that humans value health and harmony over pain and misery (barring some massive defect). I already said there's no absolute or objective morality, whatever you may want to claim to the contrary, and I don't even have to go outside of your own philosophy to prove it. There's no authority saying what's 'right and wrong' but what's 'good and bad' in terms of health and its synonyms and antonyms. If there's another quantitative metric on which to base morality, I have never heard of it. The aforementioned vindictive invisible sky fairy commanding this and that while wantonly doing the exact same things and not seeing the hypocrisy there need not enter the equation.
If something is harmful to humans, in the absence of OM, how does it make such an act wrong?
If something is undesirable, it doesnt make it wrong if OM does not exist.
Let me break it down to the level of the average person I expect to converse with on this subject. Someone walks up to me and says they want to rip my scrotum off and stuff it into my mouth. I say I would prefer they not do that. They ask me why. I tell them that it would hurt enormously, so much so that I might drop dead from the shock, or from blood loss. They ask me why they should not do that. I tell them that if they attempt to do this, I will violently defend myself. They ask me why I would do that. I tell them that if given the choice I would go to just about any length to prevent the experience of great pain and death for as long as possible. They ask why. I tell them that pain and suffering are the worst experiences a person like myself can go through and something in me, not simply the certain knowledge of how badly I would turn out under the circumstances they had previously threatened, but an instinctive sense of self-preservation would motivate me to act even if I was in a state of depression or something which would make me prefer death or contemplate suicide. They then ask why I did not threaten them with the same mutilation upon first meeting them. I say that because I understand how badly that would hurt me, my sense of empathy makes me opposed to the idea of causing another person such grief. They ask why that is of any significance, or if I would because it would benefit me. I say that again, my empathy will cause me to seriously consider the consequences of my actions and that bringing harm to anyone would need to seriously outweigh the negative effects, and not just personally, because I will experience guilt and that is harmful to me. I offer to agree not to do this to them if they will make the same agreement, in the interest of not having to sleep with one eye open, a knife in each hand, with locks and chains over wherever I decide to lay my head at night.
All what you have done is explain how undesirable such an act is. If OM does not exist, then it cannot be wrong. Its not hard to understand.
So there it is. It's based on what you value; living over dying, health and harmony over pain and suffering, the idea of live and let live rather than paranoia and mistrust, security over fear, fulfillment over apathy, intellect over idiocy, rationality and reason over superstition and delusion. It's really sad how frequently the religious will be convinced that they are on one side of each of these and yet they're so far on the other it's amazing to those on the outside looking in just how far down the rabbit hole they are.
Again, you have just explained a preference. If OM does not exist, and i ripped your scrotum and shoved it in your mouth, i havent done anything wrong. You trying to defend yourself has absolutely nothing to do with the matter.
(June 25, 2017 at 9:36 pm)Cecelia Wrote:It is not for me to define, that is why it is called OM. By being OM, it has nothing to do with what i think or how i can define it.(June 25, 2017 at 8:24 pm)Little Henry Wrote: Empathy does not make a moral act right or wrong.
It may make it desirable, preferable, but not right or wrong.
There is no such thing as a moral act. Only what we perceive as moral.
You cannot objectively define morals, you can only subjectively define them. For example: Why is being gay wrong?
"Because God Says so!" is a subjective answer. Why is what god says so moral? If God says "Murder your children" is it immoral to not murder your children?
"Because it's against nature!" is also a subjective answer. Why is going against nature immoral? If it's one's nature to kill, is it immoral NOT to kill then?
There's only subjective answers to the question.
Also, it is not because God says so. It is not his opinion. Rather they derive from his nature.