RE: Objective Morality?
August 24, 2011 at 1:55 am
(This post was last modified: August 24, 2011 at 1:56 am by Captain Scarlet.)
(August 23, 2011 at 10:59 pm)theVOID Wrote: 'Moral good' and 'moral bad' are no more abstract than 'good' and 'bad' are in regards to subjective value, they are all evaluative terms that measure some quantifiable change in a system, in the latter it's quantifiable changes in an individual as they experience phenomenon that thwart or promote their desires/pleasures and in the former it's quantifiable changes in multiple individuals as they interact. Something being 'morally good' to me simply means that when two value systems interact there is a net increase in value, such as the act of voluntary charity, it promotes the values of both the person giving and the person receiving - both their values exist, moral language is simply a set of evaluative terms to describe the result of an interaction.I find this one of the most compelling cases I've heard for a realist approach to morality. Is it possible for a desire/pleasure to become a fact about the physical universe? I'm not so sure about that, there doesn't prima facie appear to be an instantiation of a desire and what pleases me from minute to minute day to day may change rapidly. More than this can desires build to become objectively true? Is it also possible that desires are also illusory and do not really exist?
Imagine that same world where bathing was deemed to be bad. Now imagine those people had no desires, would the outcome be the same? Probably yes, but wouldn't that just be a rule that was imposed by that society and not really something that was morally good or bad.
"I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence"...Doug McLeod.
