RE: Objective Standard for Goodness!
June 9, 2018 at 5:53 am
(This post was last modified: June 9, 2018 at 5:55 am by The Grand Nudger.)
(June 9, 2018 at 12:16 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: I would take issue with the word "decide." If it's an objective thing you would actually be discerning or figuring out what is good. You don't decide that earth revolves around the sun. It is an objective truth. You use observation and reason to figure it out. In much the same way, you must use logic and reason to discern objective goods. The figure most associated with the idea of objective goods is probably Plato.No love for aristotle? Most of our current ethical theories on objective goods are aristotelian rather than platonist. His ethics seek to arrive at the same conclusions as platos..but without the burden of those elaborate metaphysics. I;d give him pride of place if I was associating people with objective goods. Platos objective goods only existed in order to support his metaphysics..upon which they were predicated.
OTOH, Aristotle only broke that vicious circularity by refusing to address it in the first place. Discussions of goodness and virtue only mean something to people who already possess knowledge of those things, to whatever degree. I suppose that;s not intellectually satisfying, but it could very well be true. It may be impossible to explain "what is good" to a person who has no prior concept of good. Like so many "what's wrong with rape" threads.....if somebodies asking the question....and not in a half assed edgelord kind of way, you can be pretty damned certain that nothing you tell them will ever explain whats wrong with rape.
That;s what springs to my mind, in any case, everytime one of these "how can we determine an objective standard for goodness" threads crops up. Either you can or you can;t..but if you really cant....it;s probably a you problem, not a "we" problem.
(we're shamelessly stealing your food pron thread chimp)
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