Subjective Morality?

[Belacqua]

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If we accept that ethics is the field which asks, "how best may we flourish?" then I think that the concept of moral facts becomes quite easy to accept.
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Agreed.  And if we don't accept that premise?  What then?

To me that's a little like refusing to accept the premise that zoology studies animals. 

But OK, I'm not picky about definitions. If you want to argue that ethics is about something else, that's a possibility. In the article I linked to, the guy suggests that religious ethicists and Kant look for something other than human flourishing as their goal. As long as we define our terms at the beginning, I'm easy.

Rob's thread on the Harris's Moral Landscape covered this ground.

Sam Harris, Michael Shermer and Matt Dillahunty have all bought into this notion.  

It's a strange reaction I have: Harris and Dillahunty make my eyes bleed. Take them away! 

Incidentally, a few years ago I had a good face-to-face conversation with the latter, over a pint or three, to put him straight.  He agreed with me but thought that the semantics of my version of morality would be too confusing for yer average audience so continues to espouse 'objective' morality but now at least when he does so he will note that this is axiomatic.  So, I'll claim a minor victory on that one.  

You're a braver man than I am. 

Every fact I have ever heard about the Professional Atheists makes me like them less.

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while a believer may reject the notion that human flourishing is -the- goal, their metrics and assertions strongly suggest that it is at least -a- goal, or an intended end state of affairs.  It is, therefore, a relevant fact of the matter we're discussing.  

I thought so too. If those guys accept a priori that there is a heaven, then the greatest flourishing would be to go there. And that would make questions about our ethical behavior very much about flourishing. Though not perhaps, as you point out, the only goal. 

The current quality of their life and final disposition of their souls is commonly taken to be a comment on their having made themselves present before god and acted in accordance with his will, which is in service to the good.  Now, we may not agree with them on the whole god thing, or what their moral duties are...and we may point out that..if their god exists apart from their mind they've failed to demonstrate as much.....but do we disagree that fulfilling obligations which are necessary to and produce human flourishing are  -good- things?  

Probably not.  

Here's a fun q.  How would we explain the success of faith based deontology at producing whatever amount of flourishing they have..if there was nothing in that deontology that pointed to an objective truth with an upstream causal relationship to human flourishing?  How do we explain their success...as naturalists, if those facts (whatever they are) are not natural facts?

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Good points, but now it's my bedtime. I look forward to pondering this more tomorrow!