RE: Subjective Morality?
November 10, 2018 at 10:00 am
(This post was last modified: November 10, 2018 at 10:13 am by The Grand Nudger.)
* Knowing that, about me, helps to explain how it comes to be that a militant greenie like myself can affirm the fundamental validity of the polluters position. It might be an instructive example, because I do have realist moral opinions on environmentalism, but that certainly doesn't lead to or imply what alot of folks who object to realism clearly think it does....and a firm commitment to fact based consideration gets me into shit with environmental hardliners, lol.
If the destruction of this planet lead to flourishing (and it does) - then that's a natural fact that I have to contend with in my moral appraisal. I don't like it, and if we could get the same effect without the destruction of this planet (which, ofc, I contend will at least eventually lead to the greatest possible misery for the largest number of creatures) then I'd prefer to go that route and think that we have both a practical motivation and a moral duty to go that route instead.....but not on account of some damned rock floating in space. Until we can actually pull that off, however..I have to deal with the reality of the situation and make choices between a field of exclusively suboptimal courses of action.
As a realist, I will actively choose to do some amount of harm to prevent a larger amount of harm or produce a meaningfully greater amount of flourishing. Realism is not absolutism. Things are right or wrong -only- with respect to what true mind independent beliefs justify that classification. To a realist, it can be right to do some thing that would, if the facts were otherwise, be wrong. IOW, if things were different my moral conclusion would be different. Meanwhile, my mind dependent preference and deeply caring for a greener world is not sufficient to warrant a moral conclusion in and of itself.
Maybe...someday, I'll snap. If..in 40 years, I turn on the teevee and there are still wingnuts denying climate change as I plant cocoa trees in the foothills of appalachia....I'm going to lose my shit. I might seriously consider destructive and subversive action. I'll know that what I'm doing is wrong on it's own merits (after all, what did the 3rd shift security guy at the plant do to deserve going up with the factory?)..but I'll rationalize my actions by maintaining that I'm doing the wrong thing for the right reasons and saw no other way to effect change. That my wrong could produce a greater right.
There was a much shorter way of explaining all of that (like there usually is) - I think that the destruction of a species of mosquito is distasteful and potentially unwise....but I don't think it's incontrovertably immoral. I can sit here and rail and rail and rail against it from the point of my personal preferences and predilections..-my subjective positions- but at the end of the day, I'll have to concede to the mosquito killer that while I disagree with his course of action...he isn't a bad person, or doing something immoral, in spraying the little fuckers. In particularly hard hit areas, I might even concede that it's a downright heroic act, lol. Scouring the countryside for bugs so that some (many millions of) kids don't get malaria, lol.
If the destruction of this planet lead to flourishing (and it does) - then that's a natural fact that I have to contend with in my moral appraisal. I don't like it, and if we could get the same effect without the destruction of this planet (which, ofc, I contend will at least eventually lead to the greatest possible misery for the largest number of creatures) then I'd prefer to go that route and think that we have both a practical motivation and a moral duty to go that route instead.....but not on account of some damned rock floating in space. Until we can actually pull that off, however..I have to deal with the reality of the situation and make choices between a field of exclusively suboptimal courses of action.
As a realist, I will actively choose to do some amount of harm to prevent a larger amount of harm or produce a meaningfully greater amount of flourishing. Realism is not absolutism. Things are right or wrong -only- with respect to what true mind independent beliefs justify that classification. To a realist, it can be right to do some thing that would, if the facts were otherwise, be wrong. IOW, if things were different my moral conclusion would be different. Meanwhile, my mind dependent preference and deeply caring for a greener world is not sufficient to warrant a moral conclusion in and of itself.
Maybe...someday, I'll snap. If..in 40 years, I turn on the teevee and there are still wingnuts denying climate change as I plant cocoa trees in the foothills of appalachia....I'm going to lose my shit. I might seriously consider destructive and subversive action. I'll know that what I'm doing is wrong on it's own merits (after all, what did the 3rd shift security guy at the plant do to deserve going up with the factory?)..but I'll rationalize my actions by maintaining that I'm doing the wrong thing for the right reasons and saw no other way to effect change. That my wrong could produce a greater right.
There was a much shorter way of explaining all of that (like there usually is) - I think that the destruction of a species of mosquito is distasteful and potentially unwise....but I don't think it's incontrovertably immoral. I can sit here and rail and rail and rail against it from the point of my personal preferences and predilections..-my subjective positions- but at the end of the day, I'll have to concede to the mosquito killer that while I disagree with his course of action...he isn't a bad person, or doing something immoral, in spraying the little fuckers. In particularly hard hit areas, I might even concede that it's a downright heroic act, lol. Scouring the countryside for bugs so that some (many millions of) kids don't get malaria, lol.
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