Subjective Morality?

[bennyboy]

I've never cared about that terminology, only that morality is subjective, since it is predicated mainly on feelings.

I'm reasonably certain that you are misrepresenting or misunderstanding moral realism-- i.e. that moral facts aren't simply facts that you use to support your (subjective) moral opinions. It must be possible to say, "X is moral, and Y is immoral," and to believe those statements to represent reality, i.e. a truth which transcends subjective evaluation, i.e., the ought itself is a moral fact-- some ought ideas are right, and others must be wrong; and where two oppose each other, at least one of them must be wrong-- not wrong TO SOMEONE, mind you, just plain wrong.

It's pretty easy to demonstrate that this is not the case. Look at the case of mercy killing. Is it right or wrong to put someone out of their misery at their request? It must be one of those, without regard to the feelings of either the requester or the person requested to carry out the act, or there's no real moral truth involved.

The fact is that if you choose to value organic life, then the failure of that organism represents a loss to the world, and you will consider the killing immoral (a sin, probably). If you choose other values (freedom over matters of the self, quality of life, money), then you will consider the euthanasia either morally acceptable, or a moral imperative.

So we are back to our meta-ought. Why OUGHT we choose one metric or the other in the first place? The facts here are not in dispute-- someone is sick, they are suffering, they want to die. The moral fact cannot be predicated on each individual's evaluations-- their metric of preference, so to speak.

For there to be a real morality, here, at most one of those positions can be correct. So how do you resolve the dispute? How do you access the moral rightness out there in the ether, and arrive at the one-true-right-choice™?

I've given you the example of euthanasia. Please state your position on it, and explain how moral realism provides any utility in arriving at that position.

*Expected response-- you will NOT do any of that, but will just keep paraphrasing wikipedia pages. But let me say-- I believe that you ought not do that!