[Serious] Good vs Evil

[Smaug]

I'm not a moral absolutist. To me, conditions apply to moral action. Killing or theft might be justified. Selfishness can be good. What makes a morality objective is that there are underlying principles at work in the moral theory which allow one to determine (beforehand) whether theft or some other act is morally permissible. An objective morality refers to these principles as its absolute reference frame, and determines the locality of a given deed on the moral spectrum accordingly.

Is there debate about which principles are to be used as the absolute reference frame? Yes. Just like there is debate about phenomena in biology and quantum physics. Just because there is disagreement, doesn't mean there isn't an objective truth to discover.

Moral realism is the belief that certain moral propositions can be true (nothing more, nothing less). These propositions need not be absolutitist. Conditions may apply.

Thanks for the explanation! I agree that there probably are some underlying principles that can be derived from the nature of moral behaviour in social animals and people. I'm just not sure that they can be placed on the same level of absolute as, say, such physical constancs as gravitational constant or speed of light in vacuum. I view these principles as some sort of 'optimal solutions' which are only understood with respect to certain 'objective function' (group survival). However, if we speak of the society as we know it they may be pretty universal.