RE: Morality without God
April 1, 2021 at 8:19 am
(This post was last modified: April 1, 2021 at 8:25 am by The Grand Nudger.)
A moral conflict arising from a subjective appraisal wouldn't actually be an example of that system "not working" - that's exactly how that system works. When a person decides that they would want to be civilized and saved, believes in the maxim of the golden rule, and compelled by it's additional relationship to the sacred or divine sets out in the world to save and civilize natives.......they haven't made any mistake. That's not an example of that system not working. It's a feature, not a bug.
The difference between doing unto others-as-you, and doing unto others-as-them......as doing what you would have done, or thinking about what they would have done - is the difference between subjectivist and objectivist moral propositions. They're fundamentally different suggestions with a wildly divergent set and type of outcomes.
As a member of contemporary society - you believe in the latter, but you've also been conditioned to believe that your belief in the latter is somehow the same as your belief in the former, or premised on it. Underneath all of this, I think we can fairly say that there are many issues with human moral agency regardless of the system we refer to. We can fail by any standard. There may be no system at all that works™ in the sense that people competently and consistently apply it, or that it's competent and consistent application sits well with us by some other standard.
The difference between doing unto others-as-you, and doing unto others-as-them......as doing what you would have done, or thinking about what they would have done - is the difference between subjectivist and objectivist moral propositions. They're fundamentally different suggestions with a wildly divergent set and type of outcomes.
As a member of contemporary society - you believe in the latter, but you've also been conditioned to believe that your belief in the latter is somehow the same as your belief in the former, or premised on it. Underneath all of this, I think we can fairly say that there are many issues with human moral agency regardless of the system we refer to. We can fail by any standard. There may be no system at all that works™ in the sense that people competently and consistently apply it, or that it's competent and consistent application sits well with us by some other standard.
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