RE: Atheism and Ethics
June 21, 2024 at 2:19 am
(This post was last modified: June 21, 2024 at 2:29 am by The Grand Nudger.)
It doesn't follow, but the term is misleading enough due to common usage to seem so, I suppose. Mind independence as meta ethics has it is the same sort of thing as a tree or an elephant being there or not being there. Sure, you can have the idea of a tree or an elephant in your mind, and it takes a mind to hold that idea or any idea...but the idea is not the thing. It's not mind-dependent ..and would still be there even if you were not, as an observer. That's the kind of thing that moral realism or objectivity proposes for the source or origin or reference or index for moral utterances. There are a great many things that are "in minds" that we believe also exist outside of them..and so, are "mind independent".
Your question is a good one...the answer you're aiming for is no..but why not? Is there something objectively true about that situation that means it isn't..or is murder or the badness of murder mind dependent? Such that if I thought it was bad or murder..or my society considered it bad or murder..it really would be ? We often refer to subjectivism and relativism as criticism of objectivist claims. Genuine subjectivism and relativism are different and stranger than we intuitively imagine..because...rightly or wrongly, we're intuitive realists - just like you implied with the murder question.
Your question is a good one...the answer you're aiming for is no..but why not? Is there something objectively true about that situation that means it isn't..or is murder or the badness of murder mind dependent? Such that if I thought it was bad or murder..or my society considered it bad or murder..it really would be ? We often refer to subjectivism and relativism as criticism of objectivist claims. Genuine subjectivism and relativism are different and stranger than we intuitively imagine..because...rightly or wrongly, we're intuitive realists - just like you implied with the murder question.
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