(April 13, 2012 at 9:52 am)mediamogul Wrote: FTR this is where a philosophy class would help. You need some foundational concepts before it makes sense to talk about "objective" morality...It's hard to command others to act in a certain way when you believe that ethics are not absolute so it is more about rights to behave in certain ways provided they don't impede others rights and don't cause unnecessary suffering.Because I do favor the neo-Platonic approach, I see inquiries into morality as epistimological problems. Currently, I take the idea of a moral standard as a working hypothesis, but wonder how one goes about recognizing it. I also see and interesting paradox. Even if there is an ideal moral standard, don't we need an even higher moral standard showing why we should follow it?
(April 13, 2012 at 10:06 am)genkaus Wrote: Ethics most certainly depends upon the metaphysics and epistemology you choose to accept. Most often, I find that the "revealed" ethical doctrines - such as those of Christianity - accept Plato's Idealism as their basis.Who was it that said that all modern philosophy is merely commentary on Plato versus Aristotle? Some, like Aquinis, choose to accept revelation as a supplement to a rational inquiry, but I do not believe Idealism requires a revelatory component. A purely rational inquiry could potentially infer the presense of a formal aspect to reality, or so I hope (Don't worry I'm not blowing you off, GK, I'm still trying to get my nomenclature right).
