(May 11, 2012 at 2:19 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Well, there you go Chad, two atheists, two opinions. Seems that this issue might be it's own bag and not somehow necessarily tied to a lack of belief in god.
Good point. Religion may well be the reason many people think morals are an objective matter, but it isn't the only reason to think so. I would be very interested to hear in what sense Genkaus thinks morals are objective. If it is simply in the manner they are experienced, I agree. They aren't as arbitrary as your favorite number, readily revisable .. well, at least not for most of us. Phenomenologically, they already have some de facto reality when we first become capable of understanding what is meant by "morals", but that makes them no less subjective.
(May 11, 2012 at 1:41 pm)Rhythm Wrote: It has whatever meaning any given culture has applied to it, ergo subjectivity. With regards to claims of objective morality I would indeed by a moral nihilist. Nevertheless, I don't see how this has any effect on the usefulness of "morality" or whether or not I can source my particular brand of it from wherever.
It surely does seem that morals are instilled, deliberately or not, by way of cultural norms as they manifest in ones parents. They are instilled before we become capable of reason. In my own upbringing, they were connected to feeling. Failing to take into account the harm done to others was something to feel bad about. The justification given was golden rule. Somehow this process links the evaluative function of feeling to this principle even before we are fully capable of reasoning our way through single digit addition. I hardly think it is the intellectual persuasiveness of the golden rule which does the persuading.
All young mammals go through extended childhoods so that they can learn how to cope in the world. They are especially plastic and ripe for learning while young. We are mammals. We learn morals, which ever morals are on tap where we are born.
It seems we need not even be consciously aware of the morals we have received for them to function in our lives:
(May 10, 2012 at 11:34 pm)Violet Lilly Blossom Wrote: My morals? Don't know what they are either... I just roll with things, and I'm a generally nice and gentle person so that usually works for me.
Kant wouldn't want to acknowledge Violet as a moral being. Can you be moral if you are not aware of any moral deliberation and do not really care if what you do is morally acceptable? I'd say yes, definitely. Chad, is Violet a moral person?
