Why does god want to cut off women's hands?

[John V]

Well, until you can demonstrate that your omnipotent deity exists, opinion is really all we have.

Even so, opinion would be all we have. I’ve already told you I don’t believe in objective morality.

And it's not just my opinion; if it was, it wouldn't have any real world effects. These decisions are reached through mutual agreement.

Criminals generally don’t agree with their sentence. The poor don’t agree to be poor. These decisions are reached by agreement of some people. Same with slavery – some people agreed to have it.

You seem to be just sloughing off whole portions of my argument whenever it's convenient. Did I not say that happiness is a single element of a larger series of considerations?

I’m trying to break a rambling, shifting mess into pieces that can be analyzed. If you don’t like it, lay out your entire argument, once, in an organized fashion.

The mistake here is that you're considering happiness as a finite resource, when what it is is a subjective emotional state.

Another shift. You previously tried to tie happiness to pain in an attempt to establish some amount of objectivity. Actually I agree with this last position. I know people with chronic pain that are happier than some people in good health, and I know some poor people who are happier than those better off. It kills your argument against slavery based on happiness, though. Paul agreed with this, noting that he was content in the lord regardless of his circumstances. He also advised slaves in general to abide in their current position, but to be happy nonetheless. This is possible because, as you note, happiness is a subjective emotional state.

Oh, and also that you're, once again, ignoring large parts of my entire position in order to focus on smaller issues where you might actually gain some traction.

I’m trying to break a rambling, shifting mess into pieces that can be analyzed. If you don’t like it, lay out your entire argument, once, in an organized fashion.

I wasn't using the phrase "spread around" in some totally egalitarian sense, but rather in the sense that the pursuit of individual happiness can be suspended if it overly affects the overall happiness of the community.

Yes, you’re using weasel words to avoid real analysis of your positions.

I suspect if you'd read the entire passage, rather than stopping at the part you quoted and considering the rest as a separate item, you might have realized that.

I’m trying to break a rambling, shifting mess into pieces that can be analyzed. If you don’t like it, lay out your entire argument, once, in an organized fashion.

We're all a part of the human group.

Again, you don’t behave that way. Actions speak louder than words.

It's objectively better in that groups that have rules that they all agree to follow have less chance of coming to ruin.

We’re all part of the human group. We don’t agree to much. Yet, our population keeps expanding.

That's why you see groups that are actively slanted toward single entities maximizing their happiness at the cost of others falling apart as often as they do; North Korea certainly seems like a great place to be, huh?

The fact that we still have slavery, and slavery was officially prohibited only recently, says otherwise.

Abortion opponents might disagree. So would a lot of other species.

My mistake – abortion defenders and other species might disagree.

Yes, I know that they're simple. Do you read my whole post before you start to reply? I've said that they're simple myself; they're the starting point of building a moral system, not the entirety of one.

Not simple, simplistic.

Did you not read the "part of" section at the beginning of that first sentence?

I’m trying to break a rambling, shifting mess into pieces that can be analyzed. If you don’t like it, lay out your entire argument, once, in an organized fashion.

Equivocation: the difference between slaves and prisoners is that prisoners are released at a certain point. Slaves are not, or at least there's no requirement that they are;

So you agree that prisoners with life sentences are slaves owned by all of us.

even your biblical seven year slavery contains rules by which a temporary slave can be kept forever.

Yes, by volunteering. Are you saying people shouldn’t have the freedom to do that?

No, my answer is that I don't know. Giving a concrete yes or no when I don't know would be dishonest.

You have no problem asserting that long-dead slaves were unhappy when you don’t really know.