(October 22, 2013 at 12:01 pm)bennyboy Wrote: You could argue that an individual's goals, or world view, or ideal world, or whatever stem from something objective-- the deterministic variables that have made the person who he is. You could argue that the net result of all the individuals' influence on the memes in a population are objective as well for the same reason. However, there is still a problem-- that subsets of that whole population will often have different goals, instincts, desires, or whatever, and therefore different mores.
I'd argue (as you know) that in a naturalist (read: determinist) perspective, ALL is actually objective, and "subjective" is just another term for the variability in the objective mores of a collection of individuals. There are also systemic variations, for example between women and men, or between young people and their elders. So the "what one is" that defines objective morality is variable across individuals.
What then of archetypal morality, of a Moral Man who represents the whole population? A man by nature usually wishes to mate with many females. Is it moral for him to do this? Is it moral for his wife to prevent him if she can? Is it moral to rape another if he can? Is it moral for a father to avenge the rape of his daughter with murder? Is it moral to commit suicide, when the "what one is" of one's parents, and their desire for happiness that involves the continuing existence of a loved one, is also objective?
How do you go from individual objective moralities to a group objective morality? If we can't do that, we basically have "people are different, and they do stuff that affects others." It may be true, but it leads to a kind of metamoralistic question: is it moral for any subset of a population to establish (still through their deterministic therefore objective processes) a moral code? If the answer to that is "no," then we're in Koolay-land.
That's a good argument and the answer to it can be found in the creation of the hypothetical moral man.
But first things first. Your contention here is that the things we regard as subjective - a person's beliefs, desires, motivations, ideas etc. - are, in fact, derivative of objective facts, events and experiences he has had. And since they spring from something objective, they can be properly regarded as objective - thus rendering the objective/subjective distinction moot. This argument is the response to my own proposition regarding certain objective desires.
The error here is the assumption "if something stems from something objective, then it is objective as well". That was not part of my argument. Here, I left the part "with no subjective determination involved" as unsaid, because I thought it was a obvious, given the prior discussion on differences between objective and subjective.
You are a conscious entity who already has gone through a unique set of events and experiences that have made you who you are. That these events themselves are objective is irrelevant - the consciousness they've shaped is unique and the determinations of that consciousness - as it pertains how it was shaped - are subjective. But, there is another part of your mind that is capable of objective determinations. The part that has the process of rational thinking installed in it. These rules of logical thought are not produced in your mind as a result of unique experiences, rather your mind must identify and conform to them. And while, in our daily lives, these two interact so extensively that it is not possible to determine exactly how much of a determination is subjective, we do, however, go by the general rule that if we do not find any element of subjectivity in it, then it is objective.
Which brings us to the creation of the hypothetical moral man. As indicated, you created him without any experience, desires, motivations, ideas, beliefs etc. Only the capacity to think rationally - which humans have to learn - comes factory installed. We've created him with the most generic "human" template. The idea here is to avoid all the complications life long experiences would cause in his ability to think rationally - to remove the subjective element - and to see if any desires or motivations are left once that is done. The hypothetical desire "I want to live and be happy and fulfilled" is not the result of reflection on his 2 seconds of life. This is the big difference between the "objective desire" of the hypothetical moral man and the other desires you see in every human you meet.
Now, here is something you might find interesting - I don't regard the objective morality this moral man would develop as an exhaustive guide to anyone's life - let alone his. Assuming he has that desire and we can show it to be objective - it would tell him a few things about what he should do. Since he wants to live, he must secure food and shelter, ensure survival and all the basic stuff. But what should he eat or where should he live are still things dictated by the subjective experiences he undergoes as he starts living his life. Any systemic variations are accounted for here as well.
Finally, about individual morality vs group morality. As is indicated by most of my arguments, I regard morality as more of a private concern than a public concern. Here is the basic quality of a moral agent that I've not stated before - he must be free to act with reference to his thoughts and motivations. If a person is not free to do so, then he cannot be regarded as a moral agent. Which means that in absence of such freedom, no morality - whether objective or subjective - is relevant to him. Which means, in a society, even the smallest subset - an individual - should be allowed to develop his own moral code and live by it. But here's the catch to this - in ensuring that every individual has the freedom to develop his own moral code, you've automatically set the limit to that freedom - to wit - that his moral code cannot be imposed upon any other individual. This is a rather simplistic view regarding group morality and many other factors come in play, but this is the basic principle I start with.
