(July 22, 2014 at 9:44 am)SteveII Wrote: What about biology can create an intuitive moral code?
Our reactions to stimuli, for one. We are biological organisms bound to certain necessities; we die without food, our nervous system is constructed so that pain is a signifier for injury, etc etc. Our moral framework necessarily springs up around the world we find ourselves in, and has at its basis the furtherance of our lives in accordance with what we need to survive, and need to avoid.
Quote:@Esquilax
Was slavery ever "right"?
No.
Quote:People through the ages thought they had a justifiable position (inferior races, conquered people groups, parents raising money).
Sure. The concept of "inferior races" has no basis in reality, as we're all working with pretty much the same set of features and nobody has an inherent advantage. Conquering someone... well, conflict violates the moral absolutes to begin with, and so any consequences of it comes into conflict with them. Moreover, the conquerors could not furnish a logically tenable reason why they should be in that position of power, and "we're stronger," doesn't cut it because the underpinnings of our morality don't preference strength. And for parents raising money, the material gain you'd make from the slave trade does not compensate for the violation of the freedom and well being of another. Again, morality is about conscious beings, not those conscious beings who stand to gain from the suffering of others.
Quote: List anything else you want that was permissible and common at one point that we would find extremely objectionable now. Was it right or wrong then?
No. The only way it could be right or wrong in the past but not now is if the world and the nature of humanity at a biological level changed between then and now.
Quote:It sounds to me like you believe in objective moral values but are unwilling to call them objective because you would have to then ascribe a source for them.
I've not only called the framework objective multiple times, I've also ascribed a source to it. That source is called "reality." Have you not been paying attention?
Quote:I don't have to make a list. You already know what they are because they are imprinted on every rational (and otherwise mentally undamaged) human. Unless you are damaged in which case I could try to come up with a list.
Evidence for this "imprinting," please?
"YOU take the hard look in the mirror. You are everything that is wrong with this world. The only thing important to you, is you." - ronedee
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