(September 28, 2014 at 4:00 pm)rasetsu Wrote: No. Would you derive my favorite food from a rational consideration of facts about me?
Sure: I'd need a lot of specific facts from you, though - the correlation between your taste buds and your brains pleasure center, the relative strength of different tastes and what response they produce, how your brain reacts to different textures, which olfactory stimuli best stimulate your limbic system for a positive response. Then I'd need facts about your past - what kind of food you grew up eating, the context in which that food was eaten etc. After that, I'd draw up a checklist with different aspects I find you respond positively to - with appropriate weights assigned to each and see which food fits the most criteria. That should be your favorite food.
I assume the point you were trying to make was this - morality, like food, is a matter of subjective preference - that you pick one based on what feels best to you - and making one choice over another doesn't make much of a difference. So rational considerations have no place in the decision. The rest of the argument applies only if this is correct.
However, there is a fundamental differences between the two cases:
As long as the food isn't detrimental, it really doesn't make a difference which one you pick. As long as your favorite food isn't hemlock, you're good to go. Also, not eating your favorite food wouldn't have negative effects on your psyche - not following your morality would result in guilt and shame.
Morality, on the other hand, would be the guiding principle for a lot of your actions. That question is not comparable to "what should be my favorite food", it is comparable to "what should be my diet" - and that one is subject to rational consideration. Picking one on a whim is would result in negative consequences down the line.
