(January 5, 2015 at 11:09 pm)Esquilax Wrote:(January 5, 2015 at 10:57 pm)*steve* Wrote: Ok, here's how this would go. I'd ask you why they are indefensible. You'd offer an answer, then I'd ask why that? Next answer. Then I'd ask why that again? On and on. There is no stopping point if there is no ultimate basis of value so any answer would eventually go nowhere or just be a personal (or group) preference. In that case any other position would be just as equally defensible.
So essentially you just want to be a child, when engaged in adult discussions of moral concerns, and just say "why? why? why?" every time anyone gives you a satisfactory answer to a question, until you get to a point where they either admit ignorance or just declare it as axiomatic, upon which time you pretend the umpteen other answers suddenly don't exist, because nyah nyah, you don't know? And your idea of an ultimately satisfying answer isn't one arrived at by rational thought and consideration, but the simple fiat assertion that "magic space wizard said so!"?
Honestly, if you're not willing to come to this conversation like a mature adult then don't even bother.
As it happens though, I do have a stopper answer for your nonsense, so let's see: why is genocide bad? Because it goes against the well being and safety of conscious entities, which is the foundation of complex ethics. Why? Because morality requires conscious moral actors in order to self sustain. Morality needs to concern itself at base with the lives of conscious entities because without conscious entities there are no actors to perform moral actions, nor to consider them as part of any given moral framework. Non-living objects cannot take part in a moral system, only conscious, living beings can.
Why?
... Oh, the answer is exactly the same one as the answer to the last "why?" and it's equally cogent as an answer to this one. Morality really does require moral actors to be a thing, thus the self sustenance of morality features them as a necessity. It's an answer which strikes down to the very core of morality, it's ultimate existence, and it does so without invoking magic, or theism, or any such unverified crap. If you don't answer that last "why?" with anything but what I just gave, morality itself ceases to exist, and you cannot ask any further why questions.
Game, set, match. Do let me know when you'd like to play a grown ups game instead.
Hmmm. So your argument against genocide is that morality needs conscious agents which it would eliminate. So something is morally wrong if it would eliminate morality. Sounds somewhat circular to me. Why not just do away with morality and everyone just does what they want, even if it eliminates all moral agents?
