Ethics

[Pyrrho]

You are begging the question with that.  You are assuming that they are not matters of fact, but have given no evidence for that claim.  However common it may be to believe what you believe, that isn't evidence that you are correct.

So, you think that if I make a claim to fact, the burden is on you to disprove it? You seem to be speaking under the presumption that Bentham had special authority to simply assert a definition of "greatest good" that everyone who disagrees with utilitarianism is not qualified to simply dismiss.
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You made the claim that there is no objective morality.  Therefore, the burden of proof is on you to support that.  You have done nothing to show that it is true.  Which means, you are simply begging the question.

You assert several such statements, but do nothing to show that they are true.  For example, you claim:

""Health and wealth are the greatest goods," on the other hand, is a claim of which the truth depends entirely on the attitudes and feelings of the person assessing it."

You have given no reason whatsoever to suppose that the truth or falsity of "Health and wealth are the greatest goods" depends on the attitudes and feelings of the person assessing it.  Where is your evidence to support such an assertion?  

If you were to say, different people do assess it differently, that is no proof of anything, as people disagree on matters of fact all of the time.


As for Bentham, he was originally mentioned as an example that demonstrated that the first part of your opening post was false; namely, this:

"It seems to me that the trouble with objectivist theories of morality are twofold: 1) It doesn't address the question as to what "the good" actually is..." 

Objectivist theories often do address the question of what the good is, as in Bentham's case.  Whether Bentham is correct or not is irrelevant to the fact that he does address the question that you say he doesn't.


Also, I have repeatedly stated that I am not endorsing his theory, and I have never said he has any special authority.  I am certainly not asking you or anyone else to take Bentham's word on this, and I have not bothered with his reasoning on the subject, because I am not interested in either endorsing his views or in finding fault with them in the present thread.  He has just been used as an example for the sake of convenience, but without in any way suggesting that he is in fact correct.