Good and Evil

[Pyrrho]

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The point is, what gives these things their importance is our feelings about them.  Thus, the basis for their importance is feeling.  In other words, Hume is right.

That says nothing about whether those feelings of actual goods, that every individual shares and in which there is found widespread agreement, have any basis in objective (or conversely, relative) truth. So, even though I never said Hume was wrong, I do insist that applying his arguments here misses the point.

If we apply Occam's Razor we end up with Hume.  There isn't anything left for the "objective morality" to do, even if we had any evidence for it, which we don't.  

As for truth and an affection for scientific principles, you really like to bring up diverse subjects all in one place.  

The issues, of objective truths and of objective goods, are not actually all that diverse. Any attempt to justify the one can easily be made to accord with the other. Notice that the question of whether objective truths and objective goods exist and can be known is not the same as the question of how we can come to know them and distinguish either from falsehoods or evils. As I already said, the quotes from Hume on sensation have more to do with difficulties in resolving the latter of those two distinct topics (in other words, your confusing ontology and epistemology).

Postulating ontological entities, that neither do anything discernible, nor for which we have any evidence, is a bad idea.  Or do you think we should all believe in Russell's teapot?

If things were constructed as you describe, there would be a very serious problem with deciding which "first principles" should be used.  And how could you justify using one set rather than another?  What you end up with is making everything essentially subjective, based upon the whims of selecting first principles one likes.

Have you missed something in the 2,500 year old epistemological debates over that very question? The entire issue of existentialism (likely predated in Protagoras' declaration that "man is the measure of all things") and the relativism that necessarily results is derived from the very difficulty in establishing objective first principles that everyone can agree on. As I said, this isn't related simply to the question of ethics, but of minds, logic, truth, etc.

Establishing objective first principles and everyone agreeing on them are completely different things.  No one has done the former, and trusting the latter would simply be committing the fallacy known as argumentum ad populum.

There is a problem with the model of all knowledge being like a geometric proof.  You don't seem to like that assertion, given what you have stated about the parts you have not quoted.  But the simple fact is, for all knowledge to be like a geometric proof would mean that knowledge is impossible, because it would all be based on presupposing first principles that could not be known to be true and then building on them.  Therefore, a different model is required, or the only reasonable conclusion is one of complete skepticism.  (Like my namesake.)

There is no evidence of "the good" as a thing independent of beings having feelings.  There is no evidence of "the good" being good for its own sake.  You may as well tell me that you believe in God.

There is not "evidence" in the sense of physical qualities that we can touch, see, hear, etc. Of course. But there is evidence, in a priori knowledge, that any discussion of "better and worse" requires a framework outside of ourselves through which a determination regarding the status of an object can be made with the expectation of agreement that is substantiated by more than merely personal dispositions, i.e. as in through syllogistic demonstration coupled with our feelings of empathy and the like.

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There is no a priori knowledge of "the good."  That is just nonsense.  It is a way that people try to beg the question in an argument, to pretend that one's prejudices are based on reason.  

There is no evidence of any kind that "something more" is going on as the basis for morality than that beings feel about things, and so those things are important to them.


Indeed, the whole idea that we somehow need some awareness of some metaphysical entity called "the Good" is absurd.  Since we do not know of it, it is unimportant for our actual moral practice.