Good and Evil

[Pyrrho]

I feel like it's completely pointless to even attempt a discussion about morality if we concede that it has no basis in reason. All it will boil down to is "I feel this way," "I dislike that," and nothing could be more unproductive than a back and forth involving nothing but assertions that don't even carry the possibility of being assessed as correct or incorrect.

You are giving a false dilemma.  As has already been stated, morality is not simply a matter of personal preference.  Here is why:

@dahrling

before I can try to give my answer, can you say what you mean when you use the words "Good" and "Evil"? I can't say whether it is universal if I don't know what you mean by it.

That is an excellent question, which most people never really properly address.

I have my answer to that question, already given, which is Hume's answer to the question.  No one else, though, has expressed any interest in that answer in this thread.  Of course, if someone does not agree with Hume, one may come up with one's own answer to the question.  Hopefully, whatever answer one comes up with will somehow be relevant to the way the terms are commonly used, though since different people have different ideas on the subject, no matter what one comes up with, it will not perfectly match all of the ways the terms are used by various people.  But that looseness is explained in Hume's treatment of the subject.  The pure subjectivist approach does not fit as well with common use as Hume's treatment of this, as people do commonly distinguish between personal preferences and what is right and what is wrong.  If ethics were purely a matter of personal preference, then, because I like Mozart, I would be right in saying that people who dislike Mozart are immoral.  That, though, is not how one normally speaks, except as a joke.  And that is why the pure subjectivist approach should be rejected.

To quote Hume on this point:

When a man denominates another his enemy, his rival, his antagonist, his adversary,he is understood to speak the language of self-love, and to express sentiments, peculiar to himself, and arising from his particular circumstances and situation. But when he bestows on any man the epithets of vicious or odious or depraved, he then speaks another language, and expresses sentiments, in which he expects all his audience are to concur with him. He must here, therefore, depart from his private and particular situation, and must choose a point of view, common to him with others; he must move some universal principle of the human frame, and touch a string to which all mankind have an accord and symphony. If he mean, therefore, to express that this man possesses qualities, whose tendency is pernicious to society, he has chosen this common point of view, and has touched the principle of humanity, in which every man, in some degree, concurs. While the human heart is compounded of the same elements as at present, it will never be wholly indifferent to public good, [273]nor entirely unaffected with the tendency of characters and manners. And though this affection of humanity may not generally be esteemed so strong as vanity or ambition, yet, being common to all men, it can alone be the foundation of morals, or of any general system of blame or praise. One man’s ambition is not another’s ambition, nor will the same event or object satisfy both; but the humanity of one man is the humanity of every one, and the same object touches this passion in all human creatures.

http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/341#Hume_0222_563


That was quoted earlier in this thread already, along with some other related ideas, in the post at:

http://atheistforums.org/thread-33164-po...#pid934918



Additionally, you will find that in fact arguments about morality have a troublesome aspect about them, in that people very often do disagree, sometimes without it being possible to come to any agreement.  There are quite a few reasons for this problem, not least of which is the fact that people often disagree about the basis for morality.

If you are trying to persuade someone to a particular course of action, I find that using an Epicurean argument is often the most successful when dealing with people with diverse ideas on morality ("Epicurean" in the sense of following Epicurus, not in the typical sense of the word "epicurean" in English).  The reason being, whatever people claim to care about, and whatever they might actually care about, pretty much everyone cares about their own pleasure and pain, and so appeals to such matters is appealing to something of some importance to one's audience.

We can also see, in the quote above from Hume, why it is that individuals will often be difficult to persuade to be moral, because even though they may feel the relevant feelings, they have other feelings that may be stronger and the stronger feelings may lead to an action contrary to what is suggested by feelings of empathy.


Still, it is worth mentioning that there is more agreement about morality than there is disagreement.  This is somewhat obscured by the fact that one tends to notice the disagreements much more, as conflict naturally gets one's attention.  But just imagine if one disagreed with everyone all the time about morality.  One would pretty much be in constant conflict with everyone about everything.