(July 17, 2017 at 12:19 pm)Khemikal Wrote:(July 17, 2017 at 12:13 pm)SteveII Wrote: And that is my point. You have to have a system of values to even begin to reason morally (as in some of my examples above) before you make a judgement based on harm. So while harm is certainly a component, I think it is more that the underlying values are 'properly basic'.I disagree, the values aren't underlying, they're pursuant to the axiom of harm. At least, in my objective morality they are. I think we're all aware that you can pretend otherwise until theres a cure for cancer...I still don;t see the point. Carry on. / shrugs.
Quote:Quote:Are you saying that your measuring stick of harm somehow migrating from measuring to proscribing/compelling? No, it hasn't because it can't. It is the underlying values that inform moral reasoning that proscribes and compels action. Again, harm is only a component.Actually I'm just asking you whether or not you wish tyo harm or be harmed, and whether or not a society which harms or is complicit in the face of harm is a society which can survive, or one you would live in.........simple questions, that we get no answers for. OFC, the question was rhetorical, I only asked it so that I could watch you refuse to answer.
In an objective morality based upoin a harm, a "naturally good" person simply wants to do the moral thing, a person who has no specific desire to be moral still has compelling self interests, and a person who is neither naturally "good" or self interested does not get to determine the status of moral compulsion for others who either do want to be good, wish to avoid being harmed, or frankly, possess either the agency or the rationality required to competently comment.
'Wants to do the moral thing' in no way compels people to act. While harm can certainly judge a situation, can it compel people to act?
Quote:Quote:You continue to ignore the framework that enables harm to be applied to a moral situation.Are you still unclear on something in my description of the objective morality I use? Harm isn't applied to a moral system, it's a foundational axiom -of- moral systems. A properly basic belief. Some things are objectively harmful. These things, are immoral things, in an objective moral system based upon harm. If there is no objective harm, there is no moral component. If there is a moral component, there is a reference to objective harm. That's what it means for something to be axiomatic, that's what it means for something to be a properly basic belief. All subsequent things flow from this as an inescapable referent. We can apply any number of other things to that axiom, to that inescapable referent, to that foundation, to that properly basic belief.
For example, the foundational axiom of logic is that knowledge can be had. That something can be known. That there is a fact of the matter. That doesn't tell us how to demonstrate it, for that we require rules of inference, and standards of evidence. The latter modify the former. In an objective morality based upon harm, harm is the moral fact of the matter. We still require rules of inference - moral reasoning. We still require a standard of evidence. Objectivity.
In any scenario you have to ask the question why. In order for harm to be the foundation, the answer to the question why has to be that harm is wrong (an explanatory ultimate). In the example of murder, asking the question why is it wrong does not simply stop at because it caused harm. As you agreed earlier, you have to apply moral reasoning. The why (the explanatory ultimate) is rather:
1. That humans have intrinsic value (we don't call killing a rodent murder).
2. That we have an inalienable right to life and that that right cannot be abridged by another individual in just any circumstances (not all killing is murder)
How are these in any way 'pursuant' to the axiom of harm?