(July 18, 2017 at 11:18 am)Khemikal Wrote: I doubt that you'll find a single person here who thinks that the immorality of rape is just an opinion, for example.It is the consensus of virtually all societies that rape is a great harm. That isn't just some individual's offhanded opinion. As a result it isn't likely you'll find many individuals (other than, I suppose, some rapists) who hold the opinion that it's not harmful. But this isn't remotely the same as proving it's a moral fact. It's just a widely held and agreed on moral consensus in the civilized world.
Where is there a thing-in-itself "out there" that we can point to that rape is factually immoral? Like all moral principles it IS in fact "just" an opinion. What's wrong with it being "just" that? It's no less useful to society because it's not a concrete "thing" that renders opinion moot. All a moral principle requires is for society, as a whole, to subscribe to it, agree with it, and therefore hold a common "opinion", and to use laws, taboos, conventions, or threats of withheld social reciprocity to encourage the widespread acceptance of the principle.
"Opinion" is not a dirty word. Opinions can be wrong, but they can also be right. Failing to take up an opinion but rather claiming rape is a harm because I say so or because the government says so or because my strongman god says so, is avoiding the hard work of wrestling with moral questions, but questions demand answers (unless you want to just suppress them and avoid them altogether) and answers require opinions. So?
