RE: List of reasons to believe God exists?
December 5, 2017 at 4:50 pm
(This post was last modified: December 5, 2017 at 4:51 pm by Catholic_Lady.)
(December 5, 2017 at 1:59 pm)wallym Wrote:(December 5, 2017 at 1:33 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I don't see why it would be more weighty if it didn't effect me and if human life didn't have intrinsic value. Otherwise, why would I care so much about a woman being raped and then murdered by her family for being raped on the other side of the globe? I mean, there's empathy so from a purely emotional stand point I would feel sorry for her. But there would be no justifiable, rational reason for me to get really angry at the people who did that to her if I didn't concede that doing so was in fact wrong. But subjective morality people do anyway. (get really angry I mean)You get mad because you care about something, and someone hurt the something you care about. By hurting someone you care about, they are hurting you. So you get angry. That seems rational to me.
Rationally, you may also know there's no reason for them to care about hurting you, but that doesn't mean you still shouldn't have a strong dislike for people and things that hurt you. Where and how you direct those emotions may vary on the logical scale, but it's an emotional response, so you'd expect that?
I see what you are saying. Though not sure that a purely emotional response can ever be called rational, but it does make sense.
I suppose the question would then be, is it justifiable to feel extreme anger towards a rapist if it's merely my opinion that rape is immoral? I still think mostly everyone would answer yes, even those who say morality is subjective. They still act as though it isnt.
Quote:As for human life's intrinsic value. What would you have a bigger emotional response to? News someone across the world got murdered, or one of your cats dying? If human value is intrinsic, shouldn't our reaction to human loss be constant? If my kid died, I'd be fucked up for years. But 1000's of other kids die every day, and I go about my business. I'm not exactly like everyone else. But I think that goes for most people. We certainly aren't paralyzed by the horror of the world. Most of us aren't giving up all our stuff and following Jesus. We shake our fist for a couple minutes, and then get back to it. If life has intrinsic value, it doesn't seem like it's very much.
From a purely emotional standpoint, I would be more sad about my cats of course. Because I have an emotional bond to them. But that's why morality and value shouldn't be based purely on emotion. If I had to save either my cat or a human being who was a complete stranger, I'd be emotionally inclined to save my cat, but I would know that I ought to save the person.
And likewise I can say that I would be more sad about my husband dying than I would if I heard about your wife's death, but that doesn't mean that my husband's life is objectively of greater value. And I'm sorry, but I need to quote KP again:
"Let's spin it this way. You hand a homeless man $100 bill. In that same day you hand Donald Trump $100 bill. Who values it more? Donald Trump could use it for toilet paper and not care, where the homeless man may be able to eat for month. Does the value of that bill change depending on who is using it? It has objective value of $100 placed on it by the U.S. Government. So you could argue that the homeless man subjectively places higher value to a $100 bill than Donald trump does, but objectively it's true value never changed."
"Of course, everyone will claim they respect someone who tries to speak the truth, but in reality, this is a rare quality. Most respect those who speak truths they agree with, and their respect for the speaking only extends as far as their realm of personal agreement. It is less common, almost to the point of becoming a saintly virtue, that someone truly respects and loves the truth seeker, even when their conclusions differ wildly."
-walsh
-walsh