(December 7, 2017 at 8:05 am)Khemikal Wrote: Moral disagreement neither implies nor demonstrates that morality is subjective. I suspect that most people, placed in any culture and any timeframe, would find at least certain elements of a great many disparate moral systems familiar. If they really sought to understand the underlying motivations, they would even find that things which seemed entirely counterintuitive and morally "counterfactual" arise from the same motivations that their own moral propositions arose from.
We notice, for example, that rape and pillagers didn't seem to have a particular aversion to rape or pillage..but we forget that they were unlikely to consider it a justifiable behavior when the victims were their own family, or when it was carried out between members of their own group. This is a failure to extend their own moral propositions to their logical limits, and often enough it was a practical and explicable omission.
Moral disagreement such as this is not moral subjectivity, but a subjective experience and selective deployment -of- morality. If you asked them why they did not want their own daughters raped, or why it was immoral..in all likelihood, they would have told you the same thing that any father would tell you now. Interestingly, a rape and pillager would have first-hand knowledge..as the aggressor, of exactly why he didn't want his own daughter raped.
OTOH, they could tell you in plain language why they found it necessary to engage in raids. They were thinking of their family. They needed the goods. If they failed to provide those goods, or provide them at a commensurate rate to the average, their family would suffer. Necessity and want and suffering are notable for their ability to erode our own moral competence, today..and the same must have been true then. Even a person who was not completely onboard with the raping and pillaging (and there must have been at least some, no matter what time or culture) would have went off and engaged in the raping and pillaging parties.
Rather than deny moral commonality or moral agreement in response to the claim that this somehow implies a god or lawgiver..it's more useful and accurate to ask what all of those human beings have in common. The answer being so blissfully obvious that one wonders why a person would point to this, if they were pointing to things, to argue for god. They're all human beings. Common biology, common evolutionary history, common pressures and common responses. It should come as no surprise that human beings are alot alike, we're defined as a group by that very commonality. A person may as well say "Feet, therefore gods". In truth, the existence of -people- explains moral agreement -and- moral disagreement. There is no room for god in either direction.
We -do- and -should- base our morality off of what we already base our morality. We could always improve it by making it more consistent, by extending it as far as it's implications suggest, and by removing those items that do not have a proper justification from our moral systems...but there is no issue with morality absent a god. All morality, in point of fact, is already absent any gods, it's commonality is explained by reference to ourselves, it's disparity is explained by reference to ourselves..and gods..themselves...are little more than projections of ourselves.
In all of this, we maintain that our moral propositions...contradictory as they may be to each other, arise from observations of some fact x that others can verify for themselves should they so choose. This doesn't mean that they all do, we have disagreements over these facts.......but it's difficult to maintain that -no- facts can be found in our moral justifications. Morality is..very much, an attempt at an objective system of reference, no matter where you go or whose morality you have under consideration. Our limitations and our compulsions, explicable by our common humanity handily account for each and every instance when we get this wrong. When we misapprehend some x for fact, when it is not...but also for each and every instance of getting it right. Of accurately perceiving and communicating some relevant fact of the matter at hand.
That an accurate perception and effective communication of these facts is beneficial to human life and human societies should be obvious. A group as small as a single family house won;t work when each member is at the others throats, indifferent to the pain and suffering caused by each member to the other. The problem is compounded exponentially by greater numbers. Some moral propositions concern things so fundamental and basic to functioning human relationships that their adherence is a matter of survival, and here again, it should come as no surprise to find that extant societies would share these..if no other, moral propositions between them.
Morality, common or disparate..individually or at the level of human societies, rather than being a competent argument for or reliable indicator of a lawgiving god..is a damning indictment of the very concept as unnecessary, nonexistent, and fundamentally irrelevant. Not even the tremendously lazy assertion that "yeah but, like, he created everything..so that's why you can percieve facts, because of the way he made you" can rescue this irrelevance. If we can perceive facts due to the specifics of our construction..than no matter who or what constructed us -in this way- we would be able to perceive those facts. Not only is the lawgiver unnecessary -as- a lawgiver...it's not even necessary as a creator.
(lol, think that just about covers everything......)
Tell me why a pro-abortion stance is not extremely subjective.
