RE: Can somebody give me a good argument in favor of objective morality?
March 14, 2018 at 12:54 pm
(This post was last modified: March 14, 2018 at 12:58 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(March 14, 2018 at 11:50 am)Aegon Wrote: I read something that says a majority (56%) of philosophers identify as moral realists.Unsurprising.
Quote:From my perspective, morality is almost obviously subjective. Humans decide what is right and what is wrong within their own community.That would be the meaningless subjectivity of having an opinion. I have opinions, you have opinions, we all have opinions. Is it simply your opinion that x is wrong, or does your opinion of -why- x is wrong report some fact? Does every opinion of -why- x is wrong report a fact?
Quote:And if we were not here to dictate moral rules , then there would be none at all. No animals are abiding by them, that's for sure. And obviously no religious text can be called objective moral law, because then we can have all sorts of fun pointing out what people in biblical times thought was perfectly fine that is appaling to us today.Oh, IDK, if we weren't here to describe a sunrise there would be no poems about sunrise....but the sun would still rise.
Quote:A universe that was not created for us, that existed for so long before us, could possibly have within it an objective morality waiting for an advanced species to discover and implement? Seems very wrong. Am.i thinking about it in the wrong way? I'm sure there are arguments in favor that I haven't considered.You're looking at it wrong. An objective morality is not a morality that everyone would agree with, or one that would never change. It isn't a morality that was waiting for us to discover in any sense other than that in this universe, for creatures like us, some moral statements are facts. They could have been different, if we were different, or if the universe were different.
I'll hand you the textbook description. Moral realism is the assertion that some moral statements purport to report facts...and in so much as they get those facts right, the moral statements would then be true.
Anything objectionable yet?
(March 14, 2018 at 12:37 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: What exactly is the "stuff" that makes a given proposition moral (e.g. "Killing is wrong.") and another proposition not a moral one (e.g. "Stephen Hawking was smart.")?
Between "Dogs have fur" and "Bill wears a banana hammock" which one is a purported fact about dogs, and what makes one a fact about dogs and the other..not so much?
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