RE: Does anyone own "The Moral Landscape"?
October 13, 2018 at 2:55 pm
(This post was last modified: October 13, 2018 at 3:35 pm by robvalue.)
Coming back to the length and ruler analogy:
We agree on just a few different types of rulers because it has practical value to do so. But even if we all used our own rulers, it would still work because we’d have conversion rates between all our rulers. We're determining how many of a unit of our choice go into an objective length.
With morality, we're all using our own "moral rulers" to assess a particular action. There is no conversion rate between them, and no utility in trying to pick just a few. This is because, as I see it, it's not a fact about reality that is being "measured" in the first place here. It’s a subjective assessment of an action. We come up with a kind of "society ruler" as a compromise; no such compromise is needed with length, because there is a fact at the heart of the matter. Neither does the length shift as society changes.
If there is a correct moral assessment, then I’m certainly not trying to achieve it, because I see that as utterly meaningless. On the other hand, once we’ve agreed a set of values, our rulers become much more closely aligned. Before that point, they needn’t have any relation to each other.
PS: I don’t even use the same ruler all the time anyway. I use adjusted ones depending on who is doing the action, and what I could reasonably expect from them.
We agree on just a few different types of rulers because it has practical value to do so. But even if we all used our own rulers, it would still work because we’d have conversion rates between all our rulers. We're determining how many of a unit of our choice go into an objective length.
With morality, we're all using our own "moral rulers" to assess a particular action. There is no conversion rate between them, and no utility in trying to pick just a few. This is because, as I see it, it's not a fact about reality that is being "measured" in the first place here. It’s a subjective assessment of an action. We come up with a kind of "society ruler" as a compromise; no such compromise is needed with length, because there is a fact at the heart of the matter. Neither does the length shift as society changes.
If there is a correct moral assessment, then I’m certainly not trying to achieve it, because I see that as utterly meaningless. On the other hand, once we’ve agreed a set of values, our rulers become much more closely aligned. Before that point, they needn’t have any relation to each other.
PS: I don’t even use the same ruler all the time anyway. I use adjusted ones depending on who is doing the action, and what I could reasonably expect from them.
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Index of useful threads and discussions
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Quickstart guide to the forum