|
On May 12 2011 13:35 sermokala wrote:To allow the masses to decide each what morals should be help up would result in utter chaos. The trick is to get them all to agree on a single code of morals. But wait wouldn't that make it subjective but on a societical scale (thats right I just made up a word beacuse I'm a baller) would that make it objective or subjective? Show nested quote +On May 12 2011 13:27 Zeri wrote:On May 12 2011 12:52 ZessiM wrote:
That poll is depessing me... hah. It makes sense that TL would distribute in that way, moral relativism is the cool, hip, intellectual way to think about morality right? People who advocate strongly for objective moral truths are usually extremely religious so.... whats that suppose to mean? The church has been the foundation that modern law has been built on. If you learn things your way and I learn things my way it doesn't make them better then one another. Accept what is simply(as in non complex not an arrogant statement of that my way is the unarguable truth) best and not just for you.
wat? I just stated why the poll has the distribution it does. Most people who believe right and wrong do exist and believe in moral code, get them from religion (more specifically, people who devoutly follow Christianity/Judaism/Islam are more certain about moral objectivity). TL probably isn't a place with a high number of religious people (or at least devout religious people) and therefore the poll shows the results it does.
I have no idea what you are even trying to say.
|
11589 Posts
On May 12 2011 13:27 Zeri wrote:hah. It makes sense that TL would distribute in that way, moral relativism is the cool, hip, intellectual way to think about morality right? People who advocate strongly for objective moral truths are usually extremely religious so....
I'm not religious at all, yet I believe in objective moral truths.
What NOW?! HUH?!
/sarcasm
But really, I've already discussed why this notion is rejected in the philosophy of ethics.
|
well we to answer this question one can take the side of HOBBES, which is that good is anything that increases pleasure and anything evil is that which increases pain. with this school of thought there is an inherent selfishness, or rational self interest. This in turn leads to a Social Contract, the natural state is conflict, increasing your pleasure (good) and preventing pain (evil), and in order to rise above this man comes to an agreement of social mores that allow coexistence. this is enforced by a governing authority (Leviathan), and whatever the leviathan sets as good and evil, is what good and evil is.
HUME, on the other hand, has come down to the idea that morality is subjective to the individual, because everything devolves, in its most basic form, from a statement of fact (is) to a statement of preference (ought).
One can also take the side of KANT in that "it is impossible for anything in the world to be good without qualification---except a good will." Now what makes a will good? there is acting from inclination, that is self interest, and acting from duty, which is acting in the INTEREST(intent) of doing something right. Only if one is acting from duty is one doing a good deed.
One can also take the Utilitarian approach which is what is good is "greatest pleasure for the greatest number."
in all of these cases good and evil are subjective, either to a person or to the majority. Which i feel is close to the truth. Since what is determined is good is a Social idea that has been trained, and indoctrinated on us from birth. conscience is learned, not inherent, based upon the values and standards in which one has been raised.
(will accept pats on the back for not falling asleep during philosophy class)
|
On May 12 2011 13:39 yamato77 wrote:
1. Yes, anyone with the power to stop the killing of innocent people without justification certainly would. Whether they view the people being killed as innocent or not is up for question, but that isn't the point. You can point out exceptions you may know of, but those are rarities in the face of the realization that killing innocent people has been forbidden or punishable since the advent of society. I'm most certainly right.
2. Subjectivism refers to the individual, not to man in general. Morality is not subjective. People, in general, do not think that each and every person should be allowed what is right and wrong, because that is obviously false. There would be no way to stop things like murder or rape because they would be right in the assailant's eyes. I don't think anyone would advocate living in a world like that. Thus, there must be universally accepted truths that people adhere to in order for basic society to exist. Human biology even promotes this concept, because we don't generally go around killing innocents and stealing from people for no reason. When it happens, there is most certainly a reason that affects the judgement of the perpetrator, but that reason alone does not justify his action as morally correct.
3. You are absolutely wrong if you think biology is, in any way, subjective. The mere fact that we can study biology and come up with ANY meaningful conclusions immediately necessitates that it must be objective. The same chemical reactions create the same behavior in people universally, which is obviously objective. Everyone's heart beats in the same, everyone's lungs inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide the same, and everyone's intestines produce the same fecal matter. These things are objective.
1: No. There are exceptions, and those exceptions mean that not everyone thinks killing innocents as wrong. Yes the majority of society holds that murder is "wrong" but it is not everyone and thus not universal.
2. People in general think that they are right and others are wrong, then the majority bands together to defend themselves. Every man has a different experience, and thus their experience is subjective. There is a way to stop murder and rape, because the majority doesn't like them and thus put laws in place to try and prevent them from happening. No there do not have to be universally recognized truths for that to happen, and in fact the fact that murder and rape do happen is evidence against that. You are correct that everyone perpetrates their actions for a reason, and to him he does it despite what the majority says the morally correct choices are.
3. No. Show me 2 people who have the exact same DNA, and then I will let you get away with the notion that biology is not subjective... Everyone heart does not beat the same, everyone's lungs inhale oxygen and carbon dioxide differently, and everyones intestines produce different fecal matter. Please please have some intellectual integrity and accept that. Yes they work similarly, but they are not the SAME.
Those things are different, and thus create different perspectives for different people.
Which I believe would be... you guessed it, Subjective.
|
On May 12 2011 13:27 yamato77 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2011 13:04 LeafHouse wrote:On May 12 2011 12:26 tdt wrote:On May 12 2011 12:20 Noak3 wrote:
Well it really depends on whether you're religious or not, I think. What kind of objective morality can exist besides one based on the idea of a deity? Personally I don't believe in any kind of god so I chose subjective, but it really depends on beliefs. Religion is just another form of indoctrination. Gods laws as opposed to man made secular societies have. Either way both have morals, both are indoctrinated usually from a child, both use threats to keep you in line. Burning hell for religion, prison for secular society. It's super common for our secular society to complain that religion is just some other common way to indoctrinate, but that doesn't mean that Noak3 is wrong. If there were a deity, that deity absolutely has the ability to serve as an objective source of moral codes. If some religion happened to be true, that religious belief may or may not "indoctrinate" it's adherents, but the God that religious belief serves would also almost necessarily function as a legitimate source of moral truth. As far as I'm concerned, if tdt is right and no religion were true, there would be absolutely no purely secular reason to believe there are objective moral standards. Whether or not we believe that pain and suffering is "preferable" or not makes no difference in objective moral discussions. There is nothing in this material world, be it physical or rational, that forces us to conclude that there are universally applicable moral standards. Either there is some sort of god or there are only social preferences. This board tends to be fairly a-religious, and loves to conclude on its own that, "hot dog! there must be no god." I wish I could see what moltke would say, this would probably be very interesting. If you believed God was the source of moral truths, then you have an interesting dilemma on your hands. Is what God says morally correct because he says it, or is it because it is right? If it because he says it, then it seems rather arbitrary. There's no particular reason for chopping off the tip of your son's dick at birth, but you do it anyway because God told you to. But if it's simply right, then that implies that there's something else, separate from God, that determines what is right? What could that be? Not... reason! No; God no! That can't be it. Obviously, my point is that objective moral truth can only ever come from reason. We have to justify why a moral rule exists, because it is otherwise arbitrary and completely meaningless; and that is unacceptable. Now, you can certainly say that this sounds like subjectivism, but you'd be wrong. There are objective truths in reason, much like mathematics, that men come up with. Thus, while it may not appear to exist in our experienced world, the concept of objective moral truths most certainly can exist. My argument is that they must, because there are obviously actions which can only lead to bad things, and things that are obviously reprehensible on a universally identifiable scale. For example, no one in the entire world thinks that the killing of innocent people without justification is right. It is forbidden in every country, and has been as long as society has existed. Such truths, while admittedly difficult to identify, certainly do exist. Call this argumentum ad populum, but it's verifiable with reason. Why would such an action be bad? Because by killing innocent people, you are proportionately stunting the potential of our entire race, which is bad in so many ways I can't even count. Reason, my friend, is the way.
Reason is a fail too. Reason would have strong enslaving the weak wouldnt it? I mean no pay, 90 hr wk weeks, is, by all reason, a better deal, for those who have power over the weak, than minimum wage, 40 hr wk weeks and benefits? No?
|
Say a person was dying, and the government is able to save the person's life by spending 5 million dollars worth of labor and resources. Do you think saving the person is moral, or letting the person die is moral? What do you think most people in society's answer would be?
|
On May 12 2011 13:55 tdt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2011 13:27 yamato77 wrote:On May 12 2011 13:04 LeafHouse wrote:On May 12 2011 12:26 tdt wrote:On May 12 2011 12:20 Noak3 wrote:
Well it really depends on whether you're religious or not, I think. What kind of objective morality can exist besides one based on the idea of a deity? Personally I don't believe in any kind of god so I chose subjective, but it really depends on beliefs. Religion is just another form of indoctrination. Gods laws as opposed to man made secular societies have. Either way both have morals, both are indoctrinated usually from a child, both use threats to keep you in line. Burning hell for religion, prison for secular society. It's super common for our secular society to complain that religion is just some other common way to indoctrinate, but that doesn't mean that Noak3 is wrong. If there were a deity, that deity absolutely has the ability to serve as an objective source of moral codes. If some religion happened to be true, that religious belief may or may not "indoctrinate" it's adherents, but the God that religious belief serves would also almost necessarily function as a legitimate source of moral truth. As far as I'm concerned, if tdt is right and no religion were true, there would be absolutely no purely secular reason to believe there are objective moral standards. Whether or not we believe that pain and suffering is "preferable" or not makes no difference in objective moral discussions. There is nothing in this material world, be it physical or rational, that forces us to conclude that there are universally applicable moral standards. Either there is some sort of god or there are only social preferences. This board tends to be fairly a-religious, and loves to conclude on its own that, "hot dog! there must be no god." I wish I could see what moltke would say, this would probably be very interesting. If you believed God was the source of moral truths, then you have an interesting dilemma on your hands. Is what God says morally correct because he says it, or is it because it is right? If it because he says it, then it seems rather arbitrary. There's no particular reason for chopping off the tip of your son's dick at birth, but you do it anyway because God told you to. But if it's simply right, then that implies that there's something else, separate from God, that determines what is right? What could that be? Not... reason! No; God no! That can't be it. Obviously, my point is that objective moral truth can only ever come from reason. We have to justify why a moral rule exists, because it is otherwise arbitrary and completely meaningless; and that is unacceptable. Now, you can certainly say that this sounds like subjectivism, but you'd be wrong. There are objective truths in reason, much like mathematics, that men come up with. Thus, while it may not appear to exist in our experienced world, the concept of objective moral truths most certainly can exist. My argument is that they must, because there are obviously actions which can only lead to bad things, and things that are obviously reprehensible on a universally identifiable scale. For example, no one in the entire world thinks that the killing of innocent people without justification is right. It is forbidden in every country, and has been as long as society has existed. Such truths, while admittedly difficult to identify, certainly do exist. Call this argumentum ad populum, but it's verifiable with reason. Why would such an action be bad? Because by killing innocent people, you are proportionately stunting the potential of our entire race, which is bad in so many ways I can't even count. Reason, my friend, is the way. Reason is a fail too. Reason would have strong enslaving the weak wouldnt it? I mean no pay, 90 hr wk weeks, is, by all reason, a better deal, for those who have power over the weak, than minimum wage, 40 hr wk weeks and benefits? No?
that would depend on who you talk to, im sure factory owners would love to have that first option available
|
If morality was objective this thread wouldn't exist. Thus morality is not objective.
Objective moral truths are on a per person basis, thus they are subjective per person and not in reality objective.
On May 12 2011 13:56 Chairman Ray wrote:
Say a person was dying, and the government is able to save the person's life by spending 5 million dollars worth of labor and resources. Do you think saving the person is moral, or letting the person die is moral? What do you think most people in society's answer would be?
Go look at any medical system in the world. The answer is the person dies. I think most people will ask you about the details of who the person is though. If you say an innocent child, they will say letting the person die is immoral, if it is Osama Bin Laden, they will say letting the person die is moral.
|
On May 12 2011 13:42 yamato77 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2011 13:27 Zeri wrote:On May 12 2011 12:52 ZessiM wrote:
That poll is depessing me... hah. It makes sense that TL would distribute in that way, moral relativism is the cool, hip, intellectual way to think about morality right? People who advocate strongly for objective moral truths are usually extremely religious so.... I'm not religious at all, yet I believe in objective moral truths. What NOW?! HUH?! /sarcasm But really, I've already discussed why this notion is rejected in the philosophy of ethics.
Dude hit show all and look up my posts in this thread (hint: we agree!) Haha, there are definitely less non religious people who advocate moral truth than those who advocate relativism. Mostly because moral skepticism is so simple and it makes arguing for moral truth in an intellectually honest way very time consuming and you have to be super careful with how you go about it. That and everyone feels smart going, "well thats just what you believe it doesn't mean you are right."
|
On May 12 2011 13:45 polysciguy wrote:
well we to answer this question one can take the side of HOBBES, which is that good is anything that increases pleasure and anything evil is that which increases pain. with this school of thought there is an inherent selfishness, or rational self interest. This in turn leads to a Social Contract, the natural state is conflict, increasing your pleasure (good) and preventing pain (evil), and in order to rise above this man comes to an agreement of social mores that allow coexistence. this is enforced by a governing authority (Leviathan), and whatever the leviathan sets as good and evil, is what good and evil is.
HUME, on the other hand, has come down to the idea that morality is subjective to the individual, because everything devolves, in its most basic form, from a statement of fact (is) to a statement of preference (ought).
One can also take the side of KANT in that "it is impossible for anything in the world to be good without qualification---except a good will." Now what makes a will good? there is acting from inclination, that is self interest, and acting from duty, which is acting in the INTEREST(intent) of doing something right. Only if one is acting from duty is one doing a good deed.
One can also take the Utilitarian approach which is what is good is "greatest pleasure for the greatest number."
in all of these cases good and evil are subjective, either to a person or to the majority. Which i feel is close to the truth. Since what is determined is good is a Social idea that has been trained, and indoctrinated on us from birth. conscience is learned, not inherent, based upon the values and standards in which one has been raised.
(will accept pats on the back for not falling asleep during philosophy class)
I slept and still got an A.  Liberal arts FTW.. One thing I noticed is there are way more girls in them tho. (I;m an accounting major like zero girls) Edit okay 1 or 2 but nothing to look at.
BTW girls looks are NOT subjective. Fat sux period.
|
On May 12 2011 13:45 polysciguy wrote:
well we to answer this question one can take the side of HOBBES, which is that good is anything that increases pleasure and anything evil is that which increases pain. with this school of thought there is an inherent selfishness, or rational self interest. This in turn leads to a Social Contract, the natural state is conflict, increasing your pleasure (good) and preventing pain (evil), and in order to rise above this man comes to an agreement of social mores that allow coexistence. this is enforced by a governing authority (Leviathan), and whatever the leviathan sets as good and evil, is what good and evil is.
HUME, on the other hand, has come down to the idea that morality is subjective to the individual, because everything devolves, in its most basic form, from a statement of fact (is) to a statement of preference (ought).
One can also take the side of KANT in that "it is impossible for anything in the world to be good without qualification---except a good will." Now what makes a will good? there is acting from inclination, that is self interest, and acting from duty, which is acting in the INTEREST(intent) of doing something right. Only if one is acting from duty is one doing a good deed.
One can also take the Utilitarian approach which is what is good is "greatest pleasure for the greatest number."
in all of these cases good and evil are subjective, either to a person or to the majority. Which i feel is close to the truth. Since what is determined is good is a Social idea that has been trained, and indoctrinated on us from birth. conscience is learned, not inherent, based upon the values and standards in which one has been raised.
(will accept pats on the back for not falling asleep during philosophy class)
"in all of these cases good and evil are subjective"
That's not the conclusion derived from all those theories. Kant's conclusion is that through reasoned will, we create maxims through which we have duty, ie categorical imperatives that create universal, and hence objective, standards of morality. He is the one most attribute ethical theories of deontology, or absolute side-constraints of ethics (ie codes like 'it is never moral to kill an innocent person').
Your recount of Hobbes isn't an explanation for ethics, but an explanation for why we formed governments, the ethical part of that stems from Utilitarianism. Util does not imply subjectivity, ie many could argue that biological impulses indicate that pleasure is universal among all persons (in other words, this just collapses again to whether or not we can objectively identify things as "goods" and then proceed to maximize them).
Hume's argument of the is-ought fallacy only criticizes those who confuse descriptive foundations for prescriptive claims, ie he criticized ethical theories based on "natural law" because what nature only represented what is rather than what ought to be. That would indict things like biological explanations for morality, but I mentioned a Kantian version that does not rely on that in a previous post in this thread.
|
On May 12 2011 13:37 LlamaNamedOsama wrote:
Kant, anyone? Under metaethical standards, the use of practical reason allows us to establish objective standards for morality, which he dubs the categorical imperative. Certain metaethics like reason cannot be questioned - after all, to challenge the use of reason is to employ reason in that very attack, meaning that this forms the basis of any epistemology that is to follow.
Kant's theory is well and good only if you accept his rather controversial claims about the bounds and scope of knowledge. Personally I'm not convinced that I have a "self" outside the bounds of space and time, that I cannot intuit nor cognise, but rather must accept simply as a presupposition for practical reason to justify rational autonomy hence any kind of imperative.
|
On May 12 2011 14:02 Seide wrote:If morality was objective this thread wouldn't exist. Thus morality is not objective. Objective moral truths are on a per person basis, thus they are subjective per person and not in reality objective. Show nested quote +On May 12 2011 13:56 Chairman Ray wrote:
Say a person was dying, and the government is able to save the person's life by spending 5 million dollars worth of labor and resources. Do you think saving the person is moral, or letting the person die is moral? What do you think most people in society's answer would be? Go look at any medical system in the world. The answer is the person dies.
Yes exactly, but I'm certain that a large percentage of people will think about the person's family and say that saving the person's life is the morally right thing to do, making this a common real world example where morality is subjective.
|
On May 12 2011 13:20 VIB wrote:
If we lived a few centuries ago. YOU would be telling slavery is obviously moral and how can anyone possibly disagree with that? Everyone knows slavery good. Well, except the black, but they're not really people.
You only think things are moral because you were taught that way. Were you taught different, you would think differently.
What I perceive you to be saying is that morals change in accordance to personally held beliefs. That may be true in a sense, but it still does not advance your argument much. Why? Because while beliefs might direct morals, they don't change their internal character. Hopefully I can explain this in a way that makes sense:
It's interesting that you mention "well, except the black, but they're not really people". That's a "belief" in the sense that I mentioned above; the belief that slaves were not people and hence not deserving of any moral consideration. Surely though, while the slave-owners held slaves, they still held a moral code in relation to one another? For instance, slave-owners might have thought slaves were not people, but they would still abide by the moral command that one cannot make a slave of anyone they wished. They knew that stealing another's slaves was wrong. Again, these are just a few examples. What I'm basically trying to say is that an objective morality did indeed function even amongst them, it was just not believed to apply to a slave. And indeed, isn't the key driver of the emancipation proclamation and its subsequent developments through the civil rights movement the very realization that slaves were in fact people? Once the mistaken belief was taken out of the way, slavery and racism towards blacks ceased to be morally acceptable.
In all of this, has any damage been done to the morally objective idea that we should treat others as we should treat ourselves? Slavery appears to be more of a result of a mistaken and regrettable belief in who should be included in the definition of "others". If we lived in a world where we could be served by robots, we would see no moral deficit in exploiting them because we believe they aren't people. I believe this type of logic was unfortunately adopted by slave-owners at those times. To think of them as people would be as ridiculous as us today thinking of robots as people. But that does not mean that morality in general has changed.
You speak of the economic reasons behind the abolition of slavery. Now, I'm no expert, and what you're saying could very well be true. Perhaps the real motivation driving those in power to release the slaves was to turn them into consumers. Does this, however, explain the popular support in the North for Negroes during that period? Were those people who "woke up" and realized blacks were no different from them similarly motivated by such insidious aspirations? Did the whites who risked their lives in the underground railroad or rose up and joined the marches during the MLK era have anything to gain? Your economic example only goes so far--economics may change the face of society for those who stand to gain, but it does nothing to explain away the moral attitude of a public that does not similarly benefit.
I mentioned before the difference between convention and morality. I believe slavery was a convention: a practice guided by a mistaken belief. It has nothing to do with objective morality, which are the principles that exist independent of our individual beliefs. Show me a true example of a society that upholds deviant morals. Show me a society that praises treachery, celebrates cowards, encourages people to deceive each other, or rejoices when a man rejects everyone who has ever been kind to him.
|
On May 12 2011 14:12 j2choe wrote:
Show me a true example of a society that upholds deviant morals. Show me a society that praises treachery, celebrates cowards, encourages people to deceive each other, or rejoices when a man rejects everyone who has ever been kind to him.
How about those same people that traded the slaves to the white man in the first place. The African tribes. They seemed to have no issue with enslaving people and peddling them off as goods.
Even now human trafficking is a regular thing in those areas.
|
On May 12 2011 14:09 Applecakes wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2011 13:37 LlamaNamedOsama wrote:
Kant, anyone? Under metaethical standards, the use of practical reason allows us to establish objective standards for morality, which he dubs the categorical imperative. Certain metaethics like reason cannot be questioned - after all, to challenge the use of reason is to employ reason in that very attack, meaning that this forms the basis of any epistemology that is to follow. Kant's theory is well and good only if you accept his rather controversial claims about the bounds and scope of knowledge. Personally I'm not convinced that I have a "self" outside the bounds of space and time, that I cannot intuit nor cognise, but rather must accept simply as a presupposition for practical reason to justify rational autonomy hence any kind of imperative.
Well that then becomes a question of ontology and whether you'd accept dualism. The alternative to not believing in that type of dualism is pure materialism, which isn't really persuasive either. I personally view epistemology as a prior question to identity, and I generally agree with Descartes in rationalism, so I favor the more abstract approach to understanding the self. Either way, though, I don't think Kant's ideas are necessarily incompatible with materialism/the idea that matter, or time and space, may influence the rationalism of this self, as many advocates of dualism do not justify their positions with parallelism, accepting a relationship between physical brain and abstract mind/self.
|
Morality Objective. Ethics subjective :D
|
11589 Posts
On May 12 2011 13:51 Traveler wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2011 13:39 yamato77 wrote:
1. Yes, anyone with the power to stop the killing of innocent people without justification certainly would. Whether they view the people being killed as innocent or not is up for question, but that isn't the point. You can point out exceptions you may know of, but those are rarities in the face of the realization that killing innocent people has been forbidden or punishable since the advent of society. I'm most certainly right.
2. Subjectivism refers to the individual, not to man in general. Morality is not subjective. People, in general, do not think that each and every person should be allowed what is right and wrong, because that is obviously false. There would be no way to stop things like murder or rape because they would be right in the assailant's eyes. I don't think anyone would advocate living in a world like that. Thus, there must be universally accepted truths that people adhere to in order for basic society to exist. Human biology even promotes this concept, because we don't generally go around killing innocents and stealing from people for no reason. When it happens, there is most certainly a reason that affects the judgement of the perpetrator, but that reason alone does not justify his action as morally correct.
3. You are absolutely wrong if you think biology is, in any way, subjective. The mere fact that we can study biology and come up with ANY meaningful conclusions immediately necessitates that it must be objective. The same chemical reactions create the same behavior in people universally, which is obviously objective. Everyone's heart beats in the same, everyone's lungs inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide the same, and everyone's intestines produce the same fecal matter. These things are objective.
1: No. There are exceptions, and those exceptions mean that not everyone thinks killing innocents as wrong. Yes the majority of society holds that murder is "wrong" but it is not everyone and thus not universal. 2. People in general think that they are right and others are wrong, then the majority bands together to defend themselves. Every man has a different experience, and thus their experience is subjective. There is a way to stop murder and rape, because the majority doesn't like them and thus put laws in place to try and prevent them from happening. No there do not have to be universally recognized truths for that to happen, and in fact the fact that murder and rape do happen is evidence against that. You are correct that everyone perpetrates their actions for a reason, and to him he does it despite what the majority says the morally correct choices are. 3. No. Show me 2 people who have the exact same DNA, and then I will let you get away with the notion that biology is not subjective... Everyone heart does not beat the same, everyone's lungs inhale oxygen and carbon dioxide differently, and everyones intestines produce different fecal matter. Please please have some intellectual integrity and accept that. Yes they work similarly, but they are not the SAME. Those things are different, and thus create different perspectives for different people. Which I believe would be... you guessed it, Subjective.
Before you get into an argument about subjectivism and objectivism (moral realism), you ought to know what they are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_subjectivism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivity_(philosophy)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_realism
Subjectivism does not exist in any science. They all believe in empirically identifiable and reproducible systems of cause and effect. Thus, since biology is a science, it is, by definition, not subjective. It is objective. The flowchart below demonstrates how the sciences relate to one another, and also serves to prove the point that they are ALL objective.
(each arrow implies the words "is applied")
sociology>psychology>biology>chemistry>physics>mathematics
Also convenient is the idea that things don't have to include every single person to be considered universal. It only requires a large enough majority that outliers are considered basically irrelevant. I have the entirety of human history on my side when I say that the killing of innocent people is objectively morally wrong. What do you have, Charles Manson? Hah.
|
On May 12 2011 14:19 Seide wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2011 14:12 j2choe wrote:
Show me a true example of a society that upholds deviant morals. Show me a society that praises treachery, celebrates cowards, encourages people to deceive each other, or rejoices when a man rejects everyone who has ever been kind to him. How about those same people that traded the slaves to the white man in the first place. The African tribes. They seemed to have no issue with enslaving people and peddling them off as goods. Even now human trafficking is a regular thing in those areas.
True. But those types of activities are essentially motivated by greed and other unsavoury aspirations. These are the types of things that lead people to abandon their morals. I would highly doubt, however, that they would consider peddling off their own countrymen for pecuniary gain an honourable activity in and of itself.
|
If life is inherently meaningless can I ask you what's the point in a starting a thread on the internet and conversing with meaningless human beings?
In fact I'll go on further to ask you why are you even alive? why bother with what life throws at you? in the end our lives amount to absolutely nothing and that there is nothing wrong with chopping off peoples heads because its all meaningless. Or do you believe there is something wrong with chopping peoples heads off? If not, why not do to your parents or your siblings after all they're meaningless too aren't they?
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
