moral relativism

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Rejecting Moral Relativism
There is such a thing as moral truth.
Michael W. Austin in Psychology Today

"Isn't all morality relative?"

I often get this question from students, as there seems to be a fairly pervasive acceptance of moral relativism in much of our culture these days. However, the answer to this question is pretty clearly "no."

Or, for others, clearly "yes".

Now all we need is a....a context?

There are a variety of philosophical arguments against moral relativism. Some of them are reasons for accepting moral realism, which is the view that there are some objective moral truths.

Okay, if there are some objective moral truths, let the moral realists among us note them in regard to a particular moral conflict given a particular set of circumstances.

Other arguments against relativism point out some of the problematic implications it has, as well as the flaws in arguments that have been offered in favor of relativism.

Exactly. Other arguments. Theoretical assumptions about the human condition in the is/ought world up in the philosophical clouds.

First, consider that one powerful argument in favor of moral realism involves pointing out certain objective moral truths. For example, "Cruelty for its own sake is wrong," "Torturing people for fun is wrong (as is rape, genocide, and racism)," "Compassion is a virtue," and "Parents ought to care for their children."

Tell that to the sociopaths? Seriously, in a No God world, how would one go about actually demonstrating this? Then the part where, in regard to issues like abortion, gun ownership and human sexuality, one side's objective moral truths are the other side's objective moral falsehoods.

A bit of thought here, and one can produce quite a list. If you are really a moral relativist, then you have to reject all of the above claims. And this an undesirable position to occupy, both philosophically and personally.

Again, from my own frame of mind "here and now", it's not me rejecting those claims, but the moral objectivists/moral realists demonstrating to me why all rational and virtuous men and women are in fact obligated to accept them.

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Rejecting Moral Relativism
There is such a thing as moral truth.
Michael W. Austin in Psychology Today

Second, consider a flaw in one of the arguments given on behalf of moral relativism. Some argue that given the extent of disagreement about moral issues, it follows that there are no objective moral truths. But this is what a basic logic text refers to as a non-sequitur. The conclusion does not follow from the premise.

Does that make sense to you? Or do the disagreements revolve more around the fact that historically and culturally, human communities have changed dramatically in regard to any number of moral and political conflagrations over the millennia. Though, sure, just because there have been any number of conflicting value judgments championed over the centuries doesn't mean that there is not an optimal frame of mind. One within the reach of science and philosophy?

Or, if one or another Messiah does return to save and to damn souls "down here" come "end times", within the reach of the theologians?

To see why, consider a different argument of the very same logical form. There is extensive disagreement about the existence and nature of God, therefore it follows that there is no truth of the matter about God's existence and nature.

And that's because the gap between what people tell us about their God in their "arguments" and in their "leaps of faith", and their failure to actually demonstrate His existence renders logic here...moot? Of course, that doesn't make it logical that God does not exist, but for many it certainly seems reasonable to doubt that until there is actual proof.

So, sure...

But there is a truth of the matter. There either is a God or not, and if there is, then that God is perhaps the Judeo-Christian God, or the Muslim God, or perhaps satisfies a conception of God we are as yet unaware of.

In the interim therefore it's probably best to call yourself an agnostic.

There is a fact of the matter, even if we don't know what it is, or fail to agree about it. Similarly for morality, or any other subject. Mere disagreement, however widespread, does not entail that there is no truth about that subject. It might be difficult to ascertain, and we may never reach full agreement, but that is different than the claim that there is no such truth to pursue.

Yes, and unlike other moral nihilists who seem to embrace "in the absence of God all things are permitted" religiously, I'm always willing to acknowledge that in fact a God, the God does exist. And, sure, it might well be your God.

On the other hand, does believing this on your part make it...logical?

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From Shows About Nothing by Thomas Hibbs:

According to....Immanuel Kant, a democracy is a community of individuals who are simultaneously sovereigns and subjects. No longer is revealed religion, nature or nature's God an appropriate basis for our own self-understanding. Since these are all in some measure extrinsic to the human will, reliance on them is seen to be alienating, an infringment of the dignity of the individual. In Kant's technical language, submission to them puts the individual in a state of 'heteronomy', the exact opposite of autonomy. Kant is remarkably optimistic about the agreement that is likely to result from everyone cultivating his autonmy, for he supposess that since each is under his own command, each will acknowledge and respect the dignity of the others in their capacity for self legislation.

Hibbs then goes on to ponder these arguments in an analysis of the film To Kill a Mockingbird:.


...Mockingbird seems to be of two minds about tradition and cultural particularity. On the one hand, in Kantian fashion, it asks us to prescind from the prejudices of blind tradition and look past the superficial veils of race. On the other hand, the conception of duty that Atticus embodies is infused with the code of honor appropriate to the Southern gentleman. From the Kantian perspective, then, To Kill a Mockingbird would be a somewhat impure depiction of the politics of autonomy. That assessment may tell us more about the deficiencies of the model of autonomy than about the dramatic flaws of the film. The problem is that radical autonomy, since it undercuts faith in any objective or communally shared source of morality, easily gives way to nihilism. Once cultural nihilism becaomes prevalent, no one has the right or the capacity to determine where the laws ought to be drawn.

Hibbs whole conjecture here revolves around the inherent tension between "too much" autonomy [anarchy] and "too little" [autocracy]. And this applies not just in the narrow political sense but in all other aspects of human interaction as well. He draws our attention to the role of "liberal democracy" and how, perhaps, in taking so much of what we once traditionally construed as essentially right and wrong behavior [think of sexual mores in the 50's and sexual mores today, for example] off the leash, we have created a debilitating and herterogenous rootlessnees that, perhaps, might necessitate reintroducing a more...well...heteronomous frame of mind all over again. But of course "common sense" would prevail in the end.

Ah, but which rendition of it? And common sense all too often devolves over time into the "lowest common denominator" sensibilities of "the masses".

Kant, of course, was able to subsume all this in a rational philosophical assessment of human ethical interaction. The mind would deduce the requisite a priori assumptions respecting the manner in which "practical reason" [in conjunction with a Good Will] would then become the horse pulling and regulating the cart. Then, perforce, this philosophically motivated moral agent would derive just the right mix of autonomy so as to convey to the world those behaviors deemed to be either universally right or universally wrong.

In theory, as it were. But, ironically...i.e. for all practical purposes...this has rarely been sustained beyond particular individuals who claim to live their lives in the moral tradition of Kant. Which, however, is seen as being superior to those who live their lives in the moral tradition of, say, Plato. Why? Because Kant's rendition of it is "squared" with the phenomenal world somehow. God is, well, a lot deeper in the background.

Authority therefore would be rooted categorically and imperatively in one's moral duty. As though throughout the entire history of human social, political and economic relationships this has ever actually happened self-consciously [over large segments of a population acting out a philosophical agenda]. As though Kant's rendition of human moral interaction isn't just the equivalent of a footnote in the works of Marx and Engels.

But then Nietzsche's biggest blunder may well have revolved around his failure to read Marx in turn. Philosophy, after all, is to political economy what lungs are to air. You can't really make sense out of one until you understand its relationship to the other. And what good are lungs without air?

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Emile Cioran:

Even today nobody can tell what is right or what is wrong. It will be same in the future. The relativity of such expressions means little; not to be able to dispense with their use is more significant. I don't know what is right and what is wrong, and yet I divide actions into good and bad. If anyone asked me why I do so, I couldn't give an answer. I use moral criteria instinctively; later, when I reconsider, I do not find any justification for having done so. Morality has become so complex and contradictory because its values no longer constitute themselves in the order of life but have crystalized in a transcendental region only feebly connected to life's vital and irrational forces.

Are our contemporary myths about right and wrong [in the industrial West] really all that more sophisticated than those practiced by primitive, aboriginal tribes around the globe? They certainly cannot be defended as more effective. In fact "the order of life" in the modern world becomes increasingly more fragmented with each passing year. So much so that evangelicals [of all religious and secular stripes] are on the warpath in nation after nation to recreate that old order. Or a new order even more doctrinaire and draconian.

Is human morality something we can take seriously from a philosophical perspective? We don't pursue good and bad because we have ensnared them in logic; we do so because it is a fundamental part of being human. We interact---socially and politically and economically. That means disagreements and conflicts. And there are only so many slices in the pie; so rules have to be devised to facilitate the least dysfunctional method for dividing it up.

And we know how that is generally done.

Of course we interact in other ways as well---sexually, emotionally, within and between communities, artistically, racially, ethnically, between genders. But in the 21st century the rules are barely connected at all anymore to "life's vital and irrational forces". Instead, amidst a fractured demographic smorsgasbord of literally hundreds of communities and sub-cultures, we kind of make things up as we go along. The old "orders of life" have now transfigured into "lifestyles".

Everyone has their own story. And even when you recognize this is all it is you also recongnize it is not practical to abandon it. You have to come up with one or another rationale [or rationalization] to justify what you do. And even this analysis is just one more story about how human moral interaction unfolds.

The part that confuses some people, however, is Cioran's conjecture that human moral interaction reflects an intuitve or instinctive discourse. They prefer to believe we have left that to the savages. We have become so much more civilized in the way in which we ponder and then institutionalize these things; and so derive a much more considered set of moral convictions. And we can, of course, defend them with rational arguments the more primitive folks know nothing of.

Next to us, in fact, they know practically nothing at all.

About, say, lifestyles or the rule of law or the global economy or nihilism.

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Rejecting Moral Relativism
There is such a thing as moral truth.
Michael W. Austin in Psychology Today

Moreover, there is in fact less moral disagreement than we might think, as contemporary philosophers such as James Rachels have pointed out. For example, when anthropologists discovered the Eskimo practice of leaving infants out to die of exposure, it appeared that there was a significant disagreement between their system of morality and ours. And yet upon further analysis, this is not the case.

Given the life circumstances, hardships, and limited available resources for survival, keeping every infant can put the family's survival at risk. So there is a fundamental moral value, namely, that of preserving human life, that is at work here which we share with the Eskimos. What is different is that they are forced into making choices based on that value that most of us fortunately never have to face.

So, does this make sense to you? Or, instead, is this actually an example of moral relativism? Should human beings abandon infants to die of exposure?

Is this objectively immoral? Well, in our culture many would insist that harming infants reflects the most despicable of all evil.

Whereas in other cultures, for any number of reasons that we might reject, it is rationalized: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infantici ... 20to%20die.

In China, from 1979 to 2015, a "one child policy" was practiced. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy

Countless female babies were said to have been killed because male children were preferred.

Only it worked too well. Now, the government has reversed itself and encourages women to embrace the role of the traditional Mom.

So, what might encompass the most cogent philosophical argument in regard to infanticide?

What might Kantians propose?

Then Christians here who will argue that infanticide is a sin while rationalizing those tens of thousands of miscarriages and stillbirths that God Himself seems to be okay with.

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Rejecting Moral Relativism
There is such a thing as moral truth.
Michael W. Austin in Psychology Today

There are some moral values that societies share because they are necessary for any society to continue to exist. We need to value human life and truth-telling, for example. Without these values, without prohibitions on murder and lying, a given society will ultimately crumble.

True enough. But all this encompasses, in my view, is the "for all practical purposes" necessity of human communities to establish "rules of behavior". Depending on ever evolving historical and cultural sets of circumstances, in any particular community, some behaviors are rewarded and others punished.

Then these folks...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy

...have come along down through the ages to tell us which rules of behavior all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to embrace. Their own as likely as not.

It's just that some insist this is applicable in regard to the other side of the grave as well.

I would add that there is another reason why we often get the impression that there is more moral disagreement than is in fact the case. The attention of the media is directed at the controversial moral issues, rather than those that are more settled. Debates about abortion, same-sex marriage, and the like get airtime, but there is no reason to have a debate about whether or not parents should care for the basic needs of their children, whether it is right for pharmacists to dilute medications in order to make more profit, or whether courage is a virtue.

What, in regard to the moral conflagrations that pummel us "in the news" day after day, we might have to concede that objective morality is not within reach...?

Yet?

Or, again, in regard to those linked above, all that matters is what they believe is good and evil "in their head"...or within their congregation or political party?

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Just rewatched a documentary on the South Asian tsunami. One of the reasons this tragedy hits home for lots of people is the realization it could very easily be them next time. There is almost no place you can reside on the planet that is not potentially in the path of one natural calamity or another---earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, tornadoes, the big one from space.

But let's be honest: the reason the death toll was as high as it was there [or after the earthquake in Haiti] is because it affected areas where there were lots and lots of people living in poverty. That's the way of the world.

Still, there is no real moral outrage being expressed regarding the devastation because it was the result of a natural disaster. An "act of god" if you will.

Irony intended.

Say what you will about the tsunami's destructive power, but you can't say it acted immorally, right? You can't call it an "evil" thing. It is just an adventitious movement in the earth's crust that precipitated horrific consequences for those unlucky enough to be in its path.

On the other hand, imagine a context in which the source of human misery is perceived to be exploitation or injustice. For example, according to WHO, every 24 hours nearly 20,000 children aged 5 years and younger die of starvation around the globe. That means in one week almost as many of these innocent kids will perish of hunger [one of the most agonizing and protracted ways to die] as have all the victims of the South Asian tsunami. It is the equivalent of nearly 50 of these tsunamis every single year. And all the victims are babies and infants and very young children.

Yet where is the moral outrage?

Some say the reality of worldwide starvation is built right into a worldwide global economy in which a small percentage of the world's wealthiest citizens gobble up a huge percentage of the world's resources day after day. Three and one half billion men, women and children literally subsist on less than $2 a day. And it has been estimated that if we used the food thrown away in dumpsters by American restaurants every night we could feed every single starving person around the globe ten times over. But we don't.

And the moral codes embraced by many very compassionate and decent and caring people seem to be completely oblivious to this. Why? Why is 7,000,000 children starving to death every year not leading the newscasts night after night?

And when folks walk into Walmart to buy their cheap products they don't ask who made them...or what the working conditions were like...or whether the stuff came from sweatshops in which millions of adults and children are paid pennies a day. Why? Could it possibly have something to do with relationship between how morality is perceived in these countries and how that is intimately intertwined in the relationships between government and corporations and the media?

But then those who run the world have plenty of their own rationalizations to justify why their way is the best of all possible worlds. And who knows, maybe it is.

To me that is the horror built right into human moral and political interaction. There is no way to say for certain which social or political or economic system is the most ethical. Says who? Based on what criteria?

And with no God to appeal to you have to endure the way the world works as best you can. Or organize with others and try to change it. Of course, if you are one of those reaping the benefits of the way it works now you will probably not see all this in the manner in which those who are not benefiting do.

It makes you wonder. Could ethical convictions perhaps be, well, situational?

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Moral Relativism Is Unintelligible
Julien Beillard argues that it makes no sense to say that morality is relatively true.

The diversity of beliefs and ways of life is a striking fact about our species. What Mormons find right and reasonable may be abhorrent to Marxists or Maoris. The Aztecs practiced human sacrifice for reasons we find totally unconvincing, and no doubt future people may be similarly perplexed or repulsed by some of our practices.

In other words, perhaps, it is moral objectivism that is unintelligible. Indeed, how on Earth, given the history of our species to date, could anyone in all seriousness still suggest that morality is not "situational"?

In fact, the only explanation that makes any sense at all is that many embrace one or another moral rendition of the One True Path, not because they are actually able to demonstrate that their own path really is the one true path to enlightenment, but that in believing this to be the case it allows them to sustain the comforting and consoling illusion of embodying "my way or the highway". The Satyr Syndrome. And this permits them to divide up the world between "us" the smart and virtuous ones and "them", the inherently inferior fools.

For such reasons, some conclude that there is no objective truth about morality. They say moral disagreement is best explained by the idea that there are many different and incompatible relative moral truths, which are in some way determined by the beliefs of a given society...

Rooted out in a particular world historically. In other words, socially, politically and economically. Then throw in those life Marx and Engels, Freud and Jung, Reich and Nietzsche.

And, for me, Supannika.

...and that this is the only kind of moral truth there is. So for the Aztecs it was true that human sacrifice is morally permissible, although it is false for us. Generally then, a moral statement M is relatively true provided that it is believed by the members of a society S.

The rest, shall we say, is history?

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Moral Relativism Is Unintelligible
Julien Beillard argues that it makes no sense to say that morality is relatively true.

In this article I will discuss this argument from moral disagreement and present what I think is the most serious problem for moral relativism: that we cannot understand what it could mean for moral truths to be relative.

Whatever that means? No, seriously, given a particular moral conflagration of note, and a particular set of circumstances, explain to us what you think he means. The part I root existentially in dasein, in other words. How, in regard to your own moral philosophy, is that not at all pertinent?

And since we have no idea what it could mean, moral relativism cannot be a good explanation of the fact of deep and enduring moral disagreement – nor can moral relativism be supported by any other kind of reasoning. So if moral disagreement is evidence against the objectivity of moral truth, it can only be evidence for moral nihilism: the idea that there are no moral truths.

Moral disagreement may not be proof that objective morality does not exist...but it does make you wonder why, after thousands of years, mere mortals who call themselves scientists and philosophers and ethicists are still nowhere near actually encompassing a deontological basis for differentiating good from bad behaviors.

And, admittedly, moral nihilism itself is just another wild ass guess regarding human behavior in a No God world. It just seems reasonable to me "here and now" until I do come across a demonstrable argument [philosophical or otherwise] that actually does provide both substantive and substantial evidence that morality is not "situational".

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From "Meaning & Morality in Modernity"
By Andrew Brower Latz

In modern society we live with an ethical predicament: as our form of society has increased our material well-being, it has simultaneously leached the significance from our experience. Our intellectual life is dominated by scientific rationality, and our practical life by bureaucratic rationality (these two forms of reason are similar); and although they are very good at securing the means of life, they drain from the world the “sources of meaning and significance that traditionally anchored ethical practices”: God, community, nature. So the end result of these forms of rationality and their institutional expressions in our politics and societies, has been the undermining of both morality and meaning.

Consequently, folks like you and I will still wander in and out of forums like this in order to [perhaps] pin down the meaning of morality and/or the morality of meaning once again.

Or even to discover/invent an entirely new rendition.

But has there really been a new one of late? A narrative, in other words, that the discoverer/inventor is able to take out of her head, and, using the tools of philosophy, describe a coherent moral agenda that all rational folks are able to embrace?

Or, instead, is the "ethical predicament" all the more deeply entrenched given the assumption that God is dead?

One thing that seems rather apparent to me is that there tends to be two very different reactions to the "dilemma". On the one hand, there are those who never really give it much thought at all. On the contrary, they are too busy submerging themselves in the distractions of pop culture and consumption. It is ever and always about fitting into the latest fad or fancy or fashion.

And then there are those able to make a leap [intellectually] to one or another objectivist la la land where meaning and morality are constructed by and large out of words.

And that really doesn't leave many folks around who are willing and able to acknowledge just how far removed they have now become from what once did pass for those "traditional" comforts and consolations.

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Moral Relativism Is Unintelligible
Julien Beillard argues that it makes no sense to say that morality is relatively true.

Self-Defeat?

The argument for moral relativism from moral diversity is not especially convincing as it stands.

As it stands...where? Given what particular set of circumstances?

If the mere fact that people or groups disagree over some idea were enough to show that that idea has no objective truth value, there would be no objective truth about the age of the universe or the causes of autism.

Come on, as though there is no distinction to be made here between medical science attempting to grasp what autism is biologically -- and how it might be prevented -- and the argument between those who rationalize aborting the unborn afflicted with such conditions as autism as morally justified and those who insist it is not justified morally.

Medical scientists might have disagreements over the exact nature of this affliction but as scientists they might one day grasp it enough to minimize or even eliminate it. How about the ethicists here though? Until science does rid the world of it, what encompasses the most rational moral assessment?

You can find those here -- https://www.autismspeaks.org/ -- who champion the cause of autistic citizens.

And then there the Nazis among us. Send them to the gas chamber?

Hoping to ward off that counter-argument, relativists usually claim that these other disagreements are unlike moral disagreements in some relevant way.

Exactly. The gap between what we can know about autism as a medical condition in the either/or world and what we may never grasp objectively about it as a moral issue.

For instance, writing in this magazine, Jesse Prinz claimed that scientific disagreements can be settled by better observations or measurements, and that when presented with the same body of evidence or reasons, scientists come to agree, but the same cannot be said of thinkers operating with different moral codes.

Unless, course, in regard to autism, someone here can link us to the moral equivalent of objective medical science.

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Moral Relativism Is Unintelligible
Julien Beillard argues that it makes no sense to say that morality is relatively true.

Even if we grant this distinction [above], however, it is still doubtful that moral disagreement is a good reason for accepting moral relativism.

On the contrary, until the existence of a God, the God or an irrefutable moral philosophy is established, accepting moral relativism seems to be a perfectly reasonable frame of mind.

Just look at the world around us. You tell me which school of thought comes closest to encompassing a deontological moral assessment. Let alone a politically sound legal agenda.

And what are the odds it's not your own frame of mind?

After all, there is deep and apparently irresolvable disagreements in philosophy as well as morality. For instance, some philosophers think mental states such as pain or desire are just physical states; others deny this, and yet both camps are familiar with the evidence and reasons taken to support the opposing point of view.

Again, making all of this that much more problematic. Philosophers and the "soft sciences" are often all over the board even in coming to grips with the factors that unfold in the either/or world. And what's crucial for me is that even here at the Philosophy Now forum, we will often pummel those who refuse to think exactly as we do...without really grappling with how existentially we come to embrace one set of moral and political prejudices rather than another.

For example...

Here -- viewtopic.php?t=41383 -- some focus in on the mass murder of Israeli children by Hamas while others on the mass murder of children by the IDF.

"They started it!"

Depending of course on how far back historically we go.

In the interim, the slaughter of the truly innocent there revolves largely around the religious fanatics on both sides justifying any and all means in the name of God. The same God!

Should we say, then, that there is no objective truth about how mental states are related to the physical world? That seems deeply implausible.

Again, we don't even know for certain if our individual reactions to all of this are manifestations of free will.

For that matter, many philosophers deny the moral relativist’s claim that moral truth is relative to what a given society believes. Does it follow that there is only relative truth and no objective truth about moral relativism itself – that moral relativism is true relative to the outlook of Jesse Prinz, say, and anti-relativism no less true relative to mine?

My own claims here are no less fractured and fragmented. But for those self-righteous moralists among us who do insist that morality is objective, okay, note a particular issue, a particular set of circumstances and defend that here with me.

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Moral Relativism Is Unintelligible
Julien Beillard argues that it makes no sense to say that morality is relatively true.

I suspect that few moral relativists would be willing to accept this ‘higher’ kind of relativism. They think that even though many benighted philosophers disagree with them, moral truth just is relative to a given society – that it is an objective fact about reality that there are no objective moral facts but merely relative ones.

Again...

My own claims here are no less fractured and fragmented. But for those self-righteous moralists among us who do insist that morality is objective, okay, note a particular issue, a particular set of circumstances and defend that here with me.

Higher or lower relativism? What on Earth for all practical purposes does that even mean?

Then [of course] this part...

But this would be a distressingly unstable position, if relativists believe their relativism on the basis of an argument that depends on the principle that if there is a certain kind of disagreement over some topic T, there is no objective truth about T. If that principle is true, the fact that there is such disagreement about their relativist conclusion implies that that conclusion is itself not objectively true, but only relatively so.

So if this relativist’s argument is good, then by his own standards he should not believe its conclusion is objectively true; or if he is entitled to believe its conclusion, it follows that the argument is not good.

I get this all the time. I'm said to be an objectivist myself in regard to moral nihilism. No matter how many times I insist my own moral philosophy here is no less but another existential contraption rooted subjectively -- intersubjectively -- in dasein [and then subject to change given new experiences, relationships and access to information and knowledge] I'm still just as eager to insist it is "my way or the highway".

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From "Morality: The Final Delusion?" by Richard Garner in Philosophy Now magazine

With no god to make the rules, consistent atheists will already have abandoned religious morality, which means that they are left with a choice between some kind of secular morality and a moral error theory. An atheist’s eventual embrace of a moral error theory will be facilitated, if not forced, by the ease with which arguments used to undermine theism can be recycled to criticize the analogous beliefs of secular moralists.

Some years ago, I adressed the issue of morality in a No God world. Morality, in other words, that revolves around one or another translation of Humanism.

I considered possible components of that:

I don't believe that God has to be part of a moral narrative itself. After all, any number of human communities have concocted one without him. One or another rendition of "humanism" in other words. Some more rather than less "ideological".

I am myself a moral relativist -- a moral nihilist. But lots of folks claim this is tantamount to embracing the belief that everything is permitted. But, of course, that is not the way the world works at all. Historically, there have always been a number of factors that motivated us in creating functional social interaction---relationships in which behaviors are both prescribed and proscribed. Moral codes are, after all, only partiuclar rules of behaviors embedded in particular historical and cultural contexts.

And, sans God, they can be predicated on many factors. For example:

• Genetic/biological predispositions What are these? Well, of course, no one really knows for certain but it is obvious from cross-cultural ethnological studies that all people seem to have built-in capacites to experience and express a broad range of emotional and psychological states: compassion, empathy, fear, agression. We have a survival instinct. We have sexual libidoes. We have primitive impulses that stem from the reptilian part of the brain. The naked ape parts, as it were.

• Cultural predispositions Each of us is born into a culture that shapes and molds these biological/genetic tendencies into a veritable smorgasbord of actual brehavior patterns; indeed, for 10 to 12 [or more] years, all children in all cultures will become thoroughly indoctrinated to view right from wrong just like Mommy and Daddy do. Many in fact will literally go to the grave understanding little of how this works. Even fewer will make any significant changes in it. Though that seems to be less and less applicable in our "post modern world". Here, increasingly, "lifestyles" seem to be all the rage. And that often revolves around pop culture, crass consumption and celebrity.

• Individual autonomy And yet despite receiving all of this deeply engrained acculturation as youths, we all become adults eventually and have to make our own way into and out of the moral labyrinths. In other words, we all come to intertwine these many, many existential variables into our own individual sense of reality---encompasing, in turn, own own individual moral compass. No two are ever exactly the same however. Each being the embodiment of dasein.

• Rewards and punishments These play a huge role in how we come to see the moral circumference of the world around us. We act so as to be rewarded by those we love and respect and admire and depend upon. We act so as to avoid sanctions from those we don't. But this can become one contingency laden psychological mishmash of ambiguous and ambivalent frames of mind. Often revolving around the personas that we employ and games that we play.

• Political economy Marx was right. Human social interaction revolves fundamentally around the need to sustain biological existence. We need food and water; we need a roof over our head and clothes on our backs; we need a relatively stable environment in which to reproduce; we need folks who are able to defend us from enemies---inside and out. This is why men and women have always agglomerated into communities throughout history. And that revolves ultimately around power. It matters little what you believe is right and wrong if you don't have the power to enforce and defend it. So, human moral agendas have always reflected the basic interests of those with the most political and economic power.

• Death A particularly tricky component here. In order to understand why we act as we do above the ground you always have to factor in how folks regard the fact that sooner or later they are going to be six feet under it.

And all the other factors I missed.

[please feel free to add to the list]

Bottom line: God is not necessary here. But God [an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent point of view] is necessary [in my view] if we shift the discussion to objective morality.

After all, without God who [what] is there to turn to when we do have conflicting value judgments about conflicting goods?

So, basically, a proponent of "moral error theory" would seem to be suggesting there does not appear to be a way [philosophically, morally, politically, socially, economically etc.] to configure the components of humanism above into something that might be construed as the secular equivalent of God.

I merely segue from that into the components of my own "moral theory". And then invite others to flesh out their theories by taking the components out into the world that we live in.

[promethean75]

"No matter how many times I insist my own moral philosophy here is no less but another existential contraption rooted subjectively -- intersubjectively -- in dasein [and then subject to change given new experiences, relationships and access to information and knowledge]"

See this is why I'm not 'fractured and fragmented', biggs. There is absolutely no new information or experiences that i could possibly gain/have that would change my nihilism. I've already considered the full gamut of possible experiences and new kinds of knowledge that i could have, and my nihilism would still stay fundamentally the same.

I rather insist that it's people who aren't nihilists who, if given access to the right information and experiences, would become nihilists. Until then, they are simply inexperienced in my eyes, up 'in the clouds', as u put it.

Think about it like this. There are objective facts about life and the world that, if properly understood, would bring any rational person to the conclusion of nihilism. So, if someone isn't a nihilist, it means they either haven't properly experienced these facts, or they have and are not interpreting them rightly.

In my view, there is no direction to go but down, and the only time a dasein goes up, it goes up into the clouds.

If I'm an 'objectivist', it's only becuz i insist that all rational people would be nihilists if they knew what was goin on. But i wouldn't ever insist that they were 'wrong' in a mood of moral contempt becuz one can't choose to fall into the gaping jaws of experience. One can't 'go looking' for access to the facts that make one a nihilist. These facts find them, or they don't.