moral relativism

[iambiguous]

But this doesn't change the fact that even a moral/political consensus is no less rooted in historical and cultural contexts such that individuals "thrown" at birth into one rather than another will no doubt be indoctrinated to view capital punishment differently. Nor the fact that particular individuals might accumulate "personal experiences" that predispose them to embrace any number of conflicting moral and political prejudices.

And this fact doesn't change the fact of how morality works over time.
It is an evolving process.

That's my point in regard to those who embrace one or another rendition of moral objectivism. If human morality is ever evolving over time in a world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change, on what basis can it be argued that their own value judgments reflect either the optimal or the only rational frame of mind?

My point then being that, using the tools of philosophy, there does not appear to be a way to differentiate "wisdom" from "folly" in reacting to capital punishment. Merely political prejudices derived largely from dasein...the individual lives that we live.

There absolutely is a way. Time.

Take the trend of capital punishment between 1500 and 2022. Do you predict we'll have more; or less capital punishment in 500 years more?

Human "trends" are not the same thing as establishing philosophically -- deontologically -- that capital punishment either is or is not in herently/necessarily moral or immoral.

The pros and cons here...

https://deathpenalty.procon.org/

...don't go away. The mitigating and aggravating circumstances don't go away. The complexities involved don't go away. The arguments I make with respect to morality and dasein don't go away.

It's just you noting a trend and suggesting that this seems to indicate how all rational and virtuous men and women are, what, obligated to think and feel?

Or, sure, I'm missing your point.

It might matter considerably if you are on death row yourself.

Do you place equivilent significance to dying in the (,etaphorical) hands of the universe? You are far more likely to die of "natural" causes than in the hands of another human.

I'm focusing here on the morality of state executions, not a death at the hands of the universe. Or of natural causes.

And if this "process" and "social development" changes over time and around the globe, the consensus formed in regard to your own fate doesn't change the fact that whatever the consensus might be it is still just an intersubjective frame of mind embedded out in a particular world understood by the majority in a particular way.

Why are you using the word "just"? If that's what it is, then that's what it is. "Just" seems to signal your expectation of it being more than what it is.

As a moral nihilist, that's what reactions to capital punishment are to me: just subjective political prejudices rooted in dasein. It is the moral objectivists among us who insist it can be more than that.

And I'm not arguing that it can't be, only that "here and now", I don't believe it can be. Pending an argument or an experience that convinces me otherwise.

A community consensus does not establish an objective or universal moral truth.

Why not? The objectivity of morality is measured by its effects. Exactly like gravity.

Nothing like gravity given the moral and political agenda in any particular community. The effect in those communities where executions are proscribed is one thing, the effect where they are prescribed another thing altogether. Whereas, if the mode of execution is hanging, gravity works exactly the same way in all communities.

Apples fall to grounds.
Humans live longer, experience less suffering, have access to better medicine, experience less poverty and hunger etc etc etc.

Our subjective desires are become objectively measurable facts.

Again, what does that have to do with the morality of capital punishment [or abortion or gun ownership or homosexuality or animal rights or the role of government] when examined by philosophers or ethicists or political scientists?

On the other hand, if your own fate on death row revolves entirely around those with the power to take your life, then, "for all practical purposes" it is certainly sufficient.

And if your own fate on death revolves entirely on a virus's ability to kill you? You seem to be holding humans to a higher standard of accountability.

A virus doesn't weigh the moral consequences of infecting you. Instead, out in the world that actual human beings live in, some insist the higher moral standard revolves around permitting executions while others insist it revolves around stopping them. Then what?

That's not my point. The point is that though a consensus might change in any given community over time, a consensus in and of itself is still not the equivalent of establishing that our "right" ought to be reflected in the "might".

Yes. Consensus is not enough. Acting on consensus is enough. Upholding and maintaining rights.

We are basically in two different discussions here. Those on both sides of the issue can form a consensus. Those on both sides of the issue are able to come up with arguments that conclude that their point of view is one that truly upholds and maintains rights.

[Skepdick]

That's my point in regard to those who embrace one or another rendition of moral objectivism. If human morality is ever evolving over time in a world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change, on what basis can it be argued that their own value judgments reflect either the optimal or the only rational frame of mind?

You are missing the subtlety of it. Morality is not just evolving. It's progressing/improving.

To understand why this is you have to understand chance and entropy. If it were a mere product of chance and entropy then no overal improvement can be attained over time. Today's improvement will be tomorrow's regression. Two steps forward - two steps back.

If morality is merely changing and not improving we could never say things like "Humans are healthier, wealthier, free-er, more educated, less prone to violence, more reasonable and less war-mongering than ever before".

Human "trends" are not the same thing as establishing philosophically -- deontologically -- that capital punishment either is or is not in herently/necessarily moral or immoral.

Why not? If everything was merely subject to chance/entropy then you wouldn't observe any trends. All perspectives will observe equal popularity across time. Murder would remain constantly popular amongst society. The death penalty would never lose any support.

It's just you noting a trend and suggesting that this seems to indicate how all rational and virtuous men and women are, what, obligated to think and feel?

Or, sure, I'm missing your point.

It seems to indicate that moral ideas, like everything else, are subject to natural selection.

What I am calling "objective morality" are those moral ideas which are likely to survive the test of time.

I'm focusing here on the morality of state executions, not a death at the hands of the universe. Or of natural causes.

Why the double standard? Do you have any particular preference as to how you meet your end?

Do you place greater moral virtue on dying from cancer than being executed? Both of those are out of your control.

And if this "process" and "social development" changes over time and around the globe, the consensus formed in regard to your own fate doesn't change the fact that whatever the consensus might be it is still just an intersubjective frame of mind embedded out in a particular world understood by the majority in a particular way.

So what? Abstract beliefs produce concrete action. If an idea has real-world consequences then that idea is as real and as objective as gravity.

As a moral nihilist, that's what reactions to capital punishment are to me: just subjective political prejudices rooted in dasein. It is the moral objectivists among us who insist it can be more than that.

I am not insisting that it's just anything; or more than anything. I am pointing out that morality is objective. Irrespective of what it's rooted in.

"Just" and "More" express our expectations and attitudes towards the state of affairs.

Nothing like gravity given the moral and political agenda in any particular community. The effect in those communities where executions are proscribed is one thing, the effect where they are prescribed another thing altogether. Whereas, if the mode of execution is hanging, gravity works exactly the same way in all communities.

Gravity doesn't work in any particular way in the community of the International Space Station - it's so miniscule so as to be irreelvant.
You experience way more gravity on Earth than you do on the Moon, and you experience way more gravity on Jupiter than you do on Earth.

Exactly like morality. Some communities have none, some communities have more.

It depends on the mass behind the idea.

Again, what does that have to do with the morality of capital punishment [or abortion or gun ownership or homosexuality or animal rights or the role of government] when examined by philosophers or ethicists or political scientists?

The immoral ideas lose mass over time! The moral ideas survive the test of time!

A virus doesn't weigh the moral consequences of infecting you. Instead, out in the world that actual human beings live in, some insist the higher moral standard revolves around permitting executions while others insist it revolves around stopping them. Then what?

And a human lacking free will doesn't weigh the moral consequences of taking your life. They are acting on natural instinct.
You are continuing to support a position of false balance and you are hiding behind weasel words.

The predicate "some" applies to 99% pro/1% against. It also applies to 1% pro/99% against. And yet you are using it to suggest 50% pro/50% against.
And you continue to ignore the change over time.

Why would anything change without a driving force?

We are basically in two different discussions here. Those on both sides of the issue can form a consensus. Those on both sides of the issue are able to come up with arguments that conclude that their point of view is one that truly upholds and maintains rights.

Yes they can. Which is why arguments don't matter!

Pretend for a second that 5000 years ago there were people pro-murder. Pretend that as soon as humans decided murder should be outlawed and punished 50% of population raised up and objected to the law; and objected to recourse be taken against people who murder.

Where are those voices now?

[Belinda]

Iambiguous and Skepdick exchanged:

iambiguous wrote: ↑Fri Feb 11, 2022 6:15 pm
As a moral nihilist, that's what reactions to capital punishment are to me: just subjective political prejudices rooted in dasein. It is the moral objectivists among us who insist it can be more than that.

Skepdick replied:

I am not insisting that it's just anything; or more than anything. I am pointing out that morality is objective. Irrespective of what it's rooted in.

"Just" and "More" express our expectations and attitudes towards the state of affairs.

Murder is a legal term. Sometimes an influencer such as Hitler will define murder so that it's legal for a state to kill many more sorts of human beings than previously. I agree with Iambiguous.

When the Allies fought against Axis powers we were justified in doing so as we were more humanitarian than Axis cultures. See, I have just implied that humanitarianism is deontologically better than Nazism. I abstract the latter claim from my core, deontological, belief that humans are basically good and that Nazism and similar ideologies are alienations from the natural,good human being.I therefore disagree with Skepdick because it does matter what morality is rooted in.

[Skepdick]

Murder is a legal term. Sometimes an influencer such as Hitler will define murder so that it's legal for a state to kill many more sorts of human beings than previously. I agree with Iambiguous.

The terminology is immaterial.

We attempted to codify morality and created a justice system post facto wanting to prevent that sort of thing from happening to people. The deficiencies of langugae in that respect are neither here nor there. Good people do not need laws, bad people will find a way around any laws.

If somebody wants to skirt the rules and play mind games on technicalities, I'll gladly make their life miserable on technicalities.

When the Allies fought against Axis powers we were justified in doing so as we were more humanitarian than Axis cultures. See, I have just implied that humanitarianism is deontologically better than Nazism. I abstract the latter claim from my core, deontological, belief that humans are basically good and that Nazism and similar ideologies are alienations from the natural,good human being.I therefore disagree with Skepdick because it does matter what morality is rooted in.

Morality isn't rooted in anything and doesn't have to be rooted in anything. Morality is morality.

It is our innate sense of "I am tired of this crap and I won't stand for it any longer!"

[Belinda]

I therefore disagree with Skepdick because it does matter what morality is rooted in.

Skepdick replied:

Morality isn't rooted in anything and doesn't have to be rooted in anything. Morality is morality.

It is our innate sense of "I am tired of this crap and I won't stand for it any longer!"wrote:

But your reply "our innate sense" shows that you believe morality is inherent to the natural uncorrupted man.

[iambiguous]

That's my point in regard to those who embrace one or another rendition of moral objectivism. If human morality is ever evolving over time in a world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change, on what basis can it be argued that their own value judgments reflect either the optimal or the only rational frame of mind?

You are missing the subtlety of it. Morality is not just evolving. It's progressing/improving.

On the other hand, when I come across an argument such as this I speculate instead that what [perhaps] I am hearing is this...

"Morality is progressing/improving as it gets closer and closer to my own subjective prejudices."

And toward "subtlety" is precisely the direction I am going in when you factor in all of the countless existential variables that go into the making of any particular individual's personal prejudices. Some historical, some cultural, some experiential.

To understand why this is you have to understand chance and entropy. If it were a mere product of chance and entropy then no overal improvement can be attained over time. Today's improvement will be tomorrow's regression. Two steps forward - two steps back.

And how specifically does this relate to capital punishment?

If morality is merely changing and not improving we could never say things like "Humans are healthier, wealthier, free-er, more educated, less prone to violence, more reasonable and less war-mongering than ever before".

There are literally millions and millions of men, women and children around the globe who would not concur with this at all.

Human "trends" are not the same thing as establishing philosophically -- deontologically -- that capital punishment either is or is not in herently/necessarily moral or immoral.

Why not? If everything was merely subject to chance/entropy then you wouldn't observe any trends. All perspectives will observe equal popularity across time. Murder would remain constantly popular amongst society. The death penalty would never lose any support.

Yes, if you insist that "trends" equal "progress" and that "progress" equals others coming over to your own moral and political prejudices, then, sure, this works for you. But from my frame of mind that's not the same as establishing deontologically that all rational folks are obligated to think as you do. About capital punishment or anything else.

As for morality being linked to "natural selection", this can be [has been] taken all the way to the reeducation camps -- even the death camps -- historically. Take human sexuality. What is natural here?

I'm focusing here on the morality of state executions, not a death at the hands of the universe. Or of natural causes.

Why the double standard? Do you have any particular preference as to how you meet your end?

Do you place greater moral virtue on dying from cancer than being executed? Both of those are out of your control.

Again, we seem to be in two different discussions here. If you get cancer as a result of the "natural causes" rooted in human biology, and then die from it, there is no moral factor involved. With death by execution there is. Few will argue that getting cancer is immoral. It's just a part of nature. A natural disease. But allowing the state to execute us? Here there are all manner of conflicting assessments.

And if this "process" and "social development" changes over time and around the globe, the consensus formed in regard to your own fate doesn't change the fact that whatever the consensus might be it is still just an intersubjective frame of mind embedded out in a particular world understood by the majority in a particular way.

So what? Abstract beliefs produce concrete action. If an idea has real-world consequences then that idea is as real and as objective as gravity.

Yes, and if those ideas and abstract beliefs are ever and always "shape-shifting" historically and culturally and with respect to your own individual experiences, the consequences can be all over the board. Whereas gravity is the board throughout the universe.

Then [somehow] you are still able to convince yourself that morality is objective. Like gravity. Whereas, given my own assumptions above, that makes absolutely no sense to me.

Nothing like gravity given the moral and political agenda in any particular community. The effect in those communities where executions are proscribed is one thing, the effect where they are prescribed another thing altogether. Whereas, if the mode of execution is hanging, gravity works exactly the same way in all communities.

Gravity doesn't work in any particular way in the community of the International Space Station - it's so miniscule so as to be irreelvant.
You experience way more gravity on Earth than you do on the Moon, and you experience way more gravity on Jupiter than you do on Earth.

Exactly like morality. Some communities have none, some communities have more.

It depends on the mass behind the idea.

Well, sure, if you merely assert that the mass behind your ideas is considerably more that the mass behind mine or others, that works great for you. But that is just to say that in asserting something is true it makes it true. That the mass behind your ideas about capital punishment becomes the default in any discussion about the morality of it.

The perfect moral philosophy. Heads you win, tails they lose.

Again, what does that have to do with the morality of capital punishment [or abortion or gun ownership or homosexuality or animal rights or the role of government] when examined by philosophers or ethicists or political scientists?

The immoral ideas lose mass over time! The moral ideas survive the test of time!

And, by an amazing coincidence, the mass behind your own objective morality will be around...forever?

Even after you die? Is there a God in your assumptions here?

A virus doesn't weigh the moral consequences of infecting you. Instead, out in the world that actual human beings live in, some insist the higher moral standard revolves around permitting executions while others insist it revolves around stopping them. Then what?

And a human lacking free will doesn't weigh the moral consequences of taking your life. They are acting on natural instinct.
You are continuing to support a position of false balance and you are hiding behind weasel words.

The predicate "some" applies to 99% pro/1% against. It also applies to 1% pro/99% against. And yet you are using it to suggest 50% pro/50% against.
And you continue to ignore the change over time.

Why would anything change without a driving force?

I have no idea what this has to do with the point I made. Other than that the driving force behind any moral "trend" is either in sync with your own "progressive" moral prejudices, or someone just doesn't get the nature of objective morality itself.

Then back to this...

We are basically in two different discussions here. Those on both sides of the issue can form a consensus. Those on both sides of the issue are able to come up with arguments that conclude that their point of view is the one that truly upholds and maintains rights.

Yes they can. Which is why arguments don't matter!

Pretend for a second that 5000 years ago there were people pro-murder. Pretend that as soon as humans decided murder should be outlawed and punished 50% of population raised up and objected to the law; and objected to recourse be taken against people who murder.

Where are those voices now?

And, alas, our "failure to communicate" here just keeps expanding all the time.

[jayjacobus]

That's my point in regard to those who embrace one or another rendition of moral objectivism. If human morality is ever evolving over time in a world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change, on what basis can it be argued that their own value judgments reflect either the optimal or the only rational frame of mind?

You are missing the subtlety of it. Morality is not just evolving. It's progressing/improving.

On the other hand, when I come across an argument such as this I speculate instead that what [perhaps] I am hearing is this...

"Morality is progressing/improving as it gets closer and closer to my own subjective prejudices."

And toward "subtlety" is precisely the direction I am going in when you factor in all of the countless existential variables that go into the making of any particular individual's personal prejudices. Some historical, some cultural, some experiential.

To understand why this is you have to understand chance and entropy. If it were a mere product of chance and entropy then no overal improvement can be attained over time. Today's improvement will be tomorrow's regression. Two steps forward - two steps back.

And how specifically does this relate to capital punishment?

If morality is merely changing and not improving we could never say things like "Humans are healthier, wealthier, free-er, more educated, less prone to violence, more reasonable and less war-mongering than ever before".

There are literally millions and millions of men, women and children around the globe who would not concur with this at all.

Human "trends" are not the same thing as establishing philosophically -- deontologically -- that capital punishment either is or is not in herently/necessarily moral or immoral.

Why not? If everything was merely subject to chance/entropy then you wouldn't observe any trends. All perspectives will observe equal popularity across time. Murder would remain constantly popular amongst society. The death penalty would never lose any support.

Yes, if you insist that "trends" equal "progress" and that "progress" equals others coming over to your own moral and political prejudices, then, sure, this works for you. But from my frame of mind that's not the same as establishing deontologically that all rational folks are obligated to think as you do. About capital punishment or anything else.

As for morality being linked to "natural selection", this can be [has been] taken all the way to the reeducation camps -- even the death camps -- historically. Take human sexuality. What is natural here?

I'm focusing here on the morality of state executions, not a death at the hands of the universe. Or of natural causes.

Why the double standard? Do you have any particular preference as to how you meet your end?

Do you place greater moral virtue on dying from cancer than being executed? Both of those are out of your control.

Again, we seem to be in two different discussions here. If you get cancer as a result of the "natural causes" rooted in human biology, and then die from it, there is no moral factor involved. With death by execution there is. Few will argue that getting cancer is immoral. It's just a part of nature. A natural disease. But allowing the state to execute us? Here there are all manner of conflicting assessments.

And if this "process" and "social development" changes over time and around the globe, the consensus formed in regard to your own fate doesn't change the fact that whatever the consensus might be it is still just an intersubjective frame of mind embedded out in a particular world understood by the majority in a particular way.

So what? Abstract beliefs produce concrete action. If an idea has real-world consequences then that idea is as real and as objective as gravity.

Yes, and if those ideas and abstract beliefs are ever and always "shape-shifting" historically and culturally and with respect to your own individual experiences, the consequences can be all over the board. Whereas gravity is the board throughout the universe.

Then [somehow] you are still able to convince yourself that morality is objective. Like gravity. Whereas, given my own assumptions above, that makes absolutely no sense to me.

Nothing like gravity given the moral and political agenda in any particular community. The effect in those communities where executions are proscribed is one thing, the effect where they are prescribed another thing altogether. Whereas, if the mode of execution is hanging, gravity works exactly the same way in all communities.

Gravity doesn't work in any particular way in the community of the International Space Station - it's so miniscule so as to be irreelvant.
You experience way more gravity on Earth than you do on the Moon, and you experience way more gravity on Jupiter than you do on Earth.

Exactly like morality. Some communities have none, some communities have more.

It depends on the mass behind the idea.

Well, sure, if you merely assert that the mass behind your ideas is considerably more that the mass behind mine or others, that works great for you. But that is just to say that in asserting something is true it makes it true. That the mass behind your ideas about capital punishment becomes the default in any discussion about the morality of it.

The perfect moral philosophy. Heads you win, tails they lose.

Again, what does that have to do with the morality of capital punishment [or abortion or gun ownership or homosexuality or animal rights or the role of government] when examined by philosophers or ethicists or political scientists?

The immoral ideas lose mass over time! The moral ideas survive the test of time!

And, by an amazing coincidence, the mass behind your own objective morality will be around...forever?

Even after you die? Is there a God in your assumptions here?

A virus doesn't weigh the moral consequences of infecting you. Instead, out in the world that actual human beings live in, some insist the higher moral standard revolves around permitting executions while others insist it revolves around stopping them. Then what?

And a human lacking free will doesn't weigh the moral consequences of taking your life. They are acting on natural instinct.
You are continuing to support a position of false balance and you are hiding behind weasel words.

The predicate "some" applies to 99% pro/1% against. It also applies to 1% pro/99% against. And yet you are using it to suggest 50% pro/50% against.
And you continue to ignore the change over time.

Why would anything change without a driving force?

I have no idea what this has to do with the point I made. Other than that the driving force behind any moral "trend" is either in sync with your own "progressive" moral prejudices, or someone just doesn't get the nature of objective morality itself.

Then back to this...

We are basically in two different discussions here. Those on both sides of the issue can form a consensus. Those on both sides of the issue are able to come up with arguments that conclude that their point of view is the one that truly upholds and maintains rights.

Yes they can. Which is why arguments don't matter!

Pretend for a second that 5000 years ago there were people pro-murder. Pretend that as soon as humans decided murder should be outlawed and punished 50% of population raised up and objected to the law; and objected to recourse be taken against people who murder.

Where are those voices now?

And, alas, our "failure to communicate" here just keeps expanding all the time.

I study logic. Sometimes I find it. Sometimes I don't. I did find logic here but not in the naked assertions. Thanks for being logical.

[henry quirk]

"Morality is progressing/improving as it gets closer and closer to my own subjective prejudices."

Are there no moral positions that we can say apply to all men, everywhere, at any time?

Let's talk, just a bit, about slavery.

Slavery, buyin', sellin', usin' human beings as property, has been a feature of civilization from the start. Another feature has been, let's call it, a universal reluctance on the part of folks to be slaves (even the slaver, as he buys and sells, himself is reluctant to be a slave).

Is this universal reluctance just a subjective prejudice, or is it indicative of sumthin' else or more?

[Skepdick]

On the other hand, when I come across an argument such as this I speculate instead that what [perhaps] I am hearing is this...

And toward "subtlety" is precisely the direction I am going in when you factor in all of the countless existential variables that go into the making of any particular individual's personal prejudices. Some historical, some cultural, some experiential.

You are getting bogged down in the connotation. It is precisely your prejudices which lead you to chop up the worldly phenomena and value the "objective" more than the "subjective".

If you focus on the denotation of "objectivity" then there are two possible perspectives here.

Subjectivity doesn't exist. Everything is objective. Objectively speaking you don't like chocolate and I do. Both preferences exist. Objectively.
Objectivity doesn't exist. Objectivity is just an inter-subjective construct. You call this red.. I call this red.

If you want to look past your historical/cultural prejudices you ought to examine the subjective/objective distinction. Your abstract "subjective" beliefs have causal "objective" effect on reality. To a physicist ANY force which has a causal effect on reality is objective!

When you get rid of your cultural biases with respect to the subjective/objective distinction and you adopt amore causality-centric world-view then "subjectivity" is just downward causation.

And how specifically does this relate to capital punishment?

Trivially. Pick any nation on Planet Earth at random. If entropy is uniform then the expected probability of any given country on the planet to practice capital punishment should be 50/50. It isn't.

108 countries have abolished it entirely.
7 have it only for war crimes.
26 have abolished it in practice (but not in law)
54 retain it.

And I further predict that in 200 years more there will be even fewer countries practicing capital punishment.
Because the 'subjective prejudices" of people who pay attention to history will have caused the immoral practice of capital punishment to fall ot of favour.

There are literally millions and millions of men, women and children around the globe who would not concur with this at all.

So what? To defend this reductionist anecdotal, point-in-time world-view is to pretend that 150 countries practicing capital punishment is the same as 54 countries practicing it; or 1 country practicing it.

It's to pretend that any improvement is no improvement at all until Utopia arrives. That's just a really bad case of the Nirvana fallacy

To defend this absurd world-view is to claim that 150=54=1 because all of them are more than 0.

Yes, if you insist that "trends" equal "progress" and that "progress" equals others coming over to your own moral and political prejudices, then, sure, this works for you. But from my frame of mind that's not the same as establishing deontologically that all rational folks are obligated to think as you do. About capital punishment or anything else.

Nothing I've said is about "obligation". Everything I am saying is descriptive - not prescriptive.

You are welcome to think capital punishment is OK - you have freedom of thought.
You are welcome to advocate for capital punishment all you want - you have freedom of speech.

But if you attempt to practice capital punishment ex judicially - we will imprison you.

As for morality being linked to "natural selection", this can be [has been] taken all the way to the reeducation camps -- even the death camps -- historically. Take human sexuality. What is natural here?

So what? NIhilism has been taken to extremeties also. Every ideology has its extremists. Even centrism.

Again, we seem to be in two different discussions here. If you get cancer as a result of the "natural causes" rooted in human biology, and then die from it, there is no moral factor involved. With death by execution there is. Few will argue that getting cancer is immoral. It's just a part of nature. A natural disease. But allowing the state to execute us? Here there are all manner of conflicting assessments.

Why?!?!? You are just re-stating your double standard.

Why is death caused by humans about morality, but death caused by viruses, or bacteria, or organ failure, or immune system failure not about morality?

"It's just part of nature" is such a stupid argument. Murder is also just part of nature.

Morality is about the well-being of humans! Anything which threatens human well-being is about morality.

Yes, and if those ideas and abstract beliefs are ever and always "shape-shifting" historically and culturally and with respect to your own individual experiences, the consequences can be all over the board. Whereas gravity is the board throughout the universe.

Where did you study physics? Gravity has different strengths/magnitude in different locations in the universe.

If the consequences can be "all over the board" then surely one would expect murder laws to be all over the board also?

50% of countries have them.
50% of countries don't have them.

How come that's not the case?

Then [somehow] you are still able to convince yourself that morality is objective. Like gravity. Whereas, given my own assumptions above, that makes absolutely no sense to me.

Anything which has a measurable effect is objective.

Human longevity has increased.
Human poverty has decreased.
Human freedom has increased.
Human education has increased.
Human well-being has increased.

There are hundreds of categories on this website showing trends of improvement spannind centuries.

There is a driving force behind ALL of that change. What do you call that driving force? I call it morality.

Well, sure, if you merely assert that the mass behind your ideas is considerably more that the mass behind mine or others, that works great for you. But that is just to say that in asserting something is true it makes it true. That the mass behind your ideas about capital punishment becomes the default in any discussion about the morality of it.

Well what makes gravity true? Where is this thing you call "gravity"? Show it to me! I bet you can't!

I bet you that the best you can possibly do with respect to gravity is to show me its consequences, but you can never show me gravity.
I can show you the consequences of morality too.

Gravity is an invisible force with observable/measurable effects.
Morality is an invisible force with observable/measurable effects.

The perfect moral philosophy. Heads you win, tails they lose.

There's nothing "perfect" in any zero-sum game.

The perfect moral philosophy is heads - we win. Tails - we win again.

Setting ourselves up for success, rather than failure.

And, by an amazing coincidence, the mass behind your own objective morality will be around...forever?

Even after you die? Is there a God in your assumptions here?

Nothing will be around forever. Not even that which you call "objective reality".

If we adapt to survive in the conditions of near-maximum entropy.... we won't even exist in the current form we associate with ourselves.
But we would be very very close to being "one with the universe".

I have no idea what this has to do with the point I made. Other than that the driving force behind any moral "trend" is either in sync with your own "progressive" moral prejudices, or someone just doesn't get the nature of objective morality itself.

So what? Observe the prejudiced connotation with which you are using the word "prejudice".

If I have prejudices (denotationally) then I have prejudices - objectively. What must I do about that? That's how nature evolved me.

And, alas, our "failure to communicate" here just keeps expanding all the time.

I don't know about that. I understand how communciation works. As it happens I am an information theorist - so I have a non-trivial grasp on how communication works.

And if we are failing to communicate it's probably because you are failing to listen effectively.

[iambiguous]

Is Moral Relativism Really a Problem?
Psychological research suggests it is not
By Thomas Pölzler at Scientific American

When we first looked at our study’s results, Wright and I were stunned. In contrast to much previous research, the majority of participants seemed to deny moral objectivity. They rather dominantly tended toward individualist and culture-based forms of relativism (around 64 percent of all responses), as well as toward other forms of nonobjectivism.

In the disagreement task described above, for example, around half of the subjects answered that the people who affirmed and who denied the permissibility of abortion were both right. If the disagreeing parties were presented as members of different cultures, this answer attracted more than two thirds of responses.

And I suspect that is because, the deeper you go down in thinking about it, the more moral relativism just seems to make sense. All one has to assume further is that there is no God.

But then the gap here that most intrigues me. The one between those who agree that morality is relative historically, culturally and in terms of individual experiences, but don't take it so far as to think that they are "fractured and fragmented" like me.

It's as though they reject universal morality but are still unable to abandon a belief that given particular sets of circumstances morality is at least in the general vicinity of being objective.

Especially in regard to extreme behaviors. Surely, the sexual abuse of children must be objectively immoral. God or No God. Or genocide. Or things like this: https://abcnews.go.com/US/11-mass-deadl ... d=62494128

Yet in the absence of God how would philosophers come up with an argument able to establish that such things are necessarily immoral?

Together with initial subsequent studies, this research hence provides initial evidence for moral relativism being quite widespread. Today many Americans seem to regard the truth of moral judgments as relative to their own beliefs and/or the dominant beliefs of their culture. But this finding does not necessarily mean we should be concerned. Are widespread relativist attitudes indeed a problem, as Ryan and other commentators have suggested? Our findings so far do not yet indicate there is cause for concern.

"Relative to their own beliefs and/or the dominant beliefs of their culture."

So, are they supposing that while other individuals in other cultures may have conflicting moral value judgments, their own are at least superior to all others?

In regard to moral relativism, when then is there cause for concern? Perhaps it revolves around political power itself. Think the Second World War and the Cold War. In important respects, three very different assessments of what the world ought to be. Assessments deemed important enough to fight over.

But which assessment did in fact reflect the most rational and virtuous manner in which human beings should interact?

And what of those who abandon moral considerations altogether and make it all about "me, myself and I"? The "show me the money" global capitalists or the sociopaths.

What of their renditions of "moral relativism"?

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175121

[Belinda]

Skepdick wrote:

The objectivity of morality is measured by its effects. Exactly like gravity.

Sure, effects of causes can be measured, and causes may be attributed to events. But morality( in its meaning of 'the good') is a quality not a quantity. Your urge to stop a man whipping a horse is not quantifiable.

You may be a powerful man of high moral calibre who succeeds in improving standards of horse welfare, and in that case your moral calibre is quantifiable. But you will die some day, and morality itself ( 'the good') will continue at least as long as there are other men who have the urge to stop cruelty to horses.

[iambiguous]

"Morality is progressing/improving as it gets closer and closer to my own subjective prejudices."

Are there no moral positions that we can say apply to all men, everywhere, at any time?

Let's talk, just a bit, about slavery.

Slavery, buyin', sellin', usin' human beings as property, has been a feature of civilization from the start. Another feature has been, let's call it, a universal reluctance on the part of folks to be slaves (even the slaver, as he buys and sells, himself is reluctant to be a slave).

Is this universal reluctance just a subjective prejudice, or is it indicative of sumthin' else or more?

Yes, slavery often comes up here. Or something construed by most to be even more ghastly...like torturing a child to death. Surely, that must be inherently/necessarily immoral. Even in a No God world.

And, yes, maybe there is a secular argument that philosophers can devise to demonstrate it. I'm not arguing that there is not. Only that I have not myself come across a philosophical argument that is able to refute the conjecture that, "in the absence of God, all things are permitted".

Just look at human history. What hasn't been rationalized as okay by, say, one or another dogmatic ideologue. All the way up to genocide and gulags and death camps. Or by one or another sociopath who construes morality in a No God world as revolving entirely around his or her own self-gratification.

Where then is the philosophical -- scientific? -- argument that rebuts these frames of mind? Beyond, in the end, just insisting that "I know it is immoral".

And even if there are secular truths here, that still leaves the part where one has to be caught in order to be punished. No getting around the utility of an omniscient and omnipotent God here.

[henry quirk]

Love how you go off on your lil way, bein' all philosophical, never actually adressin' my post.

[henry quirk]

"Morality is progressing/improving as it gets closer and closer to my own subjective prejudices."

Are there no moral positions that we can say apply to all men, everywhere, at any time?

Let's talk, just a bit, about slavery.

Slavery, buyin', sellin', usin' human beings as property, has been a feature of civilization from the start. Another feature has been, let's call it, a universal reluctance on the part of folks to be slaves (even the slaver, as he buys and sells, himself is reluctant to be a slave).

Is this universal reluctance just a subjective prejudice, or is it indicative of sumthin' else or more?

[iambiguous]

Love how you go off on your lil way, bein' all philosophical, never actually adressin' my post.

Funny, I was just about to say the same thing about you. Addressing my points. But I suspect that some are inclined to construe others addressing their points as others agreeing with their points.

Me, I'm always the first to admit that all of my points in regard to moral and political and spiritual value judgments are just subjective opinions rooted existentially in dasein.

All I can do then is to seek out arguments that make me react, "wow, I didn't think of that!"

Enough to then change my mind about the nature of human morality itself.

Which, for me, with respect to abortion, revolves around the OP of this ILP thread:

If there is one thing I am clearly preoccupied with at ILP, it is relationship between moral and political value judgments and the existential tajectory of the lives that we live.

And, in almost every thread in which I post about this relationship, I eventually get around to this:

1] I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative. Abortion was a sin.
2] I was drafted into the Army and while on my "tour of duty" in Vietnam I happened upon politically radical folks who reconfigured my thinking about abortion. And God and lots of other things.
3] after I left the Army, I enrolled in college and became further involved in left wing politics. It was all the rage back then. I became a feminist. I married a feminist. I wholeheartedly embraced a woman's right to choose.
4] then came the calamity with Mary and John. I loved them both but their engagement was foundering on the rocks that was Mary's choice to abort their unborn baby.
5] back and forth we all went. I supported Mary but I could understand the points that John was making. I could understand the arguments being made on both sides. John was right from his side and Mary was right from hers.
6] I read William Barrett's Irrational Man and came upon his conjectures regarding "rival goods".
7] Then, over time, I abandoned an objectivist frame of mind that revolved around Marxism/feminism. Instead, I became more and more embedded in existentialism. And then as more years passed I became an advocate for moral nihilism.

This because in it are embedded two experiences that were of fundamental importance in shaping and then reconfiguring my own moral and political narratives.

Over the years, I have gone from an objectivist frame of mind [right vs. wrong, good vs. evil] to a way of thinking about morality in human interactions that basically revolves around moral nihilism.

And, then, in turn, this resulted in my tumbling down into a philosophical "hole" such that for all practical purposes, "I" became increasing more fragmented.

This hole:

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values "I" can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then "I" begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

In other words, I am no longer able to think of myself as being in sync with the "real me" in sync with "the right thing to do".

So, I decided to create this thread in order for others to at least make the attempt to describe their own value judgments existentially. Values as they became interwined over the course of their lives in "experiences, relationships and information, knowledge and ideas."

The part where theory is tested in practice out in particular contexts out in particular worlds.

This thread is not for those ever intent on providing us with "general descriptions" of human interactions. Interactions that are then described almost entirely using technical or academic language.

Instead, this thread is for trying to explain [to the best of your ability] why you think you came to value some behaviors over others. Linking both the experiences you had and the ideas that you came upon that shaped and molded your thinking in reacting to them.