I appreciate the good questions, Gary, and very much like the way you put them. I want to begin with what I consider the heart of the question, then come back to your other questions.
Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Jul 05, 2020 3:16 am
When you say that you only recognize values that are related to a goal and that a human being's ultimate objective is the success of his or her own individual life, I assume you don't approve of stealing or murder in the name of advancing one's particular life or being more successful.
It's not a matter of what I or anyone else approves. You have put your finger on the issue without identifying it. Stealing and murder cannot possibly be good for an individual, because nothing can be of real value to a human being at the expense of another human being. But the issue is not social. Stealing and murder are not wrong because of the harm they might do to others, but the harm they do to the perpetrator. If one could steal or murder without harming anyone else, they would still be wrong.
To live, a human being must produce, by his own effort, what his nature requires, from food to knowledge, and to evade that requirement is a defiance of one's own nature. A human being, by nature, is a producer, not a parasite and not a predator. It is impossible to violate one's own nature without incurring psychological damage, especially the consciousness that one has failed to be what his nature requires him to be, and that the life he is living is as something less than a human being.
Now I'll address your other questions.
Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Jul 05, 2020 3:16 am
Maybe so but I think we all have a sense of what is morally good and what is morally bad, and though we may disagree on particulars, most of us probably share at least some common ground. I assume you still think that some actions are morally good and others morally bad. I think many of us will agree that murder is morally bad, wouldn't you agree? I assume most of us would think that living peacefully and not doing unjust harm to others is morally good. Would you not agree?
Human beings are conscious of right and wrong. It is not, "moral," right and wrong, but what is appropriate to the life of a rational human being, (right), and what is inappropriate for that kind of being (wrong). That right and wrong does not depend at all on what most people agree or disagree with. Human nature is what it is, and the kind of behavior that is right for that kind of being is determined by reality, not anyone's opinion.
I disagree that, "most of us would think that living peacefully and not doing unjust harm to others is ... good." Most Americans like to believe that, but will happily send their young people off to kill people and destroy their property and die and destroy themselves doing it and then pride themselves on their patriotism, as though it were a virtue. Look at the news, the riots, the destruction of property, the intentional fomenting of irrational violence. Look at the world and the violence and oppression everywhere.
Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Jul 05, 2020 3:16 am
To be clear, I'm defining murder in the most generic sense as "unjust killing" and stealing as taking something that rightfully belongs to someone else against their will. Again, people may disagree over particulars but general definitions seem to at least exist.
I knew what you meant by murder and stealing, of course. The only "just" killing would be in self-defense or defense of one's loved ones and one's property. All other killing is always wrong, and all stealing is wrong, because it is always the attempt to have what one has not earned and does not deserve and at someone else's expense.
