creativesoul wrote:Immanuel Can wrote:creativesoul wrote:
You're arguing with your own imagination. I put forth the standard definition of morality.
I must have missed that. Humour me, and recite your "standard definition" again, please.
It's not mine, rather it's current convention's. I linked it in my last reply to you.
Go look for yourself...
I did.
And when I did, I found that it read,
"There does not seem to be much reason to think that a single definition of morality will be applicable to all moral discussions."
And yet, you assert that your "definition" is "standard." Your own source says that it cannot be taken that way. And I would argue that they are quite right: one's definition of the meaning of the word "morality" has to be attentive to the context of the discussion...that is, it must be offered in a way that is "provisional," a kind of "working definition" that two people can discuss and modify through discovery, not a pre-fixed point upon which no further discussion is possible.
In other words, not "standard." Debatable.
What is in question would be the following: What could sensibly, appropriately, and rightly be called "universal morality". That said, if you want to argue about the subjective/objective dichotomy, you'll have to go elsewhere. I have no use for such an emaciated (mis)conception.
Sociologically "universal," or legitimatively "universal"? It makes a difference.
If you say "sociologically," then there is indeed no universal agreement among cultures. However, that's trivial, and everybody with any sense already knows it, don't they? But if you say "legitimatively," then whether or not there is sociological disagreement is irrelevant to the question. Culture groups are often mistaken in their estimation of facts. Nothing is unusual about that. The facts exist anyway.
Let's pick a horse and ride it: do you want to talk about the sociological angle or the legitimative one?
I understand that the thread had the title. I've already explained the reasons for rejecting the objective/subjective dichotomy. When I first entered the thread, I clearly expressed what I'd be willing to argue... universal morality.
Oh. Well, you'll have to start a new thread, then. This one's on the "objective / subjective" controversy. See at the top. It's only fair we stick to what's provided, so far as we are able. It's not hard to start a separate strand if we want one.
...My assertion was that all known moralities are subject/relative to historical, cultural, and familial particulars. There are no exceptions to the contrary.
I've agreed with this, if what you mean is "the right or wrong ideas people happen have about what is right or wrong," but will disagree if you mean to imply, "therefore there is evidence there is no objective morality."
If you disagree then give an example of a code of conduct that isn't agreed upon, established by, and thus in some way or other peculiar to and directly influenced by that community.
IF (notice the hypothetical conditional) the moral code were established by the Supreme Being, it would not be relative to local culture and community. Their "relationship" with it would start and stop at the point of figuring out how to apply it in their local context: but the objective precept would not change thereby.
There's your example.
Yeah well, this discussion will most likely not get anywhere interesting.
Sorry you think so.
It seems you've got all caught up in historical philosophical mistakes such as the objective/subjective dichotomy.
Well, it IS, after all, the topic of the strand...
The objective/subjective dichotomy cannot take proper account of thought/belief, truth, and/or meaning.
Of course it can. It's the
subjective perspective that's vulnerable on that point.
Since it cannot take proper account of thought/belief, it cannot take proper account of anything that's ever been thought, believed, stated, and/or written...
Are you claiming that statement as
objectively true? Or are you just blowing smoke with that one?
I'm not arguing anything about this that or the other being subjective. I've no use for such ill-conceived notions.
Is that also objectively true?
An objective morality would require it's own separate existence from humankind which necessarily presupposes and unnecessarily multiplies moral agents/entities. Is it possible? Sure.
Oh, good...you figured it out.
I'd never argue against that logical possibility. However, there is no further discrimination possible. Logical possibility alone does not warrant belief, otherwise we'd believe everything logically possible, which is impossible due to self-contradiction. None-the-less...
No,
possibility does not. But
actuality does. And the point of entertaining a "possibility" is to recognize the potential that it just might turn out to be an "actuality." That is, so long as you mean the normal thing by "possible."
The bewitchment of language in action. It makes no sense to say that morality itself is anything other than the way we use the term "morality".
Sure it does, IF (again, notice the hypothetical conditional) "morality" is not merely a human product, but is actually grounded in an external reality or a super-human intelligence. Then how a particular community tends to "use" the term can be judged by its proximity to how accurately such "usage" conforms to the objective reality of morality.
As I already mentioned, the standard definition has been offered. I'm not making it up, I'm simply offering it up for the reader's convenience.
But as I noted above, your definition is not only not standard, but the authority to which you refer claims quite plainly that it
cannot be such. A "definition" it is: "standard," it is not. And a definition is always less "convenient" than "confounding" if it does not apply well to the required context.
The real problem is this: that I'm a Christian and you're evidently secular. The basic secular assumption is that whatever "morality" is, it can only be a human phenomenon, one generated among human beings and just as contingent as they are. The Christian assumption is that some moral language is like that, but that some can also be drawn based on the objective truth about what morality is, as it is established in the mind of, and by authority of God.
Consequently, so long as you insist that morality can ONLY be a contingent product of human activities, then it will all be subjective -- arbitrary -- unreal, except in a sociological sense. Even if it is ever made "universal," there will still be no authority by the raw, cruel power of political force behind it. There will be no such thing as really "legitimate" morality at all, and anyone breaking it will not be "immoral," but rather a force for some sort of liberation or chaos, whichever you prefer.
But if morality is established ultimately in the mind of God, then the truth about it is objective, and human articulations of it are merely contingent, sociologically-relative attempts to articulate the ultimate truth. The are all judged based on their proximity to the truth.
So admittedly, we see the ontological landscape differently. And if we allow it, this difference will inevitably make me seem perverse, superstitious and obdurate to you, and if I didn't think about it, would surely make you seem closed-off, amoral and indifferent-to-the-truth to me...
unless we first give each other credit for coming from different ontological suppositions, in which case we may still be able to have a conversation that goes somewhere you want to go.
It always takes a certain spirit of charity to persist with someone of different ontological suppositions. But there's no "bewitchment," just the perplexities of two different worldviews.