Is objective morality/justice imaginary?

Should you think about your duty, or about the consequences of your actions? Or should you concentrate on becoming a good person?

Moderators: AMod, iMod

User avatar
-1-
Posts: 2888
Joined: Thu Sep 07, 2017 1:08 am

Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?

Post by -1- »

Walker wrote: Sat Jun 16, 2018 12:37 pm
Ignorance of wrong doing is not a justifiable defense for a Komodo Dragon torturing babies, and such action will be punished with the reality of death to the dragon, which means that for Komodo Dragons, completely human constructs ultimately define reality with the power of irrevocable change, which is an objective situation.
There is no defence. There is no court.

And you seem to be implying that if the Komodo Dragon did not bite the head off the kitty, and committed no other wrongs, then the Komodo Dragon would live forever. Which is highly unlikely, but that opinion is in-line with Chistianity, which is a subjective world view with no supportive evidence other than the Bible. Nature gives tons more evidence to evolution than to Bible verification.

Personally speaking, I think Christianity and its religious accoutrements are pure garbage. A waste of time. You may think differently, walker, and I agree to disagree.
User avatar
Necromancer
Posts: 405
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 12:30 am
Location: Metropolitan-Oslo, Norway, Europe
Contact:

Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?

Post by Necromancer »

-1- wrote: Sat Jun 16, 2018 6:41 amYou are right, torturing kittens for fun is wrong.

But the problem of subjectivity is that "wrong" is a completely human construct. To a Komodo Dragon torturing kittens is not wrong, because the Komodo Dragon has no concept of what makes something wrong.

The subjectiveness of quality is not restricted to difference or no difference between human and human; the subjectiveness of quality can be expanded, and ought to be expanded, to inter-species and inter-vivality units.

Biting a live kitten's head off is wrong for a human to do; but not for a, let's say, hippopotamus.
No animals torture their prey! They are predators and they kill their prey, for sure, probably as effective as possible. The animals are in a sense kind creatures and kill to eat, mainly, or defend their habitat or offspring or other.

Torturing is a human invention. Evil is the doing of human beings.
User avatar
-1-
Posts: 2888
Joined: Thu Sep 07, 2017 1:08 am

Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?

Post by -1- »

Necromancer wrote: Sat Jun 16, 2018 7:48 pm No animals torture their prey! They are predators and they kill their prey, for sure, probably as effective as possible. The animals are in a sense kind creatures and kill to eat, mainly, or defend their habitat or offspring or other.

Torturing is a human invention. Evil is the doing of human beings.
Agreed.

Torture is applied when a person suffers from sadistic personality disorder, or else when they want the tortured person to give up a secret, information, or else as retribution.

I don't think either is evil. But it looks evil, it smells evil, it certainly feels like evil.

Animals are not evil. I agree. They don't torture, because they can't be curious about information. But some animals, chimpanzees to be sure, are cruel in their social climbing in the pack, and some other animals are capable of real, cruel, anger, which they discharge by hurting other animals. Such are camels, and bears, for some examples.

So torture as retribution and as method of control does exist in the animal world.

Cats go beyond that one more step. Cats will half-kill their prey, then play with them.

Cats are humans too.

Actually, the flesh of a tortured vertebrae just prior to death tastes better than regularly slaughtered meat. It is full of that chemical that the body produces naturally which acts as a pain reducer. I don't know the name of it. Athletes get high on it, too, on their own, because any sort of trauma to the body causes this chemical to be produced in quantities in the body. A hard training or work-out, or twisting your arms out of their joint-sockets both do the trick.

So maybe cats learn it from elder, mature, experienced cats to torture their prey before eating it, to make it taste better. But I pray that that no evil is in play in that play with the prey.
Walker
Posts: 14280
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?

Post by Walker »

-1- wrote: Sat Jun 16, 2018 6:33 pm
Walker wrote: Sat Jun 16, 2018 12:37 pm
Ignorance of wrong doing is not a justifiable defense for a Komodo Dragon torturing babies, and such action will be punished with the reality of death to the dragon, which means that for Komodo Dragons, completely human constructs ultimately define reality with the power of irrevocable change, which is an objective situation.
There is no defence. There is no court.

And you seem to be implying that if the Komodo Dragon did not bite the head off the kitty, and committed no other wrongs, then the Komodo Dragon would live forever. Which is highly unlikely, but that opinion is in-line with Chistianity, which is a subjective world view with no supportive evidence other than the Bible. Nature gives tons more evidence to evolution than to Bible verification.

Personally speaking, I think Christianity and its religious accoutrements are pure garbage. A waste of time. You may think differently, walker, and I agree to disagree.
Well, after you created the absurd fantasy interpretation of a Komodo Dragon living forever, then subsequently disagreed with your own creation, then attempted to link this rickety, conflicted structure to religion in some kind of negative way, I sort of drifted …

If someone finds the dead babies and pins cause to Puff the Magic Komodo Dragon, there will be vigilante courts and some natural justice descend, since even folks lost in thought are elements contributing to the tides of the natural world.
User avatar
-1-
Posts: 2888
Joined: Thu Sep 07, 2017 1:08 am

Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?

Post by -1- »

Walker wrote: Sun Jun 17, 2018 1:14 am
Well, after you created the absurd fantasy interpretation of a Komodo Dragon living forever, then subsequently disagreed with your own creation, then attempted to link this rickety, conflicted structure to religion in some kind of negative way, I sort of drifted …
It was you actually, who talked first about the defence of the Komodo Dragon, and how it is guilty of evil...

But you must also see that a person does not always need an opponent to develop an argument, and to eventually defeat himself in it in hand-to-hand combat thus bringing himself to a jubilant victory.
User avatar
HexHammer
Posts: 3354
Joined: Sat May 14, 2011 8:19 pm
Location: Denmark

Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?

Post by HexHammer »

Atheer wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 1:32 pmIs objective morality imaginary?
Yes and no, if you have high intellect then it can in very very rare cases be objective, but that's is almost impossible to enforce, since there are political winds, compulsions, feelings involved etc.
Atheer
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat May 12, 2018 1:29 pm

Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?

Post by Atheer »

Let's assume for the moment that the domain of morality is the possible and its objectives are valuable even though they will never be fully achieved due to the inability to control natural causes that affect humans/animals. This might not be objective morality, but also not totally subjective/imaginary.

That assumed, we might say that morality is about making the world as good as possible by increasing the well-being of the worse-off as much as possible and increasing the well-being of everyone as long as that increase is not at the expense of the worse-off.
TimeSeeker
Posts: 2866
Joined: Tue Sep 11, 2018 8:42 am

Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?

Post by TimeSeeker »

The concept of objective morality is flawed because the concept of objectivity is flawed. Even in physics there is no such thing as 'objective observer'. There is a frame of reference which is ascribed certain, fixed properties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_of_reference

Here is the problem with the notion of a 'reference frame': reference in respect to WHAT? That is why it is known as 'general relativity. There is nothing to ground objectivity in either. Everything is relative to the speed of light which is ASSUMED constant.

What language would an 'objective' observer speak? What cultural background would they come from? What lived experiences would they share with the rest of humanity? If all they rely on is facts (information) to make decisions - then they are ( in practice) an algorithm. Go ahead and write the code then?

Right only exists when juxtaposed with wrong. And in human terms there is only one absolute I can think of - avoid extinction.

And in solidarity and cooperation morality emerges. No harm. We can define it as we go along...
trokanmariel
Posts: 708
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2018 3:35 am

Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?

Post by trokanmariel »

Replication makes magic real, which means that objective morality can co-exist alongside objective morality not existing
Post Reply