moral relativism

[Advocate]

Ethics is a subjective idea as a whole (contingent on priorities, Not arbitrary) but within the boundary of things which are properly ethical subjects at all, universals can be found. If someone doesn't value survival, their opinion is not ethically relevant because it is counterproductive to all other goals, and is amoral - outside the boundaries of morality.

[DPMartin]

And we see chaos exist in the world and humans still existing through it.

its not chaos, to you maybe, but its agreements kept, not kept, or there was no agreement in the first place, so it was ok to take advantage.

Chaos is opposition and we see opposition occur in the world and people still existing through it as agents of said chaos.

opposition is rebellion, or self defense, or anything of that nature, chaos is understood as no order at all.

[henry quirk]

I'd hoped for more substance and less script.

Oh well...

-----

How are your moral convictions -- as convictions -- regarding bazookas and abortion really any different from hers?

As I say: I don't really know Rand's positions on bazookas or abortion. I can't speak on how we differ or align. Tell me, since you know her better, what were her views?

As for her, as you might say, authoritarian streak, and her demands everyone toe her line. I don't do that. As I say: I don't care if you hate bazookas and love abortions. You're wrong about both, of course; your thinkin' on both is dumb and dis-eased. But you're a free will, you're free to be wrong and immoral (and to live with the consequences).

You live in a community where in "owning" yourself, you conclude that buying and selling bazookas is a "natural right". But another Deist in that community argues that in "owning" herself she concludes that buying and selling bazookas is not a "natural right", but an irrational frame of mind. Same God, same access to Reason. But completely conflicting conclusions.

Let's be accurate...

I belong to me; my life, liberty, and property are my own. A woman, who happens to share my view on God, believes that certain properties ought not be owned. Okay, so what? She's wrong. Am I supposed to do sumthin' about it?

And you may not be inclined to police the world, but in your community those who, in "owning" themselves and in rejecting the right of private citizens to buy and sell bazookas -- or any gums at all -- may be in a position of power to pass laws that take yours away.

Oh, there are wrong-headed people like yourself everywhere, and most of 'em, it sometimes seems, are either agents of The State or supporters of The State. Okay, so what? Legislation, on the local, state, and federal levels is crafted and bought and sold regularly. Aside from bein' aware that busy-bodies just banned my bazooka, my shotgun, my insurance, my incandescent bulbs, and navigating around those bans (scofflawery), what should I do? Wade into the mix and try to buy my own legislation? Shrug my shoulders, knuckle under, and hand over all the forbidden items? I'm not inclined to do either. No, I'll just keep on doing exactly as I choose, quietly, and leave those weak minds and busy bodies to their machinations.

So, you can insist that your moral convictions here are just about debate and conversation but out in the world that we live in it can get considerably more existential.

Yep. I decided long ago to stay informed about and stay away from such shenanigans.

Right, like those who are utterly opposed to buying and selling bazookas can't frame their own convictions using precisely the same argument. God or No God.

Not if they recognize and respect natural rights of all, they can't. If, however, like the murderer, the slaver, the rapist, the thief, they willfully choose to ignore that other men have the same natural rights as they, themselves, have, they can cobble together any old rationale to hang on their wrong-headedness, insanity, and immorality.

What then? Flip the coin?

You mean how do we decide who's right? That's askin' the free man to parley with the slaver. There's no accommodation or compromise between them that can favor the free man. No, the free man tells the slaver to bugger off then defends himself when the slaver doesn't take no for an answer, and, if possible, he does it with a bazooka.

I suggest to those on both ends of the political spectrum that the spectrum itself is comprised of individuals out in particular worlds understood in particular ways who come to embrace their own value judgments as the subjective/intersubjective embodiment of dasein. As political prejudices derived existentially from the life that they lived.

Yeah, I know.

Me, I say man is a free will with a right to himself. He can choose to recognize all men are as he is, or he can choose to see others as less than him and undeserving of the same respect he expects for himself. Political prejudice, the whole sphere of politics, is the result of men choosin' to get a leg up on those they deem less.

A life such that, had any number of experiences been different, they might well be in here arguing exactly the opposite of what they believe now.

Personality, identity, isn't cobbled together from experience. Experiences can inform, temper or break, but they do not create a person.

how do you reconcile your God's Reality, with the reality that you as a mere mortal among billions of others have come to accept?

It's the same Reality: a deterministic universe within which free wills with natural rights live.

How is that not a manifestation of dasein?

It's not. It's billions of folks, each makin' the singular moral choice -- will I recognize the other guy as his own, or will I try and get a leg up on him? -- over and over and over.

And what on earth does your God's Reality have to do with your own personal assessment of bazookas?

You mean: what on Earth does Reality -- free wills in a deterministic universe -- have to do with my right to own property? Everything. Life, liberty, property are synonymous. Deny or hobble one and you deny or hobble the others.

Especially if others believe in the same Deist God but believe the opposite of what you do about bazookas.

Anyone -- deist, theist, agnostic, atheist -- who hates bazookas and refuses to own one or to associate with those that do is A-OK by me. Anyone -- deist, theist, agnostic, atheist -- who, becuz he hates bazookas believes he has a right to take mine is my enemy.

So, apparently you "just know" this about your God and His Reality.

No. What I know is no different than what you know (about yourself), that bein' I belong to me; my life, liberty, and property are mine. What I recognize is no different than what you recognize: all other men have the same claim to themselves as I have. What I surmise and believe is a Prime Mover created a deterministic universe with self-possessed free wills livin' in it.

You have absolutely no way in which to actually demonstrate that this is the case,

Oh, I disagree. As I say (short version), as there are free wills in an otherwise deterministic universe, this is a clear evidence of a Prime Mover.

There's just what existentially you have come to believe "in your head" is true about "natural rights".

No, a man's inalienable right to his life, liberty, and property is evident to everyone (even you).

The bottom line being that what you do believe is true "in your head" allows you to anchor your Self in The Right Thing To Do and it is this psychological defense mechanism that sustains your own comfort and consolation.

You mean: as man knows he is his own, and as it's almost impossible to not recognize other men are as he is, he is responsible for his violations of them. This is neither a comfort or consolation: a man is responsible for what he does.

And who really knows what your God's Reality is then?

As I say: Valhalla would be nice, but I suspect there ain't nuthin' but oblivion for any of us. Sorry.

The implication being that perhaps He is like all the other Gods.

Nonexistent? That's a possibility, yeah.

If your agendas are not in sync...Judgment Day?

How's it go? It rains on rich and poor alike? Rephrased: it's oblivion for good and evil alike.

But that is just one more thing you have absolutely no understanding of at all about this "private and personal" deist god of yours.

"private and personal" deist god: high-larious.

You figured out what was Natural because you figured out how to "own" yourself and that allows you to feel content. End of story.

I know, as you do about yourself, I am my own and I am responsible for what myself and what I do, full stop.

Just like all the others here and elsewhere who figured out it was their own God and their own ideology and their own philosophy and their authoritarian dogmas that give them access to good over evil.

just between you and me: they're all wrong...but, so what?

countless other secular narratives with countless other political agendas can use the same reasoning that you do to arrive at their own profoundly conflicting conclusions

Not if they recognize the natural rights of all, they can't.

the One True Path to bazookas.

You mean my inalienable right to my property, yeah?

And that works fine until, in any particular community, others don't share your thinking about buying and selling bazookas because any number of new contexts can arise such that if bazookas were widely owned [and used] the consequences could be...devastating? So, some [deists or not] organize politically to make the buying and the selling of bazookas [or tanks or grenades or military armaments] illegal.

Scofflawery it is then. Just like when bump stocks were banned and pretty much no one turned any over. Works for me.

your own conclusions really do reflect what is "naturally" rational.

No, I know what everyone knows about themselves...

*I am a free will with a right to my life, liberty, and property.

*I recognize other men are free wills with a right to their lives, liberties, and properties.

*I surmise a Prime Mover is responsible for the whole schmear.

The first two are the basis of morality: the third is just guesswork.

You can't make the arguments the other side raise go away

When it comes to matters of natural rights, I already have, just above this line.

the One True Path in regard to abortion too

As a person belongs to himself, and as a lill bitty baby in mama is a person, mama has no right to off him for convenience.

It ever and always stops at "what you think" here and now.

Gosh, but that the blackest of kettles callin' the pot black!

You're not out to give a sermon on abortion but if in your community it becomes a capital crime and a woman you love has one...do you turn her in?

That's rich: I, who hates The State, who will not cooperate with agents of The State, turn someone over to The State.

Ask me what I would actually do.

This...

Man is the proof. In a determined universe, he's the wildcard. As a free will, he starts, ends, and bends causal chains. He is a point of creative power. He does what no other matter, or life, can: he self-directs, self-relies, and is self-responsible. He reasons, chooses, and considers consequence. There's nuthin' about a blind, deterministic interplay of forces that could have brought him into existence.

...actually is what you believe constitutes proof that of all the many, many, many Gods there are for mere mortals to choose from, your own private and personal deist God really is The One!!!

It's an evidence that convinces me there's a Prime Mover.

Again, though, out in the real world, in actual flesh and blood human communities, laws will be passed and enforced regarding bazookas and abortions such that, while you might prefer to keep it all confined to "discussing and debating" it here, and in not persuading and "converting" others to think like you do, you'll have no choice but to join in or risk seeing what you believe shunted aside and the other side prevailing. Bazookas are outlawed, abortion on demand is the community standard.

No, I don't have to join in. Bazookas already, as far as I know, are forbidden to own privately, and abortion on demand is already the standard in many places. With the first, as I say, if I want one and find one for sale, I'll have it (legislator-thieves and their supporters be damned). With the second: there's nuthin' I can do about women murderin' their kids except not associate with 'em and leave 'em to the consequences. As I say scofflawery and mindin' my own business.

you are basically suggesting here that, in any given community, they are right from their side, you are right from your side.

No, flat out, they're wrong. But, if they leave me be, so what?

So it comes down to who can acquire the actual political power to enact the laws that either permit the buying and selling of bazookas or laws that prohibit it. Laws that permit abortions or laws that prohibit them.

No, it comes down to how clever I can be navigatin' around their thievin' legislation. As for abortion, like I say, it's common and there's nuthin' I can do about it except say it's murder (don't worry, just cuz R v W is out baby murder will still flourish in all the places it does now and falter in all the places it does now...quit sweatin' it).

how is "moderation, negotiation and compromise" not a legitimate approach to it?

Democracy...

Please, as you like, turn your fate and fortunes over to the mob.

I won't.

But you do seem to admit that you may well be wrong "here and now" about buying and selling bazookas and about having an abortion.

Right?

Oh, sure. Just prove a man is not his own and that his life, liberty, and property are not inalienably his, and I'll disavow bazookas, give up my shotgun, start a free-ride-to-abortion-clinic service, and kiss your ass...with tongue.

Good luck with that.

[henry quirk]

thread is gettin' cold, guy

you comin' back or what?

[Belinda]

Henry Quirk wrote:

there's nuthin' I can do about women murderin' their kids except not associate with 'em and leave 'em to the consequences. As I say scofflawery and mindin' my own business.

There is something you can do about "women murderin' their kids" by elective abortions. You can support initiatives to provide free child care to single mothers. You can support policing against incest, and rape You can help to improve child education so that young persons don't feel obliged to have sex at a young age, and understand about contraception.

[henry quirk]

You can support initiatives to provide free child care to single mothers.

No. I will, however, as asked, tell young folks to keep it zipped up and keep your legs crossed, and I'll explain why.

You can support policing against incest, and rape

No. I will, however, as asked, teach youngsters how to shoot and how best to unman an attacker.

You can help to improve child education so that young persons don't feel obliged to have sex at a young age, and understand about contraception.

No. I will however, as asked, affirm what every kid already knows (but get hoodwinked into believin' otherwise), that bein', you are your own and you're not a piece of meat and life is difficult enough without, animal-like, you grindin' in the dark cuz you're bored or lonely and babies are serious business so don't make one till you want him and can take care of him.

And, of course, I'll tell 'em, if asked, abortion is always the killin' of a person, and most of the time abortion is flat out murder.

How does all that work for you, B?

[iambiguous]

I'd hoped for more substance and less script.

Oh well...

Right, like here too, given your own private and personal understanding of the deist God's Reality, only you grasp Rationally and Naturally how this distinction is made. Indeed, noting any God's Reality is going to be subsumed in one or another Scripture. Otherwise, why the capital letter Reality?

How are your moral convictions -- as convictions -- regarding bazookas and abortion really any different from hers? Aside from your Reason being derived from God's Reality and her own Reason being derived from a No God "metaphysical" philosophy rooted in the objective Self?

As I say: I don't really know Rand's positions on bazookas or abortion. I can't speak on how we differ or align. Tell me, since you know her better, what were her views?

Over and again: my point does not revolve around what her point was in regard to guns and bazookas and tanks but that she insisted that philosophically there was in turn a Reality. And that all rational and virtuous individuals were obligated to be in sync with her Reality.

Now, you've got God's Reality instead. You've got your own Rational and Natural convictions regarding the buying and selling of guns and bazookas and tanks. Again, though, how, for all practical purposes, are you not interchangeable with her here? You just use different foundations to rationalize your own arrogant and contemptuous assumptions.

But, you insist, that's not the case:

As for her, as you might say, authoritarian streak, and her demands everyone toe her line. I don't do that. As I say: I don't care if you hate bazookas and love abortions. You're wrong about both, of course; your thinkin' on both is dumb and dis-eased. But you're a free will, you're free to be wrong and immoral (and to live with the consequences).

You really don't get just how preposterous this is, do you?!! Like her you insist that anyone who doesn't share your own moral and political convictions are wrong. Not only that but they are "dumb" and actually "diseased"!

But: she cared about pointing that out to others and you don't. She "excommunicated" those who dared to think other than she did about everything under the sun, but you are content merely to call them diseased dummies.

The objectivist "mind"!!!!

On the other hand, it may well be just your luck that we really do live in a wholly determined universe. Why? Because then you were never able to not think these ridiculous thoughts. Or post them here. You're off the hook!!

You live in a community where in "owning" yourself, you conclude that buying and selling bazookas is a "natural right". But another Deist in that community argues that in "owning" herself she concludes that buying and selling bazookas is not a "natural right", but an irrational frame of mind. Same God, same access to Reason. But completely conflicting conclusions.

Let's be accurate...

I belong to me; my life, liberty, and property are my own. A woman, who happens to share my view on God, believes that certain properties ought not be owned. Okay, so what? She's wrong. Am I supposed to do sumthin' about it?

See! There you go again!! As a fellow Deist participating in God's Reality, she is permitted her own understanding of "owning" herself in regard to bazookas and tanks. But if her own political prejudices rooted existentially in dasein are not entirely in sync with your understanding? She's wrong!!

You just steer clear of probing the part about dasein because you have way too much accumulated "comfort and consolation" at stake here. Just the thought that your own Rational and Natural truths -- ontological? teleological? -- aren't derived from the Real Me wholly intertwined in The Right Thing To Do might cause the whole thing to come unraveled. As it did for me. In fact, that's no doubt why you doubled down here psychologically by taking a leap of faith to God. Just to feel that much more confident in connecting your own titantic I itself to a Reality, the Reality.

And you may not be inclined to police the world, but in your community those who, in "owning" themselves and in rejecting the right of private citizens to buy and sell bazookas -- or any gums at all -- may be in a position of power to pass laws that take yours away.

Oh, there are wrong-headed people like yourself everywhere, and most of 'em, it sometimes seems, are either agents of The State or supporters of The State. Okay, so what? Legislation, on the local, state, and federal levels is crafted and bought and sold regularly. Aside from bein' aware that busy-bodies just banned my bazooka, my shotgun, my insurance, my incandescent bulbs, and navigating around those bans (scofflawery), what should I do? Wade into the mix and try to buy my own legislation? Shrug my shoulders, knuckle under, and hand over all the forbidden items? I'm not inclined to do either. No, I'll just keep on doing exactly as I choose, quietly, and leave those weak minds and busy bodies to their machinations.

Of course they are thinking the same thing about your own machinations. But if they prevail you may or may not be able to do exactly as you choose. At least in regard to bazookas. My point is that you are granting them the right to "own" themselves and come after your bazookas as long as, when they do, you can shout at them that they are wrong and dumb and diseased.

Right, like those who are utterly opposed to buying and selling bazookas can't frame their own convictions using precisely the same argument. God or No God.

Not if they recognize and respect natural rights of all, they can't.

Come on, Henry, that's exactly what they are hurtling back at you! Only their "owned" understanding of natural rights assumes that it is irrational for private citizens to be permitted to buy and sell bazookas and tanks and grenades and mines and IEDs and mortar rounds and rockets.

I can picture you both eyeball to eyeball:
"You're wrong!"
"No, you're wrong!"
"You're dumb!!"
"No, you're dumb!!"
"You're diseased!!!"
"No, you're diseased!!!"

If, however, like the murderer, the slaver, the rapist, the thief, they willfully choose to ignore that other men have the same natural rights as they, themselves, have, they can cobble together any old rationale to hang on their wrong-headedness, insanity, and immorality.

Again, though, these folks are all claiming they have a natural right to do what they do as well. That you are the wrong-headed, insane, immoral piece of shit.

After all, the world is bursting at the seams with your ilk. And not just in Moscow or among the Supremes.

What then? Flip the coin?

You mean how do we decide who's right? That's askin' the free man to parley with the slaver. There's no accommodation or compromise between them that can favor the free man. No, the free man tells the slaver to bugger off then defends himself when the slaver doesn't take no for an answer, and, if possible, he does it with a bazooka.

Please, we know how that is decided, don't we? We assume that you are a slave to your own authoritarian dogmas and that we are all necessarily wrong if we don't share them. Nothing -- nothing -- can possibly be clearer than that here.

Intellectually, in my view, you are weak. You need these fierce dogmas in order to anchor the Real Me -- your soul? -- to The Right Thing To Do. A run-of-the-mill objectivist. Only [admittedly] I was surprised that you would choose to include a God, the God as part of the anchor. Religion is a particularly telling component of objectivism. However "distant" your God may be, he's still "out there" ready and waiting with a Reality.

I suggest to those on both ends of the political spectrum that the spectrum itself is comprised of individuals out in particular worlds understood in particular ways who come to embrace their own value judgments as the subjective/intersubjective embodiment of dasein. As political prejudices derived existentially from the life that they lived.

Yeah, I know.

Me, I say man is a free will with a right to himself. He can choose to recognize all men are as he is, or he can choose to see others as less than him and undeserving of the same respect he expects for himself. Political prejudice, the whole sphere of politics, is the result of men choosin' to get a leg up on those they deem less.

Okay, sure, we can just agree to disagree about dasein. I can only point out that down through the ages there have been hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of One True Path moral narratives and political agendas just like yours. God and No God. You can't all be right [if any of you are] and yet to a Path, every single one of you insist that you are.

Come on, stop and think -- really think -- about that. What are the odds that the One True Path is yours? And that's just the paths on this planet. And not counting all the hundreds and hundreds of additional Paths still to come.

Bottom line: Only a truly weak-minded individual would not admit to him or herself that my point is not worth considering.

A life such that, had any number of experiences been different, they might well be in here arguing exactly the opposite of what they believe now.

Personality, identity, isn't cobbled together from experience. Experiences can inform, temper or break, but they do not create a person.

That's what the objectivist minds tell themselves in order to make all of the truly vast and varied historical, cultural and experiential social narratives just vanish into thin air. Nope, there's God's Reality and once you figure out what that is you earn the right to call all of those who don't think exactly like you do wrong and dumb and diseased.

After all, that's what any number of conflicting objectivists here will tell us about you, right?

how do you reconcile your God's Reality, with the reality that you as a mere mortal among billions of others have come to accept?

It's the same Reality: a deterministic universe within which free wills with natural rights live.

Right. There's God's capital letter Reality in regard to bazookas and abortions. And there are all of us mere mortals with our existential lower-case realties. Except for you. Your Reality here is also upper-case. You are just unable to explain exactly why this is the case other than in insisting that it is.

How is that not a manifestation of dasein?

It's not. It's billions of folks, each makin' the singular moral choice -- will I recognize the other guy as his own, or will I try and get a leg up on him? -- over and over and over.

Again, you're just like all the rest of us in regard to things like guns and abortions. You embodied a trajectory of personal experiences that predisposed you to one set of political prejudices rather than another. But you "just know" that you are actually the "sole exception" to that. Well, other than all the other hardcore objectivists who insist the same thing. Only it's not what you think is Rational and Natural about guns and abortions but what they think instead.

Especially if others believe in the same Deist God but believe the opposite of what you do about bazookas.

Anyone -- deist, theist, agnostic, atheist -- who hates bazookas and refuses to own one or to associate with those that do is A-OK by me. Anyone -- deist, theist, agnostic, atheist -- who, becuz he hates bazookas believes he has a right to take mine is my enemy.

Back to that. Others are permitted to disagree with you about this. To "own" themselves and to hate bazookas. Even as fellow Deists subscribing to the same belief in God's Reality. But that automatically makes them wrong. And your enemy. And if they organize with others to take your bazooka away it is, what, perfectly natural for you to use that bazooka to blow them away?

You have absolutely no way in which to actually demonstrate that this is the case...

Oh, I disagree. As I say (short version), as there are free wills in an otherwise deterministic universe, this is a clear evidence of a Prime Mover.

Right, that actually constitutes evidence for you. You believe it, therefore it's true. You "just know" that somehow the human brain came to possess autonomy. Why? Because you "just know" that this can all be connected back to the "Prime Mover". And not the Prime Movers/Gods that others -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions -- subscribe to. No way. Just yours and yours alone. The lower-case deist God creating the Reality. The one Reality that allowed you to "follow the dictates of Reason and Nature" to, among other things, owning bazookas and not being wrong, dumb or diseased about abortion.

The bottom line being that what you do believe is true "in your head" allows you to anchor your Self in The Right Thing To Do and it is this psychological defense mechanism that sustains your own comfort and consolation.

You mean: as man knows he is his own, and as it's almost impossible to not recognize other men are as he is, he is responsible for his violations of them. This is neither a comfort or consolation: a man is responsible for what he does.

No, I mean: "The bottom line being that what you do believe is true 'in your head' [about this too] allows you to anchor your Self in The Right Thing To Do and it is this psychological defense mechanism that sustains your own comfort and consolation."

How does that change?

At least admit to yourself that your fierce attachment to dogma here might be related to what are called "psychological defense mechanisms" by many. It's not what you believe but that what you believe is the source of all your comforting and consoling smugness. In other words, allowing you to call those who don't think exactly like you do here dumb and diseased.

And who really knows what your God's Reality is then?

As I say: Valhalla would be nice, but I suspect there ain't nuthin' but oblivion for any of us. Sorry.

Again, all you are acknowledging is that your God encompasses a Reality that you are not really privy to at all. You merely assume that your own sense of Reality in regard to guns and abortion on this side of the grave is such that if others don't share it they are wrong, dumb and diseased. And that "somehow" your Reality and His Reality are ultimately connected.

The implication being that perhaps He is like all the other Gods.

Nonexistent? That's a possibility, yeah.

But what is not a possibility is that if others believe they "own" themselves just as you do and as such believe that owning buying and selling bazookas is irrational and unnatural while having an abortion is rational and natural then God or No God they are inherently, necessarily wrong?

And I'm still waiting for demonstrative evidence of this other than you just insisting that they are because of the circular logic embedded in your definitions and deductions here.

If your agendas are not in sync...Judgment Day?

How's it go? It rains on rich and poor alike? Rephrased: it's oblivion for good and evil alike.

Only you have already admitted that you don't know this for sure about your God and your religion. Suppose there is a Judgment Day. Suppose it's not oblivion. Then it would seem incumbent upon you to at least make the attempt to provide evidence that your convictions regarding guns and abortion are true beyond your assumption that given the pro/con arguments here...

https://gun-control.procon.org/

And here:

https://abortion.procon.org/

...your moral narrative and political agenda necessarily prevails. Why? Because it is in sync with your God's Reality in sync further with your capacity to follow the dictates of Reason and Nature.

But that is just one more thing you have absolutely no understanding of at all about this "private and personal" deist god of yours.

"private and personal" deist god: high-larious.

Yet you yourself have noted that just as there are many flavors of Libertarianism, there are various interpretations regarding the Deist God. Or, given your frame of mind, the lower-case deist God. Either there is an objective understanding of Him or each individual Deist/deist has his or her own personal understanding of Him.

the One True Path to bazookas.

You mean my inalienable right to my property, yeah?

Again, the objectivist minds love to use words like "inalienable rights". What makes them inalienable? The fact that "in their head" they believe it. Meanwhile out in the world we live in rights are political. In any given community, down through the ages historically and across the globe culturally, guns can be confiscated, abortions can be prohibited. Either because those in power command it, the community accepts it as essentially moral or in democracies conflicting moral agendas are voted in and out.

With you though what makes your own moral dogmas inalienable is somehow connected "in your head" to your God's Reality and somehow connected to your own presumed capacity to assume that in following the dictates of Reason and Nature there is ever and always only One True Path: yours.

I doubt that even you grasp how the two are intertwined because grasping that is not the point. No, the point is in sustaining it to the grave. Why? Because it's that frame of mind that soothes the soul.

You won't go there though because in your head you have to make it all about "the principle of the thing". Yes, you are comforted and consoled thinking what you do about guns and abortions...it embodies the Real Me in sync with The Right Thing To Do. But all that "psychological stuff" is for, what, "girlie men"? You and your distant God are the only real deal here, right?

You are the One True Path. When, instead, from my frame of mind, you are just one more run-of-the-mill moral, political and spiritual objectivist. Millions and millions and millions of them around the globe. Facsimile minds preaching the same dreary sermon: "one of us" vs. "one of them".

[henry quirk]

As usual, there was a lotta script to wade thru, stuff I've responded to multiple times already: I salvaged what was worth commentin' on and ditched the rest.

-----

only you grasp Rationally and Naturally how this distinction is made

In this conversation between us, I'm the only one who can. Consider, you -- supposedly -- can't even tell the difference, or pick the good, between baby killin' and baby preservin'. By your own admission you're flummoxed by havin' to pick one or the other. If true (and I don't believe it is...your reaction to the possible nullification of R v W is tellin') then you're absolutely worthless as a measure of morality or truth or plain old fact.

she insisted that philosophically there was in turn a Reality. And that all rational and virtuous individuals were obligated to be in sync with her Reality.

I'm with her on the first: there is a reality, the Reality, but I don't share her conviction (if indeed it was her conviction) that rational and virtuous folks are obligated to be in sync with her, or my, reality. It's not her, or my, reality to enforce. If you choose to defy Reality by, for example, eatin' Drano, that's your business and your consequence.

In fact, best I can tell, you aren't obligated to diddly except to live (or die) with the consequences of your acts.

you are content merely to call them diseased dummies

And morons, asswipes, pinheads, degenerates, idiots, deficients, nutjobs, loons, wrong-headed, and on and on.

And liars, let's not forget that one.

she is permitted her own understanding of "owning" herself in regard to bazookas and tanks.

Nope, she's a free will, no one permits her to think as she likes...not even God. It's her head: she owns it, she's responsible for it.

But if her own political prejudices rooted existentially in dasein are not entirely in sync with your understanding? She's wrong!!

Nope, if her own assessments -- which ain't got nuthin' to do with a fictional dasein -- bring her to conclude she has any say-so over the life, liberty, or property of another, when that other has done no wrong, then she's wrong.

You just steer clear of probing the part about dasein because you have way too much accumulated "comfort and consolation" at stake here.

Nope, I steer clear cuz dasein is manure, and a particularly low grade of it. I got no reason to give it any real consideration in any of my responses.

you are granting them the right to "own" themselves

Nope, they each are their own. I got nuthin' to do with it.

and come after your bazookas as long as, when they do, you can shout at them that they are wrong and dumb and diseased.

Come after my property when I've done no wrong with it: I'll defend it.

Only their "owned" understanding of natural rights assumes that it is irrational for private citizens to be permitted to buy and sell bazookas and tanks and grenades and mines and IEDs and mortar rounds and rockets.

Anyone who claims to understand natural rights while simultaneously declarin' certain items are forbidden doesn't understand natural rights or is a big, fat, liar.

I can picture you both eyeball to eyeball:

It'll never happen.

these folks are all claiming they have a natural right to do what they do as well.

No one has a right to steal.

my point is not worth considering

It really isn't, especially when you play rhetorician (you're heavy-handed and obvious).

you "just know" that you are actually the "sole exception" to that

I'm no exception: I'm a free will...just like you; I am my own...just as you are yours...I'm responsible for myself...just as you are. The difference between us: I embrace bein' self-directin', self-relyin', and self-responsible; you desperately flail around lookin' for someone else to carry your water. Kinda sad; definitely pathetic.

what is not a possibility is that if others believe they "own" themselves just as you do and as such believe that owning buying and selling bazookas is irrational and unnatural while having an abortion is rational and natural then God or No God they are inherently, necessarily wrong?

It's not possible to recognize the other guy has the same right to his life, liberty, and property as you do while declarin' it's forbidden he should own an item. It's not possible to recognize the other guy has the same right to his life, liberty, and property as you do while declarin' the baby in your belly ought to be rubbed out.

In the first: you're a thief. In the second: you're a murdress. In both: you've declared the other guy is less than you. You're a monster (add that one to the list).

I'm still waiting for demonstrative evidence

Already gave it. Guess you're too fractured to get it.

Suppose there is a Judgment Day. Suppose it's not oblivion. Then it would seem incumbent upon you to at least make the attempt to provide evidence that your convictions regarding guns and abortion are true beyond your assumption that given the pro/con arguments here...

If there's an afterlife: I'll worry about it when I'm dead. If them pro/con things are so compelling, replicate them in-thread. I don't hunt snipe.

What makes them inalienable?

Your right to yourself is integral to you. It can only be violated, never taken away or nullified. Not even God can alienate you from yourself.

rights are political

Nope, privileges are political, and wrong-headed. You're not a dog to be permitted or punished. you're a free man...not too late to start actin' like it.

guns can be confiscated

And confiscators can die.

abortions can be prohibited

How sad baby murder has to be prohibited when it's a given: killin' a baby solely cuz he's inconvenient is wrong.

[Belinda]

You can support initiatives to provide free child care to single mothers.

No. I will, however, as asked, tell young folks to keep it zipped up and keep your legs crossed, and I'll explain why.

You can support policing against incest, and rape

No. I will, however, as asked, teach youngsters how to shoot and how best to unman an attacker.

You can help to improve child education so that young persons don't feel obliged to have sex at a young age, and understand about contraception.

No. I will however, as asked, affirm what every kid already knows (but get hoodwinked into believin' otherwise), that bein', you are your own and you're not a piece of meat and life is difficult enough without, animal-like, you grindin' in the dark cuz you're bored or lonely and babies are serious business so don't make one till you want him and can take care of him.

And, of course, I'll tell 'em, if asked, abortion is always the killin' of a person, and most of the time abortion is flat out murder.

How does all that work for you, B?

You are fantasizing about how social controls work. Guns, and preaching about unmarried sex don't work.

How can a child raped by her father have defended herself with a gun?

[henry quirk]

You are fantasizing about how social controls work. Guns, and preaching about unmarried sex don't work.

Mebbe so, B...no worse than you believin' pourin' more money into an amoral bureaucracy accomplishes diddly 'cept feedin' pigs at the trough.

How can a child raped by her father have defended herself with a gun?

A child, even a lil bitty one, can be taught to aim and shoot. Barrin' that, a kid can be taught how to jab a sharp pencil into an eye or throat when a bad man is makin' with the bad touch. Teachin', recognizin', encouragn' efficacy, especially among the young, is a good thing.

[Eodnhoj7]

its not chaos, to you maybe, but its agreements kept, not kept, or there was no agreement in the first place, so it was ok to take advantage.

Chaos is opposition and we see opposition occur in the world and people still existing through it as agents of said chaos.

opposition is rebellion, or self defense, or anything of that nature, chaos is understood as no order at all.

Opposition is an absence of order as there is an absence of unity (unity is order).

[SpheresOfBalance]

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

Suppose you believe abortion is permissible. Would that belief alone make it so? No? Then how about if most Americans believed it? Would that suffice? If you think the answer to either question is yes, then chances are you are a moral relativist. You may hold that generally, as Hamlet put it, “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

This is morality that revolves by and large around what you believe in your head. Or around what the majority of citizens in any particular community believe in their heads. But here that can still be predicated on the assumption that what you and others do believe about permissible or impermissible behavior makes it moral. And how then is that different from someone like me who concludes that morality itself is beyond the reach of, among other things, philosophy.

Not only is morality relative historically, culturally and individually, but, in the absence of God, it can never be more than the existential embodiment of "moderation, negotiation and compromise" among and between mere mortals.

That's the quandary that continues to impale me. Even in professing to be a moral relativist, some are able to convince themselves that their own conclusions are still the optimal frame of mind...the "best of all possible worlds".

Moral relativism has as bad a reputation as any view about morality could. For example, in a 2011 interview for the conservative nonprofit American Enterprise Institute, then representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said, “Moral relativism has done so much damage to the bottom end of this country, the bottom fifth has been damaged by the culture of moral relativism more than by anything else, I would argue. If you ask me what the biggest problem in America is, I’m not going to tell you debt, deficits, statistics, economics—I’ll tell you it’s moral relativism.”

On the other hand, moral relativism might be construed by some as downright constructive next to moral nihilism. The belief that morality itself is basically just a profoundly problematic [at times precarious] existential contraption rooted in the particular life that you lived and, given contingency, chance and change, always subject to reconfiguration given new experiences, new sets of circumstances.

Of course, those like Paul Ryan then insist that what must replace moral relativism is moral objectivism. And that necessarily would revolve around what he and his own moral and political ilk deem to be The Right Thing To Do.

And here, as they say, the rest is history.

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

Of course morality is relative. It's up to each individual to speak for themselves. But the real point here, in the quoted text from American Scientific, is that no one is to say what is or is not permissible when it comes to deciding what's good or bad for ones own body.

[Eodnhoj7]

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

Suppose you believe abortion is permissible. Would that belief alone make it so? No? Then how about if most Americans believed it? Would that suffice? If you think the answer to either question is yes, then chances are you are a moral relativist. You may hold that generally, as Hamlet put it, “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

This is morality that revolves by and large around what you believe in your head. Or around what the majority of citizens in any particular community believe in their heads. But here that can still be predicated on the assumption that what you and others do believe about permissible or impermissible behavior makes it moral. And how then is that different from someone like me who concludes that morality itself is beyond the reach of, among other things, philosophy.

Not only is morality relative historically, culturally and individually, but, in the absence of God, it can never be more than the existential embodiment of "moderation, negotiation and compromise" among and between mere mortals.

That's the quandary that continues to impale me. Even in professing to be a moral relativist, some are able to convince themselves that their own conclusions are still the optimal frame of mind...the "best of all possible worlds".

Moral relativism has as bad a reputation as any view about morality could. For example, in a 2011 interview for the conservative nonprofit American Enterprise Institute, then representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said, “Moral relativism has done so much damage to the bottom end of this country, the bottom fifth has been damaged by the culture of moral relativism more than by anything else, I would argue. If you ask me what the biggest problem in America is, I’m not going to tell you debt, deficits, statistics, economics—I’ll tell you it’s moral relativism.”

On the other hand, moral relativism might be construed by some as downright constructive next to moral nihilism. The belief that morality itself is basically just a profoundly problematic [at times precarious] existential contraption rooted in the particular life that you lived and, given contingency, chance and change, always subject to reconfiguration given new experiences, new sets of circumstances.

Of course, those like Paul Ryan then insist that what must replace moral relativism is moral objectivism. And that necessarily would revolve around what he and his own moral and political ilk deem to be The Right Thing To Do.

And here, as they say, the rest is history.

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

Of course morality is relative. It's up to each individual to speak for themselves. But the real point here, in the quoted text from American Scientific, is that no one is to say what is or is not permissible when it comes to deciding what's good or bad for ones own body.

If no one is to say "what is or is not permissible when it comes to deciding what's good or bad for ones own body" then a moral approach is recommended as it is wrong to say "what is or is not permissible when it comes to deciding what's good or bad for ones own body".

[SpheresOfBalance]

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

Suppose you believe abortion is permissible. Would that belief alone make it so? No? Then how about if most Americans believed it? Would that suffice? If you think the answer to either question is yes, then chances are you are a moral relativist. You may hold that generally, as Hamlet put it, “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

This is morality that revolves by and large around what you believe in your head. Or around what the majority of citizens in any particular community believe in their heads. But here that can still be predicated on the assumption that what you and others do believe about permissible or impermissible behavior makes it moral. And how then is that different from someone like me who concludes that morality itself is beyond the reach of, among other things, philosophy.

Not only is morality relative historically, culturally and individually, but, in the absence of God, it can never be more than the existential embodiment of "moderation, negotiation and compromise" among and between mere mortals.

That's the quandary that continues to impale me. Even in professing to be a moral relativist, some are able to convince themselves that their own conclusions are still the optimal frame of mind...the "best of all possible worlds".

Moral relativism has as bad a reputation as any view about morality could. For example, in a 2011 interview for the conservative nonprofit American Enterprise Institute, then representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said, “Moral relativism has done so much damage to the bottom end of this country, the bottom fifth has been damaged by the culture of moral relativism more than by anything else, I would argue. If you ask me what the biggest problem in America is, I’m not going to tell you debt, deficits, statistics, economics—I’ll tell you it’s moral relativism.”

On the other hand, moral relativism might be construed by some as downright constructive next to moral nihilism. The belief that morality itself is basically just a profoundly problematic [at times precarious] existential contraption rooted in the particular life that you lived and, given contingency, chance and change, always subject to reconfiguration given new experiences, new sets of circumstances.

Of course, those like Paul Ryan then insist that what must replace moral relativism is moral objectivism. And that necessarily would revolve around what he and his own moral and political ilk deem to be The Right Thing To Do.

And here, as they say, the rest is history.

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

Of course morality is relative. It's up to each individual to speak for themselves. But the real point here, in the quoted text from American Scientific, is that no one is to say what is or is not permissible when it comes to deciding what's good or bad for ones own body, except for the brain that owns it.

Edit: Sorry, I left off the last part, so I added it. It's called a brain fart!

Thanks to: Eodnhoj7 for pointing it out!

[Veritas Aequitas]

The usual misunderstandings and never ending disagreements that is produced in threads on 'Morality' is people jumped into the discussion without defining the critical terms involved, e.g.

• 1. What is Morality vs Ethics or virtue.
  2. What is reality
  3. What is a fact
  4. What is relativity
  5. What is objectivity vs subjectivity
  6. Time and phase of evolution involved

For example,
Peter Holmes will insist 'what is fact' is what English speakers said it is so! no justifications of ground is necessary as if he is a God that can imposed his commands on everyone else.
Actually Peter version of what is fact is merely an improvised version of 'what is fact' from the defunct logical positivists ideology.

OTOH I take what is fact as that which is generally accepted, i.e.

• A fact is something that is true. The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability, that is whether it can be demonstrated to correspond to experience. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by experiments or other means.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact

Obviously what is fact as above must be conditioned to a specific framework and system of knowledge [FSK] which is the above is the scientific FSK.

Other facts must thus be conditioned to their specific FSK, thus,

• For example, "This sentence contains words." accurately describes a linguistic fact, and "The sun is a star" accurately describes an astronomical fact.
  Further, "Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States" and "Abraham Lincoln was assassinated" both accurately describe historical facts.
  -ibid

The above two facts are conditioned the specific astronomical and historical respectively.

• Generally speaking, facts are independent of belief and of knowledge and opinion.
  ibid

Facts that are conditioned upon a specific FSK is independent of the belief, knowledge and opinions of those individuals in the FSK and external parties.
But those facts conditioned upon a specific FSK which must be constructed by humans cannot be ultimately independent of any human conditions.

Unless there are agreements or agree-to-disagree any discussion of morality [relative or objective] will keep going 'till the cows come home.'

My point is;
there is moral relativism [beliefs and opinions] as dealt within individuals and groups, but underlying moral relativism there is an inherent moral objectivity as represented by moral facts [moral potentials as moral oughtness or ought-not-ness] as a matter of fact supported by the physical referent of neural correlates in the brain and body.

At present what is optimal if moral relativism [might] but the emphasis of moral objectivity is for the future [next 50, 100 or > years].