Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Oct 21, 2023 3:37 pm
Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Oct 21, 2023 1:28 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Oct 21, 2023 2:12 am
Moral subjectivism is based on a Godless universe, one that is merely the product of time, chance and materials. There can be no "should have been" in such a universe.
...it is most certainly not based on a Godless universe, it is based on how human beings relate to one another.
Well, you've declared yourself a non-Theist, if not an anti-Theist. So I think your subjectivism has to be based on godlessness, doesn't it? I can't see that you base it on something you claim you believe isn't true anyway...
No, God's presence or absence doesn't factor into my conception of morality. If you are going to insist it must be based on a Godless universe, because I don't believe in God, then you logically have to also say it is based on goblinless universe, and so on. After all, to me, God has no more to do with morality than goblins do.
I'll simplify, and say this again: "should" requires reference to two assumptions.
One is that the world is one way.
The other is that it "should be" another.
But unless you believe in the existence of a God, who could impart to creation a purpose and intention other than that how the world presently is, there can be no such thing as "should." For there is no other way the world could ever be, except exactly the way it already is. There are no alternate possibilities, or things that "should have been" done. Whatever is, is all you can expect. You can make whatever changes in it you want to, but those changes will be arbitrary, and have nothing to do with "should" or "should not."
I don't think I ever do say the world should have been different to the way it is, so I don't see the relevance of your point. I might say such and such a person should have behaved differently, because the way they did behave was purposefully and intentionally counter to my moral standards. And I don't see why I shouldn't say that as long as I have respect for my own moral standards.
Nobody has any duty at all to agree with the changes, and nobody can say more than, "Well, I like what's happening," or "Well, I don't like it." That's the limit of intelligible moral conversation, in your world -- whether you realize it or not. That's subjectivism.
That is just your take on it, but it makes no difference whatsoever. No matter how much you disparage the usefulness or efficacy of subjective morality, it gets you no closer to demonstrating there is any other kind. If you wanted to say that some people act on moral values that they believe to be objectively true, and that is objective morality, I wouldn't bother quibbling over it, but I would still make the point that there cannot be such a thing as an objectively true moral value.
The rest, all the talk of what people "should" do, is simply absurd, in your world.
As I have said before, the word, "should", is always conditional, and not just when it relates to morality, but whatever the context. Why can't I say that, in order to conform to what I consider to be morally correct, so and so should have done this, that or the other? No reason at all as far as I can see.
There's no "should" for them at all. They have no moral duties, no obligations; and they don't owe you to agree with you. Nor do they "owe it" (the meaning of "ought") to go your way and produce the future world you would prefer. They can do whatever they want.
I can't really think of a response to that, so it is fortunate that it doesn't deserve one.
Thus, there is no possibility of using "should" intelligibly in the world in which you suppose you live.
"Should" only refers to what something needs to be in order to fulfil a particular requirement. Of course I can use the word intelligibly in "my world".
And "should" has no more authority in your world than it does in mine. If you were to say, as I imagine you have, "you should be mean to homosexuals and make life as difficult as possible for them, because God says so," all that means is you should do it
IF you want to please God. But if they think people treating one another with consideration and respect is more important than pleasing God -which is what they
should think- then your "should" is useless.