Even more than that: when altruism is unguided by reason and facts, it's dangerous. It encourages us to have strong passions to do stupid and hurtful things, like I was suggesting. Our government, that turfed the mentally-ill out into the streets, did it in the name of "compassion," "fairness," "normalization," and "decency." It was still a terrible thing to do.
Let me try again, and let's see if you can focus on and actually address this explanation.The point is that even today, subjectivists are rationally forced to conclude that slavery was also right, on the basis that the slave owners believed it was right. Indeed, since their whole society and whole half of the US thought it was right, even the subjectivist who tries to appeal to group-belief has to think slavery was right.
I don't, of course. But did you realize that that is exactly what moral subjectivism implies?
Subjective morality would mean that there is no ONE morality, you keep treating subjective morality as though it needs to operate in the same way objective morality would.The point is that even today, subjectivists are rationally forced to conclude that slavery was also right, on the basis that the slave owners believed it was right. Indeed, since their whole society and whole half of the US thought it was right, even the subjectivist who tries to appeal to group-belief has to think slavery was right.
That's how morality works, it is enforced using power. You can try to persuade others to your point of view but ultimately morality includes your ideas about how others should behave and while you aren't required to exert your ideas on others, morality would be pretty pointless as a concept if you didn't.They have zero rational warrant for doing it. As you say, these people are "dictators," to use your word. They "dictate" to others what they can and cannot do, without one hint of actual rational authority for doing it.
That's moral subjectivism. Power rules. Rationality in moral matters is framed by them as impossible because, as they say, there are no facts about morality.
If morality is subjective, then slavery can only be thought to be wrong as there is no such thing as a thing being objectively right or wrong. That is the entire basis for the understanding. Mature is similarly determined by individuals, groups and organisations and alternative definitions compete for usage as culture and society advance.You don't know if it's wrong. You think it's wrong, maybe. And you want it to be wrong, maybe. But you have no way of knowing for sure that you're right, if you're a moral subjectivist.
For a subjectivist, the "mature" view might still be that slavery is right. Who defines "mature," in a subjectivist world?
That's a good reason for questioning moral subjectivism, isn't it?
Not at all. Subjectivism means no objective truth about morality. Therefore, it would not be objectively true that slavery is wrong.
The individual chooses what is moral/immoral based on their value structure and creates their morality, which is not held by others. Similarities exist due to similarities in nature and nurture from person to person.
Correction: that is how subjective morality can be defended...and in no other way.That's how morality works, it is enforced using power.
Then do it. Persuade the southerners that they were wrong to have slaves. What reasons can you give that they should not have done that?You can try to persuade
Not true. Verifiably false, in fact.If morality is subjective, then slavery can only be thought to be wrong
You think a good reason for questioning moral subjectivism is that it's inconvenient
I don't see any reason to continue this conversation, I will excuse myself from it.
No problem. It's your OP.
Yes, with the insertion of one word, to which you can hardly object: "subjective." What you are saying is only true if we know already that morality is subjective.Let me try again, and let's see if you can focus on and actually address this explanation.
1 The moral assertion slavery is wrong expresses a value judgement about slavery, as does the moral assertion slavery is right. If someone believes slavery is wrong, that means they make a moral judgement about slavery. Similarly, if someone believes slavery is right, that means they make a moral judgement about slavery. Do you agree so far?
If subjective morality is how things are, yes. If not, no.2 The fact that someone believes slavery is wrong has no implications for the person who believes slavery is right, and vice versa. That someone believes slavery is wrong doesn't mean anyone else has to believe slavery is wrong. And that someone believes slavery is right doesn't mean anyone else has to believe slavery is right. Do you agree so far?
That is exactly how the proponents of subjective morality have to think things are. Correct.3 There's a reason why one person's moral judgement has no implications for - does not entail - anyone else's moral judgement. And that's because a moral judgement is not a true or false factual assertion. If it were a moral fact that an action is right, then someone who believes that action is wrong would be objectively wrong to hold that belief - and doing so would be irrational. But if it were a moral fact that an action is wrong, then the same is true for someone who believes that action is right. Either way, in effect there could be no rational argument about the action.
Incorrect. What you say WOULD be true if subjective morality were all we could have. But it would be false if slavery were actually objectively wrong. Then we could tell southerners, "You may all feel you want slaves, and you may think you have a right to slaves; but you don't. You're objectively wrong."4 So your claim that, because slave owners believed slavery is right, anyone else has to believe slavery is right, is simply false - it doesn't logically follow. And it comes from your (I think by now wilful) misconstrual of subjectivity. Moral subjectivism doesn't mean that anyone's belief that an action is good MAKES that action good, or that anyone's belief that an action is bad MAKES that action bad. That is to completely misunderstand the nature of moral assertions, and their radical difference from factual assertions.
Go back to what I said in step 1. What you've done is simply presumed that subjective morality is a correct description of what morality is. Then all your steps from there are correct, but they stand of a foundation of nothing but sand. You haven't shown that subjective morality is legitimate morality. And because it's not legitimate, nobody has to take it seriously -- not even the person who holds it, who may change his mind any time he wants, with no subjective moralist having sound reasons to complain if he does.Please, before you bristle and demand to know whether moral subjectivists think slavery really is right or wrong - and how are we supposed to tell if all we have is our opinions?
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Wed Jul 11, 2018 12:31 pm Hi, Belinda.
So, if I've got it right, your argument is as follows.
1 All humans have the same nature, because it's innate to our species.
2 That nature is inherently altruistic. We naturally have a disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others.
3 Immorality is something we may learn from our environment, upbringing and social influences.
4 There is an objective criterion for moral goodness: that which favours life over death.
Do these need tweaking or adding to?
Not if it's grounded in ontological reality. Only if it weren't.
Sometimes: especially when a group of people holds wrong ontological beliefs and based on them, questionable morals themselves, but feels certain. That is very dangerous.... and dangerous.
You're right that Materialism cannot ground any morality at all. That's the ontological problem, you see. So if Materialism were true, we'd all have to be complete moral nihilists, or else hypocritical subjectivist dictators-by-power.It's irrational because it makes a category error, failing to distinguish between factual assertions about what is, and moral assertions expressing judgements about what ought to be.
This is true. But it is also true that objective morality empowers people to feed the hungry and sick, to reform prisons, to give aid to foreign peoples, to send medical missionaries into malarial swamps (where they may die treating people who, from a subjectivist perspective they would not have to care about), and to believe that all men and women are made in the image of God, and so cannot ever justly be enslaved, raped or abused, no matter what anyone else may think about that.And it's dangerous because mistaking a moral judgement for a fact is what allows religious persecutors, inquisitors, slave-owners, suicide bombers, the organisers of genocide - and so on - to feel justified in what they do.
I don't believe that you mean to imply that all moral assertions lack reason and knowledge, and that any rationales for moral assertions are nothing but rationalisations.I must be missing something.It's irrational (objective morality) because it makes a category error, failing to distinguish between factual assertions about what is, and moral assertions expressing judgements about what ought to be.
This happens when ideology is divorced from facts. Ideology is as bad as you say it is when it's divorced from ordinary human sympathy. David Hume himself believed in ordinary human sympathy as a matter of fact, and this was not despite his enlightenment world view and scepticism but was a necessary component of them.And it's dangerous because mistaking a moral judgement for a fact is what allows religious persecutors, inquisitors, slave-owners, suicide bombers, the organisers of genocide - and so on - to feel justified in what they do.
This is what's called an "ad hominem" argument. It's a fallacy.
That is the correct explanation of morality as a necessary component of a society. However when we compare different societies' notions of morality we find that some societies' moralities are horrible to us, and others are more pleasing to us.Dalek Prime wrote: ↑Wed Jul 11, 2018 6:06 pm Humans have to agree on a certain standard of morality, if only for practical reasons of self-preservation. If we were all murdering each other, we wouldnt get very far.