moral relativism

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

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popeye1945
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Re: moral relativism

Post by popeye1945 »

Belinda wrote: Thu Apr 27, 2023 3:54 pm
popeye1945 wrote: Thu Apr 27, 2023 11:17 am
Belinda wrote: Thu Apr 27, 2023 10:30 am
That's a proper analysis from the point of view of anthropology. However we can aspire to better and, as long as one principle is in place, better morality may be achievable.

The "one principle" is universalism is better than tribalism.
.


And another is the living individual matters more than any culture of belief or any corporation.
I couldn't agree more, but perhaps utopian--sadly.
Several posters have tried to explain matters to those here who are indoctrinated as to Free Will but have not succeeded. However, I guess most here are elderly; one hopes the young have more flexible minds.
Well, I really do think it would be positive for both humanity and the environment at large, how is one adapt to the world in a mutually nurturing way, when one does not recognize one's natural relationship? It is delusionary independence, a matter of not being of the earth, which turns humanity into a parasite sucking life out of its own life's foundation.
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Agent Smith
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Agent Smith »

We must solve this problem!

Yes, yes, this problem has ta be solved!!

First things first gentlemen, we need to ....

Go to Mary's house!

Yep, to Mary's then!
Belinda
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Belinda »

'No Man is an Island'
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.---------------------------------------------------




MEDITATION XVII
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
John Donne
Belinda
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Belinda »

popeye1945 wrote: Fri Apr 28, 2023 8:32 am
Belinda wrote: Thu Apr 27, 2023 3:54 pm
popeye1945 wrote: Thu Apr 27, 2023 11:17 am

I couldn't agree more, but perhaps utopian--sadly.
Several posters have tried to explain matters to those here who are indoctrinated as to Free Will but have not succeeded. However, I guess most here are elderly; one hopes the young have more flexible minds.
Well, I really do think it would be positive for both humanity and the environment at large, how is one adapt to the world in a mutually nurturing way, when one does not recognize one's natural relationship? It is delusionary independence, a matter of not being of the earth, which turns humanity into a parasite sucking life out of its own life's foundation.

'No Man is an Island'
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind. ---------------------------------------------------------------------




MEDITATION XVII
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
John Donne
popeye1945
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Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 2:12 am

Re: moral relativism

Post by popeye1945 »

Belinda wrote: Fri Apr 28, 2023 9:38 am
popeye1945 wrote: Fri Apr 28, 2023 8:32 am
Belinda wrote: Thu Apr 27, 2023 3:54 pm

Several posters have tried to explain matters to those here who are indoctrinated as to Free Will but have not succeeded. However, I guess most here are elderly; one hopes the young have more flexible minds.
Well, I really do think it would be positive for both humanity and the environment at large, how is one adapt to the world in a mutually nurturing way, when one does not recognize one's natural relationship? It is delusionary independence, a matter of not being of the earth, which turns humanity into a parasite sucking life out of its own life's foundation.

'No Man is an Island'
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind. ---------------------------------------------------------------------




MEDITATION XVII
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
John Donne
Excellent, stirring, wonderful!!
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iambiguous
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Re: moral relativism

Post by iambiguous »

"The Inquiring Murderer"
Richard McCarty
Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies
East Carolina University
Doctoring the maxim.

Kant himself bit the bullet on the case of the inquiring murderer: he said that even in that case it would be wrong to lie. But not all of his followers have agreed that his ethics implies such an unyielding stance. Suppose your maxim is: “I’ll lie to murderers inquiring after the whereabouts of their intended victims, in order to save their lives.” When this is universalized, a murderer might still inquire about his victim if he believes you do not know his intentions.
"In a work published the year he died, Kant analyzes the core of his theological doctrine into three articles of faith: (1) he believes in one God, who is the causal source of all good in the world; (2) he believes in the possibility of harmonizing God’s purposes with our greatest good; and (3) he believes in human immortality as the necessary condition of our continued approach to the highest good possible." from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Enough said?

Well, it ought to be. After all, if you genuinely believe this to be true you're off the hook regarding anything you believe regarding lies. Why? Just read it. He's got God to derive his own assessment of lying as a moral issue. God's purpose is in harmony with mere mortals always telling the truth. And then, on the other side of the grave, it's all connected to immortality.

You merely have to will yourself into taking that leap of faith. In other words, you acknowledge that you are unable to actually demonstrate the existence of God, so the fate of your friend rests on the leap itself.

Also, the part where things can always get even more problematic: You don't know exactly what the murderer's intentions are. Maybe he's intent on giving her a present. Or your friend is a child. Or, again, you know it's to kill her but you and her have set a trap for him. Before he can shoot her, she shoots him.

And on and on given that the combination of variables can encompass practically anything.
So then your lie will convince him that your friend is not in the house. Even though he would know that everyone lies to murderers inquiring about their victims, he would not think you know he is intent on murdering your friend—so he would take what you say to be the truth. But that trick won’t work if the murderer announces his intentions up front; because in that case he’ll know that you know what he is up to, and so he will expect you to act on your maxim of lying to murderers. Remember, you cannot save your friend’s life unless the murderer believes you’re telling the truth when you attempt to deceive him. He says, “I’m going to kill that Julia; is she in the house?” and he knows, because of your maxim’s universalization, that everyone lies when they are asked questions like that. So when you lie and answer, “She’s not here,” he knows where she is—poor Julia.
Indeed. Given the human condition in all of the many, many different ways that things can unfold, what is to be done so that whatever you do it's the right thing. At least "in your head". Being convinced that God ever and always will weigh in with the final verdict. You're just doing His thing down here in the interim.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175121
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iambiguous
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Re: moral relativism

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Moral Nihilism and its Implications
Marc Krellenstein
Northeastern University

Moral Nihilism

There is no successful chain of reasoning that has been offered as to why we must adopt any fundamental value or moral obligation over another, or any at all…the very concept of an objective moral truth that commands obedience is, while familiar, unlike any other concept.
On the contrary, there have been many, many people [think philosophers alone] who have claimed to have either discovered or invented such chains of reasoning. From Plato and Aristotle on up to Descartes and Kant and Rand and Satyr. Moral obligations are everywhere in philosophy texts. And in any number of posts here. What has not been accomplished, however, is a chain of reasoning that all philosophers have agreed really does encompass the optimal manner in which to encompass moral covenants. God or No God.
Mackie has dubbed moral obligation “queer” (in the original sense of the term). Hume observed that any attempt to somehow deduce an “ought” from any observation or fact about the world is self-evidently impossible: one can’t arrive at the idea of obligation from a description of objective facts without first introducing obligation as some sort of fact.
Again, tell that to the objectivists among us. In fact, not only have they...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies

...deduced their own particular ought from their own particular observations and facts about their own particular worlds, but then acted on on those deductions. Human history we call it. That's how it works for us. What counts is not whether philosophers are actually able to deduce an ought from an observation or a fact, but that "in their head" they believe they can. That they are.

Here for example: https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/f6-agora
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Agent Smith
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Agent Smith »

I've seen levitation before, by real magicians mind you. This doesn't impress me ... at all!! Try again.

Just kiddin'! Hope this doesn't mean I havta watch me back for the rest of me life! :( My unc's super-rich. I might just be able ta pay ya off you know. :mrgreen:

Question: Is moral relativism a kinsman so to speak of moral ob/sub-jectivity?
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iambiguous
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Re: moral relativism

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Moral Nihilism and its Implications
Marc Krellenstein
Northeastern University
That people often act as if there are valid moral commands is clear, as it is that many values and behaviors are shared and others are not. But there is no knockdown argument we can offer someone who believes deeply in a fundamental value we do not share, or in its greater importance than another value.
Here the important distinction in my view is between premodern, modern and postmodern communities. For centuries communities were relatively small -- a village, a hamlet -- and by and large there was a proper place for everyone and everyone was expected to occupy their proper place. All there was to the world was the community itself. A child was born into it, was indoctrinated to be a member of it and that was all there was for him. Or her. Everything was of the book, by the book, for the book. And, for the most part, this all then unfolded from the cradle to the grave.

Then with the advent of mercantilism, a burgeoning world trade and the leap to full-blown capitalism came the reality of surplus labor. Many more slots opened up within the community. Many more functions. New complexities. And often the community had access to other communities, other cultures, other ways of doing things. And other Gods, other political systems, other ethos.

And then the reality of class on a whole other level. The industrial Revolution and the birth of Marxism.

Then those who focused their attention on "deconstructing" all of this and suggesting that value judgments revolving around things like nationality or ethnicity or gender or sexuality was sustained through "language games" that revolved in turn around moral and political prejudices in a No God world that could not be established as the optimal or the only rational manner in which to live. A postmodern world inundated with new technologies that provided access to dozens and dozens of different subcultural communities..."lifestyles" that could gravitate to any number of conflicting assumptions regarding "how one ought to live".
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iambiguous
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Re: moral relativism

Post by iambiguous »

Moral Nihilism and its Implications
Marc Krellenstein
Northeastern University
Consider, for example, arguments over abortion that set the absolute sanctity of any form of unique human life against the absolute right of control over one’s own body, or debates in “trolley” problems over diverting a runaway trolley to kill one person in order to save the five in its path.
Again, in my view, the key point here is not that such absolutes are embraced by those on both sides of the morality wars, but that the main goal of the objectivists is the belief that such absolutes do in fact exist. And that this is the case because, well, those on both sides already claim to embody them.

The point is that in believing this it enables both liberals and conservatives to sustain the comfort and that consolation that comes with being able to divide the world up between "one of us" [the good guys] and "one of them" [the bad guys].

Also, it allows those on both sides to insist that their value judgments here are not just "political prejudices rooted existentially in dasein" but instead reflect [philosophically or otherwise] the most rational manner in which to understand the issue.
The variation in moral beliefs across and within cultures also argues against the possibility that there exist absolute moral obligations that all people recognize. No attempt to rationalize these differences has succeeded.
Please. As the objectivists among us [from both sides] make crystal clear, if they believe that there are in fact absolute moral truths that all rational men and women are obligated to embrace, then that need be as far as they go. Then it simply comes down to how much political power they have in any particular community or nation. For example, the Catholics on the United States Supreme Court. Now, in America, laws can be passed criminalizing behaviors that were once permitted.
It could be argued that the belief that there are no absolute foundations is itself an absolute belief. But, rather than being absolute, it is an observation that no rational argument has established absolute values. It leaves open the possibility that evidence may yet be offered that proves otherwise.
Yes, if someone argues that there are no absolute moral truths in regard to abortion how is that not just as indefensible? On the other hand, it is the obligation of those who claim that there are to demonstrate this. And, from my frame of mind, that involves demonstrating that, in fact, the arguments made by the other side are not reasonable.

So, given the pro/con arguments regarding the legality of abortion -- https://abortion.procon.org/ -- anyone here care to try?
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iambiguous
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Re: moral relativism

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Moral Nihilism and its Implications
Marc Krellenstein
Northeastern University
Moral Agreement and Disagreement are Arbitrary

We may judge another’s behavior morally wrong to indicate its inconsistency with what we perceive as moral commands, or at least with our deepest feelings and principles about how people should treat each other -- principles such as respect for an individual’s rights, maximizing the greatest good, acceptance of a social contract, a particular sense of justice, the word of God or whatever we believe comprises and justifies that belief.
See how it works? Take an assessment of morality up into the "general description intellectual contraption," clouds and, perhaps, theoretically, the philosopher kings among us can actually "think up" moral commands such that all the rest of us can, at last, finally begin to grasp the most rational and virtuous of all human behaviors. Call them, say, the wisest behaviors.

Think Plato's The Republic. Or Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf.

And, of course, the beauty of it all is that the human condition itself is such that all we need do is to believe what we do in our heads. That makes it true!

Like, for example, these folks:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies

Or, to cite a specific example, these folks: https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/f6-agora

I should warn you though that if you do choose to become a member of this particular community of serious philosophers [and others like it], you will be required to embrace their very own assessment of, well, to cite just one example, everything.

Or else let's say.
We may assert underlying principles of morality but they remain arbitrary in the absence of agreement about their overriding value.
Arbitrary?

No, not quite. Down through the ages historically, across the globe culturally and given all of the many, many conflicting sets of circumstances any particular individuals might find themselves "thrown" into at birth, countless human communities have devised "rules of behavior" that eventually, given the birth of philosophers, came to be known as morality and ethics. Then those deontologists among them who insisted that despite all of many different ways we can be indoctrinated as children to view the world around us and the many different experiences we can have as adults in communities down through the ages and across the globe, the philosopher kings -- https://youtu.be/ALXsaT6bqL0 -- in a No God world were simply smart enough to "think up" secular equivalents of moral commands. "Human-Isms" they are often called.

Now bringing it all back down a bit closer to Earth...
This does not prevent us from reasoning with those with whom we share values to show that a behavior is in fact consistent or inconsistent with those values. These discussions occupy much of what counts as moral debate. Some disagreements can also be seen as disagreements over purported facts, such as whether a 24-week-old fetus can feel pain. Other disagreements may be over predictions of what will result from a particular behavior: will allowing euthanasia, for example, start us down a slippery slope to allowing other behaviors we consider unacceptable. However, it is when the facts or likely outcomes are not in dispute and discussion breaks down that we are faced with a conflict that debate cannot resolve because of the absence of common fundamental values.
Or, re dasein, the manner in which "I" encompass human moral interactions in the OPs here:

https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

Then the part where I offer to discuss and debate with the moral objectivists among us why they themselves are not "fractured and fragmented" in regard to their own value judgments.

Not many takers of late though.

But trust them: that's entirely my fault. 8)
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iambiguous
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Re: moral relativism

Post by iambiguous »

Moral Nihilism and its Implications
Marc Krellenstein
Northeastern University
Evolution is the Origin of Morality

It appears that our moral sense has its origins in evolution. This includes both the very existence and “ought” of moral judgments as well as many of our intuitively powerful moral precepts.
Gasp! Who would have ever thought that?!!

Of course the evolution of biological life on Earth is the origin -- the source -- of human morality. After all, what is the human species itself but the [so far] tail end of it.

Instead, the mystery still revolves around 1] human morality and free will and, 2] given that "somehow" matter managed to acquire autonomy when it became us [God or No God], how to explain that extraordinary leap from us and all other life forms on Earth.
As many evolutionary psychologists have argued, an innate sense of sympathy, tit-for-tat reciprocity and other similar traits probably provided evolutionary advantages when they first appeared, increasing the likelihood of the survival of the individual or perhaps a group with similar shared characteristics (though the idea of group selection remains controversial).
Yes, it appears crystal clear that genetically we are hard-wired to embody traits that allow us to become a more or less cohesive community. Traits that allow us to empathize with others, to come together with others and to accept and then sustain a shared ethos.

On the other hand, how then to explain the history of human interactions steeped in countless conflicts within and between communities? Up to and including things like mass murder and genocide. What, human biology has absolutely nothing to do with that? That, instead, this can only be explained by those who, wallowing in memes, "somehow" failed to embody this "natural" innate sense of sympathy and reciprocity?
Evidence for this includes the nearly universal presence of good/bad judgments of some kind, even in infants.
Okay, and if all infants regardless of their historical and cultural indoctrinations grew up to embrace the same right and wrong value judgments that would be extraordinary. But, of course, it is anything but that. Those pesky memes again?

In other words, this part:
Individual choice, culture and, more generally, the sort of human brain given by evolution that allows for our apparent ability to choose and the creation of cultures can then take morality far beyond what was determined by evolution. Deeply rooted norms become efficient ways for biology and culture to maintain the benefits of coordinated behavior -- we do not need to reason through every situation -- and norms may reinforce overall beneficial behavior when reasoning alone would not suffice. Examples of this include situations where individuals do better only if both cooperate rather than act in their apparent self-interest.
Coordinated behaviors applicable to this or that community. Until for any number of reasons they are not. Again, either within communities or between them. It's just that a few thousand years ago the "surplus labor" that Marx and Engels spoke of allowed for the existence of philosophers. They then invited ethics and came to believe this: that, either through God or No God at all, it was possible for human beings to "think through" all of the conflicts within and between communities to date in order to define the words needed to deduce the wisest human behaviors.

And then, historically, as Marx and Engels suggested, in turn, a political economy called capitalism came into existence predicated on the assumption that competition and "me, myself and I" were actually the optimal manner in which interact as a human species. The "virtue of selfishness" some called it.
popeye1945
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Re: moral relativism

Post by popeye1945 »

Moral relativism is relative to human biologizes and the societies/cultures those biologizes inhabit, each differing in individual religions/mythologies through time. Where morality should be based on our common biology, it is defined by the context of time-honored mythologies/religions in conflict.
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iambiguous
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Re: moral relativism

Post by iambiguous »

Moral Nihilism and its Implications
Marc Krellenstein
Northeastern University
But while certain values are likely built in through evolution, produce pleasure and lead to our survival, this does not justify particular behaviors without agreement on the underlying value of what is innate or productive of survival or pleasure. Values may be shared, and we may jointly agree to pursue them. But the fact that they are shared does not compel any obligation to pursue them.
Again, from my frame of mind, the problem encountered when reacting to "philosophical speculation" of this sort revolves around the need for a context. What particular values that give who pleasure and sustain their survival? And then the part where this is often accomplished only at the expense of others. It's not that values are shared so much as the ways in which that sharing comes about...through might makes right, right makes might or through much more complex interactions revolving around moderation, negotiation and compromise.

And, in regard to the evolution of biological life on Earth, all of the animals prior to us behave completely oblivious to such things as values and value judgments. In fact, almost everything is hardwired into them genetically. They really are little more than nature's robots.

But, given that "somehow" our own species did acquire free will, it's not just genes that propel us but memes too. Then those like Satyr who simply subsume memes -- "social constructs" -- into their own arrogant assessment of "biological imperatives".

Their very own religion in a sense.
It is no surprise that specific moral intuitions and developed practices built on them have not yielded to a single principle of explanation, such as the greatest good.
No surprise to some of us. But for others not only are they surprised when their own moral convictions are not eagerly embraced by everyone else, but...but they're also capable of being downright nasty to those who don't or won't toe the line. Then it's only a matter of how much power they are able to sustain in order to bring them "around" to the "greater good".
There is little reason for evolution to have crafted us (to the extent we are shaped by evolution) in a way that is simple, consistent or clear to rational examination. Only net survival benefit counts for evolution.
Of course, the objectivists among us will insist that nature evolved as it did solely in order to reflect their own moral precepts. Axiomatically as some will put it. And, as luck would have it, each of us is given the option of weighing them all...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies

...before finally pinning it down to the one it really is.

Or, sure, we can invent a whole new one.
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iambiguous
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Re: moral relativism

Post by iambiguous »

Moral Nihilism and its Implications
Marc Krellenstein
Northeastern University
Moral Realism is Unlikely

Could it yet be possible that there are moral truths even if we cannot establish them by reason alone? The existence of transcendent, objective moral truths -- the position known as moral realism -- seems unlikely. Joyce has suggested that most moral philosophers -- though not most philosophers overall -- are probably moral realists or they would have been unlikely to pursue moral philosophy. That may skew the philosophical literature to that position, but a broader reading, as Joyce suggests, shows that most philosophers consider moral realism speculative at best.
Moral realism...

"Moral realism is the view that there are facts of the matter about which actions are right and which wrong, and about which things are good and which bad." Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

"Moral realism (also ethical realism) is the position that ethical sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world (that is, features independent of subjective opinion), some of which may be true to the extent that they report those features accurately." wiki

Okay, let's take these general description intellectual assessments and explore how "for all practical purposes" they are appliable given a particular set of circumstances.

Or do some moral realists prefer to keep it all revolving entirely around philosophical speculation?

Still, if moral truths cannot be established spiritually/religiously and are beyond the reach of scientists and philosophers -- deontologically? -- what would they be anchored to?
A more practical moral realism might mean some principles exist that provide a path to a life that most individuals, even if maybe not all, would choose if informed and freely able to choose…or they would likely be better off if they made such a choice.
And what is this if not more of the same "speculation" aimed at providing us with the "principles" one would need to be informed about a path that most if not all would freely choose. On the other hand, does this path revolve more around capitalism or socialism, "I" or "we", genes or memes, God or No God, big government or small government, idealism or pragmatism, the 1950s or the 1960s?
However, literary theorist Terry Eagleton reminds us that “people who are brutal and violent can be happy”, and any principles it would be prudent to follow are still short of obligations one is commanded to follow.
Which, is why, in my view, if one wants to be truly realistic morally, the best of all possible worlds is still moderation, negotiation and compromise...democracy and the rule of law. Always acknowledging of course that wealth and power will create and then sustain one or another rendition of a ruling class. Or as others prefer, a "deep state".
It is also unlikely that there are moral truths that apply to all behaviors considered morally relevant given the complex way our psychological nature develops as a result of biology and environment. More conventionally, the split between conservative and liberal attitudes found in so many societies suggests at least a bifurcated set of moral principles and possible root psychology....
Indeed, it does suggest this, doesn't it? And I have my own assessment of that. Particularly the part that revolves around the "psychology of objectivism".
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