Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Feb 08, 2022 1:18 pm
Thanks. I agree with much of this. But I suggest that the choice is not between moral objectivism and moral relativism.
I think it demonstrable that there are no moral facts, so that morality isn't and can't be objective. But if there are no moral facts, then there really are no moral facts. So moral rightness and wrongness are not relative to or dependent on individual or collective opinion.
For example, that everyone thinks an action is morally wrong doesn't make it a fact that the action is morally wrong. An opinion held by everyone is still an opinion.
The alternative to moral objectivism is not relativism, but rather subjectivism. But moral subjectivism is nothing more than the rejection of moral objectivism. The only tenet of moral subjectivism is that there are no moral facts, but only moral opinions, which are subjective.
Where discussions like this can get tricky though is when they revolve around pinning down [philosophically] a precise "technical"
definition and
meaning for words like "relativism" and "subjectivism" and "perspectivism".
Again, however, given the points I raise here...
a man amidst mankind...
That is the paradox, right? I am an individual....a man; yet, in turn, I am but one of 7.9 billion men and women that constitutes what is commonly called "mankind". So, in what sense can I, as an individual, grasp my identity as separate and distinct from mankind? How do I make intelligent distinctions between my personal, psychological "self" [the me "I" know intimately from day to day], my persona [the me "I" project -- often as a chameleon -- in conflicting interactions with others], and my historical and ethnological self as a white male who happened adventitiously to be born and raised to view reality from the perspective of a 20th century United States citizen?
How does all of this coalesce into who I think I am? And how does this description contrast with how others grasp who they think I am? Is there a way to derive an objective rendering of my true self? Can I know objectively who I am?
No, I don't think so.
Identity [in the is/ought world] is ever constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed over the years by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of variables---some of which we had/have no choice/control regarding. We really are "thrown" into a fortuitous smorgasbord of demographic factors at birth and then molded and manipulated as children into whatever configuration of "reality" suits the cultural [and political] institutions of our time.
On the other hand:
In my view, one crucial difference between people is the extent to which they become more or less self-conscious of this. Why? Because, obviously, to the extent that they do, they can attempt to deconstruct the past and then reconstruct the future into one of their own more autonomous making.
But then what does this really mean? That is the question that has always fascinated me the most. Once I become cognizant of how profoundly problematic my "self" is, what can "I" do about it? And what are the philosophical implications of acknowledging that identity is, by and large, an existential contraption that is always subject to change without notice? What can we "anchor" our identity to so as to make this prefabricated...fabricated...refabricated world seem less vertiginous? And, thus, more certain.
Is it any wonder that so many invent foundationalist anchors like Gods and Reason and Truth? Scriptures from one vantage point or another. Anything to keep from acknowledging just how contingent, precarious, uncertain and ultimately meaningless our lives really are.
...I myself don't make considerable "for all practical purposes" distinctions between them.
And, again, my points here pertain mainly to "I" in the is/ought world of moral and political and spiritual value judgments.
From my frame of mind "here and now", moral objectivists are those who have thought themselves into believing that they are in sync with a Real Me -- or, for some, a "soul" or a "core self" -- in sync further with the Right Thing To Do.
This can be predicated on God, on Enlightenment, on ideology, on deontology, on assessments of Nature, etc.
Whatever the "transcending" font, this allows them to divide the world up between "one of us" [the good guys] and "one of them" [the bad guys].
Then they come into places like this and whatever the "conflicting good", they do battle to prove that their own assessment of The Good is either the optimal or the only reasonable manner in which all rational and virtuous men and women are expected to think and feel.
Thus, they all agree that there
is an objective [even universal] morality. But it ever and always
is their own.
On the other hand, I went all the way out on the "relativist/subjectivist/perspectivist" limb and thought myself into believing that "I" in the is/ought world is "fractured and fragmented". The embodiment of this:
"If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values "I" can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then "I" begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically."
A philosophical "hole" I call it.