Judaka
For people who speak of "truth" as being important, whether it be to interpret their God's will correctly or knowing the objective truth or debating the reality surrounding objective moral order; the "useful truth" being the perspective that provides desired empirical benefits over anything else then what changes practically when we switch that to subjective understanding instead of truth?
I'd say a useful truth is more likely to stand the test of time, isn't it?
Values give shape to our desires, preferences, self-image and they give us dignity, achievement, kinship, status and so on; this is one reason why I think rational beings cannot exist without values, certainly rational thought cannot exist without some order to values that allows us to answer questions like the prison example I gave. Values are necessarily relative in what they give us, not only that some values must be superior to others but that behaviours, characteristics and so on are also superior to others.
Can you clarify by what you mean as superior here? What makes some values superior to others? Those that ''lead to happier and more productive people''? If so, I'd say my term ''quality of life'' means much the same thing.
There's an obvious issue around such Subject-based goals being hard to quantify, to prioritise, as my quality of life might lead me to pursue different priorities to yours, even be incompatible with yours. That doesn't mean we give up trying, I think we need some way of sorting this out at group/society level, and globally, as best we can. While giving people as much freedom as possible to pursue their own happiness. It's a tricky balance, and a lot of politics is about balancing the 'common good' and individual freedom. (Haidt has done some interesting research on this).
Nothing should transcend personal interest; groups, values, politics for which empirical benefit is transcended by something else - that's where the danger starts. Compromises will have to be made as laws/regulations/rules will affect many individuals and I define empirical benefit as including emotional and psychological benefit so when it comes to deciding between e.g closure for victims vs rehabilitation, I think that all we can do is try to address situations so that all parties can have as close to what it is they desire while also trying to solve those problems independently.
This seems like a contradiction? Won't individual interests inevitably have to be compromised? How do you reconcile this, in such an inter-dependent society?
I personally think we need some grounding ideas of Right and Wrong to cohere around as a basis for group living, and history suggests we'll always come up with something. My view is that we choose that something carefully, based on an understanding of how we work, and the sort of society we'd like to live in.
I am curious as to whether you would describe yourself as a nihilist or not as you seem to pretty much fit all of my criteria for being one.
Not really sure. I think there is meaning and value, but it stems from us as conscious Subjects.