Peter Holmes wrote: ↑October 16th, 2018, 1:26 am
Thanks, Jklint. I agree with much of what you say, but not with this bit.
Jklint wrote: ↑October 15th, 2018, 4:14 pm
My logic regarding morality in either state of S or O pertains to the bottom line in human nature, i.e., the ancient understanding that whatever your culture what I don't like done to me you also wouldn't like done to you. At that level I find morality as neutral and to that extent objective. How it responds to such infringements is left to the culture or society itself and therefore subjective.
I don’t agree with it either as I tried to indicate in my post. In the above excerpt I merely tried to present the logic or illogic of how the error was produced. My original one-liner was more glib than insightful which you noticed.
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑October 16th, 2018, 1:26 amMy argument against objectivism is that there are no moral facts - no 'bottom line' - because the fact-value barrier is insuperable.
I’m much more in tune with this view than I am (or was) with my own as already mentioned. Nonetheless, whatever the “subjective” conclusions of morality may be based on culture and time, morality itself as a paradigm of behavior remains a fact.
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑October 16th, 2018, 1:26 amSomething like the golden rule may be primeval for our and other social species - but it's only a command: do unto others... It may be practical good sense - for individuals and groups - to follow the rule. But rules, obedience and punishment (expulsion from the group?) aren't morally significant.
Yes, that’s true but the golden rule in one form or another still exists as a moral imperative especially in the sense of denoting a compromise, meaning commonalities, in terms of justice and fairness between individuals, groups and nations.
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑October 16th, 2018, 1:26 amIt may be foolish to do to others what you wouldn't like done to you. But why does that make it morally wrong?
I think it’s a matter of degree. On the surface there’s nothing to make it wrong. Such behavior is often justified when subsumed under the rules of competition by the saying business is business and love is BS. In short, you just did to me what I would have loved to do to you had I beaten you to it. Though such doings can verge on the reprehensible it’s still well understood and practiced without being considered overtly immoral by society.
But there’s always a dividing line when revulsion against an act causes a moral reaction to the point where we “objectify” it as a gross moral infringement. It’s the collective in society which determines moral violations and whereas none of these were ever objectified in nature they must be be affirmed in societies for the establishment of a collective conscience. You know what they say about a house divided. What keeps it whole is what it objectifies and agrees to.
At bottom though, their isn’t a single thing in human nature which isn’t subjective no matter how much we try to escape from ourselves into a pure world of the unconditional. Even science is customized to our perceptions and preconceptions. Whether fiction, fantasy or non-fiction everything we know or so imagine, served-up as subjective or objective, flows from one source only it's path being from the inside-out.