Sunday School

[Mcc1789Participant]

Well, the opposite from what Reg said: something that isn’t just a matter of opinion or culture. In philosophy, “moral realism” is the term used. The idea I favor is that flourishing and happiness are values which all people pursue, with morality based on fulfilling those.

[_Robert_Participant]

Mcc1789 wrote:

Well, the opposite from what Reg said: something that isn’t just a matter of opinion or culture. In philosophy, “moral realism” is the term used. The idea I favor is that flourishing and happiness are values which all people pursue, with morality based on fulfilling those.

“Flourishing” is usually at someone else’s expense. There are limited resources on this planet. So is flourishing and being happy living in a 30 room mansion moral? Plenty say yes, plenty say no. Subjective.

 

 

 

[Mcc1789Participant]

It can be, but doesn’t have to be. Having a mansion also isn’t required.

[_Robert_Participant]

You just proved it is subjective. An objective moral value by definition must be universal and unambiguous. Our relative morality originates from our need to cooperate to survive as is the case with all social animals.

 

 

[Mcc1789Participant]

No, objective is different from universal. In any case, universal to whom?

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@mcc1789 – you still haven’t given a positive definition of “objective”.

I agree that the value of “flourishing” fulfills every criterion of “objectivity” that I can think of.  There are two broad ways to achieve this within a social situation: cooperation (i.e. morality) and competition.

However, your argument that “flourishing” is an objective principle or value doesn’t follow through into morality.  That’s the point.  What began life, evolutionarily, as a clear set of adaptations aimed at small-scale cooperation has ended up, within large cultural groups, as “twisting gardens of rules”.  So how does your idea of objectivity apply to this?

I think this apparent disconnect is partly due to the multi-level nature of morality: the individual, the family, friends and cooperators, group welfare, out-group members.  Each has a separate morality associated with it, and these can clash.

[Mcc1789Participant]

Objective, as in based on facts, not just opinions-independent of the mind.

So it’s objective, you agree, though not morality? I don’t see how complexity negates this. It is a fact that flourishing and happiness are human goals. Conflict can and does occur, but need not. I don’t think this fundamentally differs on any level that you mention either. Cooperation and reciprocity are possible for us.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by  Mcc1789.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by  Mcc1789.

[_Robert_Participant]

Independent of the mind, but not universal makes no sense. Independent of the mind huh? So if the human race went extinct (and we will) there would be no morality in the universe, correct? That I will agree to. Or perhaps the universe was created so that human morality could play itself out and each person be judged? Never mind the Neanderthals. The religious argument for god given objective morality is a joke.

 

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@mcc1789 –

“Objective, as in based on facts”

“So it’s objective, you agree, though not morality? I don’t see how complexity negates this.”

– moral complexity means that there are conflicting versions of right and wrong.  Facts cannot be simultaneously one thing and another.  So moral complexity confounds a fact-based conception of moral objectivity.  If you think about it, all moral judgements are based on facts.

I think you have to give a better definition of “objectivity” than “based on facts”.

“Well, the opposite from what Reg said: something that isn’t just a matter of opinion or culture. In philosophy, “moral realism” is the term used.”

– isn’t “moral realism” the notion that there exist “moral facts” – the idea that something is just “right” or “wrong”, the same way that something can be “orange” or “round”?  I think this is a very strange idea, that hasn’t been thought through.  This seems to be the “objectivity” that religious people refer to (while conflating it with other, hidden definitions).  This kind of moral law is seen as a fundamental property of the universe, with no justification, and lots of evidence to the contrary.

“I don’t think this fundamentally differs on any level that you mention either.”

– think about the conflict, in many cultures, between individual rights (especially women’s rights) and what society forces one to do against one’s will, in the name of what is “right”.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@tom sarbeck – “Any fact can be understood or interpreted, differently by different people. it can also be understood or interpreted differently by any one person at different times.”

– yes, but an actual physical thing or situation can only actually be itself, and not simultaneously something different, at any one time.  What we choose to make of that or how we interpret it is up to us.

[Tom SarbeckParticipant]

It seems Platonic that only the abstraction exists.
And in that context does the idea of existence exist?

If philosophy is dead, philosophers killed it.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Who said philosophy is dead?  Anyone can do it any time.  It’s like saying that art or poetry is dead: they’re endlessly available for all to take part in easily.

I would have thought, yes, abstraction is a kind of Platonic idea of existence.  But actual things or situations exist too, or we can imagine that they exist.

[StregaModerator]

“yes, but an actual physical thing or situation can only actually be itself, and not simultaneously something different, at any one time.”

Simon, have you heard of Mr Schroedinger’s cat?

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I have a tattoo of Plato’s Cave covering most of my back. I will never get to see the reality of it, only a mirror image or photo of it. Some people are happy to see the back of me.

[Tom SarbeckParticipant]

@simon – “Who said philosophy is dead?”

Google “is philosophy dead?” I did and the controversy’s size surprised me. Hawking remarked on its demise.

BTW – “dead” is metaphor. What say you to the hypothesis that every word in a language is metaphor?

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