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Thanks, Reg!

Or Reg. We can teach by showing snarky contempt. That’s what Socrates did. Sort of

Indeed you had. Four days ago. There was no notification that I had a message. I have sent it. Enjoy

No. This is:

“argumentum from pure exhaustion”

The irony is if you pay attention to the cartoon that this whole thing started with (a completely different topic by the way) you’ll see it was mostly, all about people, who refuse to educate themselves (in this case even in the basics) and then argue nonsense and when challenged on their lack of…[Read more]

Simon it baffles my mind how you won’t read a single book about a topic you discuss so much. I’m with unseen. I’m done discussing this with you.

That may be so, but this is the version that is actually used by people.

How do you know that Simon. You are virtually illiterate in all things ethics.

Utilitarianism can be reframed as “all those affected by my actions are to receive the maximum benefit and minimum harm available to them”,

That depends. There are multiple utilitarian systems that would not be characterized as such.

Deontological means duties, right?

That is a gross oversimplification. Pick up a book and read it…please.

I’m with Hume: morality is an evolved psychological matter.  I think Kant went wrong by trying to insist it’s rational and moreover, absolute.

Hume’s writings on ethics are vague and are not well developed. Kant’s works were, in part, a response to the many problems with both Hume writings. Kant only talks about absolute “within” the moral syst…[Read more]

It also comes down to the question, how many people have to agree with a principle to make it a principle? Anti-social people believe they can take what they want from others. Does that make anti-social behaviour an ethical principle?

What a moral principle is depends entirely on the moral system. Deontological systems generate entirely different…[Read more]

I would do it the same way the people in the study did, using a representative sample of the world’s societies.

That wouldn’t PROVE anything. That would just be anthropological documentation of human behaviour. Not finding a single human society that agreed or disagreed with any moral law doesn’t prove (or falsify) it as a moral truth. A moral t…[Read more]

All of these were innovations over and above the abilities of the other great apes.

That doesn’t make them moral truths. And it was only with a proper analysis of ethics that we actually “learn” anything about ethics. What do you know about your own morality if you don’t think about it and truly analyse it? You’re simply a smarter ape. Not a…[Read more]

After all, ethics and metaethics are supposed to be talking about a real thing: what is that thing?

No Simon. That is not what ethics and metha ethics are “supposed” to be about. That’s what you think it is, almost certainly due to your lack of familiarity with ethics in general.

So yeah then Simon. It’s dubious to assume there is moral truth. It’s only possible within a moral system.

And even if the universe set us up to have moral systems (it didn’t by the way) that doesn’t suddenly generate moral truth. Humans only started rationalising and codifying moral systems 10,000 years ago and they only started doing so in an…[Read more]