/lit/ - Literature

I don't believe in it, but I know these claims:
https://youtu.be/Lgcd6jvsCFs

Read this and you'll understand

>>6904130
it can't
Moral Absolutism is fucking stupid

>>6904142
That is what I figured. I just don't understand how people come to this conclusion.

Morality isn't supposed to be an abstraction. Go listen to real 911 calls made by people who were attacked or murdered on the line, or look at serial killer crime scene photos, or read the fantasies of sadists and degenerates and try to social construct that gut feeling of disgust and fundamental "wrongness" in your gut.

The natural state of the mind is purity and freedom. Human beings are disposed to benevolence. Perhaps not active benevolence in all cases, but at least exhibit a neutral or pleasant disposition to people and things that do not threaten them. Life, when survival is not on the line, and to be a bit pretentious, is "axiomatically benign".

Establishing this, to transgress moral boundaries, to rape, torture, and murder for gratification, to steal, lie, and deceive, these are actions that upset this axiom. It is wrong, it is sickening, and it so far from the norm of what nature in her blind indifference reveals to us about the world you cannot handwave honest-to-god evil away with sophistry.

>>6904166
It's ugly how so many countries approve of putting the period outside the quotations.

>>6904175
it's all relative :^)

>>6904166

>it's wrong because i feel it in my gut

Holy fuck, do you even anthropology or history?

>>6904179
I don't like you tbh

>>6904166
>appeal to nature
>knee-jerk reactions are universal
>appeal to emotion

>>6904166
How is the gut feeling "wrongness"? My moral nihilism does not make me want to rape, torture, or steal because it would not give me gratification. I would not do these things because I have the ability to empathize with other sentient beings.

>>6904180
anthropology? nigga u serious?

in b4 the weeb brigade has opinions about evil

>>6904130
I always thought of niilism as a philosophical tabula rasa.

Now you get to construct your own purpose. If you want to.

>>6904189
>appeal to nature

yeah you stupid nigger, if i cant appeal to fucking reality what can i appeal to? c'mon

and bonus
>he thinks the horror of hearing someone die is a knee-jerk reaction

those triple swirl lattes are boring holes in your brain friendo

define objective

>>6904130
>Can anyone explain to me how morality can be objective?

Because it is based upon God, and came down to us from God, Who enforces it.

>>6904195

you must be baiting, there are thousand of examples

you must be literally retard to think that a rape here in late capitalism west is the same as a rape in some tribe in africa

>defining morality from feelings

this is beyond saving

>>6904211
>reality=nature

>>6904221
That doesn't make it right or wrong. What you just described is the subjective opinion of a super-powered being which is then forced on those less powerful.

>>6904211
>whole argument contingent on a logical fallacy
why should anyone take you seriously?

>>6904249
I suppose if you go by the axiom that this being made physical reality, it wouldn't be odd that morals are actually out there in the physical world.

>>6904231
kek what is it then?

>>6904230
oh boy time for barry the barista to school me on transcendental, objective morality with examples from his class on pygmies

(hint: just because some cultures had different opinions about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist)

>morality based on feels

and kek, nice implication that cultural relativists don't just extrapolate their own moral cowardice and confusion into a whole moral philosophy either

>>6904249
>the supreme Good is relative :^)

oh man this board

>>6904221

>>6904221
>God, Who enforces it.
Well he's certainly doing a fantastic job

>>6904391
God IS x.

nice try tho

>>6904395

top kek

Virtue ethics solves this problem. Morality is both subjective AND objective. Read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and G.E.M. Anscombe's essay "Modern Moral Philosophy".

>>6904192
>my moral nihilism
The last consolation of the NEET sperglords

>>6904130
what is moral is sustainable
what is immoral is unsustainable

>>6904204
That's existentialism.
Nihilism is a blank slate that is resistant to any marker or paint.

>>6905643
Nope Nope Nope.

The most basic thought experiment that goes against the silly notions mentioned in the essay is the rock universe.

Imagine a universe that only has rocks, no sentient being whatsoever. Surely you'll agree such a universe is empty of any moral scale.

And once we accept that morality is entirely based on suffering and prosperity of sentient beings (and thoroughly ignore over 200 years of pointless debate among modern moral philosopher) we merely need to ask whether or not there's an objective value to their suffering or prosperity in the widest context we know.

If you're able to say that the notion of suffering is somehow inherently wrong you're gonna need to back that up by some mystical bullshit, 'cause the widest context we know is just a universe with basic laws of physics that is entirely ambivalent to the prosperity or suffering of the sentient beings within it.

>>6904130
Goodness is an aspect of being. Everything that exists insofar as it exists then is some kind of good. A thing which fulfills its proper ends as according to its nature is doing a good thing. Morality comes about when you have creature that have free will, such as humans.

>>6904391
The right one is dumb, who says god is gonna command anything? He has his standard that is not fully known to you

>>6904263
come on anon you can try harder than that

>>6905720
Ad hominem.

>>6904142
relativism is for retard undergrads

>>6904130
Real Essentialism

it's the only way

>>6906422
So what is the "essence" of morality?

>>6906434
thats not what i meant

but anyways, "to pursue good and avoid evil"

>>6906443
what is evil ?

>>6906443
What is the essence of "good"? What is the essence of "evil"? What is the essence of "pursue"?

>>6906443
That is what you meant. Or do you not know what "essentialism" means?

>>6906461
an absence of good
>>6906466
that which fulfills the ends of a certain thing. See above. lol wut?
>>6906468
yes i do, i thought everyone knew what morality means, also essence isnt the same as meaning

>>6904166
What you are suggest first is that pity is a universal. This errs in numerous ways. First you don't understand that something being ideological, or less accurately in your words a 'social construct' does not precede it being less instinctive. Following, you identify the feeling of pity for it's strength as thus something to be obeyed. This jump comes from nowhere.

Then your claim is a basic tabula rasa, which goes against what you just said and then what you said after it and is also wrong, kek. Natural purity and freedom include from to feel however one wants to feel (one can already see how this is also a false view), but to claim that purity and freedom are benevolence is absurd, for freedom and purity 'in themselves' have no biases.

Life is not axiomatically benign because there is no form of life. If rape, torture, and murder happen, life includes them clearly. An axiom should not deny reality. Evil is not wrong because it is sickening. This is another jump. If evil is evil because it is sickening, which all you can seem to come up with, then it follows that evil is objectively not evil for the 'evil', who clearly don't find it sickening. "It so far from the norm of what nature in her blind indifference reveals to us about the world" - this is particularly laughable. All one needs to looks for is the existence of carnivorous animals.

That animals don't have any form of consciousness is a joke, but you tell yourself that to eat them. But, because pity on them is not an instinct, nobody thinks it's bad. That's because nobody really believes in universal laws, the main one being "don't hurt conscious beings", they just don't think about them because they don't have the time to challenge bullshit that everybody believes. They only believe their instinct and trust all too much that the instinct is theirs and that it is a healthful one.

>>6905830
dense knots of ideology here, my god

>Everything that exists insofar as it exists then is some kind of good

I'm not even sure if this makes grammatical sense, let alone logical or rational sense. Existing is not inherently better or worse than not existing. If that's true, one could construct all sorts of counter-intuitive examples, and examples that are cross-purposes to your own argument. For example, a thing which destroys and kills other things as part of its nature. It is a historically demonstrable part of human nature to systematically eradicate other forms of life on earth, to such an extent that we live under what biologists call the "anthropocene" era, because human actions have caused mass extinctions to an extent that was only previously caused by meteor strikes, ice age, etc. You have a logical impasse, since according to you existing is better than not-existing. Humans cause many things to stop existing, but are fulfilling their ends according to their nature.

You have yet another impasse, where you say it is good for things to act according to their nature, but then reference free will. Acting according to some innate nature is deterministic (which you say is a good thing). But then you also say its good to exercise free will, which is necessarily opposed to determinism.

It doesn't even stop there. You can't objectively determine what is or is not the "nature" of a thing. I mentioned historically demonstrable human nature, but that can be contested (ie: the forgoing history of a thing doesn't determine its future).

Last, one can't even objectively choose where one thing ends and another begins. It's arbitrary, subjective. The distinction between "human" and "dog" is easily erased at a molecular level, let alone subatomic. There is no cause to prefer any scale at which one observes and distinguishes between 'things.'

jesus christ my man. pure ideology

>>6906482
>thought everyone knew what morality means
Try reading some moral philosophy some time, champ. Conceptions of morality are highly contested. People disagree over the meaning of morality all the time.

>essence isnt the same as meaning
No shit. Essentialism posits that everything has an unchanging eternal essential essence. Now tell me what the essence of morality is.

>an absence of good
What's essence of "absence"? What's the essence of "good"?

>that which fulfills the ends of a certain thing. See above. lol wut?
What is the essence of fulfillment? What is the essence of "ends"? What is the essence of "thing"?

>>6906491
your ideology is showing aswell.

>>6906496
>Essentialism posits that everything has an unchanging eternal essential essence.
yeah, source?
>what is the essence of...
what does this have to do with morality?
youre literally doing the same as "define define"
>>6906491
>Humans cause many things to stop existing, but are fulfilling their ends according to their nature.
so? how does one making one thing stop existing make existing not better than not existance
> Acting according to some innate nature is deterministic
this begs the question
>You can't objectively determine what is or is not the "nature" of a thing.
this too begs it
>The distinction between "human" and "dog" is easily erased at a molecular level, let alone subatomic.
begging it

>>6906525
How so? He's critiquing your argument based on its own terms.

>>6906496
Now you're just being pretentious.

>>6904139
>mfw the Nietzsche doodle translates 'schlecht' as 'evil'

>>6906531
"Essentialism is the view that, for any specific entity (such as an animal, a group of people, a physical object, a concept), there is a set of attributes which are necessary to its identity and function.[1] In Western thought the concept is found in the work of Plato and Aristotle. Platonic idealism is the earliest known theory of how all known things and concepts have an essential reality behind them (an "Idea" or "Form"), an essence that makes those things and concepts what they are. Aristotle's Categories proposes that all objects are the objects they are by virtue of their substance, that the substance makes the object what it is. The essential qualities of an object, so George Lakoff summarizes Aristotle's highly influential view, are "those properties that make the thing what it is, and without which it would be not that kind of thing".[2] This view is contrasted with non-essentialism, which states that, for any given kind of entity, there are no specific traits which entities of that kind must possess."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism

That's the commonly accepted definition. You apparently don't even know what position you're advocating for.

>youre literally doing the same as "define define"
But wait, we agreed that "meaning" and "essence" aren't the same. Now they are?

If you want to support essentialism, your argument that supports it needs terms to be clearly defined in their essentialist form, in other words, you must identify an essence of something otherwise you can't prove it's even a thing. According to essentialism, everything has an essence. If you can't identify the essence of something, it "essentially" doesn't exist.

>>6906538
I'm not being "pretentious". That means I'm pretending towards something. What am I pretending towards?

I'm being an asshole. But it is to prove a point. The point is this very special individual doesn't even know what essentialism is yet boldly asserts that "it's the only way".

>>6906531
>so?

Your argument has these properties:

>Existing is good
>Not existing is bad
>Anything acting according to its nature is good
...
>Human nature involves causing the non-existence of things

The logical contradiction is that not existing is bad, that dying or not fulfilling its "proper ends" is bad, but acting according to nature is good.

>how does one making one thing stop existing make existing not better than not existance

That's not my argument. I'm arguing that your argument is untenable, because lots of contradictions appear. The one about humans destroying other life just one example. If anything I would argue that it is not better or worse to exist or not exist.

>this begs the question

Begging the question is circular reasoning. This isn't what I've done in any of the examples you said are such.

You yourself must suppose that a thing's "nature" is deterministic. Thats the very function of a thing having a "nature." We are saying that, before a thing performs any action, we already know what kinds of actions it will do. If you don't agree with this notion of what is meant when one says "a thing's nature," please supply your own.

>You can't objectively determine what is or is not the "nature" of a thing

Where is the question begging here?

>The distinction between 'human' and 'dog' is easily erased at a molecular level, let alone subatomic

I also don't understand where the question-begging is occurring here. Both humans and dogs are made mostly of oxygen and carbon, and to a lesser extent hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulfer, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium. The same is true of dogs. At a molecular level, we are indistinguishable.

>>6906560
And yet you keep being pretentious. Good job.

>>6905738
Nothing is sustainable.

>>6905830
>Goodness is an aspect of being
>There being is good
Where did you learn this peculiar logic?

>Free will
Free will cannot exist without magic. Either consciousness follows the rules of cause and effect, or it is random, or it is a mix of cause/effect and randomness. None of these allow for free will in any meaningful sense.

>>6906632
How am I being "pretentious"? Please enlighten me. What am I pretending towards?

You do know there is a difference between the word "pretentious" and the word "pedantic", correct? Because I think the word you're actually looking for is that latter.

>>6906482
>absence of good

So a universe in which no living thing exists is evil? That doesn't make any sense.

>>6906650
No, I meant pretentious. If you want to learn why you are pretentious, then simply read your own posts.

>>6904166

Many psychopaths would feel no real revulsion, disgust, or "fundamental wrongness" from seeing or hearing the things you mention. Does that make psychopaths (who are physiologically distinct in brain chemistry from the norm, and are thought to constitute around 1% of the population) inherently evil?

Do you think that a society composed entirely of psychopaths could not function? Remember that the vast majority of psychopaths integrate and often excel in normal society.

>>6906659
Please, I'm such a stupid person. Pretty pretty please enlighten me about what I'm pretending towards. You're so clearly smarter than me with your big words that you're so good at properly using. I'm just a little no nothing dummy. Only you can explain how I'm pretentious.

>>6906672
You are getting too mad over nothing. Your anger is only proving to me how pretentious you really are. If you want to learn why you are pretentious, then simply read your own posts!

>>6906694
I'm asking you to substantiate your claim that I'm pretentious. If the answer lies in my own posts, please point out where the pretenses in my post lie. I've read them plenty. I see nothing pretentious in them. I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that I'm merely overlooking them, and that they exist. I just need you to point out specific pretenses so that I know you're correct and change the error of my damnable ways.

>>6906709

Dude, go to bed.

He's trolling you, this is embarrassing to watch.

>>6906709
If it'll calm you down, sure.
>Try reading some moral philosophy some time, champ. Conceptions of morality are highly contested. People disagree over the meaning of morality all the time.
Things are a little bit pretentious here, but not horribly so
>No shit. Essentialism posits that everything has an unchanging eternal essential essence. Now tell me what the essence of morality is.
You tried
>What's essence of "absence"? What's the essence of "good"?
Things start getting pretty bad here, but you can still turn it around from here. You can save this argument yet.
>What is the essence of fulfillment? What is the essence of "ends"? What is the essence of "thing"?
And now here is where things went terribly wrong. Pretentiousness on an advanced level. I'll admit, I'm impressed. What a bothersome argument you've made.

Now, I hope I've helped you understand and you'll put more effort into posting next time. And please do calm down.

>>6906716
What about that post makes you think I'm taking him seriously?

>>6906725
How upset you seem

>>6904625
By Leibniz's law God and goodness are not identical and thus separate objects. You don't go around saying that giving anesthesia to operation patients is God do you?

>>6904166
when i listen to those 911 calls i dont feel some wrong feeling in my gut i feel bored because i dont want to listen to that boring crap. theres nothing disgusting or Twisted about it. its just a thing that happens.

>>6906731
edgy

>>6906735

>>6906727
"when men are deceived and their notions are at variance with realities, it is clear that the error slips in through resemblances"

>>6906466
What is the essence of "essence"? What is the essence? What is? What?

>>6906550
>According to essentialism, everything has an essence. If you can't identify the essence of something, it "essentially" doesn't exist.
what? of course not, you dont need to know the essence of everything to say things have essences, thats stupid
>But wait, we agreed that "meaning" and "essence" aren't the same. Now they are?
>i cant into analogies
>>6906595
>that's not my argument
of course it is, that humans make things not exist doesnt make existance not better than non existance, it doesnt follow
>>6906595
youre begging the question because you are presupposing propositions that the essentialist denies, like
I also don't understand where the question-begging is occurring here. Both humans and dogs are made mostly of oxygen and carbon, and to a lesser extent hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulfer, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium. The same is true of dogs. At a molecular level, we are indistinguishable.
that the subatomic is the fundamental level of reality begs the question

>>6904130
ultimately it comes back to the question of the existence of an absolute, in other words, God

this is why these questions are redundant as fuck. make up your mind. there is either a principle beyond all that is or there isn't

there is no "objective" anything OP, it is clear misunderstanding in philosophical thinking to think "x" is objectively true, becuase it is a confution of identity with abstract essence with "x' occupies.

So when you say "x is x" (The Aristotelean formula of identity, you don't always mean it in an empirical sense but you try to conflate with it's idealy abstract essence.

As a consequence morality or even moral commands are non-sensical, because they are wholy abstract and trancedental. So one would only have to genealogicaly trace their history in order to find contradictions with their reasoning, i.e. metahysical thinking, which confuses essence with presence.

>"... hitherto we have been permitted to seek beauty only in the morally good - a fact which sufficiently accounts for our having found so little of it and having had to seek about for imaginary beauties without backbone! - As surely as the wicked enjoy a hundred kinds of happiness of which the virtuous have no inkling, so too they possess a hundred kinds of beauty; and many of them have not yet been discovered."

from Nietzsche's Daybreak, s. 468, R.J. Hollingdale transl

"The good" is a platonic category.

>>6904166
>this is what sam harris actually believes

>>6908156

The "absolute" is humanitys laziest though. Litteraly nothing is dependant on it because there is litteraly no risk wether you believe on it or not, the world will keep turning blindly and oblivious to humanity.

Hence why Kant's "noumenon" is the most incredible cop-out in the history of philosophy, an unkown ground that would be the souce of the categories, yet the categories can operate with out it. So anything concerning an ontologicaly absolute source of the world is invariably a perfect speciment of onto-theological passion for abstraction even when it ios not needed. Religion is excpemeted from this mistake because it is after all "religion", that is myths and fairy tales which explain the world trancedentaly, but that philosophy has fallen into that pit so many times is really an abject crime.

>>6904130

> Thinking should "be" able to be morally objective post-Socrates. Ever since hundreds of years before christ morality is subjective, OP, but of course aimed at objectivity through reason. The good is a matter of insight, of human reason.

>>6904130
It's the ambiguity of morality that makes the concept of morality objective. Take quantum physics; it's characterized by being scattered, but in being so, being 'undefined' IS it's inherent definition. I'm afraid this is the only way morality can be taken objectively.

Marla wears a dress and doesn't think about whether she like it or not.
Betty abhors the dress and calls it hideous, while Joe likes it and complements her on it (they bang later).

You can try to square away morality into gut reactions, that it's something primal >>6904166
Or say it's ordained by God >>6904221

But that does not scrub away how unique morality is to each individual, or even draw a clear line between morality and preference.

Inb4 assuming that a child is born pure, and that at that instance, morality is objective, is absurd; what's going on in a baby's head at that age has as much a moral compass as a miss firing circuit board. Morality is reserved for what we, as adults, would call 'free will' >>6905830 the power to 'choose' one keyboard key as opposed to another.

To standardize morality is to standardize fashion, and the furthest you're going to get is "Some people like to dress colorful, some people dress dull, and some people don't like to wear anything at all."

Morality is objectively subjective.

Even if objective morality existed, what would be the point? It clearly isn't preventing any such evil from happening. In fact many so called "evildoers" think their actions are objectively moral.

If anything, so called moral Nihilists are less likely to do "Evil" thins because they don't think anything is worth it.

Objective morality BTFO by it's own contradictions.

>>6906730
Leibniz was using a modernist understanding of the Christian god so the whole thing is ruined.

>>6910970
He weren't

>>6910981
what

if we define morality as a system of values that keeps society from eating itself then we can look at history to find the values that remain consistent throughout . This gives us basic stuff like dont rape, steal, etc. You wont find an example of a stable society that ever considered these to be generally acceptable.

>>6912001
>if
key word is here

nihilism stems only from the angst of people having TO CHOOSE what principles a society must obey. Since laziness is a key feature of the humanity, the humanity seeks any signs that would give us some objectivity and apply whatever it is written. It was some sanctified being for each cultures, now it is science since the liberals took over. Too bad that they missed that the purpose of a scientist is not to give morality to a society... but now we are stuck with billions of people on the planet, and those liberals who have created them without even thinking have still no clue about what to do with the middle class, good at solely working and consuming mediocre goods and services...


But as always, people claim all day long that consent matters, that they wish to be free, to have the CHOICE; however, when it is time to actually choose, be it a simple cake at the supermarket or a car, they are at sea about what they want and in result, follow whoever enlivens them or told them what to do

One day, people will understand that there is nothing wrong with a plurality of perspectives. Of course, after having nations with billions of people in it, only the classical liberalism can work.

If everyone followed the golden rule we would collectively be better off. Sure, whether an individual treats others according to the rule may or may not be to their advantage, but they will without exception hope that others will treat them according to it.

>>6910537

Morality is obejectively relative, that is relative to situations,cultures, historical epochs and metaphysical ideas. Just because your gut feeling says somthing is wrong or right doesn't make it "objective", if it was all subjective we woudn't be ale to communicate those values in the first place or agree with each other and everyone would go on their merry way.

>>6904166
Humans are bound by the innate need to procreate
this can in some cases equate to rape
resulting in an imposition on >le absolutist morality

>>6912122
Morality is only relative when you realize that the cake is a lie

Ignorant and cognizant states reflect the abundance of morality impositions

>>6906667
I wouldn't say they excel in general. In our society they generally act as social parasites.

But yes, they can be rational and so a social contract could emerge from their convergent interests. Altruism isn't a requirement.

>>6904130
Best answer I've found so far is "yeah it's all relative but 99.99% of humans agree that X so that's close enough to objectively true, and if we start from there it's undeniably rational that..." and so on.

Or alternatively, "yeah it's all subjective, but if you do X the cops are going to do Y to you." Sure, it's not WRONG for him to do X, but neither is it WRONG for the cops to do Y to him.

Nihilism doesn't mean anything particularly profound, because the world can keep on turning on the basis of monopoly of force anyway - and if the people controlling that force BELIEVE in objective morality, even if it isn't true, then it's not so easily dismissed as stupid and meaningless.

>>6904130
I would define objective morality as anything truly detrimental to society as wrong

There is a God, and he judges.

>>6904139
W-what

I didn't realize C.S. Lewis was a literal retard. Should've stuck to writing children's stories.

This shit is very simple. Morals are self-evidently relative, changing constantly between any community or time period. Moral absolutism is an idiotic concept. However, there are acts (mostly involving physical or sexual harm) that tend to anger people and tear communities apart if something isn't done to symbolically make up for it (punishing the offender), so we do that because a codified system with specific rules helps keep the peace, and that allows communities to survive and prosper. If you're confused, it's because you keep trying to bring crap like "right" and "wrong" into it. Morals aren't the point: people's reactions to certain acts are the point. Saying "murder is wrong" is moronic, and begs for exceptions to be pointed out (war, etc.). Saying "murder usually upsets the victim's friends, family, and neighbours, so we can't allow it, for the good of our community" is NOT a moral statement, it's a practical observation. There's no absolutes, no objective constants, no morals, just a shifting and constantly-negotiated code that allows societies to function more smoothly. If you can't understand this, I give up.

>>6913921
So "simple" that you in fact forgot to provide an actual argument for your position. There is no wonder you gave up.

>saying "murder usually upsets the victim's friends, family, and neighbours, so we can't allow it, for the good of our community" is NOT a moral statement, it's a practical observation
You're wrong and you need to read some literature on the subject asap. Any proposition that contains the predicate 'is wrong' or 'is right', among many others, *are* moral propositions, you ignorant inbred.

>>6906490
Rip

>>6912590
and you shoud've stuck to reading them.

>>6904189

its stupid to say that "emotion" is irrelevant in this case, our emotion evolved over millions of years for certain reasons. We do not live in an utterly logical world so our feelings need to be taken into account.

An example: most people feel a revulsion at an animal being tortured. Even if they eat meat (which I do), when they see, say, a baby calf being treated horribly in a slaughterhouse, almost everyone feels bad and doesn't want it to happen. Why? That's the question I'm interested in. It just feels so wrong. Often they take away a baby calf from its mom, and that feels very wrong to.

Morality may not be a "real" thing, and yet our feelings are.

>>6914281
Our feelings are real, morality is not.

We hate "Evil" things because they make us feel bad, not because some objective observer told us to. The problem is people mistake their feelings with objective truth, and think their feelings are worth killing people over.

>>6914320
not true. we feel bad in reaction to an objective observation of something "evil". And sometimes not even then- what we personally feel can be completely divorced from our judgments of right and wrong. you're conflating two categories because they share some overlap, and ignoring the fact that you and everybody else perpetually think in terms of those two seperate categories because you so want them to be the same.

>>6906490

BTFO

>>6914404
No, you feel bad because your mirror neurons make seeing somebody else suffer feel like you suffering. This is an evolutionary adaptation which has helped us as a social species, but the IS fact that empathy exists is not an ought.

If you believe that social cohesion is positive, you will probably also feel the same about things associated with it, but that is nothing more than an aesthetic judgement.

>>6914320
>the problem is people mistake their feelings with objective truth, and think their feelings are worth killing people over

you're picking up presuppositions you don't want

1st you're saying there exists objective truth (not obvious)

2nd you're saying that this objective truth (rather than subjective feeling!) should govern what people do

in other words you think there is an objective ethics, i.e. morality...

>>6914435
How am I saying there exists an objective truth? I'm saying people are mistaking their feelings for it. That's not the same as saying it exists. I can mistake clouds for UFOs all day long, but that doesn't mean aliens really are visiting earth.

I mean, the logical structure of the proof can be relatively simple. Roughly:

1. A proposition is objective - as opposed to subjective - if and only if its truth value does not depend on an agent's cognitive states.
2. A proposition's being rationally justified does not depend on an agent's cognitive states - e.g. 1 + 1 = 2 even if no one in the world is smart enough to do the math, etc.
3. Morality is grounded in rationality.
Therefore, morality is objective.

The tough part, then, is establishing premise 3 - this is roughly what Kant was trying to do.

>>6914546
Proposition two only holds if you subscribe to some form of Platonic position regarding the ontological status of numbers. If, however, you are a fictionalist, that example does not hold. If premise two is put into question, then so is premise one, and thus, the argument is unsound.

>>6914568
Proposition 2 has nothing to do with ontology. 1 + 1 = 2 is a logical relation that holds true even if it is the case that 1 and 2 do not exist, just like A = A is true even if A is a unicorn (which does not exist). Also proposition 2 was merely supposed to be a definition of objective - if that's not what OP meant by 'objective', then I apologize.

>>6914586
That is, proposition 1 was a definition, sorry.

this may sound stupid but what the hell: i don't think society can be run on formal logic alone, to ignore our emotions is to ignore a lot of things we like about living. if we feel that something is morally repugnant, it doesnt mean we should accept it as gospel, but we should at least take it seriously. have a discussion about why we react emotionally to it in the first place.

>>6914586
You are implying an ontological claim right here

> A proposition's being rationally justified does not depend on an agent's cognitive states

As in, the proposition is merely a relation that holds outside the scope of cognition. However, that is implying that the ontology of that relation is not totally self-enclosed by cognition, i.e. that relation holds outside of cognition, and therefore, has 'reality,' not in the sense of a chair, but is still nevertheless a substantive that is not totally wrapped up with cognition. Is that not what you are saying? Or am I mischaracterizing your claim?

>>6904130
Appeal to God's mystery

>>6904249
God in the Christian sense is absolute, meaning what He deems good is objectively good.

In fact, the Christian God is absolute goodness, thereby making anything contrary evil by definition.
>>6914546
That logic has been debunked since existentialism, and even German Idealism.

What if morality is neither subjective nor objective, but intersubjective?

>>6914611
Oh, I see what you're saying. Yes, I'm claiming that A = A would be true even if nothing with cognitive abilities existed, but I don't think that commits me to the further claim that the proposition 'A = A' exists. I think 'A = A' can be said to be true without having to say anything at all about its existence or nonexistence - but I could be mistaken, or just confused at this point.

>All these people think they can make an Ought out of an Is.

>>6914656
Well of course, 'existence' in this case has to be qualified. I know you are not saying A = A exists like a chair or an entity in general. However, you are still holding that this relation is not totally self-enclosed by cognition; the only claim to my mind that would legitimatize this claim is some sort of Platonic conception regarding that relation. Unless you have a differing proposal?

To put it bluntly, if you are saying that the predication of existence is irrelevant in this case, what do you meaning by the following

>Yes, I'm claiming that A = A would be true even if nothing with cognitive abilities existed

What does truth in this case mean? Alternatively stated and elaborated, how does this relation 'hold' exactly outside the purview cognition? The only option insofar as I see it, is the prior case where we predicate upon this relation some form of extant quality, e.g. the relation is a 'substantive' insofar as it it outside the bounds of cognition but nevertheless does not have the same existence as a chair, e.g. Platonic forms.

>>6914546
Your premises are vague beyond words.

States of affairs are objective, not propositions. To call a proposition objective, let alone 'subjective' is nonsense. The very existence of this nebulous type of thing--proposition--is in fact controversial, which you have assumed right off the bat and thus begged the question. One gets to know that a given proposition satisfies a corresponding states of affairs in the world by fundamentally cognitive means, which--surprise, surprise--involve certain kind of cognitive states.

Propositions do not justify themselves, let alone in a rational way; people do. It is clear as a day that it depends on an agent's cognitive states.

>Morality is grounded in rationality.
What is rationality? What it means to be rational? What is morality? How is it 'grounded' in rationality? What is this 'groundedness' relation you're referring to? Can you give a set-theoretic formalization of this relation?

>morality is objective.
But you spoke about propositions being objective, not morality. How did you make this jump?

The argument is, to say the least, 'hopeless'. And by this I do not intend to suggest and commit to the negation of your conclusion; it's just that you need to spend more time spelling out your invidual premises. Don't for a second think that sprinkling your sentences with phrases like 'truth value' and 'if and only if' makes you less obscure, more 'analytic', etc.

Just because something varies because of individual difference/group differences does not mean it doesn't exist.

All the moral codes that have ever been grew out of something in our nature. They didn't appear out of nothing, spontaneously or for no reason at all.

What makes one powerful is what is virtuous. What is powerful is what grows, survives, and dominates. Power is objectively better than weakness.