99Percent

In objective morality there are no values, that only applies to supposed subjective morality. But stock market shares do have objective value, like money.

Scorpion

No values !?!?

I wish I was able to form some sort of a constructive question that could help to pinpoint the source of my confusion, but best I can do is "what!?"...

Since you are a moderator on this site I will (for the time being ) assume that you are not making sentences out of random words... so, uh, is there a concise web page or something that summarizes the position you're defending? I'm beginning to wonder if that position is even remotely the same as what I'm critizing... and I suspect that trying to find it out through series of gedankenexperiments and examples from real life will take a looong time.

Supposed? Are you claiming there is no such thing as subjective morality at all?

-S-

[ August 29, 2002: Message edited by: Scorpion ]

[ August 29, 2002: Message edited by: Scorpion ]</p>

99Percent

Sorry for the confusion, I got carried away in my thinking and went straight to the conclusion. What I meant by "no values" is that there is no evaluation of what is good or bad. Its simply either good or bad, true or false. There is nothing to evaluate, no in betweens when making a moral decision because that would turn out to be subjective.

I am tending to think that subjective morality does not exist now. Some people make what appear to be moral decisions out feelings and empathy but that I think is not really moral at all since they decided on impulse not on reason.

For example if somebody decides to not murder somebody because he values more his freedom than the pleasure of murder is not really a moral decision. Objective morality would be that he doesn't murder somebody because he knows it is irrational and therefore wrong. There is nothing to evaluate in this case.

Scorpion

I'm not sure I got it yet (surely "murder is wrong" is a value statement?), but there is an obvious difference between our concepts of "morality". I interpret it as nothing more than a set of values guiding one's actions while you seem to have more strict definition:

This clearly implies that you demand even subjective morality to be "really" moral in order to qualify. In other words, it seems that you're saying that subjective morality doesn't exist because it isn't objective

The way I've seen it is that there are different sets of values (moralities) and that to claim the existence of objective morality is to say that there is one set of values that is objectively correct (and therefore better than any other set). I assume you see this differently, but I don't see it quite clearly yet to dare to put it into words myself...

-S-

[ August 29, 2002: Message edited by: Scorpion ]</p>

99Percent

Scorpion: I'm not sure I got it yet (surely "murder is wrong" is a value statement?)

Well there is saying that you have to call a spade a spade when you see one - no value statements involved. Your way of avoiding the issue of objectivity goes like this: I see a bottle, and I say its a bottle. You respond: its just a piece of glass. So I take the bottle and fill it with a precious liquid. You take the piece of glass and make blowing sounds with it. Such is the interpretation of value according to you.

This clearly implies that you demand even subjective morality to be "really" moral in order to qualify. In other words, it seems that you're saying that subjective morality doesn't exist because it isn't objective

Remember I said that morality is based on reason. I clearly demand that a car requires wheels for it to qualify as a car. In other words morality requires reason or else it isn't objective.

The way I've seen it is that there are different sets of values (moralities) and that to claim the existence of objective morality is to say that there is one set of values that is objectively correct (and therefore better than any other set).

But how can a set of values (moralities) be of any real significance if these sets of values (moralities) can be changed at whim and at any time due to any circumstances? Say that I normally won't kill for 20 bucks, but I will gladly kill for 20,000 bucks. Or in an example not involving money: I won't kill you because I like you (I value your friendship more than the pleasure of killing you) but I will kill this other person because I hate him (I value more my pleasure of killing than his friendship). In other words your subjective "morality" involves foggy shifting values. What kind of morality is that? Its no morality, because real objective morality does not depend on values that can be altered or interpreted at whim.

Scorpion

But, uh, a spade doesn't include a "should" in any sense, does it? If things are right or wrong, objectively or not, it means there is a "should/should not" there (or are you perhaps saying that the wrongness of murder does not mean that I shouldn't do it?) . Either I'm still getting something horribly wrong or then we just aren't meeting with our definitions, since for me anything involving a "should" is a value.

Yes, but I don't remember having agreed on that. Since you nevertheless use it to ground your argument, I'm beginning to feel like you are not really interested to debate about the matter.

...and my impression is further confirmed by this. I was trying to find a definition of morality that could be used in a discussion where it could be determined if there is objective morality or not, but obviously if morality is already defined in a way that only objective morality qualifies, any debate is pointless.

Since we can't agree on the definition of morality, I'll just talk about sets of values (even though it is a bit beside the topic since you seem to have claimed that objective morality is not a set of values (!!) )...
In short, why should a set of values be of any real significance? I accept any arbitrary list of sentences, even contradictory sentences, as a set of values if they can be interpreted to tell me what I should or should not do.

-S-

[ September 01, 2002: Message edited by: Scorpion ]</p>