Gurdur

And where you make your next large mistake is by pretending reason exists in a vacuum.

All moral reasoning is based on premises. Where do these premises come from ?
For most people, these initial premises come from gut feelings.
Oh dear, you will insist on confusing empirical truth with moral opinion. Why ?
Nature exists in absolute disregard of human perception.
Care to debate this one ?

Even better, given your stance, I have this Invisible Pink Unicorn I would like to introduce you to.
Dearie me, you can tell when someone is being true to the emprirical facts or not.
Exactly by such means of empirical observations, it can be seen that no objective morality exists.

Gurdur

Hiya TomboyMom ,
I enjoyed your thread in the Inttroductions forum, BTW.

Well, now, as for deriving general rules, we can and often do :
e.g.
Do not do unto others what you would not like them to do to you

But these are still arbitrarily-accepted guidelines at bottom.
So many situations can be very complex, so that guidelines themselves come into conflict.

For very tightly defined discussion of guidelines and of application, may I recommend medical ethics to you ?
Your nearest uni or even large teachimg hospital should be offering free talks and seminars open to the public on this area.

99Percent

Through reason itself Knowledge does not exist in a vacuum, it is accumulative, yet somehow, somewhere there is a root to all knowledge. You were once just a bunch of DNA code that developed into a full fledged organism. You once knew nothing yet now you have gained a wealth of knowledge. Isn't it wonderful?
So what. If these gut feelings happen to have the same result as carefully reasoned out objective morality it still doesn't mean that objective morality doesn't exist. For example for most people cold blooded murder is against their gut instinct and so much the better but that doesn't invalidate the fact that cold blooded murder is also irrational and therefore objectively immoral. However, like all knowledge I think its better to know why murder is immoral than just simply feel its wrong.Because truth is a moral opinion in itself since we can also distinguish what is false, unlike other beings animal, natural or man made such as computers But we exist because we regard nature in complete human perception
It would be an interesting exercise to see you prove that the Invisible Pink Unicorn doesn't exist on a purely empirical basis. I bet you, you can't. Incorrect, morality falls outside empirical observations. Its a philosophical question, not an empirical or scientific one

managalar

Um, my brain has neural networks to symbolically represent my life experencies and semantic definitions for communicating my experiences. A root to all knowledge...yeah, there is stuff in the natural world, when our sensory organs note the presense of stuff, it records the photons or sound waves (ect.) in our brains and we build a picture of how it all works together in our minds, we call it knowledge...so yeah there is a root to knowledge 'stuff is the root, knowledge is the description'.

BINGO...this is where your confused. I knew we'd get down to it after many threads on the same topic. To you, an answer to a why question is the same as what is moral, an absolute truth. Q: Why does a car go up a hill? A: Because the driver pushed the gas. Oh, that's not good enough, how about A: Because the driver wanted to go over the hill he pushed the gas. Still not good enough? A: The driver wanted to go over the hill so he pushed the gas pedal which increased the flow of stored chemical potiental energy (gas) into the engine so it could be mechanically converted into gravitational potiental energy. I could keep going, answering why with greater and greater detail, but would the 'why' question be answered? To what level of description does any answer to a why question constitute 'absolute truth'? You can always be a little more precise (to the limits of the language and observation tools). When you talking about knowing 'why' murder is wrong, you are advertising an ability to describe why you shouldn't murder people. Just because you can describe it doesn't make it any more real or objective. Just because you have a self consistant description doesn't mean it's an 'absolute truth.' Just because your description describes the consequenses of murder, and those consequenses are fairly common, doesn't make it always true. The answer to a why question is just like morality, an attempt to describe stuff.


Huh? We regard nature in complete human perception? Whaaa? You can't just say 'truth is a moral opinion', that doesn't make any sense, and conclude since that is true that we can know what is false...its a false premise. You seem to verifiy that you consider truth to be a matter of opinion...is it a matter of opinion that 1+1=2? You can't call 1+1=2 true, and 'the death penalty is wrong because I know it to be a moral truth' = true, because its not the same....because there is no moral absolutes, just actions that promote life (moral), and a description of those actions. I'm running out of unique ways to say the same thing...buy hey, I'm trying.

Anything that falls outside of empirical observations is by definition - not objective. Philosophical questions are like any other why questions, and attempt to describe things....usually philosophers want to describe semantic (subjective) things to an insane level of detail (like physicists do with objective things )

Gurdur

Nonsense. Many species of animals can distinguish between true and false; I recommend you to all the experiments on animal psychology.
heh, heh, heh.
My point was one can imagine things as one likes; and one can protect these imaginations from all that nasty empirical testing.

The operative word here is from Karl Popper: falsification.

Unless an idea has theoretically a possible way you can disprove it, then it's useless as an idea.

And my point to you was that "Objective morality" is on a par with Invisible Pink Unicorns ---- that it is just as true as Invisible Pink Unicorns.

Now, does such an idea really sound very useful to you ?
I look forward to your making utilitarian arguments for adopting "Objective" morality; and I remind you of my earlier post, long back, where I said your main mistake is that you proclaim that your "Objective" morality is the only one.

Incorrect. "Objective" moralities often make claims that are scientifically testable. They fail.

AspenMama

Ah, gee thanks, Gurdur. Back to my spot on the observation rock over here.

99Percent

Of course animals can distinguish between true or false, but animals cannot pretend to what is false as to be true, like we do. Which is what makes us moral beings.Yes, but your empirical testing cannot and will never be able to prove non-existence. For that you need rational and logical arguments. For example, I have noticed that you are strong atheist. Are you a positive atheist because there is no evidence for the existence of god? (Empirical argument, which nevertheless relies on definitions) Or is it because God as defined is not possible? (purely rational argument).My argument for objective morality does not lie in either utilitarian basis or that its "the only one". I suggest you reread, carefully this time, what my theory of objective morality is all about. And in fact there was a post of yours which strangely agreed with what I argue in a rare display of rational argumentation on your part

Gurdur

Ah, so your previous statement was incorrect, then.
Oh, and BTW, I could easily train a rat through rewards or lack of them to make a false choice deliberately ---- so your argument fails there too.

Feel free to make rational and logical arguments for the Invisible Pink Unicorn.
I could. Anyone can.
Rational and logical arguments can also be made for Jesus' resurrection.

Rational and logical does not mean "necessarily correct".

Odd, I could have sworn that in the PD you make arguments as why why your Objective morality is better for society than the competition; such a type of argument is a utilitarian one.
Or when you make arguments about the "essential nature" of man, you are making emotional arguments.
I'm going on the whole body of all your posts here on this board; you've denied repeatedly, just for example, that social ethics --- socially determined ethics --- exist.

Have you now changed your stance ?
This is an emotional argument of yours; no wait, it's not an argument, it's an ad hominem.
Fallacious.
My, my.

managalar

I'd like you to tell that to all the animals that play dead. They do a decent job of pretending they are dead, which is false. Just because you are clever enough to articulate your thoughts and actions, it does not make you fundamentally different...just more complex.

Eric Starnes

I would just like to thank everyone who has responded and let them know that i appreciate their input. I would also like to apologize for my lack of participitation in the thread. I think i understand the issues clearly now, but i no longer have the will to continue the discussion.