Longbow

Well, this is a pretty straight forward question. Suppose there is this game, Chess for example. You might be pretty smart and otherwise know the rules of the game. But, being ignorant of the strategies and what not, you are more likely to make mistakes that you would have otherwise avoided if you were not ignorant. Of course, whether ignorant or not, you are trying to win.

Or even better, suppose you have heard of chess, but never actually played it. You might have even heard people talk about the playing of chess and arguing over which move would have been better in some situation. Now, what are the odds that without actually being told the rules of chess, you are going to be able to have gleaned them simply from hearing other people talk about it? What are the odds that, left to your own well-intentioned devises to follow the rules, you will?

A common mistake people make in reacting to moral objectivism is to think that something "higher" is implied by it. I am not saying that there is "meaning to life", that morality gives everyone "a purpose".

I am as sure as I am about anything that it is possible to evaluate actions as objectively "right" or "wrong". I am quite sure that the discussions and dilemmas that have come up for centuries now are about that very thing. But, I think you are somewhat alluding to evaluating whether or not someone is "a good person". That is not really what I am talking about or what objective morality (on my view) is about. Such an evaluation on my (and I would contend, for instance, Kant's) view is at least partially subjective.

In any event, Wittgenstein said in the Tractatus that propositions cannot express anything "higher" and so there can be no moral propositions. Now, you here this view and the subsequent identification he made of morality with aesthetics all the time. Perhaps not entirely unfairly considering the history of philosophy, he is casting moral objectivism in a certain light that really isn't necessarily appropriate. I am not trying to make any metaphysical claims with morality (as, for instance, Kant seemed to). And, also quite contrary probably to modern and historical views, I don't even think that morality is something like "the supreme value". Value is personal. For morality to be objective, it must be independent of personal values. The only attachment of morality to personal values is a (subjective) personal one if one happens to value morality. Once one values morality, then that would entail a bunch of things (hence the concept of "objective moral value" and the ability to subjectively evaluate people as being "good" or "evil"). But otherwise, things like "meaning" and "purpose" and the like are subjective and personal and are not really part and parcel with morality.

kctan

Longbow,

Meaning & purpose not part of morality ? Then why talk about morality then ? It simply reduces your view of morality as nothing more then what I said of morals being behaviours. Something that humans do without meaning or purpose in the first place.

I did have another proposition in that actions or behaviours are objective simply because they are being carried out & these are reduced to 2 options of "yes, its done" & "no its not" whereby in both counts, an action or behaviour have taken place.

Bear in mind that for the above, it has no meaning or purpose whatsoever until being interpreted by the doer or the beholder.

For morality to be objective as you feel it to be - independent of personal values, would be like below,

An automaton carrying out an action or behaviour to counteract another as though a reflex action & in no circumstances will change such an action or behaviour. Meaning will always react the same way to the same stimulus.

This will of course work if applied to a list of morals but what's the meaning & purpose of doing it then & how can you say an action or behaviour is moral or not ?