Essentially both cultures value different things. — SonJnana
Again, tell me what you think - is the psychopath right?
And what does your answer tell us about you? — Banno
SO you are quite happy to make moral decisions without having intrinsic moral guidelines, and without having an objective moral system to refer to? — Banno
I care about what is really happening. When the psychopath murders, he is doing something that goes against what the majority value. — SonJnana
Try this example. Suppose that there were a moral system that set out for you, in any and every case, what you ought do.
Ought you do what such a system says? — Banno
Here's the point: suppose further that the system tells you that you ought do something that you find morally reprehensible; kill your firstborn or explode a bomb in a school.
What do you do? — Banno
But equally, what makes your value system any less than the psychopaths? — Banno
SO, what moral system will you follow, yours or the psychopaths or the crowds? — Banno
So whether those values are objective or subjective is irrelevant to your decision.
And that is where this discussion has been headed. Thanks for playing along. — Banno
I don't even see how objective morality could be possible — SonJnana
Sure; and if objective morality is impossible, so is subjective morality.
The argument that morality is not objective, therefore it is subjective, is as valid as the argument that fish are not poetry, therefore fish are prose. — Banno
And in the absence of any objective morality standard demonstrated, statements like "No, my morality and values are better than yours" don't make much sense. — SonJnana
Are you using the word bad here as that which one doesn't hope or desire for? Like for example saying ice cream is good. If so then we're basically saying the same thing. If not, can you explain what context you are using the word bad? — SonJnana
If there are two groups of people in the world and one groups say that cars are modes of transport with four wheels and the other say they are small swimming things that live in rivers, how do we decide whether the thing I'm driving to work is car or not? It's the same question, morality isn't special in this regard. The reality is we don't have two such cultures so the issue does not arise. — Pseudonym
If it is something which can arguably be shown to be similar to all the other behaviours already in the group "moral behaviour", then it is a reasonable argument. Others might disagree, but we can have such a discussion based on arguments about similarity. If, however, the culture tries to claim that something belongs in the group which is entirely dissimilar from everything else in the group, and provides no argument as to what it is about this behaviour which they consider similar, then they are objectively wrong, just as wrong as they would be if they decided to just randomly call thing 'car' based on no similarities at all. — Pseudonym
Is this because we have redefined the word morality in a way where that act is morally bad now even though it wasn’t in the past? — SonJnana
So then how do we decide if things are similar enough in to be in the group of morality? — SonJnana
What do they even share in common that makes them similar? — SonJnana
No I am saying exactly what I meant to be saying. You are confusing matters of fact with matter of opinion. Own it; deal with it.
— charleton
Own what?
I'm not the one asserting that murder can be demonstrated as a fact. That's why I made this thread, to see if anyone can demonstrate it because a lot of people talk as if it is a fact. What are you even talking about??? — SonJnana
If a psychopath says he wants to murder because he enjoys murdering and doesn't care if other people don't like it, what reasoning do you have for telling him he shouldn't do it.
Is it because it goes against what you or majority of people desire? In this case the act of murdering is simply an act that goes against what other people want.
Is it because it is wrong in the context of presupposed value of life? In this case if "life" isn't important to the psychopath, then he's just doing something that goes against what others find important and in some sense just acting against others' desires.
Or is it because murder is just wrong for some other reason? — SonJnana
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