If he is actually getting a kick out of it (in the usual sense), and no moral aversion, then I am still not sure what language has got to do with it. — SophistiCat
You make it sound like there is a 'correct' answer to be found, and our natural moral sense is just better at figuring it out than a rationally constructed ethical system. For that to be the case, there has to be an independently defined problem and an independent means of evaluating the fitness of the solution to the problem. — SophistiCat
If you are a naturalist about morality: no God's laws or other supernatural impositions - and many proponents of objective morality are naturalists - then why would you even suppose that for something as complex and messy as natural moral landscape appears to be, the Enlightenment-age paradigm of a simple, rational, law-driven system would be a good fit? A much better paradigm would be something equally complex and messy and organic - biology, neurology, psychology, sociology. — SophistiCat
Correct me if I am wrong, but my impression was that much of our brain's processing power is dedicated to mundane subconscious tasks like visual processing and motion control. Even when it comes to more conscious activity, much of it would be common to all people: language, social interactions. The more intellectually rarefied activities that we value so much don't occupy a proportionate place in the brain's architecture and power budget. — SophistiCat
↪Isaac You and Kenosha Kid are the first two to come to mind. He really seems to go back and forth about whether he actually seems like a relativist in practice, throughout his descriptions of his position, but he consistently calls himself one. — Pfhorrest
You can have context-independence, or you can have observer-dependence. I don't think both is logical. — Kenosha Kid
You can have context-independence, or you can have observer-dependence. I don't think both is logical. — Kenosha Kid
When we judge moral acts, we must take them out of context to some degree. Our brains simply lack the capacity to represent everything that might be relevant. So, we are forced to deal with abstractions, treating what seems most relevant to us -- not the situation in its full complexity. That is why Aristotle says in the Nicomachean Ethics that we most not expect the same degree of exactness in all sciences. — Dfpolis
Not sure if you made a typo here, but objectivism as I mean it is context-DEpendent but observer-INdependent. — Pfhorrest
who is making the judgement is an important part of the context of the moral statement — Kenosha Kid
One argument in favor of (1) is:
a) Logical inference requires that premises and conclusions have truth-values.
b) There are logical inferences (and other logical relations) between normative statements.
c) Therefore normative statements have truth-values. — MMusings
Allowing this degree of context-dependence in a moral objective framework strikes me as a covert admission that morality is not objective, that if a particular judgment can depend on the actor, it must necessarily depend also on the judge who seeks to understand it. — Kenosha Kid
Acts can be objectively good and evil — Dfpolis
Acts can be objectively good and evil — Dfpolis
Any theory that assumes that the act itself has moral character will inevitably generate absurd moral statements. It doesn't take long to think of examples. — Kenosha Kid
Morality reflects the agent's intentionality, not directly the good or evil (privation of good) of acts. — Dfpolis
You are confused. I am not saying that good or bad acts have a moral dimension independently of the intent of the agent, just that they are objectively good or bad. — Dfpolis
What value you think pointing out that a tyre can be bad to the argument that it is moral actors who have moral qualities is beyond me. — Kenosha Kid
We were not discussing subjective moral character, but whether good and evil can be objective. — Dfpolis
When we say cancer is an evil, it is poetic. It is not literally evil. — Kenosha Kid
Yes, it is literally evil -- a privation of good health. — Dfpolis
Evil is not defined as a privation of anything. It is defined in terms of immorality or wickedness. — Kenosha Kid
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