Is morality objective or subjective?

[FlashDangerpants]

So it's like, emotional moral cognition + conceptual moral cognition = cognitivism, and emotional moral cognition only = non-cognitivism?
If so then this should get some kind of award for bad naming..

I'm sorry, I can't entirely make sense of that question. Everything in this field though is about the logical status of moral proposition, Philosophy of Ethics is not a branch of psychology. So I think we're using slightly different versions of 'cognition' here.

In non-cognitivism, some difference of type is claimed for sentences that express descriptions of real things, states of affairs and suchlike, versus normative sentences that are taken to express only .... <thing goes here>.... Different versions can put a different thing into that position, but the general point is that the reason why normative expressions don't have truth values under this type of theory is because the the thing that went into the box is in some way lesser than a thing that would fit into that box in a descriptive sentence. That missing ingredient is the cognisability factor.

Where this is all confusing for people like IC and VA is that they don't understand that non-cognitivism expresses one type of possible reason why normative statements wouldn't have truth values. They both have written stuff which could only be true if non-cognitivists were the only people who think moral sentences don't have a truth condition. This confusion has caused them to write some weird and misleading stuff, because neither of them is very good at this sort of thing. IC for instance is currently trying to railroad Harbal into asserting non-congitivist stuff because he thinks HArbal must be a non-cog, because he thinks that everyone except them is a realist. He isn't actually doing it to be disingenuous this time, it's just that he's ill-informed and not very clever.

I don't really know what to say, so again just ignore it if you want. Umm.. is this entire field working from sentences towards morality, instead of working from morality towards sentences? (morality as in the inherent human morality)
Which is the basic direction? Or is there no direction?

Well as DAM has just reminded us, ethics discusses moral propositions, and those are inherently prescriptive. Whichever direction you go in, you will find a philosopher heading that way, trying to chain the pure reason that people can largely agree on, to the practical reason that no two people share, or vice versa.

Nobody seems to like the out of the box experience of morality, it is in such direct conflict with itself that the words rational or reason possibly have nothing to point at at all. Prime example: Everyone in the world seems to agree that hypocrisy is bad, that's the Golden Rule and is expressed by every society and religion going. Yet we also all agree that everyone has special duties to their own family, and that everyone has to treat everyone else the same as they want to be treated.... You cannot reconcile that shit without hypocrisy, that is the basis of Peter Singer's ordinary people are evil argument.

So moral philosophy is caught impossibly between two stools. On the one hand is the descriptive job of acconting for how we actually do our moral reasoning. On the other is the prescriptive job of fixing all this chaos. If you start with the first, you probably make the second impossible except via a Deus Ex Machina appeal to infallible divine authority. If you go the other way round, you get morality-proper-FSK; a shit attempt to fix the problem married to an absurd description of moral logic intended to justify it.

[Atla]

Well as DAM has just reminded us, ethics discusses moral propositions, and those are inherently prescriptive. Whichever direction you go in, you will find a philosopher heading that way, trying to chain the pure reason that people can largely agree on, to the practical reason that no two people share, or vice versa.

Nobody seems to like the out of the box experience of morality, it is in such direct conflict with itself that the words rational or reason possibly have nothing to point at at all. Prime example: Everyone in the world seems to agree that hypocrisy is bad, that's the Golden Rule and is expressed by every society and religion going. Yet we also all agree that everyone has special duties to their own family, and that everyone has to treat everyone else the same as they want to be treated.... You cannot reconcile that shit without hypocrisy, that is the basis of Peter Singer's ordinary people are evil argument.

So moral philosophy is caught impossibly between two stools. On the one hand is the descriptive job of acconting for how we actually do our moral reasoning. On the other is the prescriptive job of fixing all this chaos. If you start with the first, you probably make the second impossible except via a Deus Ex Machina appeal to infallible divine authority. If you go the other way round, you get morality-proper-FSK; a shit attempt to fix the problem married to an absurd description of moral logic intended to justify it.

I only meant the question of how we actually do our moral reasoning. When this field looks at how we actually do our moral reasoning, does it typically work from sentences towards morality, instead of working from morality towards sentences? (morality as in the inherent human morality) Or neither?

I'm asking because I honestly can't understand what all these great theories and debates about moral propositions are all about, when it's dead obvious how we do our moral reasoning, when we start from morality.

(I know that ethics is an ultimately hopeless endeavour due to human nature. It can make things better, but never good enough.)

[Harbal]

Then you would say that there is more to morality than feels? I hope mister Can is dilligent enough to update his records on the matter.

Yes, I would say that. But my main, overriding, point is that there cannot be any such thing as objective moral truth, because morality does not come into the category of things that have a truth value. In the same way that the statement, "sunny days are nicer than rainy days", is not subject to being true or false, neither are moral assertions.

Well put.

In Book II of the Groundwork (1785 [1996]) Kant claims the fundamental moral truths are synthetic a priori because moral truths are prescriptive.

Thank you. To know that even just one person doesn't think I am being absurd and irrational means more to me than I can say. God bless you.

[Harbal]

Then you would say that there is more to morality than feels? I hope mister Can is dilligent enough to update his records on the matter.

Yes, I would say that. But my main, overriding, point is that there cannot be any such thing as objective moral truth, because morality does not come into the category of things that have a truth value. In the same way that the statement, "sunny days are nicer than rainy days", is not subject to being true or false, neither are moral assertions.

So yeah, IC has developed a belief that you are of that latter opinion for a very specific reason... ie that you think emotions and feelings are all that morality consists in at all, and that emotions have no truth value, therefore you think moral sentences express nothing capable of resolution to true and false. And I believe that in his confused little head, everyone who doesn't believe in moral fact believes that sort of reason accounts for it (which is the charge he levied at Pete when he got carried away with Frege).

But a couple of prominent other theories also express reasons why moral sentences are not true and false in the way you describe and it seems like one or both are more plausible underlying claims for IC to understand as your type of position (an amalgam of that sort of thing is workable for the two I shall list here):

1. Error Theory. In its simplest form, this holds that when we speak in moral sentences, unlike the claims of the non-cognitivist, we are speaking in the sort of sentences that could indeed be true and false if only some moral property of the worlkd could be found to make them verifiable as such. So if 'nice' was a real property of objects in the universe, then some way of measuring nice would confirm that sunny days are indeed nice.... but there is no such property, and thus when we speak of sunny days being nice, we are expressign a meaningful opinion, one that we can justify with reference to everyone's experience, but not one that is actually true or false, so to that particular extent we do so in error.

2. Fictionalism. This is more exactly similar to your words, although as a position it is far less common than Error Theory. Buy this holds that while we use language that is findamentally similar to descriptive language that could be true or flase when we express normatives, we don't actually intend that part, we know it's a fiction, we simply use moral language that was on an as-if basis.

Mister Can would really be well advised to carry out his work by just explaining what the moral properties that pertain to a situation, event,judgment, desire or whatever are rather than the move he is going for at present of just hoping he can leave moral truth as the last man standing after he has knocked down one of those and then nihilism. All he has to do is explain why God knows that stealing is wrong unless you need bread to feed your family in which case it is right. Then he can explain how you can find out by any means other than just asking God, and it's job done.

I asked him about such moral properties before though, and he said he'd already told you about them. So I'm not sure why he must suddenly switch to such a circuitous approach if he's already taken the direct route before.

Just out of interest, on average, how absurd and irrational do you find what I have said so far about morality? If your opinion is any more than, "just a little bit", then please ignore the question and don't answer it.

[FlashDangerpants]

Just out of interest, on average, how absurd and irrational do you find what I have said so far about morality? If your opinion is any more than, "just a little bit", then please ignore the question and don't answer it.

I will have to ask you not to tell VA as I have declared him too simple to discuss this topic... but what you write is largely in line with my own position, the least favoured one, Hermeneutic Moral Fictionalism. According to which:

Hermeneutic fictionalism about a discourse D is a thesis about the actual nature of the discourse: according to hermeneutic fictionalism we actually do not aim at the literal truth but only appear or pretend to do so.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fict ... %20do%20so

So I probably largely agree with you.

[Harbal]

Just out of interest, on average, how absurd and irrational do you find what I have said so far about morality? If your opinion is any more than, "just a little bit", then please ignore the question and don't answer it.

I will have to ask you not to tell VA as I have declared him too simple to discuss this topic... but what you write is largely in line with my own position, the least favoured one, Hermeneutic Moral Fictionalism. According to which:

Hermeneutic fictionalism about a discourse D is a thesis about the actual nature of the discourse: according to hermeneutic fictionalism we actually do not aim at the literal truth but only appear or pretend to do so.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fict ... %20do%20so

So I probably largely agree with you.

I would have more than happily settled for your partial agreement, but to be largely agreed with by you gives my self confidence no end of a boost. And between you and me, it was quite in need of one.

[FlashDangerpants]

I only meant the question of how we actually do our moral reasoning. When this field looks at how we actually do our moral reasoning, does it typically work from sentences towards morality, instead of working from morality towards sentences? (morality as in the inherent human morality) Or neither?

Well the sentences express the logic and the logic is what sets the limits for the contents of the sentences I'm afraid. Without propositions such as 'there exists X such that X is greater than Y and less than P' there's no medium to convey the logic in. And without propositional form such as a sentence, there is nothing much being said about morality. I'm not sure how to make the two things different for long enough to move from one to the other. It could just be that I am a Wittgensteinian dirtbag and that's why I think this way though. That is probably true.

I'm asking because I honestly can't understand what all these great theories and debates about moral propositions are all about, when it's dead obvious how we do our moral reasoning, when we start from morality.

That sounds like the opening sentence of an interesting theory. I would like to read the rest one day.

(I know that ethics is an ultimately hopeless endeavour due to human nature. It can make things better, but never good enough.)

I probably agree, but Mackie spends longer on creating an ethics than he does on destroying the old one in his main bookon the topic. Berlin takes a similar course. It might be the case that if we stop trying to breathe life into a rock with notions of natural moral fact, we could instead adopt a constructivist approach and work out a good approach to ethics in the 23rd century.

Maybe in 200 years it will be like Star Trek because there won't be any shortage of key resources so capitalism won't be needed any more and such... think about how much old school morality is really just about allocation of resources. Perhaps eradicating poverty and need will bring about the end of the old approach to rationalising the ways in which we avoid sharing that make up the bulk of modern morality.

[Atla]

That sounds like the opening sentence of an interesting theory. I would like to read the rest one day.

It's a brand new theory, I just came up with it an hour ago. I'm just coming with it right now. Let's write a theory:

Having been forced to deal with sociopaths, narcissists, and even one female psychopath (seriously guys, you can't even begin to imagine how otherworldly that one was), but also dealing with many moral and empathetic people, I think I know a thing or two about morality. I mean, I think I know exactly what it is. It's all a fairly simple psychological thing really at its basis.

And then there's this field of ethics and I can't make heads or tails of it. This theory, that theory, long debates, this position, that position, maybe this, maybe that, we can't decide, like wtf are they talking about?

Well can't it be that that entire field is backwards? Obviously in ethics you must take the human conscience, see how it generates moral views that are visceral first as in they are felt, and then see how these views get expressed in language. Trying to start from language is patent nonsense. (And from this basis the rest of ethics can be built up. Like my position, that the optimal solution would be a worldwide pseudo-realist ethical consensus, but I know this won't happen.)

So how could it be all backwards? Hmm let's see. Well two factors come to mind now. First there is this thousands of years old delusion called objective morality, which is available in texts like the Bible, so I guess that's one reason to start from texts.

The other one: well there are these people who are fairly morally retarded, but not entirely, but otherwise they are nice guys. And they notice that something is quite off, and get super curious about this thing called morality, but never really manage to put their fingers on it. They become obsessed with it, read a lot about it, write a lot about it, try to analyze a lot of text about it, maybe start a philosophical school about it. They write it all down, and then stare at the words, hoping that the words will give them some more answers.

[Immanuel Can]

Some wise questions for you IC

What wisdom says, is "Don't bother answering her."

[Immanuel Can]

My view is that our moral judgements (judgements about moral issues) are arrived at emotionally, or through sentiment.

For example: if we witness a sweet old lady being punched to the ground and having her purse ripped from her hand by some scruffy young thug, most of us would feel moral outrage, probably even you. That reaction would be instant; we wouldn't run and find a Bible to tell us what our response should be before we came to a decision on the moral status of the situation. We wouldn't have an internal debate with ourselves on the rationality of our feelings about the incident. Unless you are a sociopath, you must have experienced this yourself (not necessarily an incident involving old ladies).

Well, you don't like me pointing to it, but we can hardly avoid doing so, given today's headlines. Do Hamas murderers have the same "emotions and sensations" as Israeli captives, or as American onlookers, or as IDF rescuers, or as Neo-Fascist supporters of Hamas?

I can't answer questions about "Hamas murderers", because I don't know anything about them.

You don't have to know them personally. The evidence is abundant. Right now, you could find a bunch of gleeful terrorists shooting, raping and murdering Israelis. Then you could find thousands of people engaged in demonstrations in support of the murderers, chanting "Gas the Jews" a the top of their lungs.

You COULD check me on that. Morally, you SHOULD check me on that, because it's a strong claim: so you can check right here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuAAGb_Sf-o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftWVeK3ypQU&t=141s
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... era+house+ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_94dVz7omcA

But if you don't want to see the evidence, you can just take my word for it: it exists. And it proves beyond any possibility of contrary protest, that Hamas and its supporters are not having anything like the reactions of their Israeli victims and their families, or the horrified watching world.

As I was pointing out earlier, it's a verifiable fact that one's emotions vary, depending on the role one is inhabiting in a single situation.

We have emotions that are prompted by moral issues, and we are often motivated by those emotions. I am not claiming we all experience the same emotions in any given set of circumstances, quite the contrary, in fact.

Great. Then there is zero plausiblity to the claim that "emotions" tell us what morality is. For if two people can see the same situation, and each -- say a Palestinian observer and a Jewish one -- can have opposite emotions about it, then "emotion" is not any source of reliable moral information.

QED.

Do you find this absurd and irrational?

Not unless you were to insist that, in spite of these mutually-contradicting cases, morality was explicable in terms of emotions.

THEN yes, you would be saying something irrational and absurd.

So what this points to is that we're not getting any moral clarity from thinking that if a person merely HAS an emotion, that that assures he/she is on the right moral side or sides of the same issue. There are immoral emotions...such as glee at the suffering of a rape victim or at the cries of terror of an Israeli baby.

Whatever side of a moral argument we find ourselves on, is the right side as far as we are concerned.

Immaterial.

We already established that morality is not a solipsistic concern, but defines relations between people. Have you forgotten?

So what we would like to think is "moral" isn't necessarily "moral" at all. Hamas slitting babies' throats will NEVER be moral, no matter how gleeful or fulfilled the terrorist happens to be when he does it.

I have no doubt whatsoever that those emotions exist, that they're strong, that a person is experiencing them -

Okay, so not absurd after all?

Absurd if you equate what they are feeling with "moral." Are you doing that, still?

but you and I are going to agree, I think, that a person who is experiencing glee at the humiliation, suffering and horrible death of another person is not properly morally-ordered...regardless of what "emotions and sensations" he is having

Yes, I imagine we do agree on that...

Then that's the point.

but I am not agreeing because I think God says I should, I am agreeing because it happens to be in tune with my own moral sentiments.

Then you are not asking a moral question of yourself at all: you are only saying "How do I feel?" which, as we have now established, has nothing whatsoever to do with whether the action is moral or not.

[Dontaskme]

Some wise questions for you IC

What wisdom says, is "Don't bother answering her."

“Even the wisest men make fools of themselves about women, and even the most foolish women are wise about men.”

No woman can make a wise man out of a fool, but every woman can change a wise man into a fool.

[iambiguous]

But I would certainly not argue today that moral nihilism reflects the most rational ethical assessment.

Well, that wouldn't make any sense. It would contradict itself as a position. So, I can understand why most moral nihilists wouldn't argue that.

On the other hand, I'm sure there are any number of moral nihilists who actually do believe that moral nihilism does reflect the most rational moral philosophy. I've come upon a few of them myself over the years.

Instead, I am far more intrigued with those here who espouse a No God frame of mind but still manage to embrace one of another objective morality themselves. How, given a particular set of circumstances, are they not "fractured and fragmented" in turn?

I do know that you do this sometimes. That you point out that people on 'your side' are also objectivists. But that's what I was responding to here. It seemed like, in that previous post, the objectivists were on one team. Again, I know that is not your overriding position, however if you have any tendency to focus on the objectivists with positions you like less while leaving out the objectivists whose positions fit with your preferences, then you are undermining your point.

Does that work for you in, what, exposing me? Fine.

I was pointing out what I think undermines your message elsewhere with posts like that. Perhaps you agree, perhaps you disagree. I don't think of it as exposing. I suggested that if the point is what you said it was, it could be undermined by posting, on occasion, just like a member of one of the various objectivist teams.

I suspect here we will just have to agree to disagree regarding my own assessment of moral objectivism. Left or right, to the extent a moral or political or religious objectivist gains actual power and attempts to stifle or repress or eliminate those who don't toe his or her line is my chief concern. The end often justifies any and all means for them. Cue, for example, the fanatics in Gaza and Israel. Or, for that matter, the amoral "show me the money" crony capitalists who own and operate the global economy.

Now, again, given an issue like abortion or capitalism or animal rights or gun control...how close do you come to believing that morality here is objective?

Not close at all.

Okay, then how close are you to being "fractured and fragmented" morally? To what extent are the points I raise in the OPs here...

https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382

...applicable or not applicable to your own value judgments? Given an issue that is of particular importance to you.

For example, I was an objectivist for years myself. And even when I abandoned one [Christianity] for another [Unitarianism] for another [Marxism] for another [Democratic Socialism] I was still able to convince myself that morality itself could be grasped objectively...God or No God.

Well, you're certainly focusing on yourself. I was more interested in the point I made about...well, I said it above and in the post before.

I focus on who I know best. I articulate my own moral philosophy. Others who know themselves best will either agree or disagree with my assessment of morality in a No God world. All we can then do, given a particular context, is to exchange our views.

Yes, I am pretty sure you have mentioned this...let's say more than a hundred times.

Hey, you responded to my post here, Chuck.

Sure. But instead of responding to the point I made you wrote something you have mentioend...more than a hundred times...and not direclty connected.

These things get tricky. What some might insist are others here not responding to the points they make are actually more a reflection of the fact that the points others make are not in sync with that person's own moral and political prejudices.

Just as I've moved on from you here because from my own rooted existentially in dasein frame of mind you are basically just one more "serious philosopher": ever and always exchanging definitions and deductions up in the intellectual clouds. Even in regard to conflicting value judgments.

Now this is making me the issue. I did not do that in my previous posts. I made a suggestion about how posting the way you did undermined the point you said you had.

How about this: you're right from your side, I'm right from mine.

What's crucial here, in my view, is that, if and when scientists and/or philosophers are able to take points I raise in the OPs here...

https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382

...into account, can they come up with a moral narrative and a political agenda that really does reflect the most rational and virtuous of human interactions?

IOW can they come up with the right objectivist position?

What on Earth is that given all of the One True Paths there are to choose from:

That's why I asked the question.

But it's not a "position" that interest me nearly as much as a demonstrable proof that what they do believe, all rational men and women are obligated to believe in turn. Given a particular set of circumstances.

And my point still revolves less around what one's moral system is and more around how one comes to acquire it given the historical, cultural and interpersonal parameters of their uniquely individual lives. Given that human interactions have managed [so far] to produce quite a few One True Paths:

Then it seems to me it is much clearer if in any discussion of a specific moral issue, here whether homosexuality is bad or not, you should point out that objectivist positions can be on any side of an issue. If we look at the post I responded to it doesn't seem to reflect your point, but rather seems like a weighing in on the morality of homosexuality: those bad conservatives who have mean objectivist positions on homosexuals. I know you did not say this, but again if you just present one side's objectivism and seem critical of that and do not mention the positions that are objectivist but which you are more aligned with, it doesn't aid your point. The point you mention here.

Again and again and again...

Based on my own rooted existentially in dasein personal experiences and the political prejudices I have come to accept over the years, "I" think what I do about, say, same sex marriages. I support them. But that doesn't make them objectively moral. There are, after all, intelligent men and women who are able to offer arguments both for and against it: https://www.google.com/search?q=arguemn ... s-wiz-serp

Yes, I made it clear that I understood that. I mentioned, more than once, precisely so we needn't go over this ground that you do state this and that it is your position.

My point was about whether posting as you often do ALSO, might undermine the point you are making.

Well, in that case I am confused regarding what your point is here. From my frame of mind, what would undermine my point is a point from someone that manages to undermine how "I" think about human morality at the existential intersection of identity, value judgments, conflicting goods, and political economy.

Yes, and why is that? How is that not the embodiment of daseins living vast and varied lives interacting in a world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change? Historically, culturally, socially, politically and economically.

Precisely, so if your point as you say above it to reveal these kinds of things and how they lead to all objectivisms, pointing out one side's objectivisms is misleading. It's not a great way to make your point. It comes off as using your ideas of objectivism to hit the people who have positions you don't like, while remaining silent on the ones you do like. And again, I know that you do call out the objectivism of positions you are sympathetic with. But here you did not and this is not rare.

Precisely from your frame of mind...not even close to it from mine.

OK, so you don't see that the post I responded to, for example, just pointed out the objectivisms that you are less sympathetic with.

But even here I am acknowledging that my reaction to objectivism is no less embedded/embodied existentially in dasein. Yes, I have any number of left-wing political prejudices. Why? Because, again, I spent over 20 years as a radical left-wing political activist. I don't exclude myself from my own assessment here.

Why, say, a liberal prejudice rather than a conservative prejudice? And since there are many, many others who think many, many very different things about human sexuality, what's a philosopher or an ethicist or a political scientist to do?

I think that's an odd way to word this. But then you seem to be a subjectivist looking for a way to finally find an objectivist position that can be demonstrated to be the right one.

Not only that, but an objectivist truth I can embrace that will also result in immortality and salvation.

Great, OK, then I wasn't incorrect.

Correct and incorrect in regard to discussions like this are ever and always profoundly problematic from my own "drawn and quartered" moral perspective. Again, what matters most to me are those folks -- both liberals and conservatives -- who insist that not only are their own beliefs about human sexuality correct, but that others had damn well better toe their line. Or else. That's why, "here and now" I believe moderation, negotiation and compromise [democracy and the rule of law] reflects the "best of all possible worlds".

Look, if IC or any other religionist here is able to convince me that their God does in fact exist and that their God judges homosexuality to be a sin, then, well, what can I say, it's a sin. I'll be against it. At least if the alternative really is oblivion or eternal damnation.

I'm crankier than that. I wouldn't accept it even from God.

Right. There you are at Judgment Day. IC's Christian God has the power to send you up or down. You boldly defy Him and defend homosexuality.

Well, not me. If God does exist and He is both omniscient and omnipotent, how can I not assume that His views on homosexuality are more pertinent than mine? I'd certainly reject moral nihilism if He is the real deal.

Though I'm sure there are homosexuals among us who are able to reconcile homosexuality and Christianity: https://elcvienna.org/wp-content/upload ... .-2016.pdf

I'm not sure why I have to assume that a deity is a good one or never confused or doesn't need to develop. For example, I think Abraham messed up being ready to kill his son. And I would hope any deity was disappointed with his robotic response to God's demand. But if God wasn't disappointed, I'm still not stabbing my son to death on command. I find it odd that people think that if God tells them to do something, they are relieved of any responsibility. How is that not like following the orders of an earthly dictator, like a Hitler, say. I mean there you are thinking it's horrible to do X, but you do it because an entity tells you, however powerful. But that's all tangential.

That's bold talk here and now. But Bob Dylan looked at it another way:

God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe said, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
God said, "No, "
Abe said, "What?"
God said, "You can do what you want Abe, but the next time you see me comin', you better run"
Abe said, "Where do you want this killin' done?"
God said, "Out on Highway 61"

After all, He works in mysterious ways. Ways that no mere mortals can even begin to grasp. But He is God. He does have the capacity to toss you into the abyss that is oblivion...or send you to Hell.

So, if IC can in fact convince me that his God is all that he claims He is then, hey, I'm born again.

As for Hitler, to the best of my knowledge he was not able to assure his Nazis that defying him would deprive them of immortality and salvation. There's no way one can realistically compare any mere mortal with God Almighty. The stakes are enormously different.

From either end of the moral and political spectrum. With you it's always in regard to my own "fractured and fragmented" frame of mind in the is/ought world. How are you not drawn and quartered yourself in regard to homosexuality? How are your own value judgments here not a manifestation of dasein?

And just to be clear the focus is on me again. Not my posts but me. That said I don't know why I am not drawn and quartered. It's hard to know what one is not experiencing what another person assumes one must experience, when I don't have that assumption, nor obviously the experience I lack (of feeling drawn and quartered). I certain have felt torn in many situations, where things I value would lead me to opposed decisions and I can only make one decision or already have. But that's not what you are focused on.

What I am focused on is how we acquire our value judgments existentially...given the particular world that we are thrown into at birth. And then given the experiences we have given all of the vast and varied historical and cultural parameters we might live out our lives in.

All I can do here is to note this...

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values "I" can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then "I" begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

...and then, given a particular context, explore with others why it is or it is not applicable to them.

Okay, Mr. Moral Objectivist, sift through them all and come up with the optimal frame of mind.

What?! Man you make weird assumptions.

Huh? Conflicting arguments are made [morally, politically, philosophically, scientifically, etc.] and any number of objectivists assume that in fact there is an optimal frame of mind. There must be. Why? Because they've found it.

Sure, that wasn't the assumption or set of assumptions I was reacting to. But anyway, I understand better that your posts in response to me (and others) are aimed generally. IOW you write things for other readers, for objectivists, for example, even though that writing isn't really a response to what I and others have written.

As I once noted to Maia and gib, in one sense I construe myself here as being in a win/win situation.

Either someone is able to convince me that morality is in fact objective [and derived from God] and I am able to yank myself up out of the hole I have dug myself down into, or I am able to convince them that my frame of mind is reasonable, and they come down into the hole with me.

Salvation or empathy.

[iambiguous]

At present I have around 4100 files [books, articles, notes] in my Kant Folder.

"Kant argued that the moral law is a truth of reason, and hence that all rational creatures are bound by the same moral law. Thus in answer to the question, “What should I do?” Kant replies that we should act rationally, in accordance with a universal moral law." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Two things regarding Kant and morality:

1] If morality and reason are intertwined should not all Kantians around the globe be in sync in regard to any particular conflicting goods? If they are in a position to legislate -- prescribe/proscribe, reward/punish -- behaviors in any particular community, should they not all be in agreement regarding rational and irrational behavior?

2] Kant's moral philosophy is ultimately derived from God. No God and then what?

[Harbal]

Well, you don't like me pointing to it, but we can hardly avoid doing so, given today's headlines. Do Hamas murderers have the same "emotions and sensations" as Israeli captives, or as American onlookers, or as IDF rescuers, or as Neo-Fascist supporters of Hamas?

I can't answer questions about "Hamas murderers", because I don't know anything about them.

You don't have to know them personally. The evidence is abundant. Right now, you could find a bunch of gleeful terrorists shooting, raping and murdering Israelis. Then you could find thousands of people engaged in demonstrations in support of the murderers, chanting "Gas the Jews" a the top of their lungs.

What I have said to you about morality is based on my own experience of it, which does not include hanging out with "gleeful terrorists shooting, raping and murdering Israelis." Sorry, but I am unable to make an informed comment on this.

We have emotions that are prompted by moral issues, and we are often motivated by those emotions. I am not claiming we all experience the same emotions in any given set of circumstances, quite the contrary, in fact.

Great. Then there is zero plausiblity to the claim that "emotions" tell us what morality is.

Well I am not claiming emotions tell us what morality is, things like dictionaries do that.

For if two people can see the same situation, and each -- say a Palestinian observer and a Jewish one -- can have opposite emotions about it, then "emotion" is not any source of reliable moral information.

I am not familiar with the concept of "reliable moral information", so I really can't comment.

So what we would like to think is "moral" isn't necessarily "moral" at all. Hamas slitting babies' throats will NEVER be moral, no matter how gleeful or fulfilled the terrorist happens to be when he does it.

But how can we know the baby would not have grown up to be an obnoxious adult?

And will you shut the fuck up about Hamas, and stop using me as an opportunity to spread your message. Like I told you before, start a thread about it if you have something to say.

Absurd if you equate what they are feeling with "moral." Are you doing that, still?

The moral value we put on something is dependant on how we feel about it, which seems to be obvious to everyone but you.

but I am not agreeing because I think God says I should, I am agreeing because it happens to be in tune with my own moral sentiments.

Then you are not asking a moral question of yourself at all: you are only saying "How do I feel?" which, as we have now established, has nothing whatsoever to do with whether the action is moral or not.

Sorry, I missed the bit where "we" established that. Are you sure you didn't establish it with somebody else? The only thing that has been established as far as I can see is your stubborn dogmatism.

[iambiguous]

One can claim Moral Nihilism, but that is insulting one's intelligence when morality as generally accept is so ubiquitous [almost universal].
99.9% of humans [even those who claimed to be moral nihilists] are inherently unlikely to commit incest with their parents, children, siblings, near-relatives.

This particular moral nihilist readily acknowledges that morality is ubiquitous. It has to be. Why? Because if one chooses to interact with others in a community, one will almost certainly bump into others who come to very different conclusions regarding right and wrong behavior.

Philosophers call this "ethics". And then embrace ofttimes conflicting moral philosophies like deontology or utilitarianism or consequentialism or hedonism or nihilism...or one or another God or No God dogma.

My point, of course, is that morality is ubiquitously existential. It is derived from the world that we are thrown into adventitiously at birth. Worlds that construe good and evil from all manner of ever evolving historical and cultural contexts.

Why on Earth do you suppose that, thousands of years after the birth of philosophy -- Eastern and Western -- we are still hopelessly at odds in regard to countless conflicting goods?

And incest is only truly problematic in regard to possible biological defects. Otherwise, any number of men and women have engaged in incestuous relationships and found them entirely fulfilling. Myself, for example.

Then the part where Adam and Eve and Noah and Naamah must have engaged in incest themselves, right?