Befuddled_Stoner

I was gonna say "It's called revenge when one person does it, but justice when a bunch of people do it," but I like Mr. the Rat's definition better.

Korimyr the Rat

I've found that most things which are not measurable physical phenomena have a tendency toward being subjective.

Except that there are still a fair number of people whose moral understanding is thoroughly rooted in "yesterday's" Middle Age theocracy, and a number of people who have "progressed" well beyond secularism into a refusal to uphold any kind of universal, consistent moral code.

Not to mention the moral arguments that still arise, even between secularists who share a number of common moral premises.

Why would you acknowledge the way that the moral zeitgeist changes over time in our culture, but not the way that it changes across cultural boundaries?

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Lachean

I don't doubt this at all, what is this an exception to? These people are what I call "behind the times" and polling shows that they're influence and numbers are decreasing.

Just how does one progress beyond secularism, which is necessary for liberty, and is there a "universal & consistent moral code?"

I don't know where you've gotten the idea in your head that my position did not account for those with worldviews contrary or even contradicting the zeitgeist. These people are to be expected in the free market of ideas, and are expected to lose.

Of course they do, thats the whole point, thats how the zeitgeist changes.

Have I not? How so?

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"Men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality. " - Ayn Rand

Ethereal

Justice.


Revenge.

galenrox

I think you mistake our inability to completely understand said physical phenomena as suggesting it is subjective. If I forget that I'm tall, and think I'm short for a while, and then realize that I'm tall again, my height still isn't subjective, I'm still tall, but it appears subjective because how do I know something won't happen that will make me think that I'm short again? My inability to understand my height does not make my height subjective.

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Korimyr the Rat

You missed my point. Morality is not a physical phenomenon.

Your specific height in inches is objective. "Being tall" is subjective, because it is relative to the height of other similar objects.

Korimyr the Rat

I'm arguing that the "moral zeitgeist" isn't any more real than the moral beliefs of any single person-- at best, it's a composite sketch of the moral beliefs of large numbers of individuals.

Besides, after the last two elections-- and the last two decades-- I don't believe for a second that the moral and political influence of the theocrats is declining. For my entire adult life, I have seen nothing except them gaining in influence.

The use of quotation marks was deliberate and intended to convey sarcasm. As little use as I might have for your personal code of ethics, or the personal code of one of the theocrats, I can at least admire the fact that you try to adhere to one. You have consistent moral principles that I can use to understand your reasoning.

As for "necessary for liberty", I have two objections. First, is that I do not see how secularism is necessary for liberty at all, as many theologians and religious moral philosophers have advanced sophisticated and compelling arguments in favor of religious freedom and liberty in general.

Second, your phrasing here seems to assume that liberty is the highest moral purpose-- that the whole measure of a system of moral beliefs is its ability to promote liberty. That's the major problem with trying to establish some kind of "objective" moral standard-- the criteria by which you would judge a moral standard are part of that moral standard. You cannot measure a yardstick against itself.

And that's really my entire point-- there is no such thing as a "universal and consistent moral code" because such a thing is impossible. As soon as there are two people, there are two at least partially divergent moral codes, and the only means by which we can measure them are to measure each code's internal consistency, or to measure how compatible those two codes are with each other.

On the other hand, at least those two things are possible with people who have a clear and distinct moral code that they are willing to explain. With people who refuse to hold a moral code, or refuse to discuss it, you can never know how they will behave in any given situation; you have no basis upon which to define your interactions with them.

Would you care to lay wagers on this prediction? Because I do not think that authoritarian mentalities, hypocritical moralism, or religious zealotry will die out within either of our lifetimes, or our grandchildren's lifetimes, or at any other point before the extinction of our species.

Liberty is not the natural state of humanity, and we will never endure it for long.

Bodhisattva

Revenge and Justice can happily go hand-in-hand...

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galenrox

How is it not?

Right, my height in inches is objective, regardless of whether evidence from time to time would dictate to one with an incomplete understanding of my height different numerical heights at different times.

Korimyr the Rat

Well, we can begin with the obvious: morality is neither energy nor matter.

Morality can only be argued to be a physical phenomenon in the same sense that consciousness can be considered a strictly physical phenomenon-- a position I suspect that neither of us holds, given our respective religious beliefs.

Morality is a combination of social constructs and idiosyncratic personal beliefs-- things that we are conditioned to believe as children, and things that we have chosen to believe as adults.

Your physical height is an objective fact. The problem is, that your height in inches-- your numeric height-- can only be discussed if we both not only understand but agree upon the exact length of an inch. An inch itself is not an objective fact, but a standard of measurement-- a social construct-- universally agreed upon for convenience sake.

The difference between a yardstick and morality is that the vast majority of people consider the specifics of their moral beliefs to be more important than having a universal consensus on those moral beliefs.