morality and its implications

[black magick hustla]

Anyway i have been thinking about this subject for a long time...

if there is no god then the world and its affairs are objectively meaningless in so far that the only way (god) to measure the moral merit of things doesn't exist. Kantian morality doesn't makes much sense to me, because the categorical imperative is as arbitrary as someone measuring the moral merit of things with sandwiches. similarly, benthamite utilitarianism is even worse.

morals are certainly subjective to the marxist because morality is a superstructural manifestation of the base. nothing was handed down from the heavens; men are the ultimate judges.

so all of this is fine and dandy, however then how do we debate the ethical implcations of things?

its easy to debate moral values between communists because we already take for granted certain values. the communist movement is a continuation of the enlightment and as such, continues on the path of the complete emancipation of humanity. so we can say abortion is not immoral to us for we already take for granted that all human beings should be as autonomous and free as possible.

however, what happens when we debate, for example, conservatives? i dont think conservatives are necessarily stupid as so many people here think; they just take for granted other values (reactionary) that we don't identify with. no matter how scientific marxists claim to be, there are certainly marxist valuesl because marxism is essentially humanistic. what is the point of debating them if they already take some values for given?

whenever i debate someone on abortion, etc, i try to find values we both identify with and then start the debate from there. isnt debating ethics with people essentially that? identifying a point where both parties can identify and proceeding from there.

sorry for my ramblings, its just that its something that has been haunting me lately, and i just wanted to discuss.

[Hyacinth]

if there is no god then the world and its affairs are objectively meaningless in so far that the only way (god) to measure the moral merit of things doesn't exist.
I’m afraid the situation is much worse than some moral realists might have it; moral realism (i.e. the view that morality exists objectively, i.e. independent of what anyone thinks, feels, wants, etc.) is untenable even with a deity. “God” as a grounding for morality was shown to be absurd going so far back as Plato’s Euthyphro (where the famous questions of “is something good because the gods love it, or do the gods love it because it is good?” is first recorded).


Kantian morality doesn't makes much sense to me, because the categorical imperative is as arbitrary as someone measuring the moral merit of things with sandwiches.
You’re correct on Kantianism; the categorical imperative is nonsense. There is no such thing as an ought without an if.


morals are certainly subjective to the marxist because morality is a superstructural manifestation of the base. nothing was handed down from the heavens; men are the ultimate judges.

so all of this is fine and dandy, however then how do we debate the ethical implcations of things?

its easy to debate moral values between communists because we already take for granted certain values. the communist movement is a continuation of the enlightment and as such, continues on the path of the complete emancipation of humanity. so we can say abortion is not immoral to us for we already take for granted that all human beings should be as autonomous and free as possible.

however, what happens when we debate, for example, conservatives? i dont think conservatives are necessarily stupid as so many people here think; they just take for granted other values (reactionary) that we don't identify with. no matter how scientific marxists claim to be, there are certainly marxist valuesl because marxism is essentially humanistic. what is the point of debating them if they already take some values for given?

whenever i debate someone on abortion, etc, i try to find values we both identify with and then start the debate from there. isnt debating ethics with people essentially that? identifying a point where both parties can identify and proceeding from there.

sorry for my ramblings, its just that its something that has been haunting me lately, and i just wanted to discuss.
The question that you post is a very interesting one, and one that most people take for granted. Most people tacitly assume that moral realism is true, and that there are somehow moral facts floating somewhere out in the world (or perhaps Plato’s realm of forms).

You should look into the article on metaethics on Wikipedia, as well as the links it provides to the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy on the topic. There are metaethical positions which attempt to account for our moral discourse in light of the fact that there are no moral truths floating out there in the world.

There are two sorts of things that we can debate about: facts and values. In the case of a factual disagreement between two people, insofar as they share the same values their differences are reconcilable. For example, suppose that there are two consequentialists debating over the question of which is a better system: capitalism or socialism. They both share the value that the good (however they define it) should be maximized, and hence their dispute is not so much a moral one, as a factual one.

On the other hand, if you share a fundamental disagreement in values, as say, for instance, between fascists and communists, then no rational discourse will persuade the other. At that point it simply becomes a question of enforcing ones values on the other person.

When you talk about identifying a common starting point in moral debate you’re referring to some shared value, if there is no such shared value then the debate is pointless.

[trivas7]

Anyway i have been thinking about this subject for a long time...

if there is no god then the world and its affairs are objectively meaningless in so far that the only way (god) to measure the moral merit of things doesn't exist. Kantian morality doesn't makes much sense to me, because the categorical imperative is as arbitrary as someone measuring the moral merit of things with sandwiches. similarly, benthamite utilitarianism is even worse.

morals are certainly subjective to the marxist because morality is a superstructural manifestation of the base. nothing was handed down from the heavens; men are the ultimate judges.

so all of this is fine and dandy, however then how do we debate the ethical implcations of things?

It's true that for Marx his analysis of capitalism and the materialist conception of history isn't concerned with morality as such, albeit there is profound moral outrage throughout Capital (and The Communist Manifesto e.g.). But through all of his early career Marx exhibits a concern for profoundly humanistic values. Kantian and idealist (i.e., religious) systems equated morality with a law-giver, which Marx entirely rejected as having no part in the Greek and critical philosophical traditions from which he drew his moral outrage.

[black magick hustla]

Honestly, I think the only moral system that makes sense for the marxist is existentialist, because the world is indeed meaningless and we are damned to cope with the bleakness of existence itself.

[Hyacinth]

Honestly, I think the only moral system that makes sense for the marxist is existentialist, because the world is indeed meaningless and we are damned to cope with the bleakness of existence itself.
Existentialism isn’t really a moral system, certainly not like the normative moral theories of utilitarianism and deontology, in that it doesn’t tell you what is right/wrong, good/evil, etc. Existentialism, as it pertain to morality, merely (correctly) states that there are no values that exist out in the world and that we have to create value (and morality) for ourselves. As such existentialism is normatively neutral, it isn’t in conflict with, say, progressive values, but nor is it, at the same time, supportive of them. It is equally compatible with progressive values as it is with reactionary ones.

[Hyacinth]

Another thought; existentialism ignores the influences which society, our upbringing, etc., i.e. material conditions, play in sharing our moral outlook. Morality is, after all, a superstructure build upon a material base. While existentialism correctly points out that value doesn’t exist in the world, and that the world in itself is meaningless, it is explanatorily useless insofar as it doesn’t provide us any tools by which to analyse and explain the values and morals that we do, as a matter of fact, have.

I think there are much better theories out there in metaethics, sociology, anthropology, etc. which better account for our moral language, as well as the moral systems which we subscribe to.

[rouchambeau]

Could you explain a bit more on why you think morality is subjective?

[Hyacinth]

Could you explain a bit more on why you think morality is subjective?
Technically I’m not a subjectivist, but I’ll explain why shortly.

In metaethics there are two camps: moral realism and moral anti-realism. There are two central claims in the moral realist position: a) existence, and b) objectivity.

The moral realists maintain, roughly, that a) there are moral facts (the existence thesis) and b) these moral facts are independent not only of what anyone believes about those facts, but also independent of anyone’s affective or conative states in relation to those facts, i.e. independent of what anyone feels, wants, etc. (the objectivity thesis). In fact, what it means to be objective is to exist independently of anyone’s mental states.

In opposition to this is moral anti-realism, which is essentially the denial of at least one of the central theses of moral realism. Some moral realists deny the objectivity thesis, stating that there are moral truths, but that these truths are relative to the claim of some agent or other, i.e. dependent upon the mental state of some agent (these are the subjectivists). Conversely, other moral anti-realists deny the existence thesis, that there are such things as moral facts. This can take one of two forms: one can either be a non-cognitivist, and deny that our moral language is descriptive. Or one can be an error-theorist, and say that while our moral language is indeed descriptive, it just so happens to be the case that there fail to be any objects out in the world which map onto our moral claims, and hence all our moral claims are false.

I side with either the error-theorists or the non-cognitivists. In this sense I’m not a subjectivist.

As for why I take this view, there are a number of arguments. One of them is J.L. Mackie’s queerness argument; which essentially states that if there existed such things are moral facts out in the world they would have to be fundamentally different from any sort of entity which we are familiar with, so much so that this is reason enough to doubt their existence. Not to mention, as soon as you claim that moral facts exist our in the world, or else supervene on natural facts, you run into a lot of metaphysical problems of trying to account for exactly how these entities exist, and how they are suppose to interact with the rest of the world.

What I think put the proverbial nail in the proverbial coffin of moral realism is Hume’s influencing motives argument. Which goes something like follows (though there are various formulations of it):

1) Facts alone are incapable of influencing our actions and sentiments;
2) Morals can alone influence our actions and sentiments;
Therefore, 3) Morals are not facts.

[Dean]

whenever i debate someone on abortion, etc, i try to find values we both identify with and then start the debate from there. isnt debating ethics with people essentially that? identifying a point where both parties can identify and proceeding from there.

sorry for my ramblings, its just that its something that has been haunting me lately, and i just wanted to discuss.

Morality doesn't have to be subjective, at least not totally. I try to find a morality which is as all encompassing as possible. This is why I am a vegatarian; I have coem to a conclusion that sentient life deserves moral respect, and I draw my conclusions from that.

I think it is important to recognize a moral imperative while also recognizing that the old morality is bankrupt.

[Hyacinth]

Morality doesn't have to be subjective, at least not totally. I try to find a morality which is as all encompassing as possible. This is why I am a vegatarian; I have coem to a conclusion that sentient life deserves moral respect, and I draw my conclusions from that.

I think it is important to recognize a moral imperative while also recognizing that the old morality is bankrupt.
How consistent or universalized a morality is doesn’t have any bearing on whether it is subjective or not. Your metaethics (whether you’re a moral realist or anti-realist, or whether you’re a subjectivist, non-cognitivist, or error-theorist) has no impact on what sort of normative moral system you can subscribe to. Metaethics is normatively neutral. An objectivist (moral realist) can have the same normative moral views as a subjectivist, the only thing they are in disagreement over is whether those views are objectively true or not.

[Mersault]

Honestly, I think the only moral system that makes sense for the marxist is existentialist, because the world is indeed meaningless and we are damned to cope with the bleakness of existence itself.

Does existentialism posit a form of morality? I'm not sure that it does? It offers a rationalization of our condition. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I've never viewed any existentialist writing as being particularly moralistic...

[Decolonize The Left]

Does existentialism posit a form of morality? I'm not sure that it does? It offers a rationalization of our condition. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I've never viewed any existentialist writing as being particularly moralistic...

I believe Hyacinth answered this fairly clearly here:

Existentialism isn’t really a moral system, certainly not like the normative moral theories of utilitarianism and deontology, in that it doesn’t tell you what is right/wrong, good/evil, etc. Existentialism, as it pertain to morality, merely (correctly) states that there are no values that exist out in the world and that we have to create value (and morality) for ourselves. As such existentialism is normatively neutral, it isn’t in conflict with, say, progressive values, but nor is it, at the same time, supportive of them. It is equally compatible with progressive values as it is with reactionary ones.

As to the original question, which is indeed a reasonable and valuable one, I would offer the following response:
Dealing with moral issues with another person who does not share fundamental values with yourself is quite difficult. As Hyacinth noted, it is vital to attempt to establish common ground. I do believe this is always possible. You can at least agree with reactionaries (or perhaps even fascists) that you both are trying to better the conditions of people (perhaps with fascists this will be more difficult, but it can be done). Upon establishing this common ground, it is a matter of debate as to the nature of "betterment" and the means of achieving said betterment. But now you have at least partially entered into the realm of facts, and therefore can appeal to historical materialism.

But let us assume that this is vastly more difficult, and that this other person is unwilling to accept your common ground. Perhaps then it is a good time to appeal to common cultural bonds (maybe even bonds which you don't like) such as country, sports, or whatever. If you can establish yourself as a 'person who likes things like me' in their eyes, just another common person, then you have already knocked down the first barrier of fear - the other. I would then tread this road for a while, feeling their values out through the use of a cultural medium. Perhaps one could even use the medium as a metaphor in conversation to make a point? Anyway, I hope this is helpful though I believe I may have rambled a bit.

- August