Another thought on that subject.
I said that I don't think that it is self-evident that atrocities are morally wrong. I don't mean to suggest that I don't feel great disgust and disapproval when I contemplate the Holocaust. I certainly do. I also get angry when I think about the Mongol Hordes and their conquests.
The problem is that those feelings do not make moral objectivism self-evident. They are evidence only of an emotional reaction. Pro-lifers may be angry at pro-choicers, and pro-choicers may be angry at pro-lifers. Emotions are not a reliable indicator of right and wrong.
In order to show that emotional reactions, at least some of the time, are in response to something objectively good, or objectively bad, requires either rationally justifying the existence of such things, or establishing the existence of an emotion-based moral sense. Personally, while I certainly do think that nearly all people have something called a conscience, I don't believe that it is quite like a passive sense in that it is "programmed" to at least some extent by the values that one had absorbed from others or had arrived at oneself.
eudaimonia,
Mark
I personally am not settled on the subject. Objective values might exist. But Elioenai26's insistence that there is no need for a method of coming to know these values is troubling. What would be the point of us being aware that these values exist but that they are perpetually unknowable to us? That bit of information would be entirely useless to our moral problem-solving. To borrow from Nietzsche, it would be as useless as the knowledge of the chemical composition of water is to a sailor on troubled seas. Assuming that there are objective values, then if they are to have any function in our moral problem-solving, we must find a way of coming to know them.
It's troubling to me too.
I suppose that's what one gets when the detection of objective good and bad is mystical, by which I mean non-rational. It seems that emotion and divine revelation are his only epistemological tools for this purpose -- anything but reason, which is at best window dressing.
Absolutely.
eudaimonia,
Mark
An appeal to emotion is a logical fallacy. I am sure we all know this. And my case would be fallacious if it was based on such an appeal.
If my argument was:
1. If witnessing the rape of a woman makes you sad, then objective moral values and duties exist.
2. Witnessing the rape of a woman makes you sad.
3. Therefore, objective moral values and duties exist.
The argument is logically valid, but premise one is an appeal to emotion and therefore the whole argument fails.
NOWHERE and I repeat NOWHERE have I, or any other defender of moral objectivism used this as an argument so your objections are aimed at a misconstrual of my argument and are thus are correctly labeled as a strawman.
Having said that, let me now explain why your objections are a misconstrual of my argument.When I have said that the case for moral objectivism is so strong that I do not need to offer any arguments in favor of it, I am NOT saying that I do not have any arguments for it. That interpretation would be a non-sequitur. What I am saying is simply that I will appeal to your own moral intuition, your own belief, your own thoughts, your very own views to prove my case. When presenting an argument to a person, all that is necessary is that the person the argument is being presented to agree that the premises of the argument or more plausibly true then their denials. To the rational reasonable, objective man, somethings are self evident. It is self evident for example that you exist. It is also self evident that things like the external world is real. It is self evident that you are actually walking around in a physical body and are NOT a body lying in the matrix. It is self evident that you are not a brain in a vat. It is self evident that the laws of logic are true. if you were to ask me for proof that the laws of logic are true and that it is not self evident, I would have to use the very laws of logic to prove the laws of logic are true but this would be arguing in a circle. Therefore, somethings are self evident and are taken for granted and do not need to have any other corroborating evidence to support them for them to be taken as self evident. Surely you will say: "well it is possible we all are just bodies in the matrix or brains in vats, therefore our being in the actual world is not self evident." Of course it is logically possible in the sense of not violating the laws of logic. We cannot get outside of our senses to test their veridicality to prove this beyond ALL doubt. However, in the absence of some defeater, we are justified in maintaining that WE ARE NOT bodies lying in the matrix or brains in a vat.
The question simply remains now, are some acts that have a moral connotation, self evidently wrong and right independent of the view of the perpetrator? Archaeopteryx, even if a person had such a hate for God that he would do whatever it takes to deny the premise in an argument for his existence, he would still, in order to maintain any credibility, have to conclude that acts like child molestation are wrong. These acts are wrong even though the molester thinks it is just fine. I hear your objection coming... it goes something like this: well the child molester thought it was right so obviously it's not objectively wrong. But that is clearly a non-sequitur. It's like a professor who has a Ph.D in geology and cosmology saying: "well, since a member of the Flat Earth Society believes that the earth is flat, it therefore follows logically that there is no objectively correct view regarding the structure of the earth!
But I hear your next objection: well.... Uhh... since it is just your opinion that child molestation is wrong, and it might be the opinion of many others, they are all still opinions and therefore it follows logically that child molestation is not objectively wrong. Once again, a non-sequitar rears its ugly head! Every statement that we make as people who make statements, they are by their very definition, going to be subjective in that the "I" making the statement is the subject making the statement. In fact, the often time repeated phrase around here by moral relativists is: "it it is my subjective opinion that x is y....But clearly this is redundant you don't even have to say that. All you have to say is: "I think x is y." It is understood that it is your personal view when one sees the word "I". Taking this misunderstanding of what a subjective statement is, one then builds their argument on a strawman and says: "it therefore logically follows that since my statement is made by me from my views, that therefore the conclusion is that there is no objective fact which my statement is in reference to. This is the non-sequitur. It simply does not follow that because a statement is my own statement that the statement thefefore does not refer to an objective fact outside of and independent of myself! If the professor of geology and cosmology in response to the flat-earther, says: "It is my subjective opinion (something he would not even say because it is redundant) that the earth is not flat, but that it is a more round shape, does it logically follow that the flat earther can say: "well since that is your subjective statement, then professor, there is no objective truth regarding the shape of the earth!
Of course not. In philosophy, truth-makers stand in relation to truth-bearers, however they are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS. This misunderstanding has been the basis for every argument that moral relativists have made here in this forum. Tiberius' question is a good example of this. He fails to make the NECESSARY DISTINCTION BETWEEN TRUTH-MAKERS AND TRUTH-BEARERS.
Thus, this response is based on a strawman and is riddled with non-sequitars.
