Thanks for your response, essentialsaltes!
You're welcome!
Well, I do not see how an (abstract, explicit) value system is necessarily required for that. My (re)action can be pretty spontaneous or intuitive.
Previously we had this exchange:
me: Would you agree that there are implicit rules that govern that conduct?
you: Implicit rules? No, I don´t think so, but I may not really understand what you mean by that.
I agree that an explicit value system is not necessarily required, but maybe you see now what implicit rules might be like. I mean, your choices are not
random, I trust. They may be spontaneous or contradictory at different times, or you might regret a choice and wish you had chosen otherwise later -- and maybe that action might help to make an implicit spontaneous value resolve into a
different explicit considered value.
(On a sidenote, if I´d answer the questions mentioned in the OP, the follow up questions will be: "How do you know these are values? How do you do you determine these are values?"
Those are easy. They are values because you value them.
I consider morality to be, like aesthetics, subjective. Some people like chocolate, others like vanilla. These are subjective values. How do you know you like chocolate? You just do! Liking is something you experience directly. You don't need to compare it to anything outside yourself. Oh, you could come up with external reasons about having sugar and fat in chocolate, and how it makes sense that chocolate tastes better than gravel soaked in motor oil, or kale. But some people don't like chocolate, and no one can tell them they're
objectively wrong. Their tastes are their tastes. Moral issues are the same. Some value 'choice' over 'life' and others value 'life' over 'choice'. This value could be a gut instinct that has never been examined, or it could be the result of careful deliberation. In either case, it is a value sincerely held by that person.
And I guess part of what I am wondering is: The questions that I mentioned in the OP seem to indicate that they feel one first has to have an abstract "moral" system, from which you decide how to conduct. Whereas it seems to be the other way round with me:
I see an action, ask myself "Do I find that desirable?", and at some point I might abstract these experiences into some sort of abstract system.
Right, you don't have a...
codified moral system. But you have some values that bear on moral questions.
When presented with a buffet of 250 different foods, you don't select them at random (I assume). You choose the ones that seem desirable to you, and maybe later you look at your plate and say, "Hey, I guess I really like pickled things."
(And obviously, tastes change over your lifetime. When you were 6, your plate had 8 different flavors of Jello on it, and no pickled things at all.)
Uhmm, I honestly doubt that. I´m pretty sure they would feel being sold short.
I don't know. "Do you want to live in a world where people don't have gay sex?"
"Do you want to live in a world where people obey your god's will (as you interpret it)?"
I think plenty of people here would happily say 'yes' to this formulation of their moral views.
If this were what they want to tell me, these discussions would look differently than they actually do. We would start from questions such as "What world do you want to live in?", "What are your desires?", "What are your preferences?", rather than "How do you know...?".
Well again, I was suggesting this as a way of 'translating' their talk into something more meaningful to you. If they ask 'How do you know?" you can say that you know what your own values are. You know what you desire or prefer as an outcome. You know you like chocolate, or pizza, or whatever your favorite food is.
Or in some moral cases, maybe you don't know, and are still working it out, or will know your values (perhaps imperfectly) in the moment when you have to make a choice. Do you like the taste of mealworms? Maybe you don't know. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with your aesthetic faculty.
