Is morality Objective?

[Falcon81]

I hate to interupt, but the fact that your logic is true does not make the argument true. The truthfulness of the syllogism is based upon the form, but the truthfulness of the argument is based upon the facts. Why is morality based upon desires?

The burden of proof is upon those who feel that morality is subjective. The fact that the vast majority of history lends evidence to a belief in objective morality places the burden upon the subjectivist. Until the evidence can be displayed that there is not God then there is no way to get around his objective standard.

 

[Fledge]

Socrastein, I'm not sure how else to say this. I've tried a couple of times now, and clearly haven't made my point yet, so I'll try again.

The initial premise can only be accepted as truth if the conclusion is also accepted as truth. Now I know that this is the way logic works, in that the premise leads to the conclusion, but in this case, the conclusion leads to the premise which leads back to the conclusion.

If morality is absolute, then your initial premise is either inherently flawed, or your third premise is inherently flawed. In either case, your argument is invalid because one of your premises is valid only if the conclusion is already valid. The conclusion is what is being debated, and yet it appears that you are using the conclusion as an unspoken premise that precedes all of the other premises.

I know that you are probably getting a little bit frustrated as well, because it appears that I'm not understanding you, but if we keep plugging away, maybe one of us will finally get what the other person is saying.

 

[Falcon81]

This is a great point. This is an invalid argument, because it affirms the premise as with the conclusion instead of proving the conclusion from the premise

 

[Socrastein]

I hate to interupt, but the fact that your logic is true does not make the argument true. The truthfulness of the syllogism is based upon the form, but the truthfulness of the argument is based upon the facts. Why is morality based upon desires?

The burden of proof is upon those who feel that morality is subjective. The fact that the vast majority of history lends evidence to a belief in objective morality places the burden upon the subjectivist. Until the evidence can be displayed that there is not God then there is no way to get around his objective standard.

This is a public discussion, you're not interrupting Falcon, you're perfectly welcome to post your thoughts at any time.

Why are you separating the syllogism from the argument? My syllogism is my argument, and my argument is my syllogism. They are either both true or they are both false.

I already have covered the issue of morality being based on desire extensively in this thread, so please go back and read the discussion.

No, the onus is not on the person in the minority view. That's absolutely ridiculous, and a pretty skewed abuse of appealing to majority. In this debate the burden is on both parties since neither myself nor Fledge/Mepalmer created the thread and challenged either position. We have both been arguing back and forth, so there isn't even a need to mention the burden of proof, because nobody so far is neglecting to fulfill it.

Fledge:

Once again, the premise is not the conclusion, the premise necessitates the conclusion. If one of my premises were "Desires are absolute" then morality would be absolute, and yet my initial premise would be the same. So if my initial premise can be the same, but my conclusion can differ by changing another premise, then my initial premise is not my conclusion obviously.

If I can use the same premise to prove morality is absolute, then my premise is not my conclusion. I can't make it any simpler than that. My premise is not my conclusion.

 

[Fledge]

If I can use the same premise to prove morality is absolute, then my premise is not my conclusion. I can't make it any simpler than that. My premise is not my conclusion.

Okay, good point. I must have blown past that without thinking about it very carefully, but I think that I've been guilty of focusing too much on one premise. I'll reproduce two of your premises here, and try to expand my circular reasoning argument, because I think that it still applies.

1) Morality is based on desires.

3) Desires are not absolute.

Okay. The first premise would probably be accepted by anyone who already believes in subjective morality. It might also be accepted (but only partially) by people who believe in objective morality. So I suppose that your initial premise on its own isn't quite so weak as I had been saying initially.

Your second premise would be pretty generally accepted as well, as people vary considerably even within a single culture. However, I think that the key to the matter goes back to my parenthetical statement in the preceding paragraph.

The reason why people who believe in objective morality will be willing to agree that morality is based on desires is because they will say that morality is based on God's desires. However, as Mepalmer3 has pointed out, God's desires are absolute. So your initial premise can be used to prove both objective and subjective morality only if the third premise changes between proofs.

So it would appear to me that either your initial premise or your third premise assumes your conclusion to be true. If I were to accept your initial premise, it would be with a caveat that God is the source of morality, which would place God's desires as the source of morality. And so I would be forced to disagree with your third premise, because it no longer describes the situation accurately.

So it would appear to me that even though I might agree (tentatively) with each of your premises when presented separately, when put together, I still think that there is an assumption being made that springs from your conclusion. Premises 1 and 3 in your argument would be accepted as is only if I already agreed with your conclusion. Since I wouldn't (and don't) accept them because I don't already agree with your conclusion, it would appear that there is a problem with your argument.

Fledge

 

[Socrastein]

Fledge I think that perhaps your problem with understanding/accepting my argument comes from a lack of experience on your part in deductive logic. The way deduction works, is the conclusion is always contained within the premises. You could not deduce the conclusion from the premises if it wasn't already there. In other words, deduction takes premises and basically squeezes out the conclusion through logic. If you don't fully understand this concept, then EVERY argument is going to seem circular to you.

Premises 1 and 3 in your argument would be accepted as is only if I already agreed with your conclusion. Since I wouldn't (and don't) accept them because I don't already agree with your conclusion, it would appear that there is a problem with your argument.

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore Socrates is mortal.

You could apply that quote to the above argument too, just replace "1 and 3" with "1 and 2". If you don't accept that Socrates is mortal, then you won't accept that all men or mortal, or that Socrates is a man. However you're working backwards in a way that misses the point of deduction. You don't start with the conclusion and decide whether or not you like it and will therefore accept the premises from which it came. You must look at the premises, and choose to accept them or not. If the argument is valid, which mine is, then if you accept the premises you must accept the conclusion.

I really don't know how else to explain this to you. You must keep in mind though, deduction will naturally always contain the conclusion within the premises, in that the premises are all you need to make the conclusion. A deductive syllogism just spells it out for you, so to speak.

EDIT

After writing this post I googled a great site that explains this a lot better and more simply than I can. Read about the subtle differences between a valid deductive argument and a circular argument here.

This difference is that, in circular reasoning, the conclusion is contained in a single premise or assumption, while in a deductive argument the conclusion is derived from both premises.

You already accepted that my conclusion is not in a single one of my premises, but you said you have a problem with accepting them together. Well, as I have explained and as the above link further elaborates, a valid deduction produces the conclusion from both the premises. Neither one of my premises is my conclusion, but together they all three deduce a subjective morality.

Also, I already told you that we humans do not have God's desires. We have OUR desires. So whether or not God has absolute desires has nothing to do with whether or not humans do. OUR moral statements are based on what we desire, and OUR desires are not absolute. Therefore morality is subjective. Like I said a long time ago in this discussion, even if there are transcendent metaphysical morals, we can't access them, we can't know them, we can only know our own desires and our own morality. Absolute morality has nothing to do with humans, and whether or not it exists does not change the fact that morality is subjective for us humans.

Like I said, even if God had absolute tastes, would that mean that taste would be absolute for us humans? If God absolutely desires pizza more than anything else, does that mean that it's wrong for anyone to desire something more than pizza? No. It has no effect on humans and their preferences, so it is irrelevent and doesn't change the fact that human tastes are subjective.

 

[stubeeef]

Is morality Objective?
Is there a standard for right and wrong?

Or is it Subjective?
Do we determine our own rights and wrongs for ourselves?

Depends on how you look at it.


I couldn't resist, sorry.

 

[mepalmer3]

Also, I already told you that we humans do not have God's desires. We have OUR desires. So whether or not God has absolute desires has nothing to do with whether or not humans do. OUR moral statements are based on what we desire, and OUR desires are not absolute. Therefore morality is subjective. Like I said a long time ago in this discussion, even if there are transcendent metaphysical morals, we can't access them, we can't know them, we can only know our own desires and our own morality. Absolute morality has nothing to do with humans, and whether or not it exists does not change the fact that morality is subjective for us humans.

If God created people, then it is very rational to suspect that people have some instincts, or natural desires that align with God's desires or his will. You are right about saying that we have desires that are not from God as well. And some of our moral statements or the morality that we ourselves make up is subjective and not absolute. I think clearly our feelings are subjective, our desires are subjective, and thus any morality that we make up is subjective. That point is pretty easily seen.

But we're still completely avoiding the topic of whether or not there is an absolute or objective morality in talking about our own desires or our own subjective ideas of the subject. If someone makes up their own math, then they too have made up a subjective math. But that sidesteps the issue as to whether or not there is a real objective math.

And you seem to acknowledge that you're not addressing whether or not an absolute morality from God can exist. Your only point seems to be that even if God exists, there is no way we can know his will. So technically, an absolute or objective morality can exist, but we just can't know it.

This comes to the question as to whether or not God can and does communicate to people. For there to be evidence of this to be true, we just need some people who will claim that yes God does indeed speak to them and tells them what is right/wrong. Then further, it would lend a great deal of credibility of various groups of people heard God and had nearly the same message of morality.

 

[BlackCat]

Is morality Objective?
Is there a standard for right and wrong?

Or is it Subjective?
Do we determine our own rights and wrongs for ourselves?

If I say it's objective .. - well, I'll say my own opinion... So, it can't be objective.

And if I say it's subjective, then how it can be objective anyway???


We, all subjective minded ppl create the average "opinion" by our subjective thoughts and make the OBJECTIVE morality.

(if anyone understood me-thanks )

 

[mepalmer3]

If I say it's objective .. - well, I'll say my own opinion... So, it can't be objective.

And if I say it's subjective, then how it can be objective anyway???

We, all subjective minded ppl create the average "opinion" by our subjective thoughts and make the OBJECTIVE morality.

(if anyone understood me-thanks )

If it ever changes, then by definition it can't be objective.

Further, the fact that people's opinions are subjective is really quite beside the point. We seem to agree that mathematics is objective.

 

[Socrastein]

If someone makes up their own math, then they too have made up a subjective math. But that sidesteps the issue as to whether or not there is a real objective math.

Quite true, and you make an excellent point. Consider however if humans could not deduce math as we know it. Consider if for some reason, whatever the reason, humans were forced to create their own subjective math and nobody could verify objectively which was right. Wouldn't it be fair to say that math is subjective? Of course such a phrase always has the context (for humans) attached to it, because if we speak of subjective or objective we must refer to a being that is privy to these concepts. Nothing can be subjective or objective by itself, in and of itself, subjectivity and objectivity is a relationship between concepts and beings, methinks. That being said, if humans could not know what the "real" math was, then the "real" math would be completely irrelevent to humans, and for all practical purposes math would be completely subjective.

I believe this is the same for morality. Now, perhaps you would disagree and say that math would still be objective in and of itself. That's quite fair, and at that point we would have nothing more than a semantical difference of opinion. You say tomato, I say subjective morality

 

[Niels]

If we agree on definitions, certain aspects of morality will be revealed/exposed as objective. However, that kind of agreement goes against the collective human nature.

Just my 2 cents, to be taken for what they're worth.

 

[mepalmer3]

Quite true, and you make an excellent point. Consider however if humans could not deduce math as we know it. Consider if for some reason, whatever the reason, humans were forced to create their own subjective math and nobody could verify objectively which was right. Wouldn't it be fair to say that math is subjective? Of course such a phrase always has the context (for humans) attached to it, because if we speak of subjective or objective we must refer to a being that is privy to these concepts. Nothing can be subjective or objective by itself, in and of itself, subjectivity and objectivity is a relationship between concepts and beings, methinks. That being said, if humans could not know what the "real" math was, then the "real" math would be completely irrelevent to humans, and for all practical purposes math would be completely subjective.

I believe this is the same for morality. Now, perhaps you would disagree and say that math would still be objective in and of itself. That's quite fair, and at that point we would have nothing more than a semantical difference of opinion. You say tomato, I say subjective morality

That's fine. As I've mentioned a number of times, it outright nonsense for us to suggest that there's such a thing as an objective, absolute morality unless there's a God. So the real issue with discovering the morality for us set by God is whether or not God speaks to us. If he does, then we can know whether or not something is moral, if not, then we cannot know.

Further, as I've also mentioned, we don't need to know ALL possible moral situations (in fact there's good reason that we wouldn't or couldn't know what to do in all moral situations), rather we just need to be able to objectively agree on some moral situations. If someone decides to be obstinate and refuse to think that rape is morally worse than giving to a charity, then at that point, that fellow is at a loss. People can refuse to belive that 1+1=2 as well. People have that choice. At some point we can only hope that God will in fact tell him that he was wrong in such a way where he has no choice but to acknowledge it.

 

[Socrastein]

One question that I just thought about in light of your last post - is a majority consensus a sufficient indication of objectivity? If you hand somebody a flashlight, what's the chance they'll walk around with it pointing backwards? Everybody is going to point it in front of them. Does that mean there is a metaphysical absolute for using a flashlight? Or does it simply mean that some things are "common sense"? There are many common sense things that nearly everyone would agree on, but does that mean they all are absolutes? Or metaphysically objective? I'm not so sure the subject matter, the idea of objective vs subjective, has been sufficiently explored for us to really tackle the sub-topic of morality.

 

[Fledge]

I would definitely agree that I have only very limited experience with logical reasoning in any kind of a formal setting (great web site by the way. I'll start going through it more thoroughly pretty soon). However, your example of a classic logical argument (major premise, minor premise, conclusion) doesn't quite hit the mark. That particular argument is valid from the logical standpoint, and it's validity from a "truth" standpoint depends entirely upon the accuracy of the two premises.

However, it appears to me that premises 1 and 3 in your argument will only be accepted "as is" by someone who already agrees with your conclusion. This means that those premises will only be made by someone who already accepts subjective morality to be the truth. I suppose that this might mean that the argument isn't circular from the technical standpoint, but I still think that your argument is kind of weak. Let's go back and take a look at your syllogism again, because after another look, it appears that your third premise is the weakest.

1. Morality is based on desires.

Okay, the initial premise makes a broad, sweeping statement, which is always very difficult to back up. The gist of this premise is that any kind of moral decision is based on the desires of the person making the decision. This is (as you said) debatable, but I'm not going to try to debate it at the moment.

Now before moving on to the second premise, I feel obligated to take a slight detour to point out something a little off topic. The statement that morality is based on desires is a moral statement, at least, it appears that way to me. (This would imply that you simply want morality to be based on desires?)

2. If morality is absolute, desires are absolute

Okay, this is a simple, valid logical deduction, whose accuracy is entirely dependent on the accuracy of the initial premise.

3. Desires are not absolute

This statement has an assumption that I never really thought about in much detail until recently. For this statement to be true, God cannot exist, but this is an unproven assumption. So your third premise rests on the unspoken, unproven assumption that there is no God. The other possibilty (that I see) is that it only refers to humans in general, because of the difficult nature of debating supernatural entities. However, this possibility can only be used if the entire syllogism was intended to refer to human ideas of morality in the first place. This doesn't appear to be the case, but if it had, this would require yet another unspoken, unproven assumption. This time, the assumption would be that man is the only (or highest) source of morality.

OUR moral statements are based on what we desire, and OUR desires are not absolute. Therefore morality is subjective. Like I said a long time ago in this discussion, even if there are transcendent metaphysical morals, we can't access them, we can't know them, we can only know our own desires and our own morality. Absolute morality has nothing to do with humans, and whether or not it exists does not change the fact that morality is subjective for us humans.

It is true that our moral statements are based on what we desire (barring those who have made someone else's desires, like God's, their source of moral decisions). However, when you go on to state that morality is subjective, you are assuming that man is the source of morality. This is probably the crux of the debate, and so clearly there has to be some kind of argument for it.

You do go on immediately into saying that "we can't access [transcendent morals]", but this statement alone seems to assume that every religious text in the world that makes any kind of moral statement is false or misleading (and this is far beyond the scope of this thread).

Probably the most interesting part of your paragraph is that "Absolute morality has nothing to do with humans, and whether or not it exists does not change the fact that morality is subjective for us humans." I think that I must have missed something somewhere, because if absolute morality exists, then clearly the very idea of subjective morality is false. If this is the case, then morality is not subjective for humans.

Finally, I don't think that the food analogy is valid here (if it is at all, I still haven't made up my mind on that yet). After all, if God exists, then He will be judging everyone by His moral standard after they die, so it would be far more important for us to find out what His moral standards are than it would be for us to find out what food God likes best (assuming there is one).

 

[Socrastein]

I have no idea how my first premise is a moral statement. Could you please elaborate?

My third premise does not rest on the assumption that God does not exist. Once again let me stress the point that I am referring to human desires because this discussion is centered around humans and our relationship to morality. Absolute morality is irrelevent if we humans have subjective morality, just as absolute mathematics is irrelevent if we humans have subjective math.

Like I mentioned prior, if God has an absolute preference in foods, this does not effect the subjectivity of humans and their tastes. If God absolutely desires pizza over everything else, that does not have any impact on the subjectivity of taste among humans. Even if someone is objectively wrong for liking tacos more than pizza, we could never know this, and it would be irrelevent to what humans liked or disliked.

So once again, my argument focuses around what we observe in human beings, as metaphysical absolutes are irrelevent if we are no more or less subjective because of them.

It is true that our moral statements are based on what we desire (barring those who have made someone else's desires, like God's, their source of moral decisions).

No, not barring those people. If someone makes their religion's morality their morality, then they desire to uphold the morality of their church. It's still morality based on desire. "I desire to do what God would want me to do, therefore I will try to do what God wants me to do" would be a very basic way of phrasing religious morality in the individual.

However, when you go on to state that morality is subjective, you are assuming that man is the source of morality. This is probably the crux of the debate, and so clearly there has to be some kind of argument for it.

If morality is based in desires, then for man to be the source of morality, man must be the source of his desires. They wouldn't be man's desires if they were not the desires of the man, so obviously man is the source of his desires, and thus man is the source of his morality in that his morality stems from his desires.

You do go on immediately into saying that "we can't access [transcendent morals]", but this statement alone seems to assume that every religious text in the world that makes any kind of moral statement is false or misleading (and this is far beyond the scope of this thread).

The only relevent fact is that there are contradictory religious texts and contradictory religious testimonies. Therefore we cannot know which is true. Therefore whichever one is true, if there be one, is irrelevent because it is out of our grasp. Maybe one person's food preferences happen to be objectively correct - that doesn't make any difference whatsoever.

Finally, I don't think that the food analogy is valid here (if it is at all, I still haven't made up my mind on that yet). After all, if God exists, then He will be judging everyone by His moral standard after they die, so it would be far more important for us to find out what His moral standards are than it would be for us to find out what food God likes best (assuming there is one).

My analogy has nothing to do with judgement. It has to do with the fact that just because some great being has absolute desires does not change the subjective nature of humans and their desires.

 

[Fledge]

I have no idea how my first premise is a moral statement. Could you please elaborate?

The way I look at it, by stating that morality is based on desires, you are setting a basic standard by which moral issues are decided, whether right or wrong. In so doing, you are making a moral statement. I would be interested in hearing your take on my view, so I would like to see you answer this part in detail.

My third premise does not rest on the assumption that God does not exist. Once again let me stress the point that I am referring to human desires because this discussion is centered around humans and our relationship to morality. Absolute morality is irrelevent if we humans have subjective morality, just as absolute mathematics is irrelevent if we humans have subjective math.

Yes, you are referring to human desires, but this is exactly my point. Since your premise does not include the possibility of God, you have (effectively) removed God from the equation as if you have assumed that God does not exist.

I would not agree with your statement that the only morality that matters is the one that humans come up with. If God exists, then it's not our ideas of morality that matter, it's His morality that counts. If all that mattered was our ideas of morality, then you would probably be correct in your assessment of the center of the debate. However, the debate is about whether morality is absolute or relative, and absolute morality only makes sense if there is a God.

So once again, my argument focuses around what we observe in human beings, as metaphysical absolutes are irrelevent if we are no more or less subjective because of them.

I would have to disagree with you here. Metaphysical absolutes matter very much if God exists. These absolutes may or may not affect the way we behave, but if such absolutes exist, our belief/unbelief in them is completely irrelavant.

I heard a man tell a story one time, trying to illustrate the fact that it is not our belief that matters. What matters is what is true. The beginning of the story went like this. You are walking down the street one day when a big man stops you and pulls a knife. He tells you to give him all of your money, or he will kill you. Being a very firm believer in your Second Ammendment rights, you promptly pull your Smith & Wesson out, and tell him to back off. He procedes to tell you that he is "a member of the National Knife Throwers Association, and we don't believe in guns".

Now from this point, there are three different endings to this story. One, you decide to fall in with his belief, and give him all your money (because your gun is worthless). The second ending has you trying to prove to him that guns are very lethal by citing various reports and medical studies, but this takes you right back to square one, as his belief in knife throwing remains unshaken. The third ending is to "pull the trigger and make a believer out of him."

See what I mean? My belief in moral absolutes doesn't "matter", nor does your belief in a lack of moral absolutes "matter". All that matters is whether or not these moral absolutes exist. If they do, then it is in our own best interests to discover exactly what they are, no matter how unpleasant they might be.

My analogy has nothing to do with judgement. It has to do with the fact that just because some great being has absolute desires does not change the subjective nature of humans and their desires.

We might be subjective by nature, but like I said...it's the truth that counts. It might not be easy to discover it, and we might never be able to have absolute certainty that we know it, but the truth is still what counts. Assuming there is such a thing as Truth (a whole 'nother debate), then it matters what we believe only to the extent that we agree with the Truth.

 

[mepalmer3]

One question that I just thought about in light of your last post - is a majority consensus a sufficient indication of objectivity? If you hand somebody a flashlight, what's the chance they'll walk around with it pointing backwards? Everybody is going to point it in front of them. Does that mean there is a metaphysical absolute for using a flashlight? Or does it simply mean that some things are "common sense"? There are many common sense things that nearly everyone would agree on, but does that mean they all are absolutes? Or metaphysically objective? I'm not so sure the subject matter, the idea of objective vs subjective, has been sufficiently explored for us to really tackle the sub-topic of morality.

Hmmm... good question. A majority consensus doesn't prove that something is true. It seems possible that everyone could agree that X is true, but in fact everyone is wrong. But a majority consensus should certainly lend weight to something being true. And the more people that agree then I would think the stronger the evidence is. IOW, if everyone sees a tree in such and such location, then it's good evidence that it really does exists. But a single person give say the tree exists, and that also could be sufficient evidence that it exists.

One of the things I claim is that while a large number of people may disagree on objective morality on philosophical or theological grounds, virtually everyone pretty strongly agrees that some actions are better than others. You of course notice this too. And you are attributing this to people's desires or their developed instinct for a "well-functioning society."

You have said before though, in free-will discussions, that people ultimately do what they desire the most. If morality comes from our desires, then our morality must be simply an expression of what we do. IOW, everything I do is right. I might look back and saying something was wrong, but really I mean that if that circumstance happens again, then I will desire and really do otherwise.

But quite often I know what I am doing is wrong and I do it anyway.

That last part I'm semi-interested in hearing your response. But then again, as you mentioned, we've sort of talked this to death, I'm sure we've both have held strong to our stance and we feel like we're logically valid and sound in thinking what we think. Which this begs the question, is logic actually objective if we can't agree on something? Just kidding.

 

[Socrastein]

The way I look at it, by stating that morality is based on desires, you are setting a basic standard by which moral issues are decided, whether right or wrong. In so doing, you are making a moral statement. I would be interested in hearing your take on my view, so I would like to see you answer this part in detail.

I thought moral statements were statement of what you "should" and "shouldn't" do. Like "Do not kill people" and "Pay your taxes". My premise is not such a statement, so this is why I don't understand how you're calling it a moral statement.

However, the debate is about whether morality is absolute or relative, and absolute morality only makes sense if there is a God.

I guess I just really suck at explaining what I mean by God being irrelevent if our morality is still subjective. So I'll just tackle this from another angle.

Prove that God exists. You say yourself there is no absolute morality without God, so if God is one of your premises, then prove to me that God exists.

But quite often I know what I am doing is wrong and I do it anyway.

I'd question how wrong you actually think it is if you still did it. I'd say that if someone is doing something and they think it is wrong, they're probably really appealing to what other people think is wrong. If I really truly thought that doing X was wrong, I wouldn't do it. If I do X and tell myself it's wrong, I'm likely saying "This is considered wrong". People will always make what they BELIEVE is the best choice. It's quite possible to still regret it later when you realize you were wrong, but at the time we will always do what we think is best, no matter how stupid our choice is.

This is where wisdom comes in, because we learn from our mistakes and start having truth on the side of our beliefs as we make choices. So not only does the wise man believe doing X is the best choice, but doing X really is the best choice (In that his reasoning for doing it is sound, and he will not regret what he does later).

I personally have never done anything that I know consider "wrong" that I didn't tell myself was okay at the time. Never. I couldn't have brought myself to do a "bad" thing if I hadn't told myself that it was okay, right, justified, whatever.

 

[mepalmer3]

I'd question how wrong you actually think it is if you still did it. I'd say that if someone is doing something and they think it is wrong, they're probably really appealing to what other people think is wrong. If I really truly thought that doing X was wrong, I wouldn't do it. If I do X and tell myself it's wrong, I'm likely saying "This is considered wrong". People will always make what they BELIEVE is the best choice. It's quite possible to still regret it later when you realize you were wrong, but at the time we will always do what we think is best, no matter how stupid our choice is.

I suppose we could be at an impasse on this one too. I very clearly think some things that I do are wrong.

For example... Occassionaly while arguing on here I will get to a point where someone frustrates me and I get to the point where I have 2 competing desires. One desire is to respond with a logical argument, another desire is to lash out in anger with some ad hominems. In the moment when I'm deciding, I'm fully aware of the fact that if I attack the person's character then I will be doing something wrong. I'm aware that it's both harmful to that person, it's harmful for our relationship, and it's also being intentionally illogical. So on 3 different accounts I know the action is wrong. And yet I give in to the stronger desire or instinct at times and I do what I believe to be wrong. Othertimes I ignore the stronger instinct and I do what I perceive to be right.

I personally have never done anything that I know consider "wrong" that I didn't tell myself was okay at the time. Never. I couldn't have brought myself to do a "bad" thing if I hadn't told myself that it was okay, right, justified, whatever.

I would be one of the most irrational people living if I claimed that of myself. One minute I think something is wrong, then next I do it and thus think it's right, then the next minute I think it's wrong again. I would call myself psychotic I think if I acted like this.

Truthfully I think it's comforting for people to believe as you have suggested. I'm not saying this lessens your claim, I'm just speaking my mind... I think we mostly will all agree that someone is "less wrong" in doing something if they thought it was the right thing to do as opposed to doing what they knew was wrong. In fact in courts people plead temporary insanity, meaning that in that moment they didn't know right from wrong. When that claim is accepted, which isn't very often, then the sentence is less severe. We fundamentally know that this is a "lesser crime" then when someone intentionally does something they know to be wrong. And thus, when you or others claim that they have never (and could not possibly do) anything you thought was wrong, then it's like giving yourself a lifetime insanity ticket where you can be free of any real blame of anything. So I think it's comforting for some people to think they don't ever do anything wrong.