Alright. Let's try to pin down some positions.
I think morality has no absolutes. (That is to say that no moral is ALWAYS right or wrong in every situation)
This means that no one can every say that murder, or genocide, or infanticide, or anything -cide can be wrong or right in every situation.
I believe this to be the case for two key reasons.
1. There are more than one moral values and they can contradict each other at times due to the synthetic truths of reality that are necessarily beyond prediction for our tiny human brains. Therefore, when a contradiction happens, one has to prioritize their values and choose the one that prevails. The amazing thing is the it's not always the same value winning out. Generally, personal well being wins out, but it has been known to go other ways when using very hyperbolic examples.
2. Moral values imply an imperative. It's saying that X is important to you personally and that you will act in a way as to achieve X. This means that any application of the value that does not meet this imperative is a contradiction. This means that if applying X prevents you from obtaining X then X cannot be achieved in that scenario and falls downward on the priority list in that situation.
So my conclusion from all this (informal conclusion) is that we can't really say that X value is absolute wrong or right by our moral standards. However, we can say that X value is wrong or right in Y situation every time assuming that all variables that pertain to the situation are identical.
So that's my moral views in a nutshell. Let's talk about the rough part now. Objectivity.
I'm going to start out with the caveat that I don't necessarily care if morality is objective or subjective unless it has a huge impact on it's practical use.
Also, I feel like equivocation tends to happen on this topic. Some parts of the moral system are subjective and some are objective and it can even be indirectly related to intrinsic reality.
Based on the definitions I provided in the description, I would say that the explanation for why we have moral judgements stems from evolution. This would be the intrinsic driving force that started it all. Although, evolution shouldn't get too much of the credit, because it was just Frankenstein in the equation. We, the monsters of Frankenstein are the ones who evolved it into what it is today. We took our biological process and applied it in the environment and since it favored group behavior it was a nice fit for natural selection.
Thus, the reason we act morally is because it helped us survive and in fact, most moral judgements seem to be reducible to survival behaviors.... but not all of them.
Nobody can sincerely deny that there is a subjective element to the puzzle.
This is where moral judgements come into play. Basically everybody gets a starter kit of very basic axiomatic morals. This is not an ought statement, but rather a descriptive one. Objectively speaking, humans want to survive on average, that's just a fact.
From this objective goal, the agent has many choices of how to interpret their survival. Basically, everybody encounters situations and other values and then decides whether or not they are moral. Humans tend to do this in an absolute sense which is why morals tend to feel absolute.
However, this seems pragmatic and humans tend to shed this behavior during tough moments.
So from all this, I would ultimately say that Morality is objectively based but has branched out into smaller subjective sects that have varying degrees of objectivity left within them depending on how they developed.
I await your thoughts on the matter. I will not be making an effort to rebuttal or refute anything you say, but rather I will attempt to take whatever you say to it's logical conclusion to see where it goes.
I'll hit you up in a couple days when I've wiped a couple of these debates out.
Sorry I missed this one. Feel free to challenge me to a similar one, or even anything you want. I'm usually up
You mean 10K
I have adopted a similar thought, but I don't word it the same and it probably doesn't have the same implications.
The way I word it is "No person actually thinks they're evil". My point here being that even Hitler thought he was doing the right thing or "being the hero of his own story".
It will take some time and I will likely fill most of the 30k.
Ramshutu will probably downvote me for 'gish gallop' but I took this because I want to have my teachings found if I were to die and this site is finally becoming googlable.
I will come at you from an angle of moral relativism as opposed to particularism. Meaning I am going to prove there is an absolute polarity to morality in every single person's 'code'. The selfish root of morality will become something I defy particularism with because what I am going to prove is something I realised at around age 13-14; all people are the heroes of their own story, even when they deny it.
I think you'd be a great person for this discussion if you're interested.