Total topics: 11
I want to start by saying that objective morality is true. You can speculate as to whether that means a God does exist or if it is some sort of evolutionary thing. I don't care.
We need to start by defining what objective means. Objective just means that something is u iversally true for the most part. There is no place for stupid shit like pointing out a single exception. By single I mean a single person not a culture. We all share the same moral foundations. If I say that humans have 2 legs. We'll We know that some humans have one leg or 2, or even in some cases 3, but it is just a weakness of the human language and we know that nearly every human has 2 legs. So we say the statement that "humans have 2 legs" is objectively true.
Now that I have dealt with the exception criticism of people pointing out that perhaps Jeffrey Dahmer has different morals than me, I think we need to handle another objection to objective morality. Some would say that cats or dogs or alligators murder without a second thought, but this is where moral agency comes in. Animals are not on the same level of consciousness as humans. They are not moral agents. The only known moral agents are humans, so if we can prove that morality is objectively the same in humans (just as 2 legs are) than it can be said morality is objective.
prime morals
I want to talk about what I call prime morals. Humans share the same prime morals. We all think it is wrong to kill a child for fun. No society in the history of man would disagree. You will see some societies ask women to cover their head, others their ankles and some societies just ask that we don't expose our genitalia in public.
At first glance this may seem like different morals, but it in fact is not. We all intuitively have the same morals, they are just expressed and interpreted differently for different cultures.
For example the moral virtue known as modesty. All cultures have it. Some interpret it to mean covering a person's face and ankles, some interpret it to mean only cover genitalia and yet others take it to mean no having sex in front of children, but it is all an expression of the same morality.
The same with murder. The prime moral would be no murdering without a good reason. Now different cultures will interpret what "good reason" means but it is none the less the prime morality at play.
conclusion
we all have the same morals but they are merely expressed differently. There is a shared moral sense among humanity and since humans are the only moral agents it makes morality objective
Created:
Updated:
Category:
Philosophy
Topic Description:
I would like to explore different case scenarios where a person could be viewed as being completely selfless and virtuous. Then we will examine closely whether they received something in return.
We will cover the following questions to get started:
Can humans truly act selflessly?
Does anyone truly act selflessly?
Should anyone truly act selflessly?
Please help productively refine my and others' understanding by following these guidelines:
- NUMBER 1: Please ask questions and only state a dispute with an example to improve my understanding, this forum is intended to educate with an interactive environment.
- Be open-minded and curious. Do not dismiss or ignore answers that challenge your reality or beliefs. Try to embrace them as opportunities to learn and grow. Try to approach them with logical, critical, and professional minds, and seek to understand the evidence and reasoning behind them.
- Be empathetic and respectful. Do not judge or ridicule other people’s perspectives or experiences. Try to comprehend their viewpoints and appreciate their contributions to the larger and more intricate reality. Try to see how different perspectives can form a more complex and complete picture of the world.
- Be honest and responsible. Always prioritize speaking the truth and avoid making definitive claims when uncertain. Use qualifiers like "about," "I saw," "I think," or "I believe" to convey information accurately.
- Be clear about the source of your knowledge when sharing with others. This fosters a truthful and respectful environment for discussions.
- Be relevant and on-topic. Do not deviate from the main topic of the forum. Do not post irrelevant or off-topic comments and links that aren't productive to the questions being discussed.
- Be constructive and creative. Do not simply criticize or reject other people’s ideas. Try to offer positive feedback, suggestions, or alternatives.
- Be clear and concise. Try to use clear and accurate language as much as possible. To have effective communication it is necessary to speak understandably.
Created:
Updated:
Category:
Philosophy
I saw a video of those that did the massacre swollen in agony beaten to a pulp, I hope they're rinsed dry of any capacity to not experience hell before going.
I don't understand why this isn't standard practise to do to massacre doers any and everywhere and frankly to many criminals.
It's not as extreme as cut the fingers off a thief but I can completely get behind what happened to them.
If I ran a country (legal disclaimer: I don't own an country this is all a fantasy) and you massacred my people, I'd make you wish you weren't born. Not others for me but me personally with them. I don't understand what's wrong about this approach if you know for sure it's them and they did something this bad. They shouldn't be allowed to not hate every second of their existence left other than to be the lull between their hell.
I have waited some time to express this opinion in a way that doesn't make me get on a blacklist but if so, so be it. The opportunity arrived. Intelligence agencies will either agree with me on this or hypocritically do this to me, so it's a win-win.
Created:
Updated:
Category:
Politics
I will keep it short and only describe what this forum is intended for. This way I can hear everyone's perspectives before making any statements or presumptions.
This is meant to be from a Materialist view aka non-supernatural perspective, please provide evidence that is evident and not base reasoning on beliefs. Of course, speculation is welcome if addressed as such.
As always, please address your knowledge responsibly by using phrases like "I believe," if you believe; "I saw," if you saw; "I think," if you think; or "This evidence suggests ...," if you have empirical evidence. It is never responsible to claim anything for certain or to be known but rather acknowledge everyone including ourselves, are always learning and discovering new things about the world since much of the world changes continuously.
We will address questions like the following:
What constitutes a better society and civilization?
Would society be better if everyone was religious?
Would society be better if everyone's religion was unified, and is it possible to ethically achieve this?
Would society be better if everyone was Atheist?
What are the pros and cons to society of people being religious vs Atheist?
Will society move past religion towards a more scientific understanding of the world, and would it be better or worse for society?
Could science or another alternative fill the void that was once filled by religion?
Created:
Updated:
Category:
Philosophy
I would like to discuss the utility and intended purpose of morality from a non-religious perspective of Moral Relativism.
The questions I would like to discuss are as follows:
What is the intended purpose of morality?
We acknowledge that morality is beneficial to society, but are there advantages to a lack of morality?
How does The Greater Good align with morality?
Why is The Greater Good not always considered moral if it is the greater good? (This would imply what we consider moral can be the lesser good)
Why are some things considered immoral, but as a whole more beneficial to the world?
I acknowledge many people will want to give their religious and non-relativist perspective, please do it on a different forum as I would appreciate a non-religious perspective for this forum about morals from a relativist view.
Created:
Updated:
Category:
Philosophy
You cannot possibly have a good god enabling all the bad things, it doesn't possibly work. You're either wilfully lying or too stupid to follow, any prophet who says this is corrupt.
Created:
Updated:
Category:
Religion
Does anybody disagree?
Created:
Updated:
Category:
Religion
I am a moral subjectivist, ask me anything, bear in mind that my position isn't necessarily representative of the majority of moral subjectivists or anything of the like.
Created:
Updated:
Category:
Philosophy
Moral Truth – The Problems with Moral Relativism
Problem 1: Moral relativism suffers from what is known as the reformer’s dilemma. If moral relativism is true, then societies cannot have moral reformers. Why? Moral reformers are members of a society that stand outside that society’s moral code and pronounce a need for reform and change in that code. For example, Corrie ten Boom risked her life to save Jews during the Holocaust. William Wilberforce sought the abolition of slavery in the late 18th century. Martin Luther King, Jr. fought for civil rights in the U.S. If moral relativism is true, then these reformers were immoral. You see, if an act is right if and only if it is in keeping with a given society’s code, then the moral reformer himself is by definition an immoral person. Moral reformers must always be wrong because they go against the code of their society. But such a view is defective for we all know that real moral reform has taken place!
Problem 2: Moral relativists cannot improve their morality. Neither cultures nor individuals can improve their morality. The only thing they can do is change it. Think of what it means to improve something. Improvement means becoming better at something. But becoming better at something requires an external standard of comparison. To improve a society’s moral code means that the society changes its laws and values closer to an external ideal. If no such standard exists, then there is no way for the new standard to be better than the original; they can only be different. A society can abolish apartheid (racism) in favor of equality. A society can provide equal rights for women. It can guarantee freedom of speech and the press. But according to moral relativism, these are mere changes, not improvements. The Nazis used moral relativism as a defense for their crimes at the Nuremberg trials. The court condemned them because they said there is a law above culture.
Problem 3: Moral relativists cannot complain about the problem of evil. The problem of evil is one of the most commonly raised objections to the existence of God. Some of the great atheists— Bertrand Russell, David Hume, H.G. Wells— concluded on the basis of the evil and suffering in the world that the God of the Bible must not exist (genocide, child abuse, suicide bombings). The common argument is that if God was all-good and all-powerful he would deal with evil. But evil exists, so God must not. The force of this objection rests upon moral evil being real and some things being objectively wrong. But such a claim is peculiar if we understand the nature of evil. Evil is a perversion of good. There can be good without evil, but not evil without good. There can be right without wrong, but not wrong unless there is first right. If morality is ultimately a matter of personal tastes, like ice cream flavor, the argument against God’s existence based on evil vanishes. If evil is real, then so is absolute good, which means moral relativism is false.
Created:
Updated:
Category:
Philosophy
Consider this....
A scientist creates in his lab, an artificial intelligence that has true sentience. It learns, laughs, and can feel suffering.
The scientist, amazed and enchanted, creates many of these AI entities (as only digital persons) on his server.
One day he realizes that his AI entities have started to reproduce other entities in what could be analogous to birth in humans.
So he simply starts to observe them, enthralled at their growth, and interaction.
Soon, the AI develop societies and culture, they form a morality and a religion, and their numbers are increasing. One day, to his surprise, the digital AI's have formed governments.
These AI's have a life span of about 2 months, but their time perception is very fast. So they can cram into that 2 month lifespan, what we get in our 80 or so years.
Here are the questions fro you.
1. If the scientist should turn off the server, it would "kill" every AI sentient "person" in it. Would it be immoral for him to do so?
2. If the scientist decided to experiment on a few of his AI entities in such a way that caused them to experience great suffering, would that be immoral?
3. If the scientist decided to give his AI some "moral" laws, one of which was, "Do not damage the Server." Would that "moral" law be any different from the "moral" laws the AI's have developed themselves?
4. If a few of the AI's develop weapons and begin to use those weapons to extinguish/kill other AI entities, is the scientist morally obligated to stop them?
5. If your answer to question #1 is "yes", please tell us as precisely as you can, whether it is the AI's sentience or it's ability to feel suffering that more morally obligates the scientist to keep them "alive".
Created:
Updated:
Category:
Philosophy
Hey guys! *This post is not for debating for and against objective morality* Rather I would like to challenge everyone to think and search for the evidence of objective morality. The goal I think is to understand what we currently know and take for granted.
I will start us off with what I know:
First and foremost is the world's tendency towards a moral law. Maybe it is harder for us to see directly, but everything we do is guided by a reasoning of "do or ought not do." It is easily seen when we say "should I", as you do when you make the decision to eat breakfast or go to work. This means we have an evaluation before we make an act. We obviously don't see these type of premeditation in animals (try keeping a hungry chicken from food for example XD), which points us to something else special for us.
Now we look at our actions to see where objectivity lies. To be objectively moral means to have an objective standard by which you measure things to. When you are cut in line, or are cheated, beaten etc, we always expect the person hurting us to understand the wrongness of what he did, appealing to a common standard (which is why we want him punished). This doesn't mean that we have to follow this standard, but that we both see it. We don't expect these same standards of animals (try telling a mosquito to stop sucking blood ;), but instead expect it of those around us.
This is big, because just as we have an innate untaught sense to eat, this standard guides us beyond the likes of animals, explaining why people from all cultures and backgrounds all point to murder and atrocities such as Hitler's exterminations as objectively wrong.
(once more I only ask for brain storming on the topic of objective morality not a debate on it ;)
Please know it that I do not want a search from the perspective of a moral creator (though surly it leads it it), instead I ask we use our combined minds to reveal what we can know by observation.
I would love to see more examples of how the moral law affects our lives or how we would be without morality. These two things certainly bring us to understand how the moral law exists.
"A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true" - Socrates
"Force always attracts men of low morality" -Albert Einstein
"Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society" -Thomas Jefferson
Thank you all,
To truth!
-logicae
Created:
Updated:
Category:
Philosophy