Comment on Philosophy meme
balderdash9@lemmy.zip 1 year agoHere is an adjacent argument to the one you gave:
- Some people think the election was fixed
- Some people think the election was fair Therefore, there is no “objective truth” to whether the election was fair or fixed.
Moral of the story, disagreement alone does not entail a lack of objective truth. But the post was not about moral disagreement, it was about moral progress.
Moral relativists have a hard time explaining why we should have moral progress. The moral relativist will argue that any action whatsoever will be a good action if there is a certain group consensus. So why should we fight for a more fair and equitable society if the society we have no is *exactly * as morally good as any other system we could enact? Even worse, if the majority of people in your situation believe that something unjust is the right thing to do, then protesting against them is morally wrong.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 year ago
What does that have to do with my argument about the Aztecs? I don’t see the connection.
Wogi@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Because you seem to misunderstand what objective means, the other user is attempting to help you understand that with an unrelated example.
Objective means something is true. It does not mean consensus.
FluffyPotato@lemm.ee 1 year ago
What would it mean for a moral to be true?
Like we can prove the earth goes around the sun but how would you prove a moral value to be true?
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yes, I know what objective means. What makes their morals untrue and yours true?
mindrover@lemm.ee 1 year ago
That’s the next step. Once we agree that someone is right and someone is wrong, then we can start talking about the definition of “moral good”. And that is a very difficult and complicated discussion. But just because it’s hard to define doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not real.
ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 1 year ago
You could for example take an utilitarian approach and then the objectively better decision would be the decision that leads to less suffering in total.
Simply because it is practically impossible for us humans to calculate the “total of suffering”, doesn’t mean this total does not exist. It objectively does exist for every given decision. Perhaps there are exceptions where there is equal suffering for all decisions. But that still wouldn’t make it a subjective observation.
Arguably, the Aztec had an even bigger lack of information. For example by assuming that human sacrifices are a necessity. Or that women don’t suffer when they are treated as lesser.
Suffering is an objectively “real” thing in our universe. Unless you also want to debate whether pain or the human existence is real.
This seems like an axiom of ethics: less suffering is good. Because why would more suffering be good?
This seems like it leaves us with the option to either decide actively against what is good, or make decisions randomly. Random would be if you don’t consider whether a decision increases or decreases suffering / well-being. I am a total lay person for philosophy but this almost makes it seem like it’s a logical fallacy to assume ethics (on a base level) are subjective. We almost must assume something to make a decision. And your decision always leads to an increase or decrease in suffering. Therefore all decisions are on an objective scale of mortality…?