My 'Truth' or 'YOUR 'truth'?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

We all do it, and we all have slightly difference views. So where is objective?

But it is not just about the view it is also about getting a better view, about getting better morally about  what we ought collectively to be doing.

And that is why morality is hardly like Bluehillside describes it.

[BeRational]

But it is not just about the view it is also about getting a better view, about getting better morally about  what we ought collectively to be doing.

And that is why morality is hardly like Bluehillside describes it.

How do we decide what is better, and what we ought to be doing?
Do we dig this up from the ground, or do we collectively decide amongst ourselves?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You are still blatantly using an appeal to consequences. If there is no objective morality, there is no objective morality; it doesn't matter how difficult that makes it to deal with.

We have to deal with reality as it is, not how we might like it to be.

You really do need to look up what "argumentum ad consequentiam" means. It's what you did above, in pointing out the problems associated with subjective morality. That is not an argument for objective morality.

Morality as subjective is what we observe. People (individuals and groups) have moral codes. There is no absolute, objective test for morality.

No you take your definitions of morality as arbitrary and binding.

But we do not act or think the way you or Hillside make out.
You started with the conclusion Some kind of Strange and it went downhill from there.

How we act is that we are trying to act as we think we ought and we tell people how we think they ought to act.

You say that is important but if it is subjective as you say you have no warrant for that importance.

Secondly, we are demonstrating homeostatic behaviour when we act morally.

Reread the criticisms of moral relativity. I think your atheism has gone to your head and imputed rightness into you against which all else must be measured.

[bluehillside Retd.]

BR,

We all do it, and we all have slightly difference views. So where is objective?

Quite so. Where Trollboy keeps careering off the rails is by overreaching into claiming that when someone says, say, "murder is wrong" he must also think his position is objectively true. We can all reach the conclusion that murder is wrong, and we can argue for it too but jumping from that to the notion that we'd tapped into an objective truth is the stuff of psychopathy - or religiosity.

Even if he could finally track down someone who said, "X is morally wrong and that's an objective fact" he'd still though have all his work ahead of him to show that that belief said one jot of an iota of a smidgin of anything at all about whether the claim actually was objectively true.

Oddly the only people I know of who clam heir morals to be objectively determined are the religious - "X is wrong because God says so" - but that leads them straight into a circularity: "morality is objective because God made it so; because morality is objective, therefore God".

[bluehillside Retd.]

No you take your definitions of morality as arbitrary and binding.

...he lied.

"Persuasive", "provisional", defensible" etc do not imply either "arbitrary" or "binding".

[Walt Zingmatilder]

How do we decide what is better, and what we ought to be doing?
Do we dig this up from the ground, or do we collectively decide amongst ourselves?

OK.
If you practically take that line you are now bound not to compare your moral stance on something to anyone elses. It will be nice not hearing from you on these matters.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

...he lied.

"Persuasive", "provisional", defensible" etc do not imply either "arbitrary" or "binding".

Nope. He's the one who asserts that his view of how people act morally is correct. He is the one who asserts moral relativism.

[BeRational]

OK.
If you practically take that line you are now bound not to compare your moral stance on something to anyone elses. It will be nice not hearing from you on these matters.

So you have no answer.

Perhaps it is you that should stop posting about something you cannot defend.

Your position is undone.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Ah the unedifying sight of Trollboy thrashing around for ever more outlandish assertions. Of course you can compare moral positions just as much as you can compare the merits of Beethoven with that of Kylie Minogue without ever needing to suggest that any of these opinions are also objectively correct.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Could someone please explain to Trollboy that "correct" in discussions of morality (or of music appreciation for that matter) does not imply absolute. People used to think "slavery is fine" was morally correct; now they don't. That's the way with subjective experience - opinions can change.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

BR,

Quite so. Where Trollboy keeps careering off the rails is by overreaching into claiming that when someone says, say, "murder is wrong" he must also think his position is objectively true. We can all reach the conclusion that murder is wrong, and we can argue for it too but jumping from that to the notion that we'd tapped into an objective truth is the stuff of psychopathy - or religiosity.

Nobody is suggesting a jump and the next logical steps in the case for an objective morality have been outlined to you vis suggestions for candidates, Altruism, love, God.
Intellectual totalitarianism on your part and continued turd polishing of moral relativism.

Like the attempted sly but ultimately not subtle enough linking psychopathy with religion.

Good old Hillside. All the subtlety of someone delivering a packed lunch in a 40 foot truck.

[Khatru]

It has to be mutual to work. It doesn't work as well as the way of Christ,

The way of Christ?

Would that have something to do with telling everyone that if they want to avoid being burned and tortured they have to love him?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Could someone please explain to Trollboy that "correct" in discussions of morality (or of music appreciation for that matter) does not imply absolute. People used to think "slavery is fine" was morally correct; now they don't. That's the way with subjective experience - opinions can change.

Again change in the moral relative sense....in which nothing matters whether it changes or not. Assertion from the premise of moral relativity.

Hillside has focussed here on the change in individuals hoping well forget that he also thinks that diametrically opposed moral views are simultaneously and equally right or wrong!!!!!!

What a carcrash.

He also contradicts Some Kind of stranger by saying morality is equivalent to musical appreciation.....thus reducing the importance of morality.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Ah the unedifying sight of Trollboy thrashing around for ever more outlandish assertions. Of course you can compare moral positions just as much as you can compare the merits of Beethoven with that of Kylie Minogue without ever needing to suggest that any of these opinions are also objectively correct.

LOL

Surrender accepted.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Ah the unedifying sight of Trollboy thrashing around for ever more outlandish assertions. Of course you can compare moral positions just as much as you can compare the merits of Beethoven with that of Kylie Minogue without ever needing to suggest that any of these opinions are also objectively correct.

This could have come from a Hannibal Lecter film.

[Gordon]

Just been listening to discussion on BBC News 24 regarding the shooting of the gorilla in Cincinnati Zoo, which is a moral question - was killing it the right decision or not?

Experts said various things: the gorilla could have been protecting the boy but the situation (given the screams of distress from the crowd) wasn't normal for the gorilla beyond even the boy being there in the first place, so its behaviour could be predicted. There seems to have been no emergency plan other than shooting to kill, since the options of using the likes of distraction or a Taser weren't part of any plan to deal with incursions into the enclosure - so it was either kill the gorilla or wait to see what transpired, which was an unknown. Seems like a classic consequentialist moral problem (albeit without any runaway trains).

The point here, and not wishing to on this thread digress into the details of this particular case, is that if we borrowed Blue's 'Moraloscope' and pointed it at this situation would it identify whether shooting the gorilla so as to ensure the survival of the boy was the objectively correct moral decision or not, and why?

What is your view, Vlad?

[BeRational]

This could have come from a Hannibal Lecter film.

You say morality is objective yes?

Do you know any currently moral values that are objectively correct?

[Khatru]

Ignorance may be bliss and even though it has been shown that the killing of a few babies which would be few at the time of the flooding was simply so that they would not be left to die a horrible death when no adults left to look after them.

Where does it say this in the Bible?  Show me that it's not something you've come up with to justify infanticide.

So the best that an omnipotent being could do was to kill babies?  Right you are.

The humans killed their own like yourself they brought their own death sentences upon them.

Except that I condemn humans for this but when your invisible sky pixie does the same thing you see it as an act of transcendent love.  It's a warped and degenerate morality you subscribe to.

Just as the people who murdered their children sacrificing them to gods were themselves and off-spring killed to put an end to such evil and allow people to learn to live the right way.

Already refuted this.  What did your imaginary friend do to help those children?  He fixed it so that the parents would eat them.  Nice work, Jehovah.

What you cannot do is compare it to the same type of people today already named who slaughtered people in the name of power and of greed. Showing mans nature is a cruel and evil one at it's best. You are two-faced...even double standard...

Nope.  The hypocrisy is yours when you see nothing wrong with your deity killing millions of people.

That also explains why you failed to condemn your god's instructions to carry out abortions by killing unborn babies.

You would think nothing of putting people like Hitler and Idi Amin for their crimes against humanity. But when God takes action to remove them you cry foul.

Unsupported assertion.

You haven't a God and you have no love of justice of truth. But the truth is God was just in destroying those who killed their children by sacrificing them to idols in pagan worship. Just because they were committing crimes against God and man.

Already refuted.  Please see following quote...

Actually, the bible god makes it worse for children.

"And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them."

Jeremiah 19:9

In this myth, the people were sacrificing their children to Baal.  Good job your invisible sky pixie is on hand to stop this slaughter of innocent children, eh?

Well....no...not quite.

What does your deity of choice do?

He gets angry at the adults and arranges it so that they now eat their children.

How about that?  Rather than step in and save the children, your god's judgement is to ensure that even more children die.  Now, instead of sacrificing their children, your god is making the parents eat them.

What is it about your god's love that entails so much death and suffering?

See what your beliefs mean?

It's not just baby killing and incest that you have to defend but you can now add cannibalism to that list.

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=12121.msg616072#msg616072

So really we remove dictators and we remove those who murder who are terrorist. He just did it earlier.
And who knows if you weren't trying to make God a man you would see you too will pay for your crimes against humanity.

More unsupported assertions and gibberish.

It is time for you to be brought to the truth. You just cannot win against God because what he did saved the world and kept man from dying off by killing their own children.

Your truth?  The truth that just so happens to be better than all the other truths out there?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You say morality is objective yes?

Do you know any currently moral values that are objectively correct?

Do you mean morally objectively correct?

[BeRational]

Do you mean morally objectively correct?

Yes.

Do you know any?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Yes.

Do you know any?

Yes, apparently we all conclude that murder is wrong.

[BeRational]

Do you mean morally objectively correct?

Are you struggling to find an objective moral truth that we currently know?

[BeRational]

Yes, apparently we all conclude that murder is wrong.

Some people do NOT consider it wrong.

How can you demonstrate that they are wrong and you are right, without using opinion?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Are you struggling to find an objective moral truth that we currently know?

No.....I've stated one that has the working out.

Are you saying it is not a moral truth? But merely a position that some people like?

[BeRational]

No.....I've stated one that has the working out.

Are you saying it is not a moral truth? But merely a position that some people like?

Can you DEMONSTRATE that this is an objective position, and not just a collective subjective opinion?