As I see it, moral subjectivism means that anything in practice goes.
Yet to some, such a hard position doesn’t fly, even though it’s simply logical.
if there are no moral absolutes, then anything is acceptable if the majority accept it as such. the only real true essence then is consensus.
why do people thus dismiss this hard approach, when frankly it’s the most logical means of viewing moral subjectivism?
Some assert that a priori there are no moral absolutes. However, this does not mean we cannot devise frameworks lending to stability and general wellbeing. In my mind, this is nonsense, since a society may not value the wellbeing of the many.
It is arguable in reverse perhaps, that moral absolutes are created, in a reductive process, where violation of societal values reach the level of irreiversability, where the creators of value in themselves feel threatened in this violation of shared values. In case of many gods, the gods themselves react. In case of one God, that God may change the terms(Covenant).
The a priori-synthetic maybe, is on the level of the basic archytype. Modern usage has had a number of these "revisions".?
So the apriori as a process of validation and reintegration?---(of at least the meeting of 2 minds)?
What would this hypothetical society value?
Do you have some examples from human history where morality was not geared towards well being? If you are going to bring up slavery then you should consider that the well-being of the master class was substantially raised and that the master class considered the slaves lives improved over the alternative of jungle life or execution of defeated war combatants.
Yea you are right. Moral subjectivism means that moral proclamations can only ever be contextually correct. Meaning that, if the agreed upon goal of a society is to improve wellbeing and stability, moral proclamations which lend to that can thus be said to be the correct course of action or correct prescription in relation to the accomplishment of the goal. But in not in any other circumstance.
So if you find a society that does not value wellbeing or stability, such as some kind of hypothetical warrior society, then you could correctly live by a different set of morals in which bullying and violence are good things.
That said, if you DO find yourself in a society that values wellbeing and stability, dont be surprised when they arrest you for bullying and violence. And if you try to convince them that they shouldn’t punish you because their rules are subjective, the appropriate response on their part would be: “So what if its subjective… We collectively have decided that we dont like assholes (people that lack compassion and act accordingly) and in order to cultivate that kind of society, it is necessary to discourage asshole behavior.”
Morality does and has had a number of bases. In times of slavery, morality was based on chasteness, civility, chivalry, and piousness (as per the morals of 16th-19th century Europe). Not even all whites in Europe had it easy, as in this era aristocracy was key. A white European born poor essentially stayed poor all of his or her life.
Our contemporary morality is based on wellbeing, but this is not absolute. Nothing is absolute.
Based on deterministic thinking anything that has gone “goes”. The philosophy that morality is subjective means that it was always subjective, whether someone claimed it was or not. That means that saying one is “practicing moral subjectivity” is the same as saying they are obeying the laws of gravity. Because morality is subjective the world is as it is today. If objective morality existed the world would be different, perhaps they would be some sort of moral karma, and bad things would happen to those who went against the “preordained” morality, but the idea of objective morality is really to incoherent to hypothesise about.
It’s contradictory to try to justify anything through the philosophy of subjectivity, the philosophy of no objective justification. Moral subjectivity doesn’t mean anything except that morality is subjective, or ethics is based on opinion, or “doing right/wrong” depends on one’s views, or any other combination of synonyms you can find for the words “moral” and “subjectivity”.
If one realizes that morality is subjective rather than objective, they may find themselves do strange things, they may go against the morals they were taught, but they don’t have to. I would guess that few people who started with the presumption that morality was objective, then later realised that it isn’t, would act significantly different. If one defines moral nihilism as the belief that one shouldn’t be guided by morals, then maybe they will act different, but the “should” in that statement is completely subjective. Moral nihilism can also simply be the belief that one doesn’t have to be guided by morals, which is the same as understanding moral subjectivity.
Believing “the only real true essence then is consensus” sounds like a form of belief in moral objectivity. I would say that if you want to deny the existence of essence, fine, but if you claim it exists then it exists in every person. Going against the beliefs of the majority is more likely to adversely affect you than going against the beliefs of a minority, but if a minority doesn’t accept something you do they can provide consequences as well.
Someone could argue that this “hard approach” is the “easy approach”. If by “anything goes” you meant “do what you feel like and don’t worry about the consequences”, then I would argue that it is easier. You can view the term “moral subjectivism” however you want, but if by “viewing moral subjectivism“ you mean “act upon the knowledge of moral subjectivity”, then there is no logical way to view it or act upon it. There may be a logical way to act on the knowledge of moral objectivity if it were coherent.
We can devise them, but we don’t always. A society may place any sort of value or lack of value on anything they want; “frameworks lending to stability and general wellbeing” still may or may not be devised.