Sorry if it seams I am going on a bit, but I have to persue this even if I think of myself as a moral relativist.
Ok but I tend to think in terms of meanings and words that represent them are irrelevant ~ just labels, so are the meanings not objective? …is there absolutely no transferral from object to mind [which is surely an object].
For sure, is not a human being like a bowling ball, no matter who is experiencing it, it remains to be a human object. If you stop a bowling ball from rolling then the objective truth is that the bowling ball no longer has momentum, if you stop a human being from being a human being then you have effected its object ~ something that any observer can attest too. So the ethic stands?
Are they not holding the objective truth of helping human objects to continue, given that they save a lass of such objects against a few of them perishing. The ojective truth of the one human object surviving is multiplied by the amount of objects and comparatives may be morn of that?
You said that philosophy relied on subjective truths [so comparatives may be discerned I presume] and if there were only objective truths then philosophy would not exist. As there comes a point where we cannot define an exact object or differentiate that from an exact subject, then there is an even greater basis for philosophy. In fact it makes it fundamental to understanding reality. For example an item of information is not inherently an object, yet if I convey its meaning to you, it has become a sound wave [object] which gets converted by your brain into its qualia [subjective object?] and then information again. In such a case the same thing is both objective and subjective so must ultimately be something that is neither ~ as it can be either or both.
The meaning of a word is different from the standard by which it is applied, which is what I’ve been trying to point out. The meaning can be the same to everyone, such as the meaning of the word “big”, but the standard by which that word is used to describe something differs from person to person. Is the poor shape of the USA economy a “big” problem? How about health care reform in the USA? Which is the “bigger” problem? It’s easy to say that a bowling ball is bigger than a golf ball and see that as an “objective truth”, but not so easy when it comes to philosophy or politics.
I’m assuming you’re meaning killing the person in question, right? It would be an objective truth that the person is no longer living, yes. However it is not an objective truth that killing the person was “good” or “evil.” Those kinds of descriptors are completely subjective. Now, if you weren’t talking about killing the person, but merely preventing them from continuing to be “human,” then you run into the problem of defining what it means to be “human.” Is a hospital keeping a vegetative patient alive allowing that person to remain “human” or is has the person already ceased to be “human?”
Helping others isn’t a universally held goal, though. To be objective, it would have to transcend the individual’s interpretations and standards. One person may be willing to run into a burning building to save a woman trapped on the 3rd floor, but another person may not. The each person makes a value judgment in that situation, meaning the entire process is subjective.
Information, by itself, is completely objective. Yeah, it may be devoid of meaning until you understand it, but that doesn’t change the information at all, just your understanding of it. You might make value judgments about the information (the fact that an apple is green doesn’t really matter to me much), but once again that doesn’t change the nature of the information itself, just your perspective. Philosophy depends on differing points of view to in order to function. This implies that whatever falls into the realm of philosophy is, by nature, subjective and open to interpretation on a personal level.
Morality is not like information, as morality exists on a personal level only, just like the taste of food or fashion. Morality would be the filter through which you view the world. Nazi concentration camps weren’t inherently evil, nor were they inherently good. Your personal moral filter changes how you see Nazi concentration camps, but doesn’t change the camps themselves. Think of morality as a pair of sun glasses. The sun glasses change the way you see the world, but doesn’t change the world itself. You might see an apple as being a dark blue, but the apple doesn’t actually change in any way. The apple simply is.
Ok yes I agree it does, but I don’t think that means there are no universal objective standards. For example, if we take balance, it will always be a comparison between things or a point where the given things can be considered equal. You can have any kind of scales and any kind of weights and that aspect is arbitrary, but in all cases you have an objective notion of balance. So I guess what I am saying is; can all universals be considered as objective truths [as we do with gravity etc].
Yes ending the objects process ~ killing, as then the object is just a pile of chemicals that don’t work as a machine any more. We can attribute ‘good’ to keeping that machine working or we can call it bad, in fact we can call it snkdhdfuheui it doesn’t matter, the objective truth is to keep the machine working, or we have to impose an objective truth for not keeping it working. If we disallow the former then we set it as so that we cannot add any objective truth, therefore we cannot add the latter also. Hence the first truth is by default ‘true’! ~ or remains is perhaps better.
We could go on to formulate a collection of such truths, such that; ‘you have to add an objective truth in order to deny it, or you have to accept that we can attribute objective truth in the first place‘?
Forgive my spelling and typo’s [and damn spellchecker corrections]. For those who choose to stop human objects from terminating, their reasoning may be based on the objectivity where we don’t want an end to the human being, which would apply to all human beings.
These probably are not objective truths as such but rather they are self supporting logical truths based on some objectivity. Is that not enough to denote a basis to morality?
It is not info until we know what it is, its object has no information in it, for example a lightwave doesn’t say it is a lightwave, a number on a piece of paper is just a collection of atoms arranged into what we call a number.
If I say 2+2=4 and someone else takes that information wrong and says it = 3, then has not the meanings changed the information? Possible not the best example there, but I am trying to portray the changes that take place between the object and the subject which we both know exist in e.g. optical illusions. There must be a way in which misinformation can be transmitted as an object?
Not always? for example it could serve to understand things that are not understood by other means. The ancients used it to describe ‘holistic’ and other objects, devise math and science, I would say it is the only means by which we can describe the reality map, and that doesn’t have points of view just the correct descriptions. Philosophy is in most things perhaps.
I see. This is of course true if we can find no objectivity to it, or no universals maybe. Not sure if morality needs anything more than agreed truths which are self evident?
Once more, I’m not arguing that there are no objective standards in existence, just that there are none when it comes to morality. I’ve said time and again that gravity, physics, math, etc. are examples of objective truths. The ideas of “good” and “evil” are not. The basic meanings of the words aren’t being argued, just the idea that there exists a single standard by which these words may be applied and that this one standard applies equally to everyone.
Once again, you’re talking about goals not truths. An objective is a goal. An objective truth is something that is true regardless of who is experiencing it.
Also, you can’t attribute an objective truth to anything, as objective truths transcend your ability to attribute anything to them but subjective meaning. Your understanding of what an apple is doesn’t change what the apple is.
Not everyone thinks that we shouldn’t kill other people. In fact, a lot of murders in prison would disagree with you, especially the serial killers who hold little to no emotion or remorse for their victims, aside from, perhaps, joy when they think of their victims last moments on this earth. Human life’s status as sacred isn’t a universally held belief.
There’s no objectivity involved. The value of a person’s life is completely subjective, not objective.
The information doesn’t change depending on whether or not you understand it. If we were to give advances astronomical charts and scientific data to the ancient Aztecs, they’d not know what to do with it. The information given hasn’t changed in any way, but their understanding of it, their perspective of the information changes. In time, as they begin to understand what information was given, their perspectives might change, but the information itself has not. It simply is.
Once again, the information didn’t change at all, just the interpretation and understanding of that information. 2+2 didn’t magically become 1+2 because the other person didn’t understand it. Basically, the world wasn’t flat just because we thought it was. The world was still very round. The solution to 2+2=x won’t change, regardless of what period of history we’re looking at. People’s understanding of the equation may change, but the equation and the solution will remain the same.
They didn’t come to those conclusions all at once. They argued and debated for years before coming to the conclusions we see as fact today. For example, the earth revolves around the sun. This is scientific fact. Centuries ago, this was scientific heresy, as it was well known that the sun revolved around the earth. It was not until new evidence came into light and additional debates surrounding the interpretation of this evidence that we came to the conclusion that the earth revolved around the sun. Our current scientific view of the world was forged through debate and discourse and it is still being altered in the same manner. While similar, philosophy and science are different entities. Philosophy tends to attempt to derive the truth of metaphysical matters, whereas science tends to attempt to derive the truth of physical matters.
Are we speaking of “social morality” or “personal morality”? Basically, people silently agree with one another on certain behaviors when it comes to interacting with one another, but on a personal level the same people might have problems with their agreements. As a scenario to attempt to illustrate my point better, let’s pretend that you’re part of a mob of angry people. They’re angry because of an alleged child molester moving into the neighborhood. The mob’s plan is to rough him up in an attempt to get him to move. While beating the shit out of this guy, though, the mob’s anger intensifies and he dies. Socially, the mob may find his death acceptable as he was a child molester. Personally, though, you might feel remorse and regret for aiding to take a man’s life. There is no neutral standard to assess the value of the man’s life. Each person has to make that value judgment for themselves. Even the court system is built upon evaluating allegations based on subjective interpretations of the evidence.
Ok got it, this is why I prefer to deal with existing standards as in the op, I use what people already believe in and are prepared to blow themselves up for, then I pin them against the wall and make them choose one way or another; They either believe in a good god and prophet/works or they are misinterpreting them.
The information we give out becomes an object [sound wave], so if we misinterpret an object input, then we have change its object when we put it back into the world.
Misinterpreting a thing doesn’t change the thing, though. Once again, an apple simply exists. Your interpretation of the apple doesn’t change the nature of the apple. In the same way, a person’s interpretation of information doesn’t change the nature of the information, as information simply exists. If you were to tell me your daily routine and I were to misinterpret it, that wouldn’t change your routine at all, just my understanding of it.