Nostr Web Client

The latter point is an interesting one worth discussing. Is morality subjective or absolute?

My perspective is that it's local in time and space and (like bitcoin) it's based on broad social consensus (which is hard to change but can and did happen).

This means that it's neither individually subject nor arbitrary or random. There's a consistency to it, otherwise the whole concept would be pointless.

nostr:nevent1qqs8he6kvh4zdd6f90hwtnc0st3mxe9gwf6q7wgcmxktdvlthhgzqzspgdmhxw309amkjmn9ve5kcar9wfkksutf0pu85mtw0fuxsundv96kvurwvecnxunddf3kcdn9dy6r26tex3skjerjdenhqumed9jzummwd9hkuq3qu895rj0zlqu55rtfxdyh6cu6nsxhck9qqqyut3qe6gkf2xjtv8vqxpqqqqqqz4p7ej8

Robot Lightning 1y ago

The classical argument is that if God exists, then objective moral values exist, as they arise from God. But, without God, there is no authority from which objective moral value can arise.

More modern takes might consider if thermodynamics or genetics/memetics might give rise to values that out compete others and thereby are objectively better than outcompeted values.

Even if you land with subjective values, and freedom to associate with a tribe that shares these same values, you do still have to worry about other tribes being more successful than yours, pushing your tribe and its values into irrelevance and extinction over time.

I guess I have just convinced myself that objective moral values do exist, but only as a result of "survival of the fittest"

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

Chrys 1y ago

Abstract Truths cannot be established by Scientific Facts. Moral Truths cannot be derived from observation.

Its like saying Arithmetic was invented through observing Apples and Bananas.

Robot Lightning 1y ago

Well sir that's the classical argument for sure.

But I do also wonder if two tribes, each following a different moral value, were put against each other in a contest such that one tribe survives and the other does not, could it not be said (controlling for other variables) that their morals proved to be objectively better. That is objective rather than subjective, but only determinable by observation and in hindsight.

Probably out of my depth here, not my wheelhouse.

Chrys 1y ago

I get what you're saying. The mere fact that an evaluation is being made on which tribe was "objectively better" requires a subjective presupposition, otherwise how can it be known it is better?

What is keeping someone from declaring the dying tribe from being evaluated as the "better" one?

Robot Lightning 1y ago

Well my proposition is that survival of the fittest is a way to prove objective moral value. The axiom is that the survivor is the fittest.

Chrys 1y ago

Having a Value Axiom proves that the conclusion is NOT an "objective moral value"

Its an evaluation based on the arbitrary axiomatic framework.

Mental frameworks always precede observables.

sommerfeld 1y ago

I don't think you can make any logical argument without an axiom. Nothing exists in a vacuum.

Chrys 1y ago

I'm not saying Axioms by themselves are illogical. Moral axioms cannot be derived from observables, thats all.

They're "good" or "bad" because of some arbitrary Moral claim, within a relativistic worldview.

sommerfeld 1y ago

Even if you believe in God and "objective morality" exists, it makes no sense to blindly accept the teachings of organized human religions as the undistorted pure manifestations of that objective morality.

Because no ground truth can be established, it makes more sense to live as it if it does not exist and try to establish a human-consensus sort of morality.