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[Vic Van Meter]

I think trying to imply right or wrong, good or evil is inherent to the natural world is a bit silly. The natural world remains independent of subjective perception unless you're solipsist. If morality is part of the natural world then by all means provide the formal axioms to describe it, in which case then humans would always behave according to those formal axioms.

But we don't, and never will, because humans don't obey the principles of formal axioms or hell, even rational decisions most times. That's beside the point that the universe appears to be built upon uncertainty, doubt, and frames of reference which seems at odds with a concept of absolute good or evil.

Well, I can bring up a few examples, the first of which being that there are other sociable animals on the planet.  They probably don't understand what morality is (in fact, they probably don't understand the concept of evolution, even though it exists).  However, there are many insects in the world that live socially with disregard for their individual well-being.  If good and evil is defined by our ability to live in social groups for the betterment of others, we may be the only species to conceptualize wrong and right, but we certainly didn't invent that there is a right and wrong way to behave in a society.

I'd almost theorize the other way, that humans didn't invent morality, but that we essentially, if anything, invented immorality.  You simply don't see ants going off on their own, eating everything they can stomach, and generally making asses out of themselves.  It seems like the further along your brain develops, the more you are capable of doing "wrong" even if you can't conceptualize it.

Humans are a singular breed in that we're aware of wrong and right on a more universal and objective level.  A chimpanzee might not know or understand that hording all the figs for himself might mean that a baby in his troop dies, but we are much more aware of our resource management and we understand what it means to someone else if we completely screw them over.  I think it'd be a stretch to say we invented the concept of morality, it's probably more likely we invented immorality, but I think in the end, we probably are just the first to understand both as a dichotomy because of our sole ability to understand the needs of social living and yet make rational decisions against it.  I don't think that ability alone exists anywhere else in nature (though I suppose you could make the argument that a lot of large mammals have that ability, I'm just not much of a naturalist).

I think it's a bit necessary to impose morality on ourselves to some degree though, and to hold that some things are absolute and inalienable.  We simply can't rely on people to have bred instincts to not kill each other for minor inconveniences, but we know it's definitely a bad idea to do it.  Hence, murdering the cashier for initially counting your change incorrectly could be objectively considered wrong.

I think it's more of an issue of separating what is good for us and society as opposed to what we think would be good ideas, but don't actually matter in the grand scheme of things.  One of those examples would be the current battle over homosexuality.  Objectively, unless you're worried exclusively about whether we'll procreate as a species, there is no difference between two men or two women being in a relationship as opposed to one or the other.  So whether or not it's a good thing is a purely subjective conjecture, but I can't say it's rationally wrong.  Now, on the other hand, I can say it's rationally wrong to use the money you need to buy your baby formula to purchase crystal meth, no matter how hard it is to say no to your addiction or how you feel about your parental responsibilities.  That kid is counting on you, at that point, to feed it.

I think that's why D&D's system misses the point of real morality, by design.  Obviously, killing some random guard to you can assassinate a king to advance the calling of your dark god would be an abhorrent thing to do IRL, but it is hugely entertaining to do in a game.  I'd almost say the original Vampire: the Masquarade enforced a morality code more like the real one, where randomly killing people actually turned you into a monster.  That code also made sure damn near everyone I knew played a different morality or abandoned it altogether; you can boil blood in people's veins, what the Hell is the point of not using the power because you'll feel bad?

So whereas IRL we've got plenty of things that are objectively right and wrong, and as a society we're trying to parse out a more universal code of what is right and wrong as opposed to just going by what we thought in the past, in-game that's not really important.  I'd almost say an in-game morality system is a sort of RP guideline for beginners until they can write a more independent character.  You may not want to actually kill anyone IRL, but it's fun to pile the bodies higher than Austerlitz and Waterloo in a game.

[V. Gesakaarin]

Well, I can bring up a few examples, the first of which being that there are other sociable animals on the planet.  They probably don't understand what morality is (in fact, they probably don't understand the concept of evolution, even though it exists).  However, there are many insects in the world that live socially with disregard for their individual well-being.  If good and evil is defined by our ability to live in social groups for the betterment of others, we may be the only species to conceptualize wrong and right, but we certainly didn't invent that there is a right and wrong way to behave in a society.

I'd almost theorize the other way, that humans didn't invent morality, but that we essentially, if anything, invented immorality.  You simply don't see ants going off on their own, eating everything they can stomach, and generally making asses out of themselves.  It seems like the further along your brain develops, the more you are capable of doing "wrong" even if you can't conceptualize it.

Humans are a singular breed in that we're aware of wrong and right on a more universal and objective level.  A chimpanzee might not know or understand that hording all the figs for himself might mean that a baby in his troop dies, but we are much more aware of our resource management and we understand what it means to someone else if we completely screw them over.  I think it'd be a stretch to say we invented the concept of morality, it's probably more likely we invented immorality, but I think in the end, we probably are just the first to understand both as a dichotomy because of our sole ability to understand the needs of social living and yet make rational decisions against it.  I don't think that ability alone exists anywhere else in nature (though I suppose you could make the argument that a lot of large mammals have that ability, I'm just not much of a naturalist).

I think it's a bit necessary to impose morality on ourselves to some degree though, and to hold that some things are absolute and inalienable.  We simply can't rely on people to have bred instincts to not kill each other for minor inconveniences, but we know it's definitely a bad idea to do it.  Hence, murdering the cashier for initially counting your change incorrectly could be objectively considered wrong.

I think it's more of an issue of separating what is good for us and society as opposed to what we think would be good ideas, but don't actually matter in the grand scheme of things.  One of those examples would be the current battle over homosexuality.  Objectively, unless you're worried exclusively about whether we'll procreate as a species, there is no difference between two men or two women being in a relationship as opposed to one or the other.  So whether or not it's a good thing is a purely subjective conjecture, but I can't say it's rationally wrong.  Now, on the other hand, I can say it's rationally wrong to use the money you need to buy your baby formula to purchase crystal meth, no matter how hard it is to say no to your addiction or how you feel about your parental responsibilities.  That kid is counting on you, at that point, to feed it.

I think that's why D&D's system misses the point of real morality, by design.  Obviously, killing some random guard to you can assassinate a king to advance the calling of your dark god would be an abhorrent thing to do IRL, but it is hugely entertaining to do in a game.  I'd almost say the original Vampire: the Masquarade enforced a morality code more like the real one, where randomly killing people actually turned you into a monster.  That code also made sure damn near everyone I knew played a different morality or abandoned it altogether; you can boil blood in people's veins, what the Hell is the point of not using the power because you'll feel bad?

So whereas IRL we've got plenty of things that are objectively right and wrong, and as a society we're trying to parse out a more universal code of what is right and wrong as opposed to just going by what we thought in the past, in-game that's not really important.  I'd almost say an in-game morality system is a sort of RP guideline for beginners until they can write a more independent character.  You may not want to actually kill anyone IRL, but it's fun to pile the bodies higher than Austerlitz and Waterloo in a game.

That's just arguing that defining right and wrong on is on the basis of the innate biology and psychology of being advanced primates and social mammals. That doesn't change the fact for me that morality is constructed and what is considered right or wrong is the product of societal values created and they're no less inherent or objective than concepts of rights or the creation of laws for me. As such I find that as a species we don't, "discover" morality but we do invent, adapt, or develop them with the objective of creating points of consensus and co-operation as a social species living in complex arrangements with one another.

My own concepts of right or wrong are the product of two or three centuries of western liberal thought and I generally accept those values because I live in a western liberal society and can see the practical benefits of those values. However, those moral values I adhere to as an individual are the product of thought and opinion developed over time particular to the society that I live in, and I accept that other societies will create their own particular moral values peculiar to their own history, culture, and intellectual traditions.

In fact, one of the great evils in humanity for me are those who do adhere to concepts of moral absolutism and make the claim that their concepts of good and evil whether it's supported by ideology, religion or whatever else are the only way for all, as having caused some of the worst atrocities and injustices in the name of imposing those standards upon others.

[Vic Van Meter]

That's just arguing that defining right and wrong on is on the basis of the innate biology and psychology of being advanced primates and social mammals. That doesn't change the fact for me that morality is constructed and what is considered right or wrong is the product of societal values created and they're no less inherent or objective than concepts of rights or the creation of laws for me. As such I find that as a species we don't, "discover" morality but we do invent, adapt, or develop them with the objective of creating points of consensus and co-operation as a social species living in complex arrangements with one another.

My own concepts of right or wrong are the product of two or three centuries of western liberal thought and I generally accept those values because I live in a western liberal society and can see the practical benefits of those values. However, those moral values I adhere to as an individual are the product of thought and opinion developed over time particular to the society that I live in, and I accept that other societies will create their own particular moral values peculiar to their own history, culture, and intellectual traditions.

In fact, one of the great evils in humanity for me are those who do adhere to concepts of moral absolutism and make the claim that their concepts of good and evil whether it's supported by ideology, religion or whatever else are the only way for all, as having caused some of the worst atrocities and injustices in the name of imposing those standards upon others.

While I respect your opinion if you think that's true, I can't say I believe that.  I can't imagine it will suddenly become acceptable in the eyes of all for me to skewer my neighbor alive and roast him on a spit as a sacrifice to my hearth goddess.  It just doesn't make a lot of logical sense to say that something is objectively acceptable because I get a few people together who believe something else.

There have been a lot of horrible things that were driven largely by the unjust actions of a few people and the willful ignorance and inaction of a lot more people.  Certainly a lot of American people were cast out of their jobs, exiled from their communities, and blacklisted from society for being "Communist" during the Cold War.  While it was probably wrong of the McCarthyists to say that people should be essentially cast out of society for a peacefully-held political idea, it was a lot worse that the majority of Americans simply accepted it, whether they agreed or not.

In the end, I think you could say, with complete objectivity, that the massacres in Cambodia were bad and unnecessary, no matter if it was acceptable to that country's power structure or not.  Not believing in mass killing as a method to garner political support, as an example, isn't really just a western/liberal thing.  That homosexuality shouldn't be illegal is a pretty objective point, even though that sort of point is affiliated with our little block of the world.  And that's not to say that we've got some kind of monopoly on good ideas.  Limiting exorbitant interest on loans seems to be just now becoming a thing in our society, but that's been largely illegal in Islamic banking since the Middle Ages.

There seems to be an objective right and wrong in a lot of situations, it's just a matter of figuring out when that's true and when it's more an issue of personal preference that doesn't affect anyone else.

[Lyn Farel]

What Veik said about moral absolutism. One of the most despicable western things of our age.

But that's sort of the point of the example.  Is it really "okay" if someone thinks it's okay?  In the example, it's based around the idea that no one is okay with it except you.  You can justify it, it might not ever hurt anyone because no one might ever find out, but that doesn't mean it was ever the right thing to do.  I think there truly is an objective right in that situation, that if you've promised something, went back on it, and lied, that is wrong whether or not you can shrug it off.

Essentially, being okay with something doesn't make it okay in any kind of objective sense.  At what point are we going from condemning things that aren't our right or business to condemn to excusing things that we shouldn't ever excuse?  As a species, we've done a lot of both, but I think the latter is the one we've done more often.  The worst things we've done as a collective group is that we've allowed some terrible things to happen because we didn't think it was our business.

A more serious historical example might be something like slavery.  It went on in the U.S. until, nominally, 1863.  Plenty of people thought it was okay at the time, in fact some people still practice it in the world and, assumedly, think it's an acceptable thing to do.

That doesn't make it right, nor was it ever the right thing to do.  I may defend it on Constantin Baracca, but it's all character.  Slavery is abhorrent and it was an ignorant practice.  It was common for pretty much every society until relatively recently in human history.  People thought it was a perfectly normal and understandable practice that you could invade another nation-state and set its kidnapped people to working your farms.

It's never been right objectively.  The idea of forcing someone to work in grueling conditions without any compensation for your benefit is in no way the right thing to do, whether you believe in it or not.  We can dress it up and try to make excuses for why it happened and how long it took us to realize it was the wrong thing, it might not have all been horrible people in charge of that system, but it's completely and utterly wrong.  It always was.  It never would be.

But for a long time, in America, the policy of the non-slaveholding states was just to limit its expansion and to not allow it in their part of the country.  It took a long time before a government was elected that would have even limited it to its present boundaries, and it took cessation and a civil war before the government finally released the slaves in America from bondage.

It was never right, it just took us a long time to acknowledge that.  Nowadays, very few people in America would like us to return to enslaving people (and you can bet those people can't say so in government, much less be President).  That doesn't mean it only recently became wrong, it was always wrong.  We just only relatively recently decided to believe so en masse.

I guess that depends on whether you believe nature defines humanity, which seems a bit simplistic.  It doesn't matter that chimpanzees will often gather a troop together, wander into the next territory over, and attack their neighbors.  If I went into the next neighborhood over with all my friends, killed and ate everyone there, and stole their houses, I don't think there would be a philosophical debate on whether I was an evil, murderous bastard just because I didn't know any better.

Then again, chimpanzees don't know about heavy industry, organized agriculture, or the nature of electromagnetism.  They're no less natural, they just don't and can't understand.  So they'll never understand that it's probably wrong to invade and cannibalize your neighbors because they can't understand what it would be like to be invaded and eaten until it happens.

We, on the other hand, are capable of understanding when we're doing something wrong and, conversely, we can look at other situations and say that they shouldn't happen.  It isn't really that humanity defines morality, it's that we're the only ones yet that, as far as we know, can think about the long-reaching consequences of our actions to understand.  Rain doesn't care about the precipitation cycle, either, we essentially defined it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't objectively exist.

I just don't think anyone on this board is refraining from murdering the people that annoy them solely because they think they'll get caught.  We, as far as we know alone in the universe, know that killing someone sets up a train of consequences that hurts people who have nothing to do with us, and it's unacceptable.

The only thing you are telling me is that it is wrong because you decided it is wrong morally, or because most people decided it is wrong.

The only thing we can safely assume out of that is that it is your subjective judgement of value. Mine too in that case, but not necessarily an objective one.

The same goes with your slavery example, believing it is "okay" doesn't make it right indeed, but also doesn't make it wrong objectively. Especially since right and wrong are not objective values by definition...

As Publius pointed above, I don't believe in objectivism, as it is highly pretentious in its core premises. The simple fact that you take it for granted because "it took America a long time to figure it out" doesn't mean it is right or wrong. It just means that America decided it was wrong morally, which I agree with personally, but that doesn't make it more objective.

I could find countless explanations as to why people might believe differently for everyone of your examples.

I may believe that some things are wrong morally, but I have the honesty to say that it's just my view and political beliefs, not an universal constant.

Out of curiosity, do you believe in God ?

I am pretty sure that there is objective truth, I just don't believe that subjects - us, anyone - can grasp objective truth. I strongly disagree with the fact that things have to be the way they are. They are just the way they are in the eye of the beholder, and vary sometimes greatly depending on the subject, as well as the space and time location (something might appear different in different circumstances).

So, a proposition of the form "If X, then X=X" is not necessarily true? There are lots of objective truths humans can grasp. Alas, most of them are quite uninteresting analytic truths. (Like the truth that all quadrats have four sides. I know this with absolute certainty. There's nothing subjective about it.)

Heh, that's a good point. But weren't we speaking about morality and not norms and factual axioms ? 

[V. Gesakaarin]

While I respect your opinion if you think that's true, I can't say I believe that.  I can't imagine it will suddenly become acceptable in the eyes of all for me to skewer my neighbor alive and roast him on a spit as a sacrifice to my hearth goddess.  It just doesn't make a lot of logical sense to say that something is objectively acceptable because I get a few people together who believe something else.

There have been a lot of horrible things that were driven largely by the unjust actions of a few people and the willful ignorance and inaction of a lot more people.  Certainly a lot of American people were cast out of their jobs, exiled from their communities, and blacklisted from society for being "Communist" during the Cold War.  While it was probably wrong of the McCarthyists to say that people should be essentially cast out of society for a peacefully-held political idea, it was a lot worse that the majority of Americans simply accepted it, whether they agreed or not.

In the end, I think you could say, with complete objectivity, that the massacres in Cambodia were bad and unnecessary, no matter if it was acceptable to that country's power structure or not.  Not believing in mass killing as a method to garner political support, as an example, isn't really just a western/liberal thing.  That homosexuality shouldn't be illegal is a pretty objective point, even though that sort of point is affiliated with our little block of the world.  And that's not to say that we've got some kind of monopoly on good ideas.  Limiting exorbitant interest on loans seems to be just now becoming a thing in our society, but that's been largely illegal in Islamic banking since the Middle Ages.

There seems to be an objective right and wrong in a lot of situations, it's just a matter of figuring out when that's true and when it's more an issue of personal preference that doesn't affect anyone else.

If you were to say that's there's a biological or anthropological impetus behind concepts of morality then I'd probably say there's same basis there. Most mammal species appear to have the instinct of not actively seeking to kill their own members and there seems to be evidence of it with humans - it's why a lot of modern militaries have training techniques to condition soldiers to override that instinct. However, while morality might have some biological basis it's still the product of rational thought and discussion that goes beyond innate instinct for me since we do have the process for the creation of ideas and their development.

I don't think chattel slavery was abolished as institution used by European colonial powers and in America due to some sudden moral epiphany of right and wrong that made it unconscionable. It became unconscionable because of the rise of the ideas and concepts such as liberalism, such as individual liberty, such as democracy, or the rights of man and the authors and people that promoted them until they became more widely accepted by society as well as historical events such as the French Revolution that gave fertile ground for those ideas to take root. England only abandoned slavery in places like Jamaica because of radical Whigs in Parliament who, in having accepted the concept of things like individual liberty or universal rights of men, fought to abolish it because it was inimical to their notion of morality and which apparently differed to that of conservatives that opposed it.

That initial impetus of classical liberalism and its philosophical and intellectual development over the centuries has more to do with modern morality in the west and what we consider right or wrong as Western societies. Those ideas are the product of continued development through debate and discussion to define what society comes to consider right or wrong. Racial equality, universal suffrage, gender equality, abolition of slavery, and a lot of things we probably take for granted in a western democratic society these days were the result of efforts to redefine what is, and isn't acceptable as moral standards.

I suppose for me I hold that there's probably certain biological and evolutionary instincts as social primates that humans have such as not killing each other, working together, altruism, empathy, or compassion that is probably as close as it gets to having some form of objective right or wrong. Beyond that, with morality itself, it isn't the product of some primal drive but the fact that we as a species have the capability for complex thought and it's just a set of ideas people and societies create. So no, I don't see morality as being objective but rather a particularly fragile and tenuous framework of memes that are developed and created over time and that need people to accept, maintain, and propagate as a society.

Because to be honest, if hypothetically, there was a collapse of modern society and all the collected works and thoughts that have permeated through and taken for granted today living in a liberal democracy, then I doubt later generations will have similar concepts of what we might think is generally moral or immoral.

[Vic Van Meter]

The only thing you are telling me is that it is wrong because you decided it is wrong morally, or because most people decided it is wrong.

The only thing we can safely assume out of that is that it is your subjective judgement of value. Mine too in that case, but not necessarily an objective one.

The same goes with your slavery example, believing it is "okay" doesn't make it right indeed, but also doesn't make it wrong objectively. Especially since right and wrong are not objective values by definition...

As Publius pointed above, I don't believe in objectivism, as it is highly pretentious in its core premises. The simple fact that you take it for granted because "it took America a long time to figure it out" doesn't mean it is right or wrong. It just means that America decided it was wrong morally, which I agree with personally, but that doesn't make it more objective.

I could find countless explanations as to why people might believe differently for everyone of your examples.

I may believe that some things are wrong morally, but I have the honesty to say that it's just my view and political beliefs, not an universal constant.

Out of curiosity, do you believe in God ?

I'd answer that with another question (which is usually bad form), but just because I can come up with a reason to justify it, does that make it morally ambiguous or subjective?  In that example, and sticking to the latter question, you could say that it's totally fine to kill someone who believes in abortion.  That could be your belief, and others could find that wrong, but you could say it is definitively what you believe and you have decided that you will drive a pickup truck laden with explosives into an abortion clinic and level the block.

I don't think we'd find that idea shocking because of a sense of moral comparativism.  The explanation for why that isn't right doesn't begin, "I know you believe this is right, but you're at this point outnumbered by those of us who believe otherwise.  And in this culture, we try not to drive the explosive-filled trucks into establishments full of people we have political disagreements with."

I'm pretty sure the reason, for all of us, is that it's probably objectively, undeniably wrong to drive trucks full of explosives into any kind of civic structure in order to kill everyone.  I don't think, in especially this extreme example, that any of us would have any problem saying, "This is definitely wrong, and if you believe this is the right way to handle this situation, there's something wrong with you."  There's a point where we go beyond comparative ethics and into the realm of things being unacceptable anywhere for any reason.

Still, there are people out there who believe that's fine.  I don't have a problem saying that the reason they're wrong, whatever they believe about abortion, has nothing to do with culture.  If it's fine to drive a truck into an abortion clinic, it's fine to drive one into a church during mass for precisely the same reason.  And both things are wrong, for precisely the same reason.

On the religious question, yes and no.  I do believe in God, but I'm pretty rabidly antiestablishmentarianist as far as religious organizations go.  It's complicated and could take up a whole thread on its own, which I'm totally fine with doing.  Suffice it to say, I don't think any kind of religious choice I'd make as far as my life goes is an objective one.  I have a sort-of, quasi-religious reason to go to the free clinic to donate my time.  I wouldn't say you people that don't are evil for not doing it; that's my choice to do so.  I don't think the idea that killing people is generally a bad thing is at all limited to religion, despite what a lot of people might say.  Religion isn't the best way to judge objective good and evil, common sense and logic goes a longer way.

While I respect your opinion if you think that's true, I can't say I believe that.  I can't imagine it will suddenly become acceptable in the eyes of all for me to skewer my neighbor alive and roast him on a spit as a sacrifice to my hearth goddess.  It just doesn't make a lot of logical sense to say that something is objectively acceptable because I get a few people together who believe something else.

There have been a lot of horrible things that were driven largely by the unjust actions of a few people and the willful ignorance and inaction of a lot more people.  Certainly a lot of American people were cast out of their jobs, exiled from their communities, and blacklisted from society for being "Communist" during the Cold War.  While it was probably wrong of the McCarthyists to say that people should be essentially cast out of society for a peacefully-held political idea, it was a lot worse that the majority of Americans simply accepted it, whether they agreed or not.

In the end, I think you could say, with complete objectivity, that the massacres in Cambodia were bad and unnecessary, no matter if it was acceptable to that country's power structure or not.  Not believing in mass killing as a method to garner political support, as an example, isn't really just a western/liberal thing.  That homosexuality shouldn't be illegal is a pretty objective point, even though that sort of point is affiliated with our little block of the world.  And that's not to say that we've got some kind of monopoly on good ideas.  Limiting exorbitant interest on loans seems to be just now becoming a thing in our society, but that's been largely illegal in Islamic banking since the Middle Ages.

There seems to be an objective right and wrong in a lot of situations, it's just a matter of figuring out when that's true and when it's more an issue of personal preference that doesn't affect anyone else.

If you were to say that's there's a biological or anthropological impetus behind concepts of morality then I'd probably say there's same basis there. Most mammal species appear to have the instinct of not actively seeking to kill their own members and there seems to be evidence of it with humans - it's why a lot of modern militaries have training techniques to condition soldiers to override that instinct. However, while morality might have some biological basis it's still the product of rational thought and discussion that goes beyond innate instinct for me since we do have the process for the creation of ideas and their development.

I don't think chattel slavery was abolished as institution used by European colonial powers and in America due to some sudden moral epiphany of right and wrong that made it unconscionable. It became unconscionable because of the rise of the ideas and concepts such as liberalism, such as individual liberty, such as democracy, or the rights of man and the authors and people that promoted them until they became more widely accepted by society as well as historical events such as the French Revolution that gave fertile ground for those ideas to take root. England only abandoned slavery in places like Jamaica because of radical Whigs in Parliament who, in having accepted the concept of things like individual liberty or universal rights of men, fought to abolish it because it was inimical to their notion of morality and which apparently differed to that of conservatives that opposed it.

That initial impetus of classical liberalism and its philosophical and intellectual development over the centuries has more to do with modern morality in the west and what we consider right or wrong as Western societies. Those ideas are the product of continued development through debate and discussion to define what society comes to consider right or wrong. Racial equality, universal suffrage, gender equality, abolition of slavery, and a lot of things we probably take for granted in a western democratic society these days were the result of efforts to redefine what is, and isn't acceptable as moral standards.

I suppose for me I hold that there's probably certain biological and evolutionary instincts as social primates that humans have such as not killing each other, working together, altruism, empathy, or compassion that is probably as close as it gets to having some form of objective right or wrong. Beyond that, with morality itself, it isn't the product of some primal drive but the fact that we as a species have the capability for complex thought and it's just a set of ideas people and societies create. So no, I don't see morality as being objective but rather a particularly fragile and tenuous framework of memes that are developed and created over time and that need people to accept, maintain, and propagate as a society.

Because to be honest, if hypothetically, there was a collapse of modern society and all the collected works and thoughts that have permeated through and taken for granted today living in a liberal democracy, then I doubt later generations will have similar concepts of what we might think is generally moral or immoral.

I kind of think I take exception to a few things there, but not all.  For one, I don't necessarily believe that just because we've conceived of something and that it's born completely from rationality that it doesn't actually exist, or that we invented it.  It's a bit like saying that, because we noted how long it took to complete something, we invented time.  Time's always existed and, though it's a bit more complicated than we originally thought, it was here a long time before us.  It is, however, something humans conceive.

On the subject of historical movement, I honestly think it's moved in a relatively similar direction, even in very distant cultures.  The idea of, over time, people becoming equal in rights and having a few inalienable expectations in life seems to be a pretty common theme that comes with enlightenment.  We kind of take snapshots of history, but over time, even often without us having to do anything, as means improve, we tend towards a somewhat similar end.  It certainly hasn't been constant or consistent throughout.  The Greeks were talking about equality among all people when "people" still meant Athenian, landowning, male citizens.  It's sort of a general thrust.

I do agree that there's a lot of baggage we take with us.  Democracy is a practical method of governance, but it isn't objectively the right way to do things.  If we did have to hit the reset button as a society, that is one of the things I might see changing.  However, I think the idea we shouldn't kill other people, for one, would resurface.  So would equality as a fundamental human right, eventually.  Over time, it might be different, but there would be common themes that we would understand to be universally good ways to evolve a society.

I suppose people have a fairly common idea that invading aliens from another place might have a drastically different way of life, but I imagine a few things will bind anyone that can unite intellectually to leave a planet and explore space.  That's not something you can really do when you're trying desperately to kill everything in sight for your own personal gain; it just isn't feasible to get anything done as a society that way.

I think, maybe, morality is a very bloated word we attach some particular baggage to, but I think a central core of universal and obvious right and wrong exists.  Outside of the obvious ones, what about lying?  Try to imagine a society where it is wholly expected that if someone promises to do something, it is absolutely fine, hypothetically, if they don't do it.  Could anything actually get done?  You'd have to do everything on your own because you couldn't trust anyone else to do their part of the job, in fact you could expect just as well otherwise.  You'd never advance as a society.

In ours, we have the benefit of the expectation of honesty, but can also invest a lot into it.  When someone loves you and believes in you, and you intentionally betray them, I'd say that's objectively wrong and I'd be willing to argue that, by the nature of promises and honesty, that's objectively wrong.  It'd be different if you promised nothing, but by promising and betraying, you have done objective wrong.  I'm not sure there's a single society anywhere that has not had that as a moral element, even ones that didn't meet until relatively recently.

So I think it exists, I think it's bigger than people sometimes think.  You just have to be careful about application, because it's, as you and others have intimated, easy to include something subjective in there because you feel strongly about it.

[Publius Valerius]

http://www.gamefront.com/whats-your-gamer-alignment/


In game of thrones style: https://the-road-not-taken.obsidianportal.com/wikis/alignment-tracking

Hodor all the way. P.S. New trailers are out: http://www.youtube.com/user/GameofThrones/videos

CANT WAIT.

[V. Gesakaarin]

I suppose people have a fairly common idea that invading aliens from another place might have a drastically different way of life, but I imagine a few things will bind anyone that can unite intellectually to leave a planet and explore space.  That's not something you can really do when you're trying desperately to kill everything in sight for your own personal gain; it just isn't feasible to get anything done as a society that way.

Well if we're talking hypothetical scenarios about aliens what if they're evolved from collectivist organisms like ants or termites and decide to kill us all because they think other intelligent life is a threat to their survival and don't attach the same morality to death or killing because they're not primates like humans that have things like emotion to get in the way and all that matters is the survival of the hive.

Does that mean they're objectively evil?

[Morwen Lagann]

I suppose people have a fairly common idea that invading aliens from another place might have a drastically different way of life, but I imagine a few things will bind anyone that can unite intellectually to leave a planet and explore space.  That's not something you can really do when you're trying desperately to kill everything in sight for your own personal gain; it just isn't feasible to get anything done as a society that way.

Well if we're talking hypothetical scenarios about aliens what if they're evolved from collectivist organisms like ants or termites and decide to kill us all because they think other intelligent life is a threat to their survival and don't attach the same morality to death or killing because they're not primates like humans that have things like emotion to get in the way and all that matters is the survival of the hive.

Does that mean they're objectively evil?

Obligatory related suggestion that anyone who's read any of the Ender's Game series try to find the alignment of the Formics/Buggers. Bonus points for doing the same for the pequininos.

[Lyn Farel]

I'd answer that with another question (which is usually bad form), but just because I can come up with a reason to justify it, does that make it morally ambiguous or subjective?

Yes.

But it's not just a reason. It's a belief. A mere reason is just an excuse.

A belief in something is one of the basis of any morality value.

In that example, and sticking to the latter question, you could say that it's totally fine to kill someone who believes in abortion.  That could be your belief, and others could find that wrong, but you could say it is definitively what you believe and you have decided that you will drive a pickup truck laden with explosives into an abortion clinic and level the block.

I don't think we'd find that idea shocking because of a sense of moral comparativism.  The explanation for why that isn't right doesn't begin, "I know you believe this is right, but you're at this point outnumbered by those of us who believe otherwise.  And in this culture, we try not to drive the explosive-filled trucks into establishments full of people we have political disagreements with."

I'm pretty sure the reason, for all of us, is that it's probably objectively, undeniably wrong to drive trucks full of explosives into any kind of civic structure in order to kill everyone.  I don't think, in especially this extreme example, that any of us would have any problem saying, "This is definitely wrong, and if you believe this is the right way to handle this situation, there's something wrong with you."  There's a point where we go beyond comparative ethics and into the realm of things being unacceptable anywhere for any reason.

Still, there are people out there who believe that's fine.  I don't have a problem saying that the reason they're wrong, whatever they believe about abortion, has nothing to do with culture.  If it's fine to drive a truck into an abortion clinic, it's fine to drive one into a church during mass for precisely the same reason.  And both things are wrong, for precisely the same reason.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of radical islamists or your average Taliban believes otherwise concerning explosive trucks and IEDs. And their sense of morality is probably thousand times stronger than ours.

I don't see the point in constantly finding new case by case examples instead of addressing the actual point...

You probably being an objectivist and empiricist, and me the exact contrary (constructivist epistemology and rationalist at heart) might be the source of the problem.

On the religious question, yes and no.  I do believe in God, but I'm pretty rabidly antiestablishmentarianist as far as religious organizations go.  It's complicated and could take up a whole thread on its own, which I'm totally fine with doing.  Suffice it to say, I don't think any kind of religious choice I'd make as far as my life goes is an objective one.  I have a sort-of, quasi-religious reason to go to the free clinic to donate my time.  I wouldn't say you people that don't are evil for not doing it; that's my choice to do so.  I don't think the idea that killing people is generally a bad thing is at all limited to religion, despite what a lot of people might say.  Religion isn't the best way to judge objective good and evil, common sense and logic goes a longer way.

Sorry for asking. It just that you sometimes sound to me like a faithful american (whatever that means... >.>). I know my limits and how biased I can be when it comes to that, even if I do my best to remain "objective" (in the sense trying to be, not absolute objectivity). As much as I despise religious/evangelistic atheism, I can definitely hold very negative feelings toward most religions and have difficulties not to get a feeling of pity and waste when seeing believers... believing, and I have no problem at all to believe that the world would be a better place without any religion, since I am a laicist who believes in it just because it's the best way to ensure religion stays the hell out of my way. And even with such laws, it still doesn't.

It's one of my flaws, and I apologize in advance for everyone I could offend someday, or now. :/

[Publius Valerius]

You probably being an objectivist and empiricist, and me the exact contrary (constructivist epistemology and rationalist at heart) might be the source of the problem.

Ehm.... About "rationalist at heart" thats one of the point about Kuhn and Lakatos is that there isnt any laws or rational for that matter.... Thats is their point (that there are just paradigms and human constructed ideas, but no laws etc***).... Thats is their model and critique on Popper and Milton Friedman... Thats why I had such huge problems with Mithras and Gottis comments on the slavery discussion: http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=3484.220;wap2

The Idea that Popper is outdate and falsify by them is just wrong. As both are just a models next to Popper, which just upholds the Ideas and Ideals of the constructivism (that their isnt any laws (just paradigms) or even rationality, or standards of logic) or some would even call it epistemological anarchism. So if you dont mind. I reword your stuff: "Im a constructivist epistemology and I think rationality is constructed"

As Publius pointed above, I don't believe in objectivism, as it is highly pretentious in its core premises.

Actually my experience in my university was the other way around. That constructivist are pretentious.

Example:

Imagine a International relation seminar, with so 30 people. Where everyone has to do a lecture on a topic. You know most likely the drill.    So in this international relation seminar we were going through all the positivistic theories of the International relations: Realism, Neorealism, Liberalism, Neoliberalism  and Institutionalism.... As well as constructivism ones: Alexander Wendt. Here I have to say... that where we are, or lets say in germany general, we dont do "Friedensforschung". What many people in angel-saxon universities would call: Idealism. Where you analyze the dreams and hopes of Kant, W. Wilson, Ronald Reagan, JFK... etc... We dont do this in international relations, where I come from. I just say this, because I had ones a great discussion about this topic ingame; which let this point out.

So back to the topic.... of course this positivistic theories work with laws, mathematical proofs, logic and game theory, and alot of economics stuff. So of course we land on topics like what is a Lagrange-function (use in microeconomics and game theory) or laws in the IR (I remember it was about Kenneth Waltz: Theory of International Politics. The first chapter. I think.).

And I remember like it was yesterday, that a young girl. Every committed and dedicated in her believe (You have always in the first semester some Green/Social Democrats boys and girls, which think political science is politic. But luckily the drop out fast and/or get bored fast.). She had try to critique those models, as they havent fit with her world view. But of course, she could not falsify any of this points and just rambled on. The prof, then had try to explain to her the idea of laws (positivism), falsification (Popper) etc... After that he come to the idea of constructivism and Wendt. Thats his critique was more or less: "Anarchy Is What States Make" or in other words "state construct anarchy, but they could choose/do as well not anarchy (other things)"**... It was Wendts way to get around all the laws and ideas which were done previously, WITHOUT the need to falsify any of the points.

So back to the topic, after she learned that you can critique everything without the need of falsification, she went on full-tard. Everything what she doesnt liked was just "positivistic lies" and "Nazi Popper shit".... that science is just a product of the bourgeoisie etc....  So no... for me are constructivist pretentious. But all old stories. I dont want to say, that you or any contructivist is like that. No, I actually think, that you and the others here reasonable persons. But I have to say if I had to do a ordinal pretentious list... James Franco of course would be on top. But right after him would come some constructivist people. Not that I would call it like Friedman pseudo-science. it is just for me useless, as it add nothing of real value. Is like the stoner kid, which always says: "Yeah Bro. But dude is it**** real?"



So now back to the topic. As I dont want to talk about the metascience in the internet (have already talk to much about it.). What typ of player are you?
Me Im a chaotic evil person gamer    "Dude, you were not blue"

http://www.gamefront.com/whats-your-gamer-alignment/






____________________
**** For "it" you can add everything. From science over to shoes. Or as the girl "is the lagrange-function real?"
***Thats why I had the skin tickleing on the slavery discussion about some of Mithras comments... Like he doesnt believes in laws, but used them? But all old stories. Which I better dont warm up. 
**I had ones a nice debate about this topic ingame. My idea is if you translate Wendts constructivistic ideas to a positivistic theory you would end up with a homo sociologicus. Which also would show the problem of his model; and why it is just use in the international relations. How come? The homo sociologicus is a nice model to explain alot of stuff, but it has one problem: In this model actors dont choose (unlike in rational choice models, or psychological models, etc...). Imagine it that way: You your social role is: You love to stroke dogs and you dont want to break laws. So, you always to it, when you see a dog, but now imagine there is a sign which says: "No stroking of dogs allowed" What would the homo socialiologicus do? Nothing. Error. Imagine it like taking a root of a negative number, your calculator would also just show Error. But here is the thing, thanks to anarchy in the IR, we will never see such a sign. So Wendt model does not work because, the state construct anarchy, his model only works because there is anarchy. This is FOR ME also the reason that we dont see constructivistic theories in internal affairs, because their is no anarchy (the model would always break any every decision). But just my 50 cents. 

[Jace]

-.-

Popper is read in the vein of history of philosophy now, not current arguments that need to be contended with.

Edit: Let me make that less snarky. Rationalism has developed far beyond critical rationalism at this point. Do you need to read Popper? Absolutely. In order to understand where Rationalism has gone, you have to understand where it has been. But individuals have the unfortunate tendency to latch onto the big names and never move beyond even though the field has. It is the same argument I have with my fellows when they can't take what they can from Derrida and move past him.

Edit2 (Because. That's why): I won't argue with the pretentious thing, because as you implied, whether someone is seen as pretentious really doesn't matter beyond a popularity contest. Also, when I like Derrida, Butler, Berlant, etc., you have to get used to the pretentious sling.

[Publius Valerius]

-.-

Popper is read in the vein of history of philosophy now, not current arguments that need to be contended with.

Edit: Let me make that less snarky. Rationalism has developed far beyond critical rationalism at this point. Do you need to read Popper? Absolutely. In order to understand where Rationalism has gone, you have to understand where it has been. But individuals have the unfortunate tendency to latch onto the big names and never move beyond even though the field has.

I try to cover just the base.... very basic (it is still the internet... about a game which is more or less 4chan with internet spaceships).... You cant believe what discussion I had on this board on the official forum (not just the slavery topic and the Khanid independent topic). If people understand that Kuhn and Lakatos are next to Popper and Popper isnt falsify; I have already explain and done alot. 

As for the past question: What typ of player are you?***



***As I dont want to talk about metascience in the internet...

[Jace]

-.-

Popper is read in the vein of history of philosophy now, not current arguments that need to be contended with.

Edit: Let me make that less snarky. Rationalism has developed far beyond critical rationalism at this point. Do you need to read Popper? Absolutely. In order to understand where Rationalism has gone, you have to understand where it has been. But individuals have the unfortunate tendency to latch onto the big names and never move beyond even though the field has.

I try to cover just the base.... very basic (it is still the internet... about a game which is more or less 4chan with internet spaceships).... You cant believe what discussion I had on this board on the official forum (not just the slavery topic and the Khanid independent topic). If people understand that Kuhn and Lakatos are next to Popper and Popper isnt falsify; I have already explain and done alot. 

As for the past question: What typ of player are you?***



***As I dont want to talk about metascience in the internet...

I 100% agree with the "not this on the internet" reaction, which is why I bowed out of this discussion pages back.

I don't quite understand "what type of player are you?". You mean, who am I in-game?

Edit: Oh, the alignment thing? I think I put Jace's results back there somewhere, pages ago.

[Publius Valerius]

-.-

Popper is read in the vein of history of philosophy now, not current arguments that need to be contended with.

Edit: Let me make that less snarky. Rationalism has developed far beyond critical rationalism at this point. Do you need to read Popper? Absolutely. In order to understand where Rationalism has gone, you have to understand where it has been. But individuals have the unfortunate tendency to latch onto the big names and never move beyond even though the field has.

I try to cover just the base.... very basic (it is still the internet... about a game which is more or less 4chan with internet spaceships).... You cant believe what discussion I had on this board on the official forum (not just the slavery topic and the Khanid independent topic). If people understand that Kuhn and Lakatos are next to Popper and Popper isnt falsify; I have already explain and done alot. 

As for the past question: What typ of player are you?***



***As I dont want to talk about metascience in the internet...

I 100% agree with the "not this on the internet" reaction, which is why I bowed out of this discussion pages back.

I don't quite understand "what type of player are you?". You mean, who am I in-game?

I mean just along the chart..... See it more as a joke question...



So now not IC.... You most likely have a char which you dont roleplay? How do you use him? Are you go more the goonswarm direction?....chaotic evil? Or do you use them in other ways?.. like NBSI or NRDS? You can take what you like and thing would fit.... 

I would say that "Not Red, Don't Shoot." is maybe lawful neutral?