[deccan]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
I have a strong sense of what is right and wrong. For me morality is an absolute issue by definition. Stealing is one of the things my sense of morality says is wrong. Call me archaic, call me whatever you want but I believe what I believe. I can acknoledge that some people don't agree with me and even be civil towards them, but I am not going to accept that stealing is ok just because their "definition" of morality doesn't have a problem with it.

I'm not sure whether or not it's okay to bring this up again, but I really feel like bringing a number of things to Geo's attention.

There are heaps and heaps of books written on the subject of morality in particular and value theory in general, so any summarized description of the issue is clearly lacking in many ways.

However, one thing that is clearly unresolved is that there are deep, logical problems with the concept of "absolute morality".

This article is a good description:

On the Nature of Morality
http://hem.passagen.se/nicb/morality.htm

Note in particular these excerpts:

"... by objective morality is meant a moral view which claims that there exists a morality which is external to human beings. Much like the existence of a law of gravity, there is a moral law which exists independently of any conscious being. Hence, morality is not a human fabrication - it merely awaits to be detected. In contrast, subjective morality denotes the view that moral views are nothing but human opinions, the origin of which is biological, social, and psychological. Without conscious beings, there would be no such thing as morality. Furthermore, on the subjective view, it is not possible to deem a moral opinion "true" or "false" - since such assessments require some objective standard against which to assess."

"... it is important to distinguish subjective morality from moral relativism, which claims that moral views differ between different contexts or cultures, and from moral nihilism, which states that there is no morality or that morality does not matter. One possible implication of moral relativism, which is quite often wrongly inferred as being contained in the general class of subjective meta-ethics, is the view that moral statements can only be considered applicable in the context in which they are uttered."

I can't really comment further on Geo's position without knowing more specifics about his beliefs, but I do hope that he realizes that he won't be able to convince anyone of the rightness of the beliefs without advancing some logical argument in its support rather than relying on some subjective, personal moral intuition.

Furthermore, Geo, don't you think it would be good to know that your beliefs are right because they are grounded in reason rather than simply because you have an unassailable confidence in your intuition that they are right?