Not sure why this got removed from 196lemmy…blahaj.zone but it would be real nice if moderation on Lemmy gave you some sort of notification of what you did wrong. Like an automatic DM or something
Patrick's last sentence is still consistent with everything that he said above. He expressed HIS opinion and HIS morals above.
No ethical framework can be truly objective. This is because there is no universal constant that backs any ethical framework. We need universal constants to verify an objective statement. For example, the speed of light is the same in all frames of reference. Also it is measureable. How do you measure the permissibility of an action? We do not know.
In conclusion, Patrick was right when he implied that there was no objectivity in ethics.
I'm seeing this point about moral epistemology a lot in this thread. Of course, philosophers have constructed convincing arguments in favor of different theories (classic ones being virtue ethics, deontology, consequentialism). If you were to take a look at those arguments you might be persuaded to one camp or another.
Also, I find this objection makes more sense for the moral skeptic than the moral relativist. If we really can't know the moral value of an action, then why settle for saying its based on what humans think? Why not just go all out and say either 1) there is no such thing as moral value or 2) there is moral value but we have no way of knowing what it is.
If we really can’t know the moral value of an action, then why settle for saying its based on what humans think
I never said that we can't know the moral value of an action. All that I'm saying is that the moral value of an action is dependent on the entity giving the value. Morals cannot exist without beings capable of having morals.
Why not just go all out and say either 1) there is no such thing as moral value or 2) there is moral value but we have no way of knowing what it is.
Because saying either of these two statements would not reflect reality. There IS a thing such as moral value. It's just not constant for all beings capable of having morals. For the second option, there is no scientific evidence to suggest that there is indeed a universal moral constant. Hence, "knowing" that value goes out of the window.
How is one Patrick agreeing equal to objective truth?
We get it, you want slavery back, therefore viciously beating you to death is morally acceptable because the consensus admits your life has no value.
the logic understander
Honestly it's more disturbing that you don't think something can be "bad" unless it's "objectively bad". are you a christian?
Moral judgements are relative, moral truth is not.
Another philosophy “conundrum” solved by your friendly neighborhood Skelator! See you next time!
I don't see the contradiction here. Right Person is just asking what Left Person's beliefs on those matters are, not whether they believe those beliefs are objective.
Don’t you see? Objective truth is whatever moral absolutsts believe. And no, they don’t see the contradiction there.
If objective morality existed, we wouldn't be arguing about those things since we would all be in the same agreement.
Even "murder is wrong" isn't objective morally when you ask someone who believes in the death penalty.
All 3 would receive a negative response in the last 100 years in different parts of the world. Hell there are plenty of places currently where women can't vote, slavery is a thing and the government isn't working toward a better society. Those places wouldn't exist if those people thought it was morally wrong. Objective morality is definitely not a thing.
That's exactly the point. For example, people used to think chattel slavery in the US was morally acceptable because they viewed black people as inferior. But today we would say that black people are not inferior and that they were mistaken. The moral relativist would say that slavery was okay to do back then because that's what the people agreed on. Do you still agree with the moral relativist?
I agree that morals are relative considering there are a ton of people who still believe black people are inferior and also places with slavery.
Something can be morally objective if every single person in the world believes it but I can't think of a single example of that.
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That would be the case if morals were something we can measure outside the human experience. Unfortunately there is no way to measure if something is moral or not outside how someone feels about it.
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Not really, if absolutely every single human at all stages of life believed it's morally good to spit in their palm every day that would be an objective moral truth, there would be no subjectivity to it. For morals though no such thing exists.
You don't need to be able to observe it externally to distinguish it. For example i can say I have a conscious experience and that would be objectively true even though we have a pretty minimal understanding on what that really is or how to measure it.
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That doesn't mean it does not exist though. It simply means we can't measure it.
I'm not saying that, just that there's no outside way of verifying if something is true or not in case of morals. I don't believe objective morals exist because you can't find a single moral stance shared among all of humanity not because you can't measure the truth of that stance.
Is suffering good or bad? I don't mean that in a specific context, but any type of suffering in itself.
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So you think pain is real?
The only way you can be sure that there is one 'true morality is, "If you don't want it done to you then don't do it to others."
if I kill someone's loved one for some reason maybe for me it is not morally wrong because that person "deserved it" but if they kill someone dear to me can I consider it morally acceptable? definitely not
So is this meant to be a cryptic argument against objective morality and for less ethical actions? Group consensus and moral relativity can apply to… Idk, the Nazi regime?
OR is this an argument saying we need more people to agree about what is "objectively" moral if we want it to become true? Democratically around consensus?
I imagine this argument has been used in bad faith more than it has been used in good faith.
Patrick here is meant to represent most people who lean towards moral relativism but haven't thought it through. In their daily lives they think that certain things are obviously bad (e.g., chattel slavery) and they also think that we should work to better our society. But then they also think that there is no such thing as objective good and bad; morality is just relative to some group consensus.
But if moral relativism is true, then you can't say that slavery is universally bad; slavery was a morally acceptable action for the slave owners because they agreed that black people are inferior. Similarly, there is no motivation to work towards a "better" society, because what we have now is exactly as morally good as anything else we could agree on in the future. The objection is that moral relativism is incompatible with our conception of moral progress as an objective good.
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Moral relativism does not mean you agree with different moral standards, and it does not mean people lack any moral standards
I never said or implied this. I can only infer that you misunderstood what I'm writing. Moral relativism says that an action is good or bad relative to the situation that it's committed in. So if everyone in a culture thinks female genital mutilation is good, the relativist will argue that is is morally acceptable for those people. But they can't say that an action is universally right/wrong and, to me, that seems to limit their ability to say that actions done in one context are preferable to actions done in another. I don't see how that leaves room for moral progress.
Now, you aren't providing any reasons for your view; you're stating your view and emphatically claiming I'm wrong. I'm happy to have a dialogue about the subject but you have to, you know, actually give an argument. How do you view the moral relativist position and how is that conception consistent with moral progress?
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First of all I think this was very helpful and was educational for me. But I can also see that people are always making moral objections. Many people did want to abolish slavery for many years before it happened. Doesn't that standard mean slavery was also morally wrong in a relative way? Or does it only matter what the slaveholder believes about their action?
But did you follow the rule?
I'd assume it got removed because the title didn't include rule, but the modlogs just calls you unhinged.
Honestly I think I agree with the modlog.
It got removed because it was posted in 196 lol
Blahaj will remove anything that makes anyone mildly uncomfortable, including having to think too hard
I don't like the way moderation is handled in general. I keep posting things I think will be allowed that get removed and there is little explanation and no notification. You have to dig up your post in the modlog of that instance and the rules are pretty much up to the interpretation of the mods.
For example, if you make a meme about "Eating the rich", that's fine. If you make a meme about abortion, ban hammer incoming.
Hey OP you are allowed to message a community mod and ask them if they are able to give insight about your posts being removed, by the way.
Kinda just as annoying as digging through the modlog tho, yeah? With a coin flip on if they want to respond.
Lemmy could use a consistent mod-to-user interface
Everything regarding moderation is pretty lacking from what I've heard
There’s a segment of the community that makes their delicate sensibilities everyone else’s problem. Unfortunately that segment contains the mods.
It's our instance and our communities. The mods represent us, or there would be feedback from our instance's users saying they disagree with moderation.
The mods represent the users that haven’t been banned*
Important distinction
I mean, if you look at the modlogs, most bans have a reason And the reasons are things like xenophobia, transphobia but in more words, general troll vibes, etc. Not just because someone doesn't like the mods
That's the nice thing about federation, you don't have to interact. If you don't like how a community is run, don't participate in it, or even defederate.
100% correct! I don’t enjoy the culture and moderation style there so I don’t usually participate. I’ll comment on something if it makes it into my all feed or something, I don’t actively avoid them either.
"delicate sensibilities" is just a poorly disguised way of saying you don't care about other people's feelings, though
I mean that the debate right? To what extent do we allow people’s feelings to dictate public behavior?
I agree everyone should be respected, I support and am a part of the LGBT community, but some things just aren’t worth getting that offended over.
Good
So host your own instance 🤷♂️
Don't write off our whole instance, damn. Yeah, its a transgender instance and our community has put up with a lot of bullshit arguments both outside (gender critical) and inside (transmedicalism). We generally nip it in the bud.
I think 196 community mods are very strict, though. The rules there are basically skeptical of all political posts, and I would understand if more meme and political meme communities arose with less strict rules.
I still poke my head every now and again and see what’s up but it definitely Isn’t my main instance. More power to yall though, that’s what federation is about
I like Matt Dillyhuntys approach to objective morality: he picks a subjective and kind of arbitrary foundation like wellbeing and objectively measures all actions against this foundation.
This doesn’t prove anything? I mean… There are people who don’t think women should vote, or that slavery was good…
Shit meme, so apt for the community, I guess. Patrick represents a guy stating his own morality, which doesn’t oppose the final sentence, meaning this meme doesn’t follow the expected format nor does it have a point whatsoever.
Sam Harris - The Moral Landscape. Didn't actually read it but it's about this exact topic and I kinda agree with him