Kho
please let prayer be true
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2016
- Messages
- 147
- MBTI Type
- INxP
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- 4w5
- Instinctual Variant
- sx
[MENTION=7280]Lark[/MENTION]
Any attempt to argue for an objective, universal ethics is logically negated by the fact that I wouldn't buy into it. Not just me, but relativists everywhere.
It's not possible for there to be a world in which a universally valid objective system of ethics exists, when the supposed persons for whom these 'universal' ethics hold sway deny the existence of any such things.
Unless, of course, you claim that relativists just haven't gone through the refining process of extracting these elusive 'universal ethics'. But I think that would be a rather unfair way to go about it.
I respect the rights of persons who claim that universal ethics is a thing to say whatever they please, of course.
It doesn't mean I buy into it or anything.
I used to claim that we all bleed red, but I've come to learn the hard way that though all wounds are a universally similar colour, pain thresholds may vary greatly.
Again, I think this depends on how you define evil. The perpetrators of these acts we call 'evil' certainly didn't consider them evil -- and even if they did, they considered their acts a form of 'necessary evil.'
The Nazis justified their atrocities by saying it was for the greater good. So did the communists. So does the Islamic State (although the Islamic State has stated outright that they do want to hasten the end of the world, so that's debatable -- then again, they believe that the end of the world should come quicker so that heaven on earth can appear ASAP. And heaven, for them, is the ultimate good. So in that sense they're fighting for their own version of the ultimate good as well.)
I do believe in biological truth, however, and I'm not claiming that the universe is a hologram.
(unlike some Japanese astrophysicists I could mention: Simulations back up theory that Universe is a hologram : Nature News & Comment. No, that's not an Onion article.)
I don't feel good or happy when I see people being injured or sad; I feel indignant when I see something I consider 'unfair' happen.
That's a result of my brain chemistry and the way I'm wired. So I act upon those feelings and I call it 'morality' in the largely conventional sense.
A robot with a positronic brain may have a different set of ethics and a different set of truths than my own.
And I would respect that robot's right to have such different basic truths for its own set of rules to act upon. But I would probably have to fight against it, ultimately.
That's why I totally loved the movie Ex Machina.
If you buy that sort of thing.
Instead you could suppose that there's universal capacities and drives experienced by any human being, the fact that individual life is comprised of the contact between these and the social matrices of any given social order, leading to some variety or diversity, does not mean that everything is relative and all simply social constructs of the moment.
Its possible to discover an objective ethics, derivative from psychology, its difficult but not impossible.
Any attempt to argue for an objective, universal ethics is logically negated by the fact that I wouldn't buy into it. Not just me, but relativists everywhere.
It's not possible for there to be a world in which a universally valid objective system of ethics exists, when the supposed persons for whom these 'universal' ethics hold sway deny the existence of any such things.
Unless, of course, you claim that relativists just haven't gone through the refining process of extracting these elusive 'universal ethics'. But I think that would be a rather unfair way to go about it.
I respect the rights of persons who claim that universal ethics is a thing to say whatever they please, of course.
It doesn't mean I buy into it or anything.
I used to claim that we all bleed red, but I've come to learn the hard way that though all wounds are a universally similar colour, pain thresholds may vary greatly.
All of those forces are nihilistic, they dont believe their actions are evil, they just believe that since evil is whatever they say it is they have licence to do whatever they please.
Its a grossly perverted version of freedom.
Which is one of the most powerful human psychological drives there is, if its blocked that drive doesnt disappear it just gets perverted and re-emerges as a deviant version of the original, ie licentiousness and evil.
Again, I think this depends on how you define evil. The perpetrators of these acts we call 'evil' certainly didn't consider them evil -- and even if they did, they considered their acts a form of 'necessary evil.'
The Nazis justified their atrocities by saying it was for the greater good. So did the communists. So does the Islamic State (although the Islamic State has stated outright that they do want to hasten the end of the world, so that's debatable -- then again, they believe that the end of the world should come quicker so that heaven on earth can appear ASAP. And heaven, for them, is the ultimate good. So in that sense they're fighting for their own version of the ultimate good as well.)
I do believe in biological truth, however, and I'm not claiming that the universe is a hologram.
(unlike some Japanese astrophysicists I could mention: Simulations back up theory that Universe is a hologram : Nature News & Comment. No, that's not an Onion article.)
I don't feel good or happy when I see people being injured or sad; I feel indignant when I see something I consider 'unfair' happen.
That's a result of my brain chemistry and the way I'm wired. So I act upon those feelings and I call it 'morality' in the largely conventional sense.
A robot with a positronic brain may have a different set of ethics and a different set of truths than my own.
And I would respect that robot's right to have such different basic truths for its own set of rules to act upon. But I would probably have to fight against it, ultimately.
That's why I totally loved the movie Ex Machina.
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