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Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!crabapple.srv.cs.cmu.edu!fs7.ece.cmu.edu!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sgiblab!adagio.panasonic.com!nntp-server.caltech.edu!keith From: keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) Newsgroups: alt.atheism Subject: Re: Message-ID: <1pi8h5INNq40@gap.caltech.edu> References: <1psrjmINNr9e@gap.caltech.edu> <1pdbej$hio@fido.asd.sgi.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: punisher.caltech.edu (reference line trimmed) livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes: [...] >There is a good deal more confusion here. You started off with the >assertion that there was some "objective" morality, and as you admit >here, you finished up with a recursive definition. Murder is >"objectively" immoral, but eactly what is murder and what is not itself >requires an appeal to morality. Yes. >Now you have switch targets a little, but only a little. Now you are >asking what is the "goal"? What do you mean by "goal?". Are you >suggesting that there is some "objective" "goal" out there somewhere, >and we form our morals to achieve it? Well, for example, the goal of "natural" morality is the survival and propogation of the species. Another example of a moral system is presented within the Declaration of Independence, which states that we should be guaranteed life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You see, to have a moral system, we must define the purpose of the system. That is, we shall be moral unto what end? >>Murder is certainly a violation of the golden rule. And, I thought I had >>defined murder as an intentional killing of a non-murderer, against his will. >>And you responded to this by asking whether or not the execution of an >>innocent person under our system of capital punishment was a murder or not. >>I fail to see what this has to do with anything. I never claimed that our >>system of morality was an objective one. >I thought that was your very first claim. That there was >some kind of "objective" morality, and that an example of that was >that murder is wrong. If you don't want to claim that any more, >that's fine. Well, murder violates the golen rule, which is certainly a pillar of most every moral system. However, I am not assuming that our current system and the manner of its implementation are objectively moral. I think that it is a very good approximation, but we can't be perfect. >And by the way, you don't seem to understand the difference between >"arbitrary" and "objective". If Keith Schneider "defines" murder >to be this that and the other, that's arbitrary. Jon Livesey may >still say "Well, according to my personal system of morality, all >killing of humans against their will is murder, and wrong, and what >the legal definition of murder may be in the USA, Kuweit, Saudi >Arabia, or the PRC may be matters not a whit to me". Well, "objective" would assume a system based on clear and fundamental concepts, while "arbitary" implies no clear line of reasoning. keith
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