sociological phenomenon … still reasonable to disapprove of murder, etc.
Yup.
Could an agent with different preferences from ours reasonably approve of murder?
Yes to that too.
I very, very, strongly disapprove of terrorism. Terrorists, of course, would disagree. There is no objective sense in which one of us can be “right”, unless you go out of your way to specifically define “right” as those actions which agree with one side or the other. The privileging of those actions as “right” still originates from the subjective values of whatever agent is judging.
Thanks, CuSithBell, I think you’ve done a good job of making the issue plain. It does indeed all add up to normality.
I very, very, strongly disapprove of terrorism. Terrorists, of course, would disagree. There is no objective sense in which one of us can be “right”, unless you go out of your way to specifically define “right” as those actions which agree with one side or the other.
There is a way in which someone can be wrong. If someone holds to a set
of values that contains contradictions , they cannot claim to be right. Moral arguments in fact do often make appeals to consistency—“if you support equal rights for women, you should support equal rights for gays”
Our culture certainly does like to slap around those whose arguments are inconsistent… to the point that I suspect more consistent moral codes are consistent because the arguer is striving for consistency over truth than because they’ve discovered moral truths that happen to be consistent. We may have reached the point where consistent moral codes deserve more skepticism than inconsistent ones.
Yup.
Could an agent with different preferences from ours reasonably approve of murder?
Yes to that too.
I very, very, strongly disapprove of terrorism. Terrorists, of course, would disagree. There is no objective sense in which one of us can be “right”, unless you go out of your way to specifically define “right” as those actions which agree with one side or the other. The privileging of those actions as “right” still originates from the subjective values of whatever agent is judging.
Thanks, CuSithBell, I think you’ve done a good job of making the issue plain. It does indeed all add up to normality.
Glad to hear : )
There is a way in which someone can be wrong. If someone holds to a set of values that contains contradictions , they cannot claim to be right. Moral arguments in fact do often make appeals to consistency—“if you support equal rights for women, you should support equal rights for gays”
Our culture certainly does like to slap around those whose arguments are inconsistent… to the point that I suspect more consistent moral codes are consistent because the arguer is striving for consistency over truth than because they’ve discovered moral truths that happen to be consistent. We may have reached the point where consistent moral codes deserve more skepticism than inconsistent ones.