Why do people seem to mean different things by “I want the pie” and “It is right that I should get the pie”? Why are the two propositions argued in different ways? This seems to be because “I want the pie” is too direct, too obvious; it violates a social convention of anti-selfishness which demands a more altruistic morality.
People use both moralistic and altruistic claims hypocritically, but altruism and moralism aren’t the same thing. Morality is based on the idea that people deserve one thing or another (whether riches or imprisonment); what they deserve is in some sense part of the objective world: moral judgments are thought to be objective truths.
For the argument that morality is a social error that most of us would be better off were it abolished, a good source is Ian Hinckfuss, “The Moral Society.” AND my “morality series.”
Uh… did you just go through my old comments and upvote a bunch of them? If so, thanks, but… that really wasn’t necessary.
It’s almost embarrassing in the case of the above; it, like much of the other stuff that I’ve written at least one year ago, reads like an extended crazy rant.
I read some of your posts because, having agreed with you on some things, I wondered whether I would agree on others. Actually, I didn’t check the date. When I read a post I want to approve of, I don’t worry whether it’s old.
If I see a post like this one espousing moral anti-realism intelligibly, I’m apt to upvote it. Most of the posters are rather dogmatic preference utilitarians.
No worries; it’s just that here, in particular, you caught the tail end of my clumsy attempts to integrate my old Objectivist metaethics with what I’d read thus far in the Sequences. I have since reevaluated my philosophical positions… after all, tidy an explanation as it may superficially seem, I no longer believe that the human conception of morality can be entirely based on selfishness.
People use both moralistic and altruistic claims hypocritically, but altruism and moralism aren’t the same thing. Morality is based on the idea that people deserve one thing or another (whether riches or imprisonment); what they deserve is in some sense part of the objective world: moral judgments are thought to be objective truths.
For the argument that morality is a social error that most of us would be better off were it abolished, a good source is Ian Hinckfuss, “The Moral Society.” AND my “morality series.”
Uh… did you just go through my old comments and upvote a bunch of them? If so, thanks, but… that really wasn’t necessary.
It’s almost embarrassing in the case of the above; it, like much of the other stuff that I’ve written at least one year ago, reads like an extended crazy rant.
I read some of your posts because, having agreed with you on some things, I wondered whether I would agree on others. Actually, I didn’t check the date. When I read a post I want to approve of, I don’t worry whether it’s old.
If I see a post like this one espousing moral anti-realism intelligibly, I’m apt to upvote it. Most of the posters are rather dogmatic preference utilitarians.
Sorry I embarrassed you.
No worries; it’s just that here, in particular, you caught the tail end of my clumsy attempts to integrate my old Objectivist metaethics with what I’d read thus far in the Sequences. I have since reevaluated my philosophical positions… after all, tidy an explanation as it may superficially seem, I no longer believe that the human conception of morality can be entirely based on selfishness.