FredAnyman

Jaskn, You stated, “…don't attack your tribesmen or they will attack back…” as an example of reality based morality. So to continue on simple terms, the statement could be rewritten to be: it is immoral (I am assuming) to attack your tribesmen because they will attack you back. But if your tribesmen cannot attack you back then would it be moral if I choose to attack them? There is no fact of reality, as far as my knowledge goes, that states, or dictates that, my tribesmen will definitely and in all cases attack me back if I attack them, therefore I am not bending the facts of existence to say that it is moral to attack my tribesmen if they cannot or will not attack me back. It would just then be a matter of guessing-and-checking to determine if my moral claim is correct. And if I can attack my tribesmen and not get attacked back for a long enough period of time then the principal could be considered true and moral and doesn’t need to be checked any longer. Is this correct?

Jaskn, You state, “But, we know that there was, and is, a reality-based morality, with a set of principles that are true, even if it hasn't been completely identified yet. We know it because we know facts are facts, and reality doesn't "bend." Things are what they are, and so somewhere in the disagreement, is the truth.” What is this “reality-based morality”? Is it similar to the laws of physics that are discovered by man? Are there facts of reality that tells humans for example what murder is and that it is immoral or what stealing is and that it is immoral? Is this part of an unbending reality that we can guess-and-check our way to discovering?

425, So even though I am not omniscient and I cannot know everything, as long as I can’t think of or imagine what information about the context or about the effects of the actions that would render a context false, then I can claim moral certainty? So, for example, I claim that taking a part of your wealth away from you in order to give it to someone else is moral and I can be certain that it is moral because in the given context of knowledge (that is my knowledge), the evidence is conclusive and in the given context of knowledge (again that is my knowledge), there is no evidence to support any alternative. Would this be a valid statement? What if I cannot imagine something that would render the context false but someone else can imagine something that would render the context false and they tell me about it, would I have to accept their information and concede that my moral certainty is not certain or I am free to ignore or reject this information and still claim moral certainty? But is it even necessary to concern myself with certainty and morality when all I have to do is state that there is an emergency and therefore “morality does not apply”?

Harrison Danneskjold, If, as you state, humans determine morality with an “educated guess” how can one make a statement like someone has “come to a flawed conclusion” and “their assertions are simply wrong” when talking about morality? Isn’t it all a guess? Are all guesses about morality equal or are some guesses better than others? Consider the morality of murder, since it is a common topic. I personally know a highly educated and well read individual who has spent many years in school and outside of school studying theology and religion. He believes, based on religious teaching, that murder is immoral. He has made an “educated guess” concerning the morality of murder. I am willing to bet that you have made an “educated guess” and consider murder to be immoral as well. If so, we have two identical conclusions about the morality of a concept (murder is immoral) that were derived, presumably, from different sources. Are these conclusions both valid? Are both of these educated guesses equal?

425, In post #3, you state that, “Certainly there are acts that are immoral regardless of the context (leaving aside for a minute ethics of emergencies, since that's an entirely different conversation), such as initiation of force.” And then you state, “When someone says that something is moral or immoral, yes, there is a possibility that they are wrong. However, a claim can be made with certainty if there are no relevant facts that could have possibly been left out.” But you also state, “It is certainly possible that you hold ideas that are incorrect (that don't properly correlate with the facts of reality). As you noted, no one is omniscient. All you can do is do your very best to make sure that there are no mistaken premises or contradictions in your reasoning and that all your ideas are grounded in the facts of reality. While this does not guarantee that you won't find that you've been in error later on, it's the best you can do to make that as unlikely as possible (and since most people do not do this, you'll be in a much better position in this respect than the majority).” I am confused by these statements. You claim that the initiation of force is immoral regardless of the context. Since this claim is made without any qualifying statements, it appears to be a claim that is made with certainty. Therefore, by your explanation, there are no relevant fact that you could possibly have left out which allows you to make this certain claim. But you are human and, by your nature, are not omniscient, so how can you know that there are no relevant facts that could have been left out if you cannot know everything? Is it not possible that you will find that you have been in error later on and the initiation of force is moral, or at least moral in certain contexts?

Jaskn, Your post sounds great if you and I are sitting at a table discussing morality over coffee but morality becomes a basis for more than discussion. The concepts that people hold about morality are often translated into laws that are enforced at a point of a gun. You state that you see no conflict with the fact that people have disagreements over what is moral, yet I learn of conflict often, both historically and present day, as people with different concepts of morality seek to force others to comply with their particular concept. If morality is simply “guess-and-check” is one justified saying that one concept is immoral and another is moral and then making laws to enforce that concept of morality? To me, it seems hard to justify imprisoning someone, confiscating his or her property, or even (in some cases) executing someone on the moral basis of “guess-and-check” but maybe that is all that there on which to base a decision.

I have considered myself very fortunate to have discovered Objectivism because it is to me very comforting to believe that morality is not something that comes “as a thunderbolt from the sky” or from divine revelation or anything else that like that, but rather, morality is, as Objectivism teaches, objective. I like the concept that man can be objective by recognizing the fact that reality exists independent of anyone’s consciousness and that man must acquire knowledge of reality by reason in accordance with logic and that I can therefore be objective. I have, I think, grasped the concept that as a human, I am an entity of a specific nature who must act accordingly if I want to stay alive and prosper. I have, I hope, grasped the concept that I do not create reality, rather that I observe reality to gain knowledge about reality, and that I must choose what to do to achieve my values according to what I have learned about reality. I try very hard to not let my thinking be determined by my emotions or anything arbitrary and I try to form my concepts using objective criteria. I also understand from my personal experience that I do not know everything. However, since I do not know, and cannot know, everything, it seems to me that my concept of morality may change over time as I gain new knowledge – that what I consider as moral today, I may consider immoral tomorrow due to some new knowledge. Additionally, as I have gotten older I have noticed that my values have changed – that what I valued at age 16 is not what I value at age 25 and what I value now may not be what I value ten, twenty, thirty years from now. Further, through personal experience and through reading, I have realized that different people have different concepts of morality and a wide range of different values. I must admit that this all makes me somewhat uncomfortable. If different people have different concepts of morality and my values and concept of morality can change what does this mean? What is moral? If I think that a concept is immoral and you think that the concept is moral, are we both correct? If we are both rational people and we both use our knowledge of reality, which was acquired by reason in accordance with logic, then are we both correct and the concept is both moral and immoral? It appears that this would be a contradiction. According to what I have read, Objectivism teaches that contradictions do not exist and that if one comes across an apparent contradiction one must check his or her premises and that, inevitably, one will find that one or more of the premises is in error. But how does this work? Is one of us using an erroneous premise and we just have to discover which one of us is in error and then we will both agree on the morality of the concept? What if I think that your premises are in error and you think that my premises are in error, how do we overcome that impasse? Since I, as a human, and you, as a human, do not know everything, how do we come to a conclusion? And if you and I do come to a conclusion, what is to say that either you or I will not come to a different conclusion at some point in the future if new knowledge about reality is learned? Given this, how can we say that anything is moral or immoral?