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Except not all viewpoints are valid or true. If (as a vast majority of philosophers think) morality is objective, then those people are simply wrong about what
by bjl 9y ago
Except not all viewpoints are valid or true. If (as a vast majority of philosophers think) morality is objective, then those people are simply wrong about what is ethical/unethical.
- gnode 9y agoError theorists would argue that no moral viewpoints at all are true.
- humanrebar 9y agoI'm not sure what implications you want people to draw from that statement. It's hard to argue that murder is OK, for example, so it's hard to argue that laws are all subjective expressions of power.
- tremon 9y agoBut your example is begging the question. If you frame killing a human being as murder, you've already decided that it's unjust or unlawful. How about the death penalty, euthanasia, extrajudicial execution, war, honour killing or jihad/crusade? In all those cases, the killing party believes their actions are fully justified.
- humanrebar 9y agoNobody argues that there is no such thing as murder. It's not begging the question just because people don't agree about edge cases.
- gnode 9y agoYou're right; I don't think anyone here is arguing murder isn't real. The argument is that murder is not an objective truth, but rather a subjective truth. This doesn't mean we shouldn't care about murder, just that murder is a conceptual reality.
- michaelt 9y agoIsn't that just a tautology, though? I mean, if someone says "No moral viewpoints are more or less true than others; a person acts ethically as long as they think their actions are fully justified" and "People only do things they think are fully justified" then immoral action is impossible.
- gnode 9y agoI was only drawing attention to an alternative meta-ethical philosophy. You can't talk about murder objectively because murder is subjective. In a legal context, jurisdictions differ over what circumstances make a death considered murderous, just, accidental, or even causal.