3 ms·

Or maybe, just maybe, ethics isn't at all universal? If my time in other countries has taught me one thing, it's that different people and different cultures ha

by smabie 6y ago

Or maybe, just maybe, ethics isn't at all universal? If my time in other countries has taught me one thing, it's that different people and different cultures have very different ideas on right and wrong. Ultimately (like, really ultimately), the very idea of ethics is a meaningless fabrication in the absence of God. Without an ultimate arbiter of truth, morality cannot exist.

jojobas 6y ago
While ethics are very far from universal, there are things that are universally accepted, i.e. that impaling everyone on Earth is bad. God is not the only possible foundation of ethics, and not the most sound at that.
- badRNG 6y ago
  > God is not the only possible foundation of ethics, and not the most sound at that. Absent God (or some sort of other mind-body dualism that's largely suspect otherwise), I don't see how ethics can approach anything that resembles "universals." The ontology of morality in a naturalistic or materialist worldview seems committed to something like emotivism, unless one feels like attempting to bridge the is/ought divide. How can we ascertain what the "universal" is when so many rational beings can hold diametrically opposed moral values? Is it democratically decided? If one is examining morality as the values of different groups of people, and another is debating what we ought to consider universally moral, there isn't going to be much consensus, and probably a fair bit of confusion.
grumple 6y ago
I think you might find some intro philosophy useful to understand how you can have a universal morality without a deity. Some Kant is a good place to start, with his universal law being a fundamental idea.
- smabie 6y ago
  I actually majored in philosophy, Kant presupposes the existence of God in his assumption about the specialness of rational (i.e human) beings. I never liked my ethics classes. Phenomenology and existialism is my shit, though I suspect Husserl was the inspiration for GPT-3.

by smabie 6y ago

jojobas 6y ago

While ethics are very far from universal, there are things that are universally accepted, i.e. that impaling everyone on Earth is bad. God is not the only possible foundation of ethics, and not the most sound at that.

badRNG 6y ago
> God is not the only possible foundation of ethics, and not the most sound at that. Absent God (or some sort of other mind-body dualism that's largely suspect otherwise), I don't see how ethics can approach anything that resembles "universals." The ontology of morality in a naturalistic or materialist worldview seems committed to something like emotivism, unless one feels like attempting to bridge the is/ought divide. How can we ascertain what the "universal" is when so many rational beings can hold diametrically opposed moral values? Is it democratically decided? If one is examining morality as the values of different groups of people, and another is debating what we ought to consider universally moral, there isn't going to be much consensus, and probably a fair bit of confusion.

grumple 6y ago

I think you might find some intro philosophy useful to understand how you can have a universal morality without a deity. Some Kant is a good place to start, with his universal law being a fundamental idea.

smabie 6y ago
I actually majored in philosophy, Kant presupposes the existence of God in his assumption about the specialness of rational (i.e human) beings. I never liked my ethics classes. Phenomenology and existialism is my shit, though I suspect Husserl was the inspiration for GPT-3.