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Thursday, January 26, 2023

Morality Is Objective

 ... because it manifests itself in an objective world.

What is wrong with saying, "You have your truth and I have my truth?" That one has been bugging me for a long time. Its internal contradiction comes from physics. You do not have your physics and I have mine, we all have the same one. It is universal. Dittos for chemistry, biology and mathematics. Are moral decisions different?

Moral decisions take form in the real world, the domain of science. Your decisions affect people, places and things. Those people, places and things are governed by the ordered laws of science and math. Therefore, the effects of those decisions are the same no matter who makes them. If you inject heroin into your body, it has the same cranial results when I do it. 

A difference that makes no difference is no difference. That was a quote from William James, summarized nicely here.

But though rambunctious, James could be most insightful, and one of his insights was that purported differences, some of which have occupied great minds far too much, make no difference.  That is to say they do not result in any change to how we live.  They don't satisfy any desire or urge, they don't serve to solve any question or problem we encounter in living, they don't impact what we do, how we react. 

The effort to establish morality as subjective is twaddle because it assumes form in an objective world.

William James also had a great beard.

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