Morals aren't out there, the world contains trees, chairs, and galaxies, but not morals. Moral statements are statements of desire. Eg "it is morally wrong to kill" means "(most of us) desire that the law removes killers from society" or "if we want society to look like [insert description], then killing ought to be outlawed".
The Marquis de Sade pointed this out chillingly:
Similar to the concepts of virtue and vice, [the concepts of justice and injustice] are purely local and geographical; that which is vicious in Paris, turns up, as we knowm, a virtue in Peking (Beijing), and it is quite the same thing here: that which is just in Isfahan they call unjust in Copenhagen. Amidst these manifold variations do we discover anything constant? Only this: ....self interest...is the single rule for defining just and unjust.Justice has no real existence, it is the deity of everty passion....so let us abandon our belief in this fiction, it no more exists than does the God of whom fools believe it the image: there is no God in this world, neither is there virtue, neither is there justice; there is nothing good, useful, or necessary but our passions, nothing merits to be respected but their effects
My question to those who insist that morality is objective: How do you answer such a question:
What is the morally just tax rate, in Australia ?
1 comment:
Interesting point in how he says that there is the 'manifold variations', the idea of what is 'right', 'wrong', 'just', 'unjust' has overlaps, and also schisms in between.
It is also interesting that he points out that the only absolute that one can judge as an absolute standard is 'self-interest'.
I question this myself and this came up in a previous conversation with someone else, that perhaps Religion, in its organised forms, was designed as a way to establish and absolute standard of what is 'right' and 'wrong'. It is one of the ways that society can operate on a simpler level, pragmatic in the sense that society can function, focus on tangible things so that 'progression' can continue without people squabbling over rightwrongjustunjustfuckedup, etc.
Again, it also depends on how one views 'progression'.
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