VarlosZ
September 9, 2010, 11:17pm
194
RE: my last post, if you just look at the OP in the referenced thread, it could be mistaken for run of the mill subjective morality. But this and this are two good examples of the positions he’s staked out.
In the abstract, hurting another person is not enough incentive to stop me from doing something I want to do.
Here’s one example: I would have killed Hitler if I were alive when he was and had the opportunity.
Yeah, but that’s because you personally reject the idea of shared moral principles as having any validity whatsoever. Most people don’t agree with this assumption of yours, so your arguments based on that assumption are pretty much irrelevant.
I addressed your objection in the OP. Sure there are shared moral principles, but this does not mean that (i) everyone applies them in the exact same way (a weak argument, I admit, as your poison ivy example points out) and (ii) everyone accords the same punishment to someone who acts not in accord with their moral principles.
Also, people debate about whether an action is immoral even when it would be impossible or unlikely for any (or many) other people to find out that the person did the action. Therefore, violation of a shared moral principle with assumed consequences does not support all arguments about whether an action is moral or not.
Also, people debate about whether an action is immoral even when lots of people do that action without apparent consequences (or with mildly bad consequences). For example, the many threads on whether it is immoral to drive an SUV.
Seriously, he won’t shut up about whether supposedly immoral acts have bad consequences for the perpetrator; it’s the only criteria he ever recognizes as meaningful. He really doesn’t seem to grok what you guys are talking about.