[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
Either i’m just incapable of understanding what you’re saying (which is quite possible) or i’m incapable of putting across what I mean well (which is also worryingly possible). So i’ll attempt to take the coward’s way out.
Your reasoning, my reasoning, all of it is uncertain. It’s based on how we look out at the universe, and our ideas could be entirely wrong. What we think of as logic, in fact, could be wrong, just given the appearance of correctness by seemingly-connected randomness. It is possible that we understand nothing about the universe.
In those terms, it is possible for an “objective good” to exist, just as it is possible the universe doesn’t in fact exist at all as we know it. I as an atheist don’t believe in any gods, and in fact I believe there are logical flaws in the existence of certain gods which mean they couldn’t exist. But I accept that what I consider logical, and indeed the whole system of logic at all, could be wrong, and that such gods do exist.
I feel I need to point out again i’m only arguing for the possibility of an objective good. I don’t believe there is one either.
[/QUOTE]
Pardon me while I vent a little.
My views on logic are not :mad: based on how I look at the universe, any more than my views on counting are restricted to the number of physical objects available to me to count.
Logic, math, language, morality; these are all abstract systems which only interface with reality at two points: 1) real creatures like humans attempt devise and attempt to apply the rules of the abstract systems, and 2) we try to apply the abstract concepts to real situations, to aid us in coming to conclusions about the real situations within the conceptual framework of the abstract system.
Point 1 is only interesting to note that errors can be introduced by physical quirks underlying the ‘thinking system’, such as if you’re brain damaged or running on a pentium chip or something. However, if one wants to get precise about it, these errors simply alter the rules of the abstract system you’re doing your thinking in into a similar but different abstract system, and don’t actually damage the original, “correct” system at all; it’s abstract and therefore impervious to interference from mere mortals or gods. So, assuming your use of the original system is correct and you stay in that system, then this point is not a problem at all.
With point 2, there is generally a clear point where any confusion will arise from relating the system to the real world. With logic (especially formal logic), it’s the formulation of proper premises. With math, it’s correctly counting or measuring things so as to be able represent them with numerical values. With language, it’s making associations between things in the real objective world and their associated words in the language, like between an apple and “apple”.
So I deny that logic as a system could be wrong. Logic is abstract and thus works equally well regardless of the condition of the world or even which universe you happen to be in! Such details only effect the points 1 and 2 mentioned above, neither of which is actually part of the logic! (And your statement that logic could be “just given the appearance of correctness by seemingly-connected randomness” makes me seriously doubt that you have any understanding of how real logic actually works. As one who has given it a fair amount of study, I assure you that it is definitely not random. (When done correctly, anyway. If done incorrectly, it’s not actually “logic”.))
Further, in this specific question of “good” and “objectivity”, the issue never gets to the point of touching on point 2; it doesn’t get as far as the real world because it can be resolved abstractly within the abstract system of word definitions itself and can be decided without referencing real-world examples. So, assuming my analysis is correct (thus avoiding a point 1 problem), questions and uncertaintities about the universe we live in have nothing to do with the problem at hand.
So I reject your coward’s way out! 
If you wish to cease discussing this feel free to do so, but you cannot hide behind the mysteries of the universe in this specific case. (Whereas you could if this was the more general question of whether a god exists, which is decidedly not a purely abstract issue (despite claims to the contrary by modal ontological arguments)).
As an atheistic agnostic, I too don’t believe that there is/are god(s). But I know that there’s no such thing as a truly objective good. (By the definitions I use for those words, ie, within my system of language.)
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
I can’t give you another definition, because as i’ve said, I don’t believe it. My own definition is entirely subjective. I don’t believe there is an objective good. My argument has been that if there is such an objective good, we don’t currently understand it, so i’m not entirely sure how I can give any examples of something I don’t understand.
[/QUOTE]
The thing is, it has nothing to do with what we don’t know. It has everything to do with what we do know: the definitions we’re using for “objective” and “good” contradict one another, much like the definitions for the word “square” and “circle”. And, just like there is not and cannot be a square circle, there is not and cannot be an objective good.
There’s nothing wrong with a good proof by definition, after all. 
