On Morality; BB post

Originally Posted by G: Since I've realized that I was a moral nihilist I have no longer claimed that anything is moral or immoral. But this does not, as I have found, interfere with things like, say, vegetarianism which I practice. One can be entirely empathetic with other sentient beings without the idea "killing sentient beings is wrong" or "eating meat is wrong." Thoughts?

 

My opinion is that you've set up a false dichotomy, i.e: if there are no objective, moral absolutes, then there is no such thing as moral or immoral. But this is obviously not the case since you can empathize with other organisms, and that empathy is the result of a real quality you possess which we call morality. I would call it a moral sense, as some philosophers have named it. That there is no hard, brute fact called morality to examine, and by which to measure degrees of the intuitive beliefs and suppositions we call morals, is not a problem, as there are no hard, brute facts about a great many qualities which are nonetheless real qualities, experienced across the board by the greater majority of humans throughout history: love, hope, fear, grief, etc.

Take language itself: languages are human inventions. There are no absolute, objective linguistic facts against which we measure the utility of speech. We have modes of speech which have developed over vast periods of time, and complex grammars built up around them, fixed rules that are in a certain sense objective, in that they apply to all users of language regardless of subjective feelings or perspective (for instance, "shovel" is a noun and a verb in English whether I like or not), but which are nonetheless human inventions that exist only by inter-subjective social agreement and custom.

I think the sort of thinking implied in the OP is a remnant of religious thinking, and not the other way around as many would suggest. If you think about it, what fuels religious thinking, and in particular modern Christian reformed theology, is the idea that only God is perfect and absolute. Humans fall short of the perfection of God in every sense; they are crippled from the start by an inherent predilection towards reckless and "sinful" behavior. Since they can never know moral perfection, they are fatally and irrevocably flawed and can have no moral guidance other than obedience to the moral law set down by this mysterious and perfect Lawgiver.

The thing to remember is that there is no perfect, personal lawgiver*, and that Nature doesn't traffic in morality. Morality is a human invention, and is thoroughly unnatural. We should be proud of the fact that we've invented it and that we are able to live up to it at least some of the time.

To say that without absolute, objective moral facts there is no such thing as morality is the same as saying "without God, all is permissible." It's an old lie that needs to be put to rest.

**Methinks I was in error there. 18 July 2011 GB