Moral theory
This is from an email I wrote to a liberal acquaintance.
First, let us start out with right and wrong. If you had to absolutely stereotype me, I would fall into the reformed divine command conventionalism moral theory camp with some influence by Kantian moral theory. This is how some of the theory goes.
Most sides recognize that any given intuition or theory on any thing that is a moral statement (a statement with at least one moral word in it, like just, unjust, right, wrong, permissible, impermissible and so on) can be in fact fallible and incorrect. So, even if we come up with a moral intuition on something, it could prove to be incorrect, if the argument behind it is weak.
Well, what of moral facts? An example would be saying “it is a fact that killing children is wrong.” Well the moral Subjectivist would say that that is not a moral fact, that the agent (the person saying the statement) is only stating its belief or feeling, feeling being the key word. Well, most people have an intuition, a feeling that in fact, killing children is wrong. Besides, morals outmatch feelings. Reason comes in and aligns our feelings into correct moral assumptions. So, by saying there are moral facts, I am pushed away from Subjectivism into Conventionalism and Realism. Realism says there are moral facts independent of us. While Conventionalism says moral facts depend on the speaker or agent (existentialism, relativism and divine command fit into this view).
Next up, the failure of our fallible intuitions.
First, let us start out with right and wrong. If you had to absolutely stereotype me, I would fall into the reformed divine command conventionalism moral theory camp with some influence by Kantian moral theory. This is how some of the theory goes.
Most sides recognize that any given intuition or theory on any thing that is a moral statement (a statement with at least one moral word in it, like just, unjust, right, wrong, permissible, impermissible and so on) can be in fact fallible and incorrect. So, even if we come up with a moral intuition on something, it could prove to be incorrect, if the argument behind it is weak.
Well, what of moral facts? An example would be saying “it is a fact that killing children is wrong.” Well the moral Subjectivist would say that that is not a moral fact, that the agent (the person saying the statement) is only stating its belief or feeling, feeling being the key word. Well, most people have an intuition, a feeling that in fact, killing children is wrong. Besides, morals outmatch feelings. Reason comes in and aligns our feelings into correct moral assumptions. So, by saying there are moral facts, I am pushed away from Subjectivism into Conventionalism and Realism. Realism says there are moral facts independent of us. While Conventionalism says moral facts depend on the speaker or agent (existentialism, relativism and divine command fit into this view).
Next up, the failure of our fallible intuitions.

0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home