Moral philosophy seems to me to be a judgement about once own utility function.
You didn’t argue for that, and it seems obviously false: if I like killing people, that doesn’t make it moral for me to kill people. Morality might have something to do with utility, but that in itself doesn’t tell you whether extreme selfishness, extreme altruism, or something in between is correct. Trying to treat morality as rationality doesn’t help either, because rationality is about optimising a UF which is not otherwise specified, so that the resulting morality could range between extreme selfishness and extreme altruism.
It’s striking that, in practice, rationalism-inspired morality actually does range from extreme egoism to extreme altruism, and that rationalists think they are nonethless basically on the same page.
It doesn’t make killing people moral for most people but for a nazi it is moral to kill the Jews to give an extreme example. Or another example you hate your boss you would like to kill him, but killing him would make you feel guilty. So you measure your expected utility and decide. But I would really Appreciate if you would articulate your view more because I am not sure I totally understood you
It doesn’t make killing people moral for most people but for a nazi it is moral to kill the Jews to give an extreme example.
If extreme moral subjectivism is true, that would be the case. Most people find extreme moral subjectivism to be false, and consider killing people to be wrong. I was appealing to common intuitions.
How do you know that extreme moral subjectivism is true? You title states that you are confused. If you in fact know that moral subjectivism is the one true system of ethics, how can you be confused?
Of course, the Nazi believes that it is moral to kill the jew. Maybe the ”...for X” clause indicates a mere belief. But you can’t disprove a true fact by pointing out that someone believes differently.
To be totally honest most of the academic philosophical discussions confuse me in several ways. I am not sure my position can be called extreme moral subjectivism. I for example know you can define justice. And a certain action can be according to that definition just or not. Hence justice exists. But it exists because humans define the idea of justice. Hence killing someone would not be just. The idea of justice however is of interest because our utility perception holds it necessary to create notions of justice towards satisfying or wish to help or towards controlling guilt and shame feelings. Killing is wrong however is a statement without truth value as long one does not specify what wrong means. It might be unjust under certain created moral systems. This would be my position on that matter. But if you disagree I would really like to hear in what sense you would disagree
Killing is wrong however is a statement without truth value as long one does not specify what wrong means.
You seem to be assuming that moral philosophy has to work in a maths-like way, where you start from definitions and axioms. But a lot of people like to start from beliefs about what sort of things are widely believed to be good and bad, and work back from the examples to general principles.
You didn’t argue for that, and it seems obviously false: if I like killing people, that doesn’t make it moral for me to kill people. Morality might have something to do with utility, but that in itself doesn’t tell you whether extreme selfishness, extreme altruism, or something in between is correct. Trying to treat morality as rationality doesn’t help either, because rationality is about optimising a UF which is not otherwise specified, so that the resulting morality could range between extreme selfishness and extreme altruism.
It’s striking that, in practice, rationalism-inspired morality actually does range from extreme egoism to extreme altruism, and that rationalists think they are nonethless basically on the same page.
It doesn’t make killing people moral for most people but for a nazi it is moral to kill the Jews to give an extreme example. Or another example you hate your boss you would like to kill him, but killing him would make you feel guilty. So you measure your expected utility and decide. But I would really Appreciate if you would articulate your view more because I am not sure I totally understood you
If extreme moral subjectivism is true, that would be the case. Most people find extreme moral subjectivism to be false, and consider killing people to be wrong. I was appealing to common intuitions.
How do you know that extreme moral subjectivism is true? You title states that you are confused. If you in fact know that moral subjectivism is the one true system of ethics, how can you be confused?
Of course, the Nazi believes that it is moral to kill the jew. Maybe the ”...for X” clause indicates a mere belief. But you can’t disprove a true fact by pointing out that someone believes differently.
To be totally honest most of the academic philosophical discussions confuse me in several ways. I am not sure my position can be called extreme moral subjectivism. I for example know you can define justice. And a certain action can be according to that definition just or not. Hence justice exists. But it exists because humans define the idea of justice. Hence killing someone would not be just. The idea of justice however is of interest because our utility perception holds it necessary to create notions of justice towards satisfying or wish to help or towards controlling guilt and shame feelings. Killing is wrong however is a statement without truth value as long one does not specify what wrong means. It might be unjust under certain created moral systems. This would be my position on that matter. But if you disagree I would really like to hear in what sense you would disagree
You seem to be assuming that moral philosophy has to work in a maths-like way, where you start from definitions and axioms. But a lot of people like to start from beliefs about what sort of things are widely believed to be good and bad, and work back from the examples to general principles.
That’s true, but is that also your opinion?