[MD] The Moral Landscape

[MarshaV]

Hi Steve,

When you state "Our claims about morality can have truth-value 
and be as objective as our scientific claims."  are you talking 
about some definition of scientific objectivism?  


Marsha 


 
 
 
On Oct 18, 2010, at 1:24 PM, Steven Peterson wrote:

> Hi Mark,
> 
> Mark:
>> In my opinion, a
>> culture cannot be wrong about what is moral because it creates the morality,
>> does not interpret it.
> 
> Steve:
> If I follow you correctly, your position is that morality is simply a
> matter of agreement with a particular society. The only sense in which
> we can say anything about the morality of stoning homosexuals is that
> societies forbid it and others demand it.
> 
> Neither Harris, Pirsig, nor I subscribe to this sort of relativism.
> Our claims about morality can have truth-value and be as objective as
> our scientific claims. The fact that there is no broad agreement on
> morals does not mean that there is no truth of the matter. It just
> means that at least some people are wrong. There is more
> cross-cultural agreement on the belief that cruelty is wrong than on
> the truth of evolution. But amount of agreement or diagreement is
> irrelevent to whether or not there is in principle an answer to moral
> or scientific questions.
> 
> Morals aren't asserted to be objective in the Platonic sense of
> existing independently of human experience. They are not ontologically
> objective, but moral truths can be epistemically objective in the
> sense that when making such judgments we are not lying to ourselves,
> not overly biased in favor of personal interest, etc. Such scientific
> objectivity is not understood as not having values but as valuing
> reliable chains of evidence that lead us to good conclusions. This
> scientific objectivity can be applied to studying morals--determining
> what we ought to do so as to maximize wellbeing in a given set of
> circumstances.
> 
> Best,
> Steve
> 



 
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