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[Loud Whispers]

As human beings, preferring a nice dinner over a nail through the hand sounds pretty objective to me. I'm just curious if he thinks he could be convinced otherwise.

Heyo Jesus.

[Xantalos]

Okay, I will watch this closely.
As for me ... I have no real philosophy. I went through my idealist phase at 10, my cynic phase at 12-13, and a bunch of others in that general time period. Now I look at the people running around and killing each other, and laugh at how short a time they last. I ponder abstract theorums while my meatsack body does its chores, and I while away the time with petty fantasies and idle visions until I can go free again.

[Caz]

I try to improve myself and learn what I can. The world is an endless mystery.

[DarkWolfXV]

1) Equality is pointless. Making a society that is completely Equal can only be achieved by lowering the standard of living so far down that you could be considered dead.

Indeed, like i heard somewhere in a death metal song.
"No one ever wins
No one finally loses
Except the dead,
Under the Sun
They rot together,
With absolute biological equality."

[Flying Dice]

Ah, but is that true in all cases? Is it possible to objectively state, "It is always better to have a nice dinner than to have a nail driven through your hand"? What if your nice dinner was made of food stolen from sustenance farmers, and the nail through the hand occurred while saving the life of another?  Or, if you want a laugh, take the Stoic corner and argue that the sage would prefer neither, as each is equally irrelevant to the virtuous individual.

But wouldn't it still be preferable to save the life via a nice dinner, if the option was given? I'm not sure if objective was the right word here...?

The point I'm trying to make is, if we can say some things are worse than others (ie. pleasure >  pain is not a cultural thing), we could have some sort of solid foundation for our moral philosophy to expand upon in some... er.. objective(?) sense. Then we can ditch the "Who's to say what's right and wrong?"

Yes, but the point was that a pleasurable experience is not automatically morally preferable to a painful experience. Even Hedonists have as part of their doctrine the caveat that small pleasures should be avoided if they would lead to greater pains, and that small pains can be accepted if they lead to greater pleasure. Put simply, there isn't a single extant system of moral thought that holds that pleasure is in all cases preferable to pain.


There are systems of objective morality out there, but even the best aren't capable of accounting for all cases. If morality were easy to figure out, it wouldn't be in flux.

[Morrigi]

In my mind, pleasure and pain relate directly to the degree of the pleasure, pain, and the impact you had on society. However, this relationship differs from person to person. However, there are some things, like choosing to save an innocent even if you run a risk of getting hurt in the process over eating a nice dinner regardless of where it came from, that are universally considered moral by sane, capable people. In contrast, harming animals (especially mammals, birds, and reptiles in our culture) without a logical reason is almost universally considered immoral. In my opinion, this constitutes objective morality.

[Caz]

In my mind, pleasure and pain relate directly to the degree of the pleasure, pain, and the impact you had on society. However, this relationship differs from person to person. However, there are some things, like choosing to save an innocent even if you run a risk of getting hurt in the process over eating a nice dinner regardless of where it came from, that are universally considered moral by sane, capable people. In contrast, harming animals (especially mammals, birds, and reptiles in our culture) without a logical reason is almost universally considered immoral. In my opinion, this constitutes objective morality.

Choosing to save someone else at danger to yourself could be considered reckless and foolhardy by the family you would leave behind. Hunting animals for fun is considered good sport.

All morality is subjective.