The argument in itself calling for objectivism are made as first principles, that ultimately act in favor of how thought manifests into language. Therefore, to live in an objective sense. Is to aim for what is utopian in its resolve. The aim is to achieve a hedonistic perspective into what we can deduce as shared acuity. (We are utilizing the acuity of a collective where if the whole is fractured, then the sum of its parts must also require attention.) The same can be said for learning or undoing of principles.
(Hear this out.)
If principles are enigmatic of each and every person's virtue, the quadrancy must hold the same principles (objectively) adhere. Adhere to many (not just one).
○°○°○○°
In conclusion, in which case I have carefully debunked the argument post ergo. Objectivism is in its origin a reality from which first principles arise. However, the mask or the plotting from utopian perspective is the measure from which these principles are in motion. The use of mask, is that objectively our morals must guide our commiting to them as universal. If we drop the mask or three dimensional thinking to the same degree morals signal our actions. Then, and only then is the moral argument one dimensional. (i.e. objective) The posit is simpler: if you are a moralistic observer of a perfect world, this view is utopian in its resolve. Unless in the persuasion through argument moral objectively can be shared.
- Marco
●○••○○●●○••
Morality must be objective
The belief in objective moral facts is not merely a philosophical preference; it is a necessary commitment that anyone who defends scientific realism—the view that there is an objective external world that we perceive rather than invent with our senses—must hold. To deny the objectivity of morality is, implicitly, to deny both science and reason as well.
Consider the following:
1. We possess a universal moral sense
Across cultures and throughout history we observe a stable, near-universal moral intuition. We feel, deeply and immediately, that justice is good, kindness is a virtue, and that acts such as torturing an innocent person are evil. This intuition is as deeply rooted in human experience as our sensory perception of the physical world.
2. Explaining the intuition does not negate its objectivity
A common argument claims that because evolutionary biology and sociology can explain *why* we have these moral intuitions (for example, because they promote survival and cooperation), the intuitions themselves are nothing more than “useful illusions”—meaning we invented morality rather than discovered it.
But explaining the mechanism of a faculty does not invalidate the reality of what it perceives. Evolutionary pressures and social factors shaped our visual cortex, yet we do not conclude that the sun and trees are visual illusions. These biological and social forces may simply be the means by which we developed the capacity to *discover* objective moral truths, just as the visual cortex is the means by which we see objective physical truths.
3. The “evidence” for the objectivity of the physical world rests on the same foundation as the objectivity of morality
If I ask you for objective evidence that the sun exists, you might point to its light, its heat, or telescope images of it. Yet every one of these pieces of evidence ultimately rests on one thing: shared, consistent, near-universal human sensory experience. If someone denies the existence of the sun, we regard *him* as deluded—not the sun as an illusion because he denies it.
Exactly the same logic applies to morality. If someone claims, “Torturing infants for pleasure is good,” we know he is either lying (denying the truth for other reasons) or deluded, in the same way that a denier of the sun or a flat-earther is lying, deluded, or irrational. In both cases our justification rests on the reliability of shared, near-universal human perception: sensory perception of the physical world, and moral perception of the moral world.
4. The inconsistent skepticism of those who deny moral objectivity
Some try to break this parallel by appealing to the scientific method: falsifiability, independent verification by different research teams, predictability, and obtaining the same results when experiments are repeated. But this argument is circular:
- How do we know that our independent verifications are reliable? Through our shared sensory experiences.
- How do we know that our logical principles (such as non-contradiction) are correct? Through our shared rational intuitions.
You cannot appeal to independent scientific verification or falsifiability to break the parallel, because that would be circular. The very concepts of verification and falsification already presuppose the reliability of shared, near-universal human perception:
- Verification requires that you trust your senses to observe confirming data and your mind to process it.
- Falsification requires that you trust your senses to perceive contrary evidence and your mind to recognize the contradiction.
In other words, you are trying to use the *products* of reason and sense (scientific methods) to prove the reliability of reason and sense. That is circular reasoning. The entire scientific enterprise is built on the assumption that our rational and sensory intuitions are generally trustworthy.
Therefore, if you reject the shared, near-universal moral intuition that justice is good in itself and injustice is evil in itself as mere evolutionary illusions, you must apply the same skepticism to our internal sensory experiences and logical intuitions—they too are products of the same evolutionary process. Trusting in the existence of the sun on the basis of shared, near-universal human sensory perception while distrusting the existence of an objective moral realm on the same basis is an unjustified double standard.
Any criterion you try to introduce to distinguish the existence of the sun from the existence of morality as objective facts will ultimately rest on shared perception as its foundation.
What is the evidence that the sun exists? I can measure its temperature—say it is 5 kelvin? How do you know it is 5 kelvin? By seeing the number on the thermometer. But that is ultimately just a visual experience of yours. How do you know it reflects an objective reality rather than your mind inventing the number 5 as a visual illusion while the temperature is something else? Someone else in Australia can measure it and find the same number on the instrument? But how do you know that Australian found the same number? Ultimately through a shared sensory experience inside you and inside him.
I can know its position and predict it accurately. Fine—but how did you know it ended up in the place you predicted? By looking through a telescope. Again, that is ultimately just a conscious sensory experience inside you. Someone else can see it in the same place from another location on Earth. Again, that is merely a shared sensory experience between you and him. This “objective reality” might be nothing more than a collective hallucination, just as the shared moral sense is claimed to be a near-universal evolutionary collective hallucination.
Why do you trust the principle of non-contradiction? Why do you trust that 1 + 1 = 2 in classical algebra? Couldn’t 1 + 1 = 3 in non-human minds—alien minds, for example?
So you face two options:
- A) Trust shared, near-universal perception as evidence of an objective reality that we discover rather than invent as a collective hallucination → accept the objectivity of *both* the physical world and the moral world.
- B) Reject the reliability of shared, near-universal human perception → embrace radical skepticism and doubt everything.
If we accept that every piece of evidence for an objective reality ultimately rests on shared, near-universal human perception as the basis of its objectivity, then we must accept the objectivity of morality.
Otherwise science itself would be merely a high-precision shared human hallucination (one in which we can use telescopes, spectrometers, and microscopes) while morality would be a medium-precision shared human hallucination (one in which we cannot use those laboratory instruments to observe the objective moral world). But both would still be dreams. Because telescopes, spectrometers, atomic clocks, microscopes, and the rest—along with repeatability, prediction, and falsifiability—are nothing more than extensions and repetitions of the same shared, near-universal human perception. They have no value without the shared conscious experiences that you are already questioning as evidence of objective reality. If the original foundation is merely collective hallucinations, then using these instruments does not turn collective hallucinations into objective truths; it only makes the hallucinations more precise.
Addressing the cultural-differences objection
Quite apart from the fact that the basic moral truths (do not kill the innocent, do not steal for pleasure, do not betray trust, justice is good, injustice is evil, mercy toward those who deserve it such as orphans is good) are universal and near-cosmic, moral differences usually arise from the misapplication of those truths. The existence of cultural differences does not negate objective morality.
For example, people in the past believed the earth was flat. Does that mean the shape of the earth is a matter of personal preference? Of course not. We simply understand that they were mistaken.
The same applies to slavery. You can simply say that those people were wrong, or that they denied the internal moral truth that human beings are equal and that none of them has the right to enslave another—often for other reasons, such as the economic benefits of the slave trade. Just as the existence of flat-earthers among us today does not make the shape of the earth a matter of personal taste according to each person’s whim; it merely renders their reasoning and justifications for that belief irrational.
You might object that we can refute the flat-earther’s belief with objective measurements and independent verification. But as we said, that reasoning is circular. All measurements and independent verification are ultimately shared human sensory experiences, whose reliability we must presuppose, and which treat this near-universal human agreement as a reflection of objective reality rather than a collective hallucination of our own invention.
Exactly the same logic applies to morality. If someone claims, “I see nothing wrong with rape,” we reject this not as a mere “difference of opinion,” but because his moral perception is deviant and contradicts the consistent, universal intuition of humanity as a whole.
No comments:
Post a Comment