Lucky~9~Lives
Mooby the Golden Sock
IronySandwich
No. Relativistic does not mean random, or unaffected by reality. Certain moral systems simply work better than others, and so they become more prominent. This does not imply an objective moral standard exists, merely that moral standards adopted by a culture must be functional in order to spread. It is in a sense natural selection on a larger scale.
You just undermined your entire point. If one moral system works better than others, it means that there must be some sort of property to morality beyond human construction.
Except "works better" is being used to mean "is more functional in a culture that adopts it" - and culture is not independent of human construction.
That's only true if what is "functional" for a culture is purely a human construct, which does not jive with reality. In reality, us humans are constrained by an external universe. If several cultures determine that it is not functional to go swimming in magma and determine that it is immoral to push your neighbor into an active volcano, that's a moral proposition based in an objective property of the external universe, not in a human construct.
You may argue that Culture B might not decide to call such an act immoral, but it still poses a problem: because you've now entangled morality with functionality, it would be hypothetically possible for someone with all the relevant information to determine whether it is more functional to a culture to hold that moral principle or not. In essence, there is a "right" answer to the question that is determined by something outside of human construction.
Again, you may say that the proposition might be functional for Culture A but nonfunctional for Culture B, since a volcano human sacrifice ritual might be important for keeping the peace in Culture B. But again, if our hypothetical researcher had all the available information, she or he could determine whether such a sacrifice ritual itself is ultimately functional for a society, and then this would determine whether Culture A or Culture B has the correct view on the subject.
Extrapolating from this, our hypothetical researcher could determine whether every moral proposition is correct, incorrect, or arbitrary (such as the most moral color to pain the town's flagpoles,) and each set would be nonempty. At which point, it would simply be a matter of uncovering what is in the first two sets, and our findings would constitute absolute moral principles.
IronySandwich
So, with this are you implying that artistic value is objective? I certainly hope not.
I am asserting that at least some objective standards exist, and I cited sources to back up my case with regards to music. In addition, I mentioned that the same standards apply to paintings and pictures as well. Scientists have even found how to
predict whether a face will be considered attractive or not. Despite the conventional wisdom that beauty is in the eye of the beholder (and, presumably, taste), the fact is that most beholders have pretty similar eyes.
IronySandwich
Artistic taste is a classic example of something that is subjective, but not random. The golden ratio, scales, etc. are tastes we observe as being somewhat universal among humans, but they do not imply some objective "good art" system outside of human preference, merely that the preferences of humans are somewhat predictable.
They imply that there are at least some objective properties of the universe that set the standards for what constitute "goodness."
Humans did not get together and decide that the golden ratio is pretty;
the golden ratio is woven into nature itself. Intelligent aliens living billions of light years away would have the golden ratio everywhere on their planet just as we do, and would almost certainly use it in their art and architecture.
Pitch is related to frequency, and is not restricted to humans. Researchers have found that
dogs have at least some sense of what constitutes good music. We didn't sit down and invent a construct of music; our perception of music is determined by physics.
IronySandwich
Again, does the fact that a certain style of music will produce consistently better results than another argue for the fact of an objective "good music" code?
Yes, absolutely. To conclude that A produces consistently better results than B requires me to concede that A and/or B have at least one property that exists independent of my own thoughts and perceptions as an observer. And "existing independent of thought or an observer as part of reality" is
the very definition of objective.
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I never said researchers always come to the same conclusion, merely that there is a strong tendency for them to do so.
Ok then, it is not the case that that "independent scientific researchers
almost always come to the same conclusion," because in the majority of cases there's at least some dissenting voices. It's probably much more correct to say that it's almost never (if ever) the case that all independent researchers will come to the same conclusion.
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No one today argues against the idea that the earth spins, or that it revolves around the sun, or that the force of gravity which effects us on earth is the same one which effects the rest of the cosmos. Those were all matters of debate, but the debates were settled because there were ways of objectively observing which ideas were correct.
Ok, so let's rewind back to the hypothetical point in history when exactly 50% of researchers believed that the Earth revolves around the sun and 50% did not. Was the Earth's revolution around the sun relative at that point? If the Italians believed it did and the French believed it did not, was it true for Italy and not for France? Was the Earth's revolution a human construct until the majority of people agreed upon it?
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And yes, a few hundred years ago there was less evidence of an objective reality available to people than there is today. I'm not sure how you think saying "people from a more ignorant time could have thought differently" is a good argument.
That's because that's not my argument. That's your straw man of my argument. My argument is that your argument is invalid on the grounds that it is an argument from ignorance. Pointing out the scientific ignorance of centuries past only illustrates this point, because we can see today that
if they had used a similar argument to yours based on their ignorance, they would have been incorrect. Similarly, you are making your argument from a position of ignorance, and it is equally fallacious.
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So, again, if morality is objective, where is the system of thought which exploits that and consistently produces similar results when used by independent researchers with different biases? Where is the system under which these results can be tested and independently verified? Where is the broad and ever-converging moral consensus?
My position only requires me to assert that such a system is hypothetically possible to discover at some point in the universe's timeline, not that we have already done so. Your position requires you to assert that such a system does not exist and thus will never be found.
All I have to show is that it's likely that the set is nonempty, and I have already made the argument. To review, my argument is that there are independent properties of the universe that inform our judgements, function for a culture is related to things beyond the scope of the culture itself, and trends in the history of morality suggest that there exist at least some moral propositions that fit such function and are being independently discovered by various cultures.
Your argument is... what, exactly? That we haven't reached 100% agreement yet? Sure, I can buy that, but how do you know that we are not simply at the pre-Galileo stage in our moral development?
In other words, is it accurate to say that your argument is, "We have not found it yet, therefore we will never find it?" If it is indeed accurate, then how do you know the part after the comma is true?
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