Says you, but I can and do use it to judge other people's moral positions.
Uh, no. This is the topic of the thread actually. While I agree that you can say that your own moral labels are different than those coming from another system, and that your own moral system could judge another system (and its labels) incorrect, that is entirely different from believing that in reality your system is right and another objectively wrong.
If you feel that your system, even if based in pragmatics, is right then you do believe in moral absolutism.
I disagree. People are people. Culture has an awesome effect on our perceptions of the human experience, but no culture can turn misery into happiness. Largely, people are made happy by the same things. Human satisfaction is as objective a moral goal as anything else.
I think some deeper thoughts are in order here. There have been plenty of cases where misery can be turned into happiness. One example would be the Helsinki syndrome. Indeed, your very argument against pedophilic acts seems to assume that this can be done with kids.
But lets stay away from that in specific and address satisfaction as a moral goal. That is called Utilitarianism. It is a teleological moral system. There are other teleological systems which do not use "satisfaction", and there are moral systems that are deontological. Thus it is not just as fact that satisfaction is a universal moral goal, or deserving of being one.
And this brings me back to the subjectivity of "best results". Let's assume this involves satisfaction. How do you measure this? Is it maximum satisfaction for as many people as possible, or the maximum possible without allowing anyone from dropping past a certain minimum? And how do you defing satisfaction? For those that believe in an afterlife or some theological concept, physical satisfaction is not necessarily true satisfaction.
Even Buddhists would not necessarily agree with satisfaction being the end moral goal.
In fact it's the very basis of the discussion itself. It's entirely germain to the discussion because you're criticizing Schraf and Berb for asserting moral superiority on a certain point with no legitimate basis.
No no no. I was not sayig that they had no legitimate basis for saying that B was wrong. What I was saying is they cannot simply say that their moral system is correct because it identifies A as right and B as wrong, when Tal's labels them both wrong.
There is no logic to that argument.
Let me flip this around and see if you can see what is going on. If Schraf and Berb had started out by simply saying that their moral system thinks B is wrong, and then Tal had said their system is incorrect because not only does his identify B as wrong it identifies A as wrong too, then I would be ripping on Tal instead.
they do have a legitimate basis to believe that a moral structure that precludes potentially coercive relationships are superior to those that do not; hence, their disdain of that act is entirely reasonable and not nearly as subjective and arbitrary as you suggest.
I did not suggest it was arbitrary, though I did poke fun a bit at schraf's notion that it had anything to do with consent. Ironically, your own arguments (whether I agree with them or not) for their position is better than their stated positions.
In any case I have not argued whether their position is right or wrong. What I find humorous in all of this is that if anything, one should assume I think B is wrong. I am defending the guy that is saying both A and B are wrong! If anyone should be complaining it should be people thinking that I am saying homosexuality is wrong.
But the fact is I have not said one way or the other on anything.
You can, however, judge or measure the effectiveness of another's morality based on its effects.
Yes, YOU can, but not everyone would or should. Step back and look at this statement here. You are explicitly saying a person can logically measure the effectiveness of a deontological moral system, based on teleological results. That is assuming your position is correct.
A person in a deontological system (I assume Tal would be) could say the reverse. That is the effectiveness of another system can be judged by the degree of wickedness or bad acts allowed in the world.
Though interestingly Tal (the absolute moral deontologist) has accurately identified that he cannot logically do so. I am suprised to find relativist utilitarians not figuring that out.
I would also add, there are moral systems which do not include right or wrong at all and so both groups look sort of silly. Do they get to judge an pronounce sentence? I don't think so.
But if he wants me to do something about it - if he wants this to become taboo for other people besides himself - he's going to have to actually present the harm involved.
Please read your own words carefully and understand what you are actually saying. In order for him to convince you that A should be wrong, he will have to do so using your moral criteria. That is of course an obvious point.
Now realize that in order to prove to him that A is right, you will have to use his moral criteria and not your own.
What schraf and berb were doing was insisting Tal's system was incorrect because it did not use the same criteria or generate the same labels. That is logically not correct as a criticism, or method of criticism. It assumes the conclusion, or beg's the question.
But I feel that the reason you percieve this as a logical problem is because you're ignoring the moral factor.
Well you are wrong. I am perceiving it as a logical problem because as a trained philosopher I see some really bad logic going on. And I did point out the logical problem.
I will point out yet again that I have not taken any position on whether Scraf's and Berb's moral system is one I agree or disagree with personally, as compared to how I feel about Tal's moral system... or the labels generated by their systems on ANY moral point.
That is why I can and have tried to remove the electrically charged situations being used and renaming them A and B. It makes no difference what we are talking about.
The insistance that I be drawn into a debate on the specific morality of the action Tal brought up and B was used to replace is indicative of other people's issues, not mine.
This was a point in logic. I'd be happy to debate morality, including the morality of that subject, but it won't be here.
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
"Don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)
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