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americanslyme95 t1_irp6isv wrote

Reply to comment by MyNameIsNonYaBizniz in "[Moral] theories started out on the wrong foot, by treating morality and immorality as intrinsic to the actions themselves, instead of our responses to them." Philosopher Alex Rosenberg on whether moral disputes can be resolved by [deleted]

I agree that morality is an emergent aspect of human society, but I can't swallow the idea that it's determined by group consensus. There is no such consensus, except perhaps on the most banal possible moral claims such as "arbitrary murder is wrong."

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MyNameIsNonYaBizniz t1_irrdh86 wrote

Not actively challenging moral rules is basically consensus.

Laws are moral consensus, officially.

Policies are moral consensus.

Granted laws and policies will change be improved upon, but also through consensus.

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americanslyme95 t1_iru0swv wrote

Different countries have different laws, and laws are constantly contested. Taking the example used in the article, are we more morally correct than a country which tolerates honor killing?

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MyNameIsNonYaBizniz t1_irvf9re wrote

Different countries, friend, meaning different localized group consensuses, there are some universal group consensus as well, like dont kill babies for fun.

Group consensus does not mean global only, it can be separate groups across region, culture and borders.

We are more morally "dominant" because most groups agree with not killing for honor, correct, right or wrong have no relevance when it comes to moral consensus, only numeric matters.

1000 years ago most groups believe women should have less rights than men, it changed over time as more and more groups are convinced that this is a bad idea and eventually it became the dominant moral consensus to give women equal rights, a few groups not agreeing to this mean little but to prove that morality is still a consensus, the only difference is localized consensus or widespread consensus.

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americanslyme95 t1_irxw2mz wrote

>1000 years ago most groups believe women should have less rights than men, it changed over time as more and more groups are convinced that this is a bad idea and eventually it became the dominant moral consensus to give women equal rights, a few groups not agreeing to this mean little but to prove that morality is still a consensus, the only difference is localized consensus or widespread consensus.

By your definition, then, people 1000 years ago who believed women should have fewer rights than men were right, by virtue of the fact that their position held group consensus. They were also right about slavery, slaughtering their enemies, etc.

This to me is a preoccupation with what seems moral, to a specific group at a specific time, rather than what is moral. Is your claim that there is no actual morality, just preferences about what appears moral from a given perspective?

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MyNameIsNonYaBizniz t1_irye7cf wrote

As said, there is no "right" or "wrong" in moral consensus, only what the majority of a group will agree to uphold and defend.

You are still conflating moral consensus with some kind of objective "rightness" or "wrongness", these things dont exist in reality.

Morality can never be objective, because you cant find them in laws of physics or fabric of reality, its a subjective human concept developed through group consensus, that's it.

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iiioiia t1_irw6jnb wrote

>Laws are moral consensus, officially.

If one assumes that (our archaic implementation of) democracy is actually democratic.

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iiioiia t1_irw6c36 wrote

Consider the magnitude of psychological distress in the developed world on the topic of deaths due to malnutrition in third world countries, and then also compare that to the psychological distress of domestic deaths due to covid.

Is this driven by logic, or something else?

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