>"Morality is a word, yes? Words have meaning."

Everything has meaning.

>"I don't mean to get into the philosophy of language, but lets saying the meaning of words is based on common language use and the definitions within dictionaries, as is commonly accepted (if you disagree, read into theories of meanings and the philosophy of language to develop your own theory of meaning)."

Language is the communication of concepts e.g. a deer alerting its kin to danger with its tail communicating the concept of danger to its kin and they all flee.

Dictionaries are just a tool we humans use to attempt to keep track of the most common agreed upon meanings because we communicate a lot. What's that old black-and-white movie where the professor spent like a decade slaving away on the biggest encyclopedia yet then is utterly thrown by modern slang ("Corny?"), realizes the book would be half obsolete and basically employs a woman to help him and sparks fly? Eh, whatever.

>"For example, the meaning of literally used to mean "not figuratively", but because of common language use, it cannot be argued that it does not mean "figuratively" as well. The meaning of words is a complex, dynamic thing. This dynamic complexity is shared with the meaning of morality, as morality is a word like any other."

I understand what you're saying but all of this was known to me. To use your phrasing, you have no reason to tell me that when a number of people say the word morality some or all of them might mean different things by it.

>"I would concede to you that some concept akin to morality, that I will call from now on as EB-morality (for EducatorBig), could be something that is not imaginary and exists irrespective of the mind."

ALL concepts are non-imaginary and exist irrespective of the mind. The concept of plastic toothbrush cannot be destroyed once it exists. You can destroy the entire universe, even time and space on top of that, and the concept of plastic toothbrush would just continue to exist as it has since it began to exist, in the conceptual realm.

I was not talking about a concept existing, I was talking about the actual nature of morality. I.e. morality existing in that if humans did not evolve on Earth but instead a Martian people evolved on Mars then rape would be immoral there too for the exact same reasons as they are on Earth provided that rape would involve malevolence and harm (as those are the reasons).

>"However, the issue is, EB-morality is not synonymous with morality as used in English."

Sure, if you say so. But English dictates how the universe works? Dictates the true nature of morality? I think not.

>"That's my main problem with your point. You can argue that morality is malevolence and benevolence all you want, but to do so you would be logically required (and by logically required I mean that if you were not to, you would be being illogical) establish a new philosophy of language and meaning."

No. Language is the communication of concepts and meaning is... eh, you'll just quote "the official definitions from books that are official because they are in books" at me.

Also, I never argued that morality was benevolence and malevolence, that is over-simplying my argument bordering on strawman argument.

>"I'm not sure how to explain this in clearer terms. The concept you are professing could fit under the definition of morality and common language understanding of morality, but it is not the definition or common language understanding of morality. Because your definition concerns moral right and moral wrong, evil or good, it does fit as a "theory of morality", or an ethical theory."

My "concept" or "definition" (which is what you call it while I would hesitate to label it either of those things) of it does NOT concern "moral right" and "moral wrong", since (as I've said many times now) those are myths, except in the sense that it deliberately distances itself from them.

What I'm "professing" is how I have personally concluded the true nature of morality to be. If you want to call that my "theory of morality", fine, but it is not an all-new concept that whole-sale replaces anything, in a sense it just shaves off the myths, like "People should be moral." and "People should be immoral." having any connection with reality.

>"However, it cannot somehow usurp its definition."

It is not intended to "usurp" its definition. The word "gods" (in any language, really) did not have its hard drive of meanings written by Judeo-Christian etc. religions coming in with monotheism and omnipotence and existing outside of time etc. It didn't instantly erase Ragnarok or Zeus and Cronus slaying Ouranos and then getting slain by his sons.

>"Just like how no amount of logical argument could change the definition of "being", or really any other word, because the meaning of words has never been tied to these types of logical arguments."

I have not argued otherwise. I obviously am already aware that the word 'morality' means different things to different people and that it is never tied to logical arguments like this since if either of those we would not be having this conversation, would we? We wouldn't even be able to have this conversation since it would be an impossibility for us since what you've just described would literally prevent us from having it, yes?

>"You can say the current definition of morality is incorrect, but on what basis? The basis that it is illogical is irrelevant (which I don't even agree with), because meanings of words do not have to follow logic."

I am not arguing that the meanings of words "have to" follow logic or anything else. And I do not mean that just because "imperatives" are a myth.

>"This may be true, however the issue is not that the definition is wrong. The definition was never wrong, not even then, because when people said "the sun", what they were referring to was an object that orbited the Earth (footnote below). The issue isn't that the definition was wrong, but that the defined object simply did not exist. Definitions (in a language sense) can never really be "wrong", so to speak. It's simply the word as defined may not exist."

Which is exactly the reason why you have not seen me say "The definition for morality in your dictionaries is wrong!" Instead what you have seen me say is (in a nutshell) "All our many lofty and conflicting ideas about morality being about right and wrong and should and moral values etc. are mistaken. Morality is, at its core at least, simpler than you might think."

>"Just like the definition of unicorn, as defined as "a horse-like animal with a single horn", is not incorrect, but the defined object does not factually exist in the real (real as defined in realism, as mind-independent) world."

Actually you're wrong there. Google "Elasmotherium sibericum" for the reason I nowadays use "pegasus" instead of "unicorn" in my argument about myth/fiction. Except for when I do use it but specify "magical unicorn" or, if I'm in the mood, "time traveling unicorn with cybernetic wings". :-)

>"Footnote: They would have been wrong if they were to point at the sun in the sky and say, "that glowing object orbits the earth","

That is exactly what they did. They pointed at the sky and said "That glowing object and that pale object and those tiny dots of light are the Sun, the Moon and the stars and they all orbit the Earth." Case closed, you have no case. Their definition was factually wrong. Nice tr... actually, no, terrible try.

I understand your preference that the definition "Zeus is king of the gods and rules from Mount Olympus and throws all the lightning on Earth." be untouchable by logic but reality is that the mountain in question exists and Zeus ain't there and as we learned more about lightning it seemed more and more far-fetched that he was involved so eventually we added "Oh yeah, Zeus is also a myth."

That is what would happen to all those old conflicting ideas about the nature of morality, they would be seen for what they truly are, factually incorrect since they involved myths. Hypotheses and musings really.

Good talking to you too.