Originally posted by Vangelovski
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I think you missed my point that your arguments against subjective morals are reaching and hence invalid. The if This then That is false thus the if This does not mean That then all the subsequent points you build on the That have no foundation and hence are likewise false.
Most rapist love to rape but your are blatantly wrong in your assertion that if only subjective moral values exist and if in his subjective moral value system raping is ok then he has done nothing wrong and therefore how can anyone punish him. You use this line of arguing to show a breakdown in a subjective moral system and hence validation for the existence of objective moral values…after all who would argue to the contrary and be seen to be defending a rapist. Maybe you are not purposely doing it but this inverse logic leading…you know That is bad and you certainly don’t want bad then you must mean you want This…ahh No I might not want That and you are correct so far But it does not necessarily mean I want the This…I could just Not want the That and the This and want something else altogether different.
If you consider the point that subjective moral values came out of necessity for man to have some means by which to interact with others in an acceptable manor. Note the word acceptable…to who. Your example of the rapist or child molester having their own personal subjective value system where it is ok to do some things does not negate the subjective moral value system and hence prove the existence of an objective moral values nor God.
The subjective moral system has its counterweight of taking advantage. I do not believe that most rapists truly have in their subjective value system that raping is ok…they know its wrong.
If you recall my earlier posts the subjective moral system is a natural progression from feelings for yourself and loved ones and empathy. If the rapist truly had it in their subjective moral value system that raping is ok then they would feel nothing was wrong if they found out their mother or sister was raped by someone else…it’s the done thing isn’t it. Further if this personal subjective system tells them raping is ok above all then they would see no wrong in raping their own mother or sister. From listening to the news you would have on rare occasion heard of such instances around the world. To that individual his personal subjective value system may in fact be telling him raping is ok above all but it does not make him right…you hear of these cases in the news very rarely because most people are not insane and their personal moral value system has not been warped by insanity. Such examples in no way negate the validity of the subjective moral vale system. The individual was defective and his use of logic was defective but lets not dwell on the minority fringe of the insane to prove or disprove a point.
Most rapist are not totally insane and would not rape their mother or sister and in fact would be very upset to hear that their loved one was raped yet have no problem in raping someone else. This does not negate the subjective moral value system. They don’t rape because they truly believe raping is right…they know its not…they are just giving way to the natural urge to take advantage…a corruption of the innate need to win system. They want to preserve their own while taking advantage of others. The subjective value system was setup on how to react with your own tribe and foreign tribes you might come across. The their own may mean their family clan or community hence the infamous case of the gang rape of Australian girls and never girls of their own racial group because in their view Australian girls were sluts who chose to have sex before marriage and hence that’s all they were good for. It is the take advantage they are giving way to not that they believe raping is good. It does not prove the subjective moral value system is wrong nor does it prove the existence of an objective moral system. It is a wrong on 2 levels. Firstly their limited definition of their own…living in Australia even the Australian girls form part of their community otherwise they are not part of the Australian community and in days gone by they would have been chased off and banished from the community if not killed by the community. Further if they went to a foreign land to visit it still does not make them right because they are taking advantage of the foreign community and no community wants to be taken advantage of hence they would also be chased off if they could not be killed by that foreign community. The urge to take advantage does not negate the validity of the subjective moral value system.
So far we have looked at your example of rape and it was a reasonable example to explore the subjective moral value system and taking advantage but there also exists situation where 2 different groups could have evolved 2 similar but not the same subjective value systems. For example some societies believe circumcision is a perfectly acceptable practice and some societies even extend this to female circumcision. A different community who does not share these values then has to decide…ie subjectively…what practices it finds tolerable and which not. In western societies male circumcision is tolerated while female circumcision is not. So to answer your question who is right if 2 competing subjective value system meat basically whoever is running the society gets to impose their subjective value system. A different example would be I doubt if a minority Christian group was living in Saudi Arabia they would be allowed to farm pigs even if the minority group promised to stick to one side of the town and not entice others. But of course it would be upto the local society to decide…ie subjective value…under what if any circumstances they would be prepared to tolerate their minority group. Like I said its all subjective and all relative but since people are basically people it is not unusual we have developed largely similar subjective moral value systems and in no way does it prove the existence of some objective moral value system let alone one directly stemming from God.
Some see the common values people have around the world…even when 2 communities may have never seen each other before…and attribute this common sense of right and wrong to objective values innate in man as we are supposed to be all created by the same God in His image. Did God create common ie objective moral values by creating common feelings of love hate sympathy empathy or is it that man is basically a similar creature all around the world on basic life things like love hate and empathy and taking advantage much like even animals in the wild…ever see that clip of wilder beasts locking horns to collectively push and bully a lioness to leave a little one of their heard whom she was trying to catch and eat. It really depends on your beliefs…it could be God just made it all that way…or it could be we evolved to be able to reason right and wrong from our feeling and logic.
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