frogandbanjo t1_jbkro5x wrote
Reply to comment by GingerJacob36 in There is nothing to say about truth, admits Simon Blackburn. Here he presents the deflationist approach to truth – one that aims to put an end to the search for a theory of truth, which Blackburn now recognises is futile by IAI_Admin
Morality doesn't follow from first-order premises (truth claims about the universe,) and so it's in even worse shape than "reality" is when challenged by Descartes. It relies upon either a middle or supplemental step to get to where it wants to go. That middle or supplemental step can be rejected by anyone trivially.
Push yourself to ask hard questions. What if ruthlessly enslaving 90% of the human race is the only way to ensure that humanity doesn't spoil its only life support system and doom itself to civilizational collapse and accelerated extinction? Personally, when I consider such hypotheticals, I become uncomfortable with even the vague notion that there is an objectively correct moral answer to them, regardless of whether I think I know what it is.
If you don't, by all means. Recognize that various moral systems posited throughout history would offer up both conflicting rationales and even conflicting answers outright, and then claim with confidence that surely there is an objectively correct answer, even if perhaps you don't know it.
GingerJacob36 t1_jbt5h6m wrote
That question doesn't negate the existence of an objective morality. If the scenario you presented was one possible way of life, we could all agree that it would not be the best one. It is objectively not as good for as many people as many other ways to live. Enslaving 60% of the population would be much better, and enslaving 0% would be much better than that. These are all objectively better than each other, and that thought process can continue into pretty much anything else that we encounter.
It's not that it wouldn't be a hard question to answer, but it's not an impossible one to answer and there are metrics along which that decision could be made.
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