Originally posted by backdoorman
Feels like we're going in circles. I think you are speaking in extremely vague terms, what do you mean by "determinable" and "measurable"? How can you measure or determine the consequences of someone killing another person for no reason and come to the conclusion that they are wrong?
it might be better to conceptualize it as if I am proposing that a measure of harm could be indicative of moral impropriety.
I get what you are saying, and I've been trying to say all along that I realize that, outside of human subjectivity, there is no way to make anything universal. I'm moderately well versed with both Nihilism and Post-Modernism, and gladly accept the ultimate limitations of human capacity for knowledge.
You make a good point, harm is very difficult to come up with a objective and repeatable measure for, as it by nature is subjective and defined by the person who an action is committed against. This is why I selected killing someone who was unwilling to die. Potentially the "definition" then has something to do with volition on the part of the person who an action is being done to. Not wishing a certain effect in your subjective experience, then having someone knowingly put you in that subjective state, potentially could be a starting point.
I agree, I don't have an elaborate or philosophically complex set of guidelines that I can give you that we could argue back and forth about. However, I refuse to accept that we, as human beings, cannot come together and claim some actions as being universally evil by the nature of the effects they have on people. I see it as a clear indication of a far too academic philosophy when the actions of Hitler or human slavery cannot instantly be called evil. To equivocate on those points is not a sign of intellectualism or of being well read, but of completely disregarding the fact that people suffer in the world from the ill intentions of others.
If you want to try and understand where I am coming from, it is the absolute rejection of relativism and "spiritualism" with regard to morality. I am interested in simultaneously removing morality from its position as an abstract code of behaviour and also finding basic elements of inter-personal interaction that can be weighed by their consequences to people.
let me try something:
1) morality is how people should interact with each other.
2) all people only ever can experience their own reality.
3) because of this, effects on a person's subjective reality are the only things in the universe which can be used to determine moral behaviour.
4) positive and negative experiences, while being relative and subjective, certainly exist. It is possible for ones actions to positively or negatively effect another's subjective reality.
5) by making some measure of benefit/harm, we can determine how much of an effect someone's actions have on another. I admit this will never be easy, hence why I chose such a simple scenario. One doesn't have to quantify the harm being done in the murder of an innocent to appreciate that harm is being done.
6) actions for which there is no moral justification (as in, benefits to the subjective experiences of those effected by the action(s)) are immoral.
again, I agree with you if all you want to do is point out the difficulty of defining words, and I understand if all you are doing is saying that harming others does not make you bad in the eyes of the universe.