"Scott" <scott@nospam.net> wrote in message

"eyelessgame" <aamp@oro.net> wrote in message
news:e707421e.0406050730.f3cb3f7@posting.google.com...

"Scott" <scott@nospam.net> wrote in message

news:<6V5wc.2737$Cf.868@newssvr24.news.prodigy.com>...

"eyelessgame" <aamp@oro.net> wrote in message

snipping

Just as there is morality, there is moral progress. That it's
subjective (or, if you prefer, Subjective) doesn't make it
make-believe -- it just makes us realize that it is /defined by
humans/, which makes it as real as love, money, and country.
Recognizing that the stars don't care is not an excuse for not

yourself, because you don't live up in the stars, you live here.

http://philosophy.lander.edu/ethics/moralprogress_quiz.html

Click on "Answer" button.
subjectivism is only relativism applied to the individual.

Scott

The URL is question-begging nonsense.

"Show how ethical relativism is incompatible with the empirical
observation that individuals, societies, or nations progress."

This is a have-you-stopped-beating-your-wife sneak. Societies morally
'progress' *in the opinion of the people within those societies*. You
and I (and the author of that link) are members of our society, and we
think our society is better than the America of 1840. Of course we do
-- we *live* in this society, not 1840, and we are products of the
people who found the behavior and attitudes of society in 1840
distateful, and worked successfully to change them.

snipping

I actually sent another follow-up with more links. but it got lost. It's

google, though

I did read others. I didn't see anything that wasn't an etymological
confusion.

Look, if you *define* "moral progress" in terms of progress against a
moral absolute, then it's trivial to conclude that moral progress
doesn't exist if there aren't moral absolutes. That's so banal as to
be unworthy of comment.

There is subjective moral progress just as there are subjective
morals. I've tried a couple times to say this and you've just
repeated your earlier claim, ignoring what I wrote. If you take the
time to respond to /the things I said/ instead of continuing to attack
someone else's strawman, I'm willing to discuss it. But when you just
keep saying "there is no moral progress because these URLs define it
away", it's not worth discussing it with you.

You can do the search yourself. Try googling for moral progress

subjectivism. Moral progress is use as an argument against a subjective
morality.

And it's an absurd, and circular, argument.

But, no. There is no *rational* argument for moral progress. Because
morality and emotion are bound together, it's analogous to saying there

evidence human are making emotional progress.

That's absurd. Actions have real consequences. We choose from among
those consequences. As we learn more about the consequences, we choose
more wisely.

out there. Is this "objective"? No, because there's no greater
authority telling us that one behavior is right and the other wrong.
So what is it? It's greater understanding informing your choices.

We can say that Einstein's theory is relatively better, and progressive,

that Newton's but is dealing with an objectivity separate from human
behavior.

How do you measure progress in human behavior? What external (non
subjective) standards are there to be measure against? Or as Makie put

his 'Argument from Queerness':
'If there were objective values, then they would be entities or

relations of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else

the universe.

This is an attempt to squeeze the question into a fallacy of
bifurcation.

by understanding of consequences and an improved ability, over time,
to choose from among them. Moral progress is *also* what we decide it
is, and again, if the choices and outcomes better reflect what *WE*
think is important, we have made moral progress.

Unless you /define/ moral progress to be something that requires an
objective morality, in which case you will find that it requires an
objective morality for moral progress to exist, and continue spinning
away in your tiny little circles.

Correspondingly, if we were aware of them, it would have to
be by some special faculty of moral perception or intuition, utterly
different from our ordinary ways of knowing about everything else.'

Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, p. 38.)

And if we define all colors to be either green or red, we can prove
that blue isn't a color.

Sorry, if morality is subjective/relative (anti-realism)

I'm sure "anti-realism" has some particular meaning in philosophical
jargon, but it sounds to me an awful lot like "make-believe".

people who think that human societies are make-believe are politely
invited to ***** themselves, because the rest of us have actual
societies and we live in them.

there is no such thing as moral progress.

Yes, it would in fact be the case that if morality were imaginary, so
would be moral progress. But subjective does not mean imaginary.

There is only emotional preferences shared
intersubjectively. One morality has no intrinsic quality over another.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/r/relativi.htm

One morality has intrinsic quality over another *TO ME*. To you, too.

Really, I've yet to see any evidence someone who smugly proves this
kind of etymological nonsense can find his ***** with both hands and a
map.

Spooked <spooked@127.1> wrote in message news:<41t3c0didih43695cc0jrbu6qlgov553l4@4ax.com>...

I believe intoxicants
are foolish. Many societies have considered them morally wrong, or
certain ones morally right.

Are you referring strictly to alcohol/illegal substance or do you
include substances of medical remedy such as Aspirin, ACE Inhibitors,
Nitrates, etcetera?

That's a bit off the beaten track of the point I was making,

but as I
was using the word "intoxicants" I was referring to those chemicals or
herbs imbibed specifically or primarily for their mood-altering or
perception-altering qualities.

eyelessgame