Whoa there. I definitely never said that politics is "fundamentally disconnected" from morality. You are putting words into my mouth. In fact, if you read back over the thread you will find that I said this: "Not that moral views don't inform political views (obviously they do)". Of course morality is connected to politics. People form political ideas on the basis of their moral ideas, that's pretty much beyond debate. What I was saying is that I don't think that an objective view of morality is necessarily associated with one sort of political orientation while a subjective view of morality is associated with another; I'm saying that one's opinions on the objectivity/subjectivity of morality aren't necessarily connected to political orientation. That's very different from saying that morality and politics are "fundamentally disconnected".Originally Posted by MrShrike
Yes, I believe that all moral beliefs are arbitrary insofar as there is no universal or absolute moral truth that they can be checked against. And yes, this includes my own moral beliefs, and the political beliefs that spring from them. My moral and political views are arbitrary, and no more or less objectively valid than anyone else's, in that there is no universal moral yardstick that we can hold those views up to and say "Syme's views match the universal moral yardstick more closely than MrShrike's views, therefore Syme's views are more correct". Yes, all my personal views on politics, morality, and everything else are based purely on my prejudices, experiences, education, upbringing, and so forth. And so are yours, and everyone else's. This is exactly what I meant when I talked about socialization earlier in the thread. In fact, again, if you read back in the thread, you will find that I have already admitted what you are trying to get me to say here.
"Worthless"? What is "worth" in this context? What makes a moral view (or political view) worthy or worthless? Why do you think that moral or political views are "worthless" if they don't reflect an objective moral truth? If moral views must reflect objective moral truth in order to have worth, then what are your moral views, and what objective moral truth do they reflect? How are they founded in reality? Please conclusively demonstrate the existence of this objective moral truth and this foundation in reality, if you believe in them.
I agree with Mr. E, arbitrary does not necessarily mean worthless. I agree that my moral system is arbitrary; everyone else's moral system is arbitrary too. Your moral system is arbitrary, no matter how reluctant you are to admit it. Gwahir's moral system is arbitrary, no matter how reluctant he is to admit it. That doesn't make any of our moral systems necessarily worthless, or necessarily worthy for that matter. I think that my moral system is exactly as worthwhile, or worthless, as anyone else's moral system--your system, Gwahir's system, anybody's. Morality systems are ideas, they are socially constructed, they don't have concrete worth. A morality system is as worthy or worthless as any other human idea, any other socially constructed concept. Worth itself is a socially constructed concept.
I assure you that my ideas about morality are consistent, if they are nothing else.
EDIT: I don't believe in objective moral truth for the same reason that I don't believe in God: There's absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe in such a thing, no matter how strongly we might wish there was. I'm an atheist because there's no proof of God's existence and I think that reasonable people don't believe in things without reason; and I'm a moral relativist because there's no proof of objective moral truth's existence and I think that reasonable people don't believe in things without reason. Don't get me wrong, I would absolutely LOVE for there to be some sort of objective moral truth that says, for instance, Rape Is Wrong. That would make things a lot easier. I really do wish that I could say that my view of rape (i.e., that it's wrong) is objectively correct, while the view of someone who doesn't believe that rape is wrong is objectively incorrect. But as far as I can tell, there is no such objective moral truth in the universe. And no matter how much I might want to, I can't bring myself to believe in something when I know that it's baseless and when I know that it's a fiction. It's self-delusion, it's not in my nature... again, that's why I'm an atheist too. It still baffles me that people who apply this reasoning to God, and are thus atheists (aren't you an atheist, gwahir?), will nevertheless steadfastly cling to belief in objective morality and refuse to apply the same reasoning to the idea of moral truth. None of this means I don't have moral ideas of my own; I do have my own ideas about morality, and I hold them dear. It just means that I don't try to pretend, to tell myself and others, that my moral ideas reflect or align with any objective, absolute, or universal moral truth--because there's no such thing.
And one more word on the topic of whether this recognition makes moral ideas "worthless"; as I already said, the very idea of "worth" is socially constructed and therefore subjective and arbitrary in it's own right. What's worthwhile or worthless to me may not be the same as what's worthwhile or worthless to you, and neither one of our ideas about worth/worthlessness are more valid than the others. But to me, my moral views are not worthless; they definitely have worth to me, because they are what I use to guide myself through life, to make decisions I can live with and respect myself for, and to evaluate the people around me and decide whether they're deserving of my respect or my friendship. That makes them worthwhile to me, no matter what you (or anyone else) thinks of the fact that I don't base them on some alleged objective moral truth.
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