Katisara:
I brought up abortion for a specific purpose--to show that your 'objective' morals do not exist.
Simply demonstrating that a difference of opinion exists does not disprove the existence of an objective truth among them. We know that two opinions are possible, in the basic dichotomy of "true" and "not true." This is true, whether we're talking about morals or not; a belief is either "right" or "not right" (if I can say as much without having to dive down the rabbit hole of "how do we know if something is morally right or not?"). It makes no difference how we define "right" and "wrong" (not right); i.e., with what context (belief system) we ascribe to each term. Just an objective truth must exist between right/wrong within a given belief system, so much given belief systems be subject to objectivity; a moral framework must be objectively moral or not, and the mere prevalence of multiple frameworks doesn't disprove this. To reiterate my point, demonstrating a difference of opinion doesn't mean that both opinions are equally valid, for if the difference is a true dichotomy then it must be so that only
one of them is objectively true (to avoid a paradox).
katisara:
If I honestly, without political or religious bias, (if such a thing could exist) believe XXX belief (you can insert whatever you like), then I am morally OBLIGATED by your own reasoning to not offer, or even directly impede, that activity.
And here's the thing; you do not get to decide which beliefs are 'relevant', 'objective', 'political', or 'religious'.
One certainly is obligated to act upon what they view as moral. However, that doesn't make their actions "right." Although I, nor anyone else, get to individually define what beliefs are moral or not (although, I might ask, if not we, then whom?), that doesn't change the fact that actions must be objectively right or wrong. A person can act upon a given moral framework, obligating them to act in a given way, but there's a difference between acting consistently with one's beliefs and acting in accordance with objective truth.
Now, to reiterate, I'm not going to claim to know objective truth, or to claim that I or anyone else can access it. However, I find it impossible to deny that it must exist be necessity. As a human beings, admittedly fallible and subjective, should we not hold other human beings to this standard? Or would you prefer that we hold people to the standards (moral frameworks) they set for themselves? Such a relativistic view has no place in society.
katisara:
This applies just as much here in the marriage case. I believe homosexual marriage seriously hurts the people getting married. I can google plenty of studies which support my hypothesis. Therefore, I should do the extra due diligence to ensure my services are not used in a way that may cause societal harm. You may disagree, but then we're just two adults disagreeing on matters of philosophy, and we know how often those are settled with a single, definitive answer.
This is my point, however. One is welcome to believe that homosexual marriage seriously hurts the people getting married, and others may disagree, but that does not mean that both answers are valid. Regardless of our opinions, an objective truth must exist. If you claim that homosexual marriage is harmful, and I claim that it is not, we cannot both be right about our assertions, and whether or not one of us is correct is
not a matter of opinion. The tendency for human beings to disagree and have differences of opinion is merely exemplary of our subjectivity.
katisara:
Given the history of the argument, I actually have to turn it around; do you believe that the anti-homosexual marriage/anti-abortion/pro-drug abuse/whatever you disagree with crowd know there's no factual basis for their argument? Do you think they hold that position for purely religious or political reasons? And that, if only they would dismiss those religious/political reasons, they'd all agree with you?
I certainly believe that people try to act in accordance with what they perceive to be truth or morally right. However, the fact that human beings can be convinced within the same universe to have a difference of opinions does not demonstrate that the morals themselves are relative issues rather than objective ones.
I'm unsure of what it means for a person to hold a position for "purely" religion/political reasons, but I think you mean to refer to personal biases. If so, I think you'd be hard pressed to find somebody that advocates for a position that they actually disagree with. I think that people make decisions based upon what they perceive to be a rational argument, though the rationality of their argument isn't demonstrated by virtue of its existence. You seem to be arguing that because one can perceive of a difference of opinion, there must be an rational argument in favor of the opinion, just as one can make an equally rational argument against the opinion, but that simply delegates one's preference to nothing
but a matter of personal choice, preference, or bias. I am arguing the opposite; that, despite whether or not one can make a "rational argument" for/against a belief, the two positions are not equal, and there must necessarily exist an objective truth between them.
katisara:
The issue here is you immediately fall back when it comes drug abuse. "We should defer to the patient in all things--except drug abuse, OBVIOUSLY".
You are making a moral judgment about when it is okay to make moral judgments. That doesn't work. You can't defer to the patient in everything, except when it's convenient to you.
Drug abuse is a convenient example because it is practical. Drug abuse is either harmful or not harmful-- it cannot be both. We can discuss specific situations too (since, of course, actions do not happen in vacuums), but we could simply construct dichotomies for those as well (for example, rather than discuss if it objectively right or not right to kill, it is more practical to discuss situations in which we might examine the morality of killing in that circumstance, and then construct a dichotomy around that in the form of "it is either right or not right to kill in situation X").
It may seem like I'm making an exception within my own morality to defer to the beliefs of a patient in issues that do not put them (or others) at a medical risk, but I'm really not.
If I'm anti-contraceptives, for example, and my patient requests a contraceptive, I now have a conundrum: to I defer to the patient's morality, and provide them with the product, or do I disregard their morality as invalid, and refuse to provide them with the product? How should I go about making that decision? One must consider the welfare of the patient. While I would recognize that my beliefs dictate that the use of contraceptives is immoral, what
medical basis to I have denying them the product? Because the difference is merely one of morality, and not medical science, the professional should defer to the patient's morality and provide them with the product.
Now consider a different situation, in similar format. If I'm anti-flu vaccine, and my patient requests an influenza vaccination, I have the same moral conundrum as before, but with a twist; I now have a medical objection to providing the vaccine (which may or may not be valid). The difference is not one of medical science (or, more specifically, my perception of it), and the professional, by their own morality framework, should disregard the patient's morality and refuse to provide them with the product.
I used that example because it points out a key point: our beliefs are indeed based upon perception, or our subjective beliefs. However, that does not mean that an objective truth doesn't exist. I used this example because we all know that medical science, as close to being objective as it can, favors providing an influenza vaccine, and so my, the professional in the example, decision was (now I use the term loosely)
objectively wrong, despite the subjective (and morally consistent) choice I made in the example. This is how professionals (indeed, everyone) ought to act. However, what do we do about me, the anti-flu vaccine professional in the example? To what standard should you hold me; to my own moral framework, or that of what we determine to be closer to an objective one? While it's obvious that it can be very difficult to discern between what is closest to objective truth in some situations, we have a responsibility to try. We cannot simply hold people accountable to their own sense of morality; we must hold them to something higher, an objective morality, even if we admit that we cannot even know when we've gotten there, let alone reach it in the first place.
katisara:
This [the pornography analogy] is another great example, and I think it works precisely against your argument.
Specifically, what may be pornography for you may be art for me. This isn't that it isn't art and one of us is wrong. It's that it simultaneously is, and is not art, based on context. Art is *defined* by the subjective experience. You can't say 'well, objectively speaking, this is art', because art is defined by the experience of the artist and of the viewer.
i.e., there is no line that separates what is pornography from what is not (or, there is, but you have a line, I have a different line, and Heath has a third line, which again is the definition of subjectivity).
PeaceLoveScience can't simply look at piece of work and say 'this is art!' 'this one is pornpgrahy!' and we all nod our heads and agree, this is objectively true. The objective truth, even if it does exist (which it doesn't in the art case), can't be pinned down, and when PeaceLoveScience says "toothbrush in vagina is pornography", and I say "it is art!", we are both equally justified in our claims. There is no way to settle it; not through vote or qualitative testing, nor killing me and burying me in a shallow grave. If you are seeking truth, you MUST accept that my view is equally valid, and warrants as much support, as your own (at least in this case).
Art itself is a quality that is
defined by subjective perception, not merely
limited by it (as with every previous example). Whether or not something is dangerous to the health of a human being is defined by whether or not it endangers the life of a human being; in contrast, whether or not something is considered to be art is defined by whether or not someone considers it to be art. These are different matters entirely. It would make more sense to ask
of someone's opinion; i.e., one either views something as art or does not, and only one of these opinions may be objective truth. If you prefer to understand it that way, art is a concept that is, in itself, a matter of aesthetics, and of opinion-- not fact.
However, I can
also ask of "art itself," as I did with my pornography example, but we have to keep in mind how art is defined. I can still declare that something either is or isn't art, and that only one objective truth exists amongst them. Given that art is a quality defined by subjective perception, it would make sense that one can ascertain whether or not something objectively is or is not art by possessing all subjective perceptions; i.e., by polling every organism capable of making a determination within the universe, and tallying the vote. As I noted before, objective truth doesn't have to be obtainable-- it merely exists, and necessarily so.
You can declare that "toothbrush in vagina" is art, and I can (happily) dispute that claim, but only one of our opinions are objectively true. When we say "is art," we either mean "it is my opinion that this is art" (as in my first example) or "this is an example of art itself" (as in my second example).
