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RE: On Universal Ethics

in #liberty6 years ago (edited)

I understand where you are coming from in creating consistent ethical principles as I too strive for consistency.

Where I think we diverge possibly is that I cannot call this consistency "morality" as I think "morality" also speaks to ultimate truth.

So while we could agree that someone who murders but who doesn't want themselves to be murdered would be a hypocrite and engaging in a seeming performative contradiction about consent, this does not settle the question of ultimate truth, i.e.

  • What the nature of existence is.
  • What came before time.
  • What exists outside of our view of reality.

Etc.

I understand those above topics are essentially null hypotheses which cannot readily be proven nor disproven from a human vantage.

Which is why I stick to ethics (and morality essentially) as a positive ethical adoption: something that is ascribed by the human experience, for the human experience, as best as possible.

This avoids creating "oughts" from "is" and, instead, realizes the nature of human empathy: the ability to show a desire for wholeness and peace for most people if being honest without contradiction i.e. not an ethical lunatic engaging in special pleading.

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"As best as possible" does not mean that we cannot arrive at universal ethics or morality. Morality is not some ultimate truth, unless you consider a standard of right and wrong to be ultimate truth.

Moreover, there is no ought here. My analysis is purely descriptive. The only prescriptive statement I've employed is "don't do to others what you don't want done to you." This is, however, deceptive, in that it does not impose any obligation on anyone. Rather, it's an admonition of what can happen if one does act in a certain way; put another way, it illustrates estoppel and how it applies to human action.

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