- #1
Dissident Dan
- 238
- 2
People often say that there is no true universal morality...afterall, it's not written anywhere. You can't confirm it like physics. But trying to compare it to physics is the flaw. Physics is a descriptive set of laws. Morality is a prescriptive one.
There is nothing about morality, or any other prescriptive rules, that says that you should be able to observe morality (or other prescriptive rules) anywhere. The closest you can get to that is to have a set of basic moral rules and evaluate how more peripheral ones mesh with those.
Another hypothetical prescriptive rules set would be about how to maximize your profits in a particular enterprise. It is possible that in business there is one way or a few ways that reap maximum profits--more than any other method. If you accept this as true, then you must accept that there can be true, correct prescriptive rules.
The difference between this example and morality as that this example already has its value (money) defined, but morality is all about defining values, which makes it more complicated. It is much easier to figure out how to maximize a value than to figure out what we should value(because you don't have to understand the subjective qualities of emotion, for one thing), which is one reason why ethics are so hotly contested, and "How to run a bee farm in northern Oklahoma." is not (as well as the fact that most people don't care about bee farms ).
There is nothing about morality, or any other prescriptive rules, that says that you should be able to observe morality (or other prescriptive rules) anywhere. The closest you can get to that is to have a set of basic moral rules and evaluate how more peripheral ones mesh with those.
Another hypothetical prescriptive rules set would be about how to maximize your profits in a particular enterprise. It is possible that in business there is one way or a few ways that reap maximum profits--more than any other method. If you accept this as true, then you must accept that there can be true, correct prescriptive rules.
The difference between this example and morality as that this example already has its value (money) defined, but morality is all about defining values, which makes it more complicated. It is much easier to figure out how to maximize a value than to figure out what we should value(because you don't have to understand the subjective qualities of emotion, for one thing), which is one reason why ethics are so hotly contested, and "How to run a bee farm in northern Oklahoma." is not (as well as the fact that most people don't care about bee farms ).