That’s a quote from you, general_re. Of course, you are citing the same logic that kept (keeps) Karl Marx in business. He gave us a model of a relentlessly internally-consistent system based on certain fundamental axioms; and the whole thing worked out just fine, on paper so to speak -- just so long as you didn’t ask any “embarrassing” questions (like: what possible bearing can Marxian social-reconstructivist theory have on the way human beings actually live?).
What the system does not anticipate does not exist. All questioning of that sacrosanct premise is absolutely forbidden.
You go on to say:
If you accept the axiom that God exists and He has made certain pronouncements about morality, then a theistic system of morality and ethics follows perfectly logically from that. If you don’t accept those axioms, that system of morality will not be logical to you. In that regard, objectivism is neither more nor less rational than any other system of morality.
All of which begs the question: How many “systems of morality” can possibly exist without nullifying the entire idea of “morality” in the first place?
Which gets us straight to the issue: You clearly make the basis of morality a matter subject to human “preference.” You clearly say as much when you say we humans are completely free to choose the “axioms” that seem best to us. But doesn’t that gut the entire idea of moral order – by making it something that is established by means of personal, private judgment?
Which again begs a question: By what criteria can such judgments legitimately be made?
This is the problem that an alienated man, Karl Marx, once faced. And he faced it, by taking up more or less permanent residence in the stacks of the great library of the British Museum. He thought that the human mind, aided by all the relevant books in that establishment, could finally figure out the destiny of man, and so put man on a sound course to a utopian future.
The point is, Marx’s entire project is in abject denial of actual Reality – the way human beings actually live, and must live if they are truly human.
unspun very gingerly touched on this point with his term “relationality.” I gather that, like me, he finds objectivism’s overemphasis on radical individualism to just be a tad “over the top.” This theory turns a blind eye to the connectedness of the human person with other persons -- his relations in society and the world, and his relations (if any) with God.
There is a narrowing and flattening of the problem simply by virtue of making the human individual perfectly ultimate – such that questions of moral truth can only be decided according to individual taste and discretion. And just to say that only those things that can be proved can be true is to deform Reality itself.
But it seems clear to me that “certainty” and Truth are, if anything, mutually exclusive propositions.
Getting back to Karl Marx: Here’s a guy that thought he could reconstitute the world in his own image. At bottom, that’s what his entire project is all about – a “will to power” to explain Reality according to his own judgments and preferences.
But the world of Reality remains precisely what it is, regardless of Karl Marx. Though it’s true the world of human social relations has been profoundly roiled by Marxian doctrine, the world of natural reality just keeps on ticking….
Hopefully people can recover their senses and stop repeating Marx’s enormity of a theoretical mistake, which I would simply designate as: the flight from Reality.
How many “systems of morality” can possibly exist without nullifying the entire idea of “morality” in the first place?
As many as you like. Now, if the question you really wanted to ask was "how many objectively true systems of morality can exist?", then the answer is, at most, one - although "zero" is still a distinct possibility, of course, if there is no objective morality beyond what we construct.
Which gets us straight to the issue: You clearly make the basis of morality a matter subject to human “preference.” You clearly say as much when you say we humans are completely free to choose the “axioms” that seem best to us. But doesn’t that gut the entire idea of moral order – by making it something that is established by means of personal, private judgment?
Everybody lays claim to objective truth except poor old me and J.S. Mill. Let's just say that I can't help but notice what little consensus there is about what exactly the "objective truth" is, and therefore I look for pragmatic ways to...well, to duck the question, really ;)
Which again begs a question: By what criteria can such judgments legitimately be made?
If we accept the premise that we can and should begin building a moral edifice from the ground up, then the criteria are probably going to have to be ends-based. IOW, we decide what the preferred outcomes are, and judge the system according to how well it advances those ends. The advantage of this, of course, is that it will be immediately obvious if our system is "objectively" correct in advancing our goals. As to whether it's "objectively" correct in some larger sense...who cares?
I wouldn't want lifting this paragraph and repeating it to take away from its associated insights, but it 'certainly' bears repeating.
Of course bb is referring to moral relativism here, not "objectivism" but I think it's clear that she is really speaking of the egocentric point of view which haphazardly wrought the works of both Marx and Rand, each by his own means. It's as if Rand were a seamstress who decided to make a very different outfit, of the material she was used to, the very cloth she grew up in.
Without running on, I'll just emphasize, people listen to what your hearts are saying to you, whether it is a good message or an evil one. Then look for what best tells you about it all.
I have very much enjoyed watching general_re on this thread use the adverse party’s statements to arrive at the conclusion that Objectivism isn’t - objective, that is.
Likewise, I’ve observed exmarine on several threads over several months, use the adverse party’s statements to show that morality is either absolute, from God --- or relative, in which case mine as a Christian is just as good as yours as a “whatever.”
I’d like to take the two points and shuffle them together like a deck of cards to illustrate that any governance based on moral relativity is no better or worse than the "law of the jungle."
That is why I aver that whether it is Marxism or Objectivism or some other "ism" – any time the scope of a governing philosophy has been narrowed to metaphysical naturalism – the result will be a disaster of tyranny or self-gratification, or both (depending on who is the "alpha male" in the structure.) Very "law of the jungle" in my view.
I agree with you absolutely that Marx’s theoretical mistake was a ”flight from Reality.”
What is the entire idea of "morality" in the first place?
Hank