My point is: All systems of belief require faith of some sort - even Science! The hard-core positivists conclude that nothing is really knowable on a certain level, since all constructive 'truths' (ie mathematics) are tautologies, while any empirical truth is subject to error.
Even empiricists have a 'leap of faith', that leap is trust in the sensory perceptions and the reality of experience, none of which can be "proven".
It is why I say skepticism is a process, not a conclusion. It's not that I am mystic in saying this, but there is an element of arrogance in assuming one's own belief system is free from the same grouding: "An ideology or system of beliefs that included no elements of credulity would not be a religion." on the contrary, all systems of belief have *some* element of credulity.
Just one comment. Emotion and feelings are generally terms for the same class of human experience, though feeling is broader and includes some things that could not rightly be called emotions (like the physical sensations). It is a bad mistake to mix feeling and morals. Moral or ethical values are rational, based on the nature reality, and determine what is correct or incorrect behavior for moral (rational/volitions) beings who must live by conscious choice.
This is a wide subject, but it is not only common, it is practically necessary to combine emotions and morals. Emotions are about motivations and both have in them the term that indicates its connection to action - *purpose*. Morals is about what purposes, intentions, motivations and results actions are correct. The emotions are what is the reference point for morals - "Love your neighbor". If you look at Spinoza for example, he talks of 'good' emotions and 'evil' or 'useless' emotions. When you say 'conscious choice' you dont realize that it is *emotions* that are the centerpiece of that consciousness - this is a psychological observation no philosopher has touched on explicitly, but it is implicit in almost all moral philosophy from Aristotle on down. Aristotle spoke of happiness as the ultimate end and tied virtue to the 'good' of human intention. Aristotle said that happiness was the activity of the soul in expressing virtue - In a sense, the utilitarians go the same way, for them it is maximizing that happiness/pleasure that is the culculus of good. But where does desire come from psychologically? Emotional desire. reason has no Will, no intention. Think of a computer, it seeks nothing but creates knowledge and understanding from what it is given
The psychological truth is like this: You have sensations, thoughts (reason) to analyze them, emotions to guide your sense of directions/desires away/towards some action, and actions based on all input sand inner cognition. Reason and emotion dance together to create intentions and actions.
Speaking of reason-based morals sounds good, but that is another way of saying a normative ethics is grounded on rational analysis. That's what the moral philosophers do one the whole. The problem the moderns have got themselves in is this: Just as they cant see any *certain* truths, they cant find any *certain* morals. This is unsurprising fo a group that cant call teh sun rising each day a certainty. (And funny thing is - I agree! - but I think there is a confusion between "knowledge" and "certainty", oyu can have knowledge without it being prob=1 certainty, and that knowledge of things in nature is very much real not an illusion!)
In my view, wisdom and virtue are pairs, the highest ends that relate to the human activities related to them - reason and emotion. A complete reasoning and emotionally healthy individual will exhibit both wisdom and virtue in their inner thoughts and outer behavior. And certainly both can fix eachother - it is base hedonism and ignorance to let emotions and desires act outside of reason as a 'moral guide'; such thinking also reject moral reasoning. reason can indeed correct what is flawed in emotional desires - a drunk may think another drink is what is needed for happiness, but reason might guide instead to drying out and fixing a brain's desire for alcohol with a higher and better set of desire more attuned to lasting happiness, aka virtue.
I agree with you, and with Aristotle, Kant, and objectivists, that such moral study/science is possible. I disagree with the moderns who find such study impossible or insensible. A last thought experiment when face with those who say there are no absolutes in morals. Ask them if completely wiping out all humanity and all life forms entirely off the face of the earth is an evil or bad thing. ask them to *prove* it.
What's to trust? If you have percepts you have percepts, if you don't you don't. You do (else you would not be reading these responses and responding to them).
What I mean by perception is my immediate conscious experience. It is all I am conscious of. If you mean something else by perception, that is fine. To prevent any confusion I will just use the word conscious or consciousness.
Since what we are conscious of is all that we can know or know about, what else could reality be? There cannot be anything that we cannot be conscious of in any way whatsoever. Are we conscious of the atoms? Not directly, but we are conscious of them in two ways, their direct manifestation in all of matter which is comprised of them and our understanding of their nature (which we discovered by studying the nature of the matter we are directly conscious of.) We may not be directly conscious of all that is, but there cannot be anything we cannot be conscious of in any way whatsoever.
Some have suggested there can be things we cannot be conscious of in any way at all. But this is meaningless. For there to be something we could not be conscious of at all, it would have to be something that had no effect, in any way on anything we are or could be conscious of. But such a thing would have no relationship whatsoever to anything we are conscious of. If something had no relationship whatsoever to what we can be conscious of, relative to what we are conscious of, it would have no qualities whatsoever. It cannot exist.
What we are conscious of is reality. If it is not, what does the word reality mean? I think those who suggest reality is something other than what we are conscious of are confusing the meaning of reality, with our understanding of the nature of reality or existence. We can certainly be mistaken about that, as every historical scientific mistake is evidence of. But even scientific mistakes are only mistakes because existence, the one (and only one) we are conscious of has a specific nature, and we only just now are beginning to get a good understanding of some aspects of that nature.
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There is some I agree with in the rest of your comments, but more I disagree with, but, since I have no intention of changing anyone's mind about anything, and the reasons I disagree would require lenghty explanations, I'll spare you (and me).
Just this, you said: Ask them if completely wiping out all humanity and all life forms entirely off the face of the earth is an evil or bad thing. Ask them to *prove* it.
I'll work backwards.
Prove, to whom? Most people have the idea of proof wrong. The purpose of proof is not to convince others, the purpose of proof is to ensure one has not made mistakes in their own reasoning. Do I have to prove I can see to anyone else before it is true?
Good and evil are relative terms. Nothing is just "good" or "evil." A thing (or action) is good (or bad) only if it is good or bad relative to some goal or end, that is, a purpose; more exactly, good and bad pertain only to beings capable of having goals and purposes. Since the ultimate purpose of an individual's life is his enjoyment of it, whatever interfere's with that purpose is bad, and whatever advances that purpose is good. Since, "wiping out all humanity and all life forms entirely off the face of the earth," would necessarily include the wiper, which would certainly preclude the wiper from enjoying his life (even if he were insane enought to think it wouldn't), it would be bad. Oddly enough, there really are a great meany people with the psychology of your hypothetical "wiper." They are called environmentalists.
Hank