Stripped

[Gimme_Shelter]

the government dictates morality to people all the time
even with taxes they are saying things like beer and cigarettes are bad because look at how things like that are taxed much more

[mosaik]

[Corey]

[Brooklin Matt]

[Brooklin Matt]

[Corey]

[mosaik]

matt, you are under the statist impression that:

a.) laws are always rational
b.) laws are always right

neither is true. if the government passed a law mandating that all women under the age of 7 be shot on sight by any law-abiding citizen, would you obey it?

the law against drugs is neither rational nor right. it makes no sense for the government to interefere in the business of others. what right does the goverment [ a group of men ] have to dictate to other individuals what they can and cannot put in their bodies?

the law does not grant the government any special moral powers. being elected does not grant a man more insight or intelligence. many of the people governing me are less intelligent then i am, and none of them know anything about me. who are they to tell me how to live?

prostitution is the womans business. there is no reason for a law to exsit barring consentual sex between two adults, even if money changes hands.

people are forced into prostitution today. the law against it prevents nothing and only serves to criminalize the people and the activity.

driving 200 km/h is irresponsible, but tell me, would you drive that speed if there was no law against it? people are not as stupid as you believe. man has a faculty of reason, and i trust his discretion far more then i trust a government's law.

you believe drugs are immoral, but you cannot prove it objectively. the theory only exists in your mind. if you willingly take drugs, you are not hurting anybody but yourself, and your body is your business. what you do while you're high is your responsibility as well. some people can take drugs and act responsible, others cannot. however society has no business interefering in the lives of others saying "well you COULD do damage while high" especially since a person "COULD" do damage simply by leaving his home in the morning.

i know you can't use your property for your own purposes, but you should be able to.

[Narbus]

[mosaik]

[Brooklin Matt]

I think what Narbus is saying that our morals are shaped by our perspective.
If we don't see the black car then we can't possibly know it exists.

You are right Yourjesus, that if there is not a car in the driveway, there is not a car. No arguement........and I don't think Narbus is arguing that he disagrees with you on that. The problem lies in what we value.....hence what we see. Objectivity works only to prove that something exists.........it has no weighting on how we value it. An example is a human life. The life exists, and we could all say yes it does. however, some people might see it as a piece of meat for dinner, some might see him as a sacrifice for their god, and you might see him as a human being who has no right to be harmed. But is anybody right??? They are all right.........because these people view these things as being true. That is objective. Morals make the issue subjective. We then place values on this life.........but obviously you see him as being human who shouldn't be sacrificed or eaten. Do you protect him from these people if they start to attack him?? Its a dog eat dog world...........despite the way we idealize it as being.

I would protect him to the best of my ability......until my life is in danger.........then I may retreat to save my own life if I feel that I cannot help him. I don't respect these people's morals, but they do exist, and objectively we have to accept that whether they seem reasonable or not.........

[Narbus]

Okay. Let's start here.
Reality is the actual physical universe that we exist in. The universe is the way it is regardless of how we perceive it to be. A truth is a truth, it doesn't require that you believe it is true to be so. Perception, however, is how we as individuals, translate that reality into information that we can use in order to relate to the external world. In other words, we all have our own personal version of reality that we carry around in our heads, and are totally unable to relate to any other persons version of reality, or them to ours. But it doesn't change reality.
However, we can, and often do, change our personal realities, which is what I've been saying all along. In my personal reality, the earth is a little bit cleaner. In Jacks, there's a job to be done. In the "baseline" reality, both of these and a thousand more facts are true.

Morals are not something that can be proven as objective fact in the same way that color can be. Saying "That blue light has a wavelength of 420 nm." is objective fact. Saying "The blue light is really tacky," is subjective opinion.
In the same way, saying "This person is dead," is objective. Saying "His death is a bad thing" is subjective.

Morals are simply application of personal values, which are inherently subjective.

I await your reply.

/edit: Matt rocks: "Objectivity works only to prove that something exists. It has no influence on how we value it."

(grammar changed to protect the innocent. )

[NikitaTheIrishesqueSpy]

[NikitaTheIrishesqueSpy]

[Axtech]

[starvingeyes]

[starvingeyes]

[NikitaTheIrishesqueSpy]

[NikitaTheIrishesqueSpy]

[Narbus]

[Narbus]