Often, when subjectivists and nihilists claim that human beings construct their own conceptions of morality, they ignore the manner in which those constructions arise in the first place. How do people develop their moral beliefs? I argue that we acquire our initial beliefs through a process of social learning that all babies in all times and social contexts participate in. This kind of learning implies an inherent belief in the primacy of the objective, of the external world, and is inconsistent with the subjectivist view.
Tag: Morality
A Critique of David Bentley Hart
I ran across an odd argument from David Bentley Hart being articulated by Damon Linker, a fellow whose views I have been critical of before. The charge is that atheists and secularists have misunderstood what god is and have consequently attacked a straw man representation of religious views. The argument is dredges up a slew of old fallacies, and is an excellent case study in what not to do.
A Critique of Isaiah Berlin
Today I’d like to mount a critique of Isaiah Berlin. In particular, I’d like to go after his objectivist argument for value pluralism, the notion that there are multiple moral systems that, despite their conflicts, cannot be described as more true or better than one another because their differences are so foundational as to be incomparable on any given metric. I will argue, contra Berlin, that he is simply empirically wrong–in the real world, moral theories separated by time and culture have much more in common with one another than Berlin perceived.
The Peculiar Similarity of Subjectivists and Solipsists
A thought occurred to me this morning that I think well worth sharing about subjectivism and solipsism, and how these two ideas are much more similar to one another than perhaps they appear. I want to share it.
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Defining Happiness
Utilitarians believe that we should maximize happiness and minimize unhappiness. Sometimes “happiness” is replaced with some other word or phrase, like “pleasure”, “utility”, “living standards”, and so on, but the claim is generally the same. Critics of utilitarianism often accuse utilitarians of being imprecise in their conception of happiness. If happiness is what matters, what makes people happy in the first place? Some utilitarians seem to smuggle in very peculiar conceptions of happiness without justifying or substantiating them. As someone with utilitarian leanings, I think the critics are owed a more comprehensive response than they’ve received, so that’s what I set out to do today.
Benjamin Studebaker 