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Originally Posted by xepherys
Words are just words. If you find murder reprehensible, and I kill someone but call it "molamolamola", does it make it less ofensive to you? What we call gravity has no bearing on what it provides. What we call murder changes nothing about what is involved.
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I agree with this. However, what I'm saying is that whether we call it "gravity" or "molamolamola", that terminology has to have some fixed properties in order for it to be useful as a term. As such, I contend it will always fall short of actually describing reality. I believe that we "created" the static, unchanging concept of gravity/murder/molamolamola, but not the phenomena that it is intended to describe.
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I still find your argument moot... or I just don't understand your point. Assume no enumeration, no value, no language, no formulas. There is something that keeps our feet planted on the ground. Done deal. Everyone experiences. I've not ever heard of a human being that just floats off into space. Maybe it's happened, but the likelihood is relatively low. People are killed by other people in a variety of ways. Remember no language... do not distinguish between war, suicide, murder, abortion, genocide, lethal injection. When a person is killed by a person (possibly including ones own self) is that ALWAYS reprehensible? Is there never a reason for death caused upon one human being by another where you are not offended? Even if the answer for you is "no... it's morally wrong and always offensive" there is someone who will surely say "yes, there are exceptions". Both could be telling the truth.
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True. I think this gets back to the age old question of "what is the good." I would say that we derive such terms based on their usefulness in ordering our societies, at least as a primary source, for the area of morals/ethics.
Back to gravity. Let's say that we're talking about cannon balls being shot at angles, and I'm a Newtonian physics person. You're more into modern physics. I believe it is possible to simultaneously describe the same phenomena with different sets of equations, and both have the same answer...such that both systems are "correct." Or if not equations, then verbal definitions similar to what I would presume to be descriptions of murder or molamolamola.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think that a lot of the differences of opinion over basic morality is because we are using inherently subjective terminology, usually, to try to describe phenomena that is beyond subjective/objective metaphysical splits, inherently. As I understand it, subjective descriptions are automatically defined as being relative to something - and I think we don't refer back to our standards when we use terms like "right" or "wrong."
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If someone tells you they once floated to the moon without the aid of rockets, machinery or other manmade devices, I'd have to say they are lying. Gravity then, as we perceive it, is black and white. Morality is grey upon grey.
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I agree with the notion that gravity is, or what I think you and I both mean by gravity, would appear to be mostly black and white, within the limits of our normal experience. I think that's because we inherently have some really well defined standards we are judging by. Standards we have forgotten about, because they are so common. When it comes to morality, I don't think we all use the same standards.
Maybe we're not defining our terms well for each other. When I talk about morals and eithics, I am essentially describing the codification and apparent priniciples of behavior that I perceive to most fundamentally occur at the interface between human individuals and societies, while accepting that this behavior is affected by other entities. It seems to me that certain types of moral/ethics would seem to produce more stability, and others less stability. It seems easier to realize this stability in small groups, rather than large. I think we have some phenomena on which to base these observations, but nearly enough - particularly in comparision to our ability to observe the behavior of millions / billions of particles in scientific experiments that would involve theories like gravity, for example.