Yes it is all opinion. You claim to like definitions... so what is your definition of 'right'? — A Seagull

Good question. (Sweating it!) I claim no original thought, here. Nature itself accords no rights. Rather it might be said that nature operates according to law. But what might be a difference between law and right? Law in nature simply is (what it is and cannot be otherwise). The notion of right, however, seems to include the consideration that the occasion of the right can either be or not be. I have a right not to be robbed - presumably. Nevertheless I might be robbed. On the other hand, if I start to fall down, I will continue to fall, with no expectation of either stopping falling (unless I land on something) or of falling upward.

Expectation, then, would seem an accident of right. If, that is, I have a right, then I have an expectation. Of what? From whom? Of one from a selection of possibilities (e.g., to be not robbed). And from any agent capable of differing actions with respect to my claim of right (e.g., anyone who might rob me).

A right, then, appears to be a claim against competent agents. Informally, a claim upon others. What might be the nature or basis for a claim of right? I suppose there might be many bases for claims of rights. Are there any that hold universally? Those in accord with reason and reciprocity.

Ok then. A right is a claim against other competent persons based in reason and reciprocity.

And this implies identity, excluded middle, and rule of non-contradiction.
1) If there is a right, then it is a right.
2) If it is a right it is not something else.
3) If it is a right then it is not a not-right.

This the logical form. As social constructs, rights tend to institutionalize that which is preferred for the good of the community to the point of being enforced, whether reactively or proactively. But generally, these follow the logical form.

So much for rights.

Question to you: Imagine I or person like me does something horrible to you or someone like you, and yours or those like yours. I say I'm right - or have a right - to do these things. You supposedly will say I don't. But at the same time you represent these as mere matters of opinion. It seems to me that if there is a notion of right, we both cannot be right, else a thing both be and not be. That is, if you're correct, there is no such thing as a right. Please reconcile.

On a decent forum, folk would have immediately pointed out that the OP commits the naturalistic fallacy.

It's indicative of a failure to undertake a well-formed analysis.

That someone is powerful does not imply that what they do is right.

Even if one supposes that there is no such thing as objectively good or evil, it does not follow that there is no such thing as good or evil, per se.


Edit: approaches this.

The fault of argument seems to lie not in the claim of any right in particular being absent, but instead that in each case, the rule of the majority dictates what is, or otherwise cannot be considered, a right. To which end if there be shown a difference of opinion, and belief, that precludes the establishment of any such consensus, and in turn renders the verdict all the more difficult, if not impossible, to determine, questions of the good, and the just, become meaningless. Of importance, also, is the seeming indeterminacy of right, of the bounds which constrain one's ability to act, so long as it be permitted, and hence of the idea of rights in general, to which the premise of your argument gives rise, and which you illustrated well. To an extent, I think, the power afforded to one has an influence on the outcome, and equally on whether one faces conviction for that of which one is accused; yet, we must reconcile this image with the universality of those rights which all are said to possess, and their application on a basis that is similar hereto in terms of broadness. Along the lines just described, the variance that can be observed, and had been cited as evidence for the whole of your claim, between past times, and those of present, as regarding the norms of behavior which many accept, and are endemic to any period, owes itself to the circumstances of each time, differing, and the ever-constant need to adapt to these changes; to ease tensions among the formerly oppressed, and pave the path toward a better future, for instance. That we have moved beyond the mistakes, provided their cause by our forebearers, and recognize how essential reform of the ideals to which we hold ourselves accountable, is, doesn't deny the objectivity of the moral. To present things as you have done, and offer no mention of this fact, thus amounts to a false-dichotomy.

Worship thread. Be like me posting about how God is real and wonderful on a religious forum.

What are you asking? An opposing argument or debate? Sure. No. Because, gawd. Lol.

Really ok. So. Imagine you when you were six years old. Or younger or older or even now it really doesn't matter.

Answer the following questions for me please.

Would you prefer me to...

Starve you or feed you?
Let you feel like you're dying of thirst or give you something to drink?
Allow you to be exposed to dangerous heat and cold or ensure you're comfortable?
Stab you in the neck or rub it?
Insult you for no reason or compliment you?
Deprive you of education or teach you?
Take something you care about from you or give you something wonderful?

...you can say whatever and act however you please now. But at a young age, you would either cry or frown or instead smile and be delighted.

You can call this intrinsic and ingrained sense raw biologic mechanics with no purpose beyond petty survival and primal pleasure. Or. You could call it morality.

Sure morality is subjective but your argument is circular, the ability to influence public opinion is power and you say public opinion is influenced by power. — Judaka

Maybe its not a circular argument, but instead an indication of a feedback loop.

Public opinion creates power which in turn creates public opinion which creates more power..... like a whirlpool, it sucks people in.

The open question remains:

Might public opinion be morally wrong?

Hence, what is good is not the same as what is public opinion.

Would you prefer me to...

Starve you or feed you? — Outlander

The open question remains:

Might it be wrong to give Gitonga what they needs=?

Hence, what is good is not the same as what Gitonga needs.

Society doesn't see anything wrong with not taking care of their mentally ill because the mentally ill are essentially powerless. — Wheatley

Do you conclude that it is not morally correct to look after the mentally ill?

I suspect not.

Hence, what society prefers is not the very same as what is good.

A good rule of thumb is that moderators ought not delete or edit posts on threads in which they are active contributors.

Hence, what society prefers is not the very same as what is good. — Banno

A pretty much useless statement.

On the contrary, it's not until you can see this distinction that you will begin to understand how statements in ethics differ from statements in, say, history or chemistry; the difference between saying what is the case and saying what is good.

It's a difference in direction of fit. The chemist seeks to change what he says so as to match how things are. In Ethics, we seek to change the world to match what we say.

I've got bigger problems than having to worry about ethics. Get back to me when philosophers manage to convince two percent of society to be ethical.

The philosopher's job is more to help you in showing folk such as @Gitonga where they have been misled. He's far from the only one who mistakes power for virtue. If you seeking fair treatment of mental illness, some discussion as to why is inevitable.

But if you were not interested in ethics, why bother to post?

And if your point is that it is action that countess... well, yes...

LORETTA: I agree. It's action that counts, not words, and we need action now.

COMMANDOS: Hear! Hear!

REG: You're right. We could sit around here all day talking, passing resolutions, making clever speeches. It's not going to shift one Roman soldier!

FRANCIS: So, let's just stop gabbing on about it. It's completely pointless and it's getting us nowhere!

COMMANDOS: Right!

LORETTA: I agree. This is a complete waste of time. [bam]

But if you were not interested in ethics, why bother to post? — Banno

I only posted to express my pessimism about morality. If I really wanted a serious debate about ethics I would have posted something more substantial. That's all I wanted to say. I apologize for your time; Carry on.

The open question remains:

Might public opinion be morally wrong?

Hence, what is good is not the same as what is public opinion. — Banno

An opinion cannot be 'morally wrong'.

'Good' cannot be equivalent to 'public opinion'.

On a decent forum, folk would have immediately pointed out that the OP commits the naturalistic fallacy. — Banno

It's actually worse. A naturalistic fallacy is at least an argument, if an invalid one.

The Op is simply a truism. Michael was correct when he said that all the OP said was that people believe what people believe, and the more power a belief has among the people, the more power it has.

There is a point the OP makes that should not be ignored.

We know what we know because we think what we think.

Slaves (which were as diverse as the day is long) were often from civilizations, nation states, or groups essentially that were "defeated" by neighboring groups. Often of the same geography. You have people who hate you and will never listen to you and will try to kill you. So what do you do? Two options. Space and resources were limited then as they are now. You make the sale or you make space. Think of an animal shelter. Needless to say those who purchased slaves, especially by those from a society that valued morality knew the fate they spared them from and logically felt no guilt. I mean, would you rather be slaughtered by people who destroyed everything you know or live with others who did and do nothing but take care of you in exchange for labor?

Group A and Group B separately trekked from parts unknown to uninhabited yet nearby forests. Each group, through their blood, sweat, and tears manage to make each area a tolerable and sometimes even pleasant home. Shortly after the two groups make contact and after some time one starts to gradually steal, kill, and destroy the other in a subtle, insidious way until they are handicapped militarily. If the victim topples the other group in spite of that, is that bad? What if they do so but you found out I was lying and the victims were really the oppressors who already had control of their educational system and knowledge of history basically.

It's a real pickle.

Your argument rests on the shifting landscape of morality - at one point in history racism was the norm and now, it's immoral. A similar change is occuring in other areas like homosexuality, gender discrimination, etc. In your view this is because of a concomitant shift in power from those who practised racism and homophobia, etc. to, at the present moment, anti-racism and the LGBT cause. Prima facie, it looks as though morality is about power - that might is right.

However, the crucial question is this: why is there a shift in power? [Why are the powerful supporting anti-racists, the LGBT community, and so on?]

Before you answer the question, a small tidbit: there's a difference between something being good/bad and knowing that that something is good/bad. The shifting moral landscape I referred to is not due to a lack of moral objectivitiy in the sense that, as you put it, nothing is good or bad but due to not knowing what is good and bad.

An opinion cannot be 'morally wrong'. — A Seagull

Why not? Is the opinion that slavery is OK not wrong?

'Good' cannot be equivalent to 'public opinion'. — A Seagull

Yep. Hence, the failure of the OP's conjecture.

We know what we know because we think what we think. — Outlander

But everyone knows that views on morality are historically contingent. That's not news. Now we could go into an analysis of just how that process works, and whether there is some permanent "core morality", and that would at least be an interesting discussion.

I mean, would you rather be slaughtered by people who destroyed everything you know or live with others who did and do nothing but take care of you in exchange for labor? — Outlander

I am not sure what you're talking about. Who are the "others" here?

If the victim topples the other group in spite of that, is that bad? What if they do so but you found out I was lying and the victims were really the oppressors who already had control of their educational system and knowledge of history basically. — Outlander

I get the feeling this is some weird allusion to modern day

Even if one supposes that there is no such thing as objectively good or evil, it does not follow that there is no such thing as good or evil, per se. — Banno

This hits the nail on the head. Something is done by using the terms 'good' and 'evil'. The task of moral philosophy is to clarify what that might be. The OP attempts to say that what is being done with those terms is to refer to what the most powerful decree. Three minutes spent in a pub conversation with a bunch of radical socialists will disabuse anyone of that notion. So time to move on...next suggestion.

We are born enslaved. To helplessness and ignorance. Which dissipates some, usually. Beyond that there is hunger, thirst, exposure, injury, disease, and insanity.

You take care of these for me I'll take care of you. Not much more to it.

I mentioned how it should. What hurts you and why? Empathy is the cure for the cancer that is indifference.

The "others" are anyone not part of the aforementioned group that was described.

That's nice. It's a direct reference to a fictional yet plausible example where the title of the OP is proven to have merit. The argument or parts of it may be flawed and meritless but it is not without ideas that aren't.

This hits the nail on the head. — Isaac

It pleases me that you could see the import: the irrelevance of the word objective.

This hits the nail on the head. Something is done by using the terms 'good' and 'evil'. The task of moral philosophy is to clarify what that might be. The OP attempts to say that what is being done with those terms is to refer to what the most powerful decree. Three minutes spent in a pub conversation with a bunch of radical socialists will disabuse anyone of that notion. So time to move on...next suggestion. — Isaac

I agree with the sentiment but I think that particular example of a "disproof" is lacking. Can I really dismiss divine command theory by noting that there are people who claim that God is evil?

Can I really dismiss divine command theory by noting that there are people who claim that God is evil? — Michael

No, but we might get significant grounds for dismiss divine command theory from the Euthyphro.

Your argument puts you in the position of affirming many, many thing as right that I suspect you would not think right. — tim wood

These are interesting attempts at a reductio ad absurdum. Let's say that one argues that to be right is to be approved of by the majority. You might attempt to counter this by asking if the proponent of such a theory is willing to accept that murder is right if it is approved of by the majority. But what exactly is it you're asking here? If, for the sake of argument, we're accepting the truth of the theory (and considering its implications), you're just asking if they're willing to accept that murder is approved of by the majority if it is approved of by the majority, which as a truism is always going to be accepted by any rational person.

But that's certainly not your intention. You don't mean to just ask if they are willing to accept that murder is approved of by the majority if it is approved of by the majority. You mean something else by asking if they are willing to accept that murder is right if it is approved of by the majority. In which case your very question presupposes a different account of morality and so isn't really a reductio ad absurdum at all.

I think what this shows is that we have some pre-conceived notion of what it means to be moral and are arguing over what makes something moral. As an example, perhaps our pre-conceived notion is that to be immoral is to be something that we ought not do, and we're arguing over whether or not the majority opinion establishes the things that we ought not do. tim's question above then becomes "are you willing to accept that we ought be allowed to murder if the majority approves of murder?" which prima-facie isn't a truism and can be rejected by a rational person.

Can I really dismiss divine command theory by noting that there are people who claim that God is evil? — Michael

Yes I think you could, but @Banno beat me to the method. I think you'd be able to tell the divine command theorist that they're using the word 'evil' incorrectly in a language game which includes non-command-theorists.

I think you'd be able to tell the divine command theorist that they're using the word 'evil' incorrectly in a language game which includes non-command-theorists. — Isaac

Maybe I didn't word myself clearly. If John tells me that "good" refers to what God condones and "evil" refers to what God condemns, can I tell him that he must be wrong because Mary says that God has condoned evils?

That seems to be the approach you took above. Gitonga tells us that "good" refers to what the powerful condone and "evil" refers to what the powerful condemn, but the radical socialists at the pub say that the powerful condone evil, and so therefore Gitonga is wrong.

I don't think either work as a sufficient rebuttal. I could always invert this and say that Mary and the radical socialists must be wrong given what John and Gitonga say.

I don't think either work as a sufficient rebuttal. I could always invert this and say that Mary and the radical socialists must be wrong given what John and Gitonga say. — Michael

Yep, I think you could. We can't avoid the fact that Mary thinks John is wrong and John thinks Mary is wrong. That is a state of affairs which we have to account for. So either one of three thing must be the case, it seems...

1. There's some state whose referencial connection with the word 'evil' has been somehow set by an authority other than the language community.
2. The word 'evil' is used in only one correct sense and either John or Mary does not know what that sense is despite apparently being fluent in the language otherwise.
3. The word 'evil' is used in different senses within different language games and so, like applying the rules of chess to a game of draughts, a person is simply mistaken if they use it in the sense of one game whilst partaking in another.

I can't see what the authority would be in (1),nor how we'd assign it, (2) seems to leave us with no means of judging which is the correct sense, so that leaves us with (3),which make either John or Mary wrong, depending on the language game they're playing.