Yeah, I get what you are saying. The problem is this:
I say of a human, that his/her thinking is incorrect. So how do I know that?
Well, it depends on what the thinking is about, right? But it also depends on how I treat that and how I reason and feel about that. Now we are in morality.
Hmm...as I see it, that depends on whether we are discussing testable facts (in which case, we can determine if the person is wrong by comparing their thinking to the tests) or whether we are dealing with somehting like aesthetics and morality.
Then for the moral belief that other humans are wrong and/or their actions are wrong, it gets weird. That is not a fact. Indeed it goes against evidence.
On the contrary, the evidence shows that people are frequently wrong in their thinking, as shown by comparing their thinking with testable observations.
Where things get tricky is when we are discussing *opinions*.
Usually, opinions are value based and, as a result, people have different conclusions because they have different value systems.
The same with all cases of ethical objective realism and strong logical/rational claims to morality. That is not, how the universe works.
I agree. Ethics is not a matter of truth, but of opinions and societal agreements. So?
So here is how it ends. So moral claims, that are against evidence form science, are just as false as religious claims, yet you treat them differently. Yet they both claim something, which is not true of, how the universe works with methodological naturalism.
I don't see moral claims as 'true or false'. I see them as arising from the needs and values of a society. In the society I want to live in, certain values are assumed and I generally agree with those assumptions.
All meta-ethical claims, which deny, that morality is subjective and not strongly objective, are false, for how the universe works.
I agree to some extent. But not fully.
Humans are a type of social great ape. As such, there are certain rules of conduct in human societies that lead to more happiness, better health, are more fair, etc. These are values that are common to other great apes and are probably biological to some extent.
To *that* degree, I think that morality is not completely subjective. I think that some sets of rules work 'better' for humans than other sets of rules.
Now, what I also think is that the rules that work for humans are not uniquely determined: there is a lot of flexibility.
I also think that other intelligent species may well have their own rule sets that work for them but that do not work for humans. And, in this sense, morality is NOT objective: if it were, it would hold for all species anywhere.
So why do you differentiate between the 2 kinds, when both kinds are false as per methodological naturalism?
Again, I don't see morality as either true or false, but rather useful or harmful for human society.
On the other hand, religion tends to make statements about existence and claims to be objective fact. And *that* is where I see a big issue.
Furthermore, religions often are on the opposite sides of moral issues to where I am. So, because it is my opinion, I argue against them and their morality.
Regards
Mikkel[/QUOTE]