Do feelings count?

Dito to what Robin said.Others can feel the same "moral bark" that I can.Some people might have been burned badly at one point in their life and lost feeling in their hand causing them to not feel the tree. In the same way, some people may have been "burned" mentally causing them to not have a conscience.However, even if the person can't feel the tree, if he runs smack into it, there will be consequences. Even if a person doesn't feel right and wrong, there will be consequences if he runs smack into immorality.So, IMO, I can't see any logical reason why one kind of feeling is completely acceptable for gathering information about the existence of an external objective reality, while another is not. All feelings and senses can be fooled, but we have to start accepting things as real at some point.

quote:

---

If one has a very intense moral feeling, such as an abhorrence of cruelty, is this an indication that cruelty is evil?

---

Aren't you assuming that "evil" exists?

quote:

---

Others can feel the same "moral bark" that I can.

---

Really?How do you know?

This argument is valid only in attacking the reliability of such feelings, but not in proving that such feelings have no correspondance to an objective reality.Just because someone is blind, that doesn't mean there's nothing out there to see. Just because someone doesn't feel the wrong he is doing doesn't mean that he might later come to recognize it as wrong. Just because someone has lived contentedly in the Sahara Desert his whole life doesn't mean he wouldn't much prefer Hawaii if given the opportunity to live there a little while.

I was asking a question. If the answer is yes, then it would follow that there is such a thing as "evil." And I suppose this would be an objective evil as well.

In the same way if you feel tree bark, and believe you've felt a tree, aren't you assuming a tree exists? Yes.

I make the assumption that people are telling me the truth when they agree with me that an act strikes them as cruel.

Perhaps an entire culture can be morally coarse. ("The banality of evil" as one writer put it).

quote:

---

I make the assumption that people are telling me the truth when they agree with me that an act strikes them as cruel.

---

I don't deny that they may agree with you, but as they are not inside your head, and you are not inside their head, you cannot actually say that you know you feel the same.OTOH, just because two people agree on a shared inpression of something doesn't make a different impression or feeling about that same event wrong.

quote:

---

Perhaps an entire culture can be morally coarse.

---

Wouldn't that only be in comparison to another culture?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 03-07-2006 03:49 PM

Okay, given the diverse nature of feelings on all subjects, including morals, and even the specific example of cruelty... who is right and who has been burned?As I have suggested even tight moral rules usually have convenient exceptions, thus even things like theft, murder, and cruelty become acceptable under some conditions (done to some specific people). And there have been cultures at various times where majorities simply did not us the same moral rules we do today. This suggests a different formula than that there is some moral reality which people can sense if their moral "faculties" are functioning properly. So let's say someone feels willful ignorance is immoral, and religion to be a prime example of willful ignorance. Does that mean religious people are not functioning properly, or the person is not? Who decides?One could certainly argue that religious people are running smack into the consequences of their immorality with the terrible violence commited for no reason and rejection of common knowledge regarding the world. Would that be correct? My position is that feelings are objectively real, only they are objectively real characteristics of an individual and not the external world. Not all feelings, though objective, suggest anything about the outer world.For example, just because a person has a headache, does not mean that there is an objective entity called "headache" that only that person is sensing. Indeed if we have a majority of peopled suffering from a headache, it is still a statement about their internal condition, rather than an indication of a real external entity called "headache".Here's another example, a heavy metal concert. Many will find it "loud", with some being too loud and some not loud enough. In the end it will be based on the individuals and not some objective reality regarding the sound. The only objective reality is that there is a certain amount of vibrations coming from certain speakers located in different positions. The individual judgements of "loudness" will be based on where they are in relation to the speakers, what their experience has been regarding sound vibrations, and some personal physical differences within their ears.Many may also find the concert "morally charged". Some will find the content morally correct, some morally incorrect, and others morally incorrect and so very cool. Like with "loudness" its "morality" is not a set quality of the content (or onstage activity) but rather characterizes the individuals based on their personal characteristics.

---

holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

And perhaps not. This is a possibility, not a conclusion, and it does not work with the first point I mentioned.Okay let's roll with your argument. Muslim communities across the world were morally outraged by the printing of the danish cartoons. Are they correct and westerners morally course?

---

holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

This example is too complicated. We need something more obvious.Perhaps we could call the culture of Stalinism or Nazism morally coarse. Cruelty becomes an habitual thing, "banal." It works down and infests an entire culture.

That undercuts your argument. In message 29 you were saying that if your feelings were somehow universal, that would support the objectivity of your feelings. Now that it's pointed out that your feelings are not, in fact, universal, you are labeling these other cultures as coarse.Can we can come up with some sort of objective criteria by which to judge your hypothesis? "If my moral feelings reflect some sort of objective moral standard, then we should see X." Sort of using the scientific method to investigate this question.

---

"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

quote:

---

The only way it can be objectively grounded is by an absolute authority such as God.

---

But that doesn't objectively ground morality. It merely replaces one subjective set of principles (my own, say) with another subjective set, namely whatever God feels is morally right or wrong.Edited to correct a typo, and to add clarity.This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 07-Mar-2006 10:17 PM

---

"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt