Do feelings count?

From a Christian point of view there is an objective morality, God's moral law, and also the factor of fallenness that means our moral sense is flawed, which explains why we can't all agree on moral principles.While there is also an indication in Christian thought that beauty is objective, which is at least related to the question about aesthetics, I don't know much about this and don't know if anybody has ever made a case for it from the Christian point of view.I feel a need for some definitions for this thread, from Moral Philosophy and the Philosophy of Aesthetics maybe.{abe: In general, I think the Fall means that our feelings about these things can't be relied upon, which agrees with the fact that it's impossible to establish an objective standard for either morality or aesthetics.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-05-2006 12:42 AM

I agree there is no way to ground morality logically. The only way it can be objectively grounded is by an absolute authority such as God.But continuing on my Christian presuppositions, I explain the observation that there is at least a rough moral consistency across the human race as the persistence of the image of God in humanity, however broken. But since in fact we are broken, there is no independent way of showing that this rough consistency amounts to an objective moral standard.

Deliberate cruelty is one of the things that always made me feel a sort of vertigo, like the bottom of my stomach dropping out, like the universe is out of whack if such a thing can exist at all. That is what made my discovery of Original Sin so satisfying.But unfortunately the mere existence of anyone who can commit deliberate cruelty makes your strong feeling against it impossible to prove as objective.I had a girlfriend as a child who would pull wings and legs off insects with a strange glee. I'm no fan of insects but I'd rather kill them than torture them. She went on to become a laboratory scientist by the way.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-05-2006 11:58 AM

I've hated some people that much, to THINK I'd enjoy seeing them tortured, but in reality if I were to witness it actually happening, I don't think I could stand it.Those who can witness such a thing either with pleasure or just with indifference, are very hard to understand.It is possible that I could tolerate quite well, possibly even enjoy, the torture of someone who had committed torture himself I suppose, but even then I think I'd prefer instantaneous capital punishment. I have nothing against a firing squad myself though. Or hanging. Not into the niceties of avoiding the psychological pain of anticipation.ABE: Perhaps the example of feelings about cruelty suggests that the real topic here is justice, that all morality is about justice ultimately, and that justice is always flawed.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-05-2006 02:39 PM

Semantic problem. Not feelings in the sense of tactile sense, but feelings in the sense of emotions or apprehensions and that sort of thing.