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From: desj@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (David desJardins)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.religion,net.sci
Subject: Re: Hitler: Why we need a Science of Morality
Message-ID: <13603@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sat, 3-May-86 04:45:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.13603
Posted: Sat May  3 04:45:25 1986
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Reply-To: desj@brahms.UUCP (David desJardins)
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In article <237@spar.UUCP> ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) writes:
>For example, I believe: ...
>2: Only those points of view which advocate harming or suppressing
>   other people should be suppressed.
>
>(2) is blatantly self-contradictory.  Yet I believe them, although I
>cannot support them rationally. ....
>
>I still find it peculiar to hear people speak of physics and math as
>"objective" while labeling morality and ethics as "subjective".  I
>believe this is due to historical reasons ....

   Well, when it is involves beliefs which you yourself admit are self-
contradictory, how can you call it anything but subjective??

>One CAN "objectively" analyze moral theories and eliminate those which are
>contradictory, self defeating, not evolutionarily stable, or, most impor-
>tantly, in violation of deeply held moral axioms, such as the golden rule. 

   This was originally about Naziism, so let me point out that another's
"deeply held moral axiom" might be (indeed, was) "Jews are evil."  If your
whole moral system is based on an arbitary choice of moral axiom, how can
you say that it is not subjective??

   -- David desJardins