 sgiblab!adagio.panasonic.com!nntp-server.caltech.edu!keith
Subject: Re: <Political Atheists?
From: keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider)
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halat@pooh.bears (Jim Halat) writes:

>>I think an objective morality does exist, but that most flavors of morality
>>are only approximations to it.  Once again, a natural or objective morality
>>is fairly easily defined, as long as you have a goal in mind--that is, what
>>is the purpose of this morality.
>Maybe I'm not quite getting what you mean by this, but I think objective 
>morality is an oxymoron.  By definition, it seems, any _goal_ oriented 
>issue like this is subjective by nature.  I don't get how you're using
>the word objective.

But, the goal need not be a subjective one.  For instance, the goal of
natural morality is the propogation of a species, perhaps.  It wasn't
really until the more intelligent animals came along that some revisions
to this were necessary.  Intelligent animals have different needs than
the others, and hence a morality suited to them must be a bit more
complicated than "the law of the jungle."  I don't think that
self-actualization is so subjective as you might think.  And, by
objectivity, I am assuming that the ideals of any such system could be
carried out completely.

keith
