Kevin's Watch

Which is truely the more helpful perception of the world? That there's no such thing as a mistake, or that there are such things as mistakes?

The contemporary perception seems to be that the individual is guitless and blameless in any action (with this that and the other exception of course, but it is still espoused that they don't believe in mistakes). I could make several guesses as to why, but I really do think it boils down to the belief that acknowledging mistakes cripples rather than empowers the individual.

My perception, and the perception of people who in general believe in right and wrong, is that you can't move past a mistake that you can't accept as a mistake. By acknowledging what choices and actions constitute a mistake, one can avoid repeating those mistakes. But, by ignoring a mistake, the individual not only lacks an answer for why the individual isn't enjoying the consequences, they lack the opportunity not to repeat that mistake.

This is my perception from my side of the wall, and I acknowledge that most people who say they don't believe in right and wrong, sins, mistakes or otherwise actually do believe in such things on a selective basis. Is this a fair portrayal though of what is essentially different between the moral relatavist and the moral objectivist?

I think you already know my response...

I think we're all moral relativists. Those of us who think they are moral objectivists simply want to extend (often through force) their personal morality on the rest of us, or give their personal, subjective moral choices an objective weight that doesn't in fact exist.

Moral relativists (like myself) don't believe that there is no right and wrong. We simply believe that we all define right and wrong ourselves, personally--or accept someone else's version.

I think you're confusing a nihilist or an anarchist with a relativist. I think killing humans is wrong. I know I make mistakes. But these are merely acknowledgments of my goals and values. I value human life, because it's something I personally think rocks. In fact, I think I value human life a lot more than God must value human life, because He has the power to save everyone who dies, yet he doesn't.

I also value a job well done (or a life well done), and therefore when I don't do my job well (or when I don't live my life well), I've made a mistake.

What I most certainly do NOT believe in is sin. I don't think there is some external standard--separate from my own values--by which my behavior is judged. I do not think the universe cares if I have sex before marriage, or if I eat pork.

Malik23 wrote:I think we're all moral relativists. Those of us who think they are moral objectivists simply want to extend (often through force) their personal morality on the rest of us, or give their personal, subjective moral choices an objective weight that doesn't in fact exist.

Moral relativists (like myself) don't believe that there is no right and wrong. We simply believe that we all define right and wrong ourselves, personally--or accept someone else's version.

I think you're confusing a nihilist or an anarchist with a relativist. I think killing humans is wrong. I know I make mistakes. But these are merely acknowledgments of my goals and values. I value human life, because it's something I personally think rocks. In fact, I think I value human life a lot more than God must value human life, because He has the power to save everyone who dies, yet he doesn't.

I also value a job well done (or a life well done), and therefore when I don't do my job well (or when I don't live my life well), I've made a mistake.

What I most certainly do NOT believe in is sin. I don't think there is some external standard--separate from my own values--by which my behavior is judged. I do not think the universe cares if I have sex before marriage, or if I eat pork.

-I don't think claimed objectivism or subjectivism can be especially telling as to whether the person believe the individual or the collective is a higher priority.

-Relatavists are just as likely to get overinvolved in an objectivist's life as the other way around. I'm very much a believer in individualism and pluralism because I want a society that allows me to preserve my objective evaluation of the world. There are several relatavists who would regard my values as discardable and rewritable, and demand that I make those changes to my values simply so that my objective evaluation better matches thier latest adopted morality. Pluralism is the only way by which my freedom of thought can be preserved in the face of those who would treat my values as being less intrinisic to my self identity than they take their own values to be.

-Self defined, and self redefined, priorities involve objective decision making. I don't think you can be a thorough moral relatavist without inevitably drifting towards nihilism, if all values are purely subjective all values aren't values so much as decorations and styles.

To attempt to be more concise: If there are no objective realities, the substitution of one value over another value is not a result of experience and evaluation of experience. When there are no actualities, the substitution of one value for another is purely a matter of aesthetics.

Malik23 wrote:I think we're all moral relativists. Those of us who think they are moral objectivists simply want to extend (often through force) their personal morality on the rest of us, or give their personal, subjective moral choices an objective weight that doesn't in fact exist.

Moral relativists (like myself) don't believe that there is no right and wrong. We simply believe that we all define right and wrong ourselves, personally--or accept someone else's version.

I think you're confusing a nihilist or an anarchist with a relativist. I think killing humans is wrong. I know I make mistakes. But these are merely acknowledgments of my goals and values. I value human life, because it's something I personally think rocks. In fact, I think I value human life a lot more than God must value human life, because He has the power to save everyone who dies, yet he doesn't.

I also value a job well done (or a life well done), and therefore when I don't do my job well (or when I don't live my life well), I've made a mistake.

What I most certainly do NOT believe in is sin. I don't think there is some external standard--separate from my own values--by which my behavior is judged. I do not think the universe cares if I have sex before marriage, or if I eat pork.

Bullshit. Certainly not ALL morality is relative, but there are moral absolutes. I have said before that Empathy and Reciprocity are universal guides to morality. All social code everywhere stems from those ideals. You can tell me that those concepts are relative, and morality can exist without them, but you are speaking in pure hypotheticals, and hopefully not for yourself.

Directly and knowingly harming another for your purely your own benefit *is* wrong. There are no "extenuating circumstances" there is no rationalizing, in no way am I making an unfair ethnocentric moral judgment. Morality *is* extending the circle of responsibility outside of your own self to encompass wider and wider arenas.

Truth exists. Certainly I don't have a monopoly on it. (I'm not sure I have even a glimmer of it) but it does. A lot depends on perspective, but light is always moving the same velocity. The solution to seeing the world in black and white isn't to mix it all into different shades of gray. The world is massive and complex. Human relationships are nearly infinitely complex. As humanity becomes more and more sophisticated, morality is struggling to keep up. Technology has changed us so much in the past 3000 years, but that doesn't change the fact that there is something we are striving for. There are ideals which are universal to humanity. While we may not express these ideals the same way, they are always expressed. In a purely relativistic world, we could never find as much in common as we do.

Pure Objectivism and Pure relativism are equally fallacious ideas. Just like pure determinism and pure free-will are equally incorrect. The universe has been giving both sides in these endless debates so much fuel is it impossible to believe that there is truth in both?

If the relativists are right, why can't I shoot your wife dead in front of you and claim "in my moral background, murdering ______ is completely acceptable, how dare you impose your morality upon me!"

Why obey laws? Aren't they the ultimate imposition? (Law is hardly the arbiter of truth, obeying an unjust law is cowardice) Why bother to regulate your behavior at all if no one has any right to judge you?

Pure relativism is simply too odious to my every perception of reality, morally, scientifically, philosophically, and historically. It is an easy way to escape having any real beliefs or character. It is, at it's heart, an empty and worthless way to look at the world. Ultimately, it is fallacious. There is too much objectivity in just the natural world for the philosophy to hold any water.

I'm not even a hardcore objectivist. Hell, why do you have to choose a club and kick everyone else out? Objectivists see me as a relativist for understanding that perspective has a huge affect on reality, Relativists call me an objectivist for saying that there are *any* objective truths. Why do I have to lecture the relativists on the danger of seeing the world in Binary?

Yo, TD! There is hope for you!

I would say that from a personal standpoint, I have found in Orthodoxy both the absolutes and the relatives. There are issues that are dogma - totally decided, cut and dried in the EOC (Eastern Orthodox Church). Where there is not dogma there is economia (room for priests to grant exceptions to general rules in unusual circumstances, for instance).

Tjol wrote:-I don't think claimed objectivism or subjectivism can be especially telling as to whether the person believe the individual or the collective is a higher priority.

Perhaps. There is an element of "forcing your morality upon others" no matter if you are an objectivist, or a subjectivist. But I believe the subjectivist does this only in cases where rights of others are violated, while the objectivist also does this in cases where no one's rights are violated, yet they still want to stick there nose in other people's business (gay marriage, for instance).

While it's true that I'd prefer my own (subjective) view that "murder is wrong" to be applied universally, this is more a pragmatic position than a moral one. I believe that we should prevent murder because I don't like it, not because I think we'll go to hell if we do it, or that God disapproves. I think it benefits society, and ultimately, I don't want to be murdered. There's no way to protect myself in this instance unless I can "force" this moral position upon others. But I recognize that my motivation is selfish--even my motivation to protect people I don't know--because that motivation arises from a personal value. I don't want to live in a world where people don't value human life.

Tjol wrote:-Relatavists are just as likely to get overinvolved in an objectivist's life as the other way around.

Only in cases where rights are violated (right to life, right to property, etc.). And I don't believe rights are absolute, but rather something we negotiate.

Tjol wrote:-Self defined, and self redefined, priorities involve objective decision making. I don't think you can be a thorough moral relatavist without inevitably drifting towards nihilism, if all values are purely subjective all values aren't values so much as decorations and styles.

Yes, exactly. I think values are not much different from clothing. We often adopt the "dress code" of our society, and those codes change with time. Just like values. There is a social aspect to negotiating values. But this doesn't mean they are objective (like 2 +2 = 4, or e=mc2). It just means that our subjectivity doesn't operate in a vacuum. We take into account the opinions of others.

Tjol wrote:To attempt to be more concise: If there are no objective realities, the substitution of one value over another value is not a result of experience and evaluation of experience. When there are no actualities, the substitution of one value for another is purely a matter of aesthetics.

This is where you're going wrong. Just because there are objective realities, doesn't mean that value is objective. Value is context dependent. Gold isn't inherently valuable. Humans like it because it has certain uses and properties which we like. And it's relatively rare, hard to get. Value IS a matter of aesthetics, but this doesn't mean there are no actualities. Value is something we impart upon the world. It's not intrinsic. It's like a resource: something only becomes a resource when we learn how to put it to use. Oil had no value whatsoever until humans learned ways to use it. (And don't let my commodity example confuse the issue. I'm talking about value in terms of "what humans find important," not monetary value. Money is just a way to measure human judgments of importance.)

The Dreaming wrote: Bullshit. Certainly not ALL morality is relative, but there are moral absolutes. I have said before that Empathy and Reciprocity are universal guides to morality. All social code everywhere stems from those ideals. You can tell me that those concepts are relative, and morality can exist without them, but you are speaking in pure hypotheticals, and hopefully not for yourself.

You're making a circular argument. You're basing the assertion that morality is universal on your opinion that morality is universal. There most certainly can be a moral code which doesn't involve empathy and reciprocity. Just because such a moral code offends you personally doesn't mean that it can't exist, or that the person using it isn't living up to their own standards. Suppose that my most important ethical maxim was: be true to yourself. We could derive from this maxim things like: don't compromise your ideals for others, don't sacrifice your needs for others, don't let others take advantage of you, don't let others overrule your convictions, don't let others run your life, etc. Empathy and reciprocity aren't involved in any of these ethical maxims. And a person could live his life according to this system and think he was good person because he was following his maxim to the letter. He could view things like empathy and reciprocity as failures, compromises, and weakness.

Like I said, it's all about what's important to you. There is nothing absolute about the universe which says we must value other people. That's your own bias.

The Dreaming wrote:Directly and knowingly harming another for your purely your own benefit *is* wrong.

Not if you don't value other people. Not if you think you are the most important feature in your universe.

The Dreaming wrote:Morality *is* extending the circle of responsibility outside of your own self to encompass wider and wider arenas.

That's the essence of your circular argument. You're defining morality in a way that already supports your personal opinion of what morality should be. And you're dismissing the possibility that other people can have a different moral system. There's a difference between someone else having a moral system which you find reprehensible (such as a moral system of valuing yourself above all others), and that moral system not existing. Morality is about "living a good life," and that can take many forms. It most certainly isn't a requirement that I value your life over my own, or that I value your life at all.

It's impossible to apply your morality universally. Organisms causing each other pain is the way our world is structured. If it's universally wrong, then why is it okay for animals to do it? Or for us to do it to animals? Sure, we have a handful of laws protecting some cute animals. But there's no way we can apply this universally to all life. We pick and choose. And you know how we pick and choose? Personal preference. Gerbils are cute. Rats are vermin. We have one as pets, and another we kill with traps and poison.

Morality is arbitrary. If it weren't, we wouldn't spend so much time arguing about it. No one argues over objective facts. And if they do, there's usually an objective way to settle the argument. How do you objectively prove that morality is objective, without referring to your own personal values?

The Dreaming wrote:I have said before that Empathy and Reciprocity are universal guides to morality.

It it were universal, wouldn't all life follow that pattern automatically?

--A

Actually, I think that way of putting it is odd, but on the right track (although reciprocity is debatable and a two-edged sword). There is such a moral sense in us, but it IS possible to dull it or kill it by ignoring that "guide" or "voice" (the concept exists in every language I've ever studied - in English we call it a conscience); by consistently becoming jaded by real, virtual or imaginary violence or other evil surrounding us and our reaction to it (thus the danger of modern computer games, TV, etc - they slowly kill in us the ability to be shocked, outraged, or even simply to cry when we see an atrocity or tragedy.
Thus, due to our external surroundings, the dictates of this voice might seem "relative", when the fact of the matter is that we simply don't hear it as well. So most of humanity has an indicator pointing in more-or-less the same direction (to an apparent variation of x degrees), a small (but sometimes seemingly growing) percentage has effectively killed that voice and can no longer distinguish morality. (Edit - let me add that things like the Nazi horrors - or any atrocity you care to name - were perpetrated by people who had achieved that state.)

Avatar wrote:

The Dreaming wrote:I have said before that Empathy and Reciprocity are universal guides to morality.

It it were universal, wouldn't all life follow that pattern automatically?

--A

Morality isn't created by nature. It's created by man. That does not mean that it doesn't stem from basic truths. We have surpassed our biological upbringing and decided to create a society where we strive for the benefit of all of our species. When you don't live in the jungle at an extremely low population density, you need to develop these codes to survive.

The fact that everyone developed strikingly similar codes should tell you something. Locke was onto something when he talked about the development of laws and rules, and the need to divest authority. Valuing only yourself *is* a fallacious philosophy when you participate in a society.

Subjectivity doesn't even hold up in the natural world. Light always moves at C, from *every* perspective. (Observations that appear to be contrary aren't. This is a core tenet of modern physics.) The fact that this implies that a whole mess of other things we think of as objective *aren't* should be telling. (Things like time for example.)

Morality changes, it evolves as we do. We have wrested control of our development away from nature, and can control it ourselves. Thats a pretty amazing and wonderful thing. But what are we headed *for*? What does morality change to represent? There are basic rules for living well with each other that, at it's heart, morality is always trying to represent. Empathy is at the heart of this. The realization that every human deserves the same freedoms and opportunities you enjoy yourself. You believe this so *implicitly* that you will make statements to defend pure relativism like

I think we're all moral relativists. Those of us who think they are moral objectivists simply want to extend (often through force) their personal morality on the rest of us, or give their personal, subjective moral choices an objective weight that doesn't in fact exist.

Without realizing you are implying a strive for balance with that very statement. In making the imposition of others on you a wrongness, you are upholding the idea that every human should have the right to make their own choices, and that you don't have the right to force what you believe on them. This is an expression of reciprocity.

Strikingly similar I'll grant you. But by no means identical, universal, or universally applied.

--A

Avatar wrote:Strikingly similar I'll grant you. But by no means identical, universal, or universally applied.

--A

That doesn't mean there isn't something universal underneath the surface. Something beyond semantics and perspective and law and religion. Not every rule, law, or more is equally good at expressing it, but there *is* something there. (This is part of the reason working with archetypes is so fascinating. There are primal universals in the minds of men, something wonderful happens when art taps into them, like in Star Wars.)

But they don't exist independantly of man.

--A

Either man was created by his environment or man was created by an outside power. Either way, everything we are is a natural expression. If there is intelligent life somewhere that isn't man (that was at least somewhat similar biology) I am sure we will be able to find some things in common with them. If there isn't, well man is all that matters anyway.

Our ethics aren't arbitrary. At heart, they are expressions of our biology. We live at such higher population densities than any other organism approaching our size that we need to develop morality to meet our basic biological needs. That's what morality is about.

But our biology was formed and set long before we lived at such population densities as we do today. (Unless perhaps you're talking about anything bigger than single family groups.)

It's not our biology that formed our morality, it was our society.

--A

The Dreaming wrote:Either man was created by his environment or man was created by an outside power. Either way, everything we are is a natural expression. If there is intelligent life somewhere that isn't man (that was at least somewhat similar biology) I am sure we will be able to find some things in common with them. If there isn't, well man is all that matters anyway.

Our ethics aren't arbitrary. At heart, they are expressions of our biology. We live at such higher population densities than any other organism approaching our size that we need to develop morality to meet our basic biological needs. That's what morality is about.

I agreed with you up to this point.

If you use "natural" to mean, "that which is", then everything is natural, but then the word becomes useless. A child with Down's syndrome is "natural" and pedophilia is "natural" by those lights.

Also, you speak of "developing" morality. This is highly debatable. You undercut your own argument of the similarity of morality by doing so - "moralities" (if there were such independent animals capable of independent development) could then be completely opposed to each other, rather than being similar, which is the actual case.
C.S. Lewis makes this argument (similarity of morality in differing cultures) in "Mere Christianity". He comes to the conclusion - as have I - that morality does have absolutes - which we call 'good' and 'evil', and as such, can not 'develop'. People, on the other hand, can move closer to or farther from these absolutes (in terms of what their society approves), but then we must speak of the moral awareness of a people rather than of any actual change in the absolute standard.

The trouble with coming to these conclusions and realizing the need to be good is that, simply put, we don't want to do it, and so would rather come to any other conclusion at all. Some even resort to sophistry and develop ever more convoluted arguments convincing themselves that there is no such thing as absolutes of good or evil. (Makes it kind of hard to explain human use of the terms throughout history or to have any kind of meaningful communication at all - if my good is your evil you have no choice but to kill me (see Nazi Germany for example). )

My point is that morality developed because when we live in higher population densities, we NEED to follow specific ethical codes to live harmoniously. Our needs *stem* from our biology of course, even if we never evolved to live in cities of several million people. Like I said, we have taken control of our own development. We developed morality because we have the astounding ability to control our environment. Instead of waiting for biology to instill us with a new set of imperatives, we developed rules and morality, to efficiently and harmoniously fulfill our needs as well as possible. Such enormous population densities make certain concepts *inevitable*.

That's what I'm driving at. Mankinds self-driven development works like nothing in nature, but our needs were tuned by the environment that developed us. We have changed that environment WAY too fast for biology to keep up, so we made the changes ourselves. That's what rules are for.

What I'm driving at is that morality is as natural as anything else we need to survive, like a sex drive. Though we constructed it ourselves, we constructed it out of necessity. We are "developing" to a higher state of harmony with ourselves and our environment. Though opinions can differ, what we are driving for, what we are intending to do *with* our rules is universal, natural, and above all true.

Malik23 wrote:

Tjol wrote:-I don't think claimed objectivism or subjectivism can be especially telling as to whether the person believe the individual or the collective is a higher priority.

Perhaps. There is an element of "forcing your morality upon others" no matter if you are an objectivist, or a subjectivist. But I believe the subjectivist does this only in cases where rights of others are violated, while the objectivist also does this in cases where no one's rights are violated, yet they still want to stick there nose in other people's business (gay marriage, for instance).

Marriage is a social institution, everyone's involved form the get go. I think it makes a poor example. The acceptance of homosexual relationships in general is personal, and has in large part left alone. It's the attempt to lamprey onto an established institution that gets people involved, not the people's personal business of homosexual relationships and civil unions.

Subjectivists have been involved in destroying monuments of objectivist belief (Buddhist and Hindu monuments destroyed by Muslims in one part of the world, and destroyed by communists in another, the ACLU has actively campaigned to destroy any monuments of objective belief, and have in several cases gone so far as to try turn private land into public land simply for the sake of destroying those monuments.

Subjectivists are also involved in forcing scoreless competitions upon children's sports, outlawing tag, outlawing dodgeball, outlawing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, denying parents the ability to home school their children, free expression in cases where the free expression can be suggested to be 'hurtful'.....

Stop and reflect on all the things done in the interest of equally observing all beliefs, and how it always seems to be the methodology by which some pigs become 'more equal than others'. Look at how the US bends over backwards to encourage open worship of Islam for the sake of political correctness while at the same time quashing the mere presence of a manjor(sp?) scene.

The thing is, I am against subjectivism. I'm not railing specifically against secularism, because subjectivism has contaminated several religions just as much as they've affected the secular world view. I think if it was only secularists that were subjectivists, it wouldn't matter. I'm much more in agreement for a secular objectivist than a religious relatavist, and I've talked and pondered with both.

Conceeding(sp?) some absolute, while conceeding the limits of human reasoning to encapsule it all is an objectivist viewpoint, but does not inherently provide any heirarchy between sets of beliefs with regard to their proximity to that absolute.

Denying an absolute, based on the variety of human beliefs and discoveries is a subjectivist viewpoint, but it does not prevent people from presuming their individual viewpoint as superior to any other individual's viewpoint, even if no individual viewpoint has an absolute to compare itself to.

Tjol wrote: Marriage is a social institution, everyone's involved form the get go.

Everyone is involved? How is that possible? You don't have to invite them to the ceremony, you know. Marriage is between two people. Period. No one else's rights are being violated (or supported) when two people get married. Perhaps you might feel that the institution of marriage is harmed by having gays participate in it. But if your marriage is only as good as the institution itself, you need to rethink your commitment. Your marriage is your own responsibility, and the actions of other people don't effect it . . . though you can certainly affect theirs by sticking your nose into other people's business. But then you are the one violating other people's rights, rather than the other way around. Your marriage certificate doesn't give you the right to have a say in anyone else's marriage.

The acceptance of homosexual relationships in general is personal, and has in large part left alone. It's the attempt to lamprey onto an established institution that gets people involved, not the people's personal business of homosexual relationships and civil unions.

That's just another way of saying that some people have taken their personal morality and tried to force it onto others. Two people getting married has no effect on you. But you telling those two they can't get married has an effect on them. Homosexuals who marry aren't forcing their values on you. You telling homosexuals they can't marry forces your values on them.

Subjectivists have been involved in destroying monuments of objectivist belief (Buddhist and Hindu monuments destroyed by Muslims in one part of the world, and destroyed by communists in another, the ACLU has actively campaigned to destroy any monuments of objective belief, and have in several cases gone so far as to try turn private land into public land simply for the sake of destroying those monuments.

I have no idea what you're talking about. What makes these people subjectivists? And even if they are, how can this be an indictment of subjectivism? How is it any different from objectivists trying to force their morality upon others?

Subjectivists are also involved in forcing scoreless competitions upon children's sports, outlawing tag, outlawing dodgeball, outlawing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, denying parents the ability to home school their children, free expression in cases where the free expression can be suggested to be 'hurtful'.....

This is just getting silly. What do peanut butter sandwiches have to do with subjectivism? It seems you have a bone to pick with someone else besides me. I think the "pussification" (to borrow a George Carlin term) of our children is abominable. I'd never force other people to conform to my sandwich preferences. This sounds more like a rampant objectivist to me.

Stop and reflect on all the things done in the interest of equally observing all beliefs, and how it always seems to be the methodology by which some pigs become 'more equal than others'. Look at how the US bends over backwards to encourage open worship of Islam for the sake of political correctness while at the same time quashing the mere presence of a manjor(sp?) scene.

Maybe you missed my posts in the Tank where I said I didn't want a Muslim president. I was called intolerant.

Moral relativism is unfairly and inaccurately described by its opponents as "equally observing all beliefs." No. No. No. I do not equally observe or respect all beliefs. Otherwise, I wouldn't be an atheist, and I wouldn't criticize religion so harshly. What you are describing as moral relativism doesn't exist. It's nihilism or anarchism, which is actually pretty rare.

Moral relativism is nothing more than the acknowledgment that we all choose our own values, and that we are the ONLY source of our values. But inherent in the idea of "values" is a hierarchal relation of worth (otherwise "value" wouldn't have meaning). Some things have to be worth more than others, or it would be impossible to make value judgments at all. (Note, I'm not saying some things have to be inherently more valuable, just subjectively.)

Denying an absolute, based on the variety of human beliefs and discoveries is a subjectivist viewpoint, but it does not prevent people from presuming their individual viewpoint as superior to any other individual's viewpoint, even if no individual viewpoint has an absolute to compare itself to.

Yes! Finally, your post has something I can agree with. I deny the existence of absolutes, but this doesn't mean that I therefore think all values and views are equal.

The Dreaming wrote: What I'm driving at is that morality is as natural as anything else we need to survive, like a sex drive. Though we constructed it ourselves, we constructed it out of necessity.[/b]

How on earth do you know that "we" constructed it??? If anything, it is far more likely that IT constructed US.

Oh, and Tjol, good post.
D'you have Lewis's article "The Poison of Subjectivism"? There are responses for Malik and TD, too.

Here is the intro and first part (I don't think I can get away with posting more under fair use) - arguments should always be presented from their beginning:

One cause of misery and vice is always present with us in the greed and pride of men, but at certain periods in history this is greatly increased by the temporary prevalence of some false philosophy. Correct thinking will not make good men of bad ones; but a purely theoretical error may remove ordinary checks to evil and deprive good intentions of their natural support. An error of this sort is abroad at present. I am not referring to the Power philosophies of the Totalitarian states, but to something that goes deeper and spreads wider and which, indeed, has given these Power philosophies their golden opportunity. I am referring to Subjectivism.

After studying his environment man has begun to study himself. Up to that point, he had assumed his own reason and through it seen all other things. Now, his own reason has become the object: it is as if we took out our eyes to look at them. Thus studied, his own reason appears to him as the epiphenomenona which accompanies chemical or electrical events in a cortex which is itself the by-product of a blind evolutionary process. His own logic, hitherto the king whom events in all possible worlds must obey, becomes merely subjective. There is no reason for supposing that it yields truth.

As long as this dethronement refers only to the theoretical reason, it cannot be wholehearted. The scientist has to assume the validity of his own logic (in the stout old fashion of Plato or Spinoza) even in order to prove that it is merely subjective, and therefore he can only flirt with subjectivism. It is true that this flirtation sometimes goes pretty far. There are modern scientists, I am told, who have dropped the words truth and reality out of their vocabulary and who hold that the end of their work is not to know what is there but simply to get practical results. This is, no doubt, a bad symptom. But, in the main, subjectivism is such an uncomfortable yokefellow for research that the danger, in this quarter, is continually counteracted.

But when we turn to practical reason the ruinous effects are found operating in full force. By practical reason I mean our judgement of good and evil. If you are surprised that I include this under the heading of reason at all, let me remind you that your surprise is itself one result of the subjectivism I am discussing. Until modern times no thinker of the first rank ever doubted that our judgements of value were rational judgements or that what they discovered was objective. It was taken for granted that in temptation passion was opposed, not to some sentiment, but to reason. Thus Plato thought, thus Aristotle, thus Hooker, Butler and Doctor Johnson. The modern view is very different. It does not believe that value judgements are really judgements at all. They are sentiments, or complexes, or attitudes, produced in a community by the pressure of its environment and its traditions, and differing from one community to another. To say that a thing is good is merely to express our feeling about it; and our feeling about it is the feeling we have been socially conditioned to have.

But if this is so, then we might have been conditioned to feel otherwise. "Perhaps," thinks the reformer or the educational expert, "it would be better if we were. Let us improve our morality." Out of this apparently innocent idea comes the disease that will certainly end our species (and, in my view, damn our souls) if it is not crushed; the fatal superstition that men can create values, that a community can choose its "ideology" as men choose their clothes. Everyone is indignant when he hears the Germans define justice as that which is to the interest of the Third Reich. But it is not always remembered that this indignation is perfectly groundless if we ourselves regard morality as a subjective sentiment to be altered at will. Unless there is some objective standard of good, overarching Germans, Japanese, and ourselves alike whether any of us obey it or no, then of course the Germans are as competent to create their ideology as we are to create ours. If "good" and "better" are terms deriving their sole meaning from the ideology of each people, then of course ideologies themselves cannot be better or worse than one another. Unless the measuring rod is independent of the things measured, we can do no measuring. For the same reason it is useless to compare the moral ideas of one age with those of another: progress and decadence are alike meaningless words.

There'a a lot more where that came from...