The fundamental issue here is that without objective value, there can be no right or wrong behavior. I completely agree with this, and that is why a forum full of "rational" people cannot tell me that it is wrong to torture and kill someone just for the hell of it. Their system of pure logic prohibits it, while allowing them to suggest that everyone merely follows a subjective aesthetic and impulse.
This would be absolutely true, of course, in a world where humans were only capable of logic and appetite, but we are creatures with emotion as well. The ultimate question in this regard is, "is the torturing and killing of an innocent generally considered bad only because our negative emotions assign it so, or is there something in the act that naturally
merits our negative response?"
When you adhere to the first proposition, the natural result is ethical/moral subjectivism, where there can be no objectively right or wrong action. When you adhere to the second proposition, you get the likes of Socrates/Plato and Aristotle who observe the human response to actions and assign objective Virtues and Vices to them (see Aristotle's
Ethics, and list of
Virtues and Vices for example). Nearly any person we consider "rational" would look at such a list and the virtues we would automatically associate with "good" and the vices automatically with "bad". In this light, it would seem perfectly reasonable to tell someone that torturing and killing an innocent is bad and they shouldn't do it. In fact, that is what most rational people would naturally do.
This very topic was visited more recently by Lewis in
The Abolition of Man, which can be read in full
here. He explores the concept that it is our recognition that certain acts and/or objects
merit a particular response that makes us rational in the first place. The objectivity of these value judgements, therefore, are self-evident to some extent as part of the rational mind. He calls these collective value judgements the
Tao and at the end of the essay, he gives examples of cultures througout history that have recognized this
Tao in their own culture independently.
So I am left to consider why it is that some people conclude that value judgements are
assigned to certain acts while others conclude that value judgements are
merited by certain acts. Ultimately, I think it comes down to what one's worldview allows and doesn't allow. An atheist will say an objective value system would necessitate a being outside of the system to assign it, and since no such being exists, no such value system can exist. Likewise, a theist would say if a being exists, it will have assigned an objective value system and since such a being exists, such a value system does exist. Ultimately, both of these viewpoints are circular.
From the agnostic viewpoint, I have no problem considering that certain actions might naturally merit a specific response. If we can use reason to objectively sort our collective response to actions, like Aristotle has done, why shouldn't we? That such a proposition might recognize the potential for some foreign consciousness having weaved such a value system into humanity doesn't really matter to me. Mark one down for evidence in regard to an external consciousness in that case. I'd rather go to where the evidence leads me than interpret evidence via prior conclusions.
They had so much going for them.
