Comments on: Gods and the morality of society

By: David Barrett

David Barrett — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:30:37 +0000

I realise that it's not likely that your argument was intended as a formal one, but I still think #2 and #4 are unworkable given the reasons already mentioned.

Without absolute morality, the social order can have no right to existence or claim to authority. And to protect people is to control those who would cause harm.

Sorry if I come across as nit-picky; have been on a bit of a tirade against subjective morality among other things in my own internal arguments recently.

By: Tim McCarthy

Tim McCarthy — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:57:24 +0000

Well, yeah, social order is a system of control, and the majority opinion usually decides the parameters of that control (either directly or by suffering some sort of elite to do it for them). But this is true in all four scenarios. The nature and rules of the system of control are variable, but the presence of a system is constant. No human population exists without some sort of social order, however strained they might be (even in places like Somalia).

So, though the question of whether the presence of society and social order is inherently good or bad is an intriguing one, I'm not sure it's relevant to the argument in this case. Mick assumes the presence of a social order, an empirically sound premise, and he assumes a desire in the people living within that order to mold it to their notions of morality, another empirically sound premise. Whether there should be a social order at all is another debate entirely.

By: Michael Nugent

Michael Nugent — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:11:26 +0000

I intended my post to be more descriptive than prescriptive, David. And even then, it would require a lot of qualifications to be accurate.

That said, I do believe there is a value to "social order" – if it is used to protect people rather than to control them.

By: David Barrett

David Barrett — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:54:09 +0000

Of course there are some huge problems with #2 and #4, all centring around subjective morality.

Why is “living ethically” as you define it a good thing? Why is society and social order “good”? Why is it preferred to anarchy and nihilism? Is it simply a matter of taste? If so, why “should” we do anything?

I resent those who claim that morality is subjective and then try to impose theirs on me, mostly because it is hypocritical nonsense. And yet if morality IS subjective then all “social order” becomes is a system of control by the majority opinion.