[Ham] Preference and intent are what guide human choices, not the evolution of Nature. The point I was making, which you've quoted somewhat out of context, is that preference is man's response to perceived values and is proprietary to the individual subject. Morality is the collective expression or consensus of individual (i.e., subjective) preferences. WE are the agents who bring value into our world as evolving objects and events.
[Krimel] The choice that are available and our ability to interact with them are entirely the product of evolution and nature. Preferences for what is good and bad relative to us as individuals are likewise the products of our genetic heritage combined with present circumstances and our individual histories. Morality is entirely about human interaction. It makes no sense to talk about the morality of the universe or the morality of some hypothetical isolated human being. [Ham] Individuals don't "adopt collective evaluations" unless forced to do so by the church or state. A collective doesn't sense value; it is the individual who perceives (realizes) value and chooses to act according to his preferences. If anything, it's the collective which "adopts to" the subjective, not the other way around. The individual, not society, is the world's choicemaker. [Krimel] Yes, we do indeed disagree completely here. It is flatly absurd to state the we adopt collective evaluation only through the use of force. No society could succeed that way. We are introduced into the values of our culture by our parents who, in their desire to make copies of themselves, include as part of that, instilling the values of the community. Without such values human life would be impossible. The values of society are its intellectual level. They are the shared understandings and experience of all who claim to be one of us. Individuals can certainly make personal decision that are at odds with society but we become fully human only by participating in the shared heritage of our community. [Ham] The values I'm talking about are moralistic or esthetic values like goodness, beauty, compassion, and justice. Only human beings possess this kind of sensibility and the freedom to choose discriminately. Without subjective awareness there would be no realization of value, nor a moral system to guide society. [Krimel] To the extent that our sense of moralistic or esthetic values are not inherited, they are inculcated by participation in our social communities. Your ideas about freedom of choice are both grandiose and untenable. That freedom is mostly illusory. I am not free to see with my ears or to enjoy eating poisons. In fact the more closely you examine any freedom at all, the more it dissolves into wishful thinking. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
