Amanojack comments on What is Metaethics? - Less Wrong

31 Post author: lukeprog 25 April 2011 04:53PM

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Comment author: Amanojack 27 April 2011 08:47:18PM *  1 point [-]

Yeah, no one can ever seem to explain what "objectively wrong" would even mean. That's because to call an action wrong is to imply that there is a negative value placed on that action, and for that to be the case you need a valuer. Someone has to do the valuing. Maybe a large group of people - or maybe everyone - values the action negatively, but that is still nothing more than a bunch of individuals engaging in subjective valuation. It may be universal subjective valuation, or maybe they think it's God's subjective valuation, but if so it seems better to spell that out plainly than to obscure it with the authoritative- and scientific-sounding modifier objective.

Comment author: Peterdjones 27 April 2011 09:34:36PM 1 point [-]

The fact that something is done by a subject doesn't necessarily make it subjective. It takes a subject to add 2 and 2, but the answer is objective.

There are many ideas as to what "objectively right" could mean. Two of Kant's famous suggestions are "act only on that maxim you would wish to be universal law" and "treat people always as ends and never as means".

Comment author: NMJablonski 27 April 2011 08:51:12PM -1 points [-]

This encapsulates my thoughts on metaethics entirely.