Thanks for engaging. I’ve reviewed your paraphrased my statements. For the most part you stayed consistent with my statements, but rationality is not a being, it’s a faculty that some beings have. Those that have it use it to grasp the way reality is. And objective morality is a system of morality that is based on objective conditions that comport with reality whether rational beings grasp those conditions or not. Objective morality is much like the notion of truth where truth is a proposition’s correspondence with the facts of reality that is independent of your grasp, your belief. It is important therefore to note that it is not whim based. It is not defined by your preference. You and I are rational beings who often are successful at using our rational faculty in this way, and that is in large part why we’re still alive. Road kill is a good example of beings who are unable to grasp reality in this way.
You say,
Mutual aid is only beneficial if rights reciprocity is already present. Rights reciprocity is a “modern” term a more basic kind of mutual exchange where each allows the other to pursue his or her own happiness without either one stealing and preying on the other. It is because rights reciprocity is mutually more beneficial than stealing and preying on one another that it is an objective moral ought. And you say,In my understanding, humans were social animals giving each other mutual aid and/or having moral sentiment before rights reciprocity. Some form of mutual aid is a requirement for tribal groups to form to begin with. So, it is not modern rights in which harmony or sociality came to arise.
If you choose to ignore the traffic on the road like some other beings do, you will eventually become road kill, which is not beneficial to you, so you ought to grasp this fact and align your choices and actions to it. Yes, as a volitional being, it is your choice of whether you act in moral ways or immoral ways, but what is and is not objective morality is not your choice. It is something you need to discover and align to. When you choose to act in ways that are harmful, it is objectively immoral. Why? Because you are a rational being of type 8.a and not 8.b:I am saying that I prefer to decide what my highest value is and it does not have to categorically be to my own continued existence or living and thriving (whatever that is actually defined as).
These are objective facts of reality that you need to discover and align to. They are not a consequence of mere preference. Here are some more examples of objective moral oughts for rational beings of type 8.a:8. Rational beings can be grouped into two categories:
a. Those that stand to benefit and who therefore ought to prefer to live and thrive because it is in their nature as an organism qua organism (most people are of this category).
b. Those that do not stand to benefit (that relatively small category of people who’s quality of life is gone with little possibility of returning).
Generally speaking, rational beings ought to:
• Exercise
• Get enough sleep
• Honour contractual agreements
• Attempt to grasp pertinent facts
• Avoid undue risk of damaging themselves
• Eat nutritional foods and drink plenty of fluids
• Help others when the personal costs are not too great
Generally speaking, rational beings ought not:
• Get high on heroin
• Hate shinny red things
• Stone innocent rape victims
• Play Russian Roulette for thrills
• Jump out of airplanes without parachutes
• Look for ways to die in order to benefit others and then do so
• Donate their eyes, heart, liver, and kidneys and all their blood for the benefit of others
Do you agree with these two groups? What methods, principles, or essential qualities are we requiring in order to identify those that are of the first group from those of the second? The mores of society? Popular opinion? Arbitrary religious authority? Personal whim? What? Answer: personal benefit as defined by objective reality. Do you have a more essential quality that trumps personal benefit? If so, what?
Rob