All I've seen are your assertions that your explanations are the right ones because you know what morals are legitimate and what aren't
Then you didn't read the posts I advised you to read. Or you didn't understand what you were seeing.
and how we can measure these things with made up numbers with no basis in anything at all.
The results were quite definitive. The negative moral value was
over 9000!
Or, this is further indication that you didn't read the other posts.
Your cost benefit analysis is nothing more than a cover for trying to impose your value judgements onto others - and it has to be so because the costs and benefits are each assessed by a value judgement.
Your premise is false. You need to familiarize yourself with the concept of ethics- or maybe
read my post- before jumping to such absurd claims.
reject the idea that 2 perfectly rational human beings can disagree on an issue and/or that even if 2 people agree on something that doesn't mean their judgement is right.
I never suggested any of these- indeed, I stated very clearly to the contrary that unanimous opinions do not facts make.
Go ahead and continue to put words in my mouth and build your straw man army. There's obviously nothing I can do to stop you.
You seem to have a real need to cling onto the idea that there is right and wrong and good and evil in the world and
I used to buy into something very similar to the Objectivist nonsense you're caught up in when I was a teenager. Of course, then I grew up and realized it was a load of BS. It took a few choice words from a friend to wake me up to reality.
Most of us start out in life indoctrinated with the idea that there are literal forces of good and evil, based on some arbitrary qualifications that built up through cultural traditions.
Then, perhaps, if we're lucky we realize that's nonsense, and find holes in all of the reasoning.
We probably then erroneously conclude that there is no such thing as good and evil- because we've never been exposed to a coherent concept of it.
Boy, don't we feel smart when we figure that out! And all of these silly mortals are slogging along believing in this nonsense.
And then maybe we start reading books, and become interested in politics- and get a hard on for Libertarianism and the Objectivism of Ayn Rand- and we say "Wow, this is so right! All of these silly human morals are just opinion, and we can't force opinion on other people- because we don't want other people to force their opinions on us! It all makes sense now- the only greatest evil in the world is the imaginary concept of altruism, because it interferes with the will of rational agents in a pure and elegant social contract!"
And then maybe- just maybe- one day we actually open a real book on ethics or politics and start reading. Maybe at first just to criticize it. But if we aren't completely delusional, we start to ask questions- and we start to actually use our own brains again for the first time since we realized that the arbitrary ethics of our childhoods were irrational.
If we do, with a little luck, and a couple important epiphanies, we begin to make our way through Epicurus, then Kant, and through Singer and other modern philosophers, picking up little bread crumbs along the way- and we start to realize that it is possible to disregard morality based on religion and revelation (which has no sound logical argumentation) in a secular society without throwing the baby out with the bath water. We realize that morality, as a meme, does have some core logical meaning which can be investigated- through logical philosophy to neuroscience- and begin to shed light on a coherent and internally consistent system; a way of thinking about actions that can yield measurable and comparable values and bring to the table of ethics a solid foundation.
...Or we can just dogmatically stick to our guns that Objectivism is god, and Ayn Rand is his prophet, and no way no how is anybody going to tell me different.
You just can't accept that someone else can think differently from you, even to the point that I when I state I feel something is better you flat out deny it when it is a simple statement of fact about how I feel.
Oh, many people think differently. Some people use reason and logic, attempting to apply them consistently to all things (even when it makes them uncomfortable), while others use magical thinking.
On this topic, I see you're fond of the latter- and I understand that thoroughly. I can certainly accept that you can use magical thinking- which is different to the way I'm thinking.
I respect your right to do so. Like I said, you have just as much right to peddle your Objectivist woo here as any self proclaimed psychic has a right to his or her own woo.
I know how you're thinking, because I used to be stuck in the same rut.
What you fail to grasp is that better- morally better- is not an opinion. It's not up to you to decide what's better for you.
Your claim of moral relativism is no different from a Psychic's claim of physical relativism.
Your claim that it's better to you, is like the claim of a phychic that psychic powers are true for him- because he believes them it makes them true- but it won't be true for a skeptic. Skeptics block the psychic energy with their doubts, don't you know?
Or how about those who indulge in deeper woo, and claim the Earth is 5000 years old to them; but it can be 4.5 billion years old for you if you want- and both are literally true.
Try to imagine your claims of relativism from the perspective of somebody who believes in reality- one shared reality where some people are correct, and some people are incorrect.
Your claims are absurd.
(that is to say, as long as they're only fiddling their own children, and not yours, you have no reason to complain- unless for some silly reason you value morality)
