Whether or not an election has been fair has criteria that can be objectively evaluated. With “moral goodness”, those criteria do not exist.
A moral relativist does not have explain why moral progress is good, because they disagree that you can even really define moral “progress”. At best, there is moral change, and society always catching up to whatever that change may have been. Mortality is an inherently subjective concept, and therefore what is considered morally good can change, or rather: the ‘moral goodness’ of something changes over time. Someone in the past may have fully believed their actions were morally just, despite us viewing them as monsters now. And perhaps things we now consider to be morally just will be considered morally reprehensible in 50 years from now.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 11 months ago
What does that have to do with my argument about the Aztecs? I don’t see the connection.
Wogi@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Because you seem to misunderstand what objective means, the other user is attempting to help you understand that with an unrelated example.
Objective means something is true. It does not mean consensus.
FluffyPotato@lemm.ee 11 months ago
What would it mean for a moral to be true?
Like we can prove the earth goes around the sun but how would you prove a moral value to be true?
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Yes, I know what objective means. What makes their morals untrue and yours true?
mindrover@lemm.ee 11 months ago
That’s the next step. Once we agree that someone is right and someone is wrong, then we can start talking about the definition of “moral good”. And that is a very difficult and complicated discussion. But just because it’s hard to define doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not real.
ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 11 months ago
You could for example take an utilitarian approach and then the objectively better decision would be the decision that leads to less suffering in total.
Simply because it is practically impossible for us humans to calculate the “total of suffering”, doesn’t mean this total does not exist. It objectively does exist for every given decision. Perhaps there are exceptions where there is equal suffering for all decisions. But that still wouldn’t make it a subjective observation.
Arguably, the Aztec had an even bigger lack of information. For example by assuming that human sacrifices are a necessity. Or that women don’t suffer when they are treated as lesser.
Suffering is an objectively “real” thing in our universe. Unless you also want to debate whether pain or the human existence is real.
This seems like an axiom of ethics: less suffering is good. Because why would more suffering be good?
This seems like it leaves us with the option to either decide actively against what is good, or make decisions randomly. Random would be if you don’t consider whether a decision increases or decreases suffering / well-being. I am a total lay person for philosophy but this almost makes it seem like it’s a logical fallacy to assume ethics (on a base level) are subjective. We almost must assume something to make a decision. And your decision always leads to an increase or decrease in suffering. Therefore all decisions are on an objective scale of mortality…?