Theos-Talk Archives (January 1997 Message tl00948)

If moral standards are merely subjective, like tastes, then there would be no
way of settling disputes about whether the behaviour is immoral or not. I can
support an activity like stealing by merely asserting that I am creating my
own reality or that I'm expressing "my good" within that reality even though
your concept of what may be good might be different from mine, (particularly
if you're on the receiving end of the stealing). An S & L swindle may be
"good" for the swindler but not so great for the older folks whose life
savings are wiped out. An objectivist would contend, and rightly so, that
there is no essential difference between a dispute about moral matters and a
dispute about factual ones. Stealing is wrong and if you deny this, then one
of us is right and one is wrong. Our statement that stealing is wrong has an
objective reference to the fact that something was taken that didn't belong
to that person, i.e., the thief.

. Here we can see how subjectivism creates moral chaos. Morality becomes
arbitrary, merely a matter of caprice and whim. If we like murder, then it is
our "good"; if we dislike it, it is "evil"; but we might like it one day, and
dislike it another according to our "reality"- does this mean that murder is
sometimes right, sometimes wrong? According to the theory of moral
situationism, there is no objectivity in morals. Morality is determined by
whatever the situation calls for at the moment. Lying, stealing and adultery
becomes right under certain conditions. Even murder. Just ask some of our
current politicans (in either party).

Adopting such a position obviously reduces moral life to haphazard confusion
and anarchy. If  this subjectivist view prevailed, moral life as we know it
would become impossible - for example, how could we punish anyone for a crime
he or she committed?  We already see "moral relativism" or "situation ethics"
coming into play all too frequently in our society today... another
unfortunate legacy from the Sixties. It is used to justify just about
anything these days, including sleeping with thy neighbor's wife (like
Krishnamurti).

Recommended reading: Degenerate Moderns: Modernity as Rationalized Sexual
Misbehavior by E. Michael Jones, Ignatius Press, San Francisco - 
ISBN 0-89870-447-2

LunarPitri