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Symsav t1_j4rynh7 wrote

Reply to comment by SvetlanaButosky in /r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | January 16, 2023 by BernardJOrtcutt

This is not how subjectivity works. You’re equating subjectivity to non-existence. Right and wrong can and in almost all cases do still exist to the moral subjectivist, they just don’t refer to an objective principle of reality. Subjective morals are derived from the subject’s interpretation of morality, any of these world ending philosophies would be considered wrong by the vast majority of people and so would be intersubjectively wrong.

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SvetlanaButosky t1_j4s5f7w wrote

Its not objectively wrong, its only subjectively wrong due to moral consensus of the day.

Just like when people used to own slaves, have human ritual sacrifice, burn witches, not letting women vote, etc.

Just like when atheism is considered wrong by the majority a few hundred years ago.

Just like when Galileo were imprisoned for his teaching about the solar system.

A lot of terrible things used to be subjectively right due to consensus, a lot of good things used to be subjectively wrong due to consensus as well, they gradually change over time.

Thus blowing up earth as a philosophy is only wrong due to subjective consensus, it could become right one day to many people, depends on the amount of suffering that will either increase or decrease in the future.

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Symsav t1_j4sdqwv wrote

Yes. In the same way that the eradication of poverty and inequity could be considered right. These issues are not a result of subjectivism but the social and political environment in which these situations arose. Similar to the problems with the value judgements you mentioned is the way in which these views at the time were seen to be grounded in objectivity - the belief in the existence of objective morality can be just as, if not more, destructive when compared with subjective morality.

Whence are the objective standards of morality you are referring to? There is no objective principle of morality, to improvise one for the sake of objective morality would create many more problems than any subjective valuation.

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