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Comment by Aerbil313 | Hacker News Reader

Idk people but to me, changing and progressing morality and values doesn’t make sense. If something is truth, it must be truth at all times and places.

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One could write a very long essay on this, but basically: regardless of what the underlying truth out there in the universe is, all we can get at is an interpretation of the evidence to determine what we think is the truth. To the extent that truth is based on evidence it changes when new evidence is introduced.

To say otherwise is to say that people on death row should never be acquitted because it was true they were a murderer at the time of the trial, and that truth is unchangeable.

(or to use an example from cinema, at one point it "wasn't true" that cigarettes were harmful)

Absolutely true. But not everyone base their morality upon physical evidence or science.

The real word, especially on the level of societies, culture and morals (wich are, after all, products of the human mind, an extremely complex system), is under no obligation to be simple and logical.

Exactly. But not everyone base their morality upon how other people or themselves feel about something, or culture etc.

No it isn‘t [0] and even if it were it‘s not about truth or falsehood but about right or wrong and in any case: „at all times“ cannot mean changing the past and artifacts of the past. The past already happened and cannot be changed and products of the past likewise already happened.

[0] Because the assumption that the current society is somehow in possession of the truth is mistaken and has been shown to be mistaken again and again. Furthermore such an ideology would be just the opposite of what it means to live in an open society.

Of course, if were to base our morality upon changing things like science or how society feels about something, then our morality should always change, because both of those change all the time. But not everyone does this.

But we are not capable of knowing that anything is true with 100% certainty, we can be very convinced with ample evidence that something is true, but that doesn't make it true. I mean, the whole science shenanigans is based in this principle, that is the reason they talk about theories and not universal truths, because what we call facts or truth is at best very informed interpretations. We know no truth, so everything has to change and progress.

If we were to base our morality upon science, then you’re right. But not everyone does this.

>But we are not capable of knowing that anything is true with 100% certainty

>We know no truth

So you're saying we have 100% certainty that we aren't capable of knowing anything is true with 100% certainty?

I don't understand. How can morality and values be "true" or the truth?

In some places abortions is accepted by law and society. In other places you get jailed for it. And it all was different a century back. Or child labor. Drunk driving.

How can there be one truth to those moral questions?

If we base our morality according to how we feel about something, then of course. How people feel about things change all the time. We can’t speak about a single source of truth in this case, there are infinite amount of moralities. But not everyone bases morality on how people (including themselves) feel.

What morality is not based on how we feel?

For example what is the truth about the morality of guns in ET movie? I still don't understand what you mean.

Theological morality is not based on things like culture and science, which change all the time. Instead it’s based on divine words of God (Holy Books), and acts and words of prophets who are constantly checked and corrected by God to always act good. In Christianity and Judaism other people also have a say on morality, but in Islam morality completely originates from God, goodness is obedience to God and badness is disobedience to Him. In fact, all moralities except those which are based upon an ontologically higher and omniscient entity like God are subjective and non-normative, since they all rely on products of human mind, which always change (science, culture, etc.). Why should I be prosecuted for theft or murder? Just because you feel so? Countless other people in history felt otherwise. Even if all of humanity feels I should be prosecuted for a crime, I will ask, what makes mere feelings normative? It doesn’t make any sense at all.

I think we should be better than “We can’t see anything objective to base our morality upon, so we’ll just base it upon our feelings.” mindset. We should be able to at least admit we don’t have a normative morality and our laws and law enforcement is simply bullying people and making them submit our (collective) feelings and desires because we have the power and means to do so.

Regarding the question what God says being subjective: No, there are arguments of current and past miracles, and recorded honesty, reliability and mental health of prophets, and many other things. At least for Islam. You can search. If you have questions, simply refer to this playlist [1]. Every question regarding Islam and modernity is (repeatedly) asked there.

I could write a lot more but I have a lot of things to do so I’ll simply direct you to this documentary series [2] which elaborates on morality among other things. Both playlists are intellectual gems no matter what your background is.

0: See Rabbis having authority and knowledge over God in Judaism, and countless versions of Bible which are clearly not all the exact words of God, and instead of non-prophet humans. Also Christianity and Judaism doesn’t see prophets as constantly checked and sinless. See examples of sins commited by prophets in Bible and Old Testament.

1: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcnL9bB-q3ylQ9CZdB8YfjoDv...

2: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcnL9bB-q3ymnRNcpZGcVVjiD...

The Holy Books where written with the morality of the time in mind. Which changed and thus people ignore parts of it.

I still don't understand how "guns in E.T." can be "the truth"

Muslims maintain they were not written, they came directly from God. Also, Qur’an radically changed many moral values of the society at the time (most significant one being changing the state of polytheism from worship to blasphemy), and Muslims faced very strong and violent opposition because of that. I don’t know the specific subject of guns in E.T, but Islamic morality covers every single subject in life without exception. I didn’t say they are truth, I say there is one truth regarding their morality: They are either good or bad.

It can be true, you can know it's true, and your life can still be a lie. "Moral progress" is often of the form of people more fully living out the morality that they already know.

Well, aerbil313, I’m with you. And I’m glad that you said this.

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