As an engineer, I have found logical and critical thinking serves my life. Basing morality on what serves an individual's life is the most valid approach I have ever heard. I am 77yo and have lead an objective life with success as defined as happy, proud of my conduct, and productive. What you state here is a key to that. Thank you.
"Basing morality on what serves an individual's life is the most valid approach I have ever heard." That is rather vague. I assume you have never formally studied ETHICS, Douglas?
I had this point of view once but then i realised this.... how can we objectively determine what the purpose of morality is and why we ought to follow it? Let's say we decide the purpose of morality is to maximise flourishing for the greatest number of people. Well how do we know for certian what that this is the case? How do we know for certain what this flourishing looks like? Is flourishing the same for everyone? Why is it objectively true that the most amount of people should flourish rather than a select group of exceptional individuals?
@chickenbouilloncube7038 but you see this is my point, she thinks that is the purpose of morality, christians think it's to glorify god, ultilitarians think it's max flourishing for max number of people, how do we objectively determine who is correct?
@TheGiantMidget If you accept the christian method, you aren't trying to derive morality from reality, and the utilitarians are jumping a layer of abstraction without justifying that human existence has a value in the first place. Ayn Rand's take goes from the individual up, with everything else boiling down to "is this good for my life?". Utilitarians are skipping the part where there needs to be a reason for me, and for you or any individual to value maximum human flourishing, which is good as a value after your own.
@@chickenbouilloncube7038 but then at that point we're not even really talking about morality anymore it's just pure self interest which is what all animals do anyway. Morality is about how you are suppsoed to interact with other human beings and how we are supposed to take other people into consideration. If your morality is only concerned with your well being then you're essentially just using the word morality as placeholder term for self interest so why not just call it what it is?
@TheGiantMidget That ends up being a definitional issue because morality is about how you should act, and when you are interacting with others, thats ethics
As an engineer, I have found logical and critical thinking serves my life. Basing morality on what serves an individual's life is the most valid approach I have ever heard. I am 77yo and have lead an objective life with success as defined as happy, proud of my conduct, and productive. What you state here is a key to that. Thank you.
"Basing morality on what serves an individual's life is the most valid approach I have ever heard."
That is rather vague. I assume you have never formally studied ETHICS, Douglas?
I had this point of view once but then i realised this.... how can we objectively determine what the purpose of morality is and why we ought to follow it? Let's say we decide the purpose of morality is to maximise flourishing for the greatest number of people. Well how do we know for certian what that this is the case? How do we know for certain what this flourishing looks like? Is flourishing the same for everyone? Why is it objectively true that the most amount of people should flourish rather than a select group of exceptional individuals?
Ayn Rand's view isn't a utilitarian one, and the purpose of morality is to promote one's own flourishing, after preserving one's own life
@chickenbouilloncube7038 but you see this is my point, she thinks that is the purpose of morality, christians think it's to glorify god, ultilitarians think it's max flourishing for max number of people, how do we objectively determine who is correct?
@TheGiantMidget If you accept the christian method, you aren't trying to derive morality from reality, and the utilitarians are jumping a layer of abstraction without justifying that human existence has a value in the first place. Ayn Rand's take goes from the individual up, with everything else boiling down to "is this good for my life?". Utilitarians are skipping the part where there needs to be a reason for me, and for you or any individual to value maximum human flourishing, which is good as a value after your own.
@@chickenbouilloncube7038 but then at that point we're not even really talking about morality anymore it's just pure self interest which is what all animals do anyway. Morality is about how you are suppsoed to interact with other human beings and how we are supposed to take other people into consideration. If your morality is only concerned with your well being then you're essentially just using the word morality as placeholder term for self interest so why not just call it what it is?
@TheGiantMidget That ends up being a definitional issue because morality is about how you should act, and when you are interacting with others, thats ethics