Thoughts on Morality

[unspeakablehorror]

Morality* is one of those things that I think simply can't ever be entirely objective, because it's fundamentally about people's goals.  It's one thing to discover what is, another to decide what should be.  If one person wants something fundamentally different from another person, no one can 'prove' which one wants the 'right' outcome.  Which is not to say that this precludes any useful discussion of morality, because another aspect of such things is that most people value more than one thing, and people often agree on outcomes but disagree on the means to achieve those outcomes.   Appealing to other common goals or discussing data for viewpoints can sometimes be worthwhile.  But this does mean that there simply isn't always even a theoretical way to reconcile all disagreements of morality.

*Morality used here to refer simply to what people see as desirable outcomes.  I clarify this since people may associate strong connotations with this word, and more formal philosophies may ascribe different definitions to it.