Objective Morality

[OnceSaved]

Anti-dualistic: Postmoderns assert that Western philosophy created dualisms (true/false, right/wrong) and thus excluded certain perspectives from consideration. On the other hand, postmodernism values and promotes pluralism and diversity (rather than black vs. white, West vs. East, male vs. female). It claims to seek the interests of "the other" - those marginalized and oppressed by modernist ideologies and the political/social structures that support them.

Questioning texts: Postmoderns also maintain that texts—historical, literary, or otherwise—have no inherent authority or objectivity in revealing the author's intent, nor can they tell us "what really happened." Rather, these texts reflect the peculiarities of the writer's particular bias, culture, and era. Australian historian Keith Windschuttle has noted that for the past 2400 years, critics assumed that truth was still within the historian's grasp, but "the newly dominant theorists within the humanities and social sciences assert that it is impossible to tell the truth about the past or to use history to produce knowledge in any objective sense at all."5

The linguistic turn: Postmodernism argues that language shapes our thinking and that there can be no thought without language. So language literally creates truth. As Richard Rorty argues, "Where there are no sentences there is no truth."6 So truth is created rather than discovered. Thus, as Friedrich Nietzsche argued, "There are no eternal facts, just as there are no absolute truths."7

Truth as perspectival: Furthermore, truth is a matter of perspective or context rather than being something universal. We do not have access to reality —to the way things are—but only to what appears to us. Since we cannot remove ourselves from our context to have a "God's-eye view" of things, we must acknowledge that our thinking is shaped by forces beyond our control. We are like Truman Burbank in The Truman Show. He is the unknowing star of a production in a sheltered environment ("Seahaven"), where 5,000 cameras monitor his every move; everyone but Truman is acting. Likewise, we simply find ourselves thrown into a context with no way of getting outside it.

Of course, we can be grateful for the postmodern critique of modernism in many ways. Much within postmodernism raises important questions regarding genuine human limitations or bias and the problematic position that one should only believe what is absolutely certain. But much within postmodernism raises many troubling questions and deep contradictions: How can someone deny universal truth without affirming it in some way ("It's universally true that there is no truth")? Would it not be a universal fact that there are not any universal facts? Is it not the claim that "it's all a matter of perspective" asserting more than someone's perspective? Do not those who question whether we can know an author's intentions write to express their own particular intentions? And is it not the rejection of metanarratives/grand stories a kind of metanarrative itself?

[PaulSacramento]

Paulsacramento

I think you are reading a little too far into this my friend! The only point I am trying to make is without intelligent life, there is no objective morality. That’s it! And it appears you agree with me.

Ken

Yes of course you are right in that regard, I mean, without intelligent life there is no math either.
BUT 1+1 would still be 2 and right and wrong would still exist and that is what I don't think you are grasping.

The equation 1+1=2 is made up of reprehensive tokens. It is those tokens that represent reality. With right and wrong, if there were no intelligent life to cause actions; right and wrong would be no more than a hypothetical

Ken

So, 2 +2 = 5 would be right?

You're kidding; right?

Ken

If there is no reality where there is no intelligence then 2+2 can be anything since it takes intelligence to SUM up existing numbers.

[Kenny]

Paulsacramento
If there is no reality where there is no intelligence then 2+2 can be anything since it takes intelligence to SUM up existing numbers

Ken
I never said there was no reality where there is no intelligence.

Ken