Quote from: abitpeckish on May 19, 2013, 07:02 pmIf you don't agree that (e.g.) medicine is a rightly (as opposed to wrongly) oriented endeavor, then I suggest you're either forcing yourself to unvalue what you already value as a simple consequence of existing or you do not have a normative brain. Which would be okay, because a) that's bound to happen and b) we live in a time where we can actually mitigate and even fix some of the common brain anomalies we experience (e.g. I have raging ADD), and c) knowledge is what gives us the ability to transcend.Of course it would be okay. I don't believe anything is wrong, remember? How could it not be okay? ;)QuoteQuoteI agree with you completely. Yet I don't see how the majority of the race being biologically "wired" to appreciate one end more than another makes the pursuit of that end any less subjective. A sadist that made all life on earth suffer unimaginable agony until we all expired for his/her amusement would be just as moral, as far as I'm concerned;This is meaninglessness. When you go this far, you dissolve your intelligent mind into a sea of noise. We have every right to put an unethically acting person away in an institution.I have to stop you here: you're attempting to use unethical behavior in your illustration of how certain behavior is unethical -- but I'm questioning your conclusion of what constitutes ethical behavior. It's a circular argument.QuoteAgain, it doesn't matter whether or not we can prove the existence of right or wrong. All that matters is that the question matters to us. It does, and so we need to figure out the most reliable path to the very best answers. Which has always been the whole point of all of science. Not the right answers, in any absolute sense, just the best ones. We can figure that shit out.Here's what you seem to be missing: my sense of morals may be different than your own, which in turn may be different than the next fellow's, and so on, and so on. I assumed that what you consider to be moral behavior was based on the majority of people agreeing with said behavior. You value happiness for all. That's wonderful. It's also absolutely no better than a serial killer who doesn't give a fuck about anyone. His feelings differ. What makes yours better -- and please don't say that yours bring about more happiness, because that's a goal that your sense of morality causes (or that you otherwise innately desire by virtue of your biology): you can't claim that yours is better than his because yours fulfills its own goals.