andrewducker | Just for the sake of disagreement

There are large numbers of things I believe that go against the grain of common opinion. Even in a place like LJ, where it's possible to attract people who feel likewise about things, I'm liable to say something every third day that causes _someone_ to get upset. In an attempt to get it out of my system, here's a few off the top of my head.

I believe that our brains are made of chemicals, and that our minds are the product of events that occur within them. I thus believe that our thoughts can be affected by changes in chemical levels in the body. Anyone who disagrees is invited to spend three days on amphetamines and then come off of them cold turkey without becoming violently unpleasant.

I believe that people are actually pretty fucking insignificant on the grand scheme of things, occupying a tiny sliver of barely livable landscape on the outside of a tiny speck on the edge of a not-terribly-special galaxy. It seems dramatically unlikely to me that humankind will survive more than a few hundred-thousand years, and frankly I don't really care that much.

I believe that believing that there are invisible supernatural beings that will answer prayers, reward the good and punish the bad, but never in a way that is concretely verifiable is a sign that you're not willing to be critical about the world. Sure, it'd be nice if the world worked according to a grand plan and it all worked out in the end - I'd _love_ that. But to believe that it actually does with _no evidence whatsoever_ seems akin to madness.

I believe that all aesthetics are purely personal. Like Leopard-Skin waste-paper-baskets - that's _your_ choice. If you want to wear brown and purple - that's up to you. If you actually think that Piers Anthony is the best writer of all time - fine - that's _your opinion_. Just remember that's all it bloody well is.

I believe likewise about morality. All morality means is "I wish the world was this way." It doesn't mean the world was _designed_ to be that way, or that the world is somehow _supposed_ to be that way - just that you'd be happier if it was.

I _don't_ believe that this means I can't make choices about the way the world should be. Just because my views are personal and Osama Bin Laden's are likewise doesn't mean I have to agree with him, or npot be in favour of stopping him. I believe in freedom of sexuality, some people think homosexuality is wrong. I fully believe that both of these views are equally valid on a purely emotional level. But I'm damned if I'm going to just stand by and let them _do_ anything about it - I want the world to work the way _I_ want it to, goddamit.

I believe that central control does not work for large organisations. Nobody understands complex systems. There's a fair argument to say that you _can't_ understand complex systems in detail. Therefore I don't think that centralised systems work for dealing with complexity. This is the (vastly simplified) reason I don't think pure socialism is workable.

I believe that most people don't think about consequences and will try to get away with just a little bit of naughtiness here and there. And that en masse this lack of thought and selfishness can lead to terrible things occurring. This is why I don't think that pure capitalism is workable.

I believe, in fact, that no system is workable. Systems are simple and rule-based. Any system of rules rapidly leads to a variety of outcomes that were never predicted by the people creating them and usually cause a fair sprinkling of things that are the opposite of what they actually wanted in the first place. The world is a complex squishy place - attempting to put it inside nice straight lines just means chopping off more and more bits that stick over the edges.

I believe that this is all you get and you should bloody well get on with it.

Fucking hell that feels better

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Oh, I'm certainly dead against those things. I don't like them at all. Am most unlikely to vote in favour of them.

I guess my point is that I don't have any respect for moral viewpoints to the contrary, in some cases such as these. I'm not going to say, "Oh, well, I personally think that maiming and torturing children isn't right, but I understand that you think differently." No, I'm much more likely to say, "You're wrong," at least about a few select things.

I might say that I can understand why some people would believe that homosexuality is wrong, even though I don't agree with them. I might say that I can understand why some people would believe that the homeless deserve to die on the streets with no aid, even though I don't agree with them. I might say that I can understand why some people would believe that war is a fine "solution" to some conflict or other, even though I don't agree with them. But there are certain places where I draw the line and say, "No. This one isn't subjective. It's isn't a question of different opinions. This one is just a moral truth."

And I can understand why you feel that way.

But why is it moral truth? Does anything make it more moral truth than the others, except that you can't think of any reason to agree with it?

Is it purely your gut instinct telling you it's the truth?

And if so, how much do you trust your gut?

Most of the "moral truths" I consider absolute have to do with stuff like this:

Pain is, quite definitively, bad. Our body uses pain as a negative neural message to help avoid bodily injury. If pain is bad, then the purposeful causing of pain is bad. (Though I -- unlike some people -- would make an exception for consensual pain-giving.)

Most other moral issues -- even those I have extremely strong opinions about -- I can see both sides. But there are a few I can't. That might just be me being less open-minded than you apparently are.

Wuh? That argument is invalid. "Our body uses pain as a negative neural message" => "pain is good," or at least "useful."

I mean, you can make a dozen other, better arguments for the moral belief that you shouldn't cause pain. But you would have to make a meta-ethical argument to show that "you shouldn't cause pain" means "it is an objective moral truth that you shouldn't cause pain," rather than (as Andy is saying) "I don't like it when you cause pain."

I think you mean that pain is useful, not that pain is good. Our bodies quite definitively define pain as bad. If your body does not -- and there are some bodies for which this is true -- it works very differently from most.

Useful => good, though. Typhoid and swans, it all comes from the same place!

Wait, do you believe everything your body tells you? My body tells me doughnuts are made out of pure soy protein and contain your recommended daily allowance of sixteen delicious vitamins and minerals, but I know better than to trust that lying bastard, yo.

Hmm. In that case, your body is pretty stupid. No wonder we disagree.

It's not stupid! It's advaaaaanced!

I'd say that the only absolute moral truths would occur from intransients in human physiology, causing intransients in human morality to the point where you would define a person who does not have these intransients as being non-human. Further, these would only be human absolute moral truths, which would be tautological as the a priori definition of human would have to originate from the attributes of having human absolute moral truths.

Which is why I don't believe in any absolutes at all. Not in terms of morality, definition or existence.

And yet I still am happy to say that "hurting people against their will is bad", although with the caveat of that just being my opinion and there are people out there with different moral systems that think it's just fine to do what I consider to be horrendous things.

Just for the sake of disagreement

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