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Originally Posted by DoOrDoNot
You're implying here that truth itself is subjective.
No I'm not, and I'd like a response to the proof I offered against your thesis and to my claim that under your criteria faith-based Christians are also moral nihilists. I mean, if faith is an allowable move here, then this is trivially easy. Atheists can accept objective morality on the basis of faith - hence atheism doesn't imply moral nihilism.
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Well of course that is one of the major problems with Kantianism is that you cannot resolve conflicts of duty. But legitimately, how can something be right or wrong if it is not binding?
This is because in Kantianism it isn't the
goals that are evaluated as right or wrong (and binding), but rather the methods you use to accomplish those goals. Imagine you are taking an art class, and the instructor says, you can draw whatever picture you want, but you have to use charcoal. She is giving you free choice as to what you draw, but limiting the means you use to draw it. If you turn in a nice drawing, but in graphite, she can mark you down for not following the rules. But if you turn in a landscape, and she marks you down for not doing a portrait, you can complain.
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I'll even give you that Kantianism is true. So what? Why should I follow it? This goes for any other 'objective' moral theory you can think of. I'll grant every single one of them. If we're not ultimately bound to follow them, then they're meaningless.
If Kantianism is true, you should follow its precepts because doing so is a pre-condition for autonomy. That is, in order to rationally will anything at all, you have to follow the precepts of Kantian morality.
You really shouldn't grant so much. Your objection loses all its force if Kantian morality is true. Moral nihilism isn't much of a problem if it is compatible with Kantian morality, which is universally binding on all rational beings.
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Well then what's the point of holding it? "You can have any old goal you like, so long as you aren't being irrational!" Who's gonna make me? Objective morality existing would just be a descriptive fact about reality with no meaning at all if I'm not bound to follow it. It may as well not exist. Yet moral questions are certainly more powerful than this.
The point of holding it is because it will lead to a better life for you and others. No one is going to make you accept them, although your life might be much worse if you don't.
Morality isn't meaningless in a world in which morality is not a requirement of reason. It has something like the meaning I, and 3 or 4 other people in this thread have described (and you have ignored by saying that it is still subjectivity, which, yeah....?).