Sunday, September 17, 2006

Are all Values Subjective?

I got this response in the comments section of a blog that I commented on;
“But values are in the subjective realm. Any specific human brain is in only one person, therefore values are in only one person. Many are the philosophers and religious devotees who would have their own values mandated as objective. Personally, I think the attempt to do so is immoral.”

Am I being objectively immoral or only immoral in the sense of your own subjective value standards? If subjective, I hope you are not trying to "mandate" your subjective values onto me.

I agree that values have a subjective element but some values are also based in natural law which is written into us as humans. Your argument has as it’s premise that humans are so different that there is no commonality to base any objective value standards. If you are right then on what basis can you tell anyone that they are wrong? On what grounds would you tell the early American slave owners that they were wrong for not valuing African American’s as equals. Most you could really say was that subjectively you value Africans American’s as equal but the slave owners would not be objectively wrong for valuing them less. They would be right based on their own subjective values.

You also have the problem that in a society that only has subjective values to base standards on, the only thing that makes something socially right or wrong is power. Might makes right which is scary.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

“All narratives are of equal worth”
- this is the malevolent mantra of Postmodernism in our (taxpayer-funded) universities.

Postmodernism is the anti-rational, anti-Western, culturally self-loathing pseudo-philosophy which permeates academia.

Postmodernism is a self-induced cancer which allows the alien virus of Islam to spread like a secondary infection throughout body of Western Civilization.

Postmodernist moonbats regard Mo's barbaric dark-age death-cult as a 'narrative' of equal value to the products of Judeo-Christian culture . In fact Islam may be a superior narrative because it is the product of victimhood.

I would strongly advise Infidels who wish to understand the threat that Islam poses to our civilization not only to study and critique Islam itself, but to understand and work against the suicidal and culturicidal self-loathing of Postmodernism.
“All narratives are of equal worth” - the PoMo dogma that dominates university arts, humanities and social studies departments. All narratives are socially constructed by dominant power groups - dead white males and Joooooooz being the usual suspects.

Postmodernism hasn't made much headway in science, engineering or mathematics departments, for reasons I'll come to in a moment.

Neither is postmodernism taken seriously by most philosophers, because it is in effect self-contradictory. "All narratives are of equal worth" So, optimistically all narratives should be equally true.

Unfortunately for the moonbats, diverse narratives contradict each other, so to maintain equality we must conclude that all narratives are equally false. However postmodernism is itself a narrative, so "all narratives are of equal worth" is as equally true/false as "some narratives are better than others". This is a variant of the old Cretan Paradox - 'Everything I say is a lie'. Pursue this line of reasoning far enough and the result will be insanity and/or left-wing politics. This spoof site (a postmodern essay generator) really hits the bullseye .. http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo

Some years ago there was an attempt by PoMo moonbat Marxist sociologists to protray science as a socially constructed narrative (constructed by all those Joooooooish Nobel prize winners with the poor old Muslim-victims being so underepresented ) . The logical outcome of this was if your culture said it was possible to float in the air then the socially-constructed Joooodeo-Christian (Newton and Einstein) laws of gravity would not apply to you as you stepped out of a sixth floor window.

This irrationalist obscurantist attack on science was debunked by the famous Sokal hoax, and the moonbats have not been back since... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_Affair

However the university faculties where logical thinking may be more of a handicap than a help greatly outnumber the science/philosophy/engineering faculties. There has been a vast proliferation of Departments of Indefinite Studies, Post-Colonialist Awareness, Multicultural Assertion, etc etc.

Western culture is 'despised' because some aspects of it ARE DIFFICULT TO MASTER. Thus sneeering cultural self-loathing is used as a cover for intellectual inadequacy.

In this dumbed down 'academic' environment, is it any wonder that Islam, which would have been laughed to scorn by previous generations, is now regarded as a subject worthy of study in its own right as a valid narrative, rather than being seen as a primitive cult of interest primarily to the anthropologist and historian? Of course Edward Said has a lot to answer for, coming along at just the right time to exploit the rise in postmodernism and post-colonial guilt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Said

Postmodernism is the fatal crack in the intellectual structure of Western civilisation through which the virus of Islam enters.

phatcatholic said...

dude, i'm impressed by your blog!! you've got some great content in your sidebar. keep up the good work man. i miss ya over at phatmass.

check out my blog sometime:
http://phatcatholic.blogspot.com

peace,
nick

Austin said...

Thanks Nick, I know I have not been to Phatmass Phorums in awhile. Your blog is impressive as well. May God give you the grace to write your paper what your working on. I will try to keep in touch more.

Austin said...

Thanks religion of pieces for your insights