The Ancient Chimera of Universal, Absolute, and Objective Value

[zefreak]

@J. Grayson Lilburne

@zefreak

@liberty student

@zefreak

AJ and Liberty Student, this question is for you as well.

I read it a dozen times, and maybe I am a moron, but I didn’t understand it. I think your questions weren’t clear enough for me. Urge, wells, mere, etc.

Just being poetic

Short version, are moral urges (the feeling of disapprobation and, conversely, approval that arises from a given state of affairs) different in kind from feelings that arise from circumstances that would hardly be considered moral or immoral, such as breaking a computer or valued item? Is the difference merely one of degree (an admittedly large degree, to be sure)?

Is there a necessary distinction between moral sentiment and sentiment?

Feelings that are typically called moral have to do with disapprobation and approval of one’s own action or those of others regarding interpersonal affairs: matters of conscience. I think that’s the key distinction. Another key distinction within matters of conscience are sentiments regarding interpersonal violence and whether it is felt to be justified or unjustified: matters of justice.

So the distinction regards not the sentiment itself but the object with which the sentiment is related? The same phenomenon (identically experienced, or similar ‘qualia’ to borrow the term) of disapprobation can be both a moral and a non-moral sentiment, depending on the object of its relation?

If this is the case (and I think you would agree) then it seems an arbitrary distinction. Useful in common discourse, but there is nothing ‘special’ about moral sentiment vs ‘other’ sentiment.