Naw things can have value. They just can't have objective value, only subjective value. In other words, things have value only because people value them.

Errrr. If a value is objective, then it is valuable independent of what others consider it. If it's subjective, then it's only valuable because someone is giving it value. It's like the dollar. Objectively, there is no value for the dollar, only the value that people recognize it as having.

Edit: Cool we agree again .

i agree with this actually.  Morality is highly personal.  What I think is "right" or "wrong" is based solely on my experiences and upbringing.  It's no more or less valid than somebody else completely disagrees with me.  There is no true or objective good or evil.  The closest thing to that is universal law.

To answer the question, I can't "reason" my morals.  I can only say that they are right by my own definition of what I should or should not do.  And that definition is more like an opinion.  That is, it is neither correct nor incorrect.

Hmmm... Metaethical Essentialism vs. Cultural Relativism. What a tough one. All the kids are relativists. But all the kids are selfish and _ignorant_. They really need educations; more now than ever. Let me think.

That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.
                      ---W.H. Auden, The Shield of Achilles

Metaethical essentialism contends that there is some characteristic of humankind or nature that determines right from wrong; be it deontological, consequential, or some combination of both.  Ethical relativism disregards this belief in favor of ethics based entirely on private opinion (individual relativism) or the collective opinion of a given society (cultural/temporal relativism).  Ethical relativism acknowledges no absolutes; it can be strictly rigorist or often antinomian, very tolerant or entirely intolerant of acts which do not conform to a society

damn v.kemp, you beat me to it, which is good because i didnt take any classes on this type of thing, and wouldnt of been able to describe it nearly as well.

"There is no situation factor in the case of rape.  Rape is essentially wrong, so there can be no possible conflicting duty which would oblige the act to be committed.  A position of total rigorism is the only essentially moral position."

I disagree, let's say some guy (let's call him John) hangs out with "bad" people. And the bad people grab some woman from the street and say to John he has to rape her in order to be accepted into the group.
And to make sure John doesn't just walk off and leave the group they add: "if you don't, we will kill her".

John now has three options, either he rapes her and she lives, or he walks away and she gets murdered.
Or het attacks the bad people and they will most likely get killed both.
If John chooses to rape her under these conditions, would it really be wrong?

In my opinion, nothing is wrong in essence, murdering someone today can lead to a trail of events in which the lives of hundreds of people can be saved, but you don't know that of course.

However, i personally try not to cause harm to people if they haven't done harm to me.
Although this probably merely is because i think of the consequences,  if i could do something to someone and i would have great personal gain, and i would be sure there would be no consequences whatsoever i probably would do it....

...unless i genuinly care for the person in question. Then i would have troubles performing such an act, and that's when feelings of compassion and such comes forward, i guess you could call that feeling morality.

Where it comes from? Probably evolved during evolution to make for better surviving chances.
So morality is just a process in the brain developed over millions of years, like anthing else in your body has.
It is not an absolute set of guidelines of good and wrong.

Those are the basic morals every human has from when it was born, many more are forced upon the human by society during life.  Some will make (some of) these morals of their own and strongly believe in them, while others only follow them (partially) because of the consequences, and others totally disregard them.

As with a presidential campaign you should know where the candidate you are endorsing truely stands on the issue.  Rape is wrong regardless of how persuasive V.Kemp may have been.

cultural relativism is BS, any college freshman who took a basic philsophy class stoned as shit can tell you that.  and hume is kind of a dick too, thank god he got pretty much dethroned when an army of people smarter than him showed up.

i usually end up putting those genes somewhere where they shouldnt be.

> Rape is only wrong because society says it is is wrong, and even then only for people.

Because people have evolved. Or, at least, i like to think so anyway. We don't need to rape in order to ensure reproduction.

So now the emotional state and well-being of people is more important then reproducing.

> avogadro wrote:

> "
Rape is only wrong because society says it is is wrong, and even then only for people. Did you know that pigs don't merely have sex? The male frequently rapes the sow in order to impregnate her, now, is that wrong? Is that immoral? Should I punish my piggie?"

are female pigs traumatized for the rest of their life after they're raped? i dont think you can compare the two....

Agreed, how the hell can you compare the 2, humans are unique in their ability to reason, animals do not, they have instinctual and learned behavior.

The understanding of the mental preconceiving of acts of unmoral nature is what in fact makes them wrong, and it's that very conceiving that can vary from society to society to person to person, whats wrong to me, is Ok to someone else of a different culture, that very person can think that rape is ok, and in his culture it very well could be, but Me, as an American that would be what is defined as Personality Disorder, as well as Psychopathic Traits because American Culture and society doesn't believe such an act is moral, in conclusion, a Sociopath/Psychopath in America, can be but a Citizen of the Norm in some Middle Eastern Nations, or other Nations of Taboo sociological practices.