*** The Official MAGAposting thread ***

[MadMojoMonkey]

Certainly not by me.

Me, neither. It's not the nature of this category of questions to have provable statements.
If it was, then morality would be a science, and we would have a testable system to solve moral dilemmas.

We first need to define "good" before we do anything else with it.

Exactly. You hit the nail square on the head.

Is there any conceivable way to objectively define what is "good?"
The answer is no. Or at best, none of the smartest ethicists who have ever lived have been able to even scratch the surface of that one.

You're proposition

I am not.

[...] is that we can't ever know what's good because it's subjective, that everyone should be able to judge for themselves and no one else should have any say. To me that's debatable, I'm sure you agree many people act against their own interests, and the interests of everyone out of ignorance, selfishness, pressure. To say they're just as "correct" with their definition of good is nonsense. For the majority of things we can objectively determine what's best overall, within a defined set of criteria.

Re bold: no, that's not my position. We're knees deep in this discussion, all having our say.

I feel you're edging over the line of morality and into the realm of jurisprudence.
The question of what is right or what is best or what is good is one thing.
Questions about "what justification is there for the greater society to override an individual's freedom?" seem a step beyond where we've been, but a logical direction to move in.

However, to not say they're just as correct is the real nonsense, IMO. Just because your opinion is popular doesn't mean it's right. Murderers have different opinions about what is right than the rest of us... does that make them wrong because they're in the minority?

Is that all it takes to prop up your definition of what's correct? Popularity?
Was Naziism correct at the time... because it was popular, at least in some small region of the world?

I'm not convinced that we're any good at all at collectively determining what's best overall. In fact, I think you have to actively ignore a wealth of data to draw that conclusion. Humans mistreat other humans every day all the time. That's ubiquitously popular. Does that make it morally right?

Do bacteria and viruses have the same emotional and physical responses to well-being and suffering as humans? We don't know (yet) but if they did, yes they should have the same "rights".

No. We do know. These organic life forms are far too tiny - too chemically simple - to have a nervous system or a complex set of responses that could give rise to emergent consciousness.
They're just too tiny - far too few dynamic parts, molecules, to give rise to complex behavior.
Stuff many orders of magnitude bigger doesn't even have enough going on to give rise to emotional responses, like insects.

Probably poopadoop could say this in a more convincing manner... or tell me I've got it wrong.

Look, you're the one who said,
"We'd of course would been to start with defining what the framework is supposed to describe, such as something like 'maximizing well-being and minimizing suffering of all organic life on earth'"

I answered as though you'd said "humans" instead of "all organic life on Earth," but then clarified - I don't think you were saying that viruses and bacteria deserve moral rights, but you DID say that, so I didn't want to leave your actual statement unresponded to.

Apart from how we see things and how we should determine enacted social policies, I dunno, maybe it wouldn't?

OK. So you're speculating that the missing factor from having a provable moral statement is a definitive understanding of the value of human life, but you're not sure exactly what the ramifications of that definition would be.

I really respect that kind of thinking. It states an open question and implies an avenue of exploration.

Well we already have that. I'm just suggesting it could be better.

Lol.. but what do you mean by "better?" Better for whom?

I'm not saying that there is no point to having laws and jurisprudence, BTW. We're kind of a step below that stuff. I lose my footing fast and easy when we get up to that level. Personally, I don't see that society has a moral right to impose a morality on any individual. However, what is moral for a society is clearly at odds with what is moral for individuals. So we have bigger problems. Even if we could define what's best for societies, it will not be what's best for all members of the society. If we could define what's best for all individuals, that would not be best for the greater society. So there's definitely a gray area of compromise where we have to balance in which cases which system should rule.