The science of morality tells you whether you OUGHT to take vitamin C. “Good”, “should”, “ought” are moral terms.

The fact that you can word your sentence in this way does not make it true. Language does not define reality, it’s the other way around.
In the same sense, I could say that “you ought to eat” or “you should breathe” but these still would not be moral choices. Scurvy invariably leads to death thus taking vitamin C falls into the same category as any other survival choice. I already explain what would constitute a moral choice when vitamin C is concerned. Do you dissagree?

Try living in a society without knowing whether you should take this job or that, live here or there, associate with this group or that, love this person or that. “Life” is a biological term. “A good life” is a moral term.

Exactly! You need a society before you can even contemplate morality. This is what I was trying to explain to Ergosum before. Furthermore. a “good life” is, of course, something absolutely subjective since everyone of us, find his own way to achieve this “good life”. There is no objective path that everyone can follow to have a good life. Such a belief would borders on religion.

Moral paradoxes arise in ethics because the principle of scientific principles aren’t being adhered to properly. Just as there are quack scientists, there are quack ethicists/moralists. All religionists are by definition scientific quacks, but some ethicists are also scientific quacks. They give you moral paradoxes.

That is your belief.Has there ever been a moral value that’s been found through proper scientific principles and thus unaffected by moral dillemas? If not, can you think why? If yes, can you give me an example?

(This post, if you can stand to look beyond the personal, addresses the topic.)

Unfortunately I do not care to read what Ergosum has to say on anything on this matter. Not because he is invariably wrong but because if I have any objections or arguments then he is not prepared to listen. For a more detailed explanation just look at his response to your comment…

This becomes your area of responsibility. In this particular division of labor, while ethicists are responsible for discovering and defining moral codes, you (in fact, everyone of us) are responsible for validating for yourself whether their moral teachings are true before accepting them.

No. This is exactly why ethics is not compatible with the scientific method. Whereas a discovery via the scientific method is impossible to refute or invalidate in any case, when the data is correct that is; in ethics, according to you at least, the results are subject to the recipient’s approval. This just means that ethics does not discover morals via the scientific method. Of course this is obvious for me, for there is nothing to discover as I argued in my previous comment.

A correct way to decide on your morality is realize that it is subjective, to keep it open and amendable. Then critisize everything before you accept them as moral or not. You should be validating every “line of code” yourself or else you risk falling into a mentality where you accept the “objective” results of “experts” (read: ethicists) without question. In the old days, the experts where the priests, you shouldn’t just replace one false expert with another. Since then you are validating what is “objective” it is obvious that it is not objective at all or else it would not be subject to validation.
Now, I know what you are going to argue as an Objectivist: That a rational person would always reach the same conclusion and thus if all were thinking rationaly then the truly objective moral principles would be accepted and the wrong ones discarded. Before you say that though, consider that not all people consider the rationale of Objectivists correct and even reason itself is subjective. (And please, for the love of of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I do not want to deal with any circular arguments today…)

Life requires an owner’s manual for successful living: a moral code for choosing and acting. If so, here is your real dilemma: Either moral principles don’t exist or they do. If scientific moral principles don’t exist, then none can ever be discovered, and there is no universal moral code for living as a human being. But if moral principles do exist, then they can be discovered and defined by ethicists, and there is a moral code applicable to every human being to guide him toward a good life.

Exactly! This is what I’ve been trying to say all along. Moral principles do not exist. They cannot be discovered. You are just being wishful here. I agree, it would be grand if there were objective moral principles that everyone could blindly follow to lead a good and happy life. It would also be grand if a true benevolent and all-powerful god existed that protected and cared for us. Unfortunately he doesn’t, in the same way that they don’t. Wishing it does not make it so…
Find your own moral code that leads you to a good life, that is all you can do.

Morality IS rules based. These rules are arbitary but succesful in an evolutionary way. You can of course make sociological studies and try to develop/theorize new and improved moral values but they will be still subjective. The reason for this is that your new theorems will invariably be based on your previous moral values and you subjective look on the situation.
The only objective thing that you can find is the optimal moral choice for any given situation, that will lead to the best results for the individuals concerned. However you can never take into consideration all possible situations and thus make a moral principle that has everything covered and thus you need generic guidelines that “usually” are correct. Thus morality.

Atheists have a negative principle to reject all moral codes that are religion-based.

This statement is patently incorrect. If you do this then you are wrong. You should not reject a moral code just because it is religion-based. After all even religions have been known to get at least some things right. No, you should judge and critisize this moral code and accept or reject it on its own merits.

o, in the end, some atheists accept that which amounts to the same pessimistic view of this life: that man cannot act with integrity on moral principles, that no principle can guide him, that a man of principle is an oxymoron

Once again this sound like something a theist would say. I can argue that “some” objectivists do something. “Some” atheists are also paranoid sociopaths, so what? We can only discuss what an individual should be doing, not what an individual that is looking at this the wrong way is probably doing.
In this sense I can only talk for my self when I say that I am an extemely optimistic person in the majority of the situations. I also consider morality subjective, go figure…

There is a cause for optimism in this life. I have found mine and so can you.

Moral paradoxes arise in ethics because the principle of scientific principles aren’t being adhered to properly. Just as there are quack scientists, there are quack ethicists/moralists. All religionists are by definition scientific quacks, but some ethicists are also scientific quacks. They give you moral paradoxes. (This post, if you can stand to look beyond the personal, addresses the topic.)

Recall that ethicists and religionists write moral codes. Thanks to atheism, you have a delimited moral principle to reject moral codes written by religionists. (Religious moral codes are rules-based and are dreamed up, and neither principles-based nor discovered.) But some ethicists also come out with moral codes having no moral principles; they tell you, as a matter of principle, moral principles don’t exist. Are these ethicists quacks or not? Are they following the principle of scientific principles? This becomes your area of responsibility. In this particular division of labor, while ethicists are responsible for discovering and defining moral codes, you (in fact, everyone of us) are responsible for validating for yourself whether their moral teachings are true before accepting them.

So every man has accepted a moral code. How he comes to that code depends on how rigorous his validation process. Has he accepted religion? Has he accepted astrology instead of astronomy? Is his morality a plagiarized copy of Western norms? Did he copy the norms without thinking? Or did he validate every line of code himself?

Life requires an owner’s manual for successful living: a moral code for choosing and acting. If so, here is your real dilemma: Either moral principles don’t exist or they do. If scientific moral principles don’t exist, then none can ever be discovered, and there is no universal moral code for living as a human being. But if moral principles do exist, then they can be discovered and defined by ethicists, and there is a moral code applicable to every human being to guide him toward a good life.

Morality is either rules-based or principles-based. Rules are made up, dreamed up, voted up, forced up. Principles are discoveries from observing people living their lives: the evidence of happy lives, tragic lives, long lives, short lives, lives of luxury, lives of poverty, lives of freedom, lives of slavery, lives of friendship, lives of loneliness, lives in society, lives in the jungle.

If moral principles don’t exist, then morality is never principles-based and can only be based on exception-laden rules. But if they do exist, then a morality that is true for everyone can be discovered. If they do exist, an owner’s manual for humans can be discovered.

Religionists are pessimists of this life. They tell you to look forward to the next. Atheists have a negative principle to reject all moral codes that are religion-based. But religion-based moral codes don’t exhaust the variety of rules-based moral codes. So, in the end, some atheists accept that which amounts to the same pessimistic view of this life: that man cannot act with integrity on moral principles, that no principle can guide him, that a man of principle is an oxymoron, that this social situation requires five rules and two exceptions but that social situation requires seven rules and four exceptions, that there are 11 rules to date singles but 15 to date divorcées with children, that these rules apply to whites only or to men only or to singles only or rich folk only, that the rules are all conventions and are subject to change.

But what if it is possible to be optimists of this life? Only if moral principles exist. The moral optimists are those who are confident that while human beings may be born without an owner’s manual, they can, through the science of ethics, come to discover it. Is there cause for optimism about this life, the one irreplaceable life that is yours?

That’s the real dilemma.

As far as I am concerned – objectivity has no degrees, thus is absolute. One can only reach it abolishing everything connecting him in any way to anything but distance. Not even ratio itself will do the thing in my opinion. Its not enough – one has to go further. Beyond logic. Beyond definition. And then it’s just harder to describe. But that’s a perspective thing, I guess..

Sometimes it seemed to me that morality was the “lex anima” of the actions and thoughts, how you reflect upon that and how you feel results from it but no more than this. On the other hand, I do not necessarily link moral and ideology/codex. I am too much a patterns-person to apply it in general to me. It’s a little bit like the flexibility of the tao with the understanding of the circumstances for me.

That’s not about it, but it is about now.

“Human nutrition ought to include some vitamin C to preserve health.” These are moral principles…

These are not moral principles, they are medical/health facts. Taking or not vitamin C is not a moral decision, it is a survival question. There is no morality included in this choice. Either you take it, or you don’t and get scurvy – No moral decision here. You are not an immoral person if you do not take vitamin C, just stupid or uninformed.
You would, however, be an immoral person if you witheld vitamin C from other people in order to hoard it up for yourself. You could even face a moral dilema if you had a choice of fairly distributing vitamin c in a village or give it first to your family.
Without the context of other people the taking of vitamin C is not a moral decision.

True moral principles, on the other hand, are true because of the observed evidence and the underlying reasoning process involved in their integration…

What I am trying to explain is that moral values do not have any evidence behind them. This is impossible. They cannot be discovered because they are strictly theoretical ideas. They do not have any material substance behind them in order to discover. In order for something to be discovered, it must exist beforehand and for that to happen moral values have to be something that existed as long as the universe has. They would be laws, like the laws of physics that demand obedience.
They are not however, which is why you can ignore a moral rule, quite unlike the law of gravity.

Therefore I reject the idea scientists can discover the moral laws that will allow us to “live as human beings”. They can perhaps make sociological studies and theorize some enhanced moral guidelines that if accepted by all would make life better for all but it is impossible to discover a “moral principle”. For the discovery of that principle would mean that all humans would be following it already, like breathing. You may wish that this kind of “true moral principles” can be discovered by ethicists but I wouldn’t hold my breath. There has been no such “true principle” discovered as of yet and nor will it be for morality is subjective and situational.

In the here and now, you are living your own private life. You, dude, are living it, not me, not anybody else. What principles guide you? What moral code have you accepted to help you decide and act? What principles or rules have you subconsciously absorbed from your upbringing, your European society? Are they correct in guiding you toward what is good for your life? Can you be sure what you think as good is really good? By what standard? By what moral code?

I do not have moral principles. The moral guidelines that I have accepted are a modified version of western morality, always subject to change depending on my improved understanding of life. I believe they are correct (notice the emphasis on “I”) or I would not be using them. But I can always be wrong. No I cannot be sure that what I think is good is really good but unless someone presents a compelling case on why it is not “good”, I see no reason to change it. Hell, I can even consider situations, where what I consider good now might not be good.
The standard that I consider my morals good is my own subjective ideology which has its root in modern western morality.

Have yourself a good life, man!

I will attempt to. I hope we all manage it.

Rules are step-by-steps instructions, ways of life, do-this-and-then-do-that commands, all without further thinking on the part of the rule follower. Principles are generalizations that require continual thinking to particularize them into action. Crucially, whatever guidance that admits an exception is not a generalization. A rule that is sometimes broken, is not a generalization. If a counterexample can be discovered, it immediately invalidates the generalization. These are strict criteria underscoring the fact that principles are exceptionless generalizations.

How does a scientist discover a scientific principle? How long does it take for other scientists to discover a counterexample? How much effort did it take Mendel to discover the principle of genetic inheritance? Didn’t it take several hundred years later for Watson and Crick and others to build on and establish the principles of biochemistry. Now apply the same intensity of effort and the vastness in elapsed time between the discovering of ethical principles about human maintenance.

Implicit in the rules of the road, or rules of anything, is one oft-neglected question: who made them? Ethics deals with principles, not rules. Rules are man-made. Ethical principles, like physical laws, aren’t man-made (or alien-made). Mother Nature or the universe is not a consciousness, not a “who”, to decide on rules or principles. Rules are created; principles are to be discovered.

Principles are exceptionless. “No ordinary matter in the universe (here or in the next galaxy) can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.” It’s a discovered physical law, not a negotiated law. “Human beings are oxygen breathers.” That’s a discovered biological principle, not one reached by consensus among the elected. “There is no God to guide man’s life.” That’s a discovered moral principle that is exceptionless and nonegotiable. (If it did accept exceptions, miracles should happen. If it were negotiable, praying would work.) Don’t kid yourself on this matter. Principles to guide a human life are exceptionally rare to find. After all, there are six billion people that can potentially falsify any candidate principle. Find me a *living* person who doesn’t breath oxygen, and I will concede human beings can dispense with the “rule” about oxygen breathing.

You may say that people will evolve one day to not need oxygen. Great. But so long as there are people who breath oxygen to live, the principles for human maintenance stay invariant and exceptionless for them, whether they know it or not, whether they acknowledge it or not.

So the principle behind scientific principles is this: If you observe reality a lot, generalize, test, and keep on testing, look for counterexamples, integrate to what is already known, expand the context of knowledge–then, maybe, at last, a principle. The types of evidence for principles in biochemistry differ from those in ethics, but the method for discovering principles are the same.

Ignorance of a principle is the real test of subjectivity. Millions of people don’t know that their bodies need vitamin C. “Humans should eat foods with vitamin C to prevent scurvy.” “Foods with vitamin C are good for humans.” “Human nutrition ought to include some vitamin C to preserve health.” These are moral principles, albeit only in the specific area of nutrition, which is a tiny aspect of physical health, which is only one part of general health, which is only one component of the good life. Are they subjective? Does ignorance absolve the ignorant from the consequence of contracting scurvy? No. That millions of them contract scurvy in today’s world is testament to the unbiased objectivity of exceptionless principles. Whether they know it or not, whether they accept it or not, whether they like it as a Western norm or not, the absence of vitamin C in them causes the presence of scurvy.

Religionists write moral codes which are composed of rules and edicts from the alleged supernatural realm. So these rules are prone to exceptions. The Golden rule is a rule; it demands, nay, it commands a duty. Of course, some of these moral rules (for example, “don’t murder”) are sometimes correct in the same way that sometimes during the day stopped clock is correct. But they are rules nevertheless, because rule makers do not attempt to give an answer to the whys and wherefores; they seek agreement and consensus. They hide behind the consensus of the majority, of traditional upbringing, of the ways of the past; but they never answer why it is so. (Why should I not murder?) Behind a rule, there is also a rule enforcer, a human enforcer, to enforce obedience.

True moral principles, on the other hand, are true because of the observed evidence and the underlying reasoning process involved in their integration. They are discoveries coming from science, not from divine negotiation or social legislation. Universally, moral principles, like all scientific principles, exemplify what knowledge is. So knowledge by consensus is a contradiction in terms. Principles are condensed knowledge of the workings of nature; and there is no need to posit a conscious enforcer, whether human or divine, in its workings.

Therefore, because human beings are beings of nature, scientists-ethicists can study us as things in nature, thereby discovering moral principles for humans to live lives as human beings. Legitimate writers of moral code, ethicists, adhere to the principle of scientific principles. The resulting moral code, if true, cannot be conventional rules that carve exceptions for this group of humans or for that society or for that jungle of the world. Thus, moral principles, if they are to guide anybody, must be capable of guiding everybody.

In the here and now, you are living your own private life. You, dude, are living it, not me, not anybody else. What principles guide you? What moral code have you accepted to help you decide and act? What principles or rules have you subconsciously absorbed from your upbringing, your European society? Are they correct in guiding you toward what is good for your life? Can you be sure what you think as good is really good? By what standard? By what moral code?

Have yourself a good life, man!