everything is arbitrary

zerozero

zerozero

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stealthbomber said:
no because you wouldn't will that murder or theft be universalized.

if so empty them pockets fool :birdman:
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Okay, I'm not saying what's arbitrary is not important

but I'm saying, what makes murder a bad idea, except that we both agree it's a bad idea?

"there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" -- shakespeare

there are some taboos we observe universally, right--every society has some sort of sadness about death and prohibition to a type of homicide, I think we've observed taboos about incest universally? So there's something about some ideas that are near universal and thus not completely social

but pretty much everything else is a social construction.

For me, the only real moral feeling I have is a sort of 'chance' based feeling. That I could have ended up in that other guy's place, so what is the best understanding I'd argue for if I had? A simpler version of this

Veil of ignorance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The veil of ignorance and the original position are concepts introduced by John Harsanyi[1][2] and later appropriated by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice.[3][4] It is a method of determining the morality of a certain issue (e.g. slavery) based upon the following thought experiment: parties to the original position know nothing about their particular abilities, tastes, and position within the social order of society. The veil of ignorance blocks off this knowledge, such that one does not know what burdens and benefits of social cooperation might fall to him/her once the veil is lifted. With this knowledge blocked, parties to the original position must decide on principles for the distribution of rights, positions and resources in their society. As Rawls put it, "...no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status; nor does he know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength, and the like."[5] The idea then, is to render moot those personal considerations that are morally irrelevant to the justice or injustice of principles meant to allocate the benefits of social cooperation.
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I guess this is just a part of regular social contract tradition though. Where I'm kinda splintering off a bit from the regular approach is that I don't really think there is such a thing as a "natural right". It's more of a reasoned and consented compact. It goes a bit beyond the basic ideas about homicide, theft and so forth, I'm saying when we have things like animal rights, or concepts of 'no childhood labor' that is definitely a social idea born of an environment in which people think in the way that produces these concepts
 
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