TinTree said:

People are too lifeless to try and tread some new ground...

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"If there are two conceptions, and the one seems to us, on the whole, more rational than the other, we are entitled to suppose that the more rational one is the truer of the two." And yet, it seems to me that he denies subjectivism on sentimental grounds

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Can anyone give me some rational reasons in favor of a system of objective morality? How about rational reasons in favor of subjectivism?

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Many thanks!!

shroomydan said:

I posted a paper on "The Dilemma of Determinism" a while back. You can find it here.

http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat...rue#Post3229897

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"If there are two conceptions, and the one seems to us, on the whole, more rational than the other, we are entitled to suppose that the more rational one is the truer of the two." And yet, it seems to me that he denies subjectivism on sentimental grounds

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That's the entire point of his essay; it's a sentimental argument for free will. James says as much in the beginning of his essay when he says it is not his intention to go over the old metaphysical arguments. Because science cannot decide for or against determinism, we must make a decision on what seems more rational to us.
Note that James refers to the work of David Hume who denied the principle of causality upon which the theory of determinism is founded. For him, the moral demand that there be a real distinction between good and evil is just as rational as the mechanical demand that matter follow the laws of cause and effect. 

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Can anyone give me some rational reasons in favor of a system of objective morality? How about rational reasons in favor of subjectivism?

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I suppose by objective morality you mean an ethical system based on an objective metaphysical reality? If there is and objective reality, then it would be beneficial act accordingly rather than making it up as we go along, pretending that the world is whatever we want it to be.
In my opinion, St. Thomas Aquinas's natural law is the best system of objective morality. You can read it here.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start....htm&e=8092

David Hume has a subjective morality based on consensus of feeling, if most people feel that something is honorable then it is, if most people feel that a behavior is dishonorable then it is. This was Hume's attempt to escape radical subjectivism, the errors of which are clearly exposed by James.

Subjective determinism can lead to some huge ethical problems. We can act in any manner we like and still call it good. James points out the fatal moral error in this system.

Everywhere it fosters the fatalistic mood of mind. It makes those who are already too inert more passive still; it renders wholly reckless those whose energy is already in excess. All through history we find how subjectivism, as soon as it has a free career, exhausts itself in every sort of spiritual, moral, and practical license. Its optimism turns to an ethical indifference which infallibly brings dissolution in its train.23

He gives an extreme example of the ethical indifference fostered by subjectivism . “It makes the goose-flesh the murder excites in me a sufficient reason for the perpetration of the crime. It transforms life from a tragic reality into an insincere melodramatic exhibition, as foul or as tawdry as anyone’s diseased curiosity pleases to carry it out.”24

One of my favorite moral systems is that of Emmanuel Kant. It is an autonomous system of morality (subjective), unlike the divine command theory of St. Thomas (heteronamous/ objective). The system is too complex for me to go into here, but if you are searching for a subjective morality which works, then Kant is your man. His system is based on what he calls the 'categorical imperative'- whatever you do,
"Act so that the maxim [determining motive of the will] may be capable of becoming a universal law for all rational beings."

About the Categorical Imperative:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start....htm&e=8092



You can reads Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals here.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start....htm&e=8092

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Now if determinism is true then either 1) the Universe is a flawed place where bad events take place (pessimism) or 2) our judgements of regret are incorrect in labeling some events as bad and others as good (subjectivism). Finally, in the essay, James denies subjectivism, stating that it "violates my sense of moral reality through and through. When I imagine such.... as the Brockton murder, I cannot conceive it as an act by which the universe, as a whole, logically, and necessarily expresses its nature without shrinking from complicity with such a whole".

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