Predictably, in response to my last post materialists (this time Rationaly’s bane and jdk) trotted out this old chestnut: “People have been wrong about morality; therefore moral truth cannot possibly be objective.”
*palm forehead* This canard has been refuted so many times I have lost count. I will try one more time.
RB and jdk, nearly everyone once thought that the sun orbited the earth. Now we know without the slightest doubt that just the opposite is the case. The earth orbits the sun. Is the fact that the earth orbits the sun objectively true? Of course it is. Now, try to follow the logic here. It is not a difficult logical chain, but you people seem to have a hard time with it, so I will go slow.
- In the past people have been nearly universally wrong about at least one objective truth (i.e., the earth orbits the sun).
- Therefore, the fact that people have been universally wrong about a thing does not compel the conclusion that truths about the thing in question are necessarily subjective
In philosophy-speak, you have made a category error. You are confusing ontology with epistemology. A thing’s being (its ontological status) is independent of what we know or do not know about it (its epistemological status).
The earth objectively orbits the sun (ontology). That fact was just as objectively true for the thousands of years when nearly everyone was wrong about it (epistemology).
Now, repeat after me: The fact that people have been wrong about moral truths even for thousands of years does not compel the conclusion that morality is subjective any more than the fact that people have been wrong about astronomical truths even for thousands of years compels the conclusion that astronomy is subjective.
BTW, if you disagree, then the title of the OP becomes apropos.