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Gary Novak
 
 
            

Subjective Influences upon Morality
 

Morality is defined in purely objective terms. But it appears that seldom can anyone relate to purely objective philosophy. People are subjective beings, which means there is a subjective element to morality. So the purpose here is to link the objectively defined morality to the subjective concerns.

Objective means that which exists outside a person's mind. Subjective originates within a person's mind.

There is a tendency to assume objective is a quality. This tendency reverses the meanings, because self supposedly produces the reference for quality, and self is subjective. So the net effect is that the one's own screwed up opinions are supposedly objective reality.

No Virginia; objective is a location, not a quality.

Morality defined objectively is "that which sustains life". Honest scientists can just about define everything that is needed to sustain life. But not quite. And honest scientists are close to nonexistent. So scientists cannot arbitrate morality any more than the pope can.

Since no one can arbitrate morality, it should theoretically be determine "on the fly," (in computer parlance). This means, if you are trying to make a moral decision, you can't call the pope or a scientists—you have to make a moral judgment. Moral judgments must take into account all elements of the problem.

One of the things all of this means is that it is a sin to control other persons. There is no nonsinful way to control people. Power is control. So power is sin, and there is no such thing as constructive or moral use of power. Of course, there are circumstances where power must be used, but necessity does not change the definitions. Police power is needed to prevent further injustices, but there are always injustices with police power.

An extremely important concept to correct, which the world always gets wrong, is that the need to sin a little bit does not turn the sin into virtue, facetiously speaking. All use of force creates injustices. Force is the basis of sin. If then, some force is needed to prevent further injustices, there will still be injustices with the force. If for example, a criminal is thrown into jail, a lot of social problems follow.

The point here is that there is all the difference in the world between sin which remains sin and sin being converted into virtue. When sin stays sin, it must be limited to every extent possible; but when the sin is supposedly converted into virtue, it is maximized to every extent possible. Of course, the most significant application is in fighting wars. The persons who justify wars portray them as virtue and maximize all consequences as supposedly being improvements. The world would be quite different if the wars were viewed as creating injustices, even if necessary (which they never are), and minimized instead of maximized.

To clarify, necessity does not convert sin into virtue. The difference is whether the supposedly necessary sin is minimized or maximized.

This logic is gradually leading to more relevance. The second most relevant point is that there is no constructive way to control people. The most relevant point is that domination is the basis of all sin.

The pretence of corrupters is that their control is so valuable and constructive that there is no justification in opposing it. But controlled persons always react, though sometimes delayed for exploitation purposes. Controlled persons must always react against being controlled, because there is no such thing as constructively controlling someone. An encyclopedia is needed to explain this, so I can only mention a few points; but people should spend a lifetime studying such subjects. It wasn't all taken care of on the cross.

There is no such thing as constructively controlling people, because there is no such thing as a perfect result. The imperfections have to be tailored by the victim to minimize them. In fact, the controllers are so far removed from the realities of the victims that they maximize the imperfections instead of minimizing them. It's like chewing someone else's food or walking in someone else's pants. There are coordination problems, if nothing else.

The coordination problems alone are so absolute and obvious that they define control over persons as sin. And then, no one but corrupters would ignore this fact and try to control someone, so they have motive problems in addition to the innate limitations of control.

Notice that this subject slid into the subjective realm. Sin is that way. It is always subjective, because objective reality does not produce sin. Controlling people destroys the objectivity of existence and replaces it with the subjectivity of sin.

The opposite is to improve the ability of others to control their own lives. Christ taught how to do that. It includes providing basic needs (Luke 10:30-36)(Mat 25:31-46), and closely related is subservience (Mat 20:25-28, 23:11)(Mark 10:42-45).

In summary, people have to judge and decide for themselves in order to function constructively. This means constructive and moral existence starts at the subjective level, even though the goal is to objectivize results as a requirement for sustaining life.

Another area where subjectivity is inseparable from morality is in creating enemies. Creating conflicts destroys life and is sin. This means even if a persons supposedly does everything right but antagonizes someone else doing it, destructivity is the result, and it is sin. Supposed virtues cannot be used to create conflicts and enemies without destroying life.

The need to prevent conflicts and avoid creating enemies does not mean truth should be suppressed. Truth might appear to create conflicts, since corrupters hate nothing more than truth. But the cause of the conflicts is not the truth. Truth is universal, and any conflicts with it already exist. Exposing those conflicts is not creating them. In other words, any conflict with truth is going to be visible sooner or later. Such conflicts are created through sin, not through contact with truth.

This is not to say truth can be used uninhibitedly in spite of conflicts. Truth can never be perfect, and using it constructively is very difficult. Therefore, some concern for conflicts must exist in the use of truth.


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