What is the source of moral authority?

It has to be outside of any human influence. It can not be a great scientist, a sage, or in the worst case, a dictator.

Any thoughtful person would find the question very difficult, or perhaps impossible to answer. It is something that can be referred to as the "eternal quest".

Nevertheless, we as humans always seek patterns of undserstanding, or patterns of order, - as long as one never assumes that the the "patterns of order" is final, or that one has found it.

Squeers
It’s not that I’m misrepresenting you, it’s that what you’re saying is self-contradictory, and logically false.

On the one hand you say “There is no objectivity per se.” But on the other hand you deny that "it [i.e. reality]’s just whatever people think it is".

Well what is it then? Is anything capable of objective proof, or not?

Without answering this, you have no ground to assert that my support of voluntary society is “faith”-based, since you haven’t eliminated the possibility that I can logically disprove the objections to freedom, and arguments in support of statist interventions, on their own terms. It is a mere back-bite to accuse me of irrational method when I am ready to prove my theory and disprove yours, and the only thing stopping me is that you consistently evade answering how your own socialist and statist assertions could be objectively proved or disproved.

For example in a prior post you asserted that “unregulated capitalism” caused the Great Depression and GFC. I pointed out that both a) the money supply and b) interest rates were controlled by governments who, with hundreds of other bureaucracies regulating money and finance intend to, and do, override the operations of free-market capitalism, *hence objectively disproving your assertion as a matter of fact*. And you, instead of admitting that you were wrong and re-thinking your theory about power and injustice, merely retreat into asserting that there is no possibility of objective proof or disproof. But then you come out somewhere else another time criticising capitalism, on the basis of statistics!

Talk about the emotionality of belief. You haven’t established your case against capitalism or for the state. I’m only asking you to take your own advice: to subject your own anti-freedom and pro-state opinion “to far greater scrutiny than it commonly is”; and what I get is a reply of mind-reading, misrepresentation (I believe in “divine providence”), evasion (can we objectively prove something or not),and appeal to absent authorities on the basis that you don’t condescend to details. To quote Marx in support of unspecified epistemological propositions is simply laughable.

(cont.)
Isn’t it true that the reason you keep evading answering my question whether we can objectively prove Pythagoras’s theorem, is that you don’t want to answer it, because you know that if you do, it will prove you wrong in the theory of knowledge that you assert, and pave the way for me to prove you wrong in your theory of economics and society?

So no further evasions or waffle please - is anything capable of objective proof, or not?

Can we validly say “These 2 apples and those 2 apples = 4 apples?” or "An individual's time on earth is limited?" or "Physical laws impose certain unavoidable limits on human action."
If not, why not?

Istvan

Why does the source of moral authority have to be “outside of any human influence”? How could it be?

“… as long as one never assumes that the "patterns of order" is final, or that one has found it.”

So does that mean I can punch you on the nose because we could never finally eliminate the possibility that doing so would be wrong?

That’s not right, is it?

The source of moral authority must be everyone's own self-ownership. You have a right to the scarce resources that comprise your physical body. This is axiomatic because if one were to deny it - “No I don’t! I don’t have a right to the possession and control of my own physical body!” then he would be admitting that he is not qualified to enter into the discussion. Thus by the very fact of participating in argumentation with other human beings, one implicitly necessarily admits the moral first principle of self-ownership, on which all consequential discussion of morality necessarily follows.

Peter Hume,
your last two posts, according to form, are unrepresentative swill, that is they do not represent anything I've said, they only take it out of context and misrepresent.
Anybody who bothers to read what I've said closely, and has a modicum of intellectual honesty, would see that.
In any case I have already responded to your persistent importunity in spades, the latest being, "there is ultimately no reality objectively available and fully disclosed to us". This is the merest commonplace!
Otherwise, I'm not going to respond to your latest pack of lies.

Squeers
Your personal attack on me is irrelevant.

Certainly doesn’t look like your taking your own advice: “we should not cherish our opinions, but treat them with disdain and welcome criticism”.
1. You’re not welcoming criticism are you? You actively flee from rational disproof, and taking refuge in irrelevant personal attack, and a welter of logical fallacies.

Obviously I have not misrepresented you where I have quoted you directly.

If you are going to say it’s a lie, you need to identify what was a lie and why; not just throw this dust in my face.

You have responded in spades, but the spades have been full of bullsh!t. For example:
"there is ultimately no reality objectively available and fully disclosed to us".

That is an assertion not a proof.
2. So? Can we say that physical laws impose limits on human action?
3. Or not?”

“discrete, objectively derived, "evidence" is also highly dubious when alienated from its context.”
4. What’s that supposed to mean?
5. Against what standard do you judge what is dubious?
6. Can we validly say “These 2 apples + those 2 apples = 4 apples” and if not, why not?

7. Please define objectivity?
8. Why is there no objectivity per se?
9. Can Pythagoras theorem be proved and if so why? Or not, and if not, why not?
10. if you deny the possibility of objective knowledge, how do you know you're not being more irresponsibly subservient to the powers that be?
11. Is anything capable of objective proof, or not?

Don't accuse me of misrepresenting you - represent yourself. Address the issues. But not in irrelevant drivel. Actually join issue and let's see if you can hold up your end of the arguments you rely on to criticise capitalism, without falling into self-contradiction, error of fact, or error of logic. And no, mere personal accusations and attributing bad faith to me doesn't cut it.

Peter,

This is all rather fascinating.

I looked up objectivity and one definition was "existing independently of perception or an individual's conception".

So how can we objectively define our reality if we can't move beyond it to do so?