What do moral philosophy and the science of morality study?

[citizenschallengev4]

@Markus7

I do not anticipate making a practice of asking everyone I might interact with to explicitly inform me what they want done to them. Except for some unusual circumstances, it is not a practical rule for guiding morality. … The Golden Rule is a practical rule because people commonly, but not always, want similar treatment.

Nicely summarized.

@Markus7

“Do unto others as they have explicitly informed you that they want done unto themselves.”

Yeah, that wasn’t making much sense.

I did find the article interesting and helpful in enunciating perspectives I’d never thought about, still I find your description much easier to swallow. Seemed to me by the time I got to the end that there was a hint of Ayn Rand.

---

Let me bring it back to the thread. But I gotta peel off for tonight, my wife wants some company.

@Markus7

I am interested in presenting the science of morality in ways everyone, including religious people, will find useful for resolving moral disputes.

What percentage of religious people do you think might be interested in knowing as purely a matter of science, not religion:

1. How the goalposts of good and evil were fixed at the beginning of time.
2. Why the Golden Rule summarizes morality.
3. Why the Golden Rule is a heuristic (a usually reliable, but fallible, rule of thumb) rather than a moral absolute.
4. When it is immoral to follow the Golden Rule.
5. What moral guidance can science provide when it is immoral to follow the Golden Rule.
6. The arbitrary origins of food and sex taboos such as “eating pigs is an abomination” and “masturbation is a sin”.
7. The shameful origins of moral norms such as “homosexuality is evil” and “women must be submissive to men”.

Could this be interesting at all? Or will this only sound like offensive nonsense?

Yes it is interesting.
I doubt anyone around here would be offended, big topic.

How were the goalposts of good and evil fixed at the beginning of time?

What moral guidance can science provide when it is immoral to follow the Golden Rule?