An update: we had a.pretty good conversation last night about EA, and I was able to answer his questions without too much confusion. I also explained the drowning child analogy, but I’ll also look for a video where Singer himself explains it.
My friend expressed some disagreements with EA moral principles (he thinks moral “rules” are purely subjective, made up by those in charge), at least as I explained them. It’s good he seems to be grasping the concepts at least (since I’m not the best at explaining things).
Anyway, thanks so much for your input, all! It was really helpful.
I think the ironic thing is that actually many EAs would say that morality is subjective similar to as your friend claimed it to be. However, the fact that morality is subjective doesn’t stop us from adopting EA principles.
And what led us to these principles over all the other ones that we could adopt in a universe of subjective morality? It’s because we think they are the ones that make most sense. The child drowning exercise is a powerful example that most people’s moral intuitions logically extrapolate to principles at the core of EA. If that is the case, then we are simply asking people to be consistent with the logic of their own morality rather than telling them to accept these principles as objective morality.
An update: we had a.pretty good conversation last night about EA, and I was able to answer his questions without too much confusion. I also explained the drowning child analogy, but I’ll also look for a video where Singer himself explains it.
My friend expressed some disagreements with EA moral principles (he thinks moral “rules” are purely subjective, made up by those in charge), at least as I explained them. It’s good he seems to be grasping the concepts at least (since I’m not the best at explaining things).
Anyway, thanks so much for your input, all! It was really helpful.
I think the ironic thing is that actually many EAs would say that morality is subjective similar to as your friend claimed it to be. However, the fact that morality is subjective doesn’t stop us from adopting EA principles.
And what led us to these principles over all the other ones that we could adopt in a universe of subjective morality? It’s because we think they are the ones that make most sense. The child drowning exercise is a powerful example that most people’s moral intuitions logically extrapolate to principles at the core of EA. If that is the case, then we are simply asking people to be consistent with the logic of their own morality rather than telling them to accept these principles as objective morality.