Are one's assertions about ethics merely assertions about one's emotions or preferences?

[Boojatta]

According to some ideologies, any person who takes a position on an issue of ethics is merely expressing emotions or subjective preferences.

Of course, there's a question that an ideology must answer before that is completely meaningful: what kinds of issues are issues of ethics and what kinds of positions are positions on issues of ethics? In other words, what are the boundaries of the realm of ethics?

However, we don't need an immediate answer to that question. In the meantime, we can consider the following scenario.

Suppose that on some occasion there are 10 competitors in some competitive game or sport. Suppose that each competitor has his or her own coach. Suppose there is a tactic ("tactic U") that all competitors begin using and suppose that all coaches agree that it is unethical. Suppose there is a different tactic ("tactic I") that all competitors begin using in addition to tactic U and suppose that all coaches agree that tactic I is ineffective for any player who uses it.

Suppose that:
Every player receives clear notice from his or her coach that the coach disapproves of the use of tactic I.

Also, suppose that:
1. there is at least one player who clear receives notice from his or her coach that the coach approves of the use of tactic U; and

2. there is at least one player who receives clear notice from his or her coach that the coach disapproves of the use of tactic U; and

3. there is at least one player who receives clear notice from his or her coach that the coach doesn't care whether or not the player uses tactic U.

Then does it make sense to claim that anyone who takes a position on a question of ethics is merely expressing an emotion?

Perhaps, if this train of thought is pursued further, it could help explain why many people have adopted the practice of using the word "stupid" and similar words as though they meant not merely a lack of intellectual capacity, but a reprehensible (either deliberate or negligent) wrongdoing.

Note: the above was an attempt to more clearly express what I already tried to express in the second part of the following DU Post

[HereSince1628]

1. That's an old favorite in philosophy.

Here's a rif on it: http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/phil/blfaq_phileth_sys.htm

that link isn't quite right...when you get to the page look to the links on the right.

[Boojatta]

2. In providing that link, are you responding to the Original Post of this thread

or are you just responding to the title of the thread?

Which link or links on the right do you want me or others to look at?

[applegrove]

3. And depressed people and psychopaths are the least delusional because

of lack of emotion. Let's build a world around how they see the world. That would be fun. Wait a second...it is called neocons.

[Boojatta]

4. Depressed people lack emotion? I thought depression was a mood disorder. e.o.m.

[applegrove]

5. If you have ever been depressed...you know feelings are like

a big huge blob that barely move. They don't have the action or vim to feel emotion. So they are less delusional and have less "personality" than healthy people. They just see the world in all grey. I've been there..20 years ago almost. Why it is a mood disorder...because everything is so heavy and slow. Happy people are relatively more delusional. They think they are funnier and better drivers than the norm. If 80 % of people think they are better than average drivers..some of them have to be wrong eh? Who would want to live in a world that was without feeling. Not me. But that is what the OP suggests.

[Boojatta]

6. After the title, this thread begins as follows:

According to some ideologies, any person who takes a position on an issue of ethics is merely expressing emotions or subjective preferences.

Are you suggesting that instead of discussing the matter, we should simply classify anyone who professes or defends that kind of ideology as a mentally disordered individual?

[applegrove]

7. I was only commenting on the opening line. I wasn't going deep into the

discussion.

If you want me to do that..sure...that is the point of an op.

To be human we have to see things from a human point of view. And so far, the long march of history has brought us to the liberal mixed market democracy idea..where we place value on issues depending on the popular vote. And institution and truths emerge from that. So far the long march has taken us to a world where compassion is part of governance & international relations. The neocons may want to kick that to the kurb. They are only a tiny minority and should be fought back against. Ethics is about what is right and wrong. And you cannnot have ethics if you have no feeling about right or wrong. Neocons have very clear ideas about what is right and wrong..and that includes starting wars on "others" to build the empire whose elite they belong to. They feel that is right. The 20th Century was about how to include "others" into our own personal politics. So we can live together. And thrive together. I see no reason to go back to the 19th Century. You could take the idea of democracy and say it really has no meaning and is subjective and roll back the clock on that too. Rolling back the clock on democracy only as far back as a narrow group, the neocons, want it to be. Why the 19th Century? Why not roll back democracy to the 14th Century? One choice is as subjective as the next. Cause it involves human feeling to a certain degree. So therefore the 19th century is not the model..the 14th is. And we could burn witches and inquisition and persecute and do war...bases on a 14th century kinda feeling, another feeling. Cause it pretty much doesn't matter. It all being subjective and all. The only people rolling back the centuries who will not bother are people who have a vested interst in the century picked, or people who have no feeling at all. Perhaps if the neocons win we will all be so politically exhausted and emotionally dead..we will be the sheeple they need to make a democratic vote go their way. I don't care, undo all previous institutional knowlegde and scientific facts from the last 100 years, I don't care.

Last month I posted an article where a neocon came right out and said "we need to stop with the empathy". This is just one more - stop what you have learnt and go to the dark place in humanity that I need you to be in. Yeah, right. Okay. Sure. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaah!