r/ExAlgeria • u/silly___bird • Aug 27 '25
Discussion morals serious talk
I see a lot of debates here about “good” and “bad” behaviors/acts, or about human rights in general. But whenever I try to think about it objectively, I always reach the same conclusion that there is no such a thing as defined "bad" or "good".
From a pure objective point of view, a human is free to do whatever they are capable of doing, as long as it doesn’t conflict with their own interests. But everytime I ask someone to explain why exactly things like killing, rape...down to lying (which i consider bad according to my moral code) are objectively bad, most of people here usually laugh, dismiss the question, or treat it as self-evident like it’s an axiom we aren't supposed to question.
But history and psychology show us that what we label as “bad” has not always been seen that way:
in roman gladiator games killing was entertainment for the masses.
Vikings and Mongols raiding and violence were celebrated as honorable.
Hitler and the Nazis genocide was framed as a “necessary good” for their vision of society, and millions followed.
people like Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer admitted they enjoyed acts society calls horrific.
epstein's island.
some individuals even enjoy violent fantasies or claim to have found pleasure in situations we would normally call “assault.”
appreciate any shared thoughts
1
u/ImadLamine Aug 27 '25
People often confuse changing perspectives with changing truths. Once upon a time, humans thought the earth was flat, or that the sun revolved around us. That never made those claims true.
To say 'a human is free to do whatever they are capable of doing, as long as it doesn’t conflict with their own interests' Not really. In truth, a human is simply free to do whatever they are capable of doing, full stop.
Cause even 'self interest' is not objective, it’s shaped by what we think we want, what we think will satisfy us or good for us, and the limits of our knowledge to know if it's true. What may looks like self interest to one person may look self destructive to another...
If you follow this idea to its conclusion, morality is simply what is objectively good for us whther we know it or not. And in pure theory, there is always an optimal set of actions that would lead to the best results, whether we know it or not. That’s what makes morality objective.
From a theist perspective, this 'optimal set' reflects divine wisdom, the principles that God embedded in us, from an atheist perspective, you could still frame it as the objective structure for human flourishing that exists independently of whether we’ve fully discovered it or not.
In both case it’s not relative, it’s out there, waiting to be understood...