So Nietzsche says no moral facts exist. He thinks morality is a social construct, the idea of good and bad comes in to play only in society, it is a point of view, the oppressor calls himself good, while the victim calls the oppressor bad and so on. But no objective morality exists. There are other aspects to his analysis of the origin of morality and there is merit to it, but for the time being I only want to concentrate on the idea that "no moral facts exist".
Do I agree? well, I do and I do not. The question I would like to ask is does fire exist? You cannot have a flame in the absence of a combustible substance reaching its ignition temperature and a supporter of combustion, if you take any one thing out of the equation fire no longer exists. There are conditions to the existence of fire. So does that mean no objective fire exists?
Similarly does motion exist? If you had an isolated single object in a vast unbounded universe, does it move? you need at least two objects to be reasonably be able to say that one is moving wrt to the other or they are both stationery wrt to each other and so on, so can you say that no objective motion exists? oh wait actually we do say that... hmm...
if yes, then fine, it is safe to say that no objective moral facts exist.
But if we agree that the existence of every observable phenomenon has its own conditions then, that would apply to morality also. then the question becoems, what are the conditions necessary for the existence of morality?
To me morality comes into existence not just with a large organized society, but any time there are more than one living things in the system, that system has acquired morality, there is now a point of view by which certain actions look good or bad and by corollary another point of view in which those very same actions look the opposite. They don't have to be human, two animals, one human being with another animal or plant, how does one behave or act towards the other, does it treat it with respect, does it value the other organism's right to live with dignity or does it not. Does one of them thrive at the cost of the other, does it make the other pay for its own survival.
so there, that is my answer. i think morality exists, just as much as other physical facts exist, like them it has its own set of conditions necessary for its existence namely the presence of more than one life form and their mutual interaction.
Now the question i am working on in my head is if you had two independent universes with the same kinds of life forms on each, would the morality in each have to be the same. Are there laws that govern the evolution of morality, laws that would govern the behavior of living things towards each other. Is there any real 'should' that actions ought to conform to? Or is might always right, at least to the group that has the might, as Nietzsche seems to point. hmm...
