Comment by TychoCelchuuu
10 hours ago
That people's beliefs about X vary is not evidence that X itself varies. People have different beliefs about whether vaccines cause autism, but this doesn't mean that sometimes vaccines cause autism and sometimes they don't. Rather, some people are wrong.
Similarly, people have different beliefs about whether it's okay to inflict massive suffering on animals in exchange for some pleasure for us. But this doesn't necessarily mean that sometimes it's okay to do that and sometimes it isn't. It could just be that some people are wrong.
Ditto for other moral issues. It could be that the people who say (e.g.) homosexuality should be punished by death are wrong about this.
> That people's beliefs about X vary is not evidence that X itself varies.
That works with things where "X" exists outside of people's beliefs.
Like where X is "gravity". It doesn't matter what you believe why an apple falls down, it will fall down the same.
But where X is "ethics" that doesn't exist outside of people's beliefs about it.
In one culture if you have a guinea pig, you kill it and then roast it that is just and proper. A sucullent meal. In an other culture if you do the same you will be forever known as the "monster who eat his guinea pig", will be harassed and likely even reported to authorities. Try it. Get a guinea pig from the pet store, roast it and serve it to your guests. See what they think of you in the Andes, or in California. The apple falls the same in both places, but the guinea pig doesn't taste the same in both places.
There is no "ethics as the ethicometer measures it". Just "ethics as the society around you recognises it".
You seem to believe that there's one consistent set of moral guidelines that separate people into wrong and right camps. This is not true, and most likely never will be true. Instead, there are many competing moral philosophies, many from hundreds or thousands of years ago, that do or don't encourage certain behavior. People tend to pick philosophies, or at the very least act consistently with some set of them, and different people pick or act with different ones.
Vaccines causing autism is simply false though, regardless of any philosophy. It's rather the inverse, much like violence can cause video games.