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29.6.21

Michael Huemer on moral objectivism.

Reason, Objectivity, and Goodness" .... Moral objectivism (like objectivism in general) seems to be entailed by the law of excluded middle and the correspondence theory of truth, along with a couple of what seem equally obvious observations about morality:

(1) There are moral propositions.
(2) So they are each either true or false. (by law of excluded middle) (3) And it's not that they're all false. Surely it is true, rather than false, that Josef Stalin's activities were bad. (Although some communists would disagree, we needn't take their view seriously, and moreover, even they would admit some moral judgement, such as, "Stalin was good.")
(4) So some moral judgements correspond to reality. (from 2,3, and the correspondence theory of truth)
(5) So moral values are part of reality. (which is objectivism)"

This seems to me to be important because in fact we find all rishonim [medieval authorities] holding that the goal of Torah is to bring up to objective morality. The simplest place to see this is the Sefer HaChinuch, where he lists all the commandments of the Torah along with some of its laws and details and then also explains the reason for teach particular command.  The reasons  are what Saadia Gaon calls "חוקי בשכל" "laws of reason"