A simple note in ontology and epistemology

November 2, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

From Facebook:

“For myself, I have come to a belief that the Universe was never created and will never be destroyed (though of course changes all the time). But true-false, right-wrong, good-evil, good-bad etc exist, and exist objectively in the sense that they would apply to mankind’s deeds even after the extinction of homo sapiens…”

Hune’s question: “Did God say “thou shall not kill” because it is evil, or it is evil because God said “thou shall not kill”? Are ethical values in your view independent entities existing in nature much in the sense of physical objects?”

My answer: “Not really, nothing so complicated. I am much more simple-minded I am afraid. I only mean this: imagine a world in which homo sapiens is extinct (not hard to do really given the extinction of other species). Would it still be true in that world that 2+1=3 in normal arithmetic or that Adolf Hitler caused evil things? My answer is yes.”

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