On truth and subjectivity

One of my pet-peeves regarding the way people think today is this whole subjectivity bullshit I hear.  It's an abandonment of absolutism and adoption of any principles of any kind.  At the first sign of trouble, it's anything goes.

What I'd like to start off with is how reality works and where people get the idea of subjectivity.

The way reality works is in absolute and universal terms.  The law of gravity applies to everyone.  The color red is always the same frequency on a spectrometer.  I can go on and on but you get it.  The problem is people misunderstand reality and human experience.  Human experience is at the individual level and takes into account the natural variance in our species.  In more specific terms, if we say that all humans are 98% genetically identical and it is in the remaining 2% in which we vary from each other, then we can say that it is in that remaining 2% where the natural variance occurs among humans.  I am also asserting that in that 2% is where our experiences also vary.

Some people are able to smoke a pack a day and never get lung cancer.  Some people can eat foods high in saturated fat and are resistant to developing high cholesterol.  How does this happen?  Who knows.  But it's important to note that while the smoker's experience is different than someone who also smoked a pack a day but developed cancer, that doesn't provide any evidence that somehow reality is subjective.  What is overlooked there is genetic variance between the person who doesn't develop lung cancer and the person who does develop it.  Reality is still working objectively and universally.  What we don't know yet is what is it about the genetic makeup of the non-cancerous smoker that creates a set of laws for reality to play out so no cancer develops.

Once we start framing reality and experience in this fashion, we can now see how different people start filtering on what is true and false using only personal experience.  So with the non-cancerous smoker, it becomes too easy to conclude that the statement, 'Smoking causes lung cancer' is false because they are obviously an exception and discard this 'absolute' and 'universal' statement and therefore reject that framework as well.  But as explained before, the statement isn't absolute.  Perhaps it could be established that there is a 98% chance of developing lung cancer if you are a chronic smoker.  There is an unaccounted 2% that represents other variables that are not known at this point that represent the population that break the correlation.

This is how reality works.  There is no perfect knowledge.  We can only perform studies, control variables and try to establish approximate relationships.  Some relationships are stronger than others.  There are probabilities and then as humans, we assess the risk and accept or assume them.  Would we really want it any other way?  Life would be boring if we knew all the risks.

So in the context of different levels of chance, we can then frame reality as a set of 'IF...THEN...ELSE' statements.  Pardon my computer alliteration here.  But it's true.  You can say 'IF you smoke on a regular basis, THEN you will develop lung cancer.'  It's given that it's not a 100% certainty because who knows....you could be the few who have the genetic makeup that prevents lung cancer but that is up to the individual to make that assessment, assumption of the risk and the resulting action based on that information.

So you can start framing reality as a series of 'IF...THEN...ELSE' statements based on the scientific method, you can then start establishing 'right' and 'wrong' actions.  However, it is critical to point out that 'right' and 'wrong' are conditional.  Let me explain this with an example:

If you don't want to develop lung cancer, then it is wrong to smoke cigarettes on a regular basis.

Note that the 'rightness' or 'wrongness' of cigarette smoking isn't absolute.  It's conditional on whether you assume the risk that lung cancer is in your future or not.  This is another aspect of reality that many relativists confuse.  They conflate 'rightness' and 'wrongness' in the context of cause and effect with morality.  We are using 'rightness' and 'wrongness' as it applies to actions being congruent with a desired outcome.  It is 'wrong' to not exercise and eat right if your desired effect is to lose weight and be physically fit.  Physical fitness and being a certain weight isn't a moral issue.  It is a value.

Wanting things for oneself are values.  Being educated, having wealth and being healthy are all  human values that have established methodologies.  There are processes that have a high correlation with those outcomes but do not come without their exceptions as well.  You can also be a genius Bill Gates, drop out of college and start a company and be a billionaire philanthropist.  Could that be you?  Maybe...but what are your chances?  But I'm digressing.

The achievement of values is what drives each of us at the individual level to act.  But that should not be confused with morality.  Values are the motivator.  But the reinforcing factor that keeps us motivated is the fact that the actor experiences the effect of their actions.  And herein lies the concept of morality.

When an actor experiences the effects of their actions, that is what I've always defined as 'property rights.'  It is a self-evident truth.  If a person is thirsty, and values the removal of thirst, then drinking water achieves that value.  Once the person engages in the action of drinking water, that person experiences the achievement of that value (the removal of thirst).  The person has 'rights' to those effects.  It should also be obvious that such relationships of those effects being owned is universal and not relative.

The concept of property rights is something I've discussed extensively in earlier posts.  It is also naturally accepted that if an individual produces something that achieves some personal value, like growing food from the ground, property rights extends to those crops.  A farmer's crops are the effects of the farmer's actions of growing the crops.

Property rights are 'naturally accepted' because if we assume that the effects of one's actions does not belong to them, we are then saying it is acceptable to steal.  If we establish this as a universal rule then society cannot come into being because no one would bother saving.  The division of labor would completely disappear and everyone would live moment-to-moment eating hand to mouth.  Anyone who would start planning for the future and 'hoard' food, risks having that supply raided since property rights are not respected.

Once property rights are respected universally, everyone benefits.  Therefore, respecting property rights is an absolute good.  We rise out of living hand-to-mouth and build a society and an economy.  Everyone benefits.  Individuals can still choose to live hand-to-mouth in this context.  But the idea is no one's situation get any worse by respecting property rights.

Morality is not about values in and of themselves.  It is about why satisfying those values is important.