It seemed like a separate conclusion based on the person being a moral nihilist, but now I understand what you meant.
I don’t know what this means. They would be based on social mammalian empathy.
I don’t think of feelings as mere. I do think of hallucinated objective morals as mere. I don’t know what the word ‘right’ actually refers to. Is it made of matter? Whether one’s position is based on ideas about what is moral or on emotional reactions one can always struggle against the majority. The people who believe in things like ‘rights’ and ‘morals’ might have to back down if they believe that ‘rights’ trump their ‘morals’, or they might not. I have no need to stop struggling towards making a world that i prefer, just because many people prefer or have been manipulated into thinking they prefer a different one. Another way to put this is your use of the term ‘mere’ implies that there are other more solid bases for such things. I see people using their morals to justify their personal preferences all the time, as if it is not their personal preferences. I see moral as mere, mere ideas plucked from the ether. Mere thoughts. I mean, I would not base an argument, in this implicit way, by refering to them as mere thoughts. But if we are going to start referring to feelings/preferences/emotions as mere, well, thoughts can be view as mere also. And however much more base you think you have with ‘rights’ and ‘morals’ it seems to me 1) the base varies wildly person to person and no one who disagrees on moral axioms or how to prioritize seems to be able to convince others and 2) these things seem pretty darn ephemeral to me.
It may be quite similar to empathy, but once it is a rule I think it actually can interfere with empathy, since it is ‘heady’. it is also rather abstract. Individual situatoins with parasitic or rapacious individuals may not be dealt with in the best way for the individual as they try to treat this person with an abstract codified empathy rather than noticing on an emotional level that this person means to do harm and certain kinds of empathetic treatment are confused.
If only. I see lot so of people not feeling much at all, or confusing guilt with empathy and love, but behaving ‘properly’.
But there are still people who I consider hating life or parasitic or to be avoided or not to be left near children or who foster life, add enjoyment or interest or can collaborate or who I like to be around, or who work towards a world or workplace or social place that I prefer. I lose nothing not have ‘good’ and ‘evil or bad’. I can still parse the world.
And those with morals, of course, are all the time struggling with people with other morals, often in the majority. The world without morals is not flat and it does not have hallucinated justifications for its preferences. Look at all those people telling other people that they are wrong for their preferences due to some book or deduction. It’s a power tool.
And look how much people confuse guilt with affection, love, empathy, not being bad and so on.
And how much people with power use ideas like ‘mere emotions’ to belittle, marginalize others and maintain their parasitic power.