The Moral Destination: Standard and Choice

With discussions of ideas about the moral traveler (Sept. 6 (https://www.meetup.com/The-San-Diego-Philosophers-Roundtable/events/76983972/)) and the moral adventure (Sept. 27 (https://www.meetup.com/The-San-Diego-Philosophers-Roundtable/events/82476482/)), and together with the distinction of "X, moral X, cardinal X" (Sept. 13 (https://www.meetup.com/The-San-Diego-Philosophers-Roundtable/events/79426162/)), we have been circling around the metaethical idea of the moral destination.

You are a human being. Are you a moral traveler? Are you traveling on a moral adventure? Where are you going? Where ought you to be going? Your going somewhere, is that the moral destination? Is the moral destination the same for everyone? Ought it to be the same?

With discussions about choice and decision (Nov. 1 (https://www.meetup.com/The-San-Diego-Philosophers-Roundtable/events/88647382/), Nov. 15 (https://www.meetup.com/The-San-Diego-Philosophers-Roundtable/events/89759802/), and Nov. 29 (https://www.meetup.com/The-San-Diego-Philosophers-Roundtable/events/91648632/)), and together with the distinction of "experience, sense, meaning" (Oct. 4 (https://www.meetup.com/The-San-Diego-Philosophers-Roundtable/events/82476822/)), we have also been sketching the relations of values both going toward desires and emotions at one level and going toward value-premises and value-structure at another.

As a human being, are you a decider of your action? With discoverable choices of many attractions (e.g., meetings) to go to, the decider chooses them. Is there some way to determine the goodness of every choice and the rightness of every decision? What is there that grounds any choice of destination to the facts of reality? Is there a standard for evaluation?

In this meeting, we will survey some historical terms that moral philosophers have used to refer metaethically to the moral destination. As with one meeting before (Sept. 13 (https://www.meetup.com/The-San-Diego-Philosophers-Roundtable/events/79426162/)), we will try to distinguish the types of values people pursue with an eye toward identifying the fundamental relation between values and reality. We will revisit "basic values," "moral values," and "cardinal values." We will be sure to distinguish "value-structure" from "value-unit" in decision making. And we will relate terms such as "summum bonum" and "totum bonum" into the metaphor of the moral destination.