Recently I was conversing with someone about how the quality of one video game objectively surpasses that of another. My companion would on one hand defend particular games as fantastic examples of storytelling and graphical complexity and then at the same time say that there is no such thing as a game that truly has graphics or a story superior to another.
I presented him with two written syllogisms.
1. If people disagree about what constitutes a good video game, game quality is all personal opinion.
2. People disagree about what constitutes a good video game.
3. Therefore game quality is all opinion.
1. If people disagree about morality, right and wrong are all personal opinion.
2. People disagree about morality.
3. Therefore right and wrong are all personal opinion.
Interestingly, he objected to the second syllogism but not the first one. When I inquired as to why, he said that morality is simply not a matter of opinion but something like the quality of a video game is wholly subjective. I attempted to impress upon him the inability for him to rationally distinguish between the logic of the two syllogisms. Either both morality and game quality objectively exist apart from human consensus or opinion, or they don't exist at all, but no one's opinions on any such matter have any value or correspondence with reality.
That is the point of this post. Many people treat entertainment like the individual aspects of a video game or film are not either objectively well-executed or not but are matters of personal opinion with no genuine facts while they simultaneously insist that ethics are objective despite the wide spectrum of moral disagreement throughout history. This is naive, inconsistent, and just logically flawed.
Look at the two syllogisms I wrote. If the structure and conclusion of one of them is correct, it is correct for the other one as well. Stop acting like different logic applies to one issue but not another. If entertainment quality is purely subjective, then so is morality. Note that I am not claiming that entertainment quality and ethics possess equal significance or priority; I am merely proving a logical point. Agreement and disagreement prove nothing about any issue, as I explored here [1]. So basically, quit acting like your opinions on any matter mean anything. They don't. Only facts, truths, and reasons do.
[1]. http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/07/disagreement-and-subjectivity.html
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