Morality And Taste

The taste of food to a given individual is a subjective matter, as is conceded by practically everyone.  One person may crave what another person despises, and vice versa: the appreciation of food is nothing other than the result of having certain perceptions and preferences.  Perhaps because almost everyone seems to admit that one's taste in food is subjective, the taste of food is often contrasted by moral objectivists (Christian apologists in particular) with conscience, which is widely but falsely claimed to be utter confirmation that specific moral obligations exist.  Conscience, being subjective, is entirely incapable of proving such a thing, although the subjective nature of conscience does not mean that objective morality does not exist [1].

In the same way, however, one's subjective enjoyment or dislike of a particular food has nothing to do with whether the food itself is objectively better or worse than a different type of food.  Anyone who thinks the subjectivity of taste and conscience provides knowledge of the objective quality of food and existence of moral obligations is delusional, but so is the person who thinks the subjectivity of taste or conscience means there is no such thing as objective food quality or morality.  The same logical truths apply to both morality and food: in both cases, conscience and taste have absolutely no demonstrable metaphysical or epistemological connection with moral obligations and the quality of food.

If the subjective experience of tasting food cannot prove if the food is objectively better or worse than other food--and only a fool thinks it can even establish that there is such a thing as objective quality of food on its own--then the subjective experience of moral feelings cannot prove that some things are immoral, much less which things are immoral.  To realize this is to simply affirm a basic requirement of logical consistency.  Of course, almost no one who believes conscience proves the existence of morality actually thinks that the subjective experience of tasting food proves which food is better than others; in fact, they often contrast the two explicitly.

It should be immediately clear that the existence, nature, and epistemology of morality are far more important matters than the quality and taste food could ever be, and it is utterly asinine to pretend otherwise.  The comparison is not meant to trivialize the importance of ethics in any way.  Instead, it illustrates that many Christian apologists not only approach moral epistemology from inherently fallacious grounds (supposing that they can "know" both that morality exists and what their moral obligations are through purely subjective feelings), but they also fail to even treat other issues besides morality in a consistent manner.

They commit inverse fallacies when discussing morality and other topics involving a split between knowledge of one's subjective experience and knowledge of the reality beyond the experience.  If they were honest and rational, they would freely admit that a reliance on conscience is irrelevant and even poisonous to the pursuit of moral knowledge.  A sincere moralist would actually recognize that it is wholly dangerous for people to simply do what their consciences dictate, for the consciences of different individuals pull them in conflicting, destructive, and often hypocritical directions.  If one cares about morality, one must give up the idea that one's moral feelings reveal anything about reality beyond the existence and nature of one's feelings.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/11/two-mistaken-ideologies-about-conscience.html