[Sivad]

Let me explain it this way. Do you ever feel guilty about wasting time? I no longer do because one distraction is the same as another to me. It is very freeing.

I would regret wasting my life on nihilism. If you go through life believing nothing really matters then nothing ever will.

[One Degree]

I would regret wasting my life on nihilism. If you go through life believing nothing really matters then nothing ever will.

I believe it is the opposite of nihilism. My existence has what ever importance it may or may not have. I invent my own reality. Whatever I decide is important is important at the moment. Everything matters.
Perhaps my importance is to be food for plants, then what I do in the mean time is my time. I don’t know my importance so how can I decide what I should do?
Those who think scientific discovery is our purpose, will pursue it. Those who think our purpose is to praise allah will pursue it. Let them. I have no idea what my purpose is, so why should I judge the purpose of others.
I just wish to be free to pursue my own distractions without judgement.

[Rancid]

I've found significance in many things -- personal achievements, interpersonal relationships, transpersonal experiences, actively participating in my time and place to effect positive change in the world -- that have given me a full and meaningful life and I'm grateful for the experience. It's not a waste of time, I'm not playing make-believe, it's real, I exist, and cosmic indifference doesn't negate any of that.

That's the point. All those things give your life meaning. TO YOU. That's all that really matters. However, there's no denying that the Universe itself doesn't give a shit about any of those things you find important (as of yet, no one can prove the universe cares about them personally). This fact, doesn't and shouldn't devalue all the things that you value in your life.

Just because some of us accept that ultimately our existence could be meaningless from a cosmic perspective. Doesn't mean you can't give your life some kind of meaning, and be happy with it. In a sense, it's make believe, but if you're happy. Who cares if it's make believe or not.

[Sivad]

In a sense, it's make believe, but if you're happy. Who cares if it's make believe or not.

I don't diminish it like that, life really does have profound meaning. It's not out there in the cosmic void, it's internal to consciousness, but it is still real. In a certain sense it's even objective because only real commitments to real virtues like honor, integrity, generosity, and courage can give us that meaning.

[Sivad]

Objectivism

Objective naturalists believe that meaning is constituted (at least in part) by something physical independent of the mind about which we can have correct or incorrect beliefs. Obtaining the object of some variable pro-attitude is not sufficient for meaning, on this view. Instead, there are certain inherently worthwhile or finally valuable conditions that confer meaning for anyone, neither merely because they are wanted, chosen, or believed to be meaningful, nor because they somehow are grounded in God.

Morality and creativity are widely held instances of actions that confer meaning on life, while trimming toenails and eating snow (and the other counterexamples to subjectivism above) are not. Objectivism is thought to be the best explanation for these respective kinds of judgments: the former are actions that are meaningful regardless of whether any arbitrary agent (whether it be an individual,her society, or even God) judges them to be meaningful or seeks to engage in them, while the latter actions simply lack significance and cannot obtain it if someone believes them to have it or engages in them. To obtain meaning in one's life, one ought to pursue the former actions and avoid the latter ones. Of course, meta-ethical debates about the nature of value are again relevant here.

A “pure” objectivist thinks that being the object of a person's mental states plays no role in making that person's life meaningful. Relatively few objectivists are pure, so construed. That is, a large majority of them believe that a life is more meaningful not merely because of objective factors, but also in part because of subjective ones such as cognition, affection, and emotion. Most commonly held is the hybrid view captured by Susan Wolf's pithy slogan: “Meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness” (Wolf 1997a, 211; see also Hepburn 1965; Kekes 1986, 2000; Wiggins 1988; Wolf 1997b, 2002, 2010; Dworkin 2000, ch. 6; Raz 2001, ch. 1; Schmidtz 2001; Starkey 2006; Mintoff 2008). This theory implies that no meaning accrues to one's life if one believes in, is satisfied by, or cares about a project that is not worthwhile, or if one takes up a worthwhile project but fails to judge it important, be satisfied by it, care about it or otherwise identify with it. Different versions of this theory will have different accounts of the appropriate mental states and of worthwhileness.

Pure objectivists deny that subjective attraction plays any constitutive role in conferring meaning on life. For instance, utilitarians with respect to meaning (as opposed to morality) are pure objectivists, for they claim that certain actions confer meaning on life regardless of the agent's reactions to them. On this view, the more one benefits others, the more meaningful one's life, regardless of whether one enjoys benefiting them, believes they should be aided, etc. (Singer 1993, ch. 12, 1995, chs. 10–11; Singer 1996, ch. 4). Midway between pure objectivism and the hybrid theory is the view that having certain propositional attitudes toward finally good activities would enhance the meaning of life without being necessary for it (Audi 2005, 344). For instance, might a Mother Teresa who is bored by her substantial charity work have a significant existence because of it, even if she would have an even more significant existence if she were excited by it?

There have been several attempts to theoretically capture what all objectively attractive, inherently worthwhile, or finally valuable conditions have in common insofar as they bear on meaning. Some believe that they can all be captured as actions that are creative (Taylor 1987), while others maintain that they are exhibit rightness or virtue and perhaps also involve reward proportionate to morality (Kant 1791, pt. 2; cf. Pogge 1997). Most objectivists, however, deem these respective aesthetic and ethical theories to be too narrow, even if living a moral life is necessary for a meaningful one (Landau 2011). It seems to most in the field not only that creativity and morality are independent sources of meaning, but also that there are sources in addition to these two. For just a few examples, consider making an intellectual discovery, rearing children with love, playing music, and developing superior athletic ability.

So, in the literature one finds a variety of principles that aim to capture all these and other (apparent) objective grounds of meaning. One can read the perfectionist tradition as proffering objective theories of what a significant existence is, even if their proponents do not frequently use contemporary terminology to express this. Consider Aristotle's account of the good life for a human being as one that fulfills its natural purpose qua rational, Marx's vision of a distinctly human history characterized by less alienation and more autonomy, culture, and community, and Nietzsche's ideal of a being with a superlative degree of power, creativity, and complexity.

More recently, some have maintained that objectively meaningful conditions are just those that involve: transcending the limits of the self to connect with organic unity (Nozick 1981, ch. 6, 1989, chs. 15–16); realizing human excellence in oneself (Bond 1983, chs. 6, ; maximally promoting non-hedonist goods such as friendship, beauty, and knowledge (Railton 1984); exercising or promoting rational nature in exceptional ways (Hurka 1993; Smith 1997, 179–221; Gewirth 1998, ch. 5); substantially improving the quality of life of people and animals (Singer 1993, ch. 12, 1995, chs. 10–11; Singer 1996, ch. 4); overcoming challenges that one recognizes to be important at one's stage of history (Dworkin 2000, ch. 6); constituting rewarding experiences in the life of the agent or the lives of others the agent affects (Audi 2005); making progress toward ends that in principle can never be completely realized because one's knowledge of them changes as one approaches them (Levy 2005); realizing goals that are transcendent for being long-lasting in duration and broad in scope (Mintoff 2008); or contouring intelligence toward fundamental conditions of human life (Metz 2013).

One major test of these theories is whether they capture all experiences, states, relationships, and actions that intuitively make life meaningful. The more counterexamples of apparently meaningful conditions that a principle entails lack meaning, the less justified the principle. There is as yet no convergence in the field on any one principle or even cluster as accounting for commonsensical judgments about meaning to an adequate, convincing degree. Indeed, some believe the search for such a principle to be pointless (Wolf 1997b, 12–13; Kekes 2000; Schmidtz 2001). Are these pluralists correct, or does the field have a good chance of discovering a single, basic property that grounds all the particular ways to acquire meaning in life?

Another important way to criticize these theories is more comprehensive: for all that has been said so far, the objective theories are aggregative or additive, objectionably reducing life to a “container” of meaningful conditions (Brännmark 2003, 330). As with the growth of “organic unity” views in the context of debates about intrinsic value, it is becoming common to think that life as a whole (or at least long stretches of it) can substantially affect its meaning apart from the amount of meaning in its parts.

For instance, a life that has lots of beneficent and otherwise intuitively meaning-conferring conditions but that is also extremely repetitive (à la the movie Groundhog Day) is less than maximally meaningful (Taylor 1987). Furthermore, a life that not only avoids repetition but also ends with a substantial amount of meaningful parts seems to have more meaning overall than one that has the same amount of meaningful parts but ends with few or none of them (Kamm 2003, 210–14). And a life in which its meaningless parts cause its meaningful parts to come about through a process of personal growth seems meaningful in virtue of this causal pattern or being a “good life-story” (Velleman 1991; Fischer 2005).

Extreme versions of holism are also present in the literature. For example, some maintain that the only bearer of final value is life as a whole, which entails that there are strictly speaking no parts or segments of a life that can be meaningful in themselves (Tabensky 2003; Levinson 2004). For another example, some accept that both parts of a life and a life as a whole can be independent bearers of meaning, but maintain that the latter has something like a lexical priority over the former when it comes to what to pursue or otherwise to prize (Blumenfeld 2009).

What are the ultimate bearers of meaning? What are all the fundamentally different ways (if any) that holism can affect meaning? Are they all a function of narrativity, life-stories, and artistic self-expression (as per Kauppinen 2012), or are there holistic facets of life's meaning that are not a matter of such literary concepts? How much importance should they be accorded by an agent seeking meaning in her life?

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/life-meaning/#Obj

What kind of naturalist theory of meaningfulness does Metz endorse? He objects to subjectivism (subjective naturalism), because it entails both that “Sisyphus’s life could be meaningful merely for having fulfilled a desire to roll a stone” and that doing nothing but “collecting bottle caps” could make for a meaningful life (175). Given these “seriously counterintuitive implications” (175) and the fact that any attempt to remove them leads to the objection resurfacing in “‘Whac-a-mole’ fashion” (179), Metz advocates an objectivist theory of meaning (objective naturalism), according to which “certain states of affairs in the physical world are meaningful ‘in themselves’, apart from being the object of propositional attitudes” (165). What are these states of affairs that are meaningful in themselves? Intuitively, they are active uses of reason about the following fundamental values: the good, the true, and the beautiful (222). To capture this intuition, Metz proposes what he terms “the fundamentality theory” (Chapter 12). According to it, meaningfulness in life comes from actively orienting one’s rational nature, which in the first instance involves cognition and intentional action, but extends to rationally responsive conation (e.g., desire), emotion (e.g., feeling joy upon awareness of a loved one’s success), and affection (e.g., liking a work of art), toward the good, the true, and the beautiful as they pertain to persons individually and collectively and the environment (226).

Consider fundamentality vis-à-vis the good. The best example of meaningfulness here is outstanding moral achievement as exemplified by the likes of Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa. They rationally actively bettered the fundamental conditions of people by freeing them from discrimination, tyranny, disease, hunger, etc., where this freedom made it possible for them to live more rational and, thereby, meaningful lives (227). Einstein and Darwin exemplified fundamentality with respect to the true by actively orienting their attention toward basic facets of human nature such as space-time, energy, atomic structure, natural selection, socialization, communication, and power (229). Knowledge of these fundamental facets and others like them contributes to the meaningfulness of life for both the knower and those whose lives they intentionally make more meaningful by improving their knowledge of the truth (229-30). Fundamentality with respect to the beautiful involves an active use of reason in forms like literature and art “about topics such as morality, war, death, love, family, and the like” (230), which are fundamental to explaining much about human life.

Metz believes an important feature of his objective naturalist view of meaning in life is its inclusion of the idea that having less meaning can be more than the mere absence of meaning. There are “conditions of life that reduce its meaning beyond merely failing to enhance it” (220), where these conditions are analogous to the disvalue of pain (pain is more than the mere absence of pleasure). Metz terms these conditions “anti-matter” (63-64). Given the reality of anti-matter,

the following actions and attitudes would subtract from the overall meaning of a life, beyond merely failing to enhance its meaning: blowing up the Sphinx; spreading nuclear waste; holding sexist and racist beliefs and emotions; hating others by, say, viewing them largely in terms of their weaknesses; torturing others for fun. (234)

In sum,

[a] human person’s life is more meaningful, the more that she, without violating certain moral constraints against degrading sacrifice, employs her reason and in ways that either positively orient rationality towards fundamental conditions of human existence, or negatively orient it towards what threatens them, such that the worse parts of her life cause better parts towards its end by a process that makes for a compelling and ideally original life-story; in addition, the meaning in a human person’s life is reduced, the more it is negatively oriented towards fundamental conditions of human existence or exhibits narrative disvalue. (235)

Thaddeus Metz, Meaning in Life, Oxford University Press, 2013,

https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/meaning-in-life/

[Thomasmariel]

The value of human life is that it allows Heaven to function; humans are anti, and it's because of anti that magic is possible

[Victoribus Spolia]

^^ Proof that crack doesn't smoke itself.

[Potemkin]

In Soviet Russia, crack smokes you!

[Sivad]

^^ Proof that crack doesn't smoke itself.

I smoked some crack the day before yesterday, it was great.

[One Degree]

Drugs and aging don’t work out well. You end up being the old guy shitting his pants because he can’t remember which apartment is his and just sits down in the hallway. You get arrested and evicted. Pretty sad to witness.

[Victoribus Spolia]

I smoked some crack the day before yesterday, it was great.

Aren't you the one who also posted on the drinking thread that you drank some cheap brandy with some shitty meth mixed -in?

I mean.....WTF bro!?

[SolarCross]

I smoked some crack the day before yesterday, it was great.

I wonder if this the secret cause of socialism, drug induced psychosis.

[Sivad]

Aren't you the one who also posted on the drinking thread that you drank some cheap brandy with some shitty meth mixed -in?

I mean.....WTF bro!?

You drink, right? Dope is no different, it's only a problem if you let it be a problem. I'm sober 75% of my waking life, other than nicotine I have no addictions(physical or psychological), I'm as productive as anyone and I have a solid family life. I just like to get fucked up on occasion same as you.

[Pants-of-dog]

As long as we agree that you requested fallacious answers, and that I merely refused to accommodate such an invalid request.

No, I merely asked for evidence of an objective morality.

If there is none, as seems to be the case, then we can honestly say that objective morality may exist or it may not, while we know for sure that subjective morality exists.

Though it may give you comfort to think that the reason everyone seems to be kicking your ass is because they are on a team, I assure you that Sivad's position is his own. This is not an argument and it is irrelevant.

If people who are arguing that something exists cannot agree on what it is, there is a decent chance that this thing does not exist.

For example, your objective morality supposedly comes from god, while @Sivad seems to think that it does not.

No, you have given examples of people having subjective belief X and using an external criteria Y to lend comfort to their belief and execution of X. This does not lend any justification to the execution of X as being morality in any sense whatsoever. You have no given a rational justification for your own moral condemnations and actions, let alone that of anyone else. I'd worry about yourself.

Yes, you have given examples of people doing stuff. That is not morality, nor is that a rational justification. That is observation of human behavior and does not rationally justify any "ought" claims you make.

Your feelings that you do not need a rational justification to make moral condemnations are quite irrelevant. The reality is that you have no justification without some sort of objective grounds.

It seems that there are good justifications, but you do not see them that way.

You seem to have this idea that it is not morality unless you can justify it with some sort of objective and rational justification. I do not think this is true.

I think this is just an assumption you believe in even though it is not true. Feel free to show how this assumption is true.

Think of it this way, if you want a moral requirement to apply to anyone beyond yourself, the authority or rationale for that requirement must come from beyond yourself as well. You cannot do this, thus you cannot obligate anyone beyond yourself, rationally speaking, on the basis of your very own claims.

And since I have shown how morality comes from social norms and community standards, and from our evolution, we can already see that the authority or rationale for that requirement comes from beyond just me.

Again, morality is inter-subjective. It is, after all, a social tool.

The section in bold is a distinction without a difference. that a moral claims must be followed is what makes it a moral claim in the first place.

Likewise, the empirical correlation to a subjective belief could not constitute as evidence for an objective morality. That amounts to nothing more than finding something in reality that comforts your own conscience as to your own arbitrary moral beliefs, which being mere preference, are no morality at all.

Regarding logic, human intelligibility, all of it, requires the presupposition of an objective, universal, and absolute logic.

If logic is not such, then there is no reason to assume the constancy of identity. Hence, if you say or refer to "Tree", if logic is not universal, then it may also mean "non-tree" to me and this would be how language could work, whatever you say may mean the opposite as no law of fixed identity were presupposed as universally binding.

Thus, if you believe logic is not universal, then you do believe it is universal, because if there is no universal law of contradiction, then there is. If you are right, then you are wrong. If that doesn't make sense, that is because you position is nonsensical.

If you have to assume that logic is absolute, objective and universal, in order to show that it is absolute, objective and universal, then you are constructing an argument where your conclusion is already one of your axioms.

You cannot demand a universal be proven from a set of observed particulars, which is why that request is fallacious.

Please tell me about the smell of the color nine please.

Thanks.

You seem gery invested in repeating why you think there is no evidence for an objective morality. I already agreed this is the case.

Moving on, can we agree that there is evidence for subjective morality?

"working well enough" for communities creating arbitrary and unjustifiable "norms" is irrelevant as to whether their norms or ethical claims are rationally consistent with their worldview.

Please provide a rational justification for your moral claims.

Thanks.

What would you consider a rational justification?

[Sivad]

No, I merely asked for evidence of an objective morality.

If there is none, as seems to be the case

Many cultures independently converging on certain rational ethical principles, like whatever promotes well-being is good and whatever causes unjustifiable harm is bad, is pretty good evidence for an objective morality.

[Victoribus Spolia]

No, I merely asked for evidence of an objective morality.

If there is none, as seems to be the case, then we can honestly say that objective morality may exist or it may not,

I have given my proofs before, you simply ignore them.

subjective morality

I don't know how many times I have to say the same thing to you in a different way, but "subjective-morality" is an oxymoron. Morality is not morality if it is subjective because it has no force to bind in lacking a universal or absolute basis that can be called an obligation on others beyond yourself. "subjective" as a term precludes any obligation beyond yourself and morality is about binding obligations upon people in general.

If people who are arguing that something exists cannot agree on what it is, there is a decent chance that this thing does not exist.

Besides the fact that such a ridiculous claim would create implications for fields like science that I don't even think you would agree to, it is also a fact that, logically, this conclusion of yours absolutely does not follow from the premise (non-sequitur), for just because people disagree on something, does not mean that it does not exist. This is even worse when you consider that your actual claim that because two people disagree on the nature of something's existence that it likely doesn't exist at all (which is even MORE fallacious).

Thats like saying because two people disagree as to whether a Panda should be classified in the genus canis or procyon that there is decent chance that the panda doesn't exist at all.

Now, if you are making a probability claim (which seems to be the case), that because two people disagree on the nature of something's existence, that there is a decent chance of its non-existence, then like all probability claims you need to explain where you get this relative probability? Perhaps a disagreement as to something's nature is actually a decent case for its existence as the existence of such (objective morality in this case) is not what is being disputed between me and Sivad, but only its nature (your words). Tell me why disagreement on the nature of a thing increases the chances of its non-existence, what statistic did you use to get such a conclusion?

It seems that there are good justifications, but you do not see them that way.

I have shown why they are not good justifications, because they are either appeals to individual fancy or attempts to infer obligations from observation (fallacious reasoning).

You seem to have this idea that it is not morality unless you can justify it with some sort of objective and rational justification. I do not think this is true.

I think this is just an assumption you believe in even though it is not true. Feel free to show how this assumption is true.

.

This really isn't up for dispute, not even in the extreme fringes of moral philosophy. If you treat morality as objective and rational (binding on others because of some reason X), then you must have both a basis for this objective use (binding others), and a reason-X that is not fallaciously derived. I have shown that your approach, no matter how you attempt to construe it, cannot satisfy either conditions. Hence, any moral (and therefore political) claim you make on anyone beyond yourself is either irrational or baseless.

Hence, I have shown why this "assumption" is true. Its simple logic.

And since I have shown how morality comes from social norms and community standards, and from our evolution, we can already see that the authority or rationale for that requirement comes from beyond just me.

You have only shown that "beliefs" about morality have come from social norms and that people tend to mimic the behavior of others, you have also presumed evolutionary anthropology without proof, and then made the further claim that how someone evolved to act implies how they should act (which besides being fallacious, would have implications that I doubt you would accept; e.g. patriarchy, racialism, et al.).

All of these claims of yours are merely the observation of human action and does not advance beyond that (an observation of actions). Thus, inferring obligation from any such datum is a fallacy.

morality is inter-subjective.

I thought it was subjective?

Subjective and inter-subjective are not the same thing, and inter-subjectivity is basically meaningless in this discussion. All that really means is that a bunch of people decided to follow each other's arbitrary moral preferences without rational justification. That is not morality, that is a social circle-jerk and it does not give you any logical basis to make any claims upon others whatsoever and for the same reasons already discussed.

If you have to assume that logic is absolute, objective and universal, in order to show that it is absolute, objective and universal, then you are constructing an argument where your conclusion is already one of your axioms.

I don't think you understand how axioms work do you? Logic would be axiomatic itself because all arguments (and therefore all conclusions) already assume it in their very formation.

Hence, I would never claim that I could prove logic (which would require me to not-assume it in the premise, which is impossible). I would only claim that it's absolute character was assumed in the very act-of-proving itself (axiomatic).

Thus, the contrary claim against the axiom would require a demonstration without the assumption of the axiom's content (good luck).

You seem gery invested in repeating why you think there is no evidence for an objective morality. I already agreed this is the case.

No, it only shows why you cannot rationally obligate others given your worldview claims.

Moving on, can we agree that there is evidence for subjective morality?

Yes, people have opinions, arbitrary beliefs, and preferences.

What would you consider a rational justification?

A non-fallacious logical proof that implies a necessity that is binding upon all, or some grounds that would justify a universal obligation (like a force of coercion that none can escape, etc.).

[Oxymandias]

@Victoribus Spolia

While I haven't read your entire post nor am I interested in interfering with you and @Pants-of-dog's spat, I disagree with your notion that morality is about binding obligations upon others. Morality is, above all else, an emotion. It is a reaction towards certain situations or circumstances, be they positive or negative, and such a reaction determines how we view the world around us (how such an emotional reaction comes to be is another discussion unto itself). Because morality is an emotion people experience it differently; even if two people have the same moral principles, this does not mean they would have the same morality or specific reaction that you have towards whatever generates that reaction. Thus, morality is up to individuals rather than individuals forcing other people to conform to your specific reactions. Such a thing is impossible as no one can feel the same way you do and no one can think the same way you think. The thought that you can force people to feel and think the same way as you is, and I think you would agree, lunacy. I don't understand what POD means by "subjective morality" but I think that "personal morality" exists and that this is the main source of morality in the world. People all have their own individual senses of morality and usually these senses of morality either develop on their own or through the influences of others. You can influence the feelings of others, but you cannot stamp out a person's sense of morality as morality is the hardest thing to tread over.

[Potemkin]

@Victoribus Spolia

While I haven't read your entire post nor am I interested in interfering with you and @Pants-of-dog's spat, I disagree with your notion that morality is about binding obligations upon others. Morality is, above all else, an emotion. It is a reaction towards certain situations or circumstances, be they positive or negative, and such a reaction determines how we view the world around us (how such an emotional reaction comes to be is another discussion unto itself). Because morality is an emotion people experience it differently; even if two people have the same moral principles, this does not mean they would have the same morality or specific reaction that you have towards whatever generates that reaction. Thus, morality is up to individuals rather than individuals forcing other people to conform to your specific reactions. Such a thing is impossible as no one can feel the same way you do and no one can think the same way you think. The thought that you can force people to feel and think the same way as you is, and I think you would agree, lunacy. I don't understand what POD means by "subjective morality" but I think that "personal morality" exists and that this is the main source of morality in the world. People all have their own individual senses of morality and usually these senses of morality either develop on their own or through the influences of others. You can influence the feelings of others, but you cannot stamp out a person's sense of morality as morality is the hardest thing to tread over.

VS is defining morality as being a set of logically derived propositions which are imperative, which can and most be imposed on every human being's behaviour. This, it seems to me, is the basis for VS's rather quixotic desire to based morality on logic - logical thought, after all, is the only form of thought which almost everyone agrees to have imposed on them. From early childhood onwards, we are expected to simply accept that 2+2=4, or else. VS wants moral propositions to have the same force as logical or mathematical propositions. Personally, I think this is misguided. Moral propositions are not of the same type as logical or mathematical propositions, and attempting to force human thought into that straitjacket would be counterproductive. As Dostoyevsky pointed out in his Notes From Underground, "If I want to believe that 2+2=5, then why shouldn't I?" He had a point. Even having the rules of logic imposed on us is problematic. Why should we all be forced to think in the same way? If I want to believe in the excluded middle, or believe that thunder is caused by Thor striking the clouds with his hammer, then why should I be prevented from doing so? The same objection apples with even more force to the propositions of morality.

[Sivad]

some grounds that would justify a universal obligation (like a force of coercion that none can escape, etc.).

It's called causality. The natural consequences of immorality compel moral sanity.

[Reichstraten]

Human life is special and sacred. Each person has an inner spark of God.