7. The Sophists – Q2: What is morality?
The Sophists rejected almost all of the philosophy that preceded them. They were not interested in abstract speculation. In the truest sense, they were phenomenologists: they focused exclusively on the “phenomenal” everyday world as opposed to the abstract “real” world described by earlier philosophy …Thrasymachus of Chalcedon declared openly that “right is what is beneficial for the stronger or better one.”
S: The question then becomes: ‘What is beneficial for the stronger or better one’? and what is meant by ‘the stronger or better one’?
If the universal fabric of reality is simply the physical then materialism is the answer to both questions. What is beneficial for the stronger or better one is the attainment of both ‘power’ and material goods for hedonistic purposes. Within a reality whose universal fabric is the physical, the ‘better one’ is the ‘one’ who is physically and/or mentally the ‘superior’, who is physically and/or mentally capable of dominating others.
Morality is based upon our perception of reality. A model of physical reality could be illustrated as:
If the universal fabric of reality is the abstract within which physical reality is immersed then the model would be based upon a universal fabric of abstraction and appear as:
v
The point: The new metaphysical model presented in this work would suggest morality is a perception based upon one’s interpretation of reality. Conflicting moralities therefore emerge
from conflicting perceptions regarding what we perceive reality to be. To eliminate social conflict, therefore, one must construct a uniform perception of reality.