it could be a flaw (negligent product design or manufacturing, say, reflecting an incompetence in deity vis-a-vis duty in deploying its tekne). but it could also be an intentional aspect, the ability of product to deviate from objective morality. we might regard it as a flaw, but if product as manufactured matches the design, and the design meets the divine purpose, then there is no claim under the law of products liability (no one will say that there's a warning defect, after all.). one might then say that the purpose is evil, if the product was intentionally designed to be damned--but we have already conceded that the morality of the setting is objective, so there it is.

The dilemma that "materialist morality" opens up is pretty obvious.

hmm? no dilemma comes to mind immediately!

Where do atheists get their morals from? Not from any external God, that's for sure. With no reference point for "right" or "wrong" outside your own self, you don't have any objective standard, you just have emotional urges that come and go.

that's a strawperson, the contention that the atheist or materialist has no reference point outside of self.  my marxist position is undergirded by kantian deontology, and i see no reason why we can't assemble general duties in the absence of immaterialist speculation.  if necessary, i can reduce a concept of ethical duty to published legal codes. don't get more material than that.  (you may have a point against ayn rand, though--she hated marx, kant, deonotological arguments, the concept of duty, &c.)

regarding the lack of an objective standard thesis: huh?  why is that necessary? who's got one?  not theists, certainly! russell's got a nice refutation of the ethical argument for the existence of god: if god published a moral code, god either created the code or had it from elsewhere. if it is created by god, it is arbitrary whim and therefore not principled; if god had the code from somewhere else, why do we need god, exactly? we can develop democratically and organically whatever ethical duties we want to impose.  there's no need for them to have existed on adamantium plates since the beginning of the universe.

When you use Jon Haidt's five evolved foundations (harm reduction, equality, authority, loyalty and sanctity) you'll notice that they interfere with each other. Haidt's point was that morality is pre-determined and controlled by intuition. The thing is that one of these moral urges will overpower another, and create serious value conflicts. Atheists often say shit like "We don't need religion for morality, because compassion exists". That's a really limited and dumb understanding of both morality and religion, isn't it? Religion tried to stabilize moral urges, bind together people into an organized collective group by a shared belief, while also maintaining a sense of personhood.

no need for cognitionist commentary!  my impression: the entire thread assumes that a morality can and should exist.  that's begging the question, yo.

viramsata!

a rules system for an RSB RPG has to change such that particular configuration of the material content transforms its formal axiomatics, like benjuka.

i always liked white wolf's mechanics best. its merits & flaws might be a way to handle upjumped classes: to be mandati, you have to take enough flaws to purchase gnosis. otherwise, sorcerer is default anagogic.  buying gnosis might come automatically with flaws like Loathed by All, Ancient Enemy, Horrible Nightmares, and Crazy.  so, yaknow, balanced!

how does one handle an RSB game when everyone shows up with inchies and erratics and gnostics? 

everyone really starts with a chump:


okay, inrau. roll initiative--wait, nevermind. the birdthing killed you pre-initiative.

next, geshrunni. take a free action now because you get your face flayed before you have time for anything else.

as a plaintiff lawyer, i look forward to the avalanche of product liability cases on designer adjusted-humans with defective designs and inadequate warnings.

not to be a dick, but why subhuman and not mentally disabled human? (phrased that way, i think the ethics are self-evident.)

when i think of the former, i recall the island of dr. moreau and frankenstein, and have nothing but sympathy for the manufactured creatures.

on the other hand, most zombie narratives fit into the original fact pattern, as the origin of zombie stories is sorcerers creating slave laborers.