HerenIstarion wrote:
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We need some discussion of definitions again, I believe.
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Ah! There's my signal (just as Tom Bombadil can be summoned by song, I will inevitably appear in the rare case that someone actually
asks for a discussion of definitions).
I must say that I'm somewhat confused by the turn the thread has taken. One moment the discussion concerns "canonicity", the question of the author's importance, and the nature of imaginary worlds. Then suddenly I find myself reading a tirade against moral relativism and even a passing discussion of metaphysics.
I think that the biggest mistake that people tend to make in philosophical-type discussions is the transmutation of an argument on one level into an argument on another. You see this kind of thing all of the time in discussions of free-will, for example - someone will make a psychological or sociological argument as if it can prove a metaphysical point.
I think that something like that is happening here, or trying to happen. It's tempting to resort to real-world moral philosophy in arguing a point about a fictional world. But if you want to have a meaningful discussion regarding that fictional world, you have to suspend your moral disbelief, as it were, and accept that world's morality. I, for example, don't subscribe to the notion in real life that an objective moral code has its source in God. However, in a discussion of Tolkien's work I will unhesitatingly argue that Eru is the ultimate source of good.
So with respect to the validity of different interpretations of morality in Middle-earth, real moral philosphy ought to be completely superceded by Middle-earth's own moral philsophy. Of course it's still quite possible for there to be disagreements about what that moral philosophy is, exactly - but the presumption must always be that, to the extent to which there
is a clear moral philosophy outlined in the texts, it must be taken as correct.
Davem is right - there is no question that in Tolkien's universe, morality is objective. But I don't see that anyone has argued otherwise.
I feel like I still haven't grasped how exactly the discussion made this, I would say, false turn. But we ought to be careful to have at least some idea what we are arguing about and then to rely on arguments that do in fact have point with respect the topic.
I understand even less how metaphysics comes into it.