Quote (Voyaging @ 14 Oct 2014 18:31)
There is nothing more real about my own mind than yours, even though it might appear that way to me. Since we both have minds, and we can both suffer, etc., we are both equally important.
This idea is to eliminate ethical egoism as being an option, because up til that point the argument could've gone either way. By eliminating the incorrect idea that I am any more special than anyone else, the conclusion is that everyone that's a subject of experience is a moral end, to different degrees depending on the extent of their experience.
Whether beings are capable of being objective is another discussion entirely. Even if no being can be, that doesn't mean there aren't objective moral values.
Objective moral values could exist independently of our consciousness, but only if there is consciousness elsewhere in the world. Morality is contingent on there being conscious beings. Without consciousness, morality is meaningless. I'm not trying to say it's some kind of absolute, unchanging truth, it changes as the world changes.
What makes trees more real than, say, the pleasure of sex?
Well that's my point. We can reason that they could exist but we cannot say with certainty that they do and nor can we ascertain what they may be if they did. Their existence is pointless to argue because they are not a part of our reality and never can be.
Never said they were less real. But that pleasure is subjective. Some feel it more than others and in different ways brought about by different activities with different partners. There is no 'objective sexual pleasure' just as no human can hold 'objective moral values'.