Absolute truths, fully rational judgment, do not exist. Eventually, all arguments must rely on a set of axioms, which are accepted as truth without further proof.

Sadly, not everyone relies on the same axioms, often leading to fully fruitless debate, in politics. Some sets of axioms are incoherent, but it is also fully possible for 2 sets of different, fully coherent axioms to describe a situation, making it, at times, impossible to distinguish wrong and right.

Some of the most common axioms in moral theory are:

-Liberty. An action is moral if and only if it respects the liberty of others. Often linked to the concept of property rights.

-Utility. An action is moral if the result improves upon average hapiness/quality of life/etc... 

-Virtue. A generally more substantial list, which directly describe actions/behaviour, and classify them as right/wrong. Can often be associated with religex: killing is wrong, gay sex is wrong, pedophilia is wrong, helping the less fortunate is right, etc...

As well as many variations of these ideas (practical vs legislatif liberty, intention vs result, biblical or self-established kantian virtues)

So, what set of axioms do you rely on, in your reasoning?

Why does it feel like I'm looking at an assignment for a philosophy class at uni?

OP, what do you think my axioms are ? (I personally can't tell since I have no moral compass. )

My 'axiom' is all about consistency so what does that make me ?

Considering how much there is that I don't know, I'm not sure I can say I have any axioms. There's probably some core values, but nothing that's set in stone. I'm fairly open to good reasoning, and if I notice any faults in my views, I try to correct them. I can't come up with a thing I'm not ready to doubt to at least some extent, and that seems to be in a serious conflict with having axioms. As far as I'm concerned, having views set in stone is just bad unless they're logically sound, which almost no view probably is.

Somewhat paradoxically, I guess you could say my only axiom is that there should be no axioms.

fatslob-:O said: OP, what do you think my axioms are ? (I personally can't tell since I have no moral compass. ) My 'axiom' is all about consistency so what does that make me ?

Just take any moral topic, take your answer, and ask yourself "what makes me believe that" until you can't anymore. If it stops immediately, that would probably qualify as a virtue. If it doesn't stop at all, you'ev got circular logic, which is a bad thing.

(example: for abortion, because the current living individual that is affected the most would be the mother, the person most affected should have the liberty to make the decision. Conclusion: practical liberty.)

There can be not justification without an axiom, though. If you are convinced by an argument, there has to be an axiom that is responds to better than your previous beliefs. As said, take any topic, and just imagine yourself a 3-year old that asks "but why" each time you justify your previous stance, until there's nothing left to justify with.

Yep, sounds like a libertarian stance. 

I'm utilitarian, though I would say that that is my conclusion from my axiom that action and inaction cannot be distinguished.

What if I said that I viewed that all actions in life are just as valid as each others as permitted by our universe around us ? 

For most people, that is probably just not true. People are far from logical. They might seem logical at first glance but a closer look often reveals contradictions. I try to avoid them personally by adjusting my views to be consistent, but being human, I'm not sure it's even possible to achieve a logically consistent whole in practice. Following your 'why' route, I might be able to come up with some so-called axioms, but if I were to try to find all of my so-called axioms, I'd be surprised if at least some of them weren't contradicting each other in some way. Obviously correcting them might be possible, but it complicates things a lot. Life is complex, and breaking it down to a set of axioms I can really trust seems either ridiculously difficult or impossible. I can probably quite easily find a lot of general guidelines I feel very strongly about, but to call them axioms? No way. Perhaps in the context of this discussion, you'd be ready to call those general guidelines axioms due to how strongly I feel about them, but I'm definitely not.