Where does morality come from?

[Ken-1122]

That's what objective morality is. When one moral position is applied to all others and any other moral position is regarded as wrong.

What? Did you read this out of a book or something, or are you just making stuff up as you go along; IOW do you have an outside source to back up this definition, because I’ve already listed outside sources that contradict this claim, yet you keep repeating it.

But it is the forcing of someone's morals onto others that is taking an objective position because you are saying what I view as right and wrong only stands and what you subjectively believe doesn't count.

Again; when I say I'm right, you're wrong, that doesn't make it an objective position.

So if those who think the embryo or fetus is not life then they are not taking a life. Therefore pro-abortion is not about saying it is OK to take a life because there is no life to take in the first place.
But whether a male is a female or a female is a male is not a moral issue but rather a biological issue and for some an identity issue which is associated with self-perception. But it is the hate and discrimination against the person that is the moral issue. Society has anti-discrimination laws that force everyone to conform so any subjective views are not allowed.

Regardless of the details; do you agree there is not a moral consensus on those issues?

So what measure do they use to know that evil is extremely wrong.

My personal standard of right and wrong.

No, not really. You could have thought the copy was beautiful but just paid millions of dollars for a fraud copy and been ripped off. You need something to compare with to give that something its value and quality. Otherwise, it means nothing. How do you know evil is evil if there is no good. Without good evil would be some non-valued act like some jolt of a nerve reaction.

So going by that logic, you wouldn’t know bitter until you’ve tasted delicious to compare it to; you wouldn’t know pain unless you’ve experienced comfort to compare it to; huh? So if you’ve never been comfortable, I could hit you with a club and you wouldn’t know it even hurt? If you never tasted pie, or ice cream, you would gladly eat the most bitter medicine and think it taste good? Again; going by this logic, your own God would not know good unless he first did wrong

But the person judging it is unreliable and untrustworthy to know that it is really good or evil for everyone one in the universe. They could be influenced by many factors as mentioned before. I need some independent way to measure good and evil apart from your opinion to be confident it is really good or evil for all humankind and beyond.

Just as you have complete confidence in your God’s ability to discern right from wrong, he has complete confidence in his ability to discern right from wrong.

OK, let's try a scenario that doesn't have to be true. So let's say you need to determine if something is good and have the confidence and trust that it is really good. On the one hand, you have humans who are fallible in judging good because they cannot know everything and are subject to bad influences or being tricked into thinking something is good when it was bad.

On the other hand, you have this entity (not God or a god) who is known to be infallible, perfectly and naturally good, and has no evil and cannot be influenced by anything. Wh would you trust to determine what was good? Remember this has nothing to do with religion of gods but was a newly discovered force of good humans had found.

I would only trust this entity if his moral views mirrored my own. If his views differed from mine in any way, I would assume the flawed human spread the rumor that this entity was perfect was wrong.

 

[Moral Orel]

Yes, you are correct with your Q example. You could go further to prove another negative such as a particular god does not exist--a logically impossible god for example

I could go on and on. In fact, every claim can be stated as a negative claim. The irony that the claim "you can't prove a negative" is in fact a negative does make it a little funny how popular it is.

However, proving a general god or a deistic god cannot be proven false.

Agreed, but for different reasons.

And... there is always the problem of hard solipsism to challenge your Q example.

lol You just really don't want to lose this point do you? Even if I'm just an illusion conjured up by the wires in your brain-in-a-vat, and even if there is no screen for you to see that sentence on because it's all an illusion, that sentence still exists as described and it doesn't have a 'Q' in it. Not even hard solipsism challenges it because the parameters and the claim are well defined.

My point is that C.S. Lewis made a logical error.

Agreed, just not the one you stated.

 

[Ken-1122]

But to disagree with the Christian perspective (worldview) is to take a different perspective of the world. Otherwise, there is an empty void and everyone has a perception of life, the world, and the universe. So usually a Christian worldview bases these big questions on immaterialism IE spiritualism, God's creation for life and existence, life after death, etc.
Whereas those who don't believe or disagree there is a God would basically take the opposite view and support a materialist position, IE evolution, no life after death. That's not to say that someone who disbelieves or disagrees with a God cannot have some other immaterial basis for their worldview IE Deism. Or a Christian can include materialism and support evolution. But the primary basis is immaterial or material.

Most of the Christians I know do not insert God into every question that exists; there are a lot of answers they can provide that doesn’t even include God! And many of those answers I would even agree with and on many issues they will agree with me. Only the very small issue (small to me) of theism is where we disagree, and this small issue is not sufficient to be a world view.

Yes, it's a person's beliefs, attitudes, and way of thinking about the nature of things like the universe and our place in the overall scheme of things. So in that sense, people may think there is a God behind everything or there is some naturalistic way everything came about. This will influence the way we see other things like life and death.

And there are some people who are content with admitting to not having all the answers to the Universe and are content with the answer “I don’t know” and don’t claim a naturalistic nor a spiritual way of how things came about.

You mean the non-existence of God/gods don't you.

No. I don’t think atheism is necessarily about whether or not God exist, I see it as not believing in God (to “believe in” meaning to accept the claims made of him)
As an atheist, I recognize whatever it is that you call God may in fact exist but I don’t call it God. In order for me to say God doesn't exist I would have to have a complete understanding of the God in question. Some people worship the Sun, Nature, inanimate objects, even people as real as you and I! Rastafarians worshipped Haile Selassie, there is a sect in Hinduism that worships Kumari (Haile Selassie died in the 1970’s but Kumari is still alive today) Wouldn’t it be foolish to say these people don’t exist simply because some deluded people chose to call them God? I think a case could be made for the existence of Allah or Yahweh as evolved beings from another planet that visited earth when mankind was primitive and as stories told of the event things embellished over the years to what we have now as God. IOW I accept what is called God may have had real origins, I just don’t believe what is said of God today.

 

[Moral Orel]

This makes utterly no sense .... to me. Care to parse it out a little further? Because maybe, just maybe, I'm misunderstanding what you're saying and what your connotations actually are. We might even be talking past one another, who knows? I started out talking to Ana and trying to address his position of baloney, and now I'm off on another tangent with you and not sure what we're even centering upon now.

You were talking to Ana earlier, but our conversation started when you quoted a post of mine that I made to Steve. I was talking about how morality still works even if it's subjective.

So I was saying that people are driven to act by their likes and dislikes, and what I surmised you meant in your last post was that you like "pleasures of the flesh" but you don't do them, so I pointed out that you like doing things that please God. I mean, I assume that's a fair statement to make of most Christians, I'm not trying to be sarcastic or derisive or anything. It seems like some folk think they do or not do things simply because they think it's the correct or incorrect thing to do, when there's always a desire that motivates them to act or not act.

To be totally honest, I don't think you want to have the conversation with me that you inserted yourself into. I think you wanted to talk to me about the stuff you were talking to Ana about. Like I said though, I've already been having that conversation for a few weeks now, so if you want to talk about that, you'll have to scan previous entries of mine to this thread between Durango and myself and then you can let me know where you think my thinking is off. I don't want to type out the same exact stuff all over again in the same thread. If that's too much trouble for you, no harm no foul, we can cut it here.

 

[Ken-1122]

I could go on and on. In fact, every claim can be stated as a negative claim. The irony that the claim "you can't prove a negative" is in fact a negative does make it a little funny how popular it is.

Agreed, but for different reasons.

lol You just really don't want to lose this point do you? Even if I'm just an illusion conjured up by the wires in your brain-in-a-vat, and even if there is no screen for you to see that sentence on because it's all an illusion, that sentence still exists as described and it doesn't have a 'Q' in it. Not even hard solipsism challenges it because the parameters and the claim are well defined.

Agreed, just not the one you stated.

I think when he said "you can't prove a negative" he was referring to the specific "negative" C.S. Lewis was speaking of; the existence of God. The Christian God is generally described in a way that makes it pretty much impossible to disprove. Yeah; I can prove 2+2 does not equal 7, I can prove there are no square circles but many negatives cannot be proven

 

[Moral Orel]

I think when he said "you can't prove a negative" he was referring to the specific "negative" C.S. Lewis was speaking of; the existence of God. The Christian God is generally described in a way that makes it pretty much impossible to disprove. Yeah; I can prove 2+2 does not equal 7, I can prove there are no square circles but many negatives cannot be proven

What you're saying is that he meant, "you can't prove that negative" which makes mentioning that it's a negative completely worthless. "A" is not specific, "that" is specific. Many positive claims can't be proven either.

No, I'm pretty sure he meant it as he actually said it, "you can't prove a negative"; that's why I had to argue further. It's a common trope.

 

[Ken-1122]

What you're saying is that he meant, "you can't prove that negative" which makes mentioning that it's a negative completely worthless. "A" is not specific, "that" is specific. Many positive claims can't be proven either.

No, I'm pretty sure he meant it as he actually said it, "you can't prove a negative"; that's why I had to argue further. It's a common trope.

I guess it all depends on interpretation. Because he was referring to the words of C.S. Lewis, and Lewis was trying to disprove a specific negative (the existence of the Christian God), IMO to tell him you can’t prove a negative gives the impression that he is referring to the specific negative Lewis was talking about, not every conceivable negative possible; which is how you appeared to have taken it

 

[2PhiloVoid]

You were talking to Ana earlier, but our conversation started when you quoted a post of mine that I made to Steve. I was talking about how morality still works even if it's subjective.

So I was saying that people are driven to act by their likes and dislikes, and what I surmised you meant in your last post was that you like "pleasures of the flesh" but you don't do them, so I pointed out that you like doing things that please God. I mean, I assume that's a fair statement to make of most Christians, I'm not trying to be sarcastic or derisive or anything. It seems like some folk think they do or not do things simply because they think it's the correct or incorrect thing to do, when there's always a desire that motivates them to act or not act.

To be totally honest, I don't think you want to have the conversation with me that you inserted yourself into. I think you wanted to talk to me about the stuff you were talking to Ana about. Like I said though, I've already been having that conversation for a few weeks now, so if you want to talk about that, you'll have to scan previous entries of mine to this thread between Durango and and myself and then you can let me know where you think my thinking is off. I don't want to type out the same exact stuff all over again in the same thread. If that's too much trouble for you, no harm no foul, we can cut it here.

Fair enough, Nick. I appreciate your clarification here.

 

[Moral Orel]

IMO to tell him you can’t prove a negative gives the impression that he is referring to the specific negative Lewis was talking about

Only if you use the word "a" incorrectly, lol.

 

[Kylie]

I have to keep explaining and repeating things because you keep changing what I have said. If you carefully read what I said you will find I wasn't just basing support for objective morality on a common or widely accepted morality shared. I said
"But as I have explained several times now it is more than just a common morality shared."
Then I gave the additional support IE
"It is one that people impose on each other. It is one that organizations and societies impose on others.

Like I keep repeating if there is only subjective morality why do people act/react like they take an objective position by imposing their moral values on others. I though a subjective position is a personal opinion about morals. How can someone impose a personal opinion on someone else and at the same time say that the other person cannot hold their moral position?

By taking this position they are saying my opinion of morals is right for everyone else and no other moral position is allowed. That for me is an objective position. The difference is under subjective morality people can share a common moral position but this is usually where each individual has the same personal moral position and they come together in agreement and apply that in agreement.

But what often happens is that people, organizations, and societies don't agree and someone or some group will impose/force a specific moral position on others because they think it is right for others thus disregarding other people's moral positions. Big difference. They are saying we know what is right and good for all and therefore everyone should conform to that position whether they agree or not. They have taken their opinion and personal view and forced it onto others as though it is objectively right.

And once again I will point out that it doesn't matter if people act as though their morality is objective. Acting like it is objective doesn't make it objective.

I already have. None is right in that situation. You have a little lie and a big lie and both are objectively wrong. It's quite simple if you think about it.

Show your working please.

It doesn't make sense because "hurt" has no objective value. Claiming hurting someone is morally wrong makes no sense if you don't have an objective reference point that makes hurting someone morally wrong. Otherwise, it's just personal opinion or likes and dislikes or preferences for hurt as opposed to harm similar to preferences for choc or vanilla icecream.

It doesn't need an objective value.

I know I don't like it when people hurt me. I have empathy so I know other people probably don't like it when they are hurt. So I try to avoid hurting other people because I don't want to be responsible for them hurting.

What part of that needs anything objective?

No, my complaint is if you are right and there is no objective right and wrong then apart from making some sense to the subject (the person claiming the morals) why make appeals to right and wrong things in the world or about others when there is no right and wrong.

The moment you apply this to others you are saying I know my version of right and wrong is correct for everyone. When a person protests about evil in the world they are acknowledging evil exists beyond their personal view.

There is no OBJECTIVE right and wrong, but you seem to think that subjective ideas of right and wrong have no meaning.

And me saying that other people have their own subjective views of morality is in no way the same thing as me pushing my morality on them.

Yes, you can create that meaning for yourself. But any meaning outside your self is meaningless. Yet people are always applying their meaning of morality onto others and I have given the examples already.

Why do you think that subjective morality means we are incapable of viewing other people's actions through the lens of our own morality?

Objective morality is not about being the same for everyone. It is about being right or wrong despite everyone. Rape is wrong no because you or someone else says its wrong, or because society says its wrong or because our genes tricked us into believing it is wrong. It is wrong because the act of rape is wrong. Rape is wrong in itself independent of the humans (the subject).

And why is the act of rape wrong then?

I mean, if there really is some objective reason, you should be able to demonstrate it, just as I can demonstrate the objective fact that 1+1=2.

Yes execution is not the moral killing of humans is the moral value. So have they changed their moral position that killing is bad. They are actually saying killing is still objectively bad but we will allow the authorities to commit that bad act because it serves a greater purpose which is punishment for serious crimes? Notice how the objectivity that killing is wrong is upheld. Nowhere have their said the act of killing a human is itself a good act.

Irrelevant. You are still claiming that they are changing their position regarding something that is objective. If it is an objective fact, then there can be no changing your mind. Just like how you can't change your mind to think that 1+1=3.

I have already explained this but I will let Mr. Craig once again explain things better.

Killing a human is always wrong. It is only justified in very rare relative situations. We have to be careful not to confuse objective morality with relativity to situations. Just because a person's moral duties may be relative to particular circumstances don’t mean they are subjective and that there is no objective right or wrong thing to do in that situation.

“Absolute” means “regardless of the circumstances.” “Relative” means “varying with the circumstances.” We can agree, for example, that it is not absolutely wrong to kill another person. In some circumstances killing another person may be morally justified and even obligatory. To affirm that one’s moral duty varies with the circumstances is not to say that we have no objective moral duties to fulfill.

“Objective” means “independent of people’s (including one’s own) opinion.” “Subjective” means “just a matter of personal opinion.” If we do have objective moral duties, then in the various circumstances in which we find ourselves we are obligated or forbidden to do various actions, regardless of what we think.
“Objective” or “Absolute” Moral Values? | Reasonable Faith

Once again I will leave it here as the post is getting long and get back to the rest later.
regards steve.

And the first two sentences demolish your own point. Killing is always objectively wrong, except when it isn't.

Once again, you are forced to invent complicated tools to keep your objective morality ideas while still allowing them to be subjectively decided on. And it's not fooling me (although it seems to be fooling you).

 

[Kylie]

Before I start my reply, I'd just like to point out that you appear to have skipped replying to many of the points I have raised.

In particular, you avoided responding to the part of my post where I said you were incapable of using your idea of objective morality to tell us what the objectively right moral choice is in a particular situation. All you ever seem to say is that certain things are objectively morally wrong. So please tell me what the objectively morally right course of action is if I find that my daughter has taken $20 out of my purse so she can go and get McDonalds with her friends.

As pointed out in the last post you are confusing objective/subjective morality with absolute and relativity. Please refer to the article I linked.

You mean the one that assumes there is an absolute morality in order to show the existence of God?

Yes, the Nation is not saying they are fine with killing criminals like it is a good act. They are saying it is still wrong but justified according to the relative situation. Even the US states that killing is always wrong but certain situations that kill a person like self-defense or manslaughter are still wrong but not as bad as 1st-degree murder. They never say it is ok or good to murder as they still give a less penalty for killing in self-defense or manslaughter.

How can there be ANY justification to do something that is objectively and absolutely wrong?

So the same logic would be I cannot show evidence to support evolution with one example of a species evolving. I have to show examples of all species from micro-organisms to large land animals to support evolution. That's a logical fallacy.

No. It would be like you claiming that the evolution of computers is not what is described as biological evolution, therefore there is no such thing as biological evolution.

But your personal view about empathy does not tell us how we should value empathy objectively. It only applies to you so therefore you cannot impose how you value empathy on others as they may have a different value for it. Yet people are always imposing their morals onto others. (We seem to be going over the same things).

I agree.

I cannot impose my subjective morality based on my own empathy on others. BECAUSE IT'S SUBJECTIVE. Why do you keep looking for some objective morality when I've already told you countless times that there isn't one?

Because you are fallible and subject to all sorts of influences that can skew and taint your opinion of empathy. So, therefore, you need an independent measure beyond the person. For example, similar to a scoring system independent of personal views. For example, there is a scoring system for bowling which records the number of pins knocked down and strikes. It is not up to personal views but an independent measuring system.

So? I've already freely admitted that my morality is entirely subjective. Your criticism of it seems to be, "Morally isn't subjective, because if it was subjective, then it would be subjective and not objective!"

But if there is no such thing as a straight line and there is only a crooked line how would you even know it was a crooked line. It would just be some weird shaped narrow thing. The same as empathy and apathy, justice and injustice, or good and evil. If morals are only subjective then there is no grounding for morals and therefore there is no way to tell their value. They would be similar to "likes or dislikes" of something. Therefore there would be no right and wrong morally.

How would I know that it is a crooked line? Because I measure the angle.

Doesn't that tell you that under subjective morality there is no reliable measure for moral values like empathy because they are different for each person. This could range from no empathy to empathy being hurting people just like they hurt you. Who knows as there is no independent measure. Any attempt to claim you know what empathy really is is an illusion because if there is no independent reference for moral values then there is no value for morals.

GASP! It's almost like it was entirely subjective and not objective at all!

Isn't this what I've been trying to tell you?

I don't have to demonstrate this. I only have to show that there has to be some sort of external source be it God, Vishnu, some transient being, mother nature, or some superiorly good alien. I have already shown that there has to be some external reference point that grounds morals, therefore, making them objective.

Nah, all you've done is make the claim. You have to support your claim.

After all, what can be claimed with no evidence can be dismissed with no evidence.

But with no reference point or comparison that 180-degree line could actually be a crooked line. Just because it has no bends in it doesn't cause you to know it is straight. That's because you don't know what straight is in the first place. If you only have one form of something then how can you tell what it is or is not without the opposite to put in into context.

I know. But when the results come out to 180 degrees, I know it's straight. I don't even need to SEE the line. I just need to know that it's 180 degrees and I know for a fact that it's not crooked.

Yes that's what I have been trying to point out. If we don't have a reference point to compare then everything is just bits of information with no context. That is what C.S. Lewis's famous quote is all about. How could he complain about injustice in the universe is so bad if there was no justice to compare with and give injustice some context?

Line has angle of 180 degrees.

I don't need to know the context of anything else to know that this line being measured is straight. What possible context could there be that would change the fact that it is straight?

If there were no short people to put into context tall people we would just think tall was how humans came. There would be no such value or measurement as tall. Injustice and other moral values would just be unidentifiable feelings of some sort and any idea of them being some form or good or bad, right or wrong would be meaningless.

But "tall" and "short" are subjective terms.

I am of average height. My daughter (back when she was six) was a lot shorter than me. But we were both tall compared to the cockroaches that we occasionally found in the house.

You can't prove an objective by invoking subjectives.

 

[Moral Orel]

Before I start my reply, I'd just like to point out that you appear to have skipped replying to many of the points I have raised.

I'd give poor Steve the benefit of the doubt. He's the sole defender of objective morality in this thread and he's replying to at least four people. I mean, he's totally wrong of course, but he's still being a nice chap despite what must be a very stressful endeavor on his part.

 

[Moral Orel]

Fair enough, Nick. I appreciate your clarification here.

You implied earlier that it would be a bummer if morality was subjective. I don't think it'd be a big deal even for Christians if it was. You don't want to talk about that?

 

[stevevw]

No, they are most decidedly not taking the position that their moral precepts are objectively right. They are taking the position that society would be more agreeable if other people adhered to those precepts, which is a subjective opinion.

That view about why society conforms to certain moral values is based on sociobiological processes. That is what prominent evolutionists will call the selfish gene needed to reproduce. So under this view moral values are nothing to do with right and wrong but just learnt behaviour to help humans survive.

So things like rape, stealing and killing may be socially against the agreed norms but they are no more right and wrong than another animal for example who kills a females offspring so it puts itself in a better position to mate and reproduce. So we are just like advanced primates and what we call moral values are just these ingrained sociobiological processes.

So there are no objective moral values. When people make moral judgments under this view they are saying nothing about being morally right or wrong. When you make moral judgments like everyone has the right not to be discriminated against like it is an objective moral value where did this moral value about rights come from?

Isn't this just a result of sociobiological processes. So a person who rapes, discriminates, abuses children, and steals is just acting out of fashion and against a sociobiological agreed position that has been ingrained in humans. It says nothing or carries no weight about any moral values about right and wrong.

 

[stevevw]

That is a red herring. The discussion centers on the standard of measurement, not physical objects.

But surely people can perceive that some objects are closer or further away and therefore determine that a distant object or destination is further away than a closer one. Therefore determine different distances. This centers on distances to physical objects or destination and not the end goals.

 

[Kylie]

Here's something for you @stevevw

Using your ideas of objective morality, please give the correct solution to the trolley problem.

 

[stevevw]

Several problems with Lewis' thinking here: 1. he said he tried to "prove that God did not exist." Attempting to prove a negative is something Lewis should know is actually not logically possible. It seems to me that he is really trying to make a rhetorical point there. A clearer thinker may rather simply say that the default position is non belief and the burden of proof is one the person making the claim. I am not aware of any respected public intellectual who has attempted to prove that God does not exist.

He was talking about a logical argument no a scientific test. Logical arguments can be used to support whether God exists or not and that is all he was using.

2. Moral consensus can be better explained by well-being than a god.

This is an idea from Sam Harris. Apart from the determination of wellbeing being based on science and science cannot determine things metaphysically for which morality is. Wellbeing in the first place is also a matter of subjective views. Who decides what is regarded as human wellbeing and why should it be the basis for moral values anyway if there is no independent morals from human opinions. Hitler thought that human wellbeing was best served by exterminating the weak and creating a strong, healthy, and superior race.

If there are no objective moral values and morals are left to human subjective views about what wellbeing is we could have all sorts of determinations about what is best. How do we know that if circumstances change and we don't have enough resources and food to sustain billions of people that allowing many to die or even exterminating the elderly may become morally good for human wellbeing?

However, Lewis does not consider this and he fails to account for the Euthyphro Dilemma.

The Euthyphro Dilemma is a fallacy of a false dilemma. People or (Christians are not doing either in thinking is something moral because God says so or does God says so because it is moral. Objective moral values are moral because that is the way, God is. God is necessarily, by his essence or nature good.

So God's moral laws his commands which make up our moral duties and obligations are based on God's moral nature, they reflect God's nature, things like justice, kindness, love, generosity, etc. So our moral duties are grounded in God’s commandments, but these commandments are not arbitrary, but they flow necessarily out of the very nature of God himself. They are necessary expressions of the way God is.
Moral Argument (part 4) | Reasonable Faith

 

[stevevw]

To prove a society can effectively construct a moral system of justice without appealing to spiritual reinforcement is easy to do. In WWII, the Nuremberg Trials were a large step toward establishing a universal understanding of justice without appealing to a god. The horrors of the holocaust put a death knell in the idea of Divine Command Theory and other theistic moral injunctions; instead, the tribunal invoke the idea of Crimes Against Humanity. At no point in that trial did they need to consider a meftaphphysical moral foundation.

To argue that they could only base their understanding of morality on a preexisting moral law from a god is a bald assertion. I see no evidence for that claim.

If interested:
Reginbogin, Herbert R., and Christoph Safferling. The Nuremberg Trials: International Criminal Law Since 1945. De Gruyter Saur, 2006.

To claim that the agreed moral values that were decided as crimes against humanity proves objective moral values don't exist is also a logical fallacy.

 

[stevevw]

Here's something for you @stevevw

Using your ideas of objective morality, please give the correct solution to the trolley problem.

The trolley problem brings up an interesting moral dilemma. But first of all, we need to point out why there is a dilemma in the first place. If moral values are subjective and there is no objective moral right and wrong then why even get concerned about the dilemma, why even make a dilemma. The fact that we get concerned about the situation in the first place show there must be objective moral values because under subjective morality there is no grounding for making morals right or wrong.

So there is no moral right and wrong, just opinions that vary. So why would it be bad to kill someone, why not just kill the 5 people on the track, it doesn't matter. Coming up with some sociobiological reason for how people determined right and wrong doesn't explain why something is ultimately right or wrong. It's just a biological process so someone who runs over the 5 people is not doing anything objectively wrong. They are just acting differently and out of fashion to the rest.

Second, the Trolley Problem is a false "either and or" dilemma and that there is never a third way. The author restricts people to only two choices and forbids people from trying other options when we know in reality we know people always try everything they can to save people. So it does not reflect real live moral experience. The trolley problem brings up moral values of justice, ie who has the right to live and forces us to pick one over the other.

People in communist countries are told all their life that they have to sacrifice someone for others. But most say this is a lie told by the dictators and there is always another way to do things. So even if there was a trolley situation everything would have been done to avert this situation and more than likely succeeded. But even so, having done everything to uphold the values of life and justice but failed it is not the same as what the trolley problem implies that killing is OK.

It is also a logical fallacy that a rare, unrealistic, and complicated moral issue negates the 99% of situations that are easily defined and prove objective morality.

 

[Kylie]

The trolley problem brings up an interesting moral dilemma. But first of all, we need to point out why there is a dilemma in the first place. If moral values are subjective and there is no objective moral right and wrong then why even get concerned about the dilemma, why even make a dilemma. The fact that we get concerned about the situation in the first place show there must be objective moral values because under subjective morality there is no grounding for making morals right or wrong.

So there is no moral right and wrong, just opinions that vary. So why would it be bad to kill someone, why not just kill the 5 people on the track, it doesn't matter. Coming up with some sociobiological reason for how people determined right and wrong doesn't explain why something is ultimately right or wrong. It's just a biological process so someone who runs over the 5 people is not doing anything objectively wrong. They are just acting differently and out of fashion to the rest.

Second, it is a false "either and or" dilemma and that there is never a third way. The author restricts people to only two choices when we know in reality people always try everything they can to save people. So it does not reflect real live moral experience. The trolley problem brings up moral values of justice, ie who has the right to live and forces us to pick one over the other.

People in communist countries are told all their life that they have to sacrifice someone for others. But most will say this was a lie told to them and there is always another way to do things. So even if there was a situation where a trolley was diverted to save 5 people at the expense of 1 everything would have been done to avert this situation and more than likely succeeded. But even if it didn't people have done everything to uphold the values of life and justice but just failed. There is no good or right choice or moral in the situation.

It is also a logical fallacy that a more complicated issue on deciding the right moral act negates the 99% of situations that are easily clear what the right thing to do is. Nor does it negate the fact that with those easy or as you call them extreme cases that clearly show people know that certain things are always wrong thus showing there are objective moral values.

So I take it you CAN'T apply your standards of objective morality to the trolley problem?

Because you never actually answered my question, did you? Try again please.