Is there Objective Morality?

[stevevw]

It isn't different. You've decided already that taste is subjective, but you'll find a time comes (just like it came before) when someone surprises you by disliking something you love, and you'll think they're wrong to disagree. Sorry, buddy, but it's a perfect analogy.

Your getting the exmaples mixed up and I think partly because 'likes and dislikes' is a poor comparison for morality. For starters 'likes and dislikes' are more about pleasure and displeasure and cannot be equated to moral right and wrong. Its not wrong to dislike peas and liking icecream doesnt = being moraly right. They just don't follow.

But lets go with this comaprison for a moment and apply it so I can show where your mixing things up. Lets just use you are the person to make things simple and clear. So you are using someone else besides yourself as the person not liking the food whereas I am only using you as the person who is claiming their morality is subjective but then acts like morality objective when they put their view into action in lived moral situations.

So you claim that morality is subjective and the example may be that you think stealing is relative and that its OK for poor people to steal because they need to survive. But then a poor person steals from you and you condemn them like no one has the right to steal. You have suddenly contradicted your own subjective moral position.

In fact whenever you or any subjectivists condemn others or protest wrong like its really wrong and sent that claim out into the world you are contradicting a subjective/relative moral position because subjective morality says nothing about what is ultimately wrong and therefore no one can claim that another person is truely wrong morally.

 

[Moral Orel]

Your getting the exmaples mixed up and I think partly because 'likes and dislikes' is a poor comparison for morality. For starters 'likes and dislikes' are more about pleasure and displeasure and cannot be equated to moral right and wrong. Its not wrong to dislike peas and liking icecream doesnt = being moraly right. They just don't follow.

But lets go with this comaprison for a moment and apply it so I can show where your mixing things up. Lets just use you are the person to make things simple and clear. So you are using someone else besides yourself as the person not liking the food whereas I am only using you as the person who is claiming their morality is subjective but then acts like morality objective when they put their view into action in lived moral situations.

So you claim that morality is subjective and the example may be that you think stealing is relative and that its OK for poor people to steal because they need to survive. But then a poor person steals from you and you condemn them like no one has the right to steal. You have suddenly contradicted your own subjective moral position.

In fact whenever you or any subjectivists condemn others or protest wrong like its really wrong and sent that claim out into the world you are contradicting a subjective/relative moral position because subjective morality says nothing about what is ultimately wrong and therefore no one can claim that another person is truely wrong morally.

If treating things like they are objectively good is proof that things are objectively good, then it is an objective fact that chocolate ice cream is delicious and anyone who believes it is gross is wrong to believe that. If acting as though things are objectively bad is proof that things are objectively bad, then it is an objective fact that brussel sprouts are disgusting and anyone who believes they are tasty is wrong to believe that.

That's your claim. That because humans act like things are objective then things are objective. But you already know that's false because we act like some foods and drinks are delicious, but you recognize that as subjective. Face it, human intuition sucks.

 

[o_mlly]

You keep framing things as arguments, and asking for an argument for this or that. This does not get us an iota closer to objectivity.

Yes, it does. Substitute "truth" for "objectivity".

Knowledge is true when it conforms to reality. The best science can do with its inferential method of seeking knowledge is to assert that their findings are merely probably true. However, the rational method of seeking knowledge uses deductive reasoning and reaches conclusions that are certain. Of course, irrational thinkers will never accept those reasoned conclusions.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Objective means universal?

No, the human species is characterized by x y and z traits. Those include having two arms. Does every human have two arms? No. So is that particular characteristic somehow less objective?

To a degree. If I bake a cake and serve it to 100 people and the first 90 tell me that it is magnificent, I might begin to conclude that it is objectively good. But, when the next 10 tell me they hated it, you have to wonder? Then you say "well, there's no accounting for taste." Is it objectively good or not?

If I have a rock in my yard, I fully expect that if 100 people come by that they would all say that it is there. But, what if several don't? I go check and see a rock. I send the original 97 who agreed with me to double check (repeat N times) and they still agree. So, then, I conclude that it is (or at least inter-subjectively) there and the 3 outliers had something go wrong. Maybe we should send them out again. Etc. (BTW, inter-subjectivity, I think is as close as we can get to objectivity.)

The question of "objective" morality is a question as to whether morality is like the goodness of cake or like the existence of a rock.

Consider Genghis Khan. They raped, killed, and pillaged across Asia. Did they think they were wrong? Of course not. It was their due. It was the warrior's right over a conquered village to rape as he might. Did the people raped think it was wrong? I might guess that though they hated the outcome, they too might acknowledge the conqueror's rights.

And we see that not only is the wrongness of rape relative, but the abolishment of it is a matter of a negotiation. I won't do this to you if you won't do it to me and we agree because don't like it.

Starting to sound like cake. We both like chocolate so that's what we bake.

What is "objectively" true about humans is that we evolved as a social species. I would say that this is the relevant characteristic of humans. And what that means is we are compelled as a species to negotiate with our members as to what constitutes reasonable interactions. Indeed, we find ourselves negotiating about who we must negotiate with.

And so I find we fall back to the idea that morality is a social construct.

The subjectivity/objectivity of morality, IMHO, is a red-herring. Humans do what humans do (including thinking about what and why we do it). We negotiate our interactions. That's it. And regardless of what moral theory we base our idea of negotiations, we will negotiate.

 

[Ken-1122]

You didn’t answer the question. In a free democratic society is each person entitled to their personal moral view even if each person says the other is not entitled to their wrong moral view?

In a legally free society, each person is LEGALLY entitled to their own moral views. But we are not talking about legislation, we’re talking about morality. Though legally they are entitled to their own moral views, morally they are not.

Saying “there may be” something that stops a person having a personal moral view doesn’t help us in answering this question.

Actually it does because people will have different moral views even if they believe morality is objective. If morality were objective, everyone would agree on morality the same way everyone agrees with math, colors, or anything else objective.

A person can disagree with another person’s subjective moral but that doesn’t stop the other person holding that moral view.

True! And that would be the case if they believed morality were objective as well.

You said that like you know the truth that there is no morality outside of sentient beings. How do I know you know the truth on this matter. Isn't this just your personal opinion.

No it isn’t an opinion, it’s an objective demonstratable fact. If you are incapable of thinking, you are incapable of having a moral view.

See how subjective morality refutes itself. On the one hand people claim morals are subjective and there is no ultimate truth.

No, there is no ultimate morality, there are lots of ultimate truths; don’t confuse the two.

So the question is does a person’s personal moral views mean that they are factual or objective beyond the personal views of the person or does it only apply to the person.

If something is factual, it has to be applied to everybody. A moral view is not applied to everybody

I will respond to the rest later

 

[TheWhat?]

On the other hand, let's say you visit an indigenous tribe that has little to no contact with outsiders. As a westerner, you may think "these primitives have no concept of right or wrong," and you do as you please, you start logging their forests, you tear down a few of their huts, and take some of their possessions you find to be of value to you.

These people care nothing for Western moral philosophy and may not even have laws against what you've done. They should have no basis to judge you as having wronged them, right? Obviously not. You've left several of them knowing they've been wronged by an outsider, they know you know you've wronged them, and you know they will probably judge you for being a generally awful human being. They don't need laws or Western philosophy to tell you this, because both they and you are intelligent enough to know there is a morality that transcends your differences, even if it is not rationally defined.

I tend to think that the moral senses are more reliable than anything else. Most of us use them anyways, appealing to ethics and law only when necessary or when trying to get away with something. It's just that, here in the West, it's a cultural norm to disregard their existence among certain circles.

 

[durangodawood]

Just because something is applied to everything, does not make it objective.

For example....?

 

[stevevw]

That makes about as much sense as claiming you can go out on a bright sunny day and really believe that the sky is purple with green polka dots.

You said that if everyone knows objective morals then they should follow them. I am saying that just because people know objective morality doesn’t mean they will follow them. Thats pretty simple and straight forward.

I don't think that's enough to claim that morality is objective. If God has a certain morality, then it doesn't follow that such a morality is objective just because we are made in his image. My daughter was made in my image, yet she and I hold very different viewpoints in some things. I can't declare that my ideas must objectively apply to her.

You're now, no doubt, going to say it's different when it comes to God, in which case I will say you are committing the fallacy of special pleading.

That wasn’t what we were debating about. You were saying if God is declaring moral laws then this is just like a government declaring societies laws. I am just saying your analogy is wrong as God doesn’t declare morals he is the moral law. I was saying your analogy and comparison is wrong.

So? How does this contradict what I said?

You were using evolution as a reason for how morality came about and that we don’t need an external source beyond humans. I am saying evolution does not explain why we ought to be good; it only describes how morality came so it is not a valid explanation for morality in the first place.

Which is what we'd expect to see with subjective, not objective, morality.

That’s a non sequitur. It doesn’t follow that morals are subjective and that there are no objective morality just because we see varying moral views good, bad and ugly.

I can't see how you think this supports the case for objective morality.

I wasn’t posting this to support objective morality but to counter your claim that evolution explains morality. But if I did want to make a point that supports objective morality we could say that despite evolution not being able to explain morality or any other subjective position people act like morals are objective.

They act like there are certain right and wrong morals in the world beyond them, not created by humans through evolution. They appeal and live morality like it is stating something true beyond them. So evolution or any other explanation for subjective morality is inadequate for explaining how humans actually live out morality.

Yes, I agree. If there is an objective morality, it must come from beyond any conscious entity. It must be an inherent property of the universe.

Unfortunately, you haven't shown that morality comes from anything more than ourselves.

If that’s the case then what C. S. Lewis and anyone else does in protesting and condemning moral wrongs like they are truths out in the universe is all just an illusion, a meaningless waste of time because they don’t really equate to something really right and wrong but just a reflection of personal opinion, preference, likes or dislikes similar to tastes in food which can never be about something morally right or wrong in any real sense beyond the person.

But the fact that people do live like morals are real beyond themselves, protesting and condemning others like there is real evil in the world shows that what we subjectively feel and what we intuitive know and therefore how we live out morals shows we live like morality is objective. The evidence is in our moral experience. We live like morals are subjective and as they say actions speak louder than words.

But there are cases where that isn't true. If I meet with a friend and tell her her make up looks like she was standing in front of an exploding can of paint, that may be the truth, but it's still something I would say is immoral, since I would be hurting her by saying that. Yet a small white lie, being dishonest, could be the moral thing to do.

You have just repeated the same example and are missing the point. How does that example devalue honesty as a moral? What is the moral that is applied to your scenario? Is it not to hurt fellow humans? As far as moral values are concerned your scenario is not about honesty anymore but about not hurting humans.

This is where people get confused about objective morality by making it absolute morality like we must keep a value the same when circumstances change rather than seeing that because the circumstance changed the moral value relevant also changes.

If it's objectively true, then it MUST apply in every situation. You can't say that being honest is not always the correct thing to do when you have been pushing the ideas that there is always something that is objectively right to do and that honesty is objectively morally right.

What you are talking about is absolute morality. What you are saying is that because killing is wrong then under objective morality we must not kill ever even if a crazed gunman is about to shoot an innocent child. But wouldnt that put the moralist in a difficult situation where they may be found guilty of allowing a life to be destroyed when they could have saved that life. Wouldn’t that make the moralist guilty of moral wrong?

If there is always an objective moral right and wrong for every changing situations shouldn’t there be a way out for the objective moralist in this situation. If sticking to morals strictly leads to being morally wrong as well then objective morality has to be flexible.

Therefore the objectively right thing to do in this situation is to save the child and if that may mean killing the crazed gunman in the process then so be it. Surely the killing of the crazed gunman is not the same as the killing of a child for fun.

But this in no way makes killing subjective because the allowance of killing the crazed gunman was only allowed because of a greater moral which was protecting/saving life when morally called to do so which was the objectively right thing to do. It wasn’t arbitrary to people’s personal views but followed an objective criteria (saving life).

So it is with Honesty.

Yet you have been pushing the "Honesty is objectively morally right" position for a while now, and yet now you claim that it isn't always.

That’s because you keep equating absolute morality with objective morality. Objective morality is not sticking to being honest no matter what. That is absolute morality as the name says “you must stick to the same moral value absolutely without any compromise.

Whereas objective morality means that in any situations including changing circumstances there will be an objectively right or wrong things to do that are beyond human personal opinion. So long as it’s beyond human views it really doesn’t matter if Honesty is not always abided by.

In your scenario we have to find the right moral thing to do first. That is not hurting a person. If you were honest you would have hurt a person and that is not morally good right. So being honest would not be morally good. But because we are being morally good and that it’s the only option beyond humans it’s the right thing to do objectively.

Exactly. A person in the situation must weigh up the value of each and choose the outcome with the highest value.

Let's say there is a gunman about to shoot and kill a child. You can stop him, but only by killing him.

So, let's say you conclude that by killing the gunman you lose 50 morality points. But by saving the child, you gain 100 morality points. Thus, you would conclude that killing the gunman and saving the child gives a net gain of 50 morality points, so that or the moral thing to do.

But someone else could conclude that killing the gunman loses them 50 morality points, forcing the child to watch someone killed in front of their eyes and live with that for the rest of their life costs another 20 morality points, but saving the child gains them only 50 morality points, because a life is a life, and no person has more right than another to live. Thus, killing the gunman costs negative 20 morality points, so it is more moral for this person to do nothing and try to find another solution, maybe negotiation.

Yet this is subjective morality, not objective, since it is different for each person.

Actually though it’s a little unreal as in any situation you may not have time to even think let alone try to be so perfectly good all round. But in fact you have just made a case for objective morality because under subjective morality there is no value moral scale towards better or more perfect because morals are just personal preferences and likes which say nothing about any ultimate better or worse moral state. You can only say to another person with a difference moral view that it’s just different and not better or worse.

It’s because you are introducing the idea that there is a better moral state to aim for which says there is an ultimate best moral state to measure things by. That’s objective morality and that is what I am talking about. So that can only happen under objective morality. So you have actually just explained objective morality.

But as you have said, there are cases where honest can be immoral. We can't conclude that honest is automatically the moral option to take.

No I haven’t said that Honesty can be immoral. You are getting things the wrong way around. Avoiding being honest because you may hurt someone doesn’t not make honesty immoral. IT just means avoiding being honest not because it’s bad but because a greater moral wrong would be committed which is hurting someone.

 

[durangodawood]

To a degree. If I bake a cake and serve it to 100 people and the first 90 tell me that it is magnificent, I might begin to conclude that it is objectively good. But, when the next 10 tell me they hated it, you have to wonder? Then you say "well, there's no accounting for taste." Is it objectively good or not?

If people overwhelmingly like a similar cake over all human history and across cultures, your cake is probably appealing to some objectively verifiable feature of the human species.

The question of "objective" morality is a question as to whether morality is like the goodness of cake or like the existence of a rock.

Its like both. Some moral rules are culturally contingent or almost accidental. Others are based on natural facts of the human species.

Consider Genghis Khan. They raped, killed, and pillaged across Asia. Did they think they were wrong? Of course not. It was their due. It was the warrior's right over a conquered village to rape as he might. Did the people raped think it was wrong? I might guess that though they hated the outcome, they too might acknowledge the conqueror's rights.

I think most of the big moral rules started with the appendage: "...in my tribe", the tribe being the locus of individual well being, and other tribes representing possible threats to well being. The radius of concern has spread outward as human interconnectedness has grown, and the morals have followed.

What is "objectively" true about humans is that we evolved as a social species. I would say that this is the relevant characteristic of humans. And what that means is we are compelled as a species to negotiate with our members as to what constitutes reasonable interactions. Indeed, we find ourselves negotiating about who we must negotiate with.

Maybe the particular forms of certain morals are products of negotiations. But, for example, the do-not-rape set of moral rules originate from an objective fact (to the extent you even recognize objectivity in any context) of the human species that they dont like to be raped.

Overall Im not claiming moral rules "are objective". I dont even know what that would mean. Just that the big ones have a basis in objective natural facts of the human species.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Overall Im not claiming moral rules "are objective". I dont even know what that would mean. Just that the big ones have a basis in objective natural facts of the human species.

I agree with this.

 

[stevevw]

If treating things like they are objectively good is proof that things are objectively good, then it is an objective fact that chocolate ice cream is delicious and anyone who believes it is gross is wrong to believe that. If acting as though things are objectively bad is proof that things are objectively bad, then it is an objective fact that brussel sprouts are disgusting and anyone who believes they are tasty is wrong to believe that.

That's your claim. That because humans act like things are objective then things are objective. But you already know that's false because we act like some foods and drinks are delicious, but you recognize that as subjective. Face it, human intuition sucks.

But as I said none of this is relevant because likes and dislikes dont equate to moral right and wrong. So the whole comparison is wrong and irrelevant. Its because liking chocolate ice cream doesnt equate to moral good that is the problem.

Liking something relates to pleasure (feeling) and feelings are not moral. I may give my child chocolate ice cream because it makes him feel good but it causes him health problems like obesity and diabetes which makes me immoral for harming my child. Someone may like/enjoy oe get pleasure out of hurting others and this is morlaly wrong.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Knowledge is true when it conforms to reality.

Where, in reality, do we see wrongitude? How do we detect this conformation to reality, as opposed to syllogisms that follow from internal assumptions that live inside our heads?

The conclusion of the mandatory veiling of women follows ineluctably from the premises about modesty held by the Taliban. But I hardly think that makes the mandatory veil an objective moral rule.

Moral premises clearly differ from person to person. It is the very definition of subjective.

This is why your deduction program is entirely divorced from the question of whether moral rules are objective or not.

 

[Moral Orel]

But as I said none of this is relevant...

Yes it is. We act like subjective things are objective and we are mistaken.

 

[o_mlly]

Moral premises clearly differ from person to person. It is the very definition of subjective.

The premises in my argument are not assumptions but demonstrable facts. Simply defeat the argument that rape is intrinsically evil.

• All innocent human beings have a right to their bodily integrity.
  • You have agreed to the truth of this premise.
• All others have a reciprocal obligation to respect the rights of others.
  • Based on the simple understanding of a "right" this premise is self-evidently true.
• Rape (or Saobi) violates a person's bodily integrity.
  • Also self-evidently true although others have tried to muddle the definition of "rape".
• Therefore, rape is objectively immoral.
  • Or, if you like, the truth that rape is immoral is certain.

 

[essentialsaltes]

The premises in my argument are not assumptions but demonstrable facts. Simply defeat the argument that rape is intrinsically evil.

• All innocent human beings have a right to their bodily integrity.
  • You have agreed to the truth of this premise.

But not its objective nature. Many deny this assumption, and I have no means at my disposal to demonstrate that it is not an assumption, but a brute fact of reality. I rather doubt that it is a fact.

How would you demonstrate that people have this right? [ETA: objectively]

 

[Moral Orel]

But not its objective nature.

I don't even agree with it subjectively. We vaccinate kids, don't we?

 

[essentialsaltes]

I don't even agree with it subjectively. We vaccinate kids, don't we?

Well, it doesn't say inviolable right.

 

[Moral Orel]

Well, it doesn't say inviolable right.

That can be inferred from the rest of the argument: "Rape violates a person's bodily integrity... therefore, rape is objectively immoral".

Anything that violates a person's bodily integrity is objectively immoral, according to this argument, so vaccinating kids against Polio is objectively immoral.

 

[durangodawood]

...All innocent human beings have a right to their bodily integrity....

Outlaw circumcision?

 

[Ken-1122]

Your personal views on morality don’t affect people either. Most the time people just keep their views to themselves and if they are truely subjuective they should not affect others because they are just about you and not others.

No; my moral views on racism, abortion, and countless other issues can have an affect on anyone who talks to me.

But surely your moral views won’t be dictated by what people think. It’s your opinion no matter how they affect people.

If someone else provides a compelling argument proving my views wrong to my satisfaction, this will change my views based on how someone else thinks

Then why do so many people who support subjective moral including the majority of people in this thread compare subjective morality to ‘likes and dislikes’.

Subjective morality is about right vs wrong. If we assume you like that which is right and dislike that which is wrong, I guess in a round-about way it can be seen as likes and dislikes.