Is morality objective, even without God?

[zippy2006]

My taste for pineapple on pizza is most good, reasonable and persuasive ['Try it, you'll like it!'], but I do not consider it objective.

You said that you try to convince other people to vote for certain policies. Do you try to convince other people to eat pineapple pizza? You are equivocating. "My taste is persuasive" is basically an incoherent claim. "De gustibus non est disputandum."

 

[zippy2006]

The law doesn't deal with morality because it's not its job to do so.

And that's that! Because Bradskii said so. No argument required.

Law is 'the system of rules which a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and which it may enforce by the imposition of penalties'.

Morality: 'the principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour'.

Objective: not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts'.

Subjective: 'influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts'.

So when the government tells you that you can't engage in sex trafficking and rape, you don't think it is telling you that sex trafficking and rape is bad behavior? Because, regardless of anyone's personal feelings or opinions, sex trafficking and rape causes undue harm, and it is wrong to cause undue harm?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I'm surprised you would say this, which means I'm asking for further clarification.

If I take the ideas of some naturalists and place them on one hand, and then take the general theological thrust of the Bible regarding the Imago Dei on the other hand, somewhere in that mess of historical research, in both natural and religious (biblical) realms, I think we find the touchstone(s) which indicate that nearly all human beings [read ~ about 96%] have a few common moral predilections built into them. Those predilections may only serve as a minimum for behavioral and moral response in our communities, but they're there nevertheless.

If this is the case, and I think it is, then we won't expect even atheists and pagans to have no morality whatsoever. We who are Christians should be able to see some residual, even though partial, manifestation of our view of morality. It's just that those who aren't Christian won't likely have a complete or fully coherent moral framework in their heads by which to evaluate or make the best (or let's say "Godly") choices in life.

Of course, it goes the other way as well; if both natural history and biblical history are cogent, we won't expect anyone to be able to be perfectly moral either.

Especially surprised in light of this statement.

That just means I haven't yet explicated my views enough, or perhaps well enough.

 

[J_B_]

My taste for pineapple on pizza is most good, reasonable and persuasive ['Try it, you'll like it!'], but I do not consider it objective.

I'll remember to keep that on the menu for when you stop by.

 

[J_B_]

If I take the ideas of some naturalists and place them on one hand, and then take the general theological thrust of the Bible regarding the Imago Dei on the other hand, somewhere in that mess of historical research, in both natural and religious (biblical) realms, I think we find the touchstone(s) which indicate that nearly all human beings [read ~ about 96%] have a few common moral predilections built into them. Those predilections may only serve as a minimum for behavioral and moral response in our communities, but they're there nevertheless.

If this is the case, and I think it is, then we won't expect even atheists and pagans to have no morality whatsoever. We who are Christians should be able to see some residual, even though partial, manifestation of our view of morality. It's just that those who aren't Christian won't likely have a complete or fully coherent moral framework in their heads by which to evaluate or make the best (or let's say "Godly") choices in life.

Of course, it goes the other way as well; if both natural history and biblical history are cogent, we won't expect anyone to be able to be perfectly moral either.

OK. That makes sense.

That just means I haven't yet explicated my views enough, or perhaps well enough.

The latest reply didn't prompt a question on my part, but if you feel there's more to explain, please proceed.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Do you try to convince other people to eat pineapple pizza?

I did in the very thing you quoted!

 

[zippy2006]

I did in the very thing you quoted!

You are equivocating.

 

[Jo555]

Hi Bradskii.

I came in looking to apologize if i was off when i jumped in a thread with you in it. I was on my phone, which doesn't allow me to see the format of this forum clearly. Now that i can, i realize i may have misunderstood your intent.

Basically, i thought you may have been coming in to crash believers' party with the wrong intent, when that may not have been the case. Maybe so, but if that were true you were doing it in your space and i came crashing in, in my inability to see the section clearly and its purpose, in that sense.

That said, I'll share my take on it as a Christian.

I would not argue with the premise that morality is subjective. Morality is a factor of the conscience and what shapes it.

God did not create man to live by a moral code shaped by the knowledge of good and evil. Partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is forbidden fruit for it brings death instead of life.

Why?

Because at its root is going at life without God; declaring our independence from God and becoming our own gods. It is a life rooted in self and bears fruits unto death-hate, envy, strife, etc.

Fruits from the tree of life is a life rooted in Christ that brings union with Father God and bears fruits unto life-love, peace, patience, etc.

We were never created to live out of a moral code through the conscience, but a very different source, a Spiritual source, God's Spirit who embodies love.

But God's Spirit is still working, holding back evil from fully coming to fruition while He restored his creation back to Himself.

No one was seeking Him, so God chose a people to show his glory through and draw others to Him ( still in process).

The law was given to these people, as a temporary addition, not to redeem them, but to work with man's choice of an awakened conscience and show them that of themselves and their choice to go at it without Him is failure. The law, with its ineffectiveness against the carnal nature (natural life tainted by sin), cannot attain Godliness. That embodies the essence / Spirit of God where no evil exists.

The law actually empowers the sin nature. Not hard to test. Ever told to give up something that wasn't good for you but your desire for it overcame what you knew, like quit smoking, or overeating, or drinking too much. Not only that, but the more you dwelt on "don't", the more you found your desire for it growing. That is the law at work. What you need is something you desire more than the thing that can kill you

In looking to redeem man from sin, the law was introduced to be as a temporary guide until Christ came to supernaturally divorce us from the law by supernatural death with Christ. A believer is then given his Spirit as a deposit into new life in Him.

It isn't a life of morality partaking of the knowledge of good and evil, but a life walking in his Spirit that drives us by his love. It is not a conscience effort, but a Spiritual journey into being perfected in his love.

Our destiny was always to be like God. Not that we are the Almighty, but as children embodied by his Spirit, and Jesus is our forerunner who made the way for that to be possible through reconciliation with God via supernatural death with Him; that is death to our old carnal nature and we are given a rebirth embodied with his nature by his Spirit.

This is not attained by ourselves and going at it apart from God, but in reliance and communion with Him, joined to Him and his love.

So if the premise of this thread is that conscience is subjective to man's interpretation, or something to that affect, then i see no contradiction to scripture.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

OK. That makes sense.



The latest reply didn't prompt a question on my part, but if you feel there's more to explain, please proceed.

I guess I'm done for the moment, then.

 

[Jo555]

Add

Hi Bradskii.

I came in looking to apologize if i was off when i jumped in a thread with you in it. I was on my phone, which doesn't allow me to see the format of this forum clearly. Now that i can, i realize i may have misunderstood your intent.

Basically, i thought you may have been coming in to crash believers' party with the wrong intent, when that may not have been the case. Maybe so, but if that were true you were doing it in your space and i came crashing in, in my inability to see the section clearly and its purpose, in that sense.

That said, I'll share my take on it as a Christian.

I would not argue with the premise that morality is subjective. Morality is a factor of the conscience and what shapes it.

God did not create man to live by a moral code shaped by the knowledge of good and evil. Partaking of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil is forbidden fruit for it brings death instead of life.

Why?

Because at its root is going at life without God; declaring our independence from God and becoming our own gods. It is a life rooted in self and bears fruits unto death-hate, envy, strife, etc.

Fruits from the tree of life is a life rooted in Christ that brings union with Father God and bears fruits unto life-love, peace, patience, etc.

We were never created to live out of a moral code through the conscience, but a very different source, a Spiritual source, God's Spirit who embodies love.

But God's Spirit is still working, holding back evil from fully coming to fruition while He restored his creation back to Himself.

No one was seeking Him, so God chose a people to show his glory through and draw others to Him ( still in process).

The law was given to these people, as a temporary addition, not to redeem them, but to work with man's choice of an awakened conscience and show them that of themselves and their choice to go at it without Him is failure. The law, with its ineffectiveness against the carnal nature (natural life tainted by sin), cannot attain Godliness. That embodies the essence of God where no evil exists.

The law actually empowers the sin nature. Not hard to test. Ever told to give up something that wasn't good for you but your desire for it overcame what you knew, like quit smoking, or overeating, or drinking too much. That is the law at work. What you need is something you desire more than the thing that can kill you

In looking to redeem man from sin, the law was introduced to be as a temporary guide until Christ came to supernaturally divorce us from the law by supernatural death with Christ. A believer is then given his Spirit as a deposit into new life in Him.

It isn't a life of morality partaking of the knowledge of good and evil, but a life walking in his Spirit that drives us by his love. It is not a conscience effort, but a Spiritual journey into being perfected in his love.

Our destiny was always to be like God. Not that we are the Almighty, but as children embodied by his Spirit, and Jesus is our forerunner who made the way for that to be possible through reconciliation with God via supernatural death with Him; that is death to our old carnal nature and we are given a rebirth embodied with his nature by his Spirit.

This is not attained by ourselves and going at it apart from God, but in reliance and communion with Him, joined to Him and his love.

So if the premise of this thread is that conscience is subjective to man's interpretation, or something to that affect, then i see no contradiction to scripture.

Additionally, i believe this is why there are believer's that struggle with experiencing life in the Spirit, they are still partaking of the wrong tree and its fruit, and that brings death, not life in his Spirit.

 

[essentialsaltes]

You are equivocating.

I cannot dispute the moral outrage I feel when someone soundly cuffs a small child in the head. Nor can I dispute the moral outrage others feel when they consider same sex marriage or abortion, although I do not experience what they assert they experience.

Moral intuitions are not inflexible, but it takes time to change, like acquiring a taste for beer or habaneros.

 

[zippy2006]

I cannot dispute the moral outrage I feel when someone soundly cuffs a small child in the head.

If you were not equivocating, then the outrage you feel at the mutilation of female genitalia would be the same kind of outrage you feel when someone refuses to eat pineapple pizza. And the persuasion you use in trying to convince people not to engage in the mutilation of female genitalia would be the same kind of persuasion you use in asking someone to try pineapple pizza. Given that these two instances of outrage and these two instances of persuasion are almost certainly not the same in kind, you are almost certainly equivocating. Taste is neither reasonable nor persuasive. It is, by definition, idiosyncratic and unrelated to rational judgment.

 

[essentialsaltes]

It is, by definition, idiosyncratic and unrelated to rational judgment.

So is the sensation of moral outrage. I don't judge my level of outrage when a child is slapped upside the head -- I feel it.

This does not mean that moral outrage is identical to sensations of taste or beauty, but they are alike. We can analogize.

 

[zippy2006]

So is the sensation of moral outrage. I don't judge my level of outrage when a child is slapped upside the head -- I feel it.

No, it is not unrelated to rational judgment. You judge that the genitalia should not be mutilated, and you are outraged because something that should not happen is happening.

This does not mean that moral outrage is identical to sensations of taste, but they are alike.

No, they're really not. Go tell your wife that you oppose the mutilation of genitalia in the same way that you oppose non-pineapple pizza. She will slap you and you will have deserved it.

 

[Ana the Ist]

I agree. But by social construct, Liberals of all stripes tend to mean that social rules are negotiated as a composite idea from diverse streams and as such can be revised as needed.

Sure...in context, the argument goes...

I dislike x because y and it's just a social construct so we don't need it or can change it. Extremely stupid.

The upshot here of course, and in the case of Christianity is one that is always the fly in the democratic ointment, is the idea that the "Real Rule" wasn't delivered by diverse amalgamation, but that it arrived to us through revelation and cannot simply be dismissed and countermanded by demagogues, radicals, socialists, or various Liberals, however much they muse that they think "better" about it all.

And yet....that has it's downsides as well.

I can't imagine a fixed system that won't fail under many conditions.

Yes, exactly. I agree.

Oh good.

Who said anything about "staying in the group"?

l did.

Biblically speaking, sometimes one has to stand apart from what "the Group" has decided.

Ok...in such cases where one's own reasoning leads to moral conclusions that the larger group disagrees with....

1. Decide what you are willing to sacrifice. It may be everything. I can think of Jack Kevorkian aka Dr Death who morally believed in patient assisted suicide, practiced it against the law, and spent his years in prison. The lost his ability to practice, his reputation, and much more.

2. Make as strong an argument possible for your position. I think of Jordan Peterson, who simply disagreed that the government should be given the power to mandate speech and felt certain they would inevitably punish people for not going along. He was eventually correct, lost his license to practice and fled his "group".

Sometimes, too, "Groups" become too sure of themselves and their demands for conformity are shot through by their own fallacious, even culturally relativistic, reasoning.

I agree. I tend to see those moral arguments as obviously personally beneficial. MLK didn't demand that black people alone no longer face discrimination in opportunities like work or education....he demanded this for everyone....even though it wasn't happening to white people. Wisdom there....because it's happening to white people and they're drowning corporate America in lawsuits.

 

[Ana the Ist]

So is the sensation of moral outrage. I don't judge my level of outrage when a child is slapped upside the head -- I feel it.

Exactly. It's the same feeling I have toward a parent refuses to discipline a belligerent and unruly child with a slap to the head.

This does not mean that moral outrage is identical to sensations of taste or beauty, but they are alike. We can analogize.

We just don't hold the same feelings toward the same things and so we constantly negotiate them from a distance.

 

[Ana the Ist]

No, it is not unrelated to rational judgment. You judge that the genitalia should not be mutilated, and you are outraged because something that should not happen is happening.

I'd say the general principle is....and most people hate this....fairness.

It looks immoral if it's in some way unfair to us. A scam only really looks immoral if it's the poor and stupid being scammed by the wealthy and wise. If it's the wealthy and self-proclaimed wise being scammed by a poor man....we find it funny.

No, they're really not. Go tell your wife that you oppose the mutilation of genitalia in the same way that you oppose non-pineapple pizza. She will slap you and you will have deserved it.

The odd thing is that....if you were to steal a french fry from your friend's plate when they weren't looking, we hardly register this as theft although it's exactly what you did.

Change the circumstances to you and your friend on a life raft adrift and hoping for rescue....the morals of it changes dramatically. Not only would that sort of behavior deserve throwing your friend off the raft to his demise....but as the days pass, almost anything I can find forgivable.

 

[zippy2006]

So is the sensation of moral outrage. I don't judge my level of outrage when a child is slapped upside the head -- I feel it.

It may be worth nothing that this is actually wrong. People do judge levels of moral outrage, including their own. But that wasn't really the point. I said:

Taste is neither reasonable nor persuasive. It is, by definition, idiosyncratic and unrelated to rational judgment.

Why do you favor pineapple pizza? You said that it is because of your tastes. Why do you oppose the mutilation of female genitalia? Because you think it is morally wrong, and you would "very likely" use reason to convince others that it is morally wrong. So on your own account, one of your opinions flows from your tastes and one of your opinions is supportable via reason (and hopefully you don't disagree with the idea that de gustibus non est disputandum).

Now to rationally judge a taste-preference is wrong, because taste-preferences are not rational. And if some claim is rationally judgeable and disputable, then it cannot be based on mere taste. You yourself think that the prohibition on female genital mutilation is rationally judgeable and disputable; therefore you ought to accept that this prohibition is not based on mere taste--and by 'ought' I mean that you will accept it if you are a rational person who understands the rudiments of logic.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Sure...in context, the argument goes...

I dislike x because y and it's just a social construct so we don't need it or can change it. Extremely stupid.

For me it depends upon what the 'truth claim' is for said construct X, whatever that may be.

Obviously, stop signs a

Ok...in such cases where one's own reasoning leads to moral conclusions that the larger group disagrees with....

1. Decide what you are willing to sacrifice. It may be everything. I can think of Jack Kevorkian aka Dr Death who morally believed in patient assisted suicide, practiced it against the law, and spent his years in prison. The lost his ability to practice, his reputation, and much more.

2. Make as strong an argument possible for your position. I think of Jordan Peterson, who simply disagreed that the government should be given the power to mandate speech and felt certain they would inevitably punish people for not going along. He was eventually correct, lost his license to practice and fled his "group".

Honestly, I don't think of Jack Kevorkian or Jordan Peterson as pivotal analogies for sifting through inferences regarding conformity or dissent.

For me, it's figures like Paul the Apostle [~Jesus], or Galileo [~Copernicus] who I think make for the better examples of the sort you're suggesting.

 

[Ana the Ist]

For me it depends upon what the 'truth claim' is for said construct X, whatever that may be.

Truth claims about construct x certainly matter....but I think it's equally important to consider why construct x exists in the first place. Male and female aren't social constructs....so neither are men and women. I'd agree that whatever we consider proper behavior for men and women to be social constructs...but that doesn't mean they don't exist for reasons. We don't shame men who sleep with multiple women quite the same way as we do women who sleep with multiple men because frankly....it's far easier for them.

Obviously, stop signs a

If you meant to say stop signs are a social construct....yeah....we needed rules for using roads and determining who is to blame for collisions.

Honestly, I don't think of Jack Kevorkian or Jordan Peterson as pivotal analogies for sifting through inferences regarding conformity or dissent.

Ok.

For me, it's figures like Paul the Apostle [~Jesus], or Galileo [~Copernicus] who I think make for the better examples of the sort you're suggesting.

Yeah but I wasn't around then lol...I don't want to assume too much.

Edit- in reference to Paul....is there something specific you were thinking about? Or are we more specifically talking about someone trying to negotiate moral norms (which has some risk) instead of someone explicitly violating some because of disagreement (but not personal gain).