Is morality objective, even without God?

[2PhiloVoid]

It was stated that 'God is the objective view'. If that's true then asking 'how do we know what that is?' is entirely relevant. It might have been better had you addressed that original comment and said that it wasn't a legitimate statement.

Yes, it may have been better if I had addressed the comment by the previous poster.

As I see it, IF(f) there is a God, then He has the only fully objective view of human morality that can be fully known. But from our merely mortal and bounded vantage point, all we can do is subjectively make truth claims about what we each perceive and think is 'moral.' This goes for both individuals as well as entire communities over and against each other.

 

[Bradskii]

Why not?

If I lie to you then you'll receive incorrect information. That's an objective fact. Should I lie to you? If I shoot you, you'll be dead. An objective fact. Should I shoot you?

 

[zippy2006]

If I lie to you then you'll receive incorrect information. That's an objective fact. Should I lie to you? If I shoot you, you'll be dead. An objective fact. Should I shoot you?

What does this have to do with Singer's interview?

 

[Bradskii]

It is really quite simple. If God is truly omniscient, omnibenevolent, and the author/creator of the universe, then He would be both the author and declairor of what is both true and good.

And that's half of the dilemma. Whatever God tells you is good then you must accept that because it's His decision. It doesn't matter what you think about it.

There's two problems with that. The first is that whatever God has decided doesn't cover all possible scenarios. So should 'Honour your mother and father' always be obeyed? Of if the father rapes and beats his daughter on a regular basis, can she disobey?

The second problem is that if what God tells you is always right and you are absolutely convinced he wants you to kill your neighbour and his wife and all their children, then even if you think it's wrong, you have no input. It must be right.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

And that's half of the dilemma. Whatever God tells you is good then you must accept that because it's His decision. It doesn't matter what you think about it.

There's two problems with that. The first is that whatever God has decided doesn't cover all possible scenarios. So should 'Honour your mother and father' always be obeyed? Of if the father rapes and beats his daughter on a regular basis, can she disobey?

The second problem is that if what God tells you is always right and you are absolutely convinced he wants you to kill your neighbour and his wife and all their children, then even if you think it's wrong, you have no input. It must be right.

God isn't going to tell any Christian to kill his/her neighbor, wife or children. We should all know this by now.

 

[Bradskii]

That is a valid option if we are being honest. Even rape and murder could be subjectively wrong/right depending on the culture. Who are we to judge?

No! You can judge. You can decide if something is wrong. This nonsensical position whereby someone says 'If morality is relative then you can't condemn people for doing something wrong because they obviously think it's right' is just that. Nonsensical. It's up to you to decide if it'swrong. It's not someone else's decision.

 

[Bradskii]

What does this have to do with Singer's interview?

I'm just answering the question you asked.

 

[zippy2006]

I'm just answering the question you asked.

If your comments have nothing to do with Singer then they are irrelevant to the question I asked.

 

[Bradskii]

Yes, it may have been better if I had addressed the comment by the previous poster.

As I see it, IF(f) there is a God, then He has the only fully objective view of human morality that can be fully known. But from our merely mortal and bounded vantage point, all we can do is subjectively make truth claims about what we each perceive and think is 'moral.' This goes for both individuals as well as entire communities over and against each other.

Yes. Even if we accept that God has knowledge of absolute morality and knows what we should all do in all circumstances for...some good as He has decided is the relevant factor, then we have no idea what all that should entail at every moral point we encounter. So it becomes a subjective decision. It can't be anything other than that.

So it does seem to me to be a waste of time saying that objective morality exists if we have no way of knowing what it is.

 

[Mark Quayle]

If one chooses some particular meta-ethics with an objective metric, e.g. "The moral choice is the one that results in the most ants."

Then all moral questions become objective. [Though many choices that neither increase nor decrease the quantity of ants would be morally neutral.]

But the choice of meta-ethics was not determined objectively. So this is not a convincing way for morality to be objective.

Haha! I like that!

 

[Mark Quayle]

If your comments have nothing to do with Singer then they are irrelevant to the question I asked.

Why? The Title of the OP is not about what Singer has to say about anything. The OP mentions Singer, so, great, but don't act like Singer is the matter in question.

(But maybe I'm just saying that because I don't have the data availability to watch the video ).

 

[Bradskii]

God isn't going to tell any Christian to kill his/her neighbor, wife or children. We should all know this by now.

I don't suppose that He's going to say that it's OK to keep slaves either. But there were a lot of people who were convinced that He was perfectly OK with it. And you should give Mein Kampf a brief once over. It contains gems such as these:

'I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.'

'What we have to fight for is the necessary security for the existence and increase of our race and people, the subsistence of its children and the maintenance of our racial stock unmixed, the freedom and independence of the Fatherland so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator.'

'In short, the results of miscegenation are always the following: (a) The level of the superior race becomes lowered; (b) physical and mental degeneration sets in, thus leading slowly but steadily toward a progressive drying up of the vital sap. The act which brings about such a development is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator. And as a sin this act will be avenged.'

 

[Mark Quayle]

Morality is socially constructed and it takes a while to create or change it. Claiming objectivity represents a short cut.

1. Make a list of widely accepted moral precepts.
2. Add your own moral precepts that you would like to see adopted to the list.
3. Claim moral objectivity--or even better, divine authorship--for the entire list.
4. Offer the universality of the already accepted moral precepts as evidence of their objectivity and thus the objectivity of the entire list.
5. Assert that the only possible alternative to objective morality is individual moral relativism and moral chaos.

....Or, at least, this gives the appearance of objectivity. But this throws us into another sphere: Does what is objective depend on our sight/comprehension of it? Are WE the purveyors of truth/reality?

 

[Bradskii]

If your comments have nothing to do with Singer then they are irrelevant to the question I asked.

Well, your question was relevant to Singer's (and Sam Harris's) position. That there are objective facts about the world as they relate to morality. But that doesn't mean that any moral act done with reference to those facts are themselves therefore objective. So I gave you a couple of examples.

 

[Mark Quayle]

There are three positions required, God, subjective necessity and situational parameters.
Those are the three elements of morality. The point is to arrive at an Objective Truth.
The secular legal realm substitutes Justice or Law for the word God.

The idea that morality is progressive, societal or dependent on time and place is only to consider the first two positions, 1) subjective individually or collectively and 2) situational parameters, time and place. such as 1850's Georgia, slavery.

The third position is Jesus. The morality of Jesus was not progressive, it is not consensus and it is not subjective.
It was counterintuitive, blessed are the meek, turn the other cheek. pray for those who despitefully use you.
When applied, it provided for the greater subjective good of individuals or collectives
It is situational because of the elements of justice, forgiveness and mercy.

Takes some wading to figure out what you mean —eg. "positions"? = "elements"? I'm not asking you to expand, because I fear it will only get more convoluted in my mind. (Lol, I'm familiar with the way people's eyes glaze over when I'm trying to explain or describe something!) Other than my confusion, I would have put the 'agreed' emoji.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Who determines what God's view is?

The question is relevant, even if non-descriptive of morality —at least, immediately descriptive.

To answer, none of us can do that, though we can run our mouths ad nauseum. And we will. And most of us aren't entirely wrong. (Just 99.9%)

That's not a legitimate question and is necessarily precluded since to ask the question is to assume you, me or anyone knows what "God" is and how He can (or cannot) do anything or know anything.

I think that was @Bradskii 's point. He even went so far as to say that none of us can do that, which is true, if God is indeed the omnipotent self-existent One.

And...

I'm not sure if Mark means that there is no morality without God. Or whether there is no morality without a belief in God.

partinobodycular said:
What I do have a problem with is the assertion that this God has any say in what is or isn't moral

Then He doesn't dictate what is moral. He is bound by what is moral. Which is independent of God. It's Euthyphro's dilemma.

Good answer!

As Euthyphro's dilemma engages 'gods' (plural) it falls short of the obvious. (At least, to me it does).

If God is God, at least as I suppose him —the ONLY Self-Existent Omnipotent—(yes I know that is triply redundant. I can add some more upon request! )— then he is not subject to anything from outside of himself. He is the moral definition of all things that proceed from him. Logically, if there is morality, it is not by any creature's or creation's notions, view, or any other comprehension.

 

[BCP1928]

The thing is that if any of us claims to know in absolute terms that morality is socially constructed, then we need to realize from that claim that no one has to be expected to conform.

That's why we have laws.

So, the next time a Marxist gets in my face and expects me to "conform," I can say that their implementation of Marxian terms and ideology is merely a social construct and NOT really an eschalating progress of democratic, collective equalities among people.

Somehow, though, most people I meet really DO think that all people and constructive relationships have inherent value of an objective nature. Even if they don't aver for the recognition of this value in an absolute way, then they usually do at least in a pragmatic way, worked out and negotiated as a civic principle.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Yes. Even if we accept that God has knowledge of absolute morality and knows what we should all do in all circumstances for...some good as He has decided is the relevant factor, then we have no idea what all that should entail at every moral point we encounter. So it becomes a subjective decision. It can't be anything other than that.

To me he is not God, if he only has knowledge of absolute morality; or wait, I guess if he has knowledge of absolute morality, it may be logically implicative of his Omniscience. Oh well, I don't have the energy to go there.

Let me try again: If he is God, then he is the Source of absolute morality.

So it does seem to me to be a waste of time saying that objective morality exists if we have no way of knowing what it is.

If God is the source of absolute morality, then objective morality exists whether WE know of it or can say anything about it. You may have a point, because if we are responsible to pursue it or even to attain unto it, it would seem that we should have a way of knowing something about it. But us knowing something about it doesn't imply either way whether it is objective or only subjective.

 

[Mark Quayle]

And...

I'm not sure if Mark means that there is no morality without God. Or whether there is no morality without a belief in God.

Oh. Yeah, if 'morality' means only what WE, or Creation, should do, then yeah, we need to believe something, though, just what is another question.

But, as I see it, morality 'existed' before God ever created anything. Morality is what it is, because GOD is moral. (nods to Euthyphro.) God does not choose to be good. Goodness is what it is because God is good. Even very existence is what it is because God exists.

This, at least, is part of what I demand when someone references The God. Otherwise, all bets are off. He is not an observer within a larger reality.

 

[zippy2006]

Well, your question was relevant to Singer's (and Sam Harris's) position. That there are objective facts about the world as they relate to morality. But that doesn't mean that any moral act done with reference to those facts are themselves therefore objective. So I gave you a couple of examples.

At one point in the video the interviewer asks Singer if he agrees with Harris in denying the fact-value or is-ought distinction. Singer says that he does not agree with Harris. You seem to be saying, "You can't get a moral conclusion from a factual premise, therefore Singer is wrong." But Singer explicitly says that he is not trying to do that, so I'm not sure what your point has to do with Singer.