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Is there an absolute morality?

Tinker Grey

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No that was not what I was asking. I was asking " is what we experience with our senses about the physical world a good representation of how the physical world really is". Sorry my grammar is not that good.
That's better. Thanks for the effort.
 
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Astrid

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Let me ask you, "is what we experience with our senses about the physical world a good representation of how the physical world really is"
No use saying anything to you, is there
 
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Kylie

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I am saying that hypocrisy is immoral and never moral. Hypocrisy is therefore an example of an absolute immorality. So since hypocrisy is immoral and never moral, then morality is not subjective, it is objective.

However, you have not supported your claim that hypocrisy is objectively immoral. You're just stating that it's objectively immoral so you can say that there is something that is some moral issue which is objective. You are using your conclusion as one of your premises, and thus this is circular logic.


A person may say that lying is always morally wrong, and then decide to tell a small lie in order to spare someone's feelings. This is technically hypocrisy, yet I doubt there's going to be many people who say that the person has done something objectively wrong.


I disagree. Love is an emotion, and emotions can lead people to do all sorts of horrible things. Look at that guy who tried to kill Reagan to impress Jodie Foster. In any case, you say that love is the impetus, however, there's no evidence to suggest that love exists independent of a human or other being that is capable of feeling love, so I think your position that love is not something that comes from Humans is not supportable.
 
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Astrid

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I could advise people to lock their doors st night
but never do it myself.
Super immoral
 
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Kylie

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Are you for real?

REALLY?

Philosophers are better equipped to understand quantum mechanics than actual scientists?

Go on then, tell me, out of all the developments in our understanding of QM, how many were made by philosophers, and how many were made by scientists?

Regardless you’re still missing the point. For every example you give me now that has a strong agreement in most cases there was also once a weak agreement.

And as I've said, that weak agreement became strong agreement when actual evidence that could be described in a clear and concise language was presented.

There is no such language available for morality. I mean, I've been asking you to produce it for ages now, and you've been entirely unable to.

Your argument here seems to be little different than, "They said Galileo was wrong, and he was shown to be right, so when they say I'm wrong, that must mean eventually I'll be shown to be right as well!"

Until you produce this evidence in a clear and concise language, you've got nothing.

What do you mean by WHY?

I've been quite clear.

You have claimed that the method we use to verify objective things like science and maths, etc does not work for morality. You have given no reason why this must be the case. You've just declared that it is so.


You are the one claiming that there is some objective thing that requires a verification method different to that which we use to verify things like science, etc.


You need something to convince you that our moral intuition is wrong?

I've already presented this. Two people can have two very different moral intuitions. They can't both be right. Someone's moral intuition MUST be wrong.


Only if what is claimed to be real can be described in a clear and concise language.
 
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Kylie

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And as I've said so many times now, these disagreements ended when evidence was presented - evidence which was explainable in a clear and concise way.

You are not able to do this with morality, so don't pretend it's the same sort of thing.


And whatever it is, if it is accepted as objectively true, it will be explainable in a clear and precise language.


I assume you mean the turn of the 20th century, 120 years ago. Given that we didn't even have the CMBR back then, are you really surprised that there was such disagreement when we had such an incomplete picture?


However, you can't conclude that morality is similarly objective just because you have an example of one non-physical thing which is objective. That's the fallacy of false equivilency.


No we don't.

Give me an example of this language of morality then.

Something along the lines of what these pages describe:

"If..., Then..."
1.1 Logical Operations


You seem to be just disagreeing with me for the sake of disagreeing with me. It's almost like whatever position I take, you MUST take the opposite position.

For example, here you are saying, "The point is there is no such thing as colours. Our brain makes them up."

Yet back in post 948, you said, "There is a colour "Red" yet its something we cannot explain or test."

So are colours real or not?


I've said many times that the reason we have our moral views the way they are is because those are the views that helped our societies survive. It's not the "Oh, we'll just choose our morals at random and oh look, they just coincidentally happen to match what we need to keep our societies going" idea you seem to think it is.
 
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childeye 2

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However, you have not supported your claim that hypocrisy is objectively immoral.
Merriam/Webster
Full Definition of hypocrisy

1: a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not : behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel.

His hypocrisy was finally revealed with the publication of his private letters. especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion. Our conventional morality often serves as a cover for hypocrisy and selfishness— Lucius Garvin


To be clear, when I'm saying hypocrisy is immoral, I'm referring to the Hypocritical judgment of those who through the pretense of being virtuous or moral, would condemn others using standards that they themselves don't keep. That is an unjust form of judgement and it's dishonest. It's objective simply because it's a fact of reality that an unjust judgment is well, not just.

These are some synonyms and antonyms for "hypocritical" that support my point that hypocritical judgment is unjust and dishonest.

Please note that all synonyms for the meaning of the term 'hypocritical' carry a negative immoral connotation, and that all antonyms carry a positive moral connotation.

From thesaurus.com
SYNONYMS FOR hypocritical
Here are some antonyms:

You're just stating that it's objectively immoral so you can say that there is something that is some moral issue which is objective. You are using your conclusion as one of your premises, and thus this is circular logic.
That's a misrepresentation of what I said followed by a claim of circular reasoning based on your own mischaracterization.

Respectfully, I said this: "So since hypocrisy is immoral and never moral, then morality is not subjective, it is objective". I'm simply pointing out that hypocritical judgment is a perceived immorality in reality. That's not a circular reasoning. The Thesaurus synonyms/antonyms I provided are proof that it's not my personal subjective fantasy or personal opinion.

Hard to say. I would need to have more context. But I doubt it qualifies as hypocritical judgment. Where is the deceitful feigning of righteousness? Where is the condemnation of others while being duplicitous?

If I were hiding a family of Jews from the Nazi's in WWII, and I lied to the Nazis when they asked if I'd seen them, then that would be telling a lie. But that's arguing semantics, since telling the truth in such a circumstance would give aid to the immorality of sending an innocent family to death. If I use deception to protect innocent people from being murdered by Nazis, it's not immoral nor is it hypocrisy. On the contrary I would be a hypocrite to claim I was righteous for not telling a lie, when that action helped the Nazis murder an innocent Jewish family.

Respectfully, you're misunderstanding me. I said compassion/Love. I say it this way, compassion/love, so that it's not confused with any romantic applications of love, or semantical constructs, like "I love killing people". I'm talking about the love that is innate in humanity as the impetus that cares about others as much or more than one's own self. Certainly this type of Love requires people.

I said it's not a human construct because compassion/love is not the construct of anyone's subjective imagination, personal feelings, or opinion. In other words, Compassion/Love factually exists in reality as an impetus of morality in mankind, therefore it's objective.

Compassion is a reaction to the suffering of others through an action that would render aid. Yes, compassion/love is an emotion, but it is also an action that is moral and never immoral. The point being that a person has to first sincerely care (an emotion) about others, to act in any sincere moral capacity.
 
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childeye 2

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I could advise people to lock their doors st night
but never do it myself.
Super immoral
If you're doing it as a pretense to deceive people into believing your righteous when in fact you are not, it's immoral.
Merriam/Webster
Full Definition of hypocrisy

1: a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not : behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel.
His hypocrisy was finally revealed with the publication of his private letters.
especially: the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion, our conventional morality often serves as a cover for hypocrisy and selfishness— Lucius Garvin
 
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stevevw

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I didn't say that philosophers understand QP better than quantum physicists. I said that philosophers of science are better at questions about what the findings represent for reality. They are not completely devoid of understanding about science and physics as they need to understand what is happening to be able to comment on the implications for science.

Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultimate purpose of science.
Philosophy of science - Wikipedia

And as I've said, that weak agreement became strong agreement when actual evidence that could be described in a clear and concise language was presented.
But when the evidence was presented throughout history that was also regarded as strong evidence and objective. Then something disproved that and the new evidence was regarded as fact at the time. Even today the new evidence we have today that is regarded as objective fact is being questioned and this will be replaced by a new objective understanding ect ect.

Science can only give us the best explanation based on observations at the time. It can never give us the ultimate objective truth of what is happening with reality. Just like morality.

There is no such language available for morality. I mean, I've been asking you to produce it for ages now, and you've been entirely unable to.
Actually I have given that language several times. It comes in the form of a moral statement which is a judgement about what is right or wrong. That means the act can be either right or wrong morally when people express through language just like in Math that acts like murder, rape, stealing, racism, sexual harassment, etc. are wrong and anyone who expresses that these acts are ok to do is mistaken and wrong just like 2+2+5.

Your argument here seems to be little different than, "They said Galileo was wrong, and he was shown to be right, so when they say I'm wrong, that must mean eventually I'll be shown to be right as well!"
Just like with Galileo Wilberforce claimed slavery was morally wrong against a consensus that said it was morally ok. Wilberforce was the heretic in political terms just like Galileo and he was also proven right in the end when slavery was abolished and UN Human Rights were established.

Can anyone now take the moral position that Slavery is morally OK to do and not be shot down and condemned because it is now fact that slavery is morally wrong. Any individual or culture that claims enslaving innocent people is just objectively wrong just like the opposition to Galileo were wrong.

Until you produce this evidence in a clear and concise language, you've got nothing.
I have been doing this all the time. Moral language is different to other forms of language. It is normative and moral realism is based on there being a moral language that does express moral facts/truths.

As I have been saying there is no other way to support moral truth. There is no physical presence we can view through a telescope like Galileo found. But nonetheless there is a presence, a sense, common sense, that we all know and express through moral language.

See this is where I think you are either not listening or understanding moral realism. Can you tell me what moral realism means? If this is the most common moral position to take then there must be some good reasoning behind it. Can you tell me what that is?

You need something to convince you that our moral intuition is wrong?
I've already presented this. Two people can have two very different moral intuitions. They can't both be right. Someone's moral intuition MUST be wrong.
As I have said many times our moral intuition is the starting point as to how we sense a moral situation as being wrong. If we see a person being mugged we immediately sense a wrong is being done. We don't think "Oh that’s just how morality works for some people". Rather we want the act to stop and justice to be done. That’s our natural reaction.

So our initial intuition is usually a good basis for knowing when something is morally wrong. Sometimes as you have pointed out some acts are harder to work out the moral truth. There may be circumstances that shed light on what happened. There may be personal biases in the way. That’s why as rational beings we can test our intuitions to identify the biases to reveal the truth.

But for the core moral truths like rape, murder, stealing, racism, sexual harassment our intuition of this as wrong is strong and can be a reliable basis for morality.

Only if what is claimed to be real can be described in a clear and concise language.
As I have tried to explain moral language is very clear and concise.

When a person says that something is objective good or bad you are saying that someone has either conformed to those sets of rules (good score) or broken those sets of rules (bad score). This is what makes our language about morality coherent, that we have some sort of understanding of what good and bad means attached to a reference point.
How Do Moral Absolutes Prove That God Exists?

the meaningfulness of moral language presupposes the objective existence of moral properties. That is, if moral claims are the sort of statements that can be in the first place either true or false, then it follows that some of them are in fact true.

The meaningfulness of moral language presupposes the truth of moral realism. It presupposes the existence of moral properties and entails the existence of moral facts (true moral claims). That is, the doubts that the sceptic entertains are meaningful if and only if they are necessarily groundless.
The Necessity of Moral Realism | Issue 6 | Philosophy Now

unless such a case is made out, the default position should be that we know some moral truths. Defenders note that moral language is formulated as if moral claims can be true and that we worry about whether to believe certain moral claims just as if truth is at stake. When challenged we appeal to evidence just as we do in the instance of straightforwardly factual claims, and we make logical inferences that conform to logical systems based on claims having truth-values. Though these points are not decisive, they underline the importance of eliminating alternative explanations of moral disagreement before concluding that moral knowledge is impossible.
Moral Epistemology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)


Or another way to put it
person X raping human = wrong is the same as 2+2=5 also wrong.
 
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VirOptimus

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Fun fact, 2+2 is not always equal to 4. It depends on how you define numbers, plus etc. You should really not use math as an example as you obviously have no real understanding of it.

”There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and those that dont.”
 
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Astrid

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You entirely missed the point of what I said.
News of the obvious is pointless.
I dont need help with English.

If you feel that it would be immoral for me to
offer sound advice that I do not follow, go for it.
 
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stevevw

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I am talking about how the average person intuitively understands Math. When we see a Math equation like 2+2=4 we don't have to get our calculators out as we just know its correct. In some cases people walk away with their change not even working it out as they know that we all know that Math is factual and we don't arbitrarily give the change we feel is right.

In the same way when we see someone getting mugged we intuitive know that a moral wrong is being done. We don't have to refer to some moral code or reason it out. We know that everyone knows that mugging is wrong and we make laws and social norms that states its wrong.

We know that when we walk down the street that we are protected because some wrongs are just factually so. Just like the fact of Math allows us to use money as a system and that we will be given the right change most of the time. Both are just facts/truths that we live by.
 
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VirOptimus

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Just admit that you where wrong.

Doubling down just shows your ignorance.

And you still dont understand how math works.
 
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Tinker Grey

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When we see a Math equation like 2+2=4 we don't have to get our calculators out as we just know its correct.
No. We don't just know. Either you've only memorized the equation or you've experience grouping things together. In the first case, you know the equation but you don't know what it means. In the second case, you've learned what means to put a group of two things together with another group of two things.

You don't "just know".
 
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Irkle Berserkle

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A couple of years ago, I sent a long email to Dr. Frank Turek, the glib host of the "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist" podcast (and book of the same name). One of his pet claims is that there can be no morality without God - i.e., God provides an objective standard and without God morality is just a matter of opinion. Turek used my email as fodder for three of his podcasts, mischaracterizing what I had said, repeating what he always says like a broken record, giving me no opportunity to respond, and going so far as to question whether I was even a Christian as I had claimed. Par for the course with this sort of lightweight apologetics, I guess.

My points, which still seem to me to have validity, were:
  • It at least seems rational to me for atheists to claim that evolution, with its sole objective of maximizing survival, could have genetically programmed much of what we regard as morality because it enhances survival. This isn't what I believe, but it doesn't strike me as irrational. The genetic programming would constitute the objective standard Turek regards as essential.

  • It at least seems rational to me for atheists to claim that over the course of thousands of years the vast majority of humans have reached a consensus as to what constitutes moral behavior. This consensus would constitute the objective standard Turek demands, even if there are outliers and violators.
I just don't see Turek's argument that atheists "steal from God" when they speak about morality as being convincing or going anywhere. I happen to believe God is the source of morality, both in terms of His commands and the human conscience, but I don't think atheism can reasonably be dismissed on this basis.
 
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childeye 2

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You entirely missed the point of what I said.
News of the obvious is pointless.
I dont need help with English.

If you feel that it would be immoral for me to
offer sound advice that I do not follow, go for it.
I'm sorry if I missed your point. It's unclear what news you could be referring to without some further qualification. And your English seems fine to me.

Anyone can tell someone to lock their doors out of a legitimate concern for others. I honestly don't see how the intention of that is immoral. If I don't lock my doors after advising others to do so, it doesn't mean I'm a hypocrite. I may simply live in a really safe place, or have a good dog, etc. And even if I didn't, any display showing that I am more concerned for the wellbeing of others than about myself doesn't strike me as immoral nor pretentious.

However, I can clearly see that the hypocritical pretense of morality is not moral, because, by definition, it's not even real. And neither is the hypocritical judgment that applies standards for others that I myself don't keep, a moral/fair judgment.
 
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Astrid

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Basically you are saying its immoral to be immoral?
 
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