Is there an absolute morality?

[Moral Orel]

So an act is not action? I'm confused

You're not the only one. Shooting someone is an act and not an action? Sticking needles into children is an act and not an action? Therefore they somehow becomes nouns and cannot have morality associated with them?

Maybe being confused is an act as well.

Oh my gosh, you guys...

Sometimes it is used as a verb, sometimes it is used as a noun. Brad has been saying "an act" which is a noun, and is defined as "A THING done". To say "an action" is to use "action" as a noun. Most verbs can be used as nouns, like Brad has been.

See Spot run. ["run" is a verb in this sentence]
Spot went for A run. ["run" is a noun in this sentence]

 

[Moral Orel]

In some cases, the extra clarification is useful. In other cases, "Taking without permission" works fine. You were asking me to say whether it was a sufficient definition or not, and you allowed no flexibility. So it sure seems like you were asking for an absolute!

Either it is sufficient for you, or it is not. Your level of sufficient differs from mine, and neither of us expects it to be absolute.

Rubbish. When you are employed, you are aware that some part of your wages will be taxed. If you don't like it, go live off the land.

None of that matters. They took it, I didn't give permission.

You seriously think it's theft when the government expects you to contribute towards the upkeep of the society you are a part of?

I do not think that because I don't use "stealing" as you've defined it. I have only said that it is stealing by your definition.

I'm sure the people who had the drugs would say so.

You're only complaining that my answer is wishy washy because I'm not giving you the absolute, one-size-fits-all answer you're demanding.

Well, the question was "Would you say it is stealing?" and you've demonstrated that no, you would not say they are stealing by literally refusing to state it. Good enough for me.

 

[Noxot]

That makes very little sense. Very deepity. I assume that you mean we do that which we believe to be good.

it is because goodness is a fundamental reality that we can have a subjective belief of what is good but that is never the less truly good. although the nature of lies are that they are not the truth and so some beliefs are only an appearance of goodness and have some other driving force as its head... such as the various lesser motivations of the flesh which seek to survive and to replicate its genes.

 

[Bradskii]

Oh my gosh, you guys...

View attachment 313063

Sometimes it is used as a verb, sometimes it is used as a noun. Brad has been saying "an act" which is a noun, and is defined as "A THING done". To say "an action" is to use "action" as a noun. Most verbs can be used as nouns, like Brad has been.

See Spot run. ["run" is a verb in this sentence]
Spot went for A run. ["run" is a noun in this sentence]

See Bradskii stick the needle into the child's arm. ('Stick' is a verb in this sentence).Is Bradskii doing something immoral? Well, let's ask him.

'Why did you stick (which again is a verb in this sentence) that needle into little Jimmy?'
'Because I like to cause pain to children' ('cause' is another verb as well).

Now it's up to us to determine if Bradskii did something immoral. What do you think, Moral?

 

[Bradskii]

it is because goodness is a fundamental reality that we can have a subjective belief of what is good...

I'll stick with that. The rest made no sense to me.

 

[Kylie]

Either it is sufficient for you, or it is not. Your level of sufficient differs from mine, and neither of us expects it to be absolute.

Still an absolute. It is sufficient for me IN SAME CASES, but not in all cases.

None of that matters. They took it, I didn't give permission.

Yes you did. You accepted the terms of employment - including taxation of your income - when you accepted the job offer and commenced employment.

I do not think that because I don't use "stealing" as you've defined it. I have only said that it is stealing by your definition.

No it's not, as I just explained.

 

[Moral Orel]

See Bradskii stick the needle into the child's arm. ('Stick' is a verb in this sentence).Is Bradskii doing something immoral? Well, let's ask him.

'Why did you stick (which again is a verb in this sentence) that needle into little Jimmy?'
'Because I like to cause pain to children' ('cause' is another verb as well).

Now it's up to us to determine if Bradskii did something immoral. What do you think, Moral?

lol "Something" is a noun. Sure, verbs were used to detail what that "something" is, but you just replaced "an act" with "something", only now it's more obvious that when you agree:

"No thing has the property of being immoral."​

The question:

"Is some thing immoral?"​

Becomes more obviously nonsensical.

This is getting ridiculous.

• You determine that a thing is immoral only if it causes harm.
• You defined harm as things we prefer not to happen.
• Your reasoning that a thing is immoral only if it causes harm is based on your preference that there be minimal harm.
• Your preference for a thing does not comment on the thing itself. Stating your preferences is a statement about you.
• You cannot accurately state that any act has the property of being immoral because you have not evaluated the act itself.
• You have only evaluated your personal feelings towards that act.

These are the facts. How do you reckon you can accurately state that any act is "indeed immoral" based on these facts?

Consider us having the following conversation:

Orel: Chocolate ice cream is indeed good!
Brad: Why do you think that?
Orel: Because it has chocolate in it.
Brad: Why does that make it good?
Orel: Because I prefer my ice cream with chocolate.
Brad: So you're really just saying that you prefer chocolate ice cream over other ice creams. It isn't that chocolate ice cream itself "is good".
Orel: Well how do you determine what food is indeed good?!

You'd laugh in my face.

 

[Moral Orel]

Still an absolute. It is sufficient for me IN SAME CASES, but not in all cases.

No, you have a more detailed definition. You just don't state the whole thing every time. You still have unstated criteria for what does and does not constitute stealing, and that is your actual definition. You have demonstrated that expanded definition by refusing to refer to some acts of "taking without permission" as "stealing" even if you don't actually write it out.

Yes you did. You accepted the terms of employment - including taxation of your income - when you accepted the job offer and commenced employment.

Ah, so if a man holds a gun to me and demands my cash, I "gave him permission" by handing it over and peeing myself so he didn't "steal" it from me. It is still "giving permission" even if it is the result of coercion.

But if I work a job under the table for cash, and the IRS finds out and takes the money then, that is stealing.

 

[Moral Orel]

I’m thinking a justifiable want is a want that is fair, right, innocent and based on facts. So in Nancy’s case, not wanting to have her car stolen is justifiable because she’s the rightful owner of the car. Now the person wanting to steal it does not have a justifiable want because they’re not the rightful owner of the car and they want to steal it for personal gain(not to save a life, lol)

I honestly don't think her "wants" and "feelings" matter in this instance. I swear I'm not trying to handicap your argument, I think it's an irrelevant detail that makes your argument look more confusing. Sometimes the harm is the feelings, but you would say that stealing is wrong even if it doesn't hurt anyone's feelings, right? Say I stole a buck from Jeff Bezos. He felt nothing, but you would still say I shouldn't have done it. So what if we just say, "Nancy should retain ownership of her property".

I’m thinking a just wrong, is the wrong someone feels when they’re feeling guilty or being justly punished. Whereas an unjust wrong is the wrong inflicted on the innocent, like Nancy.

Let's call it "harm" instead. Mixing in words and meaning them different ways all in the same argument creates confusion too. You wouldn't really say that "evil doers are wronged by being punished for their deeds, but it was right to wrong them". You would say that "it is right to harm evil doers because they did evil deeds" ya?

So based on that and your input, here’s the revised argument:

P1 Nancy feels unjustly wronged when her justifiable wants aren’t respected(I think it’s important that we know she feels wronged here)
C I shouldn't disrespect Nancy's justifiable wants because it causes unjust wrong

You never put a "because" in the conclusion. Whatever you want to say there is a premise. But we are going to run into some trouble over calling things "just" and "unjust". I'm okay if you mean "fair, balanced, even handed" and the like. Some folks want it to simply mean a general "good" and that is going to be a problem. So how about we say "fair" and "unfair" instead for clarity's sake.

P1 Nancy should retain ownership of her property.
P2 Taking Nancy's property causes unfair harm
P3 I shouldn't cause unfair harm
C I shouldn't steal Nancy's car.

We could state that she should keep property "that she came by justly", but I think it isn't necessary because we can just assume that any property she came by unjustly isn't actually her property anyways.

Oh, and don't worry, I won't badger with some crazy "What if?!" scenarios. "What if you did it to save a life, huh?! What if she was going to run over a bunch of endangered baby seals to make a coat?!" It isn't necessary.

 

[Bradskii]

lol "Something" is a noun. Sure, verbs were used to detail what that "something" is, but you just replaced "an act" with "something", only now it's more obvious that when you agree:

"No thing has the property of being immoral."​

The question:

"Is some thing immoral?"​

Becomes more obviously nonsensical.

This is getting ridiculous.

• You determine that a thing is immoral only if it causes harm.
• You defined harm as things we prefer not to happen.
• Your reasoning that a thing is immoral only if it causes harm is based on your preference that there be minimal harm.
• Your preference for a thing does not comment on the thing itself. Stating your preferences is a statement about you.
• You cannot accurately state that any act has the property of being immoral because you have not evaluated the act itself.
• You have only evaluated your personal feelings towards that act.

These are the facts. How do you reckon you can accurately state that any act is "indeed immoral" based on these facts?

Consider us having the following conversation:

Orel: Chocolate ice cream is indeed good!
Brad: Why do you think that?
Orel: Because it has chocolate in it.
Brad: Why does that make it good?
Orel: Because I prefer my ice cream with chocolate.
Brad: So you're really just saying that you prefer chocolate ice cream over other ice creams. It isn't that chocolate ice cream itself "is good".
Orel: Well how do you determine what food is indeed good?!

You'd laugh in my face.

I normally sign off a conversation that's going nowhere with 'thanks your your input'. As you haven't made any that I can consider worthwhile, I'm going to pass on the thanks.

 

[LightLoveHope]

Everything you say here would seem to point towards a subjective view of morality.

This makes me laugh. The reason why I think anyone who wants to be definitive about morality or that morality is totally up to the individual to choose are both wrong.

There is no objectivity, only faith, or a belief that things are one way or another.
Within this constraint it is possible to measure social behaviour based on rules in every society.
You can take children at different ages and measure their social attitudes and ways of coping.
Two things come out. Every human has a method to development and growth all interlinked with the power group to which they belong. Every power group develops its own variation on morality but the driving principles are the same, integrity, lack of hurt to the core group, defining status and respecting those within the power structure.

Nihilists claim nothing can be definitively proved so nothing has meaning. The foolishness of this position is as humans our life is governed by the emotional group language and interaction which is codified into the group morality. If they work through their belief, they destroy everything they hold dear, which is like personality suicide.

In scripture God declares He is the ultimate reference point from which everything finds order and structure. The gospel declaration is we can choose a path to life and freedom by listening and following Him. Because our lives are governed by emotional and moral frameworks only when we are sorted out will we see the truth as it is truly declared.

I have been stunned by our linear logic limitations, and how we draw conclusions by going from one point to the next and then believe we have made our point. Just one conceptual failure in this chain means our conclusion is simply flawed.

I know temptations to get involved with other people, inappropriately, but I also know the hurt and pain this will cause me and others. Balancing these two things out, means I preserve my life and others. I know how fragile we are, how in youth people declare their ability to survive, yet beneath the surface they are often wrecks. One simple example of that is in therapy the idea is to connect with how you are coping. If one has built up conflicting approaches to life depending on the situation, when the two sides are brought together, the individual collapses. For them they needed something stronger in their lives to bring about a real foundation upon which to stand. Jesus truly offers this.

Ironically what Jesus represents for humans is life, whether He is the son of God or not, the emotional role He plays puts things into a life giving perspective.

God bless you

 

[Moral Orel]

I normally sign off a conversation that's going nowhere with 'thanks your your input'. As you haven't made any that I can consider worthwhile, I'm going to pass on the thanks.

An act is immoral because it causes harm. A thing is called "harm" because you don't prefer it. This is exactly what you have described to me as your process of reasoning. Ergo, you call an act immoral based on your personal preferences. You can no more accurately declare that any act is indeed immoral using personal preferences than you can accurately declare that steak is indeed good.

I know that coming to the realization that morality is in fact subjective and not actually objective as you had previously believed is unsettling. Perhaps someday you'll accept the implications of making moral judgements based on your personal preferences. More likely I'll expect that you'll just forget making such an admission and go back to believing in the illusion of objective moral facts. Honestly, for a moment there, I forgot I wasn't talking to Steve.

 

[o_mlly]

We are talking morality, so yes. A human act. And yes, context means the circumstances surrounding the act. Hasn't that been clear for the last 1700 posts?

Apparently not. Some seem to confuse the judgment of the objective morality of a human act with the subjective judgement of the moral culpability of the actor.
________________________________________

Physical act: The actor shoots a gun. (Insufficient specification of a human act; an objective moral judgment of the act cannot be made.)

Human act: The actor shoots a gun killing an innocent person.

Intent: Record a dramatic scene for a movie.

Circumstances: The actor reasonably believes the gun will fire a blank round.
________________________________________

Morality of the act: Evil.

Culpability of the actor: innocent.

Circumstances may mitigate or eliminate culpability but cannot change an act evil in its object to be a moral act. A human act that kills an innocent person is always an evil act. The act remains objectively immoral.

 

[Chriliman]

I honestly don't think her "wants" and "feelings" matter in this instance. I swear I'm not trying to handicap your argument, I think it's an irrelevant detail that makes your argument look more confusing. Sometimes the harm is the feelings, but you would say that stealing is wrong even if it doesn't hurt anyone's feelings, right? Say I stole a buck from Jeff Bezos. He felt nothing, but you would still say I shouldn't have done it. So what if we just say, "Nancy should retain ownership of her property".

Let's call it "harm" instead. Mixing in words and meaning them different ways all in the same argument creates confusion too. You wouldn't really say that "evil doers are wronged by being punished for their deeds, but it was right to wrong them". You would say that "it is right to harm evil doers because they did evil deeds" ya?

You never put a "because" in the conclusion. Whatever you want to say there is a premise. But we are going to run into some trouble over calling things "just" and "unjust". I'm okay if you mean "fair, balanced, even handed" and the like. Some folks want it to simply mean a general "good" and that is going to be a problem. So how about we say "fair" and "unfair" instead for clarity's sake.

P1 Nancy should retain ownership of her property.
P2 Taking Nancy's property causes unfair harm
P3 I shouldn't cause unfair harm
C I shouldn't steal Nancy's car.

We could state that she should keep property "that she came by justly", but I think it isn't necessary because we can just assume that any property she came by unjustly isn't actually her property anyways.

Oh, and don't worry, I won't badger with some crazy "What if?!" scenarios. "What if you did it to save a life, huh?! What if she was going to run over a bunch of endangered baby seals to make a coat?!" It isn't necessary.

Ok, I think we're getting there, I'm just concerned that P2 isn't specific enough because a tow truck could take Nancy's property without causing unfair harm, which is why I think it's important to know how Nancy feels about her property being taken.

So how about this?

P1 Nancy should retain ownership of her property
P2 Stealing(taking without permission with intent to keep indefinitely for personal gain) Nancy's property causes unfair harm
P3 I shouldn't cause unfair harm
C I shouldn't steal Nancy's car

And with parentheses removed for clarity:

P1 Nancy should retain ownership of her property
P2 Stealing Nancy's property causes unfair harm
P3 I shouldn't cause unfair harm
C I shouldn't steal Nancy's car

So is this a valid and sound argument for objective morality?

 

[Moral Orel]

P1 Nancy should retain ownership of her property
P2 Stealing Nancy's property causes unfair harm
P3 I shouldn't cause unfair harm
C I shouldn't steal Nancy's car

Now you're getting it! That looks pretty good. Only thing is, we can simplify some more. Since P2 has "stealing" right in it, we don't need P1 anymore.

P1 Stealing Nancy's property causes unfair harm
P2 I shouldn't cause unfair harm
C I shouldn't steal Nancy's car

So is this a valid and sound argument for objective morality?

It's a valid argument. You haven't proved soundness yet though. It isn't proven sound until you prove that all of your premises are actually true.

You need to prove "I shouldn't cause unfair harm" is true in order to prove the argument is sound.

To prove that true using a logical argument, that argument is required to take this form to be valid:

P1 ...
P2 I shouldn't...
C I shouldn't cause unfair harm.

Just like before. Are you noticing a pattern?

 

[Chriliman]

Now you're getting it! That looks pretty good. Only thing is, we can simplify some more. Since P2 has "stealing" right in it, we don't need P1 anymore.

P1 Stealing Nancy's property causes unfair harm
P2 I shouldn't cause unfair harm
C I shouldn't steal Nancy's car

It's a valid argument. You haven't proved soundness yet though. It isn't proven sound until you prove that all of your premises are actually true.

So you need to prove "I shouldn't cause unfair harm" is true now.

To prove that true using a logical argument, that argument is required to take this form to be valid:

P1 ...
P2 I shouldn't...
C I shouldn't cause unfair harm.

Just like before. Are you noticing a pattern?

Ok, so are you saying it's never ending? And it being valid is not enough for you to accept it?

What if "I shouldn't cause unfair harm" is true or acceptable based on wanting to avoid repeating previous conditions where unfair harm was caused?

 

[Moral Orel]

Ok, so are you saying it's never ending? And it being valid is not enough for you to accept it?

Premises are just claims. You can string together claims that lead to a conclusion without those claims being true. That's all it takes for an argument to be "valid". We can make two valid arguments that each have mutually exclusive conclusions. So, no, providing a valid argument does not prove a conclusion.

What if "I shouldn't cause unfair harm" is true or acceptable based on not wanting to repeat previous conditions where unfair harm was caused?

To prove a "should" using logical argumentation you need a "should". You can't prove something exclusively through reason without your premises being observable in reality. You can't observe how a thing "should" be in reality, you can only observe how a thing "is".

Good news is, morality doesn't have to be objective to convince people to act morally. People aren't convinced by logic as much as they're persuaded by emotion anyways. What we can prove is that people are happier with a social contract, than without. We can prove that people are happier with some social contracts in comparison to other social contracts.

People will agree to that social contract because they will be happier. No "should" necessary, which is handy, because there's no logical reason to believe "We should all be happy". We only think such a thing is true because we prefer to be happy over being unhappy.

 

[Bradskii]

I know that coming to the realization that morality is in fact subjective and not actually objective as you had previously believed is unsettling.

That is quite an astonishing thing to say. I started this thread on the basis that morality is subjective. Every post I have written is based on the fact that it is subjective. Every argument I have presented is based on the fact that it is subjective. I haven't written anything that would give anyone the impression that I don't believe it's anything but subjective. I have never thought it is anything but subjective. I have given examples where it is proved to be subjective.

For you to say that I have come to the realisation it is so and that I believed that it was objective is quite simply the weirdest thing you could have posted. You seem not to have understood literally anything I have posted.

 

[Bradskii]

Apparently not. Some seem to confuse the judgment of the objective morality of a human act with the subjective judgement of the moral culpability of the actor.
________________________________________

Physical act: The actor shoots a gun. (Insufficient specification of a human act; an objective moral judgment of the act cannot be made.)

Human act: The actor shoots a gun killing an innocent person.

Intent: Record a dramatic scene for a movie.

Circumstances: The actor reasonably believes the gun will fire a blank round.
________________________________________

Morality of the act: Evil.

Culpability of the actor: innocent.

Circumstances may mitigate or eliminate culpability but cannot change an act evil in its object to be a moral act. A human act that kills an innocent person is always an evil act. The act remains objectively immoral.

Accidently causing someone's death is evil? Well, if you want to redefine the word, I suppose it could be. Is there a definition you could supply that shows it being used in that sense?

 

[Chriliman]

Premises are just claims. You can string together claims that lead to a conclusion without those claims being true. That's all it takes for an argument to be "valid". We can make two valid arguments that each have mutually exclusive conclusions. So, no, providing a valid argument does not prove a conclusion.

To prove a "should" using logical argumentation you need a "should". You can't prove something exclusively through reason without your premises being observable in reality. You can't observe how a thing "should" be in reality, you can only observe how a thing "is".

Good news is, morality doesn't have to be objective to convince people to act morally. People aren't convinced by logic as much as they're persuaded by emotion anyways. What we can prove is that people are happier with a social contract, than without. We can prove that people are happier with some social contracts in comparison to other social contracts.

People will agree to that social contract because they will be happier. No "should" necessary, which is handy, because there's no logical reason to believe "We should all be happy". We only think such a thing is true because we prefer to be happy over being unhappy.

Ok, so lets take the "shoulds" out:
P1 Stealing Nancy's property causes unfair harm
P2 I won't cause unfair harm
C I won't steal Nancy's car

Now as far as I can tell P1 and P2 can be proven by acting them out, or in the case of P2, not causing unfair harm. So how is this not a valid and sound argument for objective morality?