Is there Objective Morality?

[Larniavc]

All mankind is born dead in trespass and sin.

You would have thought an omniscient god would have avoided that state of affairs.

 

[Whyayeman]

I expect most posters will notice that I declare myself as a non-believer; I am unlikely to be persuaded by any argument which is Bible-based or from belief. Such arguments just shove the issue out of court.

But even accepting God-given rules as a basis for morality does not settle the question: is there an objective morality? (Perhaps there are theologians who suggest that God' Law is subjective.)

My view can be summarised by this: There is no God; morality is made by humans. Yet this does not answer the original question either. Maybe it is the question that is the problem. And maybe the answer makes no practical difference, interesting as it is.

 

[zippy2006]

Ooh! Interesting.

I have always felt that there is an objective morality - and I am well aware of the absurdity of this. So I will read on, quietly...

My view can be summarised by this: There is no God; morality is made by humans. Yet this does not answer the original question either. Maybe it is the question that is the problem. And maybe the answer makes no practical difference, interesting as it is.

So what makes you think there is an objective morality?

There are a number of people who have argued for objective morality apart from God:

• Zippy2006 in post #3
• Quid est Veritas? in post #6
• Stevevw in post #35
• The happy Objectivist in post #38 (and #49, 52)
• Kyrani in post #66 (and #73)

 

[Ken-1122]

The experience of empathy and a conscience is subjective. But it is an objective fact that we possess empathy and a conscience.

The fact that we have empathy and a conscious does not make the moral principles of right and wrong(morality) objective, the principles are still subjective and vary from person to person, even the origin of moral principles objectively exists.

 

[Ken-1122]

If theres an objective morality, then there has to be an objective moral law giver. Just like in the secular world we have laws and everyone accepts that braking those laws has consequences then a moral law system beyond this world will work pretty much the same.

In some ways having a moral laws and a moral law giver beyond this world is understandable in that people can get away with being bad and causing injustice and suffering. So having consequence for immoral behaviour beyond the limits of this world that catches these people is true justice. It makes sense also in that we all seek a greater truth for justice beyond what this world can offer.

I can stand on a street corner and proclaim myself to be the moral law giver, and all who disobey my moral laws will suffer the consequences after they die. My words will have as much merit as your words proclaiming your God saying this.

 

[Ken-1122]

I disagree that empathy and conscience are subjective. They both arise out of the quality of our soul/ conscious being and not our embodiment or the physical experiences that we have through our embodiment.

Then why do people of different cultures have different standards of empathetic and conscious?

A conscience is the result of our spiritual connectedness. We suffer a bad conscience if we do something wrong.

Different cultures have different standards of what they perceive a right vs wrong.

That is not a choice or anything we can control. We certainly can take measures to correct the wrong and recover our good conscience feeling. However our conscience is a spiritual compass that helps us / guides us in making good decision and actions. If it was subjective then we wouldn't get a bad conscience if we did something wrong.

This spiritual consciousness you speak of, is it in a constant state of change? Because what was considered right/wrong 100 years ago, is completely different today; and will be completely different 100 years from now

Also empathy, I tried to explain, is a quality that is also based on our spiritual connectedness or love. It is not a simple choice of are we happy with another's good fortune or good health etc., and are we moved to help if we see the other in some sort of trouble and needing help. We react due to our spiritual connectedness.
So both empathy and conscience, our moral compass are evidence that morality is objective.

So how come there isn’t agreement with these spiritual consciousness? One person’s spiritual consciousness says it is okay to kill animals and eat their flesh while another person’s says it is wrong? Why does one person’s spiritual consciousness say interracial marriages are wrong, while the other person’s say it is okay? Why does one person’s spiritual consciousness say stealing if you are in need is okay, while someone else’s say it is wrong? How come this spiritual consciousness that you say controls our behavior seems to differ from person to person?

 

[SkyWriting]

Objective morality is set out in God's word. This is anathema to the world.
God says homosexuality is wrong.

Originally the idea was regarding infidelity.

The fact that your using a new word not found in the original writings brings in the subjective choice of the translation team to convert the language. And there is much discussion in the translation process.

 

[SkyWriting]

In the thread on mortal force there was a side-discussion about objective morality (for example, see this post). Is there such a thing as objective morality? If so, what is it? If not, why not?

There can only be an attempt to be more or less objective on a sliding spectrum of results.

 

[Aussie Pete]

You would have thought an omniscient god would have avoided that state of affairs.

You cannot have puppets and free will. If God had made man unable to sin, he would have had to make puppets. Man was not created sinful. He made exactly the wrong choice, bringing death on himself. God has made a way of escape from that. Many people are unwilling to accept God's way. That is also their choice. People are still not puppets as far as God is concerned.

 

[Aussie Pete]

Originally the idea was regarding infidelity.

The fact that your using a new word not found in the original writings brings in the subjective choice of the translation team to convert the language. And there is much discussion in the translation process.

In your sense there is nothing that can be objective because everything has to be interpreted. I don't agree. There is enough knowledge of Hebrew and Greek to translate to English acceptably. Subjective is when people don't like a translation and want to reinterpret it to suit their own prejudices. Homosexuality is one subject that provokes this reaction. Someone is doing the same to justify being nude in public.

There is indeed much discussion by translating teams for most, but not all, versions. That helps to keep translations objective. Personal bias is less likely to creep in.

 

[Whyayeman]

So what makes you think there is an objective morality?

I did not actually say that I think there is an objective morality; I said that I felt that there was - and that I understood the absurdity of this. This feeling is not altogether surprising given that I live in a culture which has been suffused in Christian thought for two thousand years.

As I said, I tend to believe that morality is a human invention, developed to maintain harmony in the complex social structures human beings have created. I think it follows from this that morality has changed over the period of human existence as human societies have moved from family groups of related individuals to larger units in which strangers have to get along together. This suggests an explanation for the apparent differences in societies posters have observed. (It is striking, though, that these differences are on the margins rather than central tenets of morality. The Biblical Ten Commandments are not unique to Judeo-Christian traditions.)

 

[Larniavc]

You cannot have puppets and free will. If God had made man unable to sin, he would have had to make puppets.

I’ve never understood why that follows. In Heaven can people sin? God created Adam and Eve with no knowledge of good and evil- they could not discriminate what was as good choice from one that wasn’t.

Two indications that the concept of free will is not as important to God as many people think.

 

[Whyayeman]

There is indeed much discussion by translating teams for most, but not all, versions. That helps to keep translations objective. Personal bias is less likely to creep in.

It is not necessarily bias that creeps in. The Gospel of St Mark, generally held to be the nearest to contemporary with the events described, has whole verses present in some Bibles and absent in others. Mark Ch.16 vv9-20 are disputed. As they concern the Resurrection - Easter Sunday - these verses are central to Christianity. Yet they are missing from the oldest version of the text, inserted in later versions but saying different things.

Your Bible may not be mine, either or both could be inaccurate. Wars have been fought over doctrinal differences, all of which were justified by biblical reference.

 

[SkyWriting]

In your sense there is nothing that can be objective because everything has to be interpreted. I don't agree. There is enough knowledge of Hebrew and Greek to translate to English acceptably. Subjective is when people don't like a translation and want to reinterpret it to suit their own prejudices. Homosexuality is one subject that provokes this reaction. Someone is doing the same to justify being nude in public.

There is indeed much discussion by translating teams for most, but not all, versions. That helps to keep translations objective. Personal bias is less likely to creep in.

There are 450 English translations of the Bible. Which ones are you referring to?

 

[durangodawood]

Science fails when it comes to subjective experience as in "feeling hunger" or "feeling hungry". There are no objective tests that can be done to show that "the meat robot" has any subjective experience as far as science is concerned. In science we can only observe that if someone doesn't eat, be they human or animal, then they die as a result. We see that in starvation. But we can't test for a feeling.

People report the feeling. We can test for neurological correlates of those reports. We communicate easily about the feeling. And it makes sense biologically that we have the feeling as a motivator. Thats enough to be pretty confident its a feeling humans generally share.

 

[Kyrani]

In the Bible thru His commandments.

The commandments sound more like guidelines to me. They are too general to be taken as principles of morality.
For instance "Thou shalt not kill". There are instances where one has to kill to defend one's life or loved one or country etc.
And the same goes for not bearing false witness or lying in other words. I had a situation once where I was in a supermarket and a little boy came nearby, obviously strayed from his mom or dad. Very soon a suspicious looking man approached and started to try and get the little boy to respond to him. I moved closer and said "what do you want with my kid". He looked surprised and then ran away. I didn't know the little boy. So strictly speaking I lied. But it saved the boy. And I even had to attract the attention of one of the shop assistants to help get the boy back to his mother or father because I saw the man again in the distance. Once he saw me talking to staff he was out of the shop and gone. So I acted ethically in lying because it saved the boy.

 

[Kyrani]

People report the feeling. We can test for neurological correlates of those reports. We communicate easily about the feeling. And it makes sense biologically that we have the feeling as a motivator. Thats enough to be pretty confident its a feeling humans generally share.

The feeling is a cognitive assessment. Sure there are physiological conditions but they don't show that what one person's perception of hunger or sad or happy or any other subjective experience is the same or can even be assessed at all. We can't say any of the feelings are shared because we can't know what another person is feeling, we can only make physiological measurements and they are not feelings.

 

[BNR32FAN]

The commandments sound more like guidelines to me. They are too general to be taken as principles of morality.
For instance "Thou shalt not kill". There are instances where one has to kill to defend one's life or loved one or country etc.
And the same goes for not bearing false witness or lying in other words. I had a situation once where I was in a supermarket and a little boy came nearby, obviously strayed from his mom or dad. Very soon a suspicious looking man approached and started to try and get the little boy to respond to him. I moved closer and said "what do you want with my kid". He looked surprised and then ran away. I didn't know the little boy. So strictly speaking I lied. But it saved the boy. And I even had to attract the attention of one of the shop assistants to help get the boy back to his mother or father because I saw the man again in the distance. Once he saw me talking to staff he was out of the shop and gone. So I acted ethically in lying because it saved the boy.

Thou shalt not kill is an inaccurate translation. The commandment was actually thou shalt not murder. Murder is an unlawful killing. God wouldn’t command the Israelites not to kill then turn around later command them to kill.

 

[BNR32FAN]

The commandments sound more like guidelines to me. They are too general to be taken as principles of morality.
For instance "Thou shalt not kill". There are instances where one has to kill to defend one's life or loved one or country etc.
And the same goes for not bearing false witness or lying in other words. I had a situation once where I was in a supermarket and a little boy came nearby, obviously strayed from his mom or dad. Very soon a suspicious looking man approached and started to try and get the little boy to respond to him. I moved closer and said "what do you want with my kid". He looked surprised and then ran away. I didn't know the little boy. So strictly speaking I lied. But it saved the boy. And I even had to attract the attention of one of the shop assistants to help get the boy back to his mother or father because I saw the man again in the distance. Once he saw me talking to staff he was out of the shop and gone. So I acted ethically in lying because it saved the boy.

There are situations where disobeying commandments is necessary. Like in the situation of Rahab. She was counted righteous by God for lying to the Canaanites to save the lives of the Israel spies. Or for example honoring your mother and father. If your parents are telling you to go against God’s commandments then obviously you wouldn’t be expected to honor that request. The same applies to adhering to the governing authorities. We know this because the Bible gives us situations as examples to make these determinations.

 

[Ken-1122]

You cannot have puppets and free will. If God had made man unable to sin, he would have had to make puppets.

Not unable to sin, without the desire to sin..... you know; sorta like Jesus.