Is there Objective Morality?

[o_mlly]

So that's how we find out what is objectively moral. We ask for the opinion of reasonable people.

No, we first begin with concrete cases, not bizarre abstractions. Try it out.

 

[Bradskii]

That's exactly the problem with imagined abstract morality stories. Any father of a 12 year old daughter who inflicts a vindictive punishment -- 1 day or 10 years -- commits an immoral act. Didn't your daughter ever tell you, "Dad, get real". If not then she should have.

Vindictive?

Hey, you've told us how we tell if it's objectively immoral: We ask reasonable people for their opinion.

 

[Bradskii]

No, we first begin with concrete cases, not bizarre abstractions. Try it out.

'punishments that a reasonable person would consider cruel and unusual are objectively immoral.'

Again, thanks for that. It tells us all we need to know.

 

[o_mlly]

'punishments that a reasonable person would consider cruel and unusual are objectively immoral.'

Again, thanks for that. It tells us all we need to know.

Probably not but y'all are welcome. Glad we could help y'all out.

 

[o_mlly]

Hey, you've told us how we tell if it's objectively immoral: We ask reasonable people for their opinion.

You've got a misplaced pronoun there. The "it" is the term of the punishment inflicted, not the morality of the act. We've already determined that dad is out of order which makes the term irrelevant. Next?

 

[stevevw]

Genuine belief is irrelevant. All that matters is what viewpoint the evidence supports.

I agree but we are talking about how people subjectively think that a fact is not a fact becaus ethey see things differently. So your just agreeing with me that subjective thinking, beliefs, feelings ect are irrelevant to the facts.

And which is worse?

When it comes to anything that is objective, I can clearly specify the difference in degrees. I can tell you exactly what the difference is between the temperature of object A and the temperature of object B. Anyone can come and measure those two objects and reach the same conclusion. Can you do the same for two different moral acts? I'll even let you choose the two acts. We'll see if everyone can reach the same conclusion regarding how much more morally worse one is than the other.

First you used a different example originally which changes the entire reasoning. Here you are comparing different temperatures. So its a variation with the same thing and not a comparison between 2 different things as you originally said.

It would be like comparing the temperature to the weight of something to find out which measure is a superior form of measurement. Both have important value within their own domain but its hard to cross them over to compare to each other apples with apples because they are unrelated and different things.

So certainly we can compare degree od wrongness within the same moral wrong. That in itself shows there must be some objective measure. Otherwises there is no such thing as degrees of wrongness as they have to vary against some objective base. Therefore we can determine better/best ways to act morally.

Why do you say they cannot be compared? We are talking about the same thing in both cases - the morality of the situation. How can you claim that morality is objective while being unable to specify a way to demonstrate that clearly, such as by showing the objective difference between the morality of two situations?

What part of saying you cannot compare two different moral situations as to which one is worse don't you understand. Or are you saying because I did not answer this in the way you thought it should be answered must mean I am hiding from the truth. If so then give some arguement rather than say excuses, excuses. Otherwise thats another logical fallacy as far as I can see.

I'm not saying we can't determine better or worse moral acts in general. We can look at all evil acts and say there are acts that are worse than others. Like Hitler or Poll Pot compared to Jonny taking a candy bar. But when the acts become closer in value its harder to work out which is more wrong in different situations.

Would you say that a child being abused with a smack is less wrong or bad than the child being caught for stealing. It may be but to those in the moral situation its the worst thing to ever happen.

But I come back to the same thing. How is this showing that there is only subjective morality and that there is no objective morality. In fact if anything varying degrees of wrong support an objective moral. Its

It's like saying you can't compare the temperature of a block of metal to the temperature of water because one's a solid and the other is a liquid.

But that wasn't yoiur example originally. It was between 2 completely different moral situations. Comparing apples with oranges. There all fruit but how do you say one is better or worse than the other.
But nevertheless I have shown that you can find variation within the same moral wrong. For example we can determine that assaulting a child and casuing them to damage is worse behaviour than a smack on the backside. Thats a given. Anyone who says different is just objectiovely wrong.

You claim they have something in common - morality - yet you seem to be saying that the morality can't be compared. Why not? We are not talking about two different things here.

I have just shown that it can be if you put your mind to it. It just takes more effort and reasoning for some matters more than others. But I keep coming back to the same logic. What do you think you will achieve in showing that we cannot show that some morals are worse than others.

 

[stevevw]

You've effectively said that there is no answer. No one person can say what is objective. That's the second time you've said that.

I think that sums up the position succinctly. But poses a follow up question. Let's skip to it. If no-one can tell if morality is objective, how can anyone claim that it is?

 

[Bradskii]

Nice quote but no comment?

 

[stevevw]

You've effectively said that there is no answer. No one person can say what is objective. That's the second time you've said that.

I think that sums up the position succinctly. But poses a follow up question. Let's skip to it. If no-one can tell if morality is objective, how can anyone claim that it is?

Let’s apply that to other examples. If no one can tell if our physical world is (our reality) then how can anyone claim that it is what it is?

It’s our intuition. The same intuition we use to be justified in our belief that our physical world is what it is. It’s the same with our moral intuition. We can be justified in our belief that our moral intuition (our sense experience of morality) is what it is. Is a true representation of morality?

Until the skeptic comes up with a defeater showing that our intuition of the morality (like the physical world) is completely wrong we are justified to believe there are moral truth. Because we experience, speak and behave like there are moral truths. It’s as simple as that.

 

[stevevw]

Nice quote but no comment?

sorry don't know what happened there. But I reposted.

 

[Ken-1122]

If one does not hold anything as objectively valuable, then in all honesty I do not know how I would go about explaining in any meaningful way to such a person that it was objectively wrong.

That’s because unfortunately, all values are completely subjective.

The "fact" is that doing something like that would scar a young child, both psychologically and physically, due, in part, to the fact that the child could neither reasonably give consent nor defend itself against such an act, and that this act would cause temporal pain, and possibly, long term sexual disfunction (both mentally and physically). But, if the worldview of the person does not give any value to the other person, why would they care, other than the fact that it was illegal to do such an act, and society would punish such an act both by imprisonment and by social stigma.

But calling it objectively wrong doesn’t fix anything; the rapist would simply disagree.

The problem, then, as I see it, is that if we cannot establish any objective moral foundation for valuing others, then there can be no real foundation for laws and stigma's against such activity other than public sentiment. Such a situation, my friends, is terrifying to contemplate. Those in power could engineer propaganda campaigns to change public sentiment and stigmas into any form they wish. Indeed, this is being tried all over the world, with varying levels of success. If no objective moral standard is truly the situation, then it is not mostly military might that wins the day, but who best controls the value structure of societies that will win in the end. Orwell and Huxley both saw this very clearly, as do I.

IMO the world would be a much better place if morality were objective; we could fix all the worlds problems by just legislating morality! We would have never had slavery, human sacrifice, even issues of today like abortion, capital punishment or the use of Nuclear Weapons during war would be solved without the hostility and hatred those discussions cause today. But wishing something to be true, recognizing the importance of something does not make it real, unfortunately morality, or at least the direction of it is, and always has been based upon the subjective views of the powers that be

What I don't understand, is why, Why, WHY would anyone ever hold such a view, defend it, and seek to spread it!?! Even if you think philosophically that such is the situation, doesn't the whole thing chew away at the heart of your psyche?

Because the truth is not determined by what I find comfortable.

 

[stevevw]

Me pointing out a situation where your "objective morality" can't possibly apply is not a logical fallacy. It's me demonstrating that objective morality is impossible.

and how is objective morality impossible. Your arguing this negative. You may have shown me how it is hard to apply objective morality in one situation. But how does it then follow that objective morality is impossible in all situations. Thats the logical fallacy.

 

[stevevw]

And there you go, trying to make it complicated.

Are you saying we should not rationalize what is the best way to behave and not take into consideration the cricumstances, people involved ect.

You speak of objective morality, but whenever you are given the chance to put it into practice, you refuse to and make excuses.

Lets go through these one by one. First
* How am I making it complicated

 

[durangodawood]

I see your position more clearly now, thank you. So, value is a "sentiment" held within a certain kind of consciousness... could we accurately call such a consciousness "sentient"?

Yes, I think the ability to perceive and feel is necessary to value things.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Ok you called Trump a Schmuck. You are now using an objective measure to describe someone.

If you think determining whether someone is a schmuck is an objective judgment, I have no hope for you understanding the difference between subjective and objective. I think Trump is a schmuck. Obviously many people deny that he is a schmuck. Am I objectively wrong? Are they objectively wrong?

There is a difference in kind between the sort of judgments that allow us to determine whether someone is a bachelor, or whether someone is a schmuck.

I beg to differ.

You don't believe people have consciences that disagree? That some people don't have a problem with homosexuality or abortion or dancing on Sunday or finders keepers? And other people do?

can you explain this?

"Some people may feel good that they have found a wallet full of money and will go and party."
"people will still act like there is something wrong with taking the wallet with money if its not theirs. They may conseal their guilt at the time but at some time they will express that they intuitively know its wrong in the way they speak or act."

Your statements here seem to be inconsistent. You first seemed to recognize that people do have different consciences, but now you are slamming shut that door, now that you see what it has opened.

First its a logical fallacy to say because people think differently that there are no moral truths.

Agreed, it doesn't necessarily follow.

 

[stevevw]

Your claim was that 'there needs to be a right or a wrong'. That doesn't allow for a degree of wrongness.

And I have consistently supported that. If you remember I explained objective morality can accommodate circumstances. So the reasoning that was used to find the moral truth in one specific situation cannot be automatically applied to a different moral situation. Each needs to be determined by reasoning.

It's either moral or immoral.

Yes, it either moral or immoral for each moral situation. A moral truth can be found for each moral situation that cannot be made unnecessary by subjective views. Your getting confused I think because you think we can't reason out each moral situation to find the truth rather than slap a truth on the situations ignoring the circumstances.

The reason we can compare at least varying degrees of (severity) of the same moral wrong and to a degree do an overview of morality to see if there are varying degrees of moral wrongness is for the same reason we can reason out the truth of a single moral situation.

Its all premised on being able to look at morality and rationaly and logically determine that some behaviours are better/best than others that will hel humans be humans.

But let's say that you don't know the details. You aren't sure of the outcome. That you don't understand the scenario in enough depth. But you are still saying there is no grey area. It's one or the other.

We may not be able to determine the truth under some situations. You are right there may be some grey areas we are not aware of or don't understand. But this does not mean there is no truth to be found. It may be we find more information, we understand better with time and investigation and we can make a better determination. The point is we act like it matters and that a clear and objective determination needs to happen.

It would be counter intuitive to say Öh well I reckon in my opinion that giving a kid a good beating keeps them in line. We would not want to say "well yeah good for you if thats your opinion". we know that beating a kid is not the best way to behave in how to treat a kid. So therefore we can look at morality and see if there are better/best ways to behave as opposed to other ways to behave.

As opposed to almost everyone else who would say something along the lines of: 'Well, in my opinion, one hour is OK, three hours is probably too long. Five? I personally wouldn't agree to that. But a whole day is definitely too long. And a week is positively criminal'.

Yes people can reason like that. This is exactly what I am saying. But what your not seeing is that when people are argueing whats the better/best time for punishment they are implicitly acknowledging a basis for measuring this. Otherwise what does 1, 3, 5 hours or the whole day even mean if there was no objective basis. They would just be different numbers with no meaning.

So let's skip asking you for a specific time when it becomes immoral. Let's just ask if it's your position that there is some specific moment when it becomes immoral, whatever that moment would be.

Not sure of a specific time as I dont think even medicines that acurrate. But we should be able to determine in each case when it in unfair and unjust to overpunish a child. The point is we know we can get some broad measures of what is better behaviour than others. You acknowledged those, ie 1 hour is better that a whole day.

We could refine that even more with time and understanding. I don't think not knowing all the little grey areas right now means that there is no truth to be found. The fact we can find some better behaviour than others points to moving away from something and towards something else and its not just shots in the dark, feelings, opinions which are arbitrary and too personalise for something so important.

 

[o_mlly]

That doesn't allow for a degree of wrongness. It's either moral or immoral. But let's say that you don't know the details. You aren't sure of the outcome. That you don't understand the scenario in enough depth. But you are still saying there is no grey area. It's one or the other.

We took away your wiggle room a long time ago - post #1314:

And, yes I do claim that every human act in the concrete is objectively moral or immoral.

Yet you persist in examining the morality of a human act abstracted of any details hoping to get an "I gotcha" moment:

As opposed to almost everyone else who would say something along the lines of: 'Well, in my opinion, one hour is OK, three hours is probably too long. Five? I personally wouldn't agree to that. But a whole day is definitely too long. And a week is positively criminal'.

So let's skip asking you for a specific time when it becomes immoral. Let's just ask if it's your position that there is some specific moment when it becomes immoral, whatever that moment would be.

So in the absence of details that you refuse to imaginatively provide us, we must assume that since the girl's room is in a basement that the home is not in a developing countries lacking the heavy excavation equipment to build homes with basements. So, the home, most likely in a developed country, would have schools and laws against child abuse. Need I say more? Yeah, I probably do. Is it immoral to disobey the moral laws of the community in which one lives? Yes. Are the laws against child abuse reasonably determined by reasonable members of the community? Yes. There you go. "Dad, get real."

 

[o_mlly]

When it comes to anything that is objective, I can clearly specify the difference in degrees. I can tell you exactly what the difference is between the temperature of object A and the temperature of object B. Anyone can come and measure those two objects and reach the same conclusion. Can you do the same for two different moral acts? I'll even let you choose the two acts. We'll see if everyone can reach the same conclusion regarding how much more morally worse one is than the other.

Measurable difference:

• Number of people alive before theft = 2
• Number of people alive after theft = 2
• Number of people alive before murder = 2
• Number of people alive after murder = 1
• 2 > 1
• Therefore, murder is morally worse than theft.

 

[food4thought]

Please stop preaching. This is not the section of the forum for that.

Again, you have not answered the question asked. From here on in I'll assume you have no answer. Thanks for your input.

You know, it comes across to me as pretty disingenuous to call an answer you don't like a non-answer. If you can't even acknowledge an answer that involves Jesus on a Christian forum, as an actual answer, or are unwilling to receive a plea to at least consider the proposition that God might have something to say to individual humans today... perhaps you might want to reconsider your expectations a bit, and at least remember what little corner of the internet you're currently visiting.

------edit-----
I apologize for the wording in a few places here, I edited when I reread it. I did not intend in any way to demean you, Bradskii... I can only hope I edited soon enough.

 

[food4thought]

That’s because unfortunately, all values are completely subjective.

While the possibility that morals are not objective is there, inability to convince someone of "something" they do not believe in, does not negate the possibility that the "something" is true. For example, you, and anyone else, would find it literally impossible to convince me to buy into atheism as the true position. Does that mean that, as a result, it is impossible for atheism to be true?

But calling it objectively wrong doesn’t fix anything; the rapist would simply disagree.

Calling atheism true won't fix anything, I would simply disagree.

IMO the world would be a much better place if morality were objective; we could fix all the worlds problems by just legislating morality!

Just a side note here, but isn't the majority of criminal law moral in nature? The idea that "we can't legislate morality", from the perspective of shutting down people who would seek to impose a moral standard one disagrees with, would be laughable if it hasn't been so successful as a propaganda campaign. The question isn't whether we are legislating morality or not, but whose morality is being enacted into law, isn't it?

We would have never had slavery, human sacrifice, even issues of today like abortion, capital punishment or the use of Nuclear Weapons during war would be solved without the hostility and hatred those discussions cause today. But wishing something to be true, recognizing the importance of something does not make it real, unfortunately morality, or at least the direction of it is, and always has been based upon the subjective views of the powers that be

I am confident that such a world will indeed come to be. But it will not happen because flawed humans come to agree on every moral decision (others here, if not you, would undoubtedly say that even if every human who ever lived agreed completely on morality, that still wouldn't make it "objective"), but because an objective morality will be imposed upon us by the God who, by virtue of His perfect character, His unique eternal nature, and His unique perspective (knowing everything... and I mean EVERYTHING... knowing every potential outcome of every thought, motive, action that has or possibly could have occurred both in and outside time as we know it), is able to have a perfectly objective morality.

Because the truth is not determined by what I find comfortable.

Indeed, and as uncomfortable as it may be for you to contemplate, the truth may, and I firmly believe does, encompass a Being far beyond anything you or I can wrap our minds around...