What does objective morality do?

[an7222]

I don't think so. You're just describing the way you would react to knowledge of an objective morality, then blindly proscribing that to everyone else. Except that's what we're trying to elucidate - why should people react that way?

Imagine you define that the "beauty of a song" is measured by its lenght. If you agree on this, you will be able to say objectively when a song is more "beautiful" than the other.

Why not we all define a moral value? I believe it's reasonable to define life as a moral value. So, everything that goes against life becomes objectively immoral.

The point we can disagree now is "why life is a moral value"? But it's another thread.

 

[Randall McNally]

Imagine you define that the "beauty of a song" is measured by its lenght. If you agree on this, you will be able to say objectively when a song is more "beautiful" than the other.

When two or more people agree on a proposition, it's known as intersubjectivity. It won't become objective just because a bunch of people agree with it.

Why not we all define a moral value? I believe it's reasonable to define life as a moral value. So, everything that goes against life becomes objectively immoral.

It might be "reasonable" but it isn't objective.

The point we can disagree now is "why life is a moral value"? But it's another thread.

It's also begging the question.

 

[Dragar]

Why not we all define a moral value?

Because renaming something doesn't change the meaning.

I can define 2 as 3, if I like, and 3 as 2. Now 1 + 1 = 3 is true, and 1 + 2 = 4.

This has changed the words, but not the meaning. Your objective moral value still means to me what life has always done. You've changed nothing by redefining something.

 

[Norea]

Yea we haven't set up the basic lexicon of what defines morals and etc. What is the mechanics of objective morality? Even I as an objectivist have problems setting up a sufficient model of morality to test by thought experiment or a true experiment. :-S

-- Bridget

 

[CSMR]

I think that the knowledge of morality, of what is right and wrong makes people better.

What if people know what is right, and don't want to do it? Are there no such people?

And if you say that morality is just a subjective opinion, in fact you're saying that morality is meaningless, since you have your opinion and I have mine, and nobody will be able to say that the other is right or wrong.

Just so!

 

[an7222]

What if people know what is right, and don't want to do it? Are there no such people?

Yes, there are. And what's the point here? Even today there are people that believe the earth is flat. Does it mean it's right to think the earth is flat just because there are some that do not believe the earth is round? Does it make the earth any less round?

Just so!

So, morality for you is meanless. You think Hitler can be as moral as Jesus?

 

[CSMR]

Yes, there are. And what's the point here?

The point is that these people do not become better when they learn about morality; they are just shown that they are bad.

So, morality for you is meanless. You think Hitler can be as moral as Jesus?

I meant that your analysis is just right.

 

[A. believer]

My question is looking at whether the existence or otherwise of objective morality would have an effect on human behaviour.

In other words, if there were no objective morality would humanity act any differently than they do now?

Your question still makes no sense within the context of what Scripture claims about reality, and perhaps I've begun to clarify why on the other thread which, of course, you found yourself a while ago. Morality isn't a created thing, but rather, it transcends the creation. It simply is. Morality is that which gives glory to the Triune God by being in accordance with His holy nature. If there were no "objective morality," this would mean there is no God, and if there were no God, there would be no "being." Nothing would be. The question is incoherent.

"Objective morality" or a term I prefer, transcendent morality doesn't do anything. It simply is.

 

[Mustaphile]

If we had a tangible objective morality, that everyone agreed was true, then our rationalisations would be changed. We could no longer attempt to apply subjective judgements to the problem. Issues of right and wrong would be much clearer and actions taken against those who willfuly do wrong, or even those who wilfully do right, would be done with greater confidence in the 'rightness or wrongness'' of the action. Basically there would be less doubt and more certainty.

-edit- (an additional comment)

We wouldn't have to sit around discussing morality all day. That's one thing that would be changed. The discussion would change to why some people choose to do wrong, when they know what is right. With the greater clarity we would have on this subject, then our understanding of human behaviour would be increased.

 

[David Gould]

Your question still makes no sense within the context of what Scripture claims about reality, and perhaps I've begun to clarify why on the other thread which, of course, you found yourself a while ago. Morality isn't a created thing, but rather, it transcends the creation. It simply is. Morality is that which gives glory to the Triune God by being in accordance with His holy nature. If there were no "objective morality," this would mean there is no God, and if there were no God, there would be no "being." Nothing would be. The question is incoherent.

So what you are saying is that you cannot examine hypothetical questions? Can you demonstrate how the question is incoherent - for example, by proving that if there was no God there be no being? That would better enable me to grasp your position.

"Objective morality" or a term I prefer, transcendent morality doesn't do anything. It simply is.

So in other words it does nothing to promote its fullfillment on earth. Or to look at it another way, the will of God does nothing to try to get itself followed on earth. Work with me here: am I correct in understanding you to be saying that moral behaviour is obeying the will of God, or as another way of putting that what God wills (by his nature) is good?

 

[David Gould]

If we had a tangible objective morality, that everyone agreed was true, then our rationalisations would be changed. We could no longer attempt to apply subjective judgements to the problem. Issues of right and wrong would be much clearer and actions taken against those who willfuly do wrong, or even those who wilfully do right, would be done with greater confidence in the 'rightness or wrongness'' of the action. Basically there would be less doubt and more certainty.

I think the issue of truth or falsehood is a secondary one. In other words, it does not matter how many people believe that this particular set of morals is the true one or not; what matters is whether people would want to obey it or not.

For example, if it were discovered that the true morality permitted - nay, demanded - rape, people might well agree that it was true. But would they want to see it obeyed? Our rationalisations might change, but I think the simple point would be this: if we liked the rule or saw good reasons for it we would obey it; otherwise we would not. The rule being true or not would be irrelevent (unless of course we also knew that there were consequences for not obeying, and then our moral judgments might go against what we wanted initially out of fear for ourselves and others - we would pick the lesser of two dislikes).

-edit- (an additional comment)

We wouldn't have to sit around discussing morality all day. That's one thing that would be changed. The discussion would change to why some people choose to do wrong, when they know what is right. With the greater clarity we would have on this subject, then our understanding of human behaviour would be increased.

I agree with this. But I think that my analysis of why people do the things they do would hold up pretty well in such discussions.

 

[Mustaphile]

I think the issue of truth or falsehood is a secondary one. In other words, it does not matter how many people believe that this particular set of morals is the true one or not; what matters is whether people would want to obey it or not.

I think that would really depend on whether they thought it was true or not. People tend to look for what is true. If we suddenly realised that what we had thought was true was now revealed as false ie rape is fine and we should all be getting more involved. The I would imagine that everyone would be doing it. Since you now have a completely tangible objective morality, you would be able to logically rationalise it, and there would be little argument about what was right or wrong. The person complaining about being raped would be out of line with morality. After all, we all know what is right. It's written in stone now. (hypothetically of course)

-edit-

I think the whole thing with picking rape, is that the immediate reaction is that people will say rape is bad now, how could I possibly say that rape is good. But if we discover in this hypothetical objective morality, that we live in a world in which the only really important thing is to get your genes copied as many times as possible. Whether you do it by force or by gentle caress, won't matter in the end. The only valuable thing is getting those genes out there. Some might complain, but you could just tell them that thats there problem. What you are doing is morally right and they should just get more aggresive about how they go about spreading their genes and stop their whining. It would all depend on what that objective morality was as to what type of society you would have. Having that objective morality though, would make the decisions you face and how you go about them much less wishy washy.

 

[Dragar]

But if we discover in this hypothetical objective morality, that we live in a world in which the only really important thing is to get your genes copied as many times as possible. Whether you do it by force or by gentle caress, won't matter in the end. The only valuable thing is getting those genes out there. Some might complain, but you could just tell them that thats there problem. What you are doing is morally right and they should just get more aggresive about how they go about spreading their genes and stop their whining.

You really think this would happen, if we discovered an 'objective morality' which said this was 'good'?

Because I'd just renounce 'good', and be proud of doing so. Seriously.

 

[Mustaphile]

You really think this would happen, if we discovered an 'objective morality' which said this was 'good'?

Because I'd just renounce 'good', and be proud of doing so. Seriously.

That's why I think David chose rape. Because it causes people to have an emotional reaction which skews their perception of the hypothetical situation which he proposed. I don't know of any objective morality that considers rape to a good thing. If the objective morality, that David proposed, is tangible and true, in this hypothetical situation, then rape would not be bad, despite your indignation (which is misplaced really). You would be considered morally corrupt for thinking as you do. They might even decide to send you off for phsyciatric assesment.

The fact that you are making that judgement without placing yourself in this hypothetical world says something about your ability to look at the idea with a disinterested eye. You can't divorce yourself from your own cultural perceptions of morality for the simple purpose of an intellectual exercise.

 

[Dragar]

The fact that you are making that judgement without placing yourself in this hypothetical world says something about your ability to look at the idea with a disinterested eye. You can't divorce yourself from your own cultural perceptions of morality for the simple purpose of an intellectual exercise.

I agree; I think it's impossible to consider if something is moral or not 'objectively'.

Let me try to rephrase, however.

We have discovered X is wrong, and objectively so. X has the property of being wrong.

Why would we care if something was 'wrong'?

 

[Dragar]

I think what I am trying to get at is that we are losing some meaning of the word 'wrong' if we start trying to define an objective morality.

The only way out of my above problem is to suggest that the word wrong means we will care. In this sense, someone who thinks that there is an objective morality believes that we must care if action X is wrong, and act in ways that are consistent with that.

The is that this implies everyone who disagrees with whether an action is wrong or not is 'mistaken'. If there was an objective beauty, for instance, and two people disagreed on whether a painting was beautiful or not, one of them would have to be mistaken.

Now, the difficulty I see is this: how can someone possibly be mistaken if something is 'wrong'?

I don't mean this in the trivial sense. I think that dropping bricks off the top of buildings is wrong, for instance, not because dropping bricks of the top of buildings is in itself wrong, but because that sort of thing kills people. It's only the last part (killing people) I initially consider wrong, but I can derive the first part (dropping bricks off buildings) is wrong if I use the premise that dropping bricks off buildings kills people.

I could be mistaken that dropping bricks of buildings kills people. But could I be mistaken that killing people is wrong? I'm not basing that on anything, I should stress. I couldn't tell you why I consider killing people wrong. I don't think anyone can answer 'why' they consider certain things wrong and some things not, when quetioned down to their most basic level.

And that's why I don't think it's possible (outside of the trivial sense) to be mistaken about if something is wrong or not.

 

[Mustaphile]

Why would we care if something was 'wrong'?

I made a statement that, people tend to look for what is true. David felt truth or falsity was a secondary consideration. I felt that the objective morality would have to believed to be true for people to want to follow it. If people don't believe its true then we are back to a subjective situation. People making a judgment on the validity of an objective morality. Which sort of makes the whole exercise fairly pointless. If this magically arrived at objective morality is tangible to all people, then the weight of rational thinking would fall in its favour. Anyone who did not agree with the objective morality would be forced by cultural pressure to comply or be branded irrational. Sort of like christians are now..hehehe...who funnily enough make claims of objective morality(but less tangibles ones). But I'm rambling now...

 

[David Gould]

Mustaphile,

I guess my point is this:

Society - it does not matter which society - already lays down rules for behaviour. We have all grown up as part of those societies and thus already have either (in general) assented to those laws or rejected them.

Now, if tomorrow someone arrived at a logical proof demonstrating that the laws of the society you live in were in fact objectively true, why would that make any difference? The people who had accepted the laws would not change. Why would the people who rejected them and killed, murdered, stole et cetera alter their behaviour?

I picked rape deliberately, yes, to illustrate that if something different than our cultures laws were the objective morality we would likely reject it, as it would go againt our instinctive feelings with regard to morality. And people do not act on logical grounds when it comes to morality: good and evil are in the feelings of pleasure we get at good acts and the feelings of horror we get at evil acts. So an objective morality that went against our feelings would be rejected.

 

[Mustaphile]

So you are saying that it will still remain subjective? So your method of attaining your objective morality is a matter of dispute is it not? To really meaningfully discuss the issue you have to have arrived at this objective morality by some method that is convincing to all.

In your example above, given the rational bent in our own modern culture I would think it would only be the current generation that resists change. The latter generations would change their thinking to suit the new ideas. Morality has changed as ideas have changed in our history. I don't see any reason why people won't continue to change as new ideas come along. It's in the power of the ideas and their percieved validity, which relates to the truth value of the idea. People will do all types of things if they have the justification.

 

[David Gould]

So you are saying that it will still remain subjective? So your method of attaining your objective morality is a matter of dispute is it not? To really meaningfully discuss the issue you have to have arrived at this objective morality by some method that is convincing to all.

I am saying that proving it does not mean that everyone will accept that proof or, even if they did, choose to follow it.

For example, you can prove all sorts of things in mathematics, and provide massive amounts of evidence in science, and people will still not believe you.

Just looking at the debates around this place, if people are committed to a particular position there is not much that can be said that can change that position. (although the cumulative effects over time might well do, of course).

In your example above, given the rational bent in our own modern culture I would think it would only be the current generation that resists change.
The latter generations would change their thinking to suit the new ideas. Morality has changed as ideas have changed in our history. I don't see any reason why people won't continue to change as new ideas come along.

I see what you are saying. But there would be considerable resistance to the change, I think. My feeling is on this issue that just because a law if true is not a good enough reason to convince people to obey it. They need to have something more than just that - which would need to relate to benefit I suspect.

It's in the power of the ideas and their percieved validity, which relates to the truth value of the idea. People will do all types of things if they have the justification.

Of course. I guess my argument is that if objective morality seemed alien to us as humans we would not adopt it, and if it did not then we basically already have adopted it. Either way, not much would change.