Where does morality come from?

MoonlessNight said:

Though I do feel compelled to note that your expansions is flawed because it assumes a subjective morality. You say that morality has changed over 200 years, but all we can say is that the common interpretation has changed. If this common interpretation defines morality, then yes it has changed, but if that is the case it was never distinct from human opinion anyway.

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Well, not really; it is possible that there is an objective moral value but it is very broad: "Be loving", for example, or "Cause no harm".

Not that I believe this I just don't think it's incompatible with the notion that people's moral standards have shifted over the centuries.

What does it mean for a moral value to be objective? Objective reality is something that everyone can observe, but it is impossible to observe morals; they are concepts and ideas, not 'things'.

Patashu said:

What does it mean for a moral value to be objective? Objective reality is something that everyone can observe, but it is impossible to observe morals; they are concepts and ideas, not 'things'.

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I agree with you.

However, there are many people who argue in favour of objective moral values, and usually they think of them as non-natural qualities. They are objective in the sense that they exist whether or not people know about them (unless you take a constructivist stance, as Kant does, which I won't go into).

To avoid intuitionism and all of its pitfalls, it seems best to adopt an externalist stance (that moral judgements are not inherently motivating), and also to argue that these moral non-natural qualities are constituted by some set of natural qualities.

cantata said:

Well, not really; it is possible that there is an objective moral value but it is very broad: "Be loving", for example, or "Cause no harm".

Not that I believe this I just don't think it's incompatible with the notion that people's moral standards have shifted over the centuries.

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Not just over the centuries, but among different cultures that exist contemporaneously, side-by-side.

Crazy Liz said:

Not just over the centuries, but among different cultures that exist contemporaneously, side-by-side.

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True.