Show me how morality can be described in concrete terms that all people agree on.
What do you mean by concrete terms?
Because courtrooms don't determine the nature of reality.
Because as I said, courts don't determine the nature of reality, and you are making the ludicrous assumption that all people always behave in an entirely consistent manner.
The logical argument is not about the nature of reality. It is about whether objective morality exists or not. That would come down to the way a person acts and reacts morally.
Incorrect. Let's say you are right, and some individual starts some behaviour that doesn't help our society. In fact, it hinders it.
In times of hardship, such a society is more likely to disappear. All the individuals could die out, or be forced to leave. Look at what happened on Easter Island. They stripped every single tree on the island for the construction of those statues. This harmful behaviour leads to their society being wiped out.
The example of Easter Island is a small example in a contained area where any negative impacts will have a faster effect. But look at global warming and the depletion of the earth resources as a bigger example. We are now facing a critical point where the earth is becoming unstable.
Most of the cause for Global warming has come from human-made practices which were at one stage made out to be good for us IE good for the economy, good for technology which would bring other good rewards ect. But now we see that these practices are actually not so good. Not only bringing destruction to the earth but causing economic instability where people are suffering.
The problems and negative fallout of bad morality don't happen quickly but can be very gradual or come in future generations. Most of the time bad morality is not a direct act of someone being bad. It is often an act of ommission or an indirect act that leads to negative fallout. When governments make legislation, regulations, and policies for example that allows some to have more control such as corporations which then destroy environments or destabilize communities by wiping out local businesses and jobs.
This is the nature of the beast and it is always about profits before people and environments, materialism, corruption through power, political power, self-interest etc which will always lead to bad morality and negative outcomes. Having no clear moral position leaves the door open to whoever to make the moral agenda and that usually ends up being a negative result as humans have more of a tendency to self-interest than being alteristic.
No, I am saying the OUTCOME of those decisions are measurable. We can make vague statements like, "Murder is bad for society," but there are so many variables that when it comes to deciding which is the objectively correct way of dealing with murderers, the outcome can't be seen until it's put in place.
The problem is there is no objective measure to determine what is right and wrong morally. Unfortunately when there is no objective measure and the system is open to interpretation and personal measures which seem to undermine any chance of having a clear and consistent standard.
But here the thing on certain morals like killing, stealing, assault, rape ect we have put in place an objective system where we don't allow for subjective opinion. So that is one of the evidences that show how we live like there are objective morals. Because despite anyone saying that not killing, stealing raping ect helps make a good and happy society that is not a sufficient explanation and does not equate to why something is morally right or wrong.
So even though we have no way of justifying objective morality under a subjective system society still believes in objective morality. That shows we all know within us that certain acts are universally and always wrong.
But evolution CAN explain it.
Vampire bats need to feed every night. If they go without feeding for a few nights, they will die. So if a bat doesn't feed, it will beg a neighbour for some blood, which the neighbour will regurgitate. But if there's a bat that keeps asking for blood but never provides it when it is asked, this bat will be shunned from the group. This kind of behaviour helps both the individual bats (it ensures that they won't starve and it helps develop social bonds) and it helps the group (it prevents the group from dying out and it gets rid of individuals who could harm the group through their selfishness). This kind of behaviour is perfectly explainable with evolution, and it demonstrates morality. You did know that genes can code for behaviours as well as for physical traits, didn't you?
Animals do not and cannot display morality. They don't have intention to do bad or have a conscience. What you are describing and mistakingly thing is moral is basically instinctual and learned behavior. The example you use here may be a positive one as far as we see but many examples of what would be classed as immoral and destructive behavior are seen in the animal world based on the same instinctual and learned behavior.
So this example does not explain morality and most scientists will agree. If it did then we would have to say that all the immoral acts from animals were moral. For example, infanticide is practiced by a number of animals including our closest primates, but other mammals, birds, fish, etc do the same. It is common from packs of animals (wild dogs, big cats, more dominant animals to steal the prey and food of other weaker animals to survive. We have seen how a killer whale can kill for fun playing with its prey until they die.
Did you stop to think WHY that kind of behavior is learned? The answer is because it produces benefits.
Yes but that doesn't equate to right and wrong morally. The benefit was gained by an immoral act. It is all about survival and it doesn't matter if the act to help survive is right or wrong. For example, if there was not enough food then it would be beneficial to kill weak and old humans so the rest can survive. Animal behavior is learned but that says nothing about morality. An animal may learn that stealing other animals' food is beneficial but that would be morally wrong to us.
You do realize that we can measure consciousness, right? We can determine if a person is conscious by looking at how the brain reacts.
That is not consciousness no more than saying that the brain also reacts to depression. There is no section of the brain we can cut out and label that depression of consciousness. In fact, studies show that the entire brain lights up when it comes to consciousness.
But when we talk about consciousness it is not a physical thing in the brain. The sense of self, of the world, of beauty in something, it is not measured physically. there is no tangible thing to measure. That is why study of the brain is known as the "hard problem".
The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why any physical state is conscious rather than nonconscious. It is the problem of explaining why there is “something it is like” for a subject in conscious experience, why conscious mental states “light up” and directly appear to the subject. The usual methods of science involve an explanation of functional, dynamical, and structural properties—explanation of what a thing does, how it changes over time, and how it is put together. But even after we have explained the functional, dynamical, and structural properties of the conscious mind, we can still meaningfully ask the question, Why is it conscious? This suggests that an explanation of consciousness will have to go beyond the usual methods of science.
Hard Problem of Consciousness | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
And we can't measure dark matter? We don't even know what it is and we can already measure it by looking at its gravitational influences.
That's right, we can only see the indirect evidence of dark matter. We cannot see it direct just like we cannot see objective morality directly. But we can measure the indirect results of objective morality through the way people react with objective morality.
So since you've criticized the claim that people must have objective morals because they act like they do, are you also claiming that we can't be brains in a jar because most people don't think we are? That's terrible logic.
No that is the logical argument and it is used by philosophers. It uses the same logic that if we believe that our physical world is real based on our experience of it, what we see and how we behave in accordance with it then until something comes along that will show we are wrong we are justified to believe it is real, it is what we experience it as.
The same for objective morality. If we act, react and behave as though there is moral realism, implement objective morals into society, interact with each other on an objective moral basis, intuitively know there are objective morals, admit this, live this and experience this then we are justified to believe this is the case.
Otherwise,we would be second-guessing ourselves all the time. If you read the articles I posted you will see what I mean. This is a well-founded basis for justified beliefs of our perception. Otherwise, we would be deluded and could not live in the present tense of like we live in reality.
