Where does morality come from?

[stevevw]

No you do not understand. And neither do you understand ”the experts”.

lol so who is the expert you. How can a nihilist hold the truth to moral values. Isn't that a paradoxical position and aren't you taking an objective position yourself.

The expert's position is quite simple to understand. Humans intuitively know that certain acts are always wrong despite subjective opinions and universally agreed.

But why should we believe that a value nihilist understands the experts when you already believe that moral values don't exist. Most experts disagree with this.

 

[stevevw]

double post

 

[stevevw]

Are you sure you want to go there? You have just effectively changed your definition of "objective morality" such that it no longer needs a transcendent intelligence as a source.

How does that change the need for a transcendent being independent of humans? I cannot see a difference in what you say. If morality transcends conscious rational deliberations what are you saying that there is some natural law that accounts for why objective morality exists. If so that argument has already been dispelled.

 

[Speedwell]

How does that change the need for a transcendent being independent of humans? I cannot see a difference in what you say. If morality transcends conscious rational deliberations what are you saying that there is some natural law that accounts for why objective morality exists.

Are you asserting that if morality transcends conscious rational deliberation then it must be objective?

If so that argument has already been dispelled.

It hasn't even been made by anyone but you.
You seem to have concluded that there can be nothing more to subjective morality than conscious rational deliberation. To bolster this conclusion you have knocked down "evolution" and "natural law," as subjective alternatives--straw men of your own construction.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

How does that change the need for a transcendent being independent of humans? I cannot see a difference in what you say. If morality transcends conscious rational deliberations what are you saying that there is some natural law that accounts for why objective morality exists. If so that argument has already been dispelled.

Maybe it's time to switch gears, Steve. Maybe it's time to ask them tougher questions, like from which upstanding, respectable moral agents do social phenomena like pornography and human trafficking come from and why aren't those phenomena and any others like them not objectively wrong?

Sometimes, one needs to get creative and change the form of the conversation, otherwise you'll just keep on beating the same dead horse.

 

[stevevw]

Maybe because science deals with objective things and morality isn't objective?

Your still thinking about this the wrong way and using the wrong measure for morality by equating objective morality with scientific objectivity. Once you understand this you will understand how we can support objective morality according to a philosophical proposition. It is the only way we can and many truths in life are supported this way.

Just because an argument is logically sound does not mean it is true.

That is the same for what you are trying to say is how we should measure morality. Just because science shows an objective fact doesn't make it true. But there is a big difference between the two. A proposition does make a truth claim and is self-supporting and if it stands up then it is support for that truth until it is shown to be logically wrong. That is how we support truth philosophically.

Then how about you start by defining what you mean when you use "truth" in this context?

Truth can be applied to many things. In the case of morality, it is a philosophical truth claim about morality (moral realism). That moral acts are either right or wrong truthfully. So the truth is in the proposition itself. According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Moral judgments are intended to be accurate descriptions of the world, and statements express moral judgments (as opposed to command or prescription) just as statements express ordinary beliefs. That is, statements express moral language. The statements that express moral judgments are either true or false just as the statements that express ordinary beliefs are. Moral truths occur when our signs match the world.
https://www.iep.utm.edu/moralrea/#:~:text=That is, statements express moral,our signs match the world.

The truth according to Objective morality
Morality is objective. That is, moral claims are true or false about aspects of human interaction that involve the ideas of rights and obligations. Further, the fundamental moral maxims apply universally, and reasonable people can agree on their truth.
Is Morality Objective? | Issue 115 | Philosophy Now

So there is no physical object to measure like in scientific testing but moral truth is still a valid truth we can claim.

The position that morality is subjective is NOT a moral position.

Do you really think I'm saying everything is subjective? Of course not. There are lots of subjective things, and there are lots of objective things.

Ok rather than position than belief. You are taking an objective stand in saying I must conform to your belief about morality.

I am saying that morality is in the list of SUBJECTIVE things.

But you are claiming an objective stand in saying that you are right that there are only subjective morals and I am wrong that there are objective morals. You have stated this in saying you are arguing with me so that you can convince other people so they don't end up believing the wrong thing. That logically follows that you are claiming there is a right and wrong stand on morality and you have the right one.

It seems to me that anyone could see this. Why can't you?

See once again you are trying to change the goalposts in saying I am really saying something different to what I have just claimed.

For someone who admits that this "lives personal experience" is not direct evidence for objective morality, you sure seem to bring it up a lot. Are you not capable of using some actual direct evidence?

So when it comes to objective morality what would you say was the direct evidence I needed to show.

Don't tell me that it's not based on subjective opinion. This "lived personal experience" is by definition subjective!

That doesn't make logical sense. How can a person under a subjective moral system make a claim it is OK for some to have the view that stealing is OK because that's their opinion under their (subjective morality) and then at the same time showing with their lived moral experience condemn people who steal (objective morality)?

***

Also, I noticed that you completely failed to address several of my points. Assuming that you simply missed them, I shall repeat that part of my post. Of course, if you didn't address them because I was unclear in any of these, let me know and I will try to be clearer. Or if you didn't address them because you were unable to respond to them, please let me know so I can chalk that up to a win on my part.

The same answers apply. As I said you are misrepresenting the meaning of how we measure morality and equating it to science. I will attempt to answer them again but be more clear on this.

Please show me something that is viewed as an objective fact that does not rely on any scientific description.

I did address this by saying you are equating two different definitions of objectivity. One meaning of physical facts for science and one for philosophy. So I cannot see how this is relevant to the moral argument. I even gave you links to experts who explain this to you. Please let me know if you don't understand this and I will try to explain things better.

Please do the same for morality.
If you can do that, I'll believe you.

I did answer this as well by saying as above you are misusing how moral arguments are supported. They are not supported through science in measuring physical objects. I then gave a proposition for how objective morality is measured under philosophy. IE

Objective morals and duties cannot be grounded in humans
Objective morals and duties need to apply to humans
Therefore objective morals and duties need to be grounded in a transcendent being.

We all agree that humans (the subject) cannot ground morality. We all agree that morals need to apply to humans (rocks and animals cannot be moral agents). Therefore it logically follows that objective morals need to be grounded in a transcendent being.

Nah, I'm talking about a people's lived experience of putting their hands on hot stoves.

Surely you of all people understand how a person's lived experience can be evidence of something objective, right?

As I said your still not getting how this is different from morality. Pain and pleasure do not equate to moral right and wrong. The reason being is like Sam Harris he tried to make morality a scientific fact that we could measure through pain and pleasure. What caused the pain was measured as morally wrong and what caused pleasure was equated to morally right.

But this was shown to be wrong because what can be determined as human wellbeing with (pain and pleasure are also subjective. So rather than just make a claim that this example is a correct way to determine morality why don't you listen to the experts. Or at least explain your reasoning as to why it should apply to measure morality.

But I will attempt to give some indirect evidence for how we can measure objective morals on a more scientific level though this is not the primary support and only indirect. Let's say a child has been sexually assaulted and that is the measure for morality in how people really think about right and wrong.

Just like most normal people unless they were insane would react to a burning hotplate in pain most reasonable people unless unsound would react to a child being sexually assaulted as being always wrong despite any personal subjective views on the matter. If anyone claimed it was Ok to sexually assault a child just like they tried to claim that touching a hotplate did not cause pain were objective wrong.

So you go from saying that people act like there are objective morals, and yet now you say that sometimes people DON'T act like there are objective morals?
You're just all over the place here, aren't you?

As I said a reaction to a moral situation is different to what people claim. So people can claim that morality is subjective but just like the hotplate example they all react in pain in touching the hotplate when it comes to certain morals regardless of their subjective claims.

When the person who is telling me that I am avoiding the truth is also incapable of showing me that truth, I don't find their claims very convincing.

I think I have shown how truth is applied to morality with this post.

 

[stevevw]

Maybe it's time to switch gears, Steve. Maybe it's time to ask them tougher questions, like from which upstanding, respectable moral agents do social phenomena like pornography and human trafficking come from and why aren't those phenomena and any others like them not objectively wrong?

Sometimes, one needs to get creative and change the form of the conversation, otherwise you'll just keep on beating the same dead horse.

yes, that's true and that is why it is good to have another person who can offer a different way of explaining things. I think I have more or less used this example but you say it better.

 

[stevevw]

Are you asserting that if morality transcends conscious rational deliberation then it must be objective?

People can still think rationally about morality but human rationality is limited and subject to too many complications that make it unreliable and unworthy to be the measure of moral right and wrong. Therefore a case can be made to show that objective morality needs to come from beyond humans and from a rational, personal, and transcendent being.

It hasn't even been made by anyone but you in any objective way.
You seem to have concluded that there can be nothing more to subjective morality than conscious rational deliberation. To bolster this conclusion you have knocked down "evolution" and "natural law," as subjective alternatives--straw men of your own construction.

No, I have provided support in how people use evolution, natural law, and ideas like human wellbeing or empathy as ways to determine that morality is objective. I have also provided support to show how these ideas don't account for morality being objective and do not justify the way people intuitively act objectively when it comes to morality.

 

[Kylie]

You do realize that a scientific description says nothing about the truth of something. Science can describe dark matter but that doesn't mean it has also verified that it is true.

Science is not something that describes things that are imaginary. Science shows us that there is SOMETHING causing those effects and it measures those effects.

But you're still confusing two different things in the way you even form this question. A scientific explanation says nothing about moral values and moral values do not equate to scientific facts as I have shown in the last post. For example, science can explain how the universe began but not why it began. The why questions including why something is right or wrong are philosophical questions and beyond science but are still important questions that people want answers to.

You're right, science does not describe what motivates some intention. Because that stuff is SUBJECTIVE.

The truth about why questions are usually made by logical propositions such as syllogism which can be self-supporting and offer evidence of a claim. Like Aristotle's "All men are mortal; Aristotle is a man; therefore, Aristotle is mortal.” The moral argument for objective morality is primarily made by a proposition for example moral truths and duties cannot exist within humans, they need to be personal as morality implies an obligation to a person, therefore objective moral values and duties need to be grounded in a transcendent being.

That example you used is not self-supporting. It relies on assumptions that are falsifiable.

This is self-supporting as people agree that an objective moral has to come from beyond humans (the subject) and that morals can only apply to persons (a rock or animal cannot be a moral agent).

You have not shown that it is self supporting and you have not shown that there is anything that is considered objectively true that is self supporting.

But where is the physical thing that we can measure as a fact to show directly that what a mathematical equation shows exist? Mathematical equations are only theories on paper, they are not always physical objects we can measure and test.

Hold on dude...

I'm not talking about physical things here, am I? I'm talking about logic and how it can be expressed in notation similar to how mathematics is expressed in a particular notation.

Stop shifting the goalposts.

I just did with the logical proposition.

That was not morality. I asked you to do it with morality.

It is a wrong example because 1st) morals don't equate to pain and pleasure as shown by the evidence against people like Sam Harris who uses human wellbeing as the measure for morality. If you want to use pain as a moral measure then sometimes a moral choice brings pleasure and good feelings and not pain. Sometimes the right thing to do causes some suffering (pain). You are limiting morality to an unreal measure that doesn't work.

Just out of curiosity, can you give an example of something that you consider objectively morally correct that increases the amount of pain in the world?

Second, you would have to show me how people subjectively believe that a hot stove is not really hot to equate to the moral situation. Because to establish that people react in a similar way to a moral situation despite their subjective view we have to decern an objective position from the subjective one. In your example, it only allows one option in that people know that the stove will produce one outcome "pain". Otherwise, people would be insane to think that the stove is not hot in their subjective view. Whereas with subjective morality they can view moral alternatives rationally.

It equates to a moral position because they are both based on a person's lived experience.

How am I all over the place. You are reading stuff into what I am saying that isn't there. I said that just because there are objective morals doesn't mean people have to follow them. Following an objective morality is different from reacting objectively in a situation despite not following objective morality.

I explained clearly my reasons for saying you were all over the place. I'll repeat them: So you go from saying that people act like there are objective morals, and yet now you say that sometimes people DON'T act like there are objective morals?

Its a simple concept. I am saying there are moral truths. Do you believe there are moral truths that apply to all people with certain moral acts?

Are you seriously not paying attention? No, I do not believe that there is any objective morality. Morality is subjective and people form their own morality.

How many times have I said this?

 

[Kylie]

So you are saying you hold the truth to whether there are objective moral values or not. You are the truth-bearer that will point people to the truth in this debate. That just adds support for what I am saying that people act like there are moral truths despite claiming they are subjective.

Tell me why does the majority of people including philosophers support objective morality.

The fact that I can point out your logica arguments are objectively flawed has no bearing on the nature of morality.

As I've said, some things have objectives truths, other things don't.

 

[VirOptimus]

First it's a logical fallacy to say that because there are different views on morality that means there are no objective morals. Second, if you peel away the different understandings that different cultures and times have then morality is remarkably similar to everyone.

For example, people use to think slavery was OK in the 1800s. That wasn't because they had different morals but rather because people use to think black people were not human or a lesser type of human. But they still agreed with us today and respected and treated human life as important. But when they came to realize that blacks were human they changed and stopped slavery.

The same as when they use to burn witches. They believed that witches were killers because they cast spells on people to kill them. So they were only doing what we do today in executing killers. But when they came to understand that there were no real witches they stopped killing women they thought were witches. So they really had the same morals as us today.

The same with different cultures. Different cultures have different understandings of how to greet someone. Some bow, some rub noses, some embrace or kiss and some shake hands. Some cultures may find kissing or embracing morally offensive. But all cultures believe that greeting someone with kindness and respect is morally right.

So it is often the different understandings that people confuse as different morals and when you peel these away everyone's moral values and duties are much the same.

No they arent.

 

[Kylie]

So if you are in an argument with someone about say abuse of women or making a protest in a march in public your position is you only think it is wrong to abuse women and that other may think it is morally good and that is OK with you. You are not really confident in your moral position as its just an opinion you think may be right.

I believe abusing women is wrong. I recognise that there are other people who may disagree with me. And yet you seem to think that means I should consider their opinion just as valid as mine. I do not.

What I am saying is there is no other way to support objective morality but for the way, people act/react like there is objective morality. That is how all philosophers and ethicists declare there are objective morals. Yet you are saying these experts are wrong. Even atheists agree there are objective morals. I have posted the support for this.

You are contradicting yourself. In post 2581, you claimed that a person's lived experience was indirect support and not the sole support for objective morality.

Now you are claiming that lived experience is the only evidence for objective morality.

And you wonder why I find your arguments unconvincing?

And once again, this "lived experience" that you are now claiming is the only way to support objective morality is a subjective experience!

But you are the one that used animals as an example of how they also act morally to support subjective morality. I am only using your argument against you. IE
Kylie said
You haven't spent much time studying animals then, have you? Animals display a huge variety of emotion, why do you think they are incapable of morality?

If you want to say that we are like animals or animals are like us morally then you have to accept the acts that we would call immoral like infanticide as an acceptable moral act.

If you actually understood my argument, you'd have understood that I was saying that since lions consider infanticide acceptable (a male lion can come into a pride, depose the male already leading the pride, kill any infants and then the female lions will accept the new male as their leader), then since their idea of what is morally acceptable and not is different to ours, that supports subjective morality.

That's because all the experts use the same argument and according to the majority of ethical experts objective morality is real. So as long as the experts support this I will continue to agree with them and promote that. You need to show how the experts are wrong. I mean even people on your side of the argument on this thread are agreeing that there are objective morals.

ALL the experts? Care to support that claim? Because I've got a source that shows there are philosophers who support moral relativism. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/

Under subjective morality, there is no grounding for morality outside humans agreed. So I am not saying they can arbitrarily change morality. I am saying that morality is subject to change and the measure for that change is arbitrary. Otherwise please tell me what the reference point is outside of humans. If the measure point is within humans then whatever and whoever can make a good argument for what is right and wrong will be the measure. That could be almost anything and we have seen this in society.

The measure point is within each person, so different people can have different moral positions. I believe I have made this very clear.

We have seen positions that have said killing in war is morally good, putting money before the environment and people are good. Teen sex and access to porn on the WWW is morally OK. Remember that moral positions don't have to be explicit but can be implicit in that society supports the system that OKs censorship laws that allow porn or violence in the media. Society basically supports subjective morality.

According to a subjective moral position, morals were developed through evolution. Evolution is based on changing environments. What we deem as morally OK now is according to the environment we have now. But in the past morality was different according to the subjective moral position so in the future morality will change according to changing environments. Because morality is equated to sociobiological processes relating to survival there could be a time where rape or killing is morally OK if it means it helps humans survive.

And your point is...?

Are you just agreeing with me that we can't force others to change their morality arbitrarily? Are you just saying that morality changes over time? I agree with that too. It was once considered immoral for a woman to socialise with a man that she was not married to, and yet that is considered fine today. Just another example of changing moral viewpoints that show that morality is subjective, not objective!

Yes that is according to the current understanding of subjective morality. But as you know there are cultures where rape and abuse of women are OK. So under a subjective/relative system you would have to accept those different subjective views as OK. You could not expect them to be forced to conform to what you think is right, could you? Otherwise, you would be taking an objective stand.

Why do you keep using that strawman? I do NOT accept that rape is okay just because there is some hypothetical culture that thinks it is.

All I have to do is accept that there is a culture that holds that position. Subjective morality does NOT require me to think that rape is sometimes okay just because this hypothetical culture thinks rape is okay.

And what happens in the future is it gets to a point where humans need to reproduce but women refuse to. Morality could change in that rape would become acceptable and people would not feel the same way they do today because rape would be an important part of helping the human species survive and women who refuse to cooperate would be seen as the immoral ones. That's because there is no independent measure and what is right and wrong depends on an arbitrary measure that depends on circumstances of survival.

lol, yes, I'm sure that there will come a time when ALL women refuse to have sex with men.

If you have to resort to cartoonishly ludicrous examples to make your point, that should suggest to your that your point is cartoonishly ludicrous.

Once again you are misrepresenting what I said. We were talking about the "Hard Problem" of consciousness and that explanations could come from a number of ideas that lie within or beyond the materialist scientific explanation. I am saying that the scientific materialist view is just one assumptive view that may not be right in the overall scheme of things. people only assume that reality is only based on a material view. For all, we know there may be more to reality than just physical reality.

Yes, there may be.

But until you can demonstrate that there IS more, we've got no rational reason to assume there is.

How does this apply to reality? Reality is something different. Even scientists say that there may be more to reality than what we see. Also, don't some scientists insist there is a multiverse?

Please show me one scientists who claims the multiverse as an objective fact.

 

[VirOptimus]

lol so who is the expert you. How can a nihilist hold the truth to moral values. Isn't that a paradoxical position and aren't you taking an objective position yourself.

The expert's position is quite simple to understand. Humans intuitively know that certain acts are always wrong despite subjective opinions and universally agreed.

But why should we believe that a value nihilist understands the experts when you already believe that moral values don't exist. Most experts disagree with this.

Argumentum ad populum is a logical fallacy.

You also dont get value nihilism, which btw is the most usual position among academics here.

And compared to you, yes I would be ”the expert” as I really do know the subject and have studied it for real in class. You obviously havent.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

True, but if I say nothing, others will see his arguments and they may think they are valid. Me responding isn't just an attempt to explain to him why they are invalid, but also an attempt to show others before they start accepting those flawed arguments as true.

But you seem to running around in circles. Must be exhausting pointing out logical fallacies over and over. Although, since none of the Christians are pointing out his obvious logical fallacies... someone has to do it...

 

[stevevw]

Argumentum ad populum is a logical fallacy.

But it's not just an argument based on popularity. It is based on expert opinion. Experts are given credibility because they are the ones that know the topic they specialize in. In this case, most philosophers and ethicists agree that objective moral values are real. I have already posted the support for this.

You also don't get value nihilism, which btw is the most usual position among academics here.

That cannot be the case because from what I have observed most seem to disagree with your position.

And compared to you, yes I would be ”the expert” as I really do know the subject and have studied it for real in class. You obviously haven't.

That's only according to you. I have studied ethics in class as part of a humanities degree.

 

[VirOptimus]

But it's not just an argument based on popularity. It is based on expert opinion. Experts are given credibility because they are the ones that know the topic they specialize in. In this case, most philosophers and ethicists agree that objective moral values are real. I have already posted the support for this.

I dont think thats the case, moral philosophers have very different views on morality and there is no consesus on the nature of morality.

That cannot be the case because from what I have observed most seem to disagree with your position.

You are wrong, you know I'm from Sweden right?

That's only according to you. I have studied ethics in class as part of a humanities degree.

Haha, I dont believe you. And anyway ethics is not the same as moral philosophy.

 

[Speedwell]

People can still think rationally about morality but human rationality is limited and subject to too many complications that make it unreliable and unworthy to be the measure of moral right and wrong.

Yes, I agree. That is why so many believe that subjective morality transcends conscious rational deliberation.

Therefore a case can be made to show that objective morality needs to come from beyond humans and from a rational, personal, and transcendent being.

Not a very convincing case so far. But I agree that morality comes from elsewhere than conscious rational deliberation.

No, I have provided support in how people use evolution, natural law, and ideas like human wellbeing or empathy as ways to determine that morality is objective.

That's odd, because it seems to me that people in this discussion were using those arguments to show that morality is not objectve.

I have also provided support to show how these ideas don't account for morality being objective and do not justify the way people intuitively act objectively when it comes to morality.

No, you have just misunderstood those ideas and made yourself look silly.

 

[Speedwell]

That's only according to you. I have studied ethics in class as part of a humanities degree.

What was your major?

 

[stevevw]

I believe abusing women is wrong. I recognise that there are other people who may disagree with me. And yet you seem to think that means I should consider their opinion just as valid as mine. I do not.

Personally you may believe that their opinion is not valid but under the system of subjective morality, you have to acknowledge that their opinion is just as valid as yours and has a right to stand as it is just another subjective opinion under that system.

You are contradicting yourself. In post 2581, you claimed that a person's lived experience was indirect support and not the sole support for objective morality.
Now you are claiming that lived experience is the only evidence for objective morality.
And you wonder why I find your arguments unconvincing?

Morality is based on philosophical beliefs that are not measured directly by science so this is a different form of evidence-based which is based on propositions. But if you want the type of evidence that you claim by science then the only way is through indirect evidence which comes from lived moral experience.

And once again, this "lived experience" that you are now claiming is the only way to support objective morality is a subjective experience!

Then why do most people IE
Most of us see ourselves as capable of recognizing what is good, bad, valuable, and worthwhile. We think of ourselves as beings whose moral beliefs — about the badness of suffering, for example — are objectively true.
https://arcdigital.media/morals-are-objective-d647dc5bf12a

People are often unwilling to think of ethics as their own preferences, rather than demands from something more transcendent. For instance, it’s normal to claim that one really wants to make one choice, but it’s only ethical to make the other.
Morality is subjective preference, but it can be objectively wrong

including the experts say that our lived experience shows there are objective morals. IE
Are there good arguments for objective morality? What do philosophers think about moral realism?
A 2009 PhilPapers survey shows that 56.4% of philosophers were moral realists, 27.7% weren’t, and 15.9% held some other position. For every philosopher who thinks there aren’t any objective moral facts, two philosophers think there are.

But even philosophers who are committed to moral anti-realism think that there are some good reasons to be a moral realist. They don’t think that proponents of objective morality are just confused, rhetorically sneaky, or crypto-theists.

But if the question was not “is moral realism true” but “is there a good case to be made for moral realism”, I suspect the percentage would jump from 56.4% to somewhere in the high nineties.
Are there good arguments for objective morality? What do philosophers think about moral realism? : AskPhilosophyFAQ

So just about all the experts in the field of ethics and morality, the ones who understand and know best about morality think there is a good case for morals being objective.

If you actually understood my argument, you'd have understood that I was saying that since lions consider infanticide acceptable (a male lion can come into a pride, depose the male already leading the pride, kill any infants and then the female lions will accept the new male as their leader), then since their idea of what is morally acceptable and not is different to ours, that supports subjective morality.

I don't get your argument, it is a strange logic. You earlier were using animals as having similar morals to humans. I was saying that if morality was created by evolution, the need to survive then just like the lion killing another lion and their cubs would be OK to do if it meant survival. In other words, evolution does not explain the moral right and wrong.

ALL the experts? Care to support that claim? Because I've got a source that shows there are philosophers who support moral relativism. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/

Please refer to the above link I have posted. Actually it seems you link lend more support for what I am saying. IE
Moral relativism is an important topic in metaethics. It is also widely discussed outside philosophy (for example, by political and religious leaders), and it is controversial among philosophers and nonphilosophers alike. This is perhaps not surprising in view of recent evidence that people's intuitions about moral relativism vary widely. Though many philosophers are quite critical of moral relativism, there are several contemporary philosophers who defend forms of it.

Your link seems to say that moral relativism is a controversial topic among philosophers. That many philosophers are critical of moral relativism and only several philosophers defend it. This supports my link that the majority of philosophers support moral realism. Just a footnote moral relativism though similar to subjective morality is a little different in that moral relativity usually applies to cultures having different moral views to their relative position.

The measure point is within each person, so different people can have different moral positions. I believe I have made this very clear.

OK then I have to point out again that
If the measurement point for moral right and wrong is within humans then whatever and whoever can make a good argument for what is right and wrong will be the measure of what is right and wrong. That could be almost anything and we have seen this in society. IE a moral wrong can be argued as right and there is no way to independently measure it is truthfully bad.

And your point is...?

My point is is that a subjective moral system cannot determine what is ultimately right or wrong morally and therefore what you consider a moral wrong can be justified as being OK to do. You have to accept that is part of the system. Whereas under an objective system I can say no that claim that the act is a valid subjective view is objectively wrong no matter what the person argues or claims.

A subjective moral system has no real authority to weed out what we would consider always wrong because there is no way to tell. Your personal opinion is not enough as the person claiming the moral position you think is horrible can claim that this is my personal view and I have just as much right as you to hold that.

Are you just agreeing with me that we can't force others to change their morality arbitrarily? Are you just saying that morality changes over time? I agree with that too. It was once considered immoral for a woman to socialise with a man that she was not married to, and yet that is considered fine today. Just another example of changing moral viewpoints that show that morality is subjective, not objective!

So what about those in other countries who believe that a woman should not have the same status as a male today. Do they have a right to hold that view under a subjective moral system?

The problem you have with trying to make moral meaning out of a subjective system is that because it always changes and allows relative and subjective positions it has to allow all those different positions whether 100 or 10 years ago or now or whether in one country or culture or another. It all doesn't matter because morals are subjective and relative and all views count. None or more right than others.

You can personally say they are wrong but under the system of subjective morality, you cannot say that differing views you may find evil are wrong. Because people who hold those evil views don't think they are evil but in fact are OK. So who is truthfully right or wrong, who knowns as there is no independent measure outside personal opinions that can inform anyone.

 

[stevevw]

What was your major?

I did two majors counseling and also child, youth, and family studies. Both having units in psychology and sociology.