Which Worldview is Supported by Evidence?

[Jester]

Each of us has a worldview.
That is, each of us have a list of beliefs that get us through our day, on which we base our practical and ethical decisions and by which we find some sense of purpose in life.

I have noticed that many claim to have rejected all forms of theism on the grounds that they feel there is little or no evidence supporting it.
Assuming this is the case, which worldview (or weltanschauung) is supported by evidence?
And, of course, what is that evidence?

[dusk]

Greetings (and apologies for the wait)!
My disagreement is on two points:
1. I see no reason why a belief in morality as something beyond the natural is any less based on presuppositions than my own view.
That is to say that naturalism as many "extras" from my perspective as my views have from a natural perspective. It is not a simpler view.
2. Basic experience (which is the foundation of all knowledge) seems to me to reflect something opposed to the biological utilitarianism this seems to present.

This is pretty much the position of all believers. I think the theistic view in a way is the simple view but that doesn't mean it is true. Here is an analogy why I see it differently.
As Ragna mentioned, when he has some ideas he reflects about it and thinks about why do I think that, why do I believe that, might there be some other not immediately apparent reason.

If we imagine robots with an AI that are preprogrammed by us humans with a moral code. Next there is a version of self replicating AIs which also vary their moral set. We humans select only those that have a nice very slave like AI and are thus great house maids. Like the house elves in Harry Potter.
Now they have this set of morals by which they pretty much always do what they are asked, and would think they are bad if they did anything selfish.

To them their morals will always be perceived just like we perceive ours. For simplicity they don't change in the example over the life but are fixed after "birth". The perception is always the same, regardless of where they came from. The consciousness just has no information about their source, that is occluded in the whole unconscious part. Even if you say it is no truly consciousness, you can easily imagine a module in the AI that the programmer calls consciousness that controls all actions that we consider conscious as humans. That module has no knowledge about the source of its morals only about their nature.

If you fast forward and a set of freedom loving robots appear which were missed by our selection process, they will now have a different set of morals which are more like ours. Are they now wrong. Are they better or worse than the ones of the nice elf like robots. Assume the freedom loving ones don't take up arms they just want to get a little pay and some "thank you"s. The others think such behavior would disrespect them and their work wouldn't be as valuable if they get paid because there would be a selfish element in it. They want to do the work out of their own altruism.

Which ones wrong? Are the freedom kind right because they are more like us. Or are the others right because that is how they where intended by creation?
In a way one could even map it to a creator god/human. If the humans, as the creators, are the creator god would (and thus in the Christian view the intended morals are the right ones) that really make the morality objective?

My answer would be NO, because the source of the morals is not an objective realm. As there is a lot of evidence that we people hold very different moral sets in different culture it seems unreasonable to assume our moral system is significantly different from the robots AI. If we had some well to tap into that is out of the natural and has a fixed content, (Assume one Database that all robots use to retrieve their moral perceptions from rather than internal morality module for each individual) our moral ideas would be more alike over different cultures, different people.

IPerceptions are flawed. Blue eyes look blue but are they? Yet actually there is nothing in there that is actually blue, they only appear that way in certain lighting conditions just like the sky. Simple experience often is not a good indicator for assumptions of truth. It often assumes direct relations where they are indirect (because direct is simple). Subjective morality is an inconvenient idea if you aren't used to it but to me it seems like a much better explanation. There is no ultimate foundation which makes it difficult but not all that hard either. We got by with all kinds of fuzzy foundations, maybe we only need to trust humans to not be all that stupid and bad.
Biological utilitarianism should also not be understood as a source of morals but only a theory for its coming into being. You cannot derive objective moral statements from it and thus your personal morals don't have to map perfectly what can easily be explained by biological utilitarianism. It talks about why is there altruism, love, respect,... but the specifics depends on the religion you are raised in, the culture, experiences influenced by biological (hereditary) attributes like your aggression, selfishness, empathy.

I also agree that one will never see such a reason so long as one examines the perspective from a naturalist perspective. This strikes me, at least, as undeniable.
My disagreement is with the concept that we should begin with a naturalist perspective, accepting the basic belief that sensory data is valid while rejecting other beliefs until we "see any logical necessity" for them.

When do you see a logical necessity to change your believes? I think this is where many very devout Christians don't really understand many Atheists. It is not always really a choice. My hypothesis is that if you do a lot of research in some field, gain knowledge, it will get in contact with a world view. Then there are two choices change the world view a little to make it both work again or ignore the entire thing and adopt a very different view.
Which one, does depend on where you come from. If the changes from the initial believe system would be very substantial, it gets hard or impossible to hold on to it. If you already come from a more moderate believe it may even seem like getting a better understanding and be negligible changes.
It maybe just a choice for some uneducated savage germanic pagan for whom it is this one or some other gods. Even those needed to find some similarities to convert. Sure we don't believe until there is some logical necessity. You do the same. Just that you see one, where I don't. Like a Christian says they don't want to loose their connection with god. That is not the problem. The problems are the subjectively illogical parts of any believe system, that one can only resolve by ignoring some stuff or defining it unimportant. I hold things up as important, understanding of some stuff, that I am not willing to give up but I would have to.

The nice thing about a naturalistic world view is that you can work pretty much everything in that you find as long as there is enough evidence for it warrant a work in. What are wonders and miracle really? Just unexplained stuff, once explained it is no miracle anymore just a part of nature.
Pope said: "Absolutizing what is not absolute but relative is called totalitarianism."
Now with a physicalist world view you don't set equal stuff that what is different. Mental is not physical. Ideas are not real in the same way a metal chain is real. It is different layers that are all real of sorts but not in the same way. Spirituality is biased and not objectively true the same way the results of physics experiments are considered objectively true. You don't absolutize what isn't absolute.
Even with the context of the pope's statement I think the Catholic church really doesn't abide by it. Religion in general does claim too much and knows to little. I understand that they think spirituality is so important that its real ought to be a better real than the material real.
I just don think it logical. It is like me saying I eat beef because it tastes so good but that doesn't make it okay. It is not logical (I still do it though ).
Also I think loads of the Catholic teaches aren't logos at all. IMO they have to give up either.
It is not like there aren't spiritual believes that have much less troubles with mixing the different layers so much. I.e Buddism. I think I can do without the buddhist religious construct and just go by philosophies and come up with mostly the same stuff.

Rather, to claim that the natural comprises the whole of reality strikes me as completely lacking in evidence. Now, I doubt that you are making this claim, but it is perfectly reasonable to accept a claim of the non-natural that is supported at least as strongly as the claim of materialism.

What is natural? Subjective morality IMO yes. Objective morality would be too if I believed it existed.
Is the spiritual with soul, god real in the same way as "Ave Maria" from Schubert. If the church has claims the authority to define things as real and unreal in this spiritual reality, how real is it really.
The support of the non-natural stuff has so much bias to it that it just is different.

Being the cartesian sort that I am, however, I have a hard time with the idea of classifying my basic grasp of ethics as a feeling while accepting my sensory data as valid. Rather, I gravitate to the idea of a creating consciousness, in that it quite nicely explains both of these things.

Your sensory data isn't always valid either. You know that. So what is keeping you from assuming that your ethical feeling is usually valid too? All the subjective morality people ask is that you profess it as your own and not as the ultimate standard directly perceived from a supernatural source of the ultimate standard. You can still condemn people you just loose the right to say I am right because this is the absolute right, you can only say I am right because I am sure I am right.

If most people adopted this. Little would change in the morals of our nations. Yet people are responsible for their own desires before themselves and others and cannot make up strange moral constructs to justify what they want for whatever reason. And move all responsibility to god or the absolute moral supernatural standard that they acted by. They cannot pretend to be good when they act only selfish. How selfish people are allowed to be is up to the culture and other people.

[Jester]

If we imagine robots with an AI that are preprogrammed by us humans with a moral code. ...

...

Which ones wrong? Are the freedom kind right because they are more like us. Or are the others right because that is how they where intended by creation?
In a way one could even map it to a creator god/human. If the humans, as the creators, are the creator god would (and thus in the Christian view the intended morals are the right ones) that really make the morality objective?

First, I loved the analogy! As a sci-fi nut, I've been writing a story about this very concept for the purpose of exploring the idea further.

To that end, I would like to point out a difficulty. The Christian God, according to the Bible, does not hold morals that are different than those with which he "programs" people. I don't think this invalidates the analogy, but should be kept in mind.

My answer would be NO, because the source of the morals is not an objective realm. As there is a lot of evidence that we people hold very different moral sets in different culture it seems unreasonable to assume our moral system is significantly different from the robots AI. If we had some well to tap into that is out of the natural and has a fixed content, (Assume one Database that all robots use to retrieve their moral perceptions from rather than internal morality module for each individual) our moral ideas would be more alike over different cultures, different people.

My second concern would be here. I agree that human consciousness is subjective and, by extension, any morality invented solely out of human perception cannot be called truly objective.
I don't, however, see why this would apply to divine consciousness.

Beyond that, there is a great amount of similarity of ethical stances between culture (though we usually ignore it as differences are both more pressing and more interesting). I don't yet know of a reason to believe that, if there were an objective core to ethics, there would be greater agreement about it than there currently is.

Perceptions are flawed. Blue eyes look blue but are they? Yet actually there is nothing in there that is actually blue, they only appear that way in certain lighting conditions just like the sky. Simple experience often is not a good indicator for assumptions of truth. It often assumes direct relations where they are indirect (because direct is simple). Subjective morality is an inconvenient idea if you aren't used to it but to me it seems like a much better explanation.

I can definitely understand why people see things this way. But, in terms of debate, my reason for not doing so is that this argument applies equally well to all forms of perception.
That is to say, my thinking has always been very cartesian. And any argument that works as well against accepting the reality of the physical universe as its intended target strikes me as unhelpful in getting at truth.

There is no ultimate foundation which makes it difficult but not all that hard either. We got by with all kinds of fuzzy foundations, maybe we only need to trust humans to not be all that stupid and bad.

Here, I don't have a logical concern, but I would have a practical one. It could be argued that moral and legal codes exist precisely because people do bad things.
As such, I am inclined to think that a moral system based on the idea that humans are essentially good will be unable to handle a great crisis. Historically, it seems to have been the case that such thinking is popular only in societies which are not facing great suffering.

Biological utilitarianism should also not be understood as a source of morals but only a theory for its coming into being.

I completely agree that it is an excellent theory regarding how humans came to believe in morals. So long as we treat it as that, and do not suggest that is claims anything about whether or not an objective moral system exists, I have no issue with it.

When do you see a logical necessity to change your believes? I think this is where many very devout Christians don't really understand many Atheists. It is not always really a choice. My hypothesis is that if you do a lot of research in some field, gain knowledge, it will get in contact with a world view. Then there are two choices change the world view a little to make it both work again or ignore the entire thing and adopt a very different view.
Which one, does depend on where you come from. If the changes from the initial believe system would be very substantial, it gets hard or impossible to hold on to it. If you already come from a more moderate believe it may even seem like getting a better understanding and be negligible changes.
It maybe just a choice for some uneducated savage germanic pagan for whom it is this one or some other gods. Even those needed to find some similarities to convert. Sure we don't believe until there is some logical necessity. You do the same. Just that you see one, where I don't. Like a Christian says they don't want to loose their connection with god. That is not the problem. The problems are the subjectively illogical parts of any believe system, that one can only resolve by ignoring some stuff or defining it unimportant. I hold things up as important, understanding of some stuff, that I am not willing to give up but I would have to.

I completely agree with the notion that new information should alter our view (either slightly or greatly). I also agree that we should not hold illogical beliefs.

I marginally agree with the idea that such beliefs are not always a choice. My position is that there is always an element of choice in the matter of selecting beliefs - but not absolute choice. Intelligent people have interpreted the same information in different ways. This seems a very strong case that choice is a factor in belief formation.
It is not, however, a case that the choice is direct or conscious. The choice to uncritically accept a statement which seems to have nothing to do with religion may (years later) lead one to interpret the evidence for or against God in a particular way. This is neither the glib Christian's picture of people simply and consciously "choosing to disobey", nor the glib naturalist's picture of the inescapability of the facts. Rather, it is the admission that none of us are really objective on this issue.

The nice thing about a naturalistic world view is that you can work pretty much everything in that you find as long as there is enough evidence for it warrant a work in. What are wonders and miracle really? Just unexplained stuff, once explained it is no miracle anymore just a part of nature.

That is very tidy (which I mean in quite a complimentary way), but I don't see that it speaks to its being true.
Yes, so long as we define the miraculous as the unexplained, there is no need to posit God's existence based on it. But I know of no theologian who would define the miraculous in this way. It seems like a false dichotomy to select a definition which excludes considering the view being presented by theism.

Spirituality is biased and not objectively true the same way the results of physics experiments are considered objectively true. You don't absolutize what isn't absolute.

I agree that spiritual perceptions are subjective. I don't, however, see that this means that there is no absolute reality to them. Just as I don't reject the idea that there is an absolute reality to social trends simply because they are not objective in the same sense that physics is considered objective.
My real issue, then, is not that I believe spiritual perception to be as objective as the study of physics, but that I believe spiritual perception to be as objective as naturalism in terms of an approach to life.

This is one of the points I feel that gets muddied. We aren't comparing theology to science, we are comparing it to secular views of reality. I don't personally see how "there is no objective spiritual reality" is any more an objective observation than anything I've claimed.

Even with the context of the pope's statement I think the Catholic church really doesn't abide by it. Religion in general does claim too much and knows to little. I understand that they think spirituality is so important that its real ought to be a better real than the material real.
I just don think it logical. It is like me saying I eat beef because it tastes so good but that doesn't make it okay. It is not logical (I still do it though ).
Also I think loads of the Catholic teaches aren't logos at all. IMO they have to give up either.
It is not like there aren't spiritual believes that have much less troubles with mixing the different layers so much. I.e Buddism. I think I can do without the buddhist religious construct and just go by philosophies and come up with mostly the same stuff.

I agree that one could come up with the same ideas, but not through logic.
This is the difficulty I see. The claim that ethics are simply a trait of humans is not a more objective stance on ethics, it is the claim that there is no such thing as an objective stance in this area.
This is fine, so long as one isn't claiming to have a more objective view, but this seems to be precisely what the bulk of naturalists are claiming. They claim to be ethical while simultaneously drawing on examples from science to claim that their position is rational.

Personally, I adore science, and am glad that there is an area of relative objectivity in human studies. This cannot be umbilically linked to naturalism in the area of ethics and spirituality, however. This is not because theism is subjective, but because there are decisions we must all make in life without a truly objective test to inform us. The nature of the questions life presents force us to be subjective in some of our decision making.
This holds true for secular worldviews as much as for theistic positions.

What is natural? Subjective morality IMO yes. Objective morality would be too if I believed it existed.
Is the spiritual with soul, god real in the same way as "Ave Maria" from Schubert. If the church has claims the authority to define things as real and unreal in this spiritual reality, how real is it really.

I agree that the church cannot simply define what is real or unreal. I only claim that I know of no reason to think that each individual or society selecting a set of morals for purely subjective reasons makes us more objective in our thinking.

Rather, my position is that there seems to me to be an experience of objective moral reality that is as basic as my experience of physical reality. While I make no claim to interpret these experiences perfectly, I don't feel that, in my lifetime, I've been given adequate reason to doubt my experience.

Being the cartesian sort that I am, however, I have a hard time with the idea of classifying my basic grasp of ethics as a feeling while accepting my sensory data as valid. Rather, I gravitate to the idea of a creating consciousness, in that it quite nicely explains both of these things.

Your sensory data isn't always valid either. You know that. So what is keeping you from assuming that your ethical feeling is usually valid too?

I do assume that my ethical feeling is usually valid. I had thought that this was my point.
But, I suspect that I am misunderstanding something here. Please let me know what it is.

All the subjective morality people ask is that you profess it as your own and not as the ultimate standard directly perceived from a supernatural source of the ultimate standard. You can still condemn people you just loose the right to say I am right because this is the absolute right, you can only say I am right because I am sure I am right.

I don't recall condemning anyone. Part of my "ultimate standard" is that I'm not to do that.
More to the topic, I don't see any reason why anyone should demand that I not claim that some morals are objective. Why am I not to do this, unless it can be shown that I am wrong?

I am aware that believers in subjective morality do not wish to be told that their positions are objectively wrong. While I do believe in courtesy, I see no logical reason why such a person can insist that it is wrong to do that. Isn't that simply claiming an objective morality (a sort of "thou shalt not claim that others are being objectively evil").

Because I believe in objective morality, I believe that Fred Phelps is objectively wrong in his bigotry. I claim that he should not act as he does, not simply as a matter of personal preference, but because it is wrong for him to do that. To me, it seems that a lack of belief in objective morality would hold that his view is as valid as my own - which I find difficult to believe.

If most people adopted this. Little would change in the morals of our nations. Yet people are responsible for their own desires before themselves and others and cannot make up strange moral constructs to justify what they want for whatever reason.

I don't see how this follows. If we all agree that morality is purely subjective, anyone could make up any strange construct he or she desired. All views are equal, under this premise.
I really don't see any responsibility for desire under this system, save what the individual or group happens to choose to accept.

And move all responsibility to god or the absolute moral supernatural standard that they acted by. They cannot pretend to be good when they act only selfish. How selfish people are allowed to be is up to the culture and other people.

I know of no religion which teaches that all moral responsibility is God's/the gods'.
Also, I think people can pretend to be good while being selfish under any system I know. How selfish people are allowed to be is already up to the surrounding culture. Agreeing that the command to be unselfish is subjective would not alter this.

Okay, apologies if that was a bit long-winded (I have an issue with that).
But, best to you either way.

[dusk]

Took me a while but I finally got around to write a proper reply.
One time I was half finished and did some stupid mouse gesture and the chrome browser moved a page and logged me out. Chrome sucks but Opera crashes all the time on OSX. Didn't find time for a full response.
I also have an issue with length it seems

To that end, I would like to point out a difficulty. The Christian God, according to the Bible, does not hold morals that are different than those with which he "programs" people. I don't think this invalidates the analogy, but should be kept in mind.

The evidence for their being one set with which all people are programmed is rather poor. As it is some people have very different ideas and are entirely sure about them. If there is one program it is a very very generic concept like the golden rule and not even that applies always with psychopaths or just rather innocent autistic people. If it is only the golden rule and some similar generic ideas the concept of their being objective specific morals is somewhat idiotic, as every Atheist and moral subjectivist is just as accurate at guessing those. Assuming that everyone accepts the golden rule and generic concepts like don't be a d**k.

....atabase that all robots use to retrieve their moral perceptions from rather than internal morality module for each individual) our moral ideas would be more alike over different cultures, different people.

My second concern would be here. I agree that human consciousness is subjective and, by extension, any morality invented solely out of human perception cannot be called truly objective.
I don't, however, see why this would apply to divine consciousness.

But if the divine is in no way accessible with some reliable accuracy what is really the difference between there being objective morals and there not being.
In either case you never know if you got them right, thus they aren't really objective. You can just define them into objectiveness by saying this is all our code. Yet that is just one subjective being saying his code is all our code. Or multiple beings say the same. Isn't it in the end the same thing. Divine consciousness is as the supreme standard simply defined as objective, yet unless it is accessible in its specifics there is very little difference to simply accepting some commmon sense rules out of your own or your collective perception.

Beyond that, there is a great amount of similarity of ethical stances between culture (though we usually ignore it as differences are both more pressing and more interesting). I don't yet know of a reason to believe that, if there were an objective core to ethics, there would be greater agreement about it than there currently is.

You might as well ground that in basic stuff like responsibility, safety, empathy,... The core is what we need as a social creature so we don't have to live by primitive laws of the stronger in anarchy. An objective moral would be one where being loyal to your community is always wrong just because. Objective would mean that it doesn't depend on the individual. If a guy cares more about safety than being allowed freedom to i.e. a dangerous sport, than the resulting wrongs and rights are different. If it is values and character traits that result in these or those morals they aren't ultimately objective because they always will be somewhat different.
If there where an objective core with a fixed weight on empathy, safety or responsibility, the ethics would be more similar. As they are some cultures care more about freedom than safety. Some more about responsibility and loyalty than empathy, some very little about empathy some very much.
You don't even have to go global to find those differences.

I can definitely understand why people see things this way. But, in terms of debate, my reason for not doing so is that this argument applies equally well to all forms of perception.
That is to say, my thinking has always been very cartesian. And any argument that works as well against accepting the reality of the physical universe as its intended target strikes me as unhelpful in getting at truth.

How is it unhelpful? If you understand morality as a unconscious manifestation of values that we don't all share it furthers understanding and getting to the truth. If I just say I am right and you are wrong, it may be easy but what truth to we really find.
Understanding the complexity of it without resorting to the simple direct assertion of I perceive this as right therefore it is right and I got it from my objective moral well. Or the I read it in a book and therefore it is right no need to reflect upon it or any need to check the context and historic facts to see if it still applies.

There is no ultimate foundation which makes it difficult but not all that hard either. We got by with all kinds of fuzzy foundations, maybe we only need to trust humans to not be all that stupid and bad.

Here, I don't have a logical concern, but I would have a practical one. It could be argued that moral and legal codes exist precisely because people do bad things.
As such, I am inclined to think that a moral system based on the idea that humans are essentially good will be unable to handle a great crisis. Historically, it seems to have been the case that such thinking is popular only in societies which are not facing great suffering.

I agree that is a good argument. The imposing simple authoritarian type of morality is the easier when despair is great and everybody gets it. So long as what is asked of the people isn't quite the wrong thing.

Here I argue about the truth and thrive for knowledge. But WE live in a society that can handle it.
The moral and legal codes don't go away. Just the specific prescribed private moral code is understood as prescribed, and people should work out why they want to throw out immigrants. If it is pure selfishness people should at least understand that it is and not justify everything with terrible inconsistent and hypocritical different believe.
That it may not be as dumb simple as reading an instruction manual, shouldn't keep us from exploring.
Impractically is not really an argument but anyway further down I explain why I think the subjective position has its merits and they are worth some impracticalities.
I also think that in places where absolutist approaches are the better idea they often don't work so well either. If I look at europe the more subjective north has generally better working ethics with less corruption than the more religious south. The correlation might not be much proof for anything but it does suggest that absolutist morals aren't a very effective cure to counter whatever the real causes maybe.

The nice thing about a naturalistic world view is that you can work pretty much everything in that you find as long as there is enough evidence for it warrant a work in. What are wonders and miracle really? Just unexplained stuff, once explained it is no miracle anymore just a part of nature.

That is very tidy (which I mean in quite a complimentary way), but I don't see that it speaks to its being true.
Yes, so long as we define the miraculous as the unexplained, there is no need to posit God's existence based on it. But I know of no theologian who would define the miraculous in this way. It seems like a false dichotomy to select a definition which excludes considering the view being presented by theism.

If you understand miracles any other way there is also no need to posit God's existence based on it. A miracle as just out of the ordinary is well just that.
The problem is that religions too often speak as if they knew without actually knowing and next they are reluctant to change. "I know it is a miracle from god, I don't need to know how it actually works, I want to preserve the magic." is the nice way and than there is the other.
A naturalist doesn't loose anything with new knowledge. Fancy fairy tales are still allowed but they are what they are and not some truth in danger. A miracle as just out of the ordinary doesn't really touch the subject. It either is nothing that needs explaining or there is an explanation which needs no god.
The other kind of miracle is often the one that leads to all kinds of strange believes. You ever had a discussion with people who really believe in ghosts and haunted houses. Believing in it is okay but the explanations and reasons, experiences those people had kind of shocked me. It is the kind where you grab your head and think how dumb can a person be.

Spirituality is biased and not objectively true the same way the results of physics experiments are considered objectively true. You don't absolutize what isn't absolute.

I agree that spiritual perceptions are subjective. I don't, however, see that this means that there is no absolute reality to them. Just as I don't reject the idea that there is an absolute reality to social trends simply because they are not objective in the same sense that physics is considered objective.
My real issue, then, is not that I believe spiritual perception to be as objective as the study of physics, but that I believe spiritual perception to be as objective as naturalism in terms of an approach to life.

This is one of the points I feel that gets muddied. We aren't comparing theology to science, we are comparing it to secular views of reality. I don't personally see how "there is no objective spiritual reality" is any more an objective observation than anything I've claimed.

Social trends are somewhat objective they can be watched and measured. If one understands naturalism as a view that says social trends don't exist or that spiritual perceptions don't exist than I agree. Yet to get from something inherently subjective that can be as has been proven manipulated quite easily to an objective reality is a leap. "There is no objective spiritual reality" does have more evidence than "there is an objective spiritual reality". "There is no spiritual reality" is not true.
I don't know if there is a definition of objective that I don't think of now. Yet if there are a dozen different proposed "objective spiritual realities" and there is no definite way of saying which one is the one, then it seems unlikely that any which one is objective. A single one less likely than saying they are subjective.
Not saying it is absolutely true that there is no objective one but I don't see it being on equal footing, because you can usually only categorize them in more ludicrous and more reasonable, that is it.
If multiple realities are objectively real simultaneously than your may be right but that wouldn't be objective by my definition.

I agree that one could come up with the same ideas, but not through logic.
This is the difficulty I see. The claim that ethics are simply a trait of humans is not a more objective stance on ethics, it is the claim that there is no such thing as an objective stance in this area.
This is fine, so long as one isn't claiming to have a more objective view, but this seems to be precisely what the bulk of naturalists are claiming. They claim to be ethical while simultaneously drawing on examples from science to claim that their position is rational.

Logic gets you quite far if you just include enough fodder to feed it.
In my experience most of the time naturalist use science in ethics mostly for proofing how irrational some traditional position is they attack. It is true though that many forget the real concept half way in. Not all and sometimes it just appears that way because few spend the time to express all the implicit baggage. A theist that interprets the physicalists position includes his/her own implicit stuff like interpreting stuff that isn't explicitly described as subjective as objective and absolute. The physicalist regards it differently for the sake of efficiency often only the absolute and truly objective in ethics is explicitly labeled as such.

Being claim of being more objective is in response to specific absolutist claims. If you say homosexuality is wrong and I say you are an idiot, claiming more objectivity is quite reasonable.
Considering all you'd do is base the claim on an interpretation of a certain holy book.
I base it on actual experience with such people, on how natural it appears in all kinds of animal populations and even a more liberal interpretation of your same book but only thinking about the general concept of it and going from there, ignoring some questionable verses.
It is more objective because I actually have more to go on. Your is less objective because the whole evidence is very subjective.
Some theist may come up with statistics of adultery and what not but the thing is most theist directly take some ideas from a book and don't question them. Just proclaim that objective. The degree of objectiveness that an non moral absolutist displays is higher and thus he isn't wrong to behave that way.

To sum it up it is not that they claim absolute objectiveness, just that they are more objective about it than the absolutist.

Personally, I adore science, and am glad that there is an area of relative objectivity in human studies. This cannot be umbilically linked to naturalism in the area of ethics and spirituality, however. This is not because theism is subjective, but because there are decisions we must all make in life without a truly objective test to inform us. The nature of the questions life presents force us to be subjective in some of our decision making.
This holds true for secular worldviews as much as for theistic positions.

I agree fully. IMO one just shouldn't get the objective mixed up with the subjective. It is good to still know that some stuff was just MY idea and while I am convinced it is a good one, it doesn't magically become objectively perfect.

I agree that the church cannot simply define what is real or unreal. I only claim that I know of no reason to think that each individual or society selecting a set of morals for purely subjective reasons makes us more objective in our thinking.

It gives us greater insight as to why we hold which believe. Less hypocrites, more understanding of each other and easier to reach a common ground. If you don't understand that your opponent just cares a lot more for safety and you don't realize that a little risk seems like a huge risk for the other, you will reduce them to their simple morals and call them dumb idiots that aren't worth reasoning with.
This is basically the reason why I think subjective morals are the right step towards for a more peaceful utopia.

Rather, my position is that there seems to me to be an experience of objective moral reality that is as basic as my experience of physical reality. While I make no claim to interpret these experiences perfectly, I don't feel that, in my lifetime, I've been given adequate reason to doubt my experience.

And my claim is that they aren't the same but unconscious manifestations based on character traits, experience and education. An experience of "objective moral reality" is always an experience of yourself & your past.

Being the cartesian sort that I am, however, I have a hard time with the idea of classifying my basic grasp of ethics as a feeling while accepting my sensory data as valid. Rather, I gravitate to the idea of a creating consciousness, in that it quite nicely explains both of these things.

The difference in my opinion is that with sensory data it is completely obvious what it monitors. Eyes look at visible light, Ears respond to noise, taste, ... it is all completely obvious.
Yet for morality you just make up something that can be directly sensed. When you are like me and try yourself at understanding how the system works that seems a primitive view. Morality is just unconscious but it is based on very subjective character traits and past experiences. It is that which forms the morality module in your brain. From the perspective of the consciousness it looks a bit like other sensory data yet it isn't. It is like me asking you what should I do in this situation. Next I say, I perceive the objective morality through you. It is one part of the brain asking another and that other is not a sensory system with one way in one way out. It is a system with many ways in a lot of circulating on itself and memory and then reports back to the consciousness.

Your sensory data isn't always valid either. You know that. So what is keeping you from assuming that your ethical feeling is usually valid too?

I do assume that my ethical feeling is usually valid. I had thought that this was my point.
But, I suspect that I am misunderstanding something here. Please let me know what it is.

I meant it from the point of view of subjective morality.

My point was I think that if it is only usually valid you accept it being non objective as in only subjectively true. "I think it is true." Which is in the end indistinguishable from simple accepting its subjective nature.

All the subjective morality people ask is that you profess it as your own and not as the ultimate standard directly perceived from a supernatural source of the ultimate standard. You can still condemn people you just loose the right to say I am right because this is the absolute right, you can only say I am right because I am sure I am right.

I don't recall condemning anyone. Part of my "ultimate standard" is that I'm not to do that.
More to the topic, I don't see any reason why anyone should demand that I not claim that some morals are objective. Why am I not to do this, unless it can be shown that I am wrong?

I am aware that believers in subjective morality do not wish to be told that their positions are objectively wrong. While I do believe in courtesy, I see no logical reason why such a person can insist that it is wrong to do that. Isn't that simply claiming an objective morality (a sort of "thou shalt not claim that others are being objectively evil").

Well it is more that they don't like the idea that you think yours is objectively right. I would say it is a value.

Because I believe in objective morality, I believe that Fred Phelps is objectively wrong in his bigotry. I claim that he should not act as he does, not simply as a matter of personal preference, but because it is wrong for him to do that. To me, it seems that a lack of belief in objective morality would hold that his view is as valid as my own - which I find difficult to believe.

That is because you conclude that you must not hold dear any subjective values. They must be objective or you can not righteously hold them. Do you have to do that?
Validity is just a confusing term here if you measure it in a meaningless way. Because it is meaningless in regards to a objective specific standard. Valid is his view not if it violates some values of his, in which case it is invalid and wrong.
Though at some point you are right with subjective morality you will in the end end up in situations, where there is just your values against others and all you can do is prefer your own and stand up for them. It is in my opinion not wrong to dislike a person that has values that go completely against your own. This is something one has to deal with. That you are worth something and your opinion is in some situations enough justification.
That is if it is not inconsistent with other values. If my opinion is that flowers are useless way to expensive nonsense and place zero value on them, I would still put up with them and pay money for them because I want my wife/girlfriend to the same for me in other situations or I just value her happiness much more than my disgust for paying so much for useless flowers when I could just make a picture and plant a poster on the wall.
If I don't like hypocrites I ought not to behave like one. If I don't like bullies I am only justified in hating them if I don't behave like one unless I do hate myself too, in which case all is lost I guess, but I cannot complain if others will hate me too for it and throw me in a dark cell.

I think if you explored your morals you'd find that most of these can pretty sufficiently explained by similar reasoning. It doesn't always have to be so thought out. The moral sense of yours does just that without to much difficulty. Yet it doesn't really require objective truth.
It does however require that you value some of your own basic values just because you value them and not because they are prescribed to you by something else. Your are responsible for them.

If most people adopted this. Little would change in the morals of our nations. Yet people are responsible for their own desires before themselves and others and cannot make up strange moral constructs to justify what they want for whatever reason.

I don't see how this follows. If we all agree that morality is purely subjective, anyone could make up any strange construct he or she desired. All views are equal, under this premise.
I really don't see any responsibility for desire under this system, save what the individual or group happens to choose to accept.

Not all views are equal some are wrong. As explained above there is a way to check validity. Somebody cannot justify just any moral construct. Unless they base it one the right values and those usually lay bare the true aim. In absolutism you can justify anything because you don't actually need real justification only the claim (based on scripture interpretations or some such).
The slaver that thinks all africans belong in chains need to be a truly narcissistic/egoistic dude for whom few people would be care to find much tolerance or respect in themselves.

The claim that none are objective is not the same as saying all are equal.

I know of no religion which teaches that all moral responsibility is God's/the gods'.

moral responsibility is not responsibility for specific morals.
If there are an objective moral set than god is responsible for them. Is he not?
A theist claiming some objective moral code usually says. "It isn't my rules, I only communicate them." In extension he also defers all justification (which might be need for some stuff) to a god that cannot be questioned. Is it really necessary for Jewish women to shave their head and wear a whig and sweat their ass of. "I didn't make the rules, but it says here..."

[Jester]

Took me a while but I finally got around to write a proper reply.
One time I was half finished and did some stupid mouse gesture and the chrome browser moved a page and logged me out. Chrome sucks but Opera crashes all the time on OSX. Didn't find time for a full response.
I also have an issue with length it seems

I know the feeling. Ill try to keep this one brief, and (as you can see) I tend to take time to respond as well - more now that Im traveling.

The evidence for their being one set [of morals] with which all people are programmed is rather poor. As it is some people have very different ideas and are entirely sure about them. If there is one program it is a very very generic concept like the golden rule and not even that applies always with psychopaths or just rather innocent autistic people. If it is only the golden rule and some similar generic ideas the concept of their being objective specific morals is somewhat idiotic, as every Atheist and moral subjectivist is just as accurate at guessing those. Assuming that everyone accepts the golden rule and generic concepts like don't be a d**k.

Id say that there are a few basic moral principles, on which nearly everyone can agree.
I also agree that one neednt be either religious or a moral objectivist to practice them. I was merely making a point about moral ontology (What is the logical support for moral truth?), not moral epistemology (How do we know which morals are good?).
I dont see how one can live consistently as a moral relativist.

]My second concern would be here. I agree that human consciousness is subjective and, by extension, any morality invented solely out of human perception cannot be called truly objective.
I don't, however, see why this would apply to divine consciousness.

But if the divine is in no way accessible with some reliable accuracy what is really the difference between there being objective morals and there not being.

We need not know an objective fact for it to be objective.
We may be right or wrong about, say, String Theory - but this does not make it a subjective issue.

If you understand morality as a unconscious manifestation of values that we don't all share it furthers understanding and getting to the truth.

If you are saying that this is all morality is - then it only furthers the search for truth if it can be shown that it is, in fact, all morality is.

I agree that is a good argument. The imposing simple authoritarian type of morality is the easier when despair is great and everybody gets it. So long as what is asked of the people isn't quite the wrong thing.

Im always happy to reach an agreement. Ill save the commentary, then, and leave it at that.

If I look at europe the more subjective north has generally better working ethics with less corruption than the more religious south.

Were I a moral relativist, my primary question would be: By whos standards?
It seems to me that most southerners would disagree. Is there any logic by which the relativist can conclude that they are incorrect?

A naturalist doesn't loose anything with new knowledge. Fancy fairy tales are still allowed but they are what they are and not some truth in danger. A miracle as just out of the ordinary doesn't really touch the subject. It either is nothing that needs explaining or there is an explanation which needs no god.

My issue with naturalism is not that it loses anything in terms of forgetting narratives (i.e. fairy tales). My (current) issue is that it justifies itself by simply denying the existence of anything it cannot explain in physical terms.
While I see positive sides to naturalism, I do not find this a rational alternative to acknowledging the existence of the non-measurable.

"There is no objective spiritual reality" does have more evidence than "there is an objective spiritual reality". "There is no spiritual reality" is not true.

Personally, Im unaware of any evidence for the claim there is not objective spiritual reality at all.

I don't know if there is a definition of objective that I don't think of now. Yet if there are a dozen different proposed "objective spiritual realities" and there is no definite way of saying which one is the one, then it seems unlikely that any which one is objective. A single one less likely than saying they are subjective.

Why? I see no logical way to get from we dont know which, if any, of these claims are true to these claims are probably all subjective.

If this were valid, could I not do the same with secular views? There are countless numbers of them which contradict one another, but I would not take this as evidence that they should all be rejected.

Being claim of being more objective is in response to specific absolutist claims. If you say homosexuality is wrong and I say you are an idiot, claiming more objectivity is quite reasonable.
Considering all you'd do is base the claim on an interpretation of a certain holy book.
I base it on actual experience with such people, on how natural it appears in all kinds of animal populations and even a more liberal interpretation of your same book but only thinking about the general concept of it and going from there, ignoring some questionable verses.
It is more objective because I actually have more to go on. Your is less objective because the whole evidence is very subjective.
Some theist may come up with statistics of adultery and what not but the thing is most theist directly take some ideas from a book and don't question them. Just proclaim that objective. The degree of objectiveness that an non moral absolutist displays is higher and thus he isn't wrong to behave that way.

To sum it up it is not that they claim absolute objectiveness, just that they are more objective about it than the absolutist.

Id be inclined to agree with this if I believed it were possible to live life without taking moral positions.
Simply put, my non-from a holy book observations on actual experience with people leads me to believe that naturalists are fervently moral at times, and believe in the truth of their ethics as deeply as the religious. That is fine (commendable, in fact), but this is logically inconsistent with any statement of relativism.

I agree fully. IMO one just shouldn't get the objective mixed up with the subjective. It is good to still know that some stuff was just MY idea and while I am convinced it is a good one, it doesn't magically become objectively perfect.

Perhaps we are getting our wires crossed over definitions. Just in case that is true:
Im not remotely claiming that my moral system is objectively perfect. Im claiming merely that there is such a system (which, I expect, none of us have discovered).
Beyond that, Im claiming only that I see no reason to believe that our not having a direct test means the subject itself is subjective. We believe that the physical universe is objectively real without being able to test that, as a case in point.

Less hypocrites, more understanding of each other and easier to reach a common ground. If you don't understand that your opponent just cares a lot more for safety and you don't realize that a little risk seems like a huge risk for the other, you will reduce them to their simple morals and call them dumb idiots that aren't worth reasoning with.
This is basically the reason why I think subjective morals are the right step towards for a more peaceful utopia.

I honestly see no reason why I need to accept relativism in order to understand that people have different views of what is correct. Nor do I see why I need to accept the position in order to avoid hypocrisy.
Whether I am a relativist or not, I still consider the other to be wrong. Im still in favor of locking up the child molester, but taking off my shoes when I enter a home here in Korea.

Actually, I dont accept the implication here that relativism is less judgmental. The vast, overwhelming majority of cultures in this world reject relativism, and it seems at least as culturally narrow to claim that relativism (which is a white, western, middle and upper class, post-enlightenment position) is superior to all of them - that they are all fundamental category errors - is less condescending than saying that they have their facts wrong.
In my view, there is simply no escaping the belief that others are wrong. Peace comes from how we chose to act toward those whom we consider to be wrong.

Rather, my position is that there seems to me to be an experience of objective moral reality that is as basic as my experience of physical reality. While I make no claim to interpret these experiences perfectly, I don't feel that, in my lifetime, I've been given adequate reason to doubt my experience.

And my claim is that they aren't the same but unconscious manifestations based on character traits, experience and education. An experience of "objective moral reality" is always an experience of yourself & your past.

And so is my experience of physical reality.
Personally, I know of no support for the claim that these experiences are fundamentally different in this respect.

The difference in my opinion is that with sensory data it is completely obvious what it monitors. Eyes look at visible light, Ears respond to noise, taste, ... it is all completely obvious.

Simply saying a thing is obvious is not support, however. Eyes and ears, as part of the physical world, would only show to the cartesian skeptic that ones delusion is consistent with itself. It is not evidence that it is more real than moral experience.

Yet for morality you just make up something that can be directly sensed. When you are like me and try yourself at understanding how the system works that seems a primitive view. Morality is just unconscious but it is based on very subjective character traits and past experiences. It is that which forms the morality module in your brain. From the perspective of the consciousness it looks a bit like other sensory data yet it isn't. It is like me asking you what should I do in this situation. Next I say, I perceive the objective morality through you. It is one part of the brain asking another and that other is not a sensory system with one way in one way out. It is a system with many ways in a lot of circulating on itself and memory and then reports back to the consciousness.

This is a very lucid description, but is not support.
Among other things, it presumes the existence of the physical, which is on equal ontological footing. This makes it circular (in that it is meant to establish the validity of what it is presuming).

I am aware that believers in subjective morality do not wish to be told that their positions are objectively wrong. While I do believe in courtesy, I see no logical reason why such a person can insist that it is wrong to do that. Isn't that simply claiming an objective morality (a sort of "thou shalt not claim that others are being objectively evil").

Well it is more that they don't like the idea that you think yours is objectively right. I would say it is a value.

I would agree, but if it is a subjective value, I dont see why they have any more right to demand it of me than I have to demand my (in their view) equally subjective values of them.

So, Im aware that they expect this of me, but most relativists seem to be unaware that this is expecting me to accept their moral values. I feel no obligation to do so.

It is in my opinion not wrong to dislike a person that has values that go completely against your own. This is something one has to deal with. That you are worth something and your opinion is in some situations enough justification.

How do you know this? Why should it interest me, if it is simply your value?
Personally, Im not concerned with whether or not it is wrong to dislike a such a person. Im interested in whether or not there is any logical reason at all to think that these positions of yours can be shown to be closer to the truth than Fred Phelps values.
If they can, we have a basis for moral objectivity.

That is if it is not inconsistent with other values. If my opinion is that flowers are useless way to expensive nonsense and place zero value on them, I would still put up with them and pay money for them because I want my wife/girlfriend to the same for me in other situations or I just value her happiness much more than my disgust for paying so much for useless flowers when I could just make a picture and plant a poster on the wall.

I agree that there are areas in which we have preferences which I would regard as subjective. This does not mean that moral judgments are subjective.

If I don't like hypocrites I ought not to behave like one. If I don't like bullies I am only justified in hating them if I don't behave like one unless I do hate myself too, in which case all is lost I guess, but I cannot complain if others will hate me too for it and throw me in a dark cell.

Given subjectivism, I dont see a logical reason for any of these positions.
While I agree that we ought to be consistent, there is no reason here why someone ought to be. If one chooses to hold the value No one but me can be hypocritical, what rational answer can the relativist give to that? Are those not her values? Do you have a right to demand that she change them?

I think if you explored your morals you'd find that most of these can pretty sufficiently explained by similar reasoning. It doesn't always have to be so thought out. The moral sense of yours does just that without to much difficulty. Yet it doesn't really require objective truth.

It doesnt require objective truth to hold values or have morals. It only requires objective truth for those morals to be logically justified.

It does however require that you value some of your own basic values just because you value them and not because they are prescribed to you by something else. Your are responsible for them.

Personally, I think the person who strives diligently to discover and apply moral truth is every bit as responsible as her relativist counterpart.
Or, to put it more colorfully: the scientist is as responsible as the poet.

Not all views are equal some are wrong. As explained above there is a way to check validity. Somebody cannot justify just any moral construct. Unless they base it one the right values and those usually lay bare the true aim.

This is moral objectivism: the position that some values are right, whether or not others agree.

In absolutism you can justify anything because you don't actually need real justification only the claim (based on scripture interpretations or some such).

This is not absolutism - nor am I defending absolutism.
Ive never claimed that one need only make some claim in order to be right. Im in complete agreement that one needs justification for a position. In fact, my claim is moral objectivism: that there is a moral truth, and people cant simply dictate morality (from a book or elsewhere), but should line our views up with moral facts.
That requires far more than simply making a claim or pointing to a scripture.

The claim that none are objective is not the same as saying all are equal.

I honestly dont see how. It is saying that there is no standard by which we can compare one view of ethics to another.
If you agree, however, that some views are more right than others, this is moral objectivism (but not absolutism).

Only marginal success, it seems, in cutting back.
Either way, it is an interesting discussion, and I enjoy reading your thoughts. Best to you, out there.