Arguments for Non-Subjective Morality

[Divine Insight]

In another thread The Tanager has requested a separate thread for his argument for the existence of a Non-Subjective morality.

You made the claim that subjective morality exists in that other thread and this one. I am responding to that claim. I'm also willing afterwards to offer my own reasons for believing in non-subjective morality. If and/or how would one come to know what the non-subjective morality is would be an additional question, but it does not settle this one that we are talking about because of the claims you have made. After this discussion, start a thread on that and I'll share my thoughts.

I would be very interested to hear these arguments.

If and/or how would one come to know what the non-subjective morality is would be an additional question

I agree. First we need to have reasons to even suspect that such a thing exists. I would like to hear those arguments first.

But yes, if those initial arguments are compelling (which I confess to being skeptic about already), a far more important question would be the question of how we could come to know what those moral rules are.

Without this additional knowledge the existence of a non-subjective morality would be useless. A system of morality whose content cannot be known would be meaningless.

So yes, we not only need to have arguments for the existence of a non-subjective morality, but we then need to know precisely what it contains without ambiguity.

Any ambiguity would bring us right back to having to subjectively guess what we think it might contain anyway. So that would hardly be useful and would instantly return us right back to a state of subjective morality.

So yes, we don't just need to know that an objective morality exists, but we also need to know precisely what it contains.

[Artie]

Why do you consider that an objective moral truth? Does it not ring any warning bells in your head when you have to appeal to a specialist dictionary to find a definition that define morality along the lines of beneficial to society?

No. "Morals are the prevailing standards of behavior that enable people to live cooperatively in groups. https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/morals

LOL. What you subjectively think is moral isn't necessarily moral or objectively moral.

There you go presuming moral objectivism again; under subjectivism, what I subjectively think is moral is necessarily moral.

I see! So when you subjectively think something is moral it is necessarily moral! And when your neighbor subjectively thinks the same thing is immoral it is necessarily immoral at the same time! So subjectivism is completely useless then for establishing any kind of moral truths.

[Divine Insight]

I see! So when you subjectively think something is moral it is necessarily moral! And when your neighbor subjectively thinks the same thing is immoral it is necessarily immoral at the same time! So subjectivism is completely useless then for establishing any kind of moral truths.

YES! Subjective morality is NOT objective morality. You got it!

It's just a human concept of morality based on human opinions that individual humans don't even agree on.

Subjective morality is indeed completely useless when it comes to trying to establish any kind of objective moral truths. That's right!

The very concept of "objective moral truths" is a human created idea. It's an idealized conceptual dream that has no objective counterpart in our reality. That's the reality of our situation.

[Bust Nak]

No. "Morals are the prevailing standards of behavior that enable people to live cooperatively in groups. https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/morals

Sure, moral so enable people to live cooperatively in groups, but this article stopped short at equating moral with acts that is beneficial to society.

It even went as far as to state that "morality describes the particular values of a specific group at a specific point in time." Does that gel with your idea of morality being tied to evolution, I mean, we haven't evolved that much biologically since the time where slavery is prevalent in the US.

I see! So when you subjectively think something is moral it is necessarily moral!

...IF moral subjectivism is true.

And when your neighbor subjectively thinks the same thing is immoral it is necessarily immoral at the same time! So subjectivism is completely useless then for establishing any kind of moral truths.

Objectivism is also useless for that. So we are even on that front.

[Divine Insight]

And when your neighbor subjectively thinks the same thing is immoral it is necessarily immoral at the same time! So subjectivism is completely useless then for establishing any kind of moral truths.

Objectivism is also useless for that. So we are even on that front.

If an objective morality could be shown to actually exist it wouldn't be useless.

However, until someone can point to the "Stone of Objective Morality" sitting in some imagined Platonic World where we could read what's carved on it, then the very idea of an objective morality is meaningless.

And thus far, no one who argues for an objective morality can produce it.

Artie's argument that it's objectively wired into human brains fails miserably. So pointing to human brains as the residence of objective morality doesn't work.

~~~~~~~

I feel the following also needs to be said:

If there exists an objective morality then our universe does not obey those moral laws. Unless it's objectively morally okay to murder, steal, rape, cheat and lie.

The universe in which we live does not even meet the standards of human subjective moral opinions.

If there exists an objective morality that rises to the level of human subjective morality, then our universe is an immoral universe. Either naturally immoral (which then flies in the face of morality being naturally objective) , or it has been designed to be an immoral universe by an immoral creator.

Either way clearly fails miserably.

So morality existing solely as human opinions is all that can be true.

Morality as a construct of human subjective opinions is clearly all that exists.

Morality as an objective Platonic object clearly cannot exist. Both, nature and any Gods would necessarily be in violation of the Platonic objective morality. Unless that moral rock basically has carved on it, "Anything goes!"

[Bust Nak]

If an objective morality could be shown to actually exist it wouldn't be useless.

I was making the point that objectivism just says there exists objective moral facts, but it doesn't tell us what those facts are.

[Artie]

I see! So when you subjectively think something is moral it is necessarily moral! And when your neighbor subjectively thinks the same thing is immoral it is necessarily immoral at the same time! So subjectivism is completely useless then for establishing any kind of moral truths.

YES! Subjective morality is NOT objective morality. You got it!

It's just a human concept of morality based on human opinions that individual humans don't even agree on.

Subjective morality is indeed completely useless when it comes to trying to establish any kind of objective moral truths. That's right!

The very concept of "objective moral truths" is a human created idea. It's an idealized conceptual dream that has no objective counterpart in our reality. That's the reality of our situation.

I see! Nothing is good/right/moral, everything is good/right/moral! Nothing is bad/wrong/immoral, everything is bad/wrong/immoral! Nobody is doing anything right! Nobody is doing anything wrong! It just depends on the subjective opinion of the individual! Something can be right and wrong at the same time! Well, there goes the law of contradiction out the window...

[Divine Insight]

If an objective morality could be shown to actually exist it wouldn't be useless.

I was making the point that objectivism just says there exists objective moral facts, but it doesn't tell us what those facts are.

Well, if it can't say what the moral facts are, then it's useless, right?

[Divine Insight]

I see! Nothing is good/right/moral, everything is good/right/moral! Nothing is bad/wrong/immoral, everything is bad/wrong/immoral! Nobody is doing anything right! Nobody is doing anything wrong! It just depends on the subjective opinion of the individual! Something can be right and wrong at the same time! Well, there goes the law of contradiction out the window...

There is no contradiction once you realize that morality is nothing other than human opinions.

Where you see a contradiction is if this were to be applied to a concept of objective morality.,

Apparently you can't get past the idea of objective morality. You keep demanding that certain things must be absolutely right, or absolutely wrong, somehow carved in stone relative to the entire universe and reality.

Even your idea of basing morality on what's best for human society is not an objective morality. What if a human society is destroying the habitat of another species and causing them to go extinct? Now your human-centric morality is relative only to humans.

No matter how hard you try you cannot create a universal objective morality that isn't at least dependent on what humans think is important for them. (i.e. dependent on human subjective opinions).

[Bust Nak]

I see! Nothing is good/right/moral, everything is good/right/moral! Nothing is bad/wrong/immoral, everything is bad/wrong/immoral! Nobody is doing anything right! Nobody is doing anything wrong! It just depends on the subjective opinion of the individual! Something can be right and wrong at the same time! Well, there goes the law of contradiction out the window...

You are still operating under the presumption of objectivism. Something be right and wrong at the same time isn't any more a contradiction than person A liking strawberry ice-cream over vanilla while person B liking vanilla ice-cream over strawberry.

You understand people have different food tastes, right? Why does that working knowledge suddenly goes out of the window when the context is changed to morality? Even if you don't accept moral subjectivism, you should still be able to apply the same reasoning to morality.

[Artie]

There is no contradiction once you realize that morality is nothing other than human opinions.

Where you see a contradiction is if this were to be applied to a concept of objective morality.

If one person subjectively says something is good/right/moral and another person subjectively says the same thing is bad/right/immoral there's no contradiction? The law of contradiction says that something can't be good/right/moral and bad/wrong/immoral at the same time... it means that one of them must be wrong...