Objective Morality

[x1plus1x]

The question about objective morality is something that I have done a lot of thinking about.

Let me define what I mean by Objective Morality. By Objective, I mean a perspective that is not influenced by emotions or personal prejudices. In other words: outside of opinion. An example of an objective truth is "1+1=2", this is true no matter who analyzes it. When I say Morality I mean the idea of right and wrong, which is often associated with good and evil. People who are seen as lacking a moral compass are often described as committing evil acts.

It is my view that morality stems directly from a particular society. I do not believe that there is an objective morality. There is no act which can be agreed upon to be morally wrong by everyone from every civilization that ever existed.

Morality is strictly attached to society.

One big example that I can point to is murder. We in the modern world pretty much all agree that we shouldn't kill each other (although we do it anyways).. So surely murder has an objective morality.. right? Well, let me remind you of the civilizations of meso-america, where it was imperative that they murder people. Human murder is what kept the earth functioning. Human murder was institutionalized by the State as a means of continuing the society. Of course we now know that murdering people has nothing to do with the earth spinning.

If Objective Morality does exist, surely we would find it in nature. Aside from some highly evolved mammals, we see no morality in nature.
Hypothetically speaking.. How would you characterize the morality of a person who had the ability to wield the power of a hurricane? If there were a person behind the scenes controlling Katrina that killed many people and damaged an entire region of the US, what would you think of this person? (the person is nature)

Male lions will murder their own cubs for food, or to eliminate competition.
Theft, Rape, Adultery, etc are rampant in the animal kingdom.

If there is no Objective Morality, do Right and Wrong really exist? And by really exist I mean, is it something that you can separate from opinion and have it maintain it's integrity.

Morality evolved in animals because it has an advantage over no morality. It is in my best interest to ensure that my tribe stays alive and healthy. There is safety in numbers. This is where morality, and other related things such as empathy, and altruism come from.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 11:

Let me answer it like this...
Suppose you were walking down a dark street and you saw a woman being attacked by two men. Naturally you would feel two impulses. One impulse would tell you to run and preserve your life, and the other would prompt you to help a person in distress.

I propose there's at least one more impulse available - joining in.

...
If we are free to form our own subjective rule of law why does this third thing order me to choose the right impulse?

'Cause for all of it, that's the impulse you acted on.

That impulse would then be right for you, and may well be the most repulsive one according to others.

[Zetesis Apistia]

The question about objective morality is something that I have done a lot of thinking about.

Let me define what I mean by Objective Morality. By Objective, I mean a perspective that is not influenced by emotions or personal prejudices. In other words: outside of opinion. An example of an objective truth is "1+1=2", this is true no matter who analyzes it. When I say Morality I mean the idea of right and wrong, which is often associated with good and evil. People who are seen as lacking a moral compass are often described as committing evil acts.

It is my view that morality stems directly from a particular society. I do not believe that there is an objective morality. There is no act which can be agreed upon to be morally wrong by everyone from every civilization that ever existed.

Morality is strictly attached to society.

One big example that I can point to is murder. We in the modern world pretty much all agree that we shouldn't kill each other (although we do it anyways).. So surely murder has an objective morality.. right? Well, let me remind you of the civilizations of meso-america, where it was imperative that they murder people. Human murder is what kept the earth functioning. Human murder was institutionalized by the State as a means of continuing the society. Of course we now know that murdering people has nothing to do with the earth spinning.

If Objective Morality does exist, surely we would find it in nature. Aside from some highly evolved mammals, we see no morality in nature.
Hypothetically speaking.. How would you characterize the morality of a person who had the ability to wield the power of a hurricane? If there were a person behind the scenes controlling Katrina that killed many people and damaged an entire region of the US, what would you think of this person? (the person is nature)

Male lions will murder their own cubs for food, or to eliminate competition.
Theft, Rape, Adultery, etc are rampant in the animal kingdom.

If there is no Objective Morality, do Right and Wrong really exist? And by really exist I mean, is it something that you can separate from opinion and have it maintain it's integrity.

Morality evolved in animals because it has an advantage over no morality. It is in my best interest to ensure that my tribe stays alive and healthy. There is safety in numbers. This is where morality, and other related things such as empathy, and altruism come from.

1) Culture A thinks witches are evil and believes they should be burned.
2) Culture B thinks witches should have the right to practice witchcraft.
3) Culture B criticizes culture A for burning witches.
4) Should culture A be held to culture B's standard? If so why?
5) Is culture B trying to impose an objective moral standard on culture A? If not why are they attempting to apply their subjective morals to culture A?

[x1plus1x]

The question about objective morality is something that I have done a lot of thinking about.

Let me define what I mean by Objective Morality. By Objective, I mean a perspective that is not influenced by emotions or personal prejudices. In other words: outside of opinion. An example of an objective truth is "1+1=2", this is true no matter who analyzes it. When I say Morality I mean the idea of right and wrong, which is often associated with good and evil. People who are seen as lacking a moral compass are often described as committing evil acts.

It is my view that morality stems directly from a particular society. I do not believe that there is an objective morality. There is no act which can be agreed upon to be morally wrong by everyone from every civilization that ever existed.

Morality is strictly attached to society.

One big example that I can point to is murder. We in the modern world pretty much all agree that we shouldn't kill each other (although we do it anyways).. So surely murder has an objective morality.. right? Well, let me remind you of the civilizations of meso-america, where it was imperative that they murder people. Human murder is what kept the earth functioning. Human murder was institutionalized by the State as a means of continuing the society. Of course we now know that murdering people has nothing to do with the earth spinning.

If Objective Morality does exist, surely we would find it in nature. Aside from some highly evolved mammals, we see no morality in nature.
Hypothetically speaking.. How would you characterize the morality of a person who had the ability to wield the power of a hurricane? If there were a person behind the scenes controlling Katrina that killed many people and damaged an entire region of the US, what would you think of this person? (the person is nature)

Male lions will murder their own cubs for food, or to eliminate competition.
Theft, Rape, Adultery, etc are rampant in the animal kingdom.

If there is no Objective Morality, do Right and Wrong really exist? And by really exist I mean, is it something that you can separate from opinion and have it maintain it's integrity.

Morality evolved in animals because it has an advantage over no morality. It is in my best interest to ensure that my tribe stays alive and healthy. There is safety in numbers. This is where morality, and other related things such as empathy, and altruism come from.

1) Culture A thinks witches are evil and believes they should be burned.
2) Culture B thinks witches should have the right to practice witchcraft.
3) Culture B criticizes culture A for burning witches.
4) Should culture A be held to culture B's standard? If so why?
5) Is culture B trying to impose an objective moral standard on culture A? If not why are they attempting to apply their subjective morals to culture A?

Why haven't you stated that culture A criticizes culture B for allowing witchcraft?
Should culture B be held to culture A's standard? It goes both ways.

In this example, I think that neither culture should be imposing anything on any other culture, simply because they are separate cultures. If these two cultures are attempting to become one, then yes they will need to come to a consensus. How to reach this consensus depends on the type of government. If democracy then majority rules, if dictatorship then the state decides, etc.

I feel like the root of your comment is about different cultures trying to impose their morals on other cultures, and why they do it. A good example would be the US and China. These are different cultures that disagree on a lot, but we also get a lot of benefit from each other. So, in order to feel ok about taking advantage of cheap chinese labor, we attempt to coax china into better human rights practices. If a culture has nothing of value for the other culture, then they could care less what goes on (think africa).

[Bust Nak]

Yes but quite often the third thing tells us to follow the least preferred instinct. The thing is we are not in control of this third thing. It is independent of us. We may see a wino at the side of the road and be conditioned to have no pity on him because we have been taught that these people are just lazy. Why then at times would we walk away feeling bad because we didn't help when we were conditioned not to?

I don't see why you need to invoke a third thing, you feel bad at those times because of the impulse prompting you to help a the guy on the road is strong.

1) Culture A thinks witches are evil and believes they should be burned.
2) Culture B thinks witches should have the right to practice witchcraft.
3) Culture B criticizes culture A for burning witches.
4) Should culture A be held to culture B's standard? If so why?
5) Is culture B trying to impose an objective moral standard on culture A? If not why are they attempting to apply their subjective morals to culture A?

I've made a FAQ thread to answer such questions. Come back if you still have questions.

[dusk]

That is pretty standard evolution no minority opinion in the least. It is a goal in so far as the rivers goal is to flow down the mountain into the valley and wherever it can find to go lower until it hits a basin. (Leaning on the example of x1plus1x)

Evolution is easy more/better is whatever yields more breeders. If a race is ugly, stink, stupid as hell but breeds like rabbits that branch wins.

Quite the opposite, in fact. Standard evolutionary theory posits that creatures that breed more are no better than creatures that breed less. It's just that the creatures that breed more have survived and the creatures that breed less have died off, so it seems like evolution has furthered a natural goal or purpose. In reality, they argue, evolution is blind and purposeless.

No breeding more is the definition of fitness in evolutionary theory. It IS the definition of better or worse. There is no other standard.
The confusion seems that you use better for meaning two different things without stating them. Better by evolutionary standard is very simple. Your subjective human aesthetic standards don't even have meaning to evolution. The ones that died of are worse. Evolution doesn't care about which creature/race/branch wins in that way it is not so much blind as it is indifferent.
Morality however as a whole doesn't care either. It is just rules and judgements that sometimes further this goal sometimes another. Like each creature wants to win and breed and not get wipe out by aliens. The races/cultures are not indifferent to their own fate (as the political world shows) evolution has no mechanism for caring. Morality is no different though it cares no more about which rules are better than evolution cares about individual branches on the tree of life. Certain rules as being part of a culture, part of a society made up of cohesive group of people may have goals and may use rules as a purpose.
Morality as a concept is nothing more than the means to support higher cohesion and further synergies inside of social groups of interdependent actors. They can be people, or players in a computer game.

My point is this: (a) morality is progressive and goal-oriented, and (b) something that is purposeless and blind cannot produce something that is progressive and goal-oriented, then (c) directionless evolution cannot have produced a progressive morality.

Of course, if evolution is not directionless, as you state, then it certainly could be the author of a progressive morality. This would be my position as well.

I would say morality and evolution are both progressive.
Morality and evolution have the same purpose and they have both goals. Like gravity has a goal to keep stuff from flying apart.
I think b) would be wrong even if it your other assertions would work. There is always the easy mistake to mix up abstraction levels or the distance to look at things. Many things that seem indifferent in its parts can behave/seem vastly different on a higher level. One arithmetic unit in a processor can do little and can only ever do one thing. Combined with software the entire Processor front end (decoder and stuff) and it can do amazing very different things.

One mutation is random but with selection and the amount of them happening that is what is called evolution and it doesn't have the same properties as some of its parts.

1) Culture A thinks witches are evil and believes they should be burned.
2) Culture B thinks witches should have the right to practice witchcraft.
3) Culture B criticizes culture A for burning witches.
4) Should culture A be held to culture B's standard? If so why?
5) Is culture B trying to impose an objective moral standard on culture A? If not why are they attempting to apply their subjective morals to culture A?

I would say there are two solutions. One culture is strong vilifies the other and tries to destroy it or they wipe each other out. Plenty of examples for that in history.
The more modern approach would be to explore the reasons why each culture thinks what is does and check if one is simply irrational. Since being rational trumps being an ignorant bigot (in modern cultures almost everywhere at least superficially) the winner is clear. So check coherence and see if one is nonsense.
If both make equally much sense it personal preference and well everybody is free to despise stuff they just don't like and in democracies to vote accordingly. Say I Christmas shopping I may despise no matter what my culture wants to tell me, how good it is and what not. Sure some people are really happy about presents so there are arguments for it. There is also the huge waste of time, resources and stress for an idea for receiving stuff that no one needs.
I hate Christmas I think presents are nice but no on a regular basis. When somebody gets married or a baby they need stuff, every new year a guy like me needs practically anything and then I have to fake being happy about mostly useless stuff that I don't ever use. I prefer getting candy like a 5 year old because I actually have some use for it.
Christmas rant over

[dusk]

You asked the question "what standard are we measuring to say a certain change is an "improvement"?" I would suggest that we measure the change over the previous state to determine if the change is indeed an improvement. Does the change lead to better efficiency, better security, etc?

I guess it would be the same as the standard of improvement for evolution. Better is fitter. The standard for morality would be social cohesion and synergy on a maximized level. Thus reducing conflict, strive, war, killing and unhappiness.
The standard changes against which to measure. Globally you need more openness and less rules for more local areas it is different. Nationalism, fundamentalism and all the stuff we liberals despise works very well on a smaller scale. Because cohesion is stronger in small groups if they can unite against the outside world or rest of the world. Simple answers also make people happy or at least they prefer them.
Global meta-cultural ethics seems imo to be almost a different beast and currently I think the world is in a state where the liberal minded globally mobile youth and the more pragmatic local set in their ways communities fight each other like two competing systems that feel threatened by the mere existence of the other.

Some people clearly think that revelation matters more than rationality. Who is to say that is ultimately wrong. The former is more simple. It is easier to pass on to the next generation especially with a lack of philosophical education or any. The former doesn't change, doesn't need constant reevaluation. It is like a way more efficient diesel engine. Like a bicycle. Of course it is hard to get with a bicycle over the atlantic. Some people want to fly planes no matter how complicated.

[Zetesis Apistia]

The question about objective morality is something that I have done a lot of thinking about.

Let me define what I mean by Objective Morality. By Objective, I mean a perspective that is not influenced by emotions or personal prejudices. In other words: outside of opinion. An example of an objective truth is "1+1=2", this is true no matter who analyzes it. When I say Morality I mean the idea of right and wrong, which is often associated with good and evil. People who are seen as lacking a moral compass are often described as committing evil acts.

It is my view that morality stems directly from a particular society. I do not believe that there is an objective morality. There is no act which can be agreed upon to be morally wrong by everyone from every civilization that ever existed.

Morality is strictly attached to society.

One big example that I can point to is murder. We in the modern world pretty much all agree that we shouldn't kill each other (although we do it anyways).. So surely murder has an objective morality.. right? Well, let me remind you of the civilizations of meso-america, where it was imperative that they murder people. Human murder is what kept the earth functioning. Human murder was institutionalized by the State as a means of continuing the society. Of course we now know that murdering people has nothing to do with the earth spinning.

If Objective Morality does exist, surely we would find it in nature. Aside from some highly evolved mammals, we see no morality in nature.
Hypothetically speaking.. How would you characterize the morality of a person who had the ability to wield the power of a hurricane? If there were a person behind the scenes controlling Katrina that killed many people and damaged an entire region of the US, what would you think of this person? (the person is nature)

Male lions will murder their own cubs for food, or to eliminate competition.
Theft, Rape, Adultery, etc are rampant in the animal kingdom.

If there is no Objective Morality, do Right and Wrong really exist? And by really exist I mean, is it something that you can separate from opinion and have it maintain it's integrity.

Morality evolved in animals because it has an advantage over no morality. It is in my best interest to ensure that my tribe stays alive and healthy. There is safety in numbers. This is where morality, and other related things such as empathy, and altruism come from.

1) Culture A thinks witches are evil and believes they should be burned.
2) Culture B thinks witches should have the right to practice witchcraft.
3) Culture B criticizes culture A for burning witches.
4) Should culture A be held to culture B's standard? If so why?
5) Is culture B trying to impose an objective moral standard on culture A? If not why are they attempting to apply their subjective morals to culture A?

Why haven't you stated that culture A criticizes culture B for allowing witchcraft?
Should culture B be held to culture A's standard? It goes both ways.

I agree

In this example, I think that neither culture should be imposing anything on any other culture, simply because they are separate cultures. If these two cultures are attempting to become one, then yes they will need to come to a consensus. How to reach this consensus depends on the type of government. If democracy then majority rules, if dictatorship then the state decides, etc.

Were the nazis wrong for the holocaust? Should other cultures have had the right to condemn their actions by using their own subjective morals?

I feel like the root of your comment is about different cultures trying to impose their morals on other cultures, and why they do it.

Precisely... Not only do cultures do it, but individuals judge cultures by their personal set of values. I hear atheist's saying God is evil because he permitted xyz. God may well feel justified in what he does so why is it ok for another individual to impose their subjective standards on him?

[Zetesis Apistia]

1) Culture A thinks witches are evil and believes they should be burned.
2) Culture B thinks witches should have the right to practice witchcraft.
3) Culture B criticizes culture A for burning witches.
4) Should culture A be held to culture B's standard? If so why?
5) Is culture B trying to impose an objective moral standard on culture A? If not why are they attempting to apply their subjective morals to culture A?

I would say there are two solutions. One culture is strong vilifies the other and tries to destroy it or they wipe each other out. Plenty of examples for that in history.
The more modern approach would be to explore the reasons why each culture thinks what is does and check if one is simply irrational. Since being rational trumps being an ignorant bigot (in modern cultures almost everywhere at least superficially) the winner is clear. So check coherence and see if one is nonsense.
If both make equally much sense it personal preference and well everybody is free to despise stuff they just don't like and in democracies to vote accordingly.

In order to judge between two opinions there must be a model to compare them to in order to gauge which one is closer to the model. That is what the supreme court does when two opposing parties appeal to them to settle a dispute. The justices compare the opposing views to an objective standard and rule on which one they believe is in line with the standard and which one is not. The problem is people tend to trump the supreme law with their own personal preferences.

[Zetesis Apistia]

Yes but quite often the third thing tells us to follow the least preferred instinct. The thing is we are not in control of this third thing. It is independent of us. We may see a wino at the side of the road and be conditioned to have no pity on him because we have been taught that these people are just lazy. Why then at times would we walk away feeling bad because we didn't help when we were conditioned not to?

I don't see why you need to invoke a third thing, you feel bad at those times because of the impulse prompting you to help a the guy on the road is strong.

But the third thing often tells us to follow the weaker impulse. Why would evolution desire the weaker of the two? And if a guy follows the stronger impulse he is usually criticized or feels bad for it. For example: A guy sees a child drowning. He cant swim so the stronger impulse says dont jump in or you will drown. The man lets the child drown. The guy cant live with himself because he let the child drown. If he followed the right (strong) impulse why does he feel bad?

[4gold]

No breeding more is the definition of fitness in evolutionary theory. It IS the definition of better or worse. There is no other standard.
The confusion seems that you use better for meaning two different things without stating them. Better by evolutionary standard is very simple. Your subjective human aesthetic standards don't even have meaning to evolution. The ones that died of are worse. Evolution doesn't care about which creature/race/branch wins in that way it is not so much blind as it is indifferent.
Morality however as a whole doesn't care either. It is just rules and judgements that sometimes further this goal sometimes another. Like each creature wants to win and breed and not get wipe out by aliens. The races/cultures are not indifferent to their own fate (as the political world shows) evolution has no mechanism for caring. Morality is no different though it cares no more about which rules are better than evolution cares about individual branches on the tree of life. Certain rules as being part of a culture, part of a society made up of cohesive group of people may have goals and may use rules as a purpose.
Morality as a concept is nothing more than the means to support higher cohesion and further synergies inside of social groups of interdependent actors. They can be people, or players in a computer game.

I apologize in advance, but I have no interest in a definitions debate. I still stand by my post, and I'm sure you stand by yours. There's no good reason to park here, unless you believe it is a central argument, then I will gladly revisit.

I would say morality and evolution are both progressive.
Morality and evolution have the same purpose and they have both goals. Like gravity has a goal to keep stuff from flying apart.
I think b) would be wrong even if it your other assertions would work. There is always the easy mistake to mix up abstraction levels or the distance to look at things. Many things that seem indifferent in its parts can behave/seem vastly different on a higher level. One arithmetic unit in a processor can do little and can only ever do one thing. Combined with software the entire Processor front end (decoder and stuff) and it can do amazing very different things.

One mutation is random but with selection and the amount of them happening that is what is called evolution and it doesn't have the same properties as some of its parts.

So we both agree on the premise: evolution and morality have purpose and are progressive. What standard do you use to determine if morality has progressed?