Objective Morality?

enviousintheeverafter · Sun Aug 23, 2015 2:37 pm

It is often claimed that objective morality only exists if God does- that without God, there is no basis for claiming that morality is objective, that anything like objective moral facts or duties exist. Of course, for this argument to have any force, it needs to be true, or probably true, that objective morality does in fact exist.

So does it? Why think there are such things as objective moral facts or duties?

Bust Nak · Post by **Bust Nak** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 4:31 am

[Replying to post 175 by Artie]

Nop, still don't believe you actually think that. But if you are serious about what you said then your morality is frankly bizarre; and if you are not serious, well, we can chalk that up with yet another appeal to ridicule. Either way, it's like challenging a taste subjectivist with "A pizza is disgusting if I say it is. It is disgusting of a pizza to be topped with cheese because I say it is. It is tasty to top it with sheep testicles and eyeball because I say so." Well, you go right ahead, it says a lot more about you than it does me or subjective morality, whether you meant what you say or not.

Artie · Post by **Artie** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 5:35 am

Bust Nak wrote: Well, you go right ahead, it says a lot more about you than it does me or subjective morality, whether you meant what you say or not.

If you approve of murder and like going around murdering people does that make murder moral? Yes or no?

Bust Nak · Post by **Bust Nak** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 6:15 am

Artie wrote: If you approve of murder and like going around murdering people does that make murder moral? Yes or no?

I've already answered that question back in post#156: yes. It follows trivially from the stance that morality is an expression of one's subjective feeling. It's no more controversial then the statement "if you like the taste of sheep testicles and eyeballs, then they are tasty."

Let the readers note that I do not avoid questions, in stark contrast with my opponents' continual refusal/inability to answer the equivalent question:

"If murder is evolutionary beneficial for us as a species does that make murder moral? Yes or no?"

Artie · Post by **Artie** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:30 am

Bust Nak wrote:
Artie wrote: If you approve of murder and like going around murdering people does that make murder moral? Yes or no?
I already answer that question back in post#156: yes.
Let the readers note that I do not avoid questions, in stark contrast with my opponents' continual refusal/inability to answer the equivalent question:

"If murder is evolutionary beneficial for us as a species does that make murder moral? Yes or no?"
We evolved a survival instinct so behavior that leads to increased chances of survival is moral. So we call murderers immoral or ill and put them in prison etc. If we had evolved the opposite of a survival instinct, a non-survival instinct, then behavior leading to death such as murder would be moral. But how would we have evolved a non-survival instinct if we all killed ourselves or each other? Would it be evolutionary beneficial for us as a species to all be dead?

Bust Nak · Post by **Bust Nak** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:57 am

Artie wrote:
Bust Nak wrote: If murder is evolutionary beneficial for us as a species does that make murder moral? Yes or no?
We evolved a survival instinct so behavior that leads to increased chances of survival is moral. So we call murderers immoral or ill and put them in prison etc. If we had evolved the opposite of a survival instinct, a non-survival instinct, then behavior leading to death such as murder would be moral. But how would we have evolved a non-survival instinct if we all killed ourselves or each other? Would it be evolutionary beneficial for us as a species to all be dead?

I'll take that as a yes, if murder is evolutionary beneficial for us as a species, then murder would be moral. The rest of your post is just yet more distraction about how murder isn't evolutionary beneficial for our species.

Blastcat · Post by **Blastcat** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 9:12 am

[Replying to post 160 by jgh7]

jgh7 wrote: What I can tell is that subjective morality indicates that right and wrong is an expression of people's likes and dislikes. When enough people agree on a like or dislike, they work together to enforce it.

This is a completely accurate portrayal of society as far as I'm concerned.

Likes are about aesthetics, and not about morality. I like ice cream, and that has nothing at all to do with morality. You confuse what morality is. It's not about liking or disliking something. You are conflating LIKE and APPROVE.

As far as objective morality goes, the best I can see is that it asserts what you ought to do based on what is logical to do rather than illogical as far as preserving your well-being and avoiding suffering. This can get you far, but it still could allow for you to do acts many would consider immoral. (Ex: Preserving your own well-being at the expense of others).

Overall, subjective morality is the most accurate depiction of morality in my opinion. People who argue for objective morality are only able to do so on the most very basic levels. When it comes time to argue for complicated issues, I don't see them being able to provide strong logical reasons for acting moral in these situations where it would actually not benefit one to do so.

You say that objective morality leads to the problem of some people acting to preserve their personal well-being at the expense of other people's well being.

But that only targets the individual well-being, and that's personal, and SUBJECTIVE, as that's what subjective means.. that it pertains to the individual SUBJECT and that's only going to apply to one particular individual at a time.

Do you think that morality doesn't have anything to do with how we treat OTHER people, but ONLY ourselves? You haven't thought out what you mean by morality if you think it pertains only to INDIVIDUAL well-being. Morality is about how to treat OTHERS... not just gratifying ourselves individually.

What about a morality that DOES have to do with the well-being of as many other people as possible and not just to each particular individual? Do you believe that we can have this kind of morality?

Moral realism and moral objectivism are reasonable alternatives to "subjective morality":

"Moral realism is the class of theories which hold that there are true moral statements that report objective moral facts. For example, while they might concede that forces of social conformity significantly shape individuals' "moral" decisions, they deny that those cultural norms and customs define morally right behavior."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality# ... ti-realism

"Moral realism (also ethical realism) is the position that ethical sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world (that is, features independent of subjective opinion), some of which propositions may be true to the extent that they report those features accurately. This makes moral realism a non-nihilist form of ethical cognitivism with an ontological orientation, standing in opposition to all forms of moral anti-realism and moral skepticism, including ethical subjectivism (which denies that moral propositions refer to objective facts), error theory (which denies that any moral propositions are true); and non-cognitivism (which denies that moral sentences express propositions at all). "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_realism

"Moral universalism (also called moral objectivism or universal morality) is the meta-ethical position that some system of ethics, or a universal ethic, applies universally, that is, for "all similarly situated individuals", regardless of culture, race, sex, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, or any other distinguishing feature. Moral universalism is opposed to moral nihilism and moral relativism. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_universalism

Artie · Post by **Artie** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 9:22 am

Bust Nak wrote:I'll take that as a yes, if murder is evolutionary beneficial for us as a species, then murder would be moral. The rest of your post is just yet more distraction about how murder isn't evolutionary beneficial for our species.

IF MURDERING EACH OTHER WAS EVOLUTIONARY BENEFICIAL FOR US AS A SPECIES, AND WE HAD EVOLVED A NON-SURVIVAL INSTINCT, THEN "MURDER" WOULD BE MORAL. IT WOULDN'T EVEN BE "MURDER" BUT JUSTIFIED HOMICIDE. Don't try to rewrite what I say to make it sound like you can murder people now if it is beneficial for us as a species because WE DIDN'T EVOLVE A NON-SURVIVAL INSTINCT. Murder is always immoral now, if we do have to take a life to for example save our children from some murderer because saving our children is beneficial for the survival of our species it's called justified homicide.

Artie · Post by **Artie** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 9:45 am

Blastcat wrote:Do you think that morality doesn't have anything to do with how we treat OTHER people, but ONLY ourselves? You haven't thought out what you mean by morality if you think it pertains only to INDIVIDUAL well-being. Morality is about how to treat OTHERS... not just gratifying ourselves individually.

If I treat others well chances are others will treat me well increasing my own survival chances. So the behavior "treating others well" was selected for since it's beneficial for all.

Bust Nak · Post by **Bust Nak** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 9:54 am

Artie wrote: IF MURDERING EACH OTHER WAS EVOLUTIONARY BENEFICIAL FOR US AS A SPECIES, AND WE HAD EVOLVED A NON-SURVIVAL INSTINCT, THEN "MURDER" WOULD BE MORAL. IT WOULDN'T EVEN BE "MURDER" BUT JUSTIFIED HOMICIDE.

If murder was an evolutionary benefit then why does it matter if we have non-survival instinct or not? If we have non-survival instinct but murder is not beneficial, does that make murder okay?

Don't try to rewrite what I say to make it sound like you can murder people now if it is beneficial for us as a species because WE DIDN'T EVOLVE A NON-SURVIVAL INSTINCT.

I don't really know what that means, but if you insist: go ahead and affirm for me, "if murder was evolutionary beneficial and we evolved a non-survival instinct then murder is moral."

Murder is always immoral now, if we do have to take a life to for example save our children from some murderer because saving our children is beneficial for the survival of our species it's called justified homicide.

That has nothing to do with what I asked. Whether a slaying is murder or justified homicide is a matter of legality, not of morality.

Artie · Post by **Artie** » Fri Oct 23, 2015 12:07 pm

Bust Nak wrote:That has nothing to do with what I asked. Whether a slaying is murder or justified homicide is a matter of legality, not of morality.

Good point. Then stop asking questions like

"If murder was an evolutionary benefit then why does it matter if we have non-survival instinct or not? If we have non-survival instinct but murder is not beneficial, does that make murder okay?"

and stick with morality.