Can Atheism ground objective morality?

[The Tanager]

In my exploration and discussions, I have not seen an atheistic worldview be able to logically account for morality being objective. The closest I've seen is an atheistic platonic kind of moral system, but while that seems to be able to account for the existence of 'good' and 'evil', it still doesn't seem to account for why humans would be obligated to choose Good over Evil. I'd love to hear cases from those who think atheism can account for objective morality to make sure I haven't missed (or misunderstood) thoughts in my exploration.

[The Tanager]

[Replying to Bradskii in post #95]

-I forgot to ask my question---- Does objective truth rely upon subjective opinions while the truth remains unknown?

No it doesn’t. Why is this a question about the example I used?

[The Tanager]

You previously confirmed that you understand "morality" to be a set of behavioral standards that consistently distinguishes conduct valued as "good" from conduct valued as "evil." Does a "value" have an independent existence in reality like a sphere-shaped planet?

Food is “good” to an organism for life. That value isn’t some independently existing thing, but a statement about the relationship between the food and the organism.

[bluegreenearth]

You previously confirmed that you understand "morality" to be a set of behavioral standards that consistently distinguishes conduct valued as "good" from conduct valued as "evil." Does a "value" have an independent existence in reality like a sphere-shaped planet?

Food is “good” to an organism for life. That value isn’t some independently existing thing, but a statement about the relationship between the food and the organism.

Food is neither inherently nor objectively "good" in moral terms, but the action of eating food is valued as good for life in so far as such behavior provides an organism's body with the nutrients it needs to keep functioning. Whether it is morally "good" for an organism's body to keep functioning or not is an entirely different question. Therefore, the concept of "good" in terms of the biological relationship between the consumption of food and the subsequent digestive process in an organism's body is disanalogous with how "good' is predominantly understood in moral terms. So, do moral "values" have an independent existence in reality like the relationship between edible things and the digestive processes in living organisms?

[Bradskii]

You are mangling the language. You can have an opinion on an objective fact, such as the world being round. But it is still an objective fact. Your opinion, or your preference, or your belief doesn't change that.

I agree. So why do you think I was mangling the language? Let me try to get at it in a different way. When you said “If they are preferences, then they are, by definition, subjective,” I can see at least two things you might be meaning.

One is that preferences just are subjective (i.e., personally held) views. Two is something like: for issue X to be objective, we must have facts outside of preferences that establish that. Do you mean either of these or could you rephrase what you meant?

Excellent. You got it.

[The Tanager]

Food is neither inherently nor objectively "good" in moral terms, but the action of eating food is valued as good for life in so far as such behavior provides an organism's body with the nutrients it needs to keep functioning. Whether it is morally "good" for an organism's body to keep functioning or not is an entirely different question. Therefore, the concept of "good" in terms of the biological relationship between the consumption of food and the subsequent digestive process in an organism's body is disanalogous with how "good' is predominantly understood in moral terms. So, do moral "values" have an independent existence in reality like the relationship between edible things and the digestive processes in living organisms?

Yes, being biologically good and morally good are two distinct concepts, but that doesn't mean 'value' means something different as applied to each one (which was the analogical point). Biological value isn't a physically independently existing thing, it's not a Platonic form that independently exists, but it does speak of an objective reality. If that is what you are asking me about, then, yes, I'm a moral objectivist in that I do believe moral value speaks of an objective reality.

[The Tanager]

You are mangling the language. You can have an opinion on an objective fact, such as the world being round. But it is still an objective fact. Your opinion, or your preference, or your belief doesn't change that.

I agree. So why do you think I was mangling the language? Let me try to get at it in a different way. When you said “If they are preferences, then they are, by definition, subjective,” I can see at least two things you might be meaning.

One is that preferences just are subjective (i.e., personally held) views. Two is something like: for issue X to be objective, we must have facts outside of preferences that establish that. Do you mean either of these or could you rephrase what you meant?

Excellent. You got it.

What does it refer to here?

You think preferences are subjective in the "personally held" sense? Okay, objectivists agree. Objectivists believe there is a different sense of 'subjective' that they are rejecting as well. A statement is subjectively true, not because someone "personally holds" a position (just as sphere-earthers "personally hold" the view that the earth is objectively spherical), but if the truth of X depends on the subject's preference/view/etc. The truth of "is chocolate tasty" depends on the subject being asked. That's the sense of subjectivism we are talking about, not if something is "personally held".

On the second, I agree that facts outside of the existence of preferences must exist for something to be objectively true. If you meant this, then it sounds like you might be claiming that we don't have that in the case of morality. If so, why do you think that?

You also seemed to have missed the second part of my last post. What do you mean by ‘value’? That there is no value in chocolate, vanilla, assaulting someone, not assaulting someone, etc.?