Moral subjectivism 101

[Bust Nak]

In this thread, I'll present some of the basic idea in moral subjectivism, a subset of moral relativism, in the form of a Q&A session.

1. Can you say murder is wrong or is everything permitted?
There is no objective set of rules, but that doesn't mean there are no rules. "Murder is wrong" is commonly found as a house rule. Note that while "murder is wrong" may look like an absolute or objective statement, it is equivalent to "murder is wrong according to me" under subjectivism.

2. Who gets the set the rules?
There are two trains of thought, individual subjectivism and cultural subjectivism. The former says the individual makes the rules, the latter says society as a whole make the rules. The basics are the same, as such answers for individual subjectivism can be expand to the culture level as a collection of individuals.

3. How can you say anything is right and wrong without an objective standard?
An objective standard is not required to make moral judgement, any more than an objective standard is required to say a pizza is tasty or disgusting.

4. Doesn't that means you cannot disagree with others' morality?
That depends on how you define disagreement. If I say this pie is tasty and you say it's disgusting, are we disagreeing? If you say that's not a disagreement, then no, moral subjectivists can't disagree with each other. But I suspect most would consider a difference in food taste qualify as a disagreement.

5. If moral is subjective (focusing on the individual for now), can you force another to accept your morals?
That depends on what you mean by force. Can I force a killer to accept murder is wrong? No, not without some form of neurosurgical procedure - as moral is individualistic, we could try and influence him, but ultimately only he can change his own mind.

6. No, I mean how can you justify the use/threat of force on someone who have a different morality to you, such as someone who thinks killing for fun is moral?
There is no requirement to judge someone according to their morality or beliefs, all subjectivism says is morality is dependent on the individual or culture. So if your morality says it's right to lock murders up, then that's the moral thing to do according to you.

7. What if you wake up tomorrow and everyone else decide it's right to murder?
Then it's right to murder according to them. I would resolve this conflict of ideas in simular ways I resolve any other conflict, from ignoring them, to compromise, all the way up to violence if need be.

8. Couldn't you wake up tomorrow and decide it's right to kill for fun for example?
That's not likely because of the underlying biological mechanism at work, which isn't going to flip-flop from day to day; But to answer the question: potentially yes! What is moral depends on what the individual think. If he wakes up one morning and thinks it's right to murder then that's his morality.

9. Isn't that absurd!?
No, we see both from history and other cultures in the world today, how fluid morality can be. Far from a point against subjectivism, this in fact shows how subjectivism coincides with reality.

10. Yet there are some things which seem to universally immoral across different cultures, how can this be if everyone makes their own rules?
That's because of the underlying biological mechanism I mentioned above. The source of our morality is our mind, and we have in board terms, very simular brains. The similarity you see in our morality is the result of the common starting point from empathy.

11. Doesn't that mean some morality can be considered objective?
In a round about way, using certain definitions, yes. But consider this: There are biological reason why human prefer fatty or sweet food, would you then consider ice-cream to be objectively more tasty than a cucumber? I would say no, that is merely stating objective facts about subjective taste.

If you can think of any questions you would like answered, or challenges to (my version of) moral subjectivism, do post them here and I'll try to answer them. Also, do feel free to add to the Q&A. Over to you.

[Dantalion]

3. How can you say anything is right and wrong without an objective standard?
An objective standard is not required to make moral judgement, any more than an objective standard is required to say a pizza is tasty or disgusting.

So that's it? I like soup, you don't like soup. I like killing children for fun, you don't like killing children for fun. Isn't there something you are ignoring? While with the taste of soup you acknowledge that it suits you personally, but doesn't your intuition or moral compass or something say that murdering people for fun is actually wrong, whereas soup is not actually tasty or disgusting. After all, you wouldn't force your neighbor to eat your favorite soup because you think it's delicious, but you would force him not to kill his family for fun, even if all of them agree that killing is cool.

How about this. You think killing children is fun, just because, but the majority of society thinks it does not, and needs to protect itself against you by locking you up for the rest of your natural life to protect itself against you.

So by that logic if the majority of people in a given society likes killing children for fun, then that is the right thing to do in that society? Nothing unjust or objectively wrong with that society?

Other than the fact it is unstable, and unlikely to survive very long?? A psychopathy society like that has traits that will insure disintegration of the society, and will filter itself out of the gene pool very quickly.

One of the evolved traits that social animals develop is something called 'EMPATHY'. That is a survival trait. The evolved trait of empathy, and the principle of 'enlightened self interest' are survival traits that stabilize and help promote societies survival.

Now, it might be argued that a societies survival doesn't matter.. but that is the function that helps decide what society is around.

So would you argue that if somewhere in the future a society of rapists, thieves and psychopaths is more likely to survive than a society of honest and kind people, then the former is in fact a better society in the moral sense of the word?

Thing is, that's impossible, I'm sure I don't have to explain to you why a society of psychopaths will always be doomed to fail.
And 'moral' isn't always what's best for survival per se. I equate it to wellbeing.
So in that sense, rape or torture are never going to be moral.
Now you could come up with all kinds of contrived scenarios where you would have to torture somebody to save somebody else or I don't know.
This is so unlikely to happen in our lifetime that we don't need to concern ourselves with it imho. Whatever you do in that situation, no action is going to be 'moral', in that very rare case you don't have the luxury of a clear choice between 'good' and 'evil'.
So I disagree with 2 things,
1. a society like that is not going to be able to survive in the long run
2. I don't always equate 'moral' with 'what's best for survival' in a primitive sense.

[ReligionSlayer]

Yes, we do, I think you've spoken to enough atheists to know most of us are subjectivists/relativists. I was referring to seeing racism as evil and not inviting and white supremacist to tea.

So, people of different "colour" to white can not be supremacists?

Sure they can. I can only conclude that this is a rhetorical question. You think what I said implies only white people can be supremacists?

Yes, because you wrote white in your sentence. You could have just omitted this reference to white altogether as it applies to all - or so I think.

Apartheid is not exclusive to whites that suppress the blacks, nor is supremacist.

[instantc]

Thing is, that's impossible, I'm sure I don't have to explain to you why a society of psychopaths will always be doomed to fail.

Causally perhaps, but logically no.

And 'moral' isn't always what's best for survival per se. I equate it to wellbeing.

I am not saying that this is not a good way to look at our actions. But strictly philosophically speaking, identity is a necessary relation. There is no logically possible world where A is not A. As there is a logically possible world where the peaks of well-being are occupied by a society of rapists, thieves and psychopaths, it follows that either in that hypothetical situation stealing and raping would be morally good, or otherwise well-being does not equal morally good.

[ReligionSlayer]

Thing is, that's impossible, I'm sure I don't have to explain to you why a society of psychopaths will always be doomed to fail.

Causally perhaps, but logically no.

And 'moral' isn't always what's best for survival per se. I equate it to wellbeing.

I am not saying that this is not a good way to look at our actions. But strictly philosophically speaking, identity is a necessary relation. There is no logically possible world where A is not A. As there is a logically possible world where the peaks of well-being are occupied by a society of rapists, thieves and psychopaths, it follows that either in that hypothetical situation stealing and raping would be morally good, or otherwise well-being does not equal morally good.

Can you explain how a society of rapists, thieves and psychopaths will maximize survival and minimize extinction in that society or any other society?

And I am still waiting for your explanation of the "creation" of our universe and your augment for your god. Unless you confess you have none!

[instantc]

Thing is, that's impossible, I'm sure I don't have to explain to you why a society of psychopaths will always be doomed to fail.

Causally perhaps, but logically no.

And 'moral' isn't always what's best for survival per se. I equate it to wellbeing.

I am not saying that this is not a good way to look at our actions. But strictly philosophically speaking, identity is a necessary relation. There is no logically possible world where A is not A. As there is a logically possible world where the peaks of well-being are occupied by a society of rapists, thieves and psychopaths, it follows that either in that hypothetical situation stealing and raping would be morally good, or otherwise well-being does not equal morally good.

Can you explain how a society of rapists, thieves and psychopaths will maximize survival and minimize extinction in that society or any other society?

I didn't say that will happen. I said that it is logically possible, and the fact that in some possible world A is not B means that A in fact is not B, since identity is a necessary relation.

[Bust Nak]

Yes, we do, I think you've spoken to enough atheists to know most of us are subjectivists/relativists. I was referring to seeing racism as evil and not inviting and white supremacist to tea.

So, people of different "colour" to white can not be supremacists?

Sure they can. I can only conclude that this is a rhetorical question. You think what I said implies only white people can be supremacists?

Yes, because you wrote white in your sentence. You could have just omitted this reference to white altogether as it applies to all - or so I think.

Apartheid is not exclusive to whites that suppress the blacks, nor is supremacist.

Apartheid is a white supremacy movement, and that's all there is to it in my statement.