Is secular morality superior?

[historia]

In a recent discussion with Jordan Peterson, atheist advocate Matt Dillahunty spelled out some of his ideas for a secular moral system:

However we are going to define well being, I say you can start with a couple of foundations . . .

If you start with (1) life is generally preferable to death, (2) health is generally preferable to sickness, (3) happiness is generally preferable to sadness . . .

You can start with any three that you found. You could pick three arbitrary foundations.

And the one aspect that makes this secular moral system distinct from religious pronouncements, divine command theory, and those types of things, is that the secular moral system has as its goal, the object of getting better at getting better.

Which means that, if you found out that one of your foundations is wrong, or in conflict with something else, you can now change that.

I find the idea that one can arbitrarily change the foundations of their moral system to be rather odd, and perhaps self-defeating. But perhaps I haven't fully understood his argument here. (Click on his name in the quote for the full video.)

Questions for debate:

Is Dillahunty's secular moral system coherent?

Is Dillahunty's system superior to potential alternatives?

[Divine Insight]

I see no way in which moral obligations can exist at all under subjective morality. There aren't any "special cases".

That's because you aren't understanding subjective morality. Subjective morality doesn't mean "Every man for himself". The human species has created its own subjective morality as it developed language and evolved into civilization.

For example, is murder immoral? Absolutely! Does that make it absolute. No.

Murder is absolutely immoral RELATIVE to the subjective definitions that humanity has dreamed up as we evolved into more sophisticated social groups. Murder is (by definition of the term) "wrongful killing". Therefore any murder is necessarily an immoral act (i.e. a wrongful act), by definition of the concept of murder.

The same is true of "rape" there is no such thing as a "rightful rape" because rape is defined as a wrongful act. It's in the definition of the very concept we have labeled "rape".

So society has already defined (by definition) many concepts that are necessarily "wrong" (i.e. immoral). It's not up to you as an individual person to decide that "murder" is moral. All you can do as an individual is argue whether a specific killing constitutes 'murder' or 'not murder'. In fact, this is what we do in legal trials when someone is being tried for murder. We try to decide whether or not we think their killing was "justified".

So the concept of subjective morality doesn't come down to just the mere opinion of any Tom, Dick, or Harry. Humanity has carved in stone many concepts of right or wrong based on the definition of the terms that define those concepts. Yet this was still a subjective act. It was a subjective act carried out but many humans over many eons of time, along with subjective consensus among humans.

So before you start acting like subjective morality is meaningless, try to understand that this doesn't apply to just the mere opinions of individuals.

Although, in the end it truly does come down to the judgement of individual humans. For example, in the case of a court of law it comes down to the judgement of 12 jurors. And the majority rules.

Welcome to moral reality.

That's all that exists. In fact, you can't even point to any meaningful concept of morality beyond that. If you think you can, then please do so.

[liamconnor]

In a recent discussion with Jordan Peterson, atheist advocate Matt Dillahunty spelled out some of his ideas for a secular moral system:

However we are going to define well being, I say you can start with a couple of foundations . . .

If you start with (1) life is generally preferable to death, (2) health is generally preferable to sickness, (3) happiness is generally preferable to sadness . . .

You can start with any three that you found. You could pick three arbitrary foundations.

And the one aspect that makes this secular moral system distinct from religious pronouncements, divine command theory, and those types of things, is that the secular moral system has as its goal, the object of getting better at getting better.

Which means that, if you found out that one of your foundations is wrong, or in conflict with something else, you can now change that.

I find the idea that one can arbitrarily change the foundations of their moral system to be rather odd, and perhaps self-defeating. But perhaps I haven't fully understood his argument here. (Click on his name in the quote for the full video.)

Questions for debate:

Is Dillahunty's secular moral system coherent?

Is Dillahunty's system superior to potential alternatives?

I won't say it is superior, because I don't know what standard we are measuring it against.

I think it is philosophically muddled, certainly: the happiness of one man may consist in causing physical pain in another. Perhaps the first man thinks, wishes, hopes that the pain in he inflicts will "release the other into a mode of being that transcends all senses".


Happiness is therefore subjective. One can argue that "true happiness" cannot, by definition, involve such sentiments or actions. But one will be moving well beyond the definition of happiness and well being given above.

One has now entered into philosophy.

[FarWanderer]

I see no way in which moral obligations can exist at all under subjective morality. There aren't any "special cases".

That's because you aren't understanding subjective morality. Subjective morality doesn't mean "Every man for himself".

Earlier you said "The only person I have a moral obligation to is myself. Period."

What's going on here?

The human species has created its own subjective morality as it developed language and evolved into civilization.

For example, is murder immoral? Absolutely! Does that make it absolute. No.

Murder is absolutely immoral RELATIVE to the subjective definitions that humanity has dreamed up as we evolved into more sophisticated social groups. Murder is (by definition of the term) "wrongful killing". Therefore any murder is necessarily an immoral act (i.e. a wrongful act), by definition of the concept of murder.

The same is true of "rape" there is no such thing as a "rightful rape" because rape is defined as a wrongful act. It's in the definition of the very concept we have labeled "rape".

So society has already defined (by definition) many concepts that are necessarily "wrong" (i.e. immoral). It's not up to you as an individual person to decide that "murder" is moral. All you can do as an individual is argue whether a specific killing constitutes 'murder' or 'not murder'. In fact, this is what we do in legal trials when someone is being tried for murder. We try to decide whether or not we think their killing was "justified".

It is actually a peeve of mine when people use moral language to argue a moral point (i.e. using the word "murder" as part of a premise to lead to a conclusion that an act is "wrong"- it is a very common kind of circular reasoning).

So yes I fully understand what you are talking about.

So the concept of subjective morality doesn't come down to just the mere opinion of any Tom, Dick, or Harry. Humanity has carved in stone many concepts of right or wrong based on the definition of the terms that define those concepts. Yet this was still a subjective act. It was a subjective act carried out but many humans over many eons of time, along with subjective consensus among humans.

This is similar to how I view the issue, except that I wouldn't simply call it "subjective" and be done with it. Logical consistency is a key element of morality. For example, lying is wrong because lying corrupts its own foundation (language). This is an objective truth, and I would say the distinction between it simultaneously being a moral truth is blurry at least. Then extrapolate the same relationship to other human behaviors: For example, stealing is wrong because it undermines the culture and legal system that provides for the thief's own existence and security.

[Aetixintro]

One can argue that "true happiness" cannot, by definition, involve such sentiments or actions.

One can merely rephrase to democratically lawful happiness or happiness in line with Kantian ethics and morality.

There is no excuse to dodge Kantian Ethics and Morality. The moral "wounds" to mentality are definite in case of violations!

[Divine Insight]

For example, lying is wrong because lying corrupts its own foundation (language). This is an objective truth, and I would say the distinction between it simultaneously being a moral truth is blurry at least. Then extrapolate the same relationship to other human behaviors: For example, stealing is wrong because it undermines the culture and legal system that provides for the thief's own existence and security.

You can't use logic to create "absolute morality".

You say that lying is "wrong" because it corrupts its own foundation which his language.

But you seem to be totally oblivious to the fact that you have already made an assumption that it would be "morally wrong" to corrupt language. How do you justify that moral opinion?

You say that stealing is wrong because it undermines the culture and legal system that provides for the thief's own existence and security. But you are totally oblivious to the fact that you have already made the assumption that it would be "morally wrong" for a thief to do something to do something that would undermine his own existence and security.

All about you can really say there is that the thief is stupid, not necessarily immoral.

The concept of morality is an infinite regression. Not matter how you try to justify a concept of absolute morality you always end up just giving a subjective opinion of what you consider to be immoral.

In fact, in the above cases, all you've truly described are what appear to be logical inconsistencies. But even those are open to debate.

Is it logically inconsistent for a language to be used in a way that defiles itself? That can all depend on what you are trying to accomplish with the language. There is the quite popular example that if you were housing Jews in your basement and Nazis came to your door and asked you if there are any Jews in your house would the moral thing be to lie, or to hand the Jews over to the Nazis.

So see. The concept of morality cannot be reduced to logic. In fact, many different people have different subjective answers to the above scenario. Some believe it is more moral to lie, while others think it would be more moral to turn the Jews over to the Nazis.

So there you go. Morality reduced to mere subjective human opinion once again.

My challenge to you is the following:

If you can point to any source of absolute objective morality please do so. Until then I don't see where you have an argument.

I've already demonstrated how subjective morality naturally evolves via subjective social consensus. Not only is it clear that it evolves in this way, but it also clearly changes from society to society, and even within any given society over time.

Slavery of black people was once considered to be "morally valid" in the USA. Today it's no longer considered to be "morally valid".

Proof positive that human subjective morality evolves and changes.

Moreover, if we're going to point to the Bible as a source of objective divine morality, then slavery must necessarily be moral. So we'd need to toss out many of our modern moral concepts if we were going to return to the practices described in the Bible.

So where could we point to any "absolute morality"? It can't be done. There is no source you can point to for absolute morality. It doesn't exist.

Morality is a subjective human concept that evolves as human subjective opinions change over time.

That's just reality. Face it.

There is no such thing as "absolute morality". The entire concept is a human invention. That doesn't make it irrelevant unless you are going to suggest that humans are irrelevant.

So subjective morality is just as relevant as humans.

And there is nothing you can point to as a source of any imagined "absolute morality". It just doesn't exist in this universe. Morality is a subjective human concept. Period.

[FarWanderer]

For example, lying is wrong because lying corrupts its own foundation (language). This is an objective truth, and I would say the distinction between it simultaneously being a moral truth is blurry at least. Then extrapolate the same relationship to other human behaviors: For example, stealing is wrong because it undermines the culture and legal system that provides for the thief's own existence and security.

You can't use logic to create "absolute morality".

Well, that's not what I am trying to do. The whole point of absolute/objective morality is that it is not "created".

You say that lying is "wrong" because it corrupts its own foundation which his language.

But you seem to be totally oblivious to the fact that you have already made an assumption that it would be "morally wrong" to corrupt language. How do you justify that moral opinion

To be specific, it is morally wrong to use language to corrupt itself. I am not talking about my own personal moral judgment here, but rather a definition of morality I have derived from how moral language is used.

I have observed that if you ask a person why something is evil, any reason they might provide would always fit into this same framework where the evil act in some way goes against what made it possible in the first place (opposing God, your supposed creator, would be the most ready example).

If you want to dispute that fact, offer a counter example- an example of something called "evil" which doesn't in some way go against what makes its own existence possible.

You say that stealing is wrong because it undermines the culture and legal system that provides for the thief's own existence and security. But you are totally oblivious to the fact that you have already made the assumption that it would be "morally wrong" for a thief to do something to do something that would undermine his own existence and security.

All about you can really say there is that the thief is stupid, not necessarily immoral.

Stealing does not necessarily undermine the thief's personal existence and security. It undermines the social system that gives/gave him the existence and security that made the stealing possible.

And yes, immorality is a kind of stupidity in the sense that it always involves some sort of short-sightedness.

The concept of morality is an infinite regression. Not matter how you try to justify a concept of absolute morality you always end up just giving a subjective opinion of what you consider to be immoral.

This is an objection you can make to any definition-related claim, so it is a rather inane one to make. Shall we dismiss the concept of a "heap" of sand because the number of grains of sand required to make for one is "subjective"?

In fact, in the above cases, all you've truly described are what appear to be logical inconsistencies. But even those are open to debate.

Is it logically inconsistent for a language to be used in a way that defiles itself? That can all depend on what you are trying to accomplish with the language. There is the quite popular example that if you were housing Jews in your basement and Nazis came to your door and asked you if there are any Jews in your house would the moral thing be to lie, or to hand the Jews over to the Nazis.

So see. The concept of morality cannot be reduced to logic. In fact, many different people have different subjective answers to the above scenario. Some believe it is more moral to lie, while others think it would be more moral to turn the Jews over to the Nazis.

I have already addressed this kind of problem. It is immoral to lie, AND it is immoral to assist Nazis in killing Jews.

In a situation in which you are forced to do one or the other the correct course of action requires a sorted out hierarchy of value. A hierarchy of value might be appropriately called subjectively constructed, but I am not so sure of even that.

My challenge to you is the following:

If you can point to any source of absolute objective morality please do so. Until then I don't see where you have an argument.

I've already demonstrated how subjective morality naturally evolves via subjective social consensus. Not only is it clear that it evolves in this way, but it also clearly changes from society to society, and even within any given society over time.

Slavery of black people was once considered to be "morally valid" in the USA. Today it's no longer considered to be "morally valid".

Proof positive that human subjective morality evolves and changes.

This doesn't really prove anything. Understanding of the laws of physics has evolved and changed as well. That doesn't make the laws of physics subjective.

Moreover, if we're going to point to the Bible as a source of objective divine morality, then slavery must necessarily be moral. So we'd need to toss out many of our modern moral concepts if we were going to return to the practices described in the Bible.

So where could we point to any "absolute morality"? It can't be done. There is no source you can point to for absolute morality. It doesn't exist.

Is there a "source" you can point to for mathematical truths? My argument is that the "source" is the logical relationship between things, and in that sense it is no less "true" than mathematical truths.