Objective Morality Scares me!!

[Mr.Badham]

The idea of objective morality scares me more than the idea of subjective morality, for the same reason that objective patriotism scares me more than subjective patriotism.
I can't say for sure that there is no objective morality, but I can say for certain that no one knows what it is. Morality would appear to be fluid. It ebbs and flows. It evolves over time, all the while people profess to know what it is.
It subjectively seems to me that in order to be moral, one must harbour feelings of empathy, intend to do no harm and gain consent.
Rape, murder and slavery are immoral because by definition they lack consent. Anyone who carries out these acts lacks empathy, and they intend to hurt the victim.
Only someone who claims to know what is objectively moral could claim that murder, slavery and genocide are at times (when God orders it) acceptable.

Can anyone think of an immoral act that could be done with empathy, consent and without the intent to hurt?

[Cephus]

Let's define our terms. In philosophy, "objective" refers to something outside the human mind. This means that it cannot change according to mood, feelings, prejudices, desires, etc. It simply exists. As such, objective moral values are not invented, but discovered, not individual, but universal, not changeable, but always true or absolute.

And those things simply do not exist anywhere in human history. You can find exceptions to virtually every moral precept sometime in history or around the world.

On the other hand, we have subjective moral values which change from culture to culture and person to person. This makes morality relative. Ideas of right and wrong come and go to suit people. As philosopher Ron Nash puts it, we make decisions based on the strongest desire of the moment. It has little to do with reason and a lot to do with emotion which means that ideas of right and wrong often have little bearing at all. We will make pursuing what we want "right" and "good" even if it isn't.

That's how all morals function, no matter what some groups claim about them. All morals are subjective and if we look at any culture over the long term, we see that views on morality change dramatically over time. Heck, even in the Bible, morals change as the culture changed.

Christians assert that objective, universal, absolute moral standards exist in the person of God. He is immutable. Therefore, standards of morality are immutable. They aren't based on the whims of human beings who, being born with sin natures, have a warped idea of right and wrong.

And you let us know when they've managed to prove that God actually exists, won't you?

However, moral relativism and moral subjectivity are not feasible. If one truly believes that morality is relative and individual, changeable and not absolute, that means that one HAS to accept anything that anybody else thinks, says or does. Because if you take the idea of moral relativism to its logical conclusion, you remove your right to criticize anybody. You have to keep your mouth shut and ignore the evil around you.

Except that they are entirely feasible? You're confusing the ability of a society to decide collectively that certain things are positive and useful for the society and other things are negative and harmful to the society. That's why things like murder and theft are forbidden, but in other cultures, killing others was entirely fine. It varies from place to place and time to time.

The reality is that NOBODY actually lives as a moral relativist. Even the people who insist that they do not believe in objective, universal, absolute standards actually do in practice.

Sure they do. I am a moral relativist. I also know that the society that I live in has declared certain things to be immoral and I, as a product of and a part of that society, am more apt to accept those dictates as applicable within the society. That doesn't make any of these morals objective, just commonplace.

For example, ask yourselves this question: Is it ever morally right to torture and rape three-year-old children in any culture in any time period in history? Can it ever be justified as ethically correct? If you say that it is never right to practise child abuse, then you believe in an objective, universal, absolute moral standard even if you say you don't.

From what perspective? There have been cultures in the past that murdering children in religious rituals was an accepted practice. From their perspective, it was completely moral and, in fact, that we don't continue that practice today would be seen as immoral. You only think that your cultural norms are correct because you grew up and were indoctrinated with them. People a thousand years ago grew up and were indoctrinated with a different set of cultural norms and would think that what you do today is wrong. In another thousand years, people will grow up and be indoctrinated with a different set of cultural norms and if they vary from yours, they'll be convinced you were an immoral monster. And maybe you were, you certainly have no means, other than your emotional assertion, that you were otherwise.

If you say it is acceptable to rape and torture small children, then please let me know where you live because I want to stay away from you completely. You are not somebody I would want to know personally. Even if you yourself wouldn't commit that heinous act, if you're a relativist, you have to accept that somebody else finds that all right and that means you would do nothing to protect my children from such monsters.

And that's an emotional reaction, not an objective one. You defined objective morality and you're proving that you don't believe in it at all.

Let me make it personal. Would you allow somebody to sexually abuse YOUR three-year-old? Would you allow somebody to torture and rape YOU? Would it ever be right for people to do those things to you and your child? If you say no, that it would never be right, then you are defending objective moral absolutism, which, by definition, HAS to exist outside of yourself and all of humanity.

That's also an emotional reaction, the complete antithesis of objectivity.

I think you need to reflect on your failures here and we can debate further.

[Mr.Badham]

[Replying to post 9 by Overcomer]

As I said, Objective Morality scares me more than subjective morality. Leave it to the objective moralist to defend the slavery of women and children.

I can speak out against anything I don't like.

[Darias]

The idea of objective morality scares me more than the idea of subjective morality, for the same reason that objective patriotism scares me more than subjective patriotism.

I don't know what your conception of objective morality is, and I certainly don't know what the heck objective/subjective patriotism is. Sounds like something made up.

I can't say for sure that there is no objective morality, but I can say for certain that no one knows what it is.

Well ethics don't exist in nature, but neither does the scientific method; that doesn't mean people don't understand either.

Morality would appear to be fluid. It ebbs and flows. It evolves over time, all the while people profess to know what it is.

Social mores change, and do not appear to have any guiding principles. Our understanding of ethics also changes with time, as does science. It is possible to have an objective framework for ethics in the same sense that the scientific method is objective.

It subjectively seems to me that in order to be moral, one must harbour feelings of empathy, intend to do no harm and gain consent.

Not being a traumatized psychopath helps, but it would be a mistake to call mirror neurons morality. Other animals can experience "feel goods" from mutually beneficial behavior, but that's not ethics; that's an impulsive reaction to stimuli favored by natural selection.

To justify moral behavior by pointing to biology would be an appeal to nature. This is not valid. Ethical behavior must be grounded in something more rigorous and consistent than cerebral secretions.

Rape, murder and slavery are immoral because by definition they lack consent. Anyone who carries out these acts lacks empathy, and they intend to hurt the victim.

These actions are universally proscribed (objectively immoral) because they all involve the initiation of force, aka violence, which, as you said, violates consent. Objectivity depends on logical consistency and the rejection of invalid double standards. Objectivity is not outside the realm of human thought. The scientific method is objective; is it not? Let's not mystify the word to be a synonym for "god" a wholly meaningless, incoherent concept.

Only someone who claims to know what is objectively moral could claim that murder, slavery and genocide are at times (when God orders it) acceptable.

You are confusing divine command theory with objective ethics.

Religious moral absolutists are only a subset of those people who hold hold the view that morality is universal and objective. Haven't you ever heard of secularists like Sam Harris or Stefan Molyneux? There's more than just William Lane Craig

The problem is I find that the idea of objectivity proceeding from the mouth of a deity impossible. If we assume the existence of said being, his decrees are subjective because he either sets himself up to be the law, or above the law. He is free to do things that other sentient beings are punished eternally for (like genocide). Might doesn't make right, so this double standard is unjustified. And omnipotence as a characteristic would mean that he is not subject to standards outside of himself, like logic, consistency, etc. If he is a slave to these, then he is not all powerful. If he isn't then he cannot be the seat of objective morality.

Can anyone think of an immoral act that could be done with empathy, consent and without the intent to hurt?

Actions done with the best of intentions can be immoral if they involve the initiation of force, like toppling dictators, or robbing others to fund all manner of noble endeavors.

But any action that is done voluntarily (consensually), without violence cannot be morally condemned.



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[Mr.Badham]

[Replying to post 13 by Darias]

Objective patriotism (and yes I may have coined that phrase, but all phrases are made up at some point) would be the type of patriotism that says no matter what, I will do what is asked of me by my country. During any conflict soldiers on both sides can rightly be called patriotic, but only one side can be fighting for the right thing.

I know what Sam Harris said, but I think I would say that his goal of achieving Human Flourishing is a subjective goal, that has objective means of achieving it. I like what he said, and I agree with everything he said, I just think that his goal is subjective, which I think is a good thing.

I don't fear human nature, and I don't think that our society is on the brink of collapse at any moment. Perhaps that is why I don't mind subjective morality.

[Mr.Badham]

[Replying to post 14 by Mr.Badham]

I googled Objective Patriotism. I think I did coin it. YES!!!

[Artie]

As Dostoevsky said, without God, everything is permissible. That's what you're saying when you say you reject objective moral absolutes. You're saying that anything goes.

And you are saying that all Christians are sociopaths because if it wasn't for their belief in God and his "objective moral absolutes" "everything is permissible" for Christians. There would be nothing stopping them from torturing and raping children. Whereas we have logic, reason, common sense, empathy, altruism, compassion, conscience, respect for others, self-respect, feel love, have a sense of duty, obligation and responsibility, the laws and the Golden Rule etc etc stopping us from doing immoral things.

[Cephus]

As Dostoevsky said, without God, everything is permissible. That's what you're saying when you say you reject objective moral absolutes. You're saying that anything goes.

And you are saying that all Christians are sociopaths because if it wasn't for their belief in God and his "objective moral absolutes" "everything is permissible" for Christians. There would be nothing stopping them from torturing and raping children. Whereas we have logic, reason, common sense, empathy, altruism, compassion, conscience, respect for others, self-respect, feel love, have a sense of duty, obligation and responsibility, the laws and the Golden Rule etc etc stopping us from doing immoral things.

No but there are an awful lot of Christians who say that if it wasn't for their belief in God, they'd be out raping and murdering. They claim that God is the only thing that keeps them moral. That makes these people sociopaths and I think there are a lot of them out there, held in check only by their beliefs in an imaginary man in the sky.

[wiploc]

No but there are an awful lot of Christians who say that if it wasn't for their belief in God, they'd be out raping and murdering. They claim that God is the only thing that keeps them moral. That makes these people sociopaths and I think there are a lot of them out there, held in check only by their beliefs in an imaginary man in the sky.

I assume they're lying. They aren't really moral cretins; they just pretend to be moral cretins in the attempt to get people to take moral guidance from them.

William Lane Craig is one such. He says that, aside from the fact that it is forbidden by god, he doesn't know of any reason not to do rape.

[Darias]

I googled Objective Patriotism. I think I did coin it. YES!!!

It's probably best not to make up words in a debate. Let's focus on understanding words that already exist.

Objective patriotism [. . .] would be the type of patriotism that says no matter what, I will do what is asked of me by my country.

This mindset is the final product of nationalist indoctrination. The word "patriotism" is just a euphemism for nationalism; and the word "objective" is antithetical to an irrational, in many cases, suicidal, love obsession for the state (which may often involve feelings of extreme prejudice for others).

During any conflict soldiers on both sides can rightly be called patriotic, but only one side can be fighting for the right thing.

Since both sides, respectively, murder each other to achieve state interests, how can it be deduced that one side is right and the other wrong (other than by the victors who write the history books)? They're just shedding each others' blood because they're aroused with passion at the sight of fabric on a stick; they've been groomed to do so.

I know what Sam Harris said, but I think I would say that his goal of achieving Human Flourishing is a subjective goal, that has objective means of achieving it. I like what he said, and I agree with everything he said, I just think that his goal is subjective, which I think is a good thing.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't bring up Sam Harris because I agree with him. Harris tries to set up well-being for determining right from wrong, when I can think of countless things that are unhealthy but not immoral. I think his lecture involved the golden mean fallacy and appeals to emotion rather than substance. You can always spot a sophist when they try to appeal to big pictures rather than define words.

I think UPB makes more sense. In any case, I don't like to just sit by and watch the word "objective" be bastardized to the point where it means something else entirely. If you're going to mix and match words, make sure you know what they mean first. If you're going to oppose and abhor an idea, make sure you know what it is first.

[Mr.Badham]

[Replying to post 19 by Darias]

Here's something I do know:
The guy holding the piece if cloth is no different than the guy holding the cross.

Being told I don't know what some word means is nothing new to me. I've been told that I don't know what the words Christianity, good, bad, science, religion, atheism, agnosticism, Christ, morality, slavery, rape, murder, genocide, consent, knowledge mean, just to name a few.

Maybe you're right. I'm just not sure what the words "maybe", "you're" and "right" mean.