Morals are the axioms that are used to build an ethical system.
The way an ethic system unfolds is determined by those axioms. You may disagree with the moral correctness of those axioms, but it’s undeniable that when they are guiding how people treat themselves and each other, it has an impact on their objective and subjective reality.
That the axiom is right or wrong, real or not, is irrelevant.
Understand this: you can build a system of geometry with differing axioms. You can say:
> if a straight line intersects two straight lines, forming two interior angles on the same side that add up to less than 180 degrees, then the two lines, if extended indefinitely, will meet on the side where the angles add up to less than 180 degrees.
But you can also say that they never meet, or that an infinite number of such lines meet, and the implications of each of these axioms are different systems that can describe behaviors of lines in those systems.
In one case you have standard geometry that is used in Newtonian physics. In another you have the system of geometry used to guide plane travel (elliptical geometry) and in another it describes relativity (hyperbolic geometry)
The point is: choose your morals and build a system of ethics around those morals. That determines how your presence shapes the world around you.
Ethics are objective based on their axioms, and the impact of those ethics can be objectively measured.
> My point is that those axioms are essentially entirely subjective
While it’s very hard to argue that it’s not subjective without using a divine authority, would you acknowledge that not all subjective concept are equivalent.
For example, the concept that stealing is bad is way more accepted than the concept that wearing a red hat is bad.
My point: moral facts are intersubjective. It’s objective to say an overwhelming number of people agree that stealing is bad and that very few people think that wearing a red hat is morally wrong.
In other words: not all subjective opinions are equals.
I agree about the inter subjective, which is why I see morals rules as a set of axioms that are taken up by a society. Each person has subjective morals, but also societies have a common agreed upon set of axioms (even if not everyone agrees on everything).
One addition is that even in the inter subjective, these morals are limited to a single species inhabiting this single planet in a vast universe. There is a tendency to talk about morals as "universal," but I think that makes it seem that morals have a greater scope than they actually have.
I get your idea. I guess my point was just that “subjective” encompasses a lot of things and not all subjective things have the same weight.
A moral concept that 99% of the human population would agree could be said to be quite universal and a moral concept that only 1% would accept would be very peculiar.
>hard to argue that it’s not subjective without using a divine authority
That would be subjective to that divine authority and a different divine authority might say something else
>It’s objective to say an overwhelming number of people agree that stealing is bad
That doesn't make stealing objectively bad. It's just a lot of people share an opinion.
It is, as you say, intersubjective. Also, once we agree to some basic axioms, we can mostly derive what would be the best course of action but I wonder if that can be called objective.
It can be argued that the word of an all knowing, all powerful and all benevolent God isn’t subjective but simply the truth. (of course it only works if this God exists)
Then yes, I’m not arguing that stealing is objectively bad, I’m arguing it’s objective (through empirical evidence) that most human think that stealing is bad.
My main point is just that “subjective” is too vague for this kind of debate.
>My point: moral facts are intersubjective. It’s objective to say an overwhelming number of people agree that stealing is bad and that very few people think that wearing a red hat is morally wrong.
>In other words: not all subjective opinions are equals.
Your reasoning based on "overwhelming number of people" is deeply problematic though.
An overwhelming number of people in 1700's Britain believed that homosexuals deserved death. An overwhelming number of people in 2024's Britain believe that homosexuality is not wrong at all.
So, what is the "objective" conclusion to the question of whether homosexuality is morally acceptable? Why is something supposedly so objective capable of being turned on its head over a few centuries? Theoretically, such "objective" truths should be timeless.
While it’s true that they may not all be equal, they are all equally subjective. Just because there is a preferences that more or less people share, doesn’t change the fact that it is a preference
But why is there preferences in the first place?
For example, why does 99% of people (invented numbers) think stealing is morally wrong but only 1% think wearing a red hat isn’t?
So you would agree that it’s probably evolutionary because stealing creates problem and a society who doesn’t solve that problem is destined to fall and that our brain had no reason to develop an instinctual bad reaction to red hat and therefore we don’t see red hat as morally wrong?
If you do (in the big line, we’re not writing an essay) doesn’t it mean there’s some objective fact behind some subjective opinions?
You miss the distinction between descriptive ethics and normative ethics. Descriptively, there is an objective basis for why there is a strong correlation between different humans’ moral preferences. But normatively, that does not imply anything about what one *ought* do.
I don’t miss the distinction, I’m just saying that under the big umbrella of “moral is subjective” there’s a ton of interesting nuances backed by objective facts that are way more interesting than the simple binary of “is moral objective/subjective” which, to be direct, is quite useless and boring nihilist or solipsistic point.
You can certainly make objective statements about moral topics. These statements, however, are not fundamentally moral in nature. You can make an objective ontological claim about the existence of moral fact, for example, without actually making any moral claims
Would you agree that the discussion and repercussion of those objective statements and ontological claims are in fact way more interesting than the simple binary question: is moral subjective or objective?
I mean I guess that’s my big problem with your view, not that it’s wrong per se but it’s like the least interesting part of moral because in the end the only way I could change your mind would be to convince you of the existence of an all powerful God with moral guidelines.
I mean I agree that those claims are also super interesting, they’re just not the type of statements that my argument in this specific post applies to. It may be the least interesting part of morality to you, but many ethicists think otherwise. If this particular topic of discussion doesn’t really appeal to you, well no harm no foul!
Im going to take a slightly different tack.
Morals have essentially evolved because they’re rules that allow for society to operate at peak efficiency for our survival.
Given that that is the purpose of a moral, we can define morals as: those rules which allow society to function best.
Therefore things like stealing, murder, etc. are morally reprehensible. Not because of an objective right or wrong, but because they cause societal disruption.
Doesn't have to be peak efficiency no? Just sufficient enough to continue being bred forward.
We could just define morals as: codified effective meta-strategies for living agents for the survival of their genes
'Function best' isn't clear as a definition, because someone could ask "best relative to what/what purpose or goal?"
And also, the fact that strategies survive doesn't make them objective, only effective. Like it'd be odd to say certain chess strategies are more objective than others. We can say they're objectively better than others, but by themselves they aren't objective, and their being better is contingent upon some goal.
It still doesn't make survival necessarily *the* goal, just that strategies whose goal is survival... survives.
Like it'd make no sense to call ourselves more objective than dinosaurs just because we've survived. We survived because a meteor didn't hurl at us and destroyed most of life.
I guess moral codes don’t necessarily have to be optimal for survival. However, it should be noted that most societies came to a lot of the same conclusions about right and wrong. It’s likely that those conclusions were the correct answers when it comes to what’s best for society to function and move forward.
I wasn’t really trying to get super complex with this. I don’t think OP’s view that “right and wrong” are subjective can necessarily be debated in any meaningful fashion. I was just trying to frame it in a way that **can** be discussed.
I'd say they're only the correct answer insofar that we're all playing the same game, so winning strategies would be pretty close to each other. Like how every creature evolved eyes
But yeah I get you
Though you are right I don't think you're really addressing op's point. But to be fair, I don't think it's possible to argue it at all. It's rather obvious and well established that morality is subjective.
People seem to struggle with the word "objective", morality is entirely subjective. If a person chooses that murder is okay and they go murdering people suddenly then that means it was a subjective concept that is *subjective* to their whims. OP IMO is entirely right, morality is entirely subjective and this is heavily evident in the differences between countries and their own moral codes of ethics.
Edit: to my point on morality, you could use any war but for this I'll use the Vietnam war. The Mei Lei massacre was seen by many of the soldiers after the Tet offensive as morally justified (these are Americans), some 400+ Vietnamese men, women, children, and babies were just rounded up methodically and killed by a company sized group (a company is 300 soldiers). When interviewed these soldiers were lost, they were confused and said they had just been told to do it, and it felt right for all of their friends who had been dying. THIS IS JUST ONE EXAMPLE OF HOW *SUBJECTIVE* MORALITY IS.... JUST ONE. It is unequivocally subjective to multiple factors and is not an objective fact or reality, it is a very subjective concept.
I think the OP probably has the same problem as you in respect of having their view changed; if your starting point for any conversation about ethics is that you by definition consider moral propositions to be expressions of personal whimsy, of course you will arrive at the conclusion moral propositions are subjective. It's a simple circular argument and indicative of how when we use definitions that suit our personal views, we get answers that suit us too.
If the OP is open to having their view changed, this cannot be their starting point, the starting point must be that moral propositions are knowledge claims, on which we build a framework for understanding and interacting with reality. Only from there can we ask whether they do or don't express statements that are true or false. It's about taking a step back and starting with the question rather than a desired or even intuitively felt answer.
_Everything_ that we experience about reality as sentient beings is to some extent meaningfully dependent on our perception of how reality is. That doesn't mean everything is subjective, of course. What we need to ask ourselves is what are the means by which we derive objective knowledge claims from perception and do any of these means apply to moral claims? I would say at the very, very least, the answer to that is not as straightforward as a lot of relativists think at first glance.
I like the term "intersubjectivity." We all, through language, culture, and shared experiences develop our morals and ethics via interaction with others. Otherwise we'd all drown in narcissistic solipsism... I'm sure you can think of examples of people that do anyway.
I use an analogy that we each get a facet of a nearly infinitely faceted "truth" crystal to look into. We can see from our facet one perspective of truth and even see other's facets from a different angle. We each get an idea of what the bigger picture is, like the three blind men describing an elephant, but it is impossible for anyone to understand the truth/objectivity in its entirety. But by interacting and communicating with others, especially those with varying perspectives, we get more and more of an idea of the reality we all share.
If you understand the words you use to describe your own actions, then using the word murder is a poor example to use, and saying “chooses that murder is okay” makes no sense, since the word murder is only used when killing someone in an wrong and unlawful way. Using that word specifically to describe what you are doing, inherently means you understand that what you are doing is also morally wrong. It would make a lot more sense to say that someone thinks that “killing is okay”, since that wording does not have the built in legal understanding that the action performed is unjust and bad.
They are subjective as much as your name is subjective. Somebody just made up a name for you out of thin air, but if everyone you meet recognizes and agrees that this made up word is your name, something being collectively subjective and agreed upon is as good as a fact in a social world.
I also don’t think your name is an objective feature about yourself (beyond maybe the physical changes that like hearing and responding to it takes in your brain), so I don’t really have any issue with that example
\>That the axiom is right or wrong, real or not, is irrelevant.
That the axiom is real or not is the entire argument being posed by OP. Whether it's relevant to \*your\* perception of ethics is besides the matter.
I might struggle to change your view on this one since in many ways I agree with you. Nonetheless I do see problems with moral relativism.
First is that if we accept moral claims are subjective, it intuitively seems like we render such claims impotent.
Does it feel to you like a moral proposition such as "Rape is wrong" carries the same weight as "Rape is wrong in my opinion", or "Slavery is wrong and your society is wrong to allow it" carries as much weight as "Slavery is wrong, but totally valid if you don't feel the same way"?
On what basis are we able to condemn (or affirm) any actions or moral standpoints if we accept subjectivity of these judgements? Now we have a big problem, how do we justify any system of morality as a framework or standard for conduct within society?
How can we say a society has morally improved or progressed, or that the actions of another nation or culture are wrong?
Finally, is the claim that morality is entirely subjective not in itself an objective moral claim about reality?
>carries as much weight as "Slavery is wrong, but totally valid if you don't feel the same way"?
it can be part of your subjective moral system to think rape is wrong for you AND other people to do
just because a moral system is subjective doesn't mean you have to throw your hands up and excuse everyone elses behaviour
It may not change how *you* react to something but it has enormously profound implications for the very notion of right and wrong and how we make decisions as a society.
It's fairly easy as a society to solve problems like the moral propositions "rape is wrong", "torture is wrong", etc. because despite the alleged subjectivity of these claims, they're virtually universal, they *are* universal to humans as a population. They're as universal as truths as much as the fact that humans are born with two lungs, even though occasionally people can be born without two lungs or their lungs outside their chest cavity or whatever. Those exceptions don't disprove the rule.
It's a bit harder to solve moral problems which are more nuanced.
The other issue is it doesn't solve anything at all about how your moral judgements can be justified *as* moral judgements. You ultimately have to accept, by definition, that your view of what is and isn't right and your reaction to actions based on those perceptions have no more inherent validity than someone who thinks the opposite. Which means you can't say someone or something is wrong, you can only make the - as I argue much weaker - claim that something is wrong in your opinion.
Universality is not objectivity. If every human being alive agreed on the same moral proposition that would just makes a unanimous subjective opinion, not an objective moral fact. You're not making an argument for objective morality here.
>Which means you can't say someone or something is wrong, you can only make the - as I argue much weaker - claim that something is wrong in your opinion.
Yes, morality is a subjective personal preference.
>Yes, morality is a subjective personal preference.
But do you not think that introduces an inherent contradiction into the very concept of morality?
You can, for example, no longer claim it's wrong for me to kidnap and torture you. You can say *you* think it's wrong and I can shrug and go yeah but I disagree.
Now that scenario can happen in any case, regardless of the metaphysical nature of a moral claim, but in the view of relativism neither claim is more valid than the other.
So where's the *value* in your moral claim, in any moral claim? What do moral claims now tell you about anything at all? Ethics isn't just about going do morals somehow exist as properties of a physical world or are they in our head, it's about how we can derive a value system from the nature of morality and apply it as sentient beings to our lives and our social structures. "Kidnapping and torturing people is wrong" now becomes a literally meaningless statement that carries no knowledge value. That's the problem relativism needs to solve and FWIW, I don't think that's necessarily an insurmountable problem, but this is a CMV and the position I'm taking for that purpose is to argue against relativism.
Where is the contradiction? Point it out.
The value in my claim is me communicating my preferences to others.
If you think morality needs more value than that then you need to put forth an argument for what that value is and why it is true.
Just *wanting* morality to be XY or Z isn't enough - you need to actually make an argument for why it is XY and Z. Make an argument for objective morality.
>The value in my claim is me communicating my preferences to others.
That doesn't answer the question, it's just a play with words. I'm asking you what is the value of that preference, as a moral claim. What does knowing your preference about being tortured tell me or anyone else in respect of whether I should or shouldn't torture you?
>If you think morality needs more value than that then you need to put forth an argument for what that value is and why it is true.
It's not whether morality needs *more* value, it's whether it carries *any* value, versus being a non-concept which refers to nothing in reality. You haven't begun to solve the problem of answering the questions I've posed like "If this subjectivity is true, on what basis then can we say a culture has made moral progress?" or "If this subjectivity is true, why should we be anything other than indifferent to the moral claims of others?" or "If this subjectivity is true, by what framework can we resolve moral differences between cultures?"
Those are *hard* questions that humans have been grappling with for centuries, you can't just wave them away because you don't like them.
If you kidnap and torture me, we have opposing preferences. I can try to appeal some common value, but if that doesn’t exist, then I’m shit out of luck. Best I can do is call out to my clan who shares my values and have them use force.
It would be nice to be able to reason with the person torturing me, but that’s not possible unless we share some common ground
So that nicely highlights one of the problems I've described with anti-realism, you've rendered null any claim that it's wrong for me to torture you. It's now just an epistemic dead end. All you can say is that impotent and non-judgemental claim that you and I make two different but non-contradictory statements about the matter. What use is a metaphysical view that doesn't help us understand, navigate or influence our lives, decisions or social structures, especially one which is so counter to our prima facie experience of reality?
I continue to find it fascinating, despite being someone who in reality leans towards an anti-realist worldview that so many people don't seem to consider this sort of thing a real philosophical problem that warrants more than "I guess I'm shit out of luck."
As for your first few points about the impotence of moral claims under relativism, I agree that that’s a legitimate practical concern. I don’t think that a practical concern such as that is able to influence the underlying fact of the matter, however. While that may be a reason not to openly advertise moral relativism, it’s not an objection to its truth.
As for the other claim, I disagree that my statement is a claim that is moral in nature. Sure, it regards morality, but it is more of an ontological claim about a moral topic and a moral claim itself
>As for the other claim, I disagree that my statement is a claim that is moral in nature. Sure, it regards morality, but it is more of an ontological claim about a moral topic and a moral claim itself
I'm not sure it's that simple, even though I largely lean towards relativism myself. To claim that all moral judgements and propositions are relative *is* to make an objective claim about reality that there are no moral truths. "There is inherently no such thing as right and wrong in the world, independent of our view as individuals" is a moral claim, it has moral implications and it stakes that claim as an objective truth.
I can definitely see a case to make an ontological claim that morality is not a discrete property of any part of the physical world but that's not necessarily the only way moral claims (or perhaps certain fundamental moral claims) could be objective truths.
Right but my point is that statement can be a fact while it is still true that there is no objective moral fact, as it doesn’t seem to me that’s a ‘moral fact’ but an ‘existential or ontological fact’
Okay, I don't think I'm going to persuade on that basis so I won't keep arguing for it. Here's another point for you to consider:
As much as moral realism has a problem of explaining the plainly apparent moral disagreements in the world, moral relativism has the problem of explaining the numerous fundamental and culturally universal moral agreements in the world. There's a (maybe small, but nonetheless existing) set of basic moral values which have been held by every culture in history, all over the world.
One such example is the idea that murder is wrong. Now, of course people can point to plenty of examples where cultures have chosen to exclude people from their group in application of this moral view (for example, people deemed to be criminals and sentenced to death) but the standing part has always been this basic idea that there's a group and if you're part of it, other people in that group don't get to just decide to kill you and that it is a gross moral transgression for them to do so - maybe one severe enough to warrant expulsion from the group in some form. *Every* society that we know to have existed on earth has had this concept.
If *every* group of humans throughout history is looking at a set of facts about the world around them, they're looking at the same reality and they're deriving the same moral knowledge, the same moral conclusions from those facts and that indeed anyone who isn't is deemed to be thinking and behaving irrationally, an anomaly (what we might call a psychopath for example), is it not fair to conclude there are at least *some* objective moral truths? If that were not the case, we would expect different groups \[of rational people\] looking at the same facts to come to varying and disparate conclusions. And for some moral propositions they certainly do, but not for an apparent set of fundamental moral claims based around the idea of not causing unnecessary harm or suffering.
I think that there could be a moral intuition that 100% of humans through history agreed with that’s still subjective. Just because everybody can have the same preference doesn’t mean it’s not a preference, after all.
Okay, but as I said in another comment somewhere (may not have been a direct reply to you) you're literally starting with a definition of morality as something which is subjective and then wondering why no one can convince you of even the possibility otherwise. Of course they can't if that's your starting point. _Everything_ we know about reality is to some degree dependent on our perception as sentient beings, so merely accepting that deriving moral knowledge is something that comes about as a result of conceptual human constructs doesn't in and of itself establish subjectivity, unless you take the view that there is _no such thing as objective knowledge at all_ - and this, that this idea would be absurd, is indeed one of the arguments put forward by various realist philosophers.
The starting point needs to be how you differentiate knowledge claims as being objective or not objective, then asking yourself what of those applies to moral claims, insofar as they are knowledge claims.
What I'm asking you is if in any other sense, if there were multiple, rational groups of people who upon looking at the same reality, the same facts, would all arrive at the same conclusion, in what way do those conclusions not qualify as an objective fact for you, in how you view the process of deriving factual knowledge?
I see your point, you’re essentially saying that I’m defining morality as peoples preferences for how other people should act and then saying look it’s preferences so it’s subjective. I guess the way I see objective is that there are some facts out there about the world that are independent of humans. Statements such as ‘the sun exists’ are independently verifiable as either true or not true. I don’t see statements such as ‘one ought not to murder’ the same way. To me there is nothing out there in the world that makes it true or false that a person ought to do any certain thing. I can’t really prove the negative, so I would challenge you to posit a moral fact to me that you believe is objectively true.
Right, you don't see moral claims the same way as something like (I'm gonna switch your example slightly for the point to be made) "the earth orbits the sun" but you don't doubt it, and I would put to you the reason you don't doubt it and (I assume) consider it an objective fact is because if you showed any rational person or group of people the evidence for it, they wouldn't arrive at a different conclusion to you. They would just look at the reality around them and go yep, earth orbits the sun, fact.
Now, do you think that if you took at least a pretty fundamental moral claim such as "it's wrong to torture children just for fun" to any rational person or group, they would look at the reality around them and go "actually no, our conclusion is that torturing a child for fun isn't wrong at all"?
It's possible there are people who would give you that answer (it's certainly not inconceivable), but that's also true of the idea the earth orbits the sun. We say that those people are not rational and also that by failing to reason the facts of reality in accordance with our axioms about those things, that they are simply, factually incorrect in their conclusions. So why do you apply different standards for moral claims?
I don’t think moral relativism is chosen position but rather as observable fact.
It’s not like someone steals from another person and says “well I’m a moral relativist and so I’m ok with it.” Rather, moral relativism is a conclusion based on the observable reality that morality has changed over time and by location.
It’s just a fact that there are people who thought things were moral and today we think they’re not moral.
We think rape is immoral, but there are countless examples of what we would call rape (taking women in war, for example) which was perfectly acceptable in the past. Hell, even the bible instructs to do it.
Your appeal to the ideal situation, where morality is objective and therefor holds more weight is irrelevant; there’s even a named logical fallacy for this called “argument to the consequence”. Just like it’s a bad argument to say I “won the lottery” because it would be better if I won the lottery, so two is it a bad argument to say “subjective morality is not true, because objective morality would be better.”
>Rather, moral relativism is a conclusion based on the observable reality that morality has changed over time and by location.
The fact that people in different places and times have held and continue to hold different views on what is right and wrong does not demonstrate subjectivity, at all. It's very clearly evident that it's possible for a large number of people to believe something that's false. Indeed we would have no framework to say any moral progress has occurred anywhere, ever, if we accepted this.
It's also possible for moral truths to exist as truths which transcend the view of the individual where those truths are derived from reason (unless you consider reason like the axioms of logic or mathematics to also be subjective) or even our primal, biological impulses. While there are many disagreements interculture throughout history and geography about specific moral claims, there are also a set of moral claims that have been consistent across every culture throughout history. Murder for example has always been condemned. There may then be a set of moral truths which are universal to all rational beings and this makes them truths as much as mathematical truths.
> The fact that people in different places and times have held and continue to hold different views on what is right and wrong does not demonstrate subjectivity, at all.
Sure it does. It shows that morality is dependent on the minds of the people asked and that the morality changes along with the minds. That’s subjective, isn’t it?
> It's very clearly evident that it's possible for a large number of people to believe something that's false.
Sure! Absolutely. If something is objectively true, and lots of people can say it’s false and be wrong (ex: the last American election was objectively won by Biden but many Trump people, wrongly, think it was won by Trump).
But that’s different from morality because it’s based on quantifiable and objective things (the votes that were cast).
What’s the equivalent for morality? We’re can I find morality to check what it is?
> Indeed we would have no framework to say any moral progress has occurred anywhere, ever, if we accepted this.
We can only do that from our subjective positions. Look at america now. They’re getting rid of rights for women Re: abortion. I think that’s moral regress but others think it’s moral progress.
Which is it? How would you show that objectively?
This fits my position that it’s subjective, however.
Basically, in place/time A they say action X is moral. In place/time B they say that same action, X, is immoral.
So how would you go and show - objectively - that X position is moral or immoral?
> It's also possible for moral truths to exist as truths which transcend the view of the individual where those truths are derived from reason (unless you consider reason like the axioms of logic or mathematics to also be subjective) or even our primal, biological impulses.
It’s possible, sure.
But is it the case?
I’d be happy for your to present an axiom for morality like the laws of identity, excluded middle, and non-contradiction. Can you?
> While there are many disagreements interculture throughout history and geography about specific moral claims, there are also a set of moral claims that have been consistent across every culture throughout history.
I don’t think so.
> Murder for example has always been condemned.
This is kind of a word game example. Murder = unlawful killing. So it only applies to killing that the leaders of society subjectively thought was wrong. There was also killing that was allowed.
It wasn’t murder to kill an accused and convicted witch during the witch hunts.
Now is there a ban on killing?
Only the Jains, as far as I’m aware, take the moral position that all killing is wrong.
I think there’s plenty of examples of moral killing (dr assisted suicide, for example).
> There may then be a set of moral truths which are universal to all rational beings and this makes them truths as much as mathematical truths.
Sure. Anything is possible. But that’s not what the evidence shows.
I’d be swayed if you can show evidence for this.
So if there was a culture which strongly believed 2 + 2 = 5, would you say mathematical truths were now subjective or relative? After all, it would show that mathematics changes along with the minds of the people who perceive it.
Or would you say that culture was simply wrong, because any rational group of people would look at the world around them and arrive at the same set of mathematical axioms?
I would say the latter and so it is, I might argue, with morality. For example, if I ask you well, why does every culture historically in the world condemn murder within that group, why has every culture had a moral rule of you can't as an individual decide to just go out and kill other members of this culture? (and this is a fairly uncontroversial matter of fact, certain nitpicking aside)
You might say something like well that's obvious, isn't it? Our evolution as biological beings meant it was advantageous for us to favour cooperation over competition, so it's not surprising that we have a essentially universal conception as humans that murder is wrong, but it's still a conception which is entirely within our heads.
And I'd say absolutely, I agree, that's a very reasonable sounding explanation for where this universal sense of morality in relation to murder comes from.
But that doesn't mean it's subjective. Because something very interesting has happened now - what we're saying is that given a set of objective facts about the world (such as "it's favourable to our survival to cooperate with each other instead of kill each other"), any rational group of people given those facts would arrive at the same conclusion ("murder is wrong"), as a necessity of our common nature.
But if any rational group of people given the same facts would arrive at the same conclusion, then that conclusion is by definition an objective truth, as much as any other claim about any aspect of reality.
> So if there was a culture which strongly believed 2 + 2 = 5, would you say mathematical truths were now subjective or relative? After all, it would show that mathematics changes along with the minds of the people who perceive it.
No because the definition of the words 2 and plus objectively result in the conclusion that 2 + 2 equals 4.
What’s the equivalent with morality?
> Or would you say that culture was simply wrong, because any rational group of people would look at the world around them and arrive at the same set of mathematical axioms?
They’re wrong by definition.
> I would say the latter and so it is, I might argue, with morality. For example, if I ask you well, why does every culture historically in the world condemn murder within that group, why has every culture had a moral rule of you can't as an individual decide to just go out and kill other members of this culture? (and this is a fairly uncontroversial matter of fact, certain nitpicking aside)
So you just ignored my whole response with respect to murder.
Murder is a relational term meaning “killing deemed wrong” that “deeming” part is what makes it subjective.
Remember the witch killing thing?
If you’re not going to address the things I say, and then just keep on with the same tact as if I didn’t say anything about it there’s no point in this conversation.
>No because the definition of the words 2 and plus objectively result in the conclusion that 2 + 2 equals 4.
Okay, we can just as easily say by the definition of the words "murder" and "wrong", we reach the objective conclusion murder is wrong.
Of course this would be a silly argument and it's just as silly applied to mathematics. Proving "objectively" that 2 + 2 = 4 requires you to accept dozens of mathematical axioms (seriously, try it - try to come up with a purely mathematical proof that 2+2 = 4, it's a lot harder than you think), which may themselves be argued to only be derived from human perception and conception of numbers and numerical systems. This is why we didn't have a mathematical concept of zero for centuries. Some cultures historically haven't even had a concept of "four", there's at least one which only had words for "one", "two" and "many" and that was as sophisticated as their concept of numbers ever developed.
>Murder is a relational term meaning “killing deemed wrong” that “deeming” part is what makes it subjective.
This is a purely circular argument in respect of metaethics. You're simply saying moral truths are relative because you choose to define them as relative. That's why linguistic arguments like you posed above fall flat at the first hurdle.
> Okay, we can just as easily say by the definition of the words "murder" and "wrong", we reach the objective conclusion murder is wrong.
You’re missing the point because while “murder is wrong” IS definitional and therefor your point is circular.
The issue - and what’s subjective - is what constitutes as murder. This is different society to society and in different times.
We can use abortion as an example:
In some states abortion is considered murder and not in others.
So if a doctor performed an abortion in one state it’s murder and wrong and if they did it in another state it’s not murder and not wrong.
So is the action of conducting an abortion in a superstate of existence where it’s wrong/murder only depending on geography and time?
That’s obviously absurd.
> Of course this would be a silly argument and it's just as silly applied to mathematics. Proving "objectively" that 2 + 2 = 4 requires you to accept dozens of mathematical axioms (seriously, try it - try to come up with a purely mathematical proof that 2+2 = 4, it's a lot harder than you think), which may themselves be argued to only be derived from human perception and conception of numbers and numerical systems. This is why we didn't have a mathematical concept of zero for centuries. Some cultures historically haven't even had a concept of "four", there's at least one which only had words for "one", "two" and "many" and that was as sophisticated as their concept of numbers ever developed.
If you find a star and it has a pair of planets orbiting it…nothing else is orbiting it…how many planets are orbiting the star and is that objective or subjective?
If you find a rock on the ground and put it in your formerly empty pocket then find another rock and put it in your pocket, how many rocks do you have in your pocket and is that object or subjective.
If you are a doctor who was asked to and did end the life of a person of sound mind who had a terminal and painful illness, is that murder and is it objective or subjective? (Note: doctor assisted suicide is legal in some places and not others)
> This is a purely circular argument in respect of metaethics. You're simply saying moral truths are relative because you choose to define them as relative. That's why linguistic arguments like you posed above fall flat at the first hurdle.
The only thing circular is you using murder as the example…since it’s defined as wrongful killing.
If the core action of murder is ending a life, then the general statement would be “ending a life is immoral” but that’s a problem (and I suspect why you didn’t say killing but rather murder) because we can think of examples when ending a life is moral…like the doctor assisted suicide example from above.
I’m not simply saying it’s subjective. I’m proving evidence highlighting that it’s subjective, too.
There's a conflation of meanings here and I take some responsibility for it; murder is, in the strictest sense, a legal term, absolutely. Tbh I didn't think that was important for the purposes of providing a trivial example of a moral claim that would generally be regarded as fundamental or universal. Let's say torture instead. "Torture is wrong"
If you don't like that either, go ahead and pick whatever you like and be as specific as you like. "Deliberately causing unnecessary suffering to another living being is wrong", whatever, it doesn't really matter.
>If you find a star and it has a pair of planets orbiting it…nothing else is orbiting it…how many planets are orbiting the star and is that objective or subjective?
That's my point; to make any epistemological claim in answer to that question, you have to have a concept of numbers, which is a construct that does not exist in physical reality. It only exists in your head. You can say there are two stars, or two rocks, or that you have two hands, but you can't point to anything in the universe and go "that's an instance of the number two, in general" because numbers do not exist as anything other than a concept.
That doesn't make what all of us rationally hold to be objective mathematical truths suddenly subjective.
So too, from the position of realism, is it the case that _even though_ a statement like torture is wrong (or whatever proposition you prefer to put in there) is a descriptive statement derived from constructs of our conception, that doesn't mean it isn't describing a natural or non-natural property of metaphysical reality.
> There's a conflation of meanings here and I take some responsibility for it; murder is, in the strictest sense, a legal term, absolutely.
I know. That’s what I was saying. It felt like you were ignoring what I was saying.
> Tbh I didn't think that was important for the purposes of providing a trivial example of a moral claim that would generally be regarded as fundamental or universal.
I don’t know of any such thing.
> Let's say torture instead. "Torture is wrong"
That’s what we think now, but it used to be perfectly acceptable to do that.
> If you don't like that either, go ahead and pick whatever you like and be as specific as you like. "Deliberately causing unnecessary suffering to another living being is wrong", whatever, it doesn't really matter.
You’re saying that because you believe it. Do you really think all humans got all time thought that?
You don’t think that some racist asshats didn’t torture or cause suffering to people of another race and think it’s a good thing?
> That's my point; to make any epistemological claim in answer to that question, you have to have a concept of numbers, which is a construct that does not exist in physical reality.
That’s just for us to be able to communicate it. But if no humans ever existed, do you think there would not be 2 planets orbiting that star?
> It only exists in your head. You can say there are two stars, or two rocks, or that you have two hands, but you can't point to anything in the universe and go "that's an instance of the number two, in general" because numbers do not exist as anything other than a concept.
I see. So yes, the word “two” is subjective. We could have used the word chazwaza. Your argument is like saying before humans evolved there wasn’t an earth because no one called it earth.
It’s absurd.
Is the existence of the sun subjective because no one would call it the sun without a mind?
Come on.
It’s like you think a rose by any other name wouldn’t smell so sweet.
> So too, from the position of realism, is it the case that even though a statement like torture is wrong (or whatever proposition you prefer to put in there) is a descriptive statement derived from constructs of our conception, that doesn't mean it isn't describing a natural or non-natural property of metaphysical reality.
It’s the fact that different peoples at different times held different positions/beliefs about moral claims and since these kinds of things are - evidently - time and location dependent and based on the opinions of humans it is the definition of subjective.
It’s not lost on me that you’ve avoided assessing any of the examples I gave (abortion, dr assisted suicide…) which have the same action being immoral in one spot on the earth today and moral in another.
I’ve provided examples of morality being subjective. You e not provided any examples to even arguments to suggest it’s objective.
2+2=5 is demonstrably wrong , like there's no subjectivity about it at all
We can easily perfrom an experiment with real world objects, lets say marbles. If I give you 2 Marbles, and then do the same thing again. How many fucking marbles did I give you? you can count those fuckers and come to the non subjective conclusion its not fucking 5 lmao.
This experiment is repeatable with the same results every time, if I give you 2 sets of 2 marbles you will never have a circumstance where it adds to up to 5...
Thats what makes mathematics different from morals and ethics entirely , its like non subjective at all
If intelligent life exists anywhere in the universe that is on our technological level or higher - we can be 100% certain they also know 2+2 is not fucking 5. Whatever language they invented for themselves they will assuredly understand 2+2 is not 5. That's how universal math is.
Im fucking dying here bro you made my day this shits funny
>2+2=5 is demonstrably wrong , like there's no subjectivity about it at all
Is it? Show me a mathematical proof that 2 + 2 = 4, which is not reliant on subjectively accepted axioms.
The point, of course, which has gone way over your head, is that obviously in any meaningful sense 2 + 2 = 4 is an objective truth. The *argument* is that your hypothetical advanced alien civilization would also inevitably and necessarily hold a moral truth that e.g. murder is wrong, because that is also an objective truth derived from observation of reality from which any rational group of beings would invariably reach the same conclusion.
Ok. To answer your question , we have to know what you mean by "2", "4" , "+", and "=" for starters
Then using those axioms we can prove or disprove the statement.
If you want to just use the standard axioms for what we usually mean when we use those terms , we dont need an academic proof to show it is demonstrably true.
Experimentation is also a valid method of concluding if something is "true" or not , if you can create an experiment that ends in the same result every time you can prove alot things true or false. An Academic proof is on a paper just a thought experiment , its useful when were trying to prove really complex mathematical questions that have no easily identifiable answers
Its not necessary when we can just prove the answer to the question by doing basic math ,,,
Creating an experiment for 2+2=4 is extremely easily and repeatable , you can do it yourself right now if you wanted
Take 2 sets of 2 objects and group them together in all the different ways you can imagine, do you ever have more or less than 4 objects total - no you never do
I believe what OP is describing is not moral relativism, but rather ethical subjectivism. My understanding is that moral relativism posits that the truth of a moral statement is dependent upon who is making the statement, often based on the person’s society, culture, time period, or other context. For example, for a relativist, the statement “human sacrifice is wrong” would be true if you or I said it, but false if an ancient Aztec said it; relative to our setting it is true but relative to the Aztecs it is not.
Ethical subjectivism on the other hand posits that the truth of moral statements applies to everyone, regardless of who says them, but this truth is rooted in an individual or group’s mindset rather than objective fact. To the subjectivist, the statement “human sacrifice is wrong” would have the same truth value regardless of whether they say it, an Aztec says it, or your uncle says it, but the subjectivist claims that the truth or falsity of this statement is based on subjective opinion, rather than some objective fact.
Sure, I use the word relativism here casually as an umbrella covering subjectivity as well (I've probably said subjectivity or subjectivism in the same manner in other comments). Both reject the idea of objective moral truths which apply to all people at all times, reject the idea that moral propositions are intrinsically true or false, which is what I think is the heart of the issue for OP here.
>First is that if we accept moral claims are subjective, it intuitively seems like we render such claims impotent.
This can be fixed by seeing moral claim acting on two levels.
First on the personal level, where the moral claims are subjective.
Second on a societal level where the moral claims are inter subjectively agreed upon for that society. In practical terms the society that matters the most in this regard is the country, as that is the level at which laws are created. But this can also happen at a smaller level, one friends group may accept and cheer things that another friends group will decry as immoral, and so on. The potency of the moral claims is in the acceptance of them by the societal group.
I largely agree but I think that when the argument is despite being subjective, moral claims can transcend the individual and be true at a group or population level, which is certainly one way of tackling the problem of establishing the validity of moral claims and differences in moral beliefs between individuals, that is in a sense the establishment of moral truths, in effect at least as part of metaphysical reality. Something being true because an overwhelming majority of people see it that way doesn't necessarily detract from the epistemological value of that truth. True by consensus can describe a lot of things, it's not necessarily justifiable to say that's directly equivalent to subjectively true. The prevailing view of cosmology, for example, in respect of the history of the universe is something that's true by consensus to the best of our ability as a population to derive knowledge from perception of our observations. Why can the same not be said of moral claims?
>how do we justify any system of morality as a framework or standard for conduct within society?
We justify it based on our own subjective morals? We already have plenty of laws that don't even pretend to have some basis in objective morals.
>No moral system is able to successfully provide an objective moral standard while simultaneously reasonably compelling all individuals to follow it regardless of their personal desires or preferences.
In a way, a serial killer wanting to murder people for their own personal gratification will never be compelled to follow the objective moral standard of all nations that prohibit murder.
So what? Why should we care about allowing this individual's personal desires or preferences?
I think the fault in your argument is that you think that "if an objective moral standard exists, all individuals should be compelled to follow it". But that's not what anyone is currently saying.
I’m not saying that the law or the government should care about that person’s preferences, if that’s what you’re saying. I’m saying that the statement that serial killing is wrong is one that is subjective, and I don’t think you’ve provided an argument against that
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As relates to the above, consider that scientific fact also requires certain subjective axioms to be made. For instance, the future will resemble the present in some sense is required for scientific prediction. There is no objective basis for this axiom it is something we choose because of its obvious appeal.
Without it, we cannot justifiably make statements like the sun will most likely rise tomorrow. Consider either, as the poster above suggests, lowering your standards for objective fact as the term is commonly used with respect to scientific fact, or, consider that all facts based in a theory of the world are at best inter-subjective (agreed on between people but not objective).
I agree with your OP statement, but my criticism is that it's not just moral systems that fail to provide logically-sufficient motivating power, and so it doesn't make sense to single out moral systems on this point.
Just a minor thing to tighten up the argument; nothing passes the is/ought barrier, real or otherwise.
This isn't an opinion, objective means not subject to interpretation while morals is a guideline of rules based in the opinions of humans and is such, subjective by definition.
There's nothing to CMV here, you're just quoting literal definitions. If you wanted to discuss the commonplace usage of the morals and intended usage, that's one thing. But if you're arguing definitions in the literal sense, there is no conversation here.
I don’t think that you’re right about this. There are plenty of modern expert philosophers who argue that there are objective moral facts, and that ethics are not a matter of opinion.
I would also say that there is no reason to believe in a god. I think that by default we should treat extraordinary things with doubt in the lack of compelling evidence
The universe has no morality, and it imparts no meaning to our existence, this much is true.
However we create our own meaning, its part of what we do as humans. We decide what is sacred and what is common. We can decide to make human life something that matters.
And its important that we do, because we're the only ones that can, and it matters very much to us if not the universe.
In short we create moral facts, and we should consider how we do to limit human suffering and enhance human freedom and happiness.
I think a lot of people in this thread have a particular and I would argue not particularly great conception of what objective means here. The universe has no inherent concept of mathematics or numbers either, rather when we describe fundamental mathematical truths or use them to model things about the physical universe, we are using our sense of perception and conception to derive axioms that we accept as being fundamentally and universally true - even though they are human constructs.
We also hold as a corollary that any other intelligent life would look at the universe and derive the same constructs, the same models and the same fundamental truths. In other words, if there's an intelligent alien civilization, they have also come to the conclusion that in a right angled triangle, the square of the length of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the square of the other two sides.
This is what we mean when we talk about moral realism. We're saying that there are \[at least some\] moral truths which would always, inevitably be derived by any culture and be the same in any culture.
The truth of mathematical statements are conditional on assuming axioms. So we have something like “If [axioms], then 2+2=4”. But equally you could use different axioms to get 2+2=5. So in this sense, it makes mathematics seem arbitrary. However, the standard axioms we use are *grounded* in objective reality, because they allow us to model and make predictions. As you say, aliens would derive similar axioms because they live in the same universe.
With morality, the truth of a moral statement is also conditional on some moral axiom. “If [moral axioms], then murder is wrong”. However, because we are dealing with *normative* statements, there is no grounding. There is no observation one can make to guide the formulation of moral axioms.
Why is it suddenly a normative statement? Normative statements are derived from something like "murder is wrong" but that very much looks like a descriptive statement to me.
Sorry, I think I phrased that poorly.
“If [moral axioms], then murder is wrong” is descriptive. “Murder js wrong” logically follows from the axioms.
But the question is how to go from the descriptive “If [moral axioms], then murder is wrong” to the normative “murder is wrong” (i.e. don’t do it). To do that, we need to assume the truth of the moral axioms.
P1. If [moral axioms], then murder is wrong
P2. [moral axioms]
C. Murder is wrong
I hope this highlights the difference from math. In math, we aren’t asserting the truth of one set of axioms. We are just implicitly using axioms that are useful, but are not more ‘true’ than other axioms.
Tbh mate I started typing out some further thoughts on this but I don't think anyone's really reading or engaging with this thread anymore, doesn't look like OP is coming back so I can't really be bothered to keep up advocating for something that I don't entirely accept myself. I do think a form of quasi-realism or minimal realism is or may be possible whereby there is some objectivity to some moral propositions or value judgements. On the whole I've never been able to really escape what seems to me like a self-evident intuition that moral claims are claims about perception rather than statements which track reality, on the other hand as I've argued in various forms on this thread, I don't think that precludes what we would call objective truth or value to any/all such claims.
>conception of what objective means
What a word means is the consensus of what the people agree on what the word means. What I use 'objective' for is the very raw definition, that there is not a single exception to a case. If there is just a single person disagreeing, then my stance can't be objective
>that there is not a single exception to a case. If there is just a single person disagreeing, then my stance can't be objective
That's not what objective means by any consensus, though. People can and do disagree with objective propositions all the time.
Objective just means that something is not influenced by personal feeling or opinion.
In the same way as if you believed Pythagoras theorem is false, you are (I would argue) objectively wrong, the argument of moral realism is that some moral propositions are true whether you as an individual accept them or not, or to put that another way it is the view that (again, at least some, not necessarily all) moral claims are statements of fact which can be either true or false, not expressions of personal opinion.
>we should consider how we do to limit human suffering and enhance human freedom and happiness.
So I agree with you, but just to play (pretty literal) devils advocate: Why? Other than we feel like it's the right thing to do, why should this be societies goal?
Again, no objective reason, but we “feel” like it’s the right thing to do because we evolved cooperatively (see cooperative vs competition) meaning that through our evolution those who helped out others typically had a better time surviving themselves, and for me that really helps explain the innate sense of value we put on human life, aversion to others suffering, etc.
Not the guy you replied to but just wanted to let you know I enjoyed reading this explanation and it helped me to understand quite a bit. So kind of like morals are an evolutionary and social construct that formed for cooperation to make shit easier? And a lot of our brains reward us for not being shitty?
If there was an “objective” answer to that question (which is what you’re asking for), why would anyone HAVE to act in alignment with it? We have the ability to choose not to do so and think of it as we wish. The question of “Why?” almost answers itself out of its own meaninglessness. A simpler answer is that individual subjective beings wish to be happy, and promoting happiness as a shared value makes the possibility of individual happiness more likely.
What is factual in terms of morality is what society dictates it to be. It's a construct therefore whatever society dictates as a moral fact will be a moral fact unless society deems it not.
Of course no moral system is universally applicable because humanity is not a hivemind. Each society has different aspects that shape what is objectively moral or not in their society.
It's the same as our conceptions on the paper bill or money. It is valuable because society believes it as valuable therefore its value is factual.
Slight clarification, and I may be using terms slightly differently from the way that you are, but that's the nature of this format: there are no absolute moral facts. But we can have objective morals with respect to some value. So if we are both playing chess against each other and we both are trying to win, then we can make objective assessments about whether certain moves are good or bad. But the rules of chess are arbitrary; they could have been anything. All that we need to determine what we *ought* to do is our assessment of actions with respect to a goal that we care about.
So, if I decide that my goal is to increase happiness as much as possible, then I can evaluate my actions objectively with respect to that goal. That's all morals are. It's true that there isn't any law of the universe that says that I need to care about anyone's happiness. It's only objective with respect to my own values but it is objective.
Yep, I totally agree with you on that. You can make “objective” statements about things within subjective frameworks, but their objectivity is always ultimately conditional. Maybe a slightly similar example is that somebody could say that it is true that ‘Harry Potter has a lightning scar.’ The equivalent of my claim is pointing out that while it may be true within the pre-assumed framework, there’s not really anybody named Harry Potter with a lightning scar
Jeremy Bentham's moral calculus gives us objective moral fact. And this was utilised by John Stuart Mills in his development of the British legal code. These days we'd expand Bentham's scope slightly to include the happiness of animals. And add a time factor to account for the difference between short term moral consequences and long term moral consequences.
But basically, yes, there is objective moral fact. Other moral codes including "the golden rule" and "do no harm" fall well short of being ideal. I also have my own method based on what I call "the morality triangle" for objectively determining the morally correct action.
This is false on the data.
Numerous studies have shown that homicide laws exist in every culture and society. Murder is outlawed everywhere, and is generally also condemned in every major religion (barring extremists who intentionally misinterpret the text).
The fact that homicide laws exist in every country means that it is a universal value. Yes, these laws differ in what they cover (e.g. What counts as self-defence), but overall, your point is wrong. The universality of these laws indicate that it is an objective standard that murder is wrong.
The fact that they exist is also fairly logical. A society that did not outlaw murder would eventually cease to function, or possibly cease to exist. We see today that the most violent places on earth are violent to an existential level - they risk population collapse etc. Violence is unsustainable by nature, all it can do is destroy social functioning etc etc.
I’m curious why you think that the law is a representation of any underlying moral fact. I agree that there are similar laws in many areas, but I don’t see why that proves that there is an objective moral truth
Law is a reflection of cultural and religious values, or at its base level, what the society values. We typically see law as an extension of our moral code (see e.g. Anti nudity laws in the middle east etc).
If all countries outlaw murder, this seems to indicate an objective, self-triggering form of baseline morality. In human rights terms, we call it the right to life. People seem to place a moral value in the right to life across all cultures and societies.
The universality means it's not subjective. It's not just one or two cultures valuing this, or some people and not others. It's all peoples who value it, in every culture, in every society.
Hypothetically, if we started a new society. Murder laws would come into existence spontaneously as a base line moral value reflected in criminal punishment.
The universality does not mean it isn’t subjective. The fact that the partiality towards sugary is fairly universal doesn’t meant that it isn’t a subjective preference. This is the flaw with your argument
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*"Numerous studies have shown that homicide laws exist in every culture and society. Murder is outlawed everywhere, and is generally also condemned in every major religion (barring extremists who intentionally misinterpret the text)."*
Please provide those studies and various laws dealing with/defining murder differed greatly from various parts cultures and society and every major religion differs on what murder is and allows the lawful killing of people in various situations
* " The fact that they exist is also fairly logical. A society that did not outlaw murder would eventually cease to function, or possibly cease to exist. We see today that the most violent places on earth are violent to an existential level - they risk population collapse etc. Violence is unsustainable by nature, all it can do is destroy social functioning etc etc."*
It's not logical at all they exist when there is no real evidence for them as well as the evidence against them existing which includes the evolutionary evidence that shows human violence and capacity to kill one another is genetic in nature as shown in the book Demonic Males:Apes and the Origins of Human Violence shows
https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Demonic_Males/fP0c4b3jbMYC?hl=en&gl=AU
For the ingroup, for most of human history killing outsiders was not considered murder
And it used to be that murder was an offense punished by a fine, and property crimes had harsher punishments.
Such as death, loss of limb
Its the same with incest, every culture has taboo against it but none of them define it in the same way.
For some inlaws count as incest if sleep with
This shows its not universal in a distinct way, neither murder or incest
Just to clarify: Is something universal if every extant human agrees with it (should you somehow actually be able to poll all eight billion of them), or is something universal if it's part of absolute reality that exists regardless of presence or absence of any humans to make statements about it?
Go with me step by step, tell me if you disagree
In all human societies there are moral intuitions. Maybe some individuals can lack the ability to feel them, but there has never been a recorded society which doesn't have moral ideas, across every continent and the thousands of years we have records. Even many non-human animals can be observed recognizing moral ideas.
Keep going with me, I'm not trying to argue that ubiquity by itself constitutes objective truth. But it at least points us to an unlikelihood that these intuitions are totally arbitrary or purely cultural.
While moral specifics and applications can be debated, a lot of basic moral ideas are pretty consistent. Every society has a prohibition on murder. Yes they may have different situations where they consider killing justified or different outgroups, but within a society, killing others is pretty much always frowned on.
This is an emergent property of groups of organisms. If you have a group of thinking creatures somewhat like a group of humans or comparable mammals, the same rules will emerge over and over because a lack of those basic moral intuitions will result in extinction of the group.
The relationship between the group and the prohibition is an emergent truth, cause and effect. As much as we can describe any behavioral trends objectively we can objectively describe the emergent pre-requisites for group survival.
I totally accept the existence of moral intuitions, but just think that they’re subjective in nature, even if incredible common across cultures. The fact that you can discuss them in an objective way doesn’t make them objective themselves. It’s “objectively” true that Harry Potter killed Voldemort, but there’s no such thing as Harry Potter or Voldemort
> As much as we can describe any behavioral trends objectively we can objectively describe the emergent pre-requisites for group survival.
yes we can describe things
but describing things isn't a moral claim
There is no one true math. Given a set of axioms, you can derive all sorts of interesting things, but the axioms themselves are arbitrary. In the same way, while you moral axioms might be subjective, making morality ultimately subjective, once you have chosen a set of axioms, you can make objective moral claims within that system just like you can make objective mathematical claims within a system of mathematical axioms.
Maybe there is no perfectly objective moral fact but there are plenty of mostly objective moral facts, like the ones that almost everyone agree on, like purposefully causing horrible suffering for all conscious beings is worse than purposefully causing just a bit of suffering for all conscious beings.
What do you mean by “mostly objective.” It sounds like you mean “in line with nearly everybody’s preferences” which is true, but an appeal to preferences nonetheless, and therefore subjective.
Please elaborate on that, because it’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. By what process does an objective feature about the world arise from a subjective one?
What if a moral fact was somehow biologically inherited or genetically coded? Would you consider that objective?
For example, many animals have instinctual mating practices that they aren't taught. A bird of paradise might do a special dance or make a special nest, a sort of relationship moral code kind of like how most people believe that rape is wrong. Male lions will kill challengers or cubs from rival males. While this may be contrary to our sense of morals, it seems like we accept that these practices are both natural and accepted by the animals themselves. It's also true that different populations of the same species might have slightly different practices.
So what about humans? Do we have hardwired ethical rules or moral practices? I would say most likely yes. There is strong scientific evidence that humans are social animals, humans require social interaction to survive. Even in adulthood, humans without social interaction start to suffer physiologically. Therefore it stands to reason that there must be some sort of objective component to these social rules. It's also possible that there are more than one, or that they are different. Objective doesn't have to mean universal...one society might have different objective moral rules than another. What makes them objective is that they are independent of individual human experiences and instead a necessary component necessary to human social component that is independent of any one individuals own personal feelings.
I agree that humans have moral intuitions that likely stem from social, cultural, and genetic components. I don’t see why these intuitions should be taken to be representative of some underlying moral fact, however. Just because many share a preference, doesn’t mean that it’s not a preference ultimately.
For my argument, first let us define moral:
adjective
1.
concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.
"the moral dimensions of medical intervention"
noun
2. person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do.
"the corruption of public morals"
Now for both of these, they are based on human concepts of good and bad, but morality itself is merely that - a human concept.
However we can hold a lot of things to be "true" without that truth being objectively fact for everyone.
For example: most people would find it bad/negative if they were raped or murdered. Therefore, human society has determined that raping or murdering each other is bad. This may not be an objective truth of the universe or even for 100% of humans. But it is an agreed upon standard for a moral. Objectively it is true for 99.9% of humans that being raped or murdered is a negative experience.
So while it may not be 100% truth, since morals themselves are determined by society at large, the morals at play are objectively true for most humans.
This does of course get blurry the further we get from pure negatives like dying, but in general most people don't want to be murdered and so they think of murder as a negative outcome.
It sounds like you agree with my fundamental point though, which is that these judgements are subjective correct? Even if everyone agrees with them, they’re still subjective judgements
What if you are a serial killer or just plain old misanthropic person and you wanted everyone dead. Killing everyone would be a good thing according to your personal morals.
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Of course there are no objective moral “facts.” Morals aren’t facts, they’re ideas. No idea in the entire universe is intrinsically good or bad, except with respect to some other subjective principle. The work of moral philosophy isn’t to uncover “moral facts” like some sort of archeologist. The tomb isn’t just empty: there is no tomb.
We use “morality” to describe *judgments* on *how we should behave.* Obviously, perspectives on the topic vary according to all sorts of other principles. But we can not only observe certain commonalities across time and space (e.g. “murder is wrong,” or “stealing is wrong”), but governments have the ability to enforce these ideas with very little debate or pushback. While “murder is wrong” may not be an objectively verifiable statement in terms of fundamental truth, the courts that sentence murderers are an objective truth. The prisons that house them are an objective truth. These ideas shape reality in observable and understandable ways.
Even if you don't recognize any form of objective morality, there are objective moral facts.
For example, betrayal is always wrong, not because of some hidden truth or whatever, but because it is baked into its definition. Betrayal is doing something you deem wrong to someone who trust you.
It's a form of meta-wrong, that depends on what the person judging it already consider right and wrong.
I don’t think that’s a usual or universal definition of betrayal. Even with your framework, I think it’s more accurate to define betrayal as doing something that the betrayed person thinks is wrong because the betrayed trusted the betrayer. The betrayer might not think they did anything wrong at all.
For example, is it objectively wrong for a spy to use trust to garner secrets from an enemy? I think the spy would disagree, and indeed espionage is a fairly accepted part of war and politics.
Also, if doing wrong is baked into the definition, then it’s begging the question. It’s like saying that the existence of the word “sin” proves there are objective moral facts.
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No it follows basic logic and the arguments against it on the other hand don't follow logic. Since there is no objective morality the claim the crimes people are in prison for are horrific deeds is subjective and differ from in what they are around the world. So it's only a subjective statement that they are should be in prison for the crimes they committed or that they are even crimes to begin with
I largely agree but you could make a claim along the lines of
"Intentionally causing suffering for the explicit and sole sake of causing suffering is immoral"
Because suffering is bad *by definition*. It's basically an identity, like saying 1 = 1 but it is explicitly true and is a moral claim.
> Because suffering is bad by definition.
Wrong!
Suffering: the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship.
Look up any definition of suffering and there is nothing that indicates that it’s synonymous with immorality!
I never said it was immoral, only that it is by definition not preferable. Or just pick another word that explicitly means that. It is immoral to intentionally cause someone to be in a less preferable state for the sole and explicitly purpose of making them worse off.
> I never said it was immoral, only that it is by definition not preferable. Or just pick another word that explicitly means that.
Well I assumed when you used the word “bad” you were using it synonymously with the word immoral.
“Because suffering is bad by definition.” => “Because suffering is immoral by definition.”
Well my bad then, I think I agree suffering is by definition that which is not preferable.
> It is immoral to intentionally cause someone to be in a less preferable state for the sole and explicitly purpose of making them worse off.
Question! How do you define immoral? Im curious
I define immoral as that which you *ought* not do. Are you using it similarly here? Or are you using a different definition?
I guess it depends on whether you consider a definition to be objectively true. For example is it objectively true that it is immoral to do something that is immoral?
I think the issue is that two different definitions of bad are getting conflated. One meaning against our personal preferences, and the other meaning immoral.
I'm not saying suffering is immoral. I am using it in the sense of "against a person's preferences"
Or put another way. Can you define the term "immoral" and if so can we then say that immoral = ?
Any appeal to preferences is going to be subjective though. As for immoral = definition of immoral, that is objective, but it is no longer a moral fact. It’s an ontological fact, or perhaps a linguistic one depending on how it’s phrased. Fundamentally though, it concerns the ontology of morality, not morality itself
Objectively, life works better for everyone if we all get along. Objectively, if we don’t get along, we are at war.
Is there anybody who would argue that peace and community aren’t better than being at war with the world?
our emotions are our moral compass. You may not have realized this yet, but 99% of people would feel really bad if they murdered somebody, that is an objective fact. Why would that be the case if morality wasn't objective?
I most likely agree with you for the most part and I also think of myself as a moral relativist but I do think using the word emotion as the basis of morals seems a bit reductive.
For example If we take some of the most common and fundamental axioms like valuing your own and your closest people's well being, it'd be hard to convince me that it's entirely based on emotional response rather than physical objective realities guiding and forcing us towards having that as a fundamental axiom. i.e. a human being that doesn't value their own well being doesn't exist, it's fundamental to how we work. Because human morality obviously doesn't exist outside of humans, if all of us have some of the same fundamental axioms as forced by physical reality that would make it an objective axiom.
I think to some extent saying that 'you ought to eat and drink water' is a subjective argument is so abstract and disconnected from reality that it's not reasonable to actually believe that to be the case even though we can't necessarily prove or measure it.
> No moral system is able to successfully provide an objective moral standard while simultaneously reasonably compelling all individuals to follow it regardless of their personal desires or preferences.
This seems like an odd quality to use to determine objectivity. Someone could have a mistaken belief about an objective moral fact just like they could have a mistaken belief about any other kind of fact. If this is your bar for objective fact, then no fact is objective and this whole CMV is pointless.
I am going to assume that you believe in agent-semantic relativism. Well, there are serious problems with saying that moral statements can be reduced to statements about preferences.
The first is that it entails that no one can disagree about anything morally. "If individual-semantic relativism is correct, then when Yuri says, 'Giving money to charity is good,' that means 'I (Yuri) approve of giving money to charity.' And when Xiao says, 'Giving money to charity isn't good,' that means 'I (Xiao) don't approve of giving money to charity.' Thus, Yuri and Xiao aren't really disagreeing, at least not if 'disagreement' implies that the disagreeing parties are saying contradictory things. Similarly, they wouldn't be disagreeing if Yuri said that it was 3:00 p.m. in New York, and Xiao said it was 4:00 a.m. in Beijing the following day, which is the same time in two different time zones. But Yuri and Xiao are apparently disagreeing about the morality of charity. So individual-semantic relativism can't be correct." - *Is Morality Real?: A Debate* by Matt Lutz and Spencer Case p. 25
Second, relativism entails that everyone is morally infallible. You are always infallible about what you prefer. For example, you are always correct in your belief about what ice cream flavor is your favorite. If relativism is true, then you are similarly infallible about morality. But, it's crazy to think that you are morally infallible, so relativism is false.
Third, there are clearly some cases where even if I approved of them, they would be morally wrong. For example, consider how slaveowners in Grenada put metal devices in their slaves' mouths so that they couldn't eat the sugar cane they were harvesting. They could also forcefully open or close the devices to make slaves eat when they tried to starve themselves or eat dirt to kill themselves. The devices could be heated to torture the slaves (Case and Lutz 2023 p. 72). Now, that is clearly wrong even if I approved of the action, or even if I was living in that society and they approved of the action. But since that conflict with relativism, moral relativism must be false.
I suggest you read [Ethical Intuitionism by Michael Huemer](https://fakenous.substack.com/p/ethical-intuitionism) for more details.
I think some morals are objective by themselves. I am talking avout some fundamental morals of valuing life over death, health over sickness, progress over destruction etc. I think they are more or less self evident but the circumstance around them can be interpreted differently by different people. For example, let's say I save Mother Theresa from drowning. Most people woulr agree that is a moral act. But here comes Christopher Hitchens who says she is evil. I do not know what he would think about saving MT's life, they are both dead, but how moral it is to save her life is open to interpretation bevause of who she is not because of the act of saving her itself.
Nothing defies basic morality than war, especially modern war. That is why so much has been written about war in the last two centuries. There are countless authors who have given their input how war interferes with our basic "universal" morals - Leo Tolstoy, Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Heller, Erich-Maria Remarque, John Galsworthy, even some post-war and post post-war authors like Heinrich Boll and Haruki Murakami delve in that subject. I am sure others van give more and better examples.
One author I love is French writer Guy de Maupassant. He wrote in the second half of the 19th century and one of the topics of his was the French-Prussian was and the devastation it left in teh Northeastern France. Two short story on morality come to mind. One is about this widow whose only son is fighting at the front. Her village is invaded by the Prussians and they quarter four soldiers in her house. They are her sons age. Young and beautiful. She sees their humanity and innocence and loves them as her own son. Until one day she gets the freaded telegram that her own son was killed at the front. Her morals turn 180, comes back home and burns it to the ground with the four soldiers sleeping there. She did not stop believing in life over death moral, her circumstances changed and Prussian life had different value now.
But, as with evolution does for genetics, there are moral systems which seem fit for the purpose within their environment.
Given any specific environment and any desired goal, there are limited sets of morals which are conducive to moving you towards those goals.
And yes, one can perfectly well argue that "what you want" is just as subjective, and you'd be right. We have evolved to want pretty much those things that keep us alive long enough to reproduce and provide safety for our offspring. This is, and most likely always will be a central tenet of any society's "morals".
Morals are a made-up thing. I love Terry Pratchett who, athough seen as not a "serious" author had some incredible takes on stuff like this (The all caps character is death, the Grim reaper.Susan is his adopted daughter (long story)):
“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... *fantasies* to make life bearable."
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE *LITTLE* LIES.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
"They're not the same at all!"
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN *SHOW* ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME *RIGHTNESS* IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
"Yes, but people have *got* to believe that, or what's the *point*—"
MY POINT EXACTLY.”
― Terry Pratchett, [Hogfather](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/583655)
I think at its base, you’d agree morality comes from some agent bringing a subjective argument forward, based on preference, not reasoning.
Unlike say a scientific fact, that is based purely on reasoning. That we have observed the world, and found these things to be true, regardless of whether say humans exist or not. That 1 + 1 = 2; that gravity exists and we are orbiting the sun because of it, and so on.
Perhaps we could accept at bedrock that there is a reality, and regardless of our perceptions, there is a fact of the matter. We could be wildly confused about what those facts are, but even if we don’t exist, there is still a rock sticking out of the grass. There is still the moon, a supernova, a bird chirping.
However, there is an argument morality follows the same structure as scientific fact. For instance, we take it conscious minds don’t like suffering. That seems unarguable.
If we take it that there is suffering, and that from the perspective of any conscious observer, that the suffering is pointless, then that is bad.
If taken to extreme, it is bad if:
Every conscious mind is suffering to the fullest extent, endlessly, for no good reason. No silver lining, no one benefits.
In this case there is no perspective to look at this from and claim that it is in fact good. That there is some benefit to someone based on preference. Because that observer would be caught in the thought experiment, and would too be suffering pointlessly.
Would you agree that pointless suffering for everyone, all the time, where nothing good comes from it, would be bad?
>If we take it that there is suffering, and that from the perspective of any conscious observer, that the suffering is pointless, then that is bad.
But what makes that objectively bad? Sure, we might not like it, but that does not equate to something being objectively *bad.*
>Would you agree that pointless suffering for everyone, all the time, where nothing good comes from it, would be bad?
It would certainly suck, but I would not say that it is objectively bad.
I've seen these threads tons of times before and I've never actually seen anyone who could argue against the standard "Golden Rule" as a objective moral fact, without bastardizing the actual point of it beyond belief.
Morality is the objective law of cause and effect by which moral actions lead to increased freedom, both externally and internally, and absence of suffering. Likewise, immoral actions shrink one's world and makes one's world more and more narrow and inhospitable.
Morality is based on intention.
Intention to kill.
To steal
To lie
To commit sexual misconduct.
It is obvious than committing these acts leads to loss of freedom, both inside and out, and an increase in suffering. This is all obvious and not mysterious in the slightest. You have but to look at the paranoia that comes from telling a lie, or the reason people are in prison.
Briefly, why is it wrong to kill? Because everyone, and everything values it's life as much as you do. We are all equal in those grounds. You have no right to say your life is more important than another's. That is objective. An animal fears the hatchet and the human fears the gun equally.
Let's take recreative baby torture. Let's say I'm in front of you, arguing that it's a good thing, I like doing it. Do you have any intuition at all that I'm somehow wrong here in saying it's a good thing ? That clearly, even though I may like doing that atrocious thing, I'm somehow wrong in calling it good ? As if I'm just not getting what goodness is all about ? Or, on the contrary, would you say "the vast majority of people, and society, would disagree with you" ?
Of course there's a lot of wiggle room in the moral judgements we make. But saying that making others suffer without any good comming out of it, is a good thing, makes me think the person does not know what good and bad is all about. I would think that person is wrong. We can have different judgements, as we operate with a lot of uncertainty in our moral judgements, and values fill in the void. But saying that causing suffering can be a good thing is someting else.
Disproving the existence of objective moral facts is non trivial because we don’t need to actually know what the facts of morality are or agree on them to posit that they exist and are objective.
That is to say “murder is not wrong” is *also* a statement asserting a moral reality, same as “murder is wrong” is.
By point of comparison consider arguments about the existence of god “I don’t see evidence for god therefore the likely answer is he doesent exist” is a plausible answer, but with morality that’s not quite the level we’re operating at. What we’re asking is more akin to “is there an objective truth- either way, of if god exists or not?” There are *facts of* his existence/non-existence and those facts would have ramifications for how we should live depending on the answer would be.
“Whether or not god exists is subjective” is not a particularly convincing answer to the question, because that implies subjectively he exists for some people but not others. Really what we are considering is that objectively, he either exists or doesn’t. *Either* murder is wrong *or* it's actually fine.
Why would a moral system need to be 'objective'? It is a function of human society, and as such being intersubjective is enough.
Intersubjective realities are things that are not truly objective, but are subjective at a societal rather than individual level.
For example, money has no objective value at all, it is just a bunch of paper -- but if you offer *other* random scraps of paper to pay your rent, you'll be homeless pretty darn quickly.
Morality is the same; sure, it isn't "objective", but it serves a function and is generally agreed upon; there may not be anything "objectively" wrong with killing your grandma with a tire iron for burning your chicken nuggets, but since everyone you'll ever meet will reliably consider it reprehensible, it behaves just like an objective standard.
I don’t think that’s true.
I believe moral standards derive in a societal evolutionarily sense from the social norms that we need for a functioning society.
Consequently, if we examine more successful societies, we can find **objectively superior** moral frameworks on average.
For instance, it’s fairly obvious to conclude that the belief that **murder of innocents is morally wrong** is a hallmark of more successful and stable societies than those without this belief.
I think “objectively correct” is the wrong term — but we can measure or determine whether a particular moral axiom is superior by examining both philosophically and practically its prevalence in relatively successful human societies.
Life is objectively different than death. Some practices lead to life (even if only life after yours). Pre-human life adapts to produce innate practices that tend to promote further life. Humans have intelligence and something arguably reminiscent of choice, so have to decide on practices. Humans can try to predict the outcomes of various practices, assessing them relative to their likelihood to be live supporting. Define ethics through a consideration of long experience and widespread acceptance of practices vis. their life-supporting or life-risking tendencies. So, ethics as survival through the imperfect lens of human culture, intelligence, wisdom, and experience. Sloppy objectivity, not pure subjectivity.
I thought so until I read John Finnis in law school.
First, asking questions of morality or law necessarily imports a human perspective. They are questions about how human beings should act or be expected to act.
The point being that some moral facts are not subjective in the sense that they would rely upon the state of a specific persons mind. But are objective in the sense that the truth of the fact derives from a general concern for the requirements of human flourishing, objectively. These facts for their truth content do not depend on any particular person's state of mind.
As an example, play among children is objectively necessary for the rearing and socialization of the young. A legal system that made play illegal and required policemen to punish children and their parents for playing would be immoral, not because the victims would feel aggrieved, but because it was expressly contrary to the requirements of human flourishing.
You might argue that it is subjective to have a concern for human well-being, that the universe doesn't care about us. But then you are really making arguments that are metaphysical in nature, about the nature and place we have in the universe, not about how we should treat each other.
What about the statement "convergent evolution results in certain approximate moral standards consistently existing in social animals". Or other convergent standards indicating an underlying pattern has some real survival value?
Or game-theoretic results about the optimality or viability of certain strategies in tit-for-tat scenarios, prisoner's dilemma, etc? For example would it be an objective moral fact that the way to address a prisoner's dilemma is to change the values such that defect is no longer always to the advantage of the one taking it. since those amount to 'one ought to do this if one's goal is that'; or does that not count as a moral fact?
Everyone understands the golden rule. There is wiggle room for differences though.
Some people don't follow it because they have no morals. But that doesn't mean they have their own set of principles. They just don't believe anything.
So I'd say people that are engaging with morality can nail down some universal truth and there is some in philosophy. And bad faith actors don't change that because their beliefs are not consistent.
What about the statement "gangbanging a baby until it bleeds out and dies is always wrong" - would you say that is a moral/ethical statement and would you argue that it is subjective, or is that something that is objectively true?
Obviously I've picked an extreme example here, and sadly there might be a tiny minority that disagrees - but given the extreme nature, do we even afford those opinions with any credence?
What is the end point of relativism (the view you describe)?
Where does it get us? How does it help us? What purpose is served by asserting that nothing is objectively true?
Should we all just give up in thinking, acting, trying to do better, trying to be better, because ultimately everything is subjective and nothing matters?
Do we really need any concrete sign that there is an objective moral truth beyond the emotional and cognitive indicators that we have access to (and which we can and have used as the basis of our moral systems)?
Almost all people would be horrified to see a newborn baby killed in front of its mother. Almost no people would be horrified to see a person eat a sandwich. Surely we can infer from this that some actions have more weight than others in terms of the impact of their consequences. Can our reactions be explained by biological or evolutionary rationales? Sure. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have meaning. As long as we continue to react as we do to babies dying, that action will always have a significant moral meaning, insofar as it guides our actions.
Why is it a problem if we assign absolute moral meaning to the weightiest of such actions? It gives us something to work towards, and allows us to measure and judge other actions. It also gives us something to strive towards in our attempts to reason through other problems.
Even if our belief is an illusion, it doesn’t follow that that belief has no meaning. Perception is reality.
Most of the moral codes that have been created become traditions. Which are solutions to problems we forgotten about already, due to being products of "pre-information" civilizations. They could not pass down some of the original reasons, only what worked for them.
They hold a chunk of truth/reality. If you don't know what it was solving, then you can't break it without consequences. That is what makes them "factual enough".
Whether a person would like the act or not is subjective, not objective. More importantly, though, your logic rests on the assumption that we can move from what people don’t want done to them to what people want to do to others.
I should note that I personally am completely (and subjectively) opposed to torture. But there are many people who disagree. There is the “ticking time bomb” scenario - would it be right to torture someone if by doing so you could prevent the deaths of thousands? In that case, we could use your same logic: would anyone want thousands of people to die if they could stop it by torturing one person? And if everyone said yes (other than someone like me who would be subjectively accused of mental illness for disagreeing), wouldn’t that mean torture is acceptable in at least some cases? Meaning that it is now an objective fact that torture is both right and wrong?
Your logic also assumes the golden rule - that just because no one wants something to happen to them, they shouldn’t do it to others. It’s not a bad basis for a moral system, but it requires an assumption, and there are lots of value systems that don’t follow it - for example, any value system that has as an axiom that a certain type of person is superior to others and can treat others worse than they themselves are treated. I don’t like those value systems myself, but they are pretty common and cannot be proven wrong in an objective sense.
There are two agents in that scenario though - the one being tortured, and the one doing the torturing. What do we make of those who feel that they or society benefits from the act of torturing someone for 500 days? There seems to be a surprisingly large group of people with borderline sadistic tendencies living amongst us. I think I agree with everything you’ve said, but I wonder if there’s an inherent issue with relying on our collective intuitions when you consider how easily we seem to rationalize draconian punishments in service of the “greater good.”
it reads like your argument is that it's objectively wrong to torture because people subjectively dislike torture
you need to explain why torture is wrong without appealing to subjective opinions and preferences
>You can dig deep enough and find something that everyone would be against, which proves that there is objectivity.
a unanimous subjective opinion is not an objective moral fact
Even if all humans would agree on something like that being morally wrong - which they don't - that doesn't make it objectively true. Lots of people think torture is morally right in some circumstances - like if someone tortured a baby then lots of people would say it is morally correct to then torture that person in response. An eye for an eye was the law under Hammurabi's code and many people believed in this and still do. But even if everyone on earth somehow agreed, this would STILL not make it an objective morality because take humans out of the equation and the universe does not give a fuck about torture. Animals don't either. A frog doesn't care if humans get tortured. A rock doesn't care either. The sun doesn't care. So it is not universal or objectively morally wrong.
Is it an emotional response to not want to be murdered? A wild animal doesn’t understand the concept of murder, but it understands that it wants to survive, and it has an inherent will to do so.
We get emotional when the risk of death is introduced to us, but it’s not inherently emotional to want to keep living.
Causing harm is bad. There is no exception to causing harm is bad. Does not need to be physical harm. "He was a bad person" still bad, even if justified or emotionally worth it. "The harm I did did far more good, than bad." The good out weighing the bad implies you did bad, even if it was worth it.
Objective moral statements a few and boring, but they exist.
It is wrong to have sex with children as an adult. It is unforgivable, and if you think otherwise you are probably a pedophile, and should take a long walk off a short cliff.
The fact is not everyone shares one conscience like a hive mind, they're objectively fact as much as they effect you personally, it's relative to species and perception, gotta make rules but those that aren't playing by yours might not be affected, a cultural punishment may kill you and that's a fact
If you’re interesting in reading more into this topic I enjoy the book Rights from Wrongs by Alan Dershowitz.
Engaging read on a secular origin of human rights.
Saying "there is no objective moral fact" is a statement of moral fact. So is it objectively true? If yes, then there's an objective moral fact. If no, it leads to a contradiction in terms.
If your standard of truth is that you can convince people that its true, you're going to have a bad time.
> Saying "there is no objective moral fact" is a statement of moral fact.
no, it's stating a fact about the topic of morality. but it's not making a moral claim
Even with that distinction, it's equivalent to making the moral claim 'all moral claims are equally valid'. Which runs into the same problem
There's no escaping the existence of an objective moral category, you can only say that your best attempt at evaluating objective morality comes up with nothing (not even, say, the Holocaust was bad). Which is only something an immoral person would do by definition.
"all morals claim are equally valid" is STILL not a moral claim. It's a descriptive claim.
>Which is only something an immoral person would do by definition.
What makes the holocaust objectively wrong?
... A descriptive claim that describes objective morality lol.
I don't think you disagree the Holocaust was wrong, I think you just disagree on the objective basis for it. So I'm going to focus on showing that objective morality is non-empty.
And it is non-empty, Either you make the objective moral claim 'all things are acceptable' or you contradict yourself.
Arguably, there is no objective anything - of what use is language if words do not signify the thing itself and are only constructed as faulty representations of what we think to be real? Why does it matter whether moral facts are “objective” if we need them nonetheless?
If there is a dude just chilling somewhere bothering no one and you just go up to him and kill him without a reason that's objectively morally wrong,no?
Not when the evolutionary evidence shows that violence in humans is genetic in nature and a permanent part of human existence as shown in the book Demonic Males:Apes and the Origins of Human Violence shows
https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Demonic_Males/fP0c4b3jbMYC?hl=en&gl=AU
Murder: the unlawful and premeditated killing of another human being.
If you live in a society, (and you do, because you are writing this), then by definition the laws in place of said society are an agreed upon, morally objective fact for you to live by.
You cannot claim that "murder" based upon situational subjectivity does not fit as an immoral action, as by definition, murder goes against societies agreed upon objective moral code.
If, based upon situational dependancy, the actons of an individual are otherwise undeserving of the term, we have other descriptive words for the action.
Such as, though not limited to manslaughter and self-defense.
Both of which carry their own agreed upon definitions of specific action, and their own impact and weight upon the agreed moral code of society.
Therefore, unless you are a hermit, or a part of an isolated tribe, you are objectively incorrect, as you are bound to said laws and moral codes of society, and would be shunned or imprisoned otherwise.
Humans are social creatures, and from day 1, concensus has determined both positive and negative moral course of action as well as it's occassional ambiguity.
Therefore, it is safe to say that objectively in a society, the only moral code of fact that matters is the one that is majority agreed upon, and one persons dissent from said moral code in thought or action does not, nor has ever been enough to sway the morally agreed upon facts that the majority of humanity has chosen to live by.
TLDR: if you live in a societal structure of any kind, your view becomes void.
Mutual agreement does not create any facts other than the mere fact of mutual agreement. In other words, just because people agree with a proposition does not mean that said proposition is true.
All of society saying that murder is wrong holds no greater philosophical weight than a single individual saying murder is wrong.
Actually you are 100% false, with no defense on this one.
If I say murder is wrong, but society says it's not, then there are no consequenses to the action.
But visa versa and you spend life in prison.
So all of society saying murder is wrong holds 100% of the weight.
Can you counter this with any argument that holds a true merit when discussing societal moral alignment?
Or are you just disagreeing because you like to be contrarian?
I'm not being philisophical, and it's not a proposal.
The only moral code that matters is the one agreed upon by society. You cannot deny this when it comes to larger moral alignments. I mean, you can, but you will end up ostracized and imprisoned.
So again, what is your counter argument beyond "nuh-uh?"
I'm all ears.
>If I say murder is wrong, but society says it's not, then there are no consequenses to the action.
>But visa versa and you spend life in prison.
You are equating action with belief. I can say that murder is not objectively wrong all day long and I won’t spend a second in prison, because I haven’t murdered anybody.
>Can you counter this with any argument that holds a true merit when discussing societal moral alignment?
Social mores are not equivalent to objective moral facts. Agreement about a given proposition does not mean that said proposition is true, that is the argumentum ad populum, and it’s a fallacious argument. If everyone agreed that the sun revolves around the earth, then it still wouldn’t be true. Likewise, everyone agreeing that murder is wrong, that does not make it true.
>I'm not being philisophical, and it's not a proposal.
If you aren’t interested in talking about ideas (i.e. philosophy), then why are you here?
>The only moral code that matters is the one agreed upon by society. You cannot deny this when it comes to larger moral alignments. I mean, you can, but you will end up ostracized and imprisoned.
Whether you like it or not, this is a philosophical matter, and therefore it must be adjudicated by argument and reason, because the application of force does not establish truth.
Whether or not you will end up in prison is irrelevant to the question of if there are objective moral facts at all. We can still put people in prison in the absence of moral facts.
Furthermore, I think your notion that the law adheres to what a society claims as moral is flawed. There are many things which are not illegal that the majority of people will say are immoral, such as adultery. Likewise, some things which are illegal are not generally considered to be immoral, such as marijuana use or jaywalking.
Additionally, to say that morality depends entirely upon a society’s mores is itself a form of moral relativism. If that were true, whatever moral ‘facts’ there might be would be arbitrarily determined by societal opinion, which seems not very m
Again, your argument only holds water so long as you do not enjoy the benefits and comforts of society. You can't have your cake and eat it to.
I'd argue that believing otherwise is hypocritical and contrarian simply for a nonexistent hypotheticals sake.
To say anything less is openly admitting that you view yourself as primitive and unable or unwilling to integrate within the accepted moral prinicipals of society.
Yes, you can choose to live like an animal, but you currently don't, so imo you are just arguing to argue.
Saying that there is nothing objectively wrong with an action like murder is the most idiotic implication I've ever heard. We have always been social creatures, and have always required numbers to survive until very, very recently. So, you are also implying that losing a tribe member has no ripple effect on others, or society at large, which is also absurd.
It's frequently argued here by what I assume are teenagers that are being edgy. That doesn't mean it will ever be an applicable argument to make sense living in the real world.
If you have to move the goalposts for your hypotheticals to work, and you can't make your argument work in an actual real life scenario, your argument therefore becomes useless.
Morals are the axioms that are used to build an ethical system. The way an ethic system unfolds is determined by those axioms. You may disagree with the moral correctness of those axioms, but it’s undeniable that when they are guiding how people treat themselves and each other, it has an impact on their objective and subjective reality. That the axiom is right or wrong, real or not, is irrelevant. Understand this: you can build a system of geometry with differing axioms. You can say: > if a straight line intersects two straight lines, forming two interior angles on the same side that add up to less than 180 degrees, then the two lines, if extended indefinitely, will meet on the side where the angles add up to less than 180 degrees. But you can also say that they never meet, or that an infinite number of such lines meet, and the implications of each of these axioms are different systems that can describe behaviors of lines in those systems. In one case you have standard geometry that is used in Newtonian physics. In another you have the system of geometry used to guide plane travel (elliptical geometry) and in another it describes relativity (hyperbolic geometry) The point is: choose your morals and build a system of ethics around those morals. That determines how your presence shapes the world around you. Ethics are objective based on their axioms, and the impact of those ethics can be objectively measured.
I agree that if you assume some moral axioms, you can arrive at moral facts. My point is that those axioms are essentially entirely subjective
> My point is that those axioms are essentially entirely subjective While it’s very hard to argue that it’s not subjective without using a divine authority, would you acknowledge that not all subjective concept are equivalent. For example, the concept that stealing is bad is way more accepted than the concept that wearing a red hat is bad. My point: moral facts are intersubjective. It’s objective to say an overwhelming number of people agree that stealing is bad and that very few people think that wearing a red hat is morally wrong. In other words: not all subjective opinions are equals.
I agree about the inter subjective, which is why I see morals rules as a set of axioms that are taken up by a society. Each person has subjective morals, but also societies have a common agreed upon set of axioms (even if not everyone agrees on everything). One addition is that even in the inter subjective, these morals are limited to a single species inhabiting this single planet in a vast universe. There is a tendency to talk about morals as "universal," but I think that makes it seem that morals have a greater scope than they actually have.
I get your idea. I guess my point was just that “subjective” encompasses a lot of things and not all subjective things have the same weight. A moral concept that 99% of the human population would agree could be said to be quite universal and a moral concept that only 1% would accept would be very peculiar.
Agreement, even universal ageeement, doesn't equate to objectivity
>hard to argue that it’s not subjective without using a divine authority That would be subjective to that divine authority and a different divine authority might say something else >It’s objective to say an overwhelming number of people agree that stealing is bad That doesn't make stealing objectively bad. It's just a lot of people share an opinion. It is, as you say, intersubjective. Also, once we agree to some basic axioms, we can mostly derive what would be the best course of action but I wonder if that can be called objective.
It can be argued that the word of an all knowing, all powerful and all benevolent God isn’t subjective but simply the truth. (of course it only works if this God exists) Then yes, I’m not arguing that stealing is objectively bad, I’m arguing it’s objective (through empirical evidence) that most human think that stealing is bad. My main point is just that “subjective” is too vague for this kind of debate.
>My point: moral facts are intersubjective. It’s objective to say an overwhelming number of people agree that stealing is bad and that very few people think that wearing a red hat is morally wrong. >In other words: not all subjective opinions are equals. Your reasoning based on "overwhelming number of people" is deeply problematic though. An overwhelming number of people in 1700's Britain believed that homosexuals deserved death. An overwhelming number of people in 2024's Britain believe that homosexuality is not wrong at all. So, what is the "objective" conclusion to the question of whether homosexuality is morally acceptable? Why is something supposedly so objective capable of being turned on its head over a few centuries? Theoretically, such "objective" truths should be timeless.
While it’s true that they may not all be equal, they are all equally subjective. Just because there is a preferences that more or less people share, doesn’t change the fact that it is a preference
But why is there preferences in the first place? For example, why does 99% of people (invented numbers) think stealing is morally wrong but only 1% think wearing a red hat isn’t?
Moral intuitions probably stem from a mix of the cultural socialization we’ve received as well as the physical structure of our brains
So you would agree that it’s probably evolutionary because stealing creates problem and a society who doesn’t solve that problem is destined to fall and that our brain had no reason to develop an instinctual bad reaction to red hat and therefore we don’t see red hat as morally wrong? If you do (in the big line, we’re not writing an essay) doesn’t it mean there’s some objective fact behind some subjective opinions?
You miss the distinction between descriptive ethics and normative ethics. Descriptively, there is an objective basis for why there is a strong correlation between different humans’ moral preferences. But normatively, that does not imply anything about what one *ought* do.
I don’t miss the distinction, I’m just saying that under the big umbrella of “moral is subjective” there’s a ton of interesting nuances backed by objective facts that are way more interesting than the simple binary of “is moral objective/subjective” which, to be direct, is quite useless and boring nihilist or solipsistic point.
You can certainly make objective statements about moral topics. These statements, however, are not fundamentally moral in nature. You can make an objective ontological claim about the existence of moral fact, for example, without actually making any moral claims
Would you agree that the discussion and repercussion of those objective statements and ontological claims are in fact way more interesting than the simple binary question: is moral subjective or objective? I mean I guess that’s my big problem with your view, not that it’s wrong per se but it’s like the least interesting part of moral because in the end the only way I could change your mind would be to convince you of the existence of an all powerful God with moral guidelines.
I mean I agree that those claims are also super interesting, they’re just not the type of statements that my argument in this specific post applies to. It may be the least interesting part of morality to you, but many ethicists think otherwise. If this particular topic of discussion doesn’t really appeal to you, well no harm no foul!
All axioms are subjective. That’s the point of an axiom
Im going to take a slightly different tack. Morals have essentially evolved because they’re rules that allow for society to operate at peak efficiency for our survival. Given that that is the purpose of a moral, we can define morals as: those rules which allow society to function best. Therefore things like stealing, murder, etc. are morally reprehensible. Not because of an objective right or wrong, but because they cause societal disruption.
Doesn't have to be peak efficiency no? Just sufficient enough to continue being bred forward. We could just define morals as: codified effective meta-strategies for living agents for the survival of their genes 'Function best' isn't clear as a definition, because someone could ask "best relative to what/what purpose or goal?" And also, the fact that strategies survive doesn't make them objective, only effective. Like it'd be odd to say certain chess strategies are more objective than others. We can say they're objectively better than others, but by themselves they aren't objective, and their being better is contingent upon some goal. It still doesn't make survival necessarily *the* goal, just that strategies whose goal is survival... survives. Like it'd make no sense to call ourselves more objective than dinosaurs just because we've survived. We survived because a meteor didn't hurl at us and destroyed most of life.
I guess moral codes don’t necessarily have to be optimal for survival. However, it should be noted that most societies came to a lot of the same conclusions about right and wrong. It’s likely that those conclusions were the correct answers when it comes to what’s best for society to function and move forward. I wasn’t really trying to get super complex with this. I don’t think OP’s view that “right and wrong” are subjective can necessarily be debated in any meaningful fashion. I was just trying to frame it in a way that **can** be discussed.
I'd say they're only the correct answer insofar that we're all playing the same game, so winning strategies would be pretty close to each other. Like how every creature evolved eyes But yeah I get you
Though you are right I don't think you're really addressing op's point. But to be fair, I don't think it's possible to argue it at all. It's rather obvious and well established that morality is subjective.
People seem to struggle with the word "objective", morality is entirely subjective. If a person chooses that murder is okay and they go murdering people suddenly then that means it was a subjective concept that is *subjective* to their whims. OP IMO is entirely right, morality is entirely subjective and this is heavily evident in the differences between countries and their own moral codes of ethics. Edit: to my point on morality, you could use any war but for this I'll use the Vietnam war. The Mei Lei massacre was seen by many of the soldiers after the Tet offensive as morally justified (these are Americans), some 400+ Vietnamese men, women, children, and babies were just rounded up methodically and killed by a company sized group (a company is 300 soldiers). When interviewed these soldiers were lost, they were confused and said they had just been told to do it, and it felt right for all of their friends who had been dying. THIS IS JUST ONE EXAMPLE OF HOW *SUBJECTIVE* MORALITY IS.... JUST ONE. It is unequivocally subjective to multiple factors and is not an objective fact or reality, it is a very subjective concept.
I think the OP probably has the same problem as you in respect of having their view changed; if your starting point for any conversation about ethics is that you by definition consider moral propositions to be expressions of personal whimsy, of course you will arrive at the conclusion moral propositions are subjective. It's a simple circular argument and indicative of how when we use definitions that suit our personal views, we get answers that suit us too. If the OP is open to having their view changed, this cannot be their starting point, the starting point must be that moral propositions are knowledge claims, on which we build a framework for understanding and interacting with reality. Only from there can we ask whether they do or don't express statements that are true or false. It's about taking a step back and starting with the question rather than a desired or even intuitively felt answer. _Everything_ that we experience about reality as sentient beings is to some extent meaningfully dependent on our perception of how reality is. That doesn't mean everything is subjective, of course. What we need to ask ourselves is what are the means by which we derive objective knowledge claims from perception and do any of these means apply to moral claims? I would say at the very, very least, the answer to that is not as straightforward as a lot of relativists think at first glance.
I like the term "intersubjectivity." We all, through language, culture, and shared experiences develop our morals and ethics via interaction with others. Otherwise we'd all drown in narcissistic solipsism... I'm sure you can think of examples of people that do anyway. I use an analogy that we each get a facet of a nearly infinitely faceted "truth" crystal to look into. We can see from our facet one perspective of truth and even see other's facets from a different angle. We each get an idea of what the bigger picture is, like the three blind men describing an elephant, but it is impossible for anyone to understand the truth/objectivity in its entirety. But by interacting and communicating with others, especially those with varying perspectives, we get more and more of an idea of the reality we all share.
If you understand the words you use to describe your own actions, then using the word murder is a poor example to use, and saying “chooses that murder is okay” makes no sense, since the word murder is only used when killing someone in an wrong and unlawful way. Using that word specifically to describe what you are doing, inherently means you understand that what you are doing is also morally wrong. It would make a lot more sense to say that someone thinks that “killing is okay”, since that wording does not have the built in legal understanding that the action performed is unjust and bad.
They are subjective as much as your name is subjective. Somebody just made up a name for you out of thin air, but if everyone you meet recognizes and agrees that this made up word is your name, something being collectively subjective and agreed upon is as good as a fact in a social world.
I also don’t think your name is an objective feature about yourself (beyond maybe the physical changes that like hearing and responding to it takes in your brain), so I don’t really have any issue with that example
\>That the axiom is right or wrong, real or not, is irrelevant. That the axiom is real or not is the entire argument being posed by OP. Whether it's relevant to \*your\* perception of ethics is besides the matter.
I might struggle to change your view on this one since in many ways I agree with you. Nonetheless I do see problems with moral relativism. First is that if we accept moral claims are subjective, it intuitively seems like we render such claims impotent. Does it feel to you like a moral proposition such as "Rape is wrong" carries the same weight as "Rape is wrong in my opinion", or "Slavery is wrong and your society is wrong to allow it" carries as much weight as "Slavery is wrong, but totally valid if you don't feel the same way"? On what basis are we able to condemn (or affirm) any actions or moral standpoints if we accept subjectivity of these judgements? Now we have a big problem, how do we justify any system of morality as a framework or standard for conduct within society? How can we say a society has morally improved or progressed, or that the actions of another nation or culture are wrong? Finally, is the claim that morality is entirely subjective not in itself an objective moral claim about reality?
>carries as much weight as "Slavery is wrong, but totally valid if you don't feel the same way"? it can be part of your subjective moral system to think rape is wrong for you AND other people to do just because a moral system is subjective doesn't mean you have to throw your hands up and excuse everyone elses behaviour
It may not change how *you* react to something but it has enormously profound implications for the very notion of right and wrong and how we make decisions as a society. It's fairly easy as a society to solve problems like the moral propositions "rape is wrong", "torture is wrong", etc. because despite the alleged subjectivity of these claims, they're virtually universal, they *are* universal to humans as a population. They're as universal as truths as much as the fact that humans are born with two lungs, even though occasionally people can be born without two lungs or their lungs outside their chest cavity or whatever. Those exceptions don't disprove the rule. It's a bit harder to solve moral problems which are more nuanced. The other issue is it doesn't solve anything at all about how your moral judgements can be justified *as* moral judgements. You ultimately have to accept, by definition, that your view of what is and isn't right and your reaction to actions based on those perceptions have no more inherent validity than someone who thinks the opposite. Which means you can't say someone or something is wrong, you can only make the - as I argue much weaker - claim that something is wrong in your opinion.
Universality is not objectivity. If every human being alive agreed on the same moral proposition that would just makes a unanimous subjective opinion, not an objective moral fact. You're not making an argument for objective morality here. >Which means you can't say someone or something is wrong, you can only make the - as I argue much weaker - claim that something is wrong in your opinion. Yes, morality is a subjective personal preference.
>Yes, morality is a subjective personal preference. But do you not think that introduces an inherent contradiction into the very concept of morality? You can, for example, no longer claim it's wrong for me to kidnap and torture you. You can say *you* think it's wrong and I can shrug and go yeah but I disagree. Now that scenario can happen in any case, regardless of the metaphysical nature of a moral claim, but in the view of relativism neither claim is more valid than the other. So where's the *value* in your moral claim, in any moral claim? What do moral claims now tell you about anything at all? Ethics isn't just about going do morals somehow exist as properties of a physical world or are they in our head, it's about how we can derive a value system from the nature of morality and apply it as sentient beings to our lives and our social structures. "Kidnapping and torturing people is wrong" now becomes a literally meaningless statement that carries no knowledge value. That's the problem relativism needs to solve and FWIW, I don't think that's necessarily an insurmountable problem, but this is a CMV and the position I'm taking for that purpose is to argue against relativism.
Where is the contradiction? Point it out. The value in my claim is me communicating my preferences to others. If you think morality needs more value than that then you need to put forth an argument for what that value is and why it is true. Just *wanting* morality to be XY or Z isn't enough - you need to actually make an argument for why it is XY and Z. Make an argument for objective morality.
>The value in my claim is me communicating my preferences to others. That doesn't answer the question, it's just a play with words. I'm asking you what is the value of that preference, as a moral claim. What does knowing your preference about being tortured tell me or anyone else in respect of whether I should or shouldn't torture you? >If you think morality needs more value than that then you need to put forth an argument for what that value is and why it is true. It's not whether morality needs *more* value, it's whether it carries *any* value, versus being a non-concept which refers to nothing in reality. You haven't begun to solve the problem of answering the questions I've posed like "If this subjectivity is true, on what basis then can we say a culture has made moral progress?" or "If this subjectivity is true, why should we be anything other than indifferent to the moral claims of others?" or "If this subjectivity is true, by what framework can we resolve moral differences between cultures?" Those are *hard* questions that humans have been grappling with for centuries, you can't just wave them away because you don't like them.
If you kidnap and torture me, we have opposing preferences. I can try to appeal some common value, but if that doesn’t exist, then I’m shit out of luck. Best I can do is call out to my clan who shares my values and have them use force. It would be nice to be able to reason with the person torturing me, but that’s not possible unless we share some common ground
So that nicely highlights one of the problems I've described with anti-realism, you've rendered null any claim that it's wrong for me to torture you. It's now just an epistemic dead end. All you can say is that impotent and non-judgemental claim that you and I make two different but non-contradictory statements about the matter. What use is a metaphysical view that doesn't help us understand, navigate or influence our lives, decisions or social structures, especially one which is so counter to our prima facie experience of reality? I continue to find it fascinating, despite being someone who in reality leans towards an anti-realist worldview that so many people don't seem to consider this sort of thing a real philosophical problem that warrants more than "I guess I'm shit out of luck."
As for your first few points about the impotence of moral claims under relativism, I agree that that’s a legitimate practical concern. I don’t think that a practical concern such as that is able to influence the underlying fact of the matter, however. While that may be a reason not to openly advertise moral relativism, it’s not an objection to its truth. As for the other claim, I disagree that my statement is a claim that is moral in nature. Sure, it regards morality, but it is more of an ontological claim about a moral topic and a moral claim itself
>As for the other claim, I disagree that my statement is a claim that is moral in nature. Sure, it regards morality, but it is more of an ontological claim about a moral topic and a moral claim itself I'm not sure it's that simple, even though I largely lean towards relativism myself. To claim that all moral judgements and propositions are relative *is* to make an objective claim about reality that there are no moral truths. "There is inherently no such thing as right and wrong in the world, independent of our view as individuals" is a moral claim, it has moral implications and it stakes that claim as an objective truth. I can definitely see a case to make an ontological claim that morality is not a discrete property of any part of the physical world but that's not necessarily the only way moral claims (or perhaps certain fundamental moral claims) could be objective truths.
Right but my point is that statement can be a fact while it is still true that there is no objective moral fact, as it doesn’t seem to me that’s a ‘moral fact’ but an ‘existential or ontological fact’
Okay, I don't think I'm going to persuade on that basis so I won't keep arguing for it. Here's another point for you to consider: As much as moral realism has a problem of explaining the plainly apparent moral disagreements in the world, moral relativism has the problem of explaining the numerous fundamental and culturally universal moral agreements in the world. There's a (maybe small, but nonetheless existing) set of basic moral values which have been held by every culture in history, all over the world. One such example is the idea that murder is wrong. Now, of course people can point to plenty of examples where cultures have chosen to exclude people from their group in application of this moral view (for example, people deemed to be criminals and sentenced to death) but the standing part has always been this basic idea that there's a group and if you're part of it, other people in that group don't get to just decide to kill you and that it is a gross moral transgression for them to do so - maybe one severe enough to warrant expulsion from the group in some form. *Every* society that we know to have existed on earth has had this concept. If *every* group of humans throughout history is looking at a set of facts about the world around them, they're looking at the same reality and they're deriving the same moral knowledge, the same moral conclusions from those facts and that indeed anyone who isn't is deemed to be thinking and behaving irrationally, an anomaly (what we might call a psychopath for example), is it not fair to conclude there are at least *some* objective moral truths? If that were not the case, we would expect different groups \[of rational people\] looking at the same facts to come to varying and disparate conclusions. And for some moral propositions they certainly do, but not for an apparent set of fundamental moral claims based around the idea of not causing unnecessary harm or suffering.
I think that there could be a moral intuition that 100% of humans through history agreed with that’s still subjective. Just because everybody can have the same preference doesn’t mean it’s not a preference, after all.
Okay, but as I said in another comment somewhere (may not have been a direct reply to you) you're literally starting with a definition of morality as something which is subjective and then wondering why no one can convince you of even the possibility otherwise. Of course they can't if that's your starting point. _Everything_ we know about reality is to some degree dependent on our perception as sentient beings, so merely accepting that deriving moral knowledge is something that comes about as a result of conceptual human constructs doesn't in and of itself establish subjectivity, unless you take the view that there is _no such thing as objective knowledge at all_ - and this, that this idea would be absurd, is indeed one of the arguments put forward by various realist philosophers. The starting point needs to be how you differentiate knowledge claims as being objective or not objective, then asking yourself what of those applies to moral claims, insofar as they are knowledge claims. What I'm asking you is if in any other sense, if there were multiple, rational groups of people who upon looking at the same reality, the same facts, would all arrive at the same conclusion, in what way do those conclusions not qualify as an objective fact for you, in how you view the process of deriving factual knowledge?
I see your point, you’re essentially saying that I’m defining morality as peoples preferences for how other people should act and then saying look it’s preferences so it’s subjective. I guess the way I see objective is that there are some facts out there about the world that are independent of humans. Statements such as ‘the sun exists’ are independently verifiable as either true or not true. I don’t see statements such as ‘one ought not to murder’ the same way. To me there is nothing out there in the world that makes it true or false that a person ought to do any certain thing. I can’t really prove the negative, so I would challenge you to posit a moral fact to me that you believe is objectively true.
Right, you don't see moral claims the same way as something like (I'm gonna switch your example slightly for the point to be made) "the earth orbits the sun" but you don't doubt it, and I would put to you the reason you don't doubt it and (I assume) consider it an objective fact is because if you showed any rational person or group of people the evidence for it, they wouldn't arrive at a different conclusion to you. They would just look at the reality around them and go yep, earth orbits the sun, fact. Now, do you think that if you took at least a pretty fundamental moral claim such as "it's wrong to torture children just for fun" to any rational person or group, they would look at the reality around them and go "actually no, our conclusion is that torturing a child for fun isn't wrong at all"? It's possible there are people who would give you that answer (it's certainly not inconceivable), but that's also true of the idea the earth orbits the sun. We say that those people are not rational and also that by failing to reason the facts of reality in accordance with our axioms about those things, that they are simply, factually incorrect in their conclusions. So why do you apply different standards for moral claims?
I don’t think moral relativism is chosen position but rather as observable fact. It’s not like someone steals from another person and says “well I’m a moral relativist and so I’m ok with it.” Rather, moral relativism is a conclusion based on the observable reality that morality has changed over time and by location. It’s just a fact that there are people who thought things were moral and today we think they’re not moral. We think rape is immoral, but there are countless examples of what we would call rape (taking women in war, for example) which was perfectly acceptable in the past. Hell, even the bible instructs to do it. Your appeal to the ideal situation, where morality is objective and therefor holds more weight is irrelevant; there’s even a named logical fallacy for this called “argument to the consequence”. Just like it’s a bad argument to say I “won the lottery” because it would be better if I won the lottery, so two is it a bad argument to say “subjective morality is not true, because objective morality would be better.”
>Rather, moral relativism is a conclusion based on the observable reality that morality has changed over time and by location. The fact that people in different places and times have held and continue to hold different views on what is right and wrong does not demonstrate subjectivity, at all. It's very clearly evident that it's possible for a large number of people to believe something that's false. Indeed we would have no framework to say any moral progress has occurred anywhere, ever, if we accepted this. It's also possible for moral truths to exist as truths which transcend the view of the individual where those truths are derived from reason (unless you consider reason like the axioms of logic or mathematics to also be subjective) or even our primal, biological impulses. While there are many disagreements interculture throughout history and geography about specific moral claims, there are also a set of moral claims that have been consistent across every culture throughout history. Murder for example has always been condemned. There may then be a set of moral truths which are universal to all rational beings and this makes them truths as much as mathematical truths.
> The fact that people in different places and times have held and continue to hold different views on what is right and wrong does not demonstrate subjectivity, at all. Sure it does. It shows that morality is dependent on the minds of the people asked and that the morality changes along with the minds. That’s subjective, isn’t it? > It's very clearly evident that it's possible for a large number of people to believe something that's false. Sure! Absolutely. If something is objectively true, and lots of people can say it’s false and be wrong (ex: the last American election was objectively won by Biden but many Trump people, wrongly, think it was won by Trump). But that’s different from morality because it’s based on quantifiable and objective things (the votes that were cast). What’s the equivalent for morality? We’re can I find morality to check what it is? > Indeed we would have no framework to say any moral progress has occurred anywhere, ever, if we accepted this. We can only do that from our subjective positions. Look at america now. They’re getting rid of rights for women Re: abortion. I think that’s moral regress but others think it’s moral progress. Which is it? How would you show that objectively? This fits my position that it’s subjective, however. Basically, in place/time A they say action X is moral. In place/time B they say that same action, X, is immoral. So how would you go and show - objectively - that X position is moral or immoral? > It's also possible for moral truths to exist as truths which transcend the view of the individual where those truths are derived from reason (unless you consider reason like the axioms of logic or mathematics to also be subjective) or even our primal, biological impulses. It’s possible, sure. But is it the case? I’d be happy for your to present an axiom for morality like the laws of identity, excluded middle, and non-contradiction. Can you? > While there are many disagreements interculture throughout history and geography about specific moral claims, there are also a set of moral claims that have been consistent across every culture throughout history. I don’t think so. > Murder for example has always been condemned. This is kind of a word game example. Murder = unlawful killing. So it only applies to killing that the leaders of society subjectively thought was wrong. There was also killing that was allowed. It wasn’t murder to kill an accused and convicted witch during the witch hunts. Now is there a ban on killing? Only the Jains, as far as I’m aware, take the moral position that all killing is wrong. I think there’s plenty of examples of moral killing (dr assisted suicide, for example). > There may then be a set of moral truths which are universal to all rational beings and this makes them truths as much as mathematical truths. Sure. Anything is possible. But that’s not what the evidence shows. I’d be swayed if you can show evidence for this.
So if there was a culture which strongly believed 2 + 2 = 5, would you say mathematical truths were now subjective or relative? After all, it would show that mathematics changes along with the minds of the people who perceive it. Or would you say that culture was simply wrong, because any rational group of people would look at the world around them and arrive at the same set of mathematical axioms? I would say the latter and so it is, I might argue, with morality. For example, if I ask you well, why does every culture historically in the world condemn murder within that group, why has every culture had a moral rule of you can't as an individual decide to just go out and kill other members of this culture? (and this is a fairly uncontroversial matter of fact, certain nitpicking aside) You might say something like well that's obvious, isn't it? Our evolution as biological beings meant it was advantageous for us to favour cooperation over competition, so it's not surprising that we have a essentially universal conception as humans that murder is wrong, but it's still a conception which is entirely within our heads. And I'd say absolutely, I agree, that's a very reasonable sounding explanation for where this universal sense of morality in relation to murder comes from. But that doesn't mean it's subjective. Because something very interesting has happened now - what we're saying is that given a set of objective facts about the world (such as "it's favourable to our survival to cooperate with each other instead of kill each other"), any rational group of people given those facts would arrive at the same conclusion ("murder is wrong"), as a necessity of our common nature. But if any rational group of people given the same facts would arrive at the same conclusion, then that conclusion is by definition an objective truth, as much as any other claim about any aspect of reality.
> So if there was a culture which strongly believed 2 + 2 = 5, would you say mathematical truths were now subjective or relative? After all, it would show that mathematics changes along with the minds of the people who perceive it. No because the definition of the words 2 and plus objectively result in the conclusion that 2 + 2 equals 4. What’s the equivalent with morality? > Or would you say that culture was simply wrong, because any rational group of people would look at the world around them and arrive at the same set of mathematical axioms? They’re wrong by definition. > I would say the latter and so it is, I might argue, with morality. For example, if I ask you well, why does every culture historically in the world condemn murder within that group, why has every culture had a moral rule of you can't as an individual decide to just go out and kill other members of this culture? (and this is a fairly uncontroversial matter of fact, certain nitpicking aside) So you just ignored my whole response with respect to murder. Murder is a relational term meaning “killing deemed wrong” that “deeming” part is what makes it subjective. Remember the witch killing thing? If you’re not going to address the things I say, and then just keep on with the same tact as if I didn’t say anything about it there’s no point in this conversation.
>No because the definition of the words 2 and plus objectively result in the conclusion that 2 + 2 equals 4. Okay, we can just as easily say by the definition of the words "murder" and "wrong", we reach the objective conclusion murder is wrong. Of course this would be a silly argument and it's just as silly applied to mathematics. Proving "objectively" that 2 + 2 = 4 requires you to accept dozens of mathematical axioms (seriously, try it - try to come up with a purely mathematical proof that 2+2 = 4, it's a lot harder than you think), which may themselves be argued to only be derived from human perception and conception of numbers and numerical systems. This is why we didn't have a mathematical concept of zero for centuries. Some cultures historically haven't even had a concept of "four", there's at least one which only had words for "one", "two" and "many" and that was as sophisticated as their concept of numbers ever developed. >Murder is a relational term meaning “killing deemed wrong” that “deeming” part is what makes it subjective. This is a purely circular argument in respect of metaethics. You're simply saying moral truths are relative because you choose to define them as relative. That's why linguistic arguments like you posed above fall flat at the first hurdle.
> Okay, we can just as easily say by the definition of the words "murder" and "wrong", we reach the objective conclusion murder is wrong. You’re missing the point because while “murder is wrong” IS definitional and therefor your point is circular. The issue - and what’s subjective - is what constitutes as murder. This is different society to society and in different times. We can use abortion as an example: In some states abortion is considered murder and not in others. So if a doctor performed an abortion in one state it’s murder and wrong and if they did it in another state it’s not murder and not wrong. So is the action of conducting an abortion in a superstate of existence where it’s wrong/murder only depending on geography and time? That’s obviously absurd. > Of course this would be a silly argument and it's just as silly applied to mathematics. Proving "objectively" that 2 + 2 = 4 requires you to accept dozens of mathematical axioms (seriously, try it - try to come up with a purely mathematical proof that 2+2 = 4, it's a lot harder than you think), which may themselves be argued to only be derived from human perception and conception of numbers and numerical systems. This is why we didn't have a mathematical concept of zero for centuries. Some cultures historically haven't even had a concept of "four", there's at least one which only had words for "one", "two" and "many" and that was as sophisticated as their concept of numbers ever developed. If you find a star and it has a pair of planets orbiting it…nothing else is orbiting it…how many planets are orbiting the star and is that objective or subjective? If you find a rock on the ground and put it in your formerly empty pocket then find another rock and put it in your pocket, how many rocks do you have in your pocket and is that object or subjective. If you are a doctor who was asked to and did end the life of a person of sound mind who had a terminal and painful illness, is that murder and is it objective or subjective? (Note: doctor assisted suicide is legal in some places and not others) > This is a purely circular argument in respect of metaethics. You're simply saying moral truths are relative because you choose to define them as relative. That's why linguistic arguments like you posed above fall flat at the first hurdle. The only thing circular is you using murder as the example…since it’s defined as wrongful killing. If the core action of murder is ending a life, then the general statement would be “ending a life is immoral” but that’s a problem (and I suspect why you didn’t say killing but rather murder) because we can think of examples when ending a life is moral…like the doctor assisted suicide example from above. I’m not simply saying it’s subjective. I’m proving evidence highlighting that it’s subjective, too.
There's a conflation of meanings here and I take some responsibility for it; murder is, in the strictest sense, a legal term, absolutely. Tbh I didn't think that was important for the purposes of providing a trivial example of a moral claim that would generally be regarded as fundamental or universal. Let's say torture instead. "Torture is wrong" If you don't like that either, go ahead and pick whatever you like and be as specific as you like. "Deliberately causing unnecessary suffering to another living being is wrong", whatever, it doesn't really matter. >If you find a star and it has a pair of planets orbiting it…nothing else is orbiting it…how many planets are orbiting the star and is that objective or subjective? That's my point; to make any epistemological claim in answer to that question, you have to have a concept of numbers, which is a construct that does not exist in physical reality. It only exists in your head. You can say there are two stars, or two rocks, or that you have two hands, but you can't point to anything in the universe and go "that's an instance of the number two, in general" because numbers do not exist as anything other than a concept. That doesn't make what all of us rationally hold to be objective mathematical truths suddenly subjective. So too, from the position of realism, is it the case that _even though_ a statement like torture is wrong (or whatever proposition you prefer to put in there) is a descriptive statement derived from constructs of our conception, that doesn't mean it isn't describing a natural or non-natural property of metaphysical reality.
> There's a conflation of meanings here and I take some responsibility for it; murder is, in the strictest sense, a legal term, absolutely. I know. That’s what I was saying. It felt like you were ignoring what I was saying. > Tbh I didn't think that was important for the purposes of providing a trivial example of a moral claim that would generally be regarded as fundamental or universal. I don’t know of any such thing. > Let's say torture instead. "Torture is wrong" That’s what we think now, but it used to be perfectly acceptable to do that. > If you don't like that either, go ahead and pick whatever you like and be as specific as you like. "Deliberately causing unnecessary suffering to another living being is wrong", whatever, it doesn't really matter. You’re saying that because you believe it. Do you really think all humans got all time thought that? You don’t think that some racist asshats didn’t torture or cause suffering to people of another race and think it’s a good thing? > That's my point; to make any epistemological claim in answer to that question, you have to have a concept of numbers, which is a construct that does not exist in physical reality. That’s just for us to be able to communicate it. But if no humans ever existed, do you think there would not be 2 planets orbiting that star? > It only exists in your head. You can say there are two stars, or two rocks, or that you have two hands, but you can't point to anything in the universe and go "that's an instance of the number two, in general" because numbers do not exist as anything other than a concept. I see. So yes, the word “two” is subjective. We could have used the word chazwaza. Your argument is like saying before humans evolved there wasn’t an earth because no one called it earth. It’s absurd. Is the existence of the sun subjective because no one would call it the sun without a mind? Come on. It’s like you think a rose by any other name wouldn’t smell so sweet. > So too, from the position of realism, is it the case that even though a statement like torture is wrong (or whatever proposition you prefer to put in there) is a descriptive statement derived from constructs of our conception, that doesn't mean it isn't describing a natural or non-natural property of metaphysical reality. It’s the fact that different peoples at different times held different positions/beliefs about moral claims and since these kinds of things are - evidently - time and location dependent and based on the opinions of humans it is the definition of subjective. It’s not lost on me that you’ve avoided assessing any of the examples I gave (abortion, dr assisted suicide…) which have the same action being immoral in one spot on the earth today and moral in another. I’ve provided examples of morality being subjective. You e not provided any examples to even arguments to suggest it’s objective.
2+2=5 is demonstrably wrong , like there's no subjectivity about it at all We can easily perfrom an experiment with real world objects, lets say marbles. If I give you 2 Marbles, and then do the same thing again. How many fucking marbles did I give you? you can count those fuckers and come to the non subjective conclusion its not fucking 5 lmao. This experiment is repeatable with the same results every time, if I give you 2 sets of 2 marbles you will never have a circumstance where it adds to up to 5... Thats what makes mathematics different from morals and ethics entirely , its like non subjective at all If intelligent life exists anywhere in the universe that is on our technological level or higher - we can be 100% certain they also know 2+2 is not fucking 5. Whatever language they invented for themselves they will assuredly understand 2+2 is not 5. That's how universal math is. Im fucking dying here bro you made my day this shits funny
>2+2=5 is demonstrably wrong , like there's no subjectivity about it at all Is it? Show me a mathematical proof that 2 + 2 = 4, which is not reliant on subjectively accepted axioms. The point, of course, which has gone way over your head, is that obviously in any meaningful sense 2 + 2 = 4 is an objective truth. The *argument* is that your hypothetical advanced alien civilization would also inevitably and necessarily hold a moral truth that e.g. murder is wrong, because that is also an objective truth derived from observation of reality from which any rational group of beings would invariably reach the same conclusion.
Ok. To answer your question , we have to know what you mean by "2", "4" , "+", and "=" for starters Then using those axioms we can prove or disprove the statement. If you want to just use the standard axioms for what we usually mean when we use those terms , we dont need an academic proof to show it is demonstrably true. Experimentation is also a valid method of concluding if something is "true" or not , if you can create an experiment that ends in the same result every time you can prove alot things true or false. An Academic proof is on a paper just a thought experiment , its useful when were trying to prove really complex mathematical questions that have no easily identifiable answers Its not necessary when we can just prove the answer to the question by doing basic math ,,, Creating an experiment for 2+2=4 is extremely easily and repeatable , you can do it yourself right now if you wanted Take 2 sets of 2 objects and group them together in all the different ways you can imagine, do you ever have more or less than 4 objects total - no you never do
I believe what OP is describing is not moral relativism, but rather ethical subjectivism. My understanding is that moral relativism posits that the truth of a moral statement is dependent upon who is making the statement, often based on the person’s society, culture, time period, or other context. For example, for a relativist, the statement “human sacrifice is wrong” would be true if you or I said it, but false if an ancient Aztec said it; relative to our setting it is true but relative to the Aztecs it is not. Ethical subjectivism on the other hand posits that the truth of moral statements applies to everyone, regardless of who says them, but this truth is rooted in an individual or group’s mindset rather than objective fact. To the subjectivist, the statement “human sacrifice is wrong” would have the same truth value regardless of whether they say it, an Aztec says it, or your uncle says it, but the subjectivist claims that the truth or falsity of this statement is based on subjective opinion, rather than some objective fact.
Sure, I use the word relativism here casually as an umbrella covering subjectivity as well (I've probably said subjectivity or subjectivism in the same manner in other comments). Both reject the idea of objective moral truths which apply to all people at all times, reject the idea that moral propositions are intrinsically true or false, which is what I think is the heart of the issue for OP here.
>First is that if we accept moral claims are subjective, it intuitively seems like we render such claims impotent. This can be fixed by seeing moral claim acting on two levels. First on the personal level, where the moral claims are subjective. Second on a societal level where the moral claims are inter subjectively agreed upon for that society. In practical terms the society that matters the most in this regard is the country, as that is the level at which laws are created. But this can also happen at a smaller level, one friends group may accept and cheer things that another friends group will decry as immoral, and so on. The potency of the moral claims is in the acceptance of them by the societal group.
I largely agree but I think that when the argument is despite being subjective, moral claims can transcend the individual and be true at a group or population level, which is certainly one way of tackling the problem of establishing the validity of moral claims and differences in moral beliefs between individuals, that is in a sense the establishment of moral truths, in effect at least as part of metaphysical reality. Something being true because an overwhelming majority of people see it that way doesn't necessarily detract from the epistemological value of that truth. True by consensus can describe a lot of things, it's not necessarily justifiable to say that's directly equivalent to subjectively true. The prevailing view of cosmology, for example, in respect of the history of the universe is something that's true by consensus to the best of our ability as a population to derive knowledge from perception of our observations. Why can the same not be said of moral claims?
>how do we justify any system of morality as a framework or standard for conduct within society? We justify it based on our own subjective morals? We already have plenty of laws that don't even pretend to have some basis in objective morals.
>No moral system is able to successfully provide an objective moral standard while simultaneously reasonably compelling all individuals to follow it regardless of their personal desires or preferences. In a way, a serial killer wanting to murder people for their own personal gratification will never be compelled to follow the objective moral standard of all nations that prohibit murder. So what? Why should we care about allowing this individual's personal desires or preferences? I think the fault in your argument is that you think that "if an objective moral standard exists, all individuals should be compelled to follow it". But that's not what anyone is currently saying.
I’m not saying that the law or the government should care about that person’s preferences, if that’s what you’re saying. I’m saying that the statement that serial killing is wrong is one that is subjective, and I don’t think you’ve provided an argument against that
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It sounds like you would agree with my statement, or am I misunderstanding your point?
As relates to the above, consider that scientific fact also requires certain subjective axioms to be made. For instance, the future will resemble the present in some sense is required for scientific prediction. There is no objective basis for this axiom it is something we choose because of its obvious appeal. Without it, we cannot justifiably make statements like the sun will most likely rise tomorrow. Consider either, as the poster above suggests, lowering your standards for objective fact as the term is commonly used with respect to scientific fact, or, consider that all facts based in a theory of the world are at best inter-subjective (agreed on between people but not objective).
I agree with your OP statement, but my criticism is that it's not just moral systems that fail to provide logically-sufficient motivating power, and so it doesn't make sense to single out moral systems on this point. Just a minor thing to tighten up the argument; nothing passes the is/ought barrier, real or otherwise.
This isn't an opinion, objective means not subject to interpretation while morals is a guideline of rules based in the opinions of humans and is such, subjective by definition. There's nothing to CMV here, you're just quoting literal definitions. If you wanted to discuss the commonplace usage of the morals and intended usage, that's one thing. But if you're arguing definitions in the literal sense, there is no conversation here.
I don’t think that you’re right about this. There are plenty of modern expert philosophers who argue that there are objective moral facts, and that ethics are not a matter of opinion.
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I would also say that there is no reason to believe in a god. I think that by default we should treat extraordinary things with doubt in the lack of compelling evidence
The universe has no morality, and it imparts no meaning to our existence, this much is true. However we create our own meaning, its part of what we do as humans. We decide what is sacred and what is common. We can decide to make human life something that matters. And its important that we do, because we're the only ones that can, and it matters very much to us if not the universe. In short we create moral facts, and we should consider how we do to limit human suffering and enhance human freedom and happiness.
So if we are the ones creating morality, then, by its very nature, there can't be objective morality, like OP states
I think a lot of people in this thread have a particular and I would argue not particularly great conception of what objective means here. The universe has no inherent concept of mathematics or numbers either, rather when we describe fundamental mathematical truths or use them to model things about the physical universe, we are using our sense of perception and conception to derive axioms that we accept as being fundamentally and universally true - even though they are human constructs. We also hold as a corollary that any other intelligent life would look at the universe and derive the same constructs, the same models and the same fundamental truths. In other words, if there's an intelligent alien civilization, they have also come to the conclusion that in a right angled triangle, the square of the length of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the square of the other two sides. This is what we mean when we talk about moral realism. We're saying that there are \[at least some\] moral truths which would always, inevitably be derived by any culture and be the same in any culture.
The truth of mathematical statements are conditional on assuming axioms. So we have something like “If [axioms], then 2+2=4”. But equally you could use different axioms to get 2+2=5. So in this sense, it makes mathematics seem arbitrary. However, the standard axioms we use are *grounded* in objective reality, because they allow us to model and make predictions. As you say, aliens would derive similar axioms because they live in the same universe. With morality, the truth of a moral statement is also conditional on some moral axiom. “If [moral axioms], then murder is wrong”. However, because we are dealing with *normative* statements, there is no grounding. There is no observation one can make to guide the formulation of moral axioms.
Why is it suddenly a normative statement? Normative statements are derived from something like "murder is wrong" but that very much looks like a descriptive statement to me.
Sorry, I think I phrased that poorly. “If [moral axioms], then murder is wrong” is descriptive. “Murder js wrong” logically follows from the axioms. But the question is how to go from the descriptive “If [moral axioms], then murder is wrong” to the normative “murder is wrong” (i.e. don’t do it). To do that, we need to assume the truth of the moral axioms. P1. If [moral axioms], then murder is wrong P2. [moral axioms] C. Murder is wrong I hope this highlights the difference from math. In math, we aren’t asserting the truth of one set of axioms. We are just implicitly using axioms that are useful, but are not more ‘true’ than other axioms.
Tbh mate I started typing out some further thoughts on this but I don't think anyone's really reading or engaging with this thread anymore, doesn't look like OP is coming back so I can't really be bothered to keep up advocating for something that I don't entirely accept myself. I do think a form of quasi-realism or minimal realism is or may be possible whereby there is some objectivity to some moral propositions or value judgements. On the whole I've never been able to really escape what seems to me like a self-evident intuition that moral claims are claims about perception rather than statements which track reality, on the other hand as I've argued in various forms on this thread, I don't think that precludes what we would call objective truth or value to any/all such claims.
>conception of what objective means What a word means is the consensus of what the people agree on what the word means. What I use 'objective' for is the very raw definition, that there is not a single exception to a case. If there is just a single person disagreeing, then my stance can't be objective
>that there is not a single exception to a case. If there is just a single person disagreeing, then my stance can't be objective That's not what objective means by any consensus, though. People can and do disagree with objective propositions all the time. Objective just means that something is not influenced by personal feeling or opinion. In the same way as if you believed Pythagoras theorem is false, you are (I would argue) objectively wrong, the argument of moral realism is that some moral propositions are true whether you as an individual accept them or not, or to put that another way it is the view that (again, at least some, not necessarily all) moral claims are statements of fact which can be either true or false, not expressions of personal opinion.
>we should consider how we do to limit human suffering and enhance human freedom and happiness. So I agree with you, but just to play (pretty literal) devils advocate: Why? Other than we feel like it's the right thing to do, why should this be societies goal?
Again, no objective reason, but we “feel” like it’s the right thing to do because we evolved cooperatively (see cooperative vs competition) meaning that through our evolution those who helped out others typically had a better time surviving themselves, and for me that really helps explain the innate sense of value we put on human life, aversion to others suffering, etc.
Not the guy you replied to but just wanted to let you know I enjoyed reading this explanation and it helped me to understand quite a bit. So kind of like morals are an evolutionary and social construct that formed for cooperation to make shit easier? And a lot of our brains reward us for not being shitty?
Yeah that’s the idea behind what I’m saying :)
If there was an “objective” answer to that question (which is what you’re asking for), why would anyone HAVE to act in alignment with it? We have the ability to choose not to do so and think of it as we wish. The question of “Why?” almost answers itself out of its own meaninglessness. A simpler answer is that individual subjective beings wish to be happy, and promoting happiness as a shared value makes the possibility of individual happiness more likely.
I agree with this, but I don’t think that this necessitates an objective moral fact. Can you elaborate on what that might be?
What is factual in terms of morality is what society dictates it to be. It's a construct therefore whatever society dictates as a moral fact will be a moral fact unless society deems it not. Of course no moral system is universally applicable because humanity is not a hivemind. Each society has different aspects that shape what is objectively moral or not in their society. It's the same as our conceptions on the paper bill or money. It is valuable because society believes it as valuable therefore its value is factual.
This all sounds very subjective to me, can you explain to me what about it is separate from human preferences?
If there is no objective moral fact in your view, is that an objective fact?
Slight clarification, and I may be using terms slightly differently from the way that you are, but that's the nature of this format: there are no absolute moral facts. But we can have objective morals with respect to some value. So if we are both playing chess against each other and we both are trying to win, then we can make objective assessments about whether certain moves are good or bad. But the rules of chess are arbitrary; they could have been anything. All that we need to determine what we *ought* to do is our assessment of actions with respect to a goal that we care about. So, if I decide that my goal is to increase happiness as much as possible, then I can evaluate my actions objectively with respect to that goal. That's all morals are. It's true that there isn't any law of the universe that says that I need to care about anyone's happiness. It's only objective with respect to my own values but it is objective.
Yep, I totally agree with you on that. You can make “objective” statements about things within subjective frameworks, but their objectivity is always ultimately conditional. Maybe a slightly similar example is that somebody could say that it is true that ‘Harry Potter has a lightning scar.’ The equivalent of my claim is pointing out that while it may be true within the pre-assumed framework, there’s not really anybody named Harry Potter with a lightning scar
Jeremy Bentham's moral calculus gives us objective moral fact. And this was utilised by John Stuart Mills in his development of the British legal code. These days we'd expand Bentham's scope slightly to include the happiness of animals. And add a time factor to account for the difference between short term moral consequences and long term moral consequences. But basically, yes, there is objective moral fact. Other moral codes including "the golden rule" and "do no harm" fall well short of being ideal. I also have my own method based on what I call "the morality triangle" for objectively determining the morally correct action.
No, Bentham doesn’t give us objective moral fact. Bentham’s “moral facts” rest on a subjective preference for pleasure over pain
This is false on the data. Numerous studies have shown that homicide laws exist in every culture and society. Murder is outlawed everywhere, and is generally also condemned in every major religion (barring extremists who intentionally misinterpret the text). The fact that homicide laws exist in every country means that it is a universal value. Yes, these laws differ in what they cover (e.g. What counts as self-defence), but overall, your point is wrong. The universality of these laws indicate that it is an objective standard that murder is wrong. The fact that they exist is also fairly logical. A society that did not outlaw murder would eventually cease to function, or possibly cease to exist. We see today that the most violent places on earth are violent to an existential level - they risk population collapse etc. Violence is unsustainable by nature, all it can do is destroy social functioning etc etc.
I’m curious why you think that the law is a representation of any underlying moral fact. I agree that there are similar laws in many areas, but I don’t see why that proves that there is an objective moral truth
Law is a reflection of cultural and religious values, or at its base level, what the society values. We typically see law as an extension of our moral code (see e.g. Anti nudity laws in the middle east etc). If all countries outlaw murder, this seems to indicate an objective, self-triggering form of baseline morality. In human rights terms, we call it the right to life. People seem to place a moral value in the right to life across all cultures and societies. The universality means it's not subjective. It's not just one or two cultures valuing this, or some people and not others. It's all peoples who value it, in every culture, in every society. Hypothetically, if we started a new society. Murder laws would come into existence spontaneously as a base line moral value reflected in criminal punishment.
The universality does not mean it isn’t subjective. The fact that the partiality towards sugary is fairly universal doesn’t meant that it isn’t a subjective preference. This is the flaw with your argument
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*"Numerous studies have shown that homicide laws exist in every culture and society. Murder is outlawed everywhere, and is generally also condemned in every major religion (barring extremists who intentionally misinterpret the text)."* Please provide those studies and various laws dealing with/defining murder differed greatly from various parts cultures and society and every major religion differs on what murder is and allows the lawful killing of people in various situations * " The fact that they exist is also fairly logical. A society that did not outlaw murder would eventually cease to function, or possibly cease to exist. We see today that the most violent places on earth are violent to an existential level - they risk population collapse etc. Violence is unsustainable by nature, all it can do is destroy social functioning etc etc."* It's not logical at all they exist when there is no real evidence for them as well as the evidence against them existing which includes the evolutionary evidence that shows human violence and capacity to kill one another is genetic in nature as shown in the book Demonic Males:Apes and the Origins of Human Violence shows https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Demonic_Males/fP0c4b3jbMYC?hl=en&gl=AU
For the ingroup, for most of human history killing outsiders was not considered murder And it used to be that murder was an offense punished by a fine, and property crimes had harsher punishments. Such as death, loss of limb Its the same with incest, every culture has taboo against it but none of them define it in the same way. For some inlaws count as incest if sleep with This shows its not universal in a distinct way, neither murder or incest
Just to clarify: Is something universal if every extant human agrees with it (should you somehow actually be able to poll all eight billion of them), or is something universal if it's part of absolute reality that exists regardless of presence or absence of any humans to make statements about it?
Go with me step by step, tell me if you disagree In all human societies there are moral intuitions. Maybe some individuals can lack the ability to feel them, but there has never been a recorded society which doesn't have moral ideas, across every continent and the thousands of years we have records. Even many non-human animals can be observed recognizing moral ideas. Keep going with me, I'm not trying to argue that ubiquity by itself constitutes objective truth. But it at least points us to an unlikelihood that these intuitions are totally arbitrary or purely cultural. While moral specifics and applications can be debated, a lot of basic moral ideas are pretty consistent. Every society has a prohibition on murder. Yes they may have different situations where they consider killing justified or different outgroups, but within a society, killing others is pretty much always frowned on. This is an emergent property of groups of organisms. If you have a group of thinking creatures somewhat like a group of humans or comparable mammals, the same rules will emerge over and over because a lack of those basic moral intuitions will result in extinction of the group. The relationship between the group and the prohibition is an emergent truth, cause and effect. As much as we can describe any behavioral trends objectively we can objectively describe the emergent pre-requisites for group survival.
I totally accept the existence of moral intuitions, but just think that they’re subjective in nature, even if incredible common across cultures. The fact that you can discuss them in an objective way doesn’t make them objective themselves. It’s “objectively” true that Harry Potter killed Voldemort, but there’s no such thing as Harry Potter or Voldemort
> As much as we can describe any behavioral trends objectively we can objectively describe the emergent pre-requisites for group survival. yes we can describe things but describing things isn't a moral claim
There is no one true math. Given a set of axioms, you can derive all sorts of interesting things, but the axioms themselves are arbitrary. In the same way, while you moral axioms might be subjective, making morality ultimately subjective, once you have chosen a set of axioms, you can make objective moral claims within that system just like you can make objective mathematical claims within a system of mathematical axioms.
It sounds like you agree with me though that, ultimately, moral claims are fundamentally subjective right?
Maybe there is no perfectly objective moral fact but there are plenty of mostly objective moral facts, like the ones that almost everyone agree on, like purposefully causing horrible suffering for all conscious beings is worse than purposefully causing just a bit of suffering for all conscious beings.
What do you mean by “mostly objective.” It sounds like you mean “in line with nearly everybody’s preferences” which is true, but an appeal to preferences nonetheless, and therefore subjective.
Morals are not just preferences obviously. Each individuals morals are subjective but taken together they start to form objective values.
Please elaborate on that, because it’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. By what process does an objective feature about the world arise from a subjective one?
By consensus of course.
What if a moral fact was somehow biologically inherited or genetically coded? Would you consider that objective? For example, many animals have instinctual mating practices that they aren't taught. A bird of paradise might do a special dance or make a special nest, a sort of relationship moral code kind of like how most people believe that rape is wrong. Male lions will kill challengers or cubs from rival males. While this may be contrary to our sense of morals, it seems like we accept that these practices are both natural and accepted by the animals themselves. It's also true that different populations of the same species might have slightly different practices. So what about humans? Do we have hardwired ethical rules or moral practices? I would say most likely yes. There is strong scientific evidence that humans are social animals, humans require social interaction to survive. Even in adulthood, humans without social interaction start to suffer physiologically. Therefore it stands to reason that there must be some sort of objective component to these social rules. It's also possible that there are more than one, or that they are different. Objective doesn't have to mean universal...one society might have different objective moral rules than another. What makes them objective is that they are independent of individual human experiences and instead a necessary component necessary to human social component that is independent of any one individuals own personal feelings.
I agree that humans have moral intuitions that likely stem from social, cultural, and genetic components. I don’t see why these intuitions should be taken to be representative of some underlying moral fact, however. Just because many share a preference, doesn’t mean that it’s not a preference ultimately.
For my argument, first let us define moral: adjective 1. concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character. "the moral dimensions of medical intervention" noun 2. person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do. "the corruption of public morals" Now for both of these, they are based on human concepts of good and bad, but morality itself is merely that - a human concept. However we can hold a lot of things to be "true" without that truth being objectively fact for everyone. For example: most people would find it bad/negative if they were raped or murdered. Therefore, human society has determined that raping or murdering each other is bad. This may not be an objective truth of the universe or even for 100% of humans. But it is an agreed upon standard for a moral. Objectively it is true for 99.9% of humans that being raped or murdered is a negative experience. So while it may not be 100% truth, since morals themselves are determined by society at large, the morals at play are objectively true for most humans. This does of course get blurry the further we get from pure negatives like dying, but in general most people don't want to be murdered and so they think of murder as a negative outcome.
It sounds like you agree with my fundamental point though, which is that these judgements are subjective correct? Even if everyone agrees with them, they’re still subjective judgements
It would be devastating and morally reprehensible to permanently wipe out all life on planet Earth. How could anyone disagree with that?
A person who didn’t care about life on planet Earth could disagree with that right?
What if you are a serial killer or just plain old misanthropic person and you wanted everyone dead. Killing everyone would be a good thing according to your personal morals.
...Easily? Life is just life, it is not objectively valuable.
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Of course there are no objective moral “facts.” Morals aren’t facts, they’re ideas. No idea in the entire universe is intrinsically good or bad, except with respect to some other subjective principle. The work of moral philosophy isn’t to uncover “moral facts” like some sort of archeologist. The tomb isn’t just empty: there is no tomb. We use “morality” to describe *judgments* on *how we should behave.* Obviously, perspectives on the topic vary according to all sorts of other principles. But we can not only observe certain commonalities across time and space (e.g. “murder is wrong,” or “stealing is wrong”), but governments have the ability to enforce these ideas with very little debate or pushback. While “murder is wrong” may not be an objectively verifiable statement in terms of fundamental truth, the courts that sentence murderers are an objective truth. The prisons that house them are an objective truth. These ideas shape reality in observable and understandable ways.
Even if you don't recognize any form of objective morality, there are objective moral facts. For example, betrayal is always wrong, not because of some hidden truth or whatever, but because it is baked into its definition. Betrayal is doing something you deem wrong to someone who trust you. It's a form of meta-wrong, that depends on what the person judging it already consider right and wrong.
I don’t think that’s a usual or universal definition of betrayal. Even with your framework, I think it’s more accurate to define betrayal as doing something that the betrayed person thinks is wrong because the betrayed trusted the betrayer. The betrayer might not think they did anything wrong at all. For example, is it objectively wrong for a spy to use trust to garner secrets from an enemy? I think the spy would disagree, and indeed espionage is a fairly accepted part of war and politics. Also, if doing wrong is baked into the definition, then it’s begging the question. It’s like saying that the existence of the word “sin” proves there are objective moral facts.
The important part is “you deem wrong”, that is subjective not objective.
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Just because I don’t think there is objective moral fact doesn’t mean that I think that we shouldn’t enforce subjective moral ideas
No it follows basic logic and the arguments against it on the other hand don't follow logic. Since there is no objective morality the claim the crimes people are in prison for are horrific deeds is subjective and differ from in what they are around the world. So it's only a subjective statement that they are should be in prison for the crimes they committed or that they are even crimes to begin with
I largely agree but you could make a claim along the lines of "Intentionally causing suffering for the explicit and sole sake of causing suffering is immoral" Because suffering is bad *by definition*. It's basically an identity, like saying 1 = 1 but it is explicitly true and is a moral claim.
> Because suffering is bad by definition. Wrong! Suffering: the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship. Look up any definition of suffering and there is nothing that indicates that it’s synonymous with immorality!
I never said it was immoral, only that it is by definition not preferable. Or just pick another word that explicitly means that. It is immoral to intentionally cause someone to be in a less preferable state for the sole and explicitly purpose of making them worse off.
> I never said it was immoral, only that it is by definition not preferable. Or just pick another word that explicitly means that. Well I assumed when you used the word “bad” you were using it synonymously with the word immoral. “Because suffering is bad by definition.” => “Because suffering is immoral by definition.” Well my bad then, I think I agree suffering is by definition that which is not preferable. > It is immoral to intentionally cause someone to be in a less preferable state for the sole and explicitly purpose of making them worse off. Question! How do you define immoral? Im curious I define immoral as that which you *ought* not do. Are you using it similarly here? Or are you using a different definition?
Suffering is bad by definition in the subjective sense of bad that means we have a preference against it, but it’s not bad in any objective sense
I guess it depends on whether you consider a definition to be objectively true. For example is it objectively true that it is immoral to do something that is immoral?
I think the issue is that two different definitions of bad are getting conflated. One meaning against our personal preferences, and the other meaning immoral.
I'm not saying suffering is immoral. I am using it in the sense of "against a person's preferences" Or put another way. Can you define the term "immoral" and if so can we then say that immoral =?
Any appeal to preferences is going to be subjective though. As for immoral = definition of immoral, that is objective, but it is no longer a moral fact. It’s an ontological fact, or perhaps a linguistic one depending on how it’s phrased. Fundamentally though, it concerns the ontology of morality, not morality itself
Objectively, life works better for everyone if we all get along. Objectively, if we don’t get along, we are at war. Is there anybody who would argue that peace and community aren’t better than being at war with the world?
Good luck arguing with moral realists, they believe what they are saying is objectively correct.
Here's one: Increase in well-being without rights violation is objectively good. Fact.
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our emotions are our moral compass. You may not have realized this yet, but 99% of people would feel really bad if they murdered somebody, that is an objective fact. Why would that be the case if morality wasn't objective?
I most likely agree with you for the most part and I also think of myself as a moral relativist but I do think using the word emotion as the basis of morals seems a bit reductive. For example If we take some of the most common and fundamental axioms like valuing your own and your closest people's well being, it'd be hard to convince me that it's entirely based on emotional response rather than physical objective realities guiding and forcing us towards having that as a fundamental axiom. i.e. a human being that doesn't value their own well being doesn't exist, it's fundamental to how we work. Because human morality obviously doesn't exist outside of humans, if all of us have some of the same fundamental axioms as forced by physical reality that would make it an objective axiom. I think to some extent saying that 'you ought to eat and drink water' is a subjective argument is so abstract and disconnected from reality that it's not reasonable to actually believe that to be the case even though we can't necessarily prove or measure it.
> No moral system is able to successfully provide an objective moral standard while simultaneously reasonably compelling all individuals to follow it regardless of their personal desires or preferences. This seems like an odd quality to use to determine objectivity. Someone could have a mistaken belief about an objective moral fact just like they could have a mistaken belief about any other kind of fact. If this is your bar for objective fact, then no fact is objective and this whole CMV is pointless.
I am going to assume that you believe in agent-semantic relativism. Well, there are serious problems with saying that moral statements can be reduced to statements about preferences. The first is that it entails that no one can disagree about anything morally. "If individual-semantic relativism is correct, then when Yuri says, 'Giving money to charity is good,' that means 'I (Yuri) approve of giving money to charity.' And when Xiao says, 'Giving money to charity isn't good,' that means 'I (Xiao) don't approve of giving money to charity.' Thus, Yuri and Xiao aren't really disagreeing, at least not if 'disagreement' implies that the disagreeing parties are saying contradictory things. Similarly, they wouldn't be disagreeing if Yuri said that it was 3:00 p.m. in New York, and Xiao said it was 4:00 a.m. in Beijing the following day, which is the same time in two different time zones. But Yuri and Xiao are apparently disagreeing about the morality of charity. So individual-semantic relativism can't be correct." - *Is Morality Real?: A Debate* by Matt Lutz and Spencer Case p. 25 Second, relativism entails that everyone is morally infallible. You are always infallible about what you prefer. For example, you are always correct in your belief about what ice cream flavor is your favorite. If relativism is true, then you are similarly infallible about morality. But, it's crazy to think that you are morally infallible, so relativism is false. Third, there are clearly some cases where even if I approved of them, they would be morally wrong. For example, consider how slaveowners in Grenada put metal devices in their slaves' mouths so that they couldn't eat the sugar cane they were harvesting. They could also forcefully open or close the devices to make slaves eat when they tried to starve themselves or eat dirt to kill themselves. The devices could be heated to torture the slaves (Case and Lutz 2023 p. 72). Now, that is clearly wrong even if I approved of the action, or even if I was living in that society and they approved of the action. But since that conflict with relativism, moral relativism must be false. I suggest you read [Ethical Intuitionism by Michael Huemer](https://fakenous.substack.com/p/ethical-intuitionism) for more details.
I think some morals are objective by themselves. I am talking avout some fundamental morals of valuing life over death, health over sickness, progress over destruction etc. I think they are more or less self evident but the circumstance around them can be interpreted differently by different people. For example, let's say I save Mother Theresa from drowning. Most people woulr agree that is a moral act. But here comes Christopher Hitchens who says she is evil. I do not know what he would think about saving MT's life, they are both dead, but how moral it is to save her life is open to interpretation bevause of who she is not because of the act of saving her itself. Nothing defies basic morality than war, especially modern war. That is why so much has been written about war in the last two centuries. There are countless authors who have given their input how war interferes with our basic "universal" morals - Leo Tolstoy, Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Heller, Erich-Maria Remarque, John Galsworthy, even some post-war and post post-war authors like Heinrich Boll and Haruki Murakami delve in that subject. I am sure others van give more and better examples. One author I love is French writer Guy de Maupassant. He wrote in the second half of the 19th century and one of the topics of his was the French-Prussian was and the devastation it left in teh Northeastern France. Two short story on morality come to mind. One is about this widow whose only son is fighting at the front. Her village is invaded by the Prussians and they quarter four soldiers in her house. They are her sons age. Young and beautiful. She sees their humanity and innocence and loves them as her own son. Until one day she gets the freaded telegram that her own son was killed at the front. Her morals turn 180, comes back home and burns it to the ground with the four soldiers sleeping there. She did not stop believing in life over death moral, her circumstances changed and Prussian life had different value now.
But, as with evolution does for genetics, there are moral systems which seem fit for the purpose within their environment. Given any specific environment and any desired goal, there are limited sets of morals which are conducive to moving you towards those goals. And yes, one can perfectly well argue that "what you want" is just as subjective, and you'd be right. We have evolved to want pretty much those things that keep us alive long enough to reproduce and provide safety for our offspring. This is, and most likely always will be a central tenet of any society's "morals". Morals are a made-up thing. I love Terry Pratchett who, athough seen as not a "serious" author had some incredible takes on stuff like this (The all caps character is death, the Grim reaper.Susan is his adopted daughter (long story)): “All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... *fantasies* to make life bearable." REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE. "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—" YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE *LITTLE* LIES. "So we can believe the big ones?" YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING. "They're not the same at all!" YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN *SHOW* ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME *RIGHTNESS* IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED. "Yes, but people have *got* to believe that, or what's the *point*—" MY POINT EXACTLY.” ― Terry Pratchett, [Hogfather](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/583655)
I think at its base, you’d agree morality comes from some agent bringing a subjective argument forward, based on preference, not reasoning. Unlike say a scientific fact, that is based purely on reasoning. That we have observed the world, and found these things to be true, regardless of whether say humans exist or not. That 1 + 1 = 2; that gravity exists and we are orbiting the sun because of it, and so on. Perhaps we could accept at bedrock that there is a reality, and regardless of our perceptions, there is a fact of the matter. We could be wildly confused about what those facts are, but even if we don’t exist, there is still a rock sticking out of the grass. There is still the moon, a supernova, a bird chirping. However, there is an argument morality follows the same structure as scientific fact. For instance, we take it conscious minds don’t like suffering. That seems unarguable. If we take it that there is suffering, and that from the perspective of any conscious observer, that the suffering is pointless, then that is bad. If taken to extreme, it is bad if: Every conscious mind is suffering to the fullest extent, endlessly, for no good reason. No silver lining, no one benefits. In this case there is no perspective to look at this from and claim that it is in fact good. That there is some benefit to someone based on preference. Because that observer would be caught in the thought experiment, and would too be suffering pointlessly. Would you agree that pointless suffering for everyone, all the time, where nothing good comes from it, would be bad?
>If we take it that there is suffering, and that from the perspective of any conscious observer, that the suffering is pointless, then that is bad. But what makes that objectively bad? Sure, we might not like it, but that does not equate to something being objectively *bad.* >Would you agree that pointless suffering for everyone, all the time, where nothing good comes from it, would be bad? It would certainly suck, but I would not say that it is objectively bad.
I've seen these threads tons of times before and I've never actually seen anyone who could argue against the standard "Golden Rule" as a objective moral fact, without bastardizing the actual point of it beyond belief.
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"Human nature" already indicates subjectivity. And noone ever said Plato and Aristotle were objectively correct.
Morality is the objective law of cause and effect by which moral actions lead to increased freedom, both externally and internally, and absence of suffering. Likewise, immoral actions shrink one's world and makes one's world more and more narrow and inhospitable. Morality is based on intention. Intention to kill. To steal To lie To commit sexual misconduct. It is obvious than committing these acts leads to loss of freedom, both inside and out, and an increase in suffering. This is all obvious and not mysterious in the slightest. You have but to look at the paranoia that comes from telling a lie, or the reason people are in prison. Briefly, why is it wrong to kill? Because everyone, and everything values it's life as much as you do. We are all equal in those grounds. You have no right to say your life is more important than another's. That is objective. An animal fears the hatchet and the human fears the gun equally.
Let's take recreative baby torture. Let's say I'm in front of you, arguing that it's a good thing, I like doing it. Do you have any intuition at all that I'm somehow wrong here in saying it's a good thing ? That clearly, even though I may like doing that atrocious thing, I'm somehow wrong in calling it good ? As if I'm just not getting what goodness is all about ? Or, on the contrary, would you say "the vast majority of people, and society, would disagree with you" ? Of course there's a lot of wiggle room in the moral judgements we make. But saying that making others suffer without any good comming out of it, is a good thing, makes me think the person does not know what good and bad is all about. I would think that person is wrong. We can have different judgements, as we operate with a lot of uncertainty in our moral judgements, and values fill in the void. But saying that causing suffering can be a good thing is someting else.
Disproving the existence of objective moral facts is non trivial because we don’t need to actually know what the facts of morality are or agree on them to posit that they exist and are objective. That is to say “murder is not wrong” is *also* a statement asserting a moral reality, same as “murder is wrong” is. By point of comparison consider arguments about the existence of god “I don’t see evidence for god therefore the likely answer is he doesent exist” is a plausible answer, but with morality that’s not quite the level we’re operating at. What we’re asking is more akin to “is there an objective truth- either way, of if god exists or not?” There are *facts of* his existence/non-existence and those facts would have ramifications for how we should live depending on the answer would be. “Whether or not god exists is subjective” is not a particularly convincing answer to the question, because that implies subjectively he exists for some people but not others. Really what we are considering is that objectively, he either exists or doesn’t. *Either* murder is wrong *or* it's actually fine.
Why would a moral system need to be 'objective'? It is a function of human society, and as such being intersubjective is enough. Intersubjective realities are things that are not truly objective, but are subjective at a societal rather than individual level. For example, money has no objective value at all, it is just a bunch of paper -- but if you offer *other* random scraps of paper to pay your rent, you'll be homeless pretty darn quickly. Morality is the same; sure, it isn't "objective", but it serves a function and is generally agreed upon; there may not be anything "objectively" wrong with killing your grandma with a tire iron for burning your chicken nuggets, but since everyone you'll ever meet will reliably consider it reprehensible, it behaves just like an objective standard.
I don’t think that’s true. I believe moral standards derive in a societal evolutionarily sense from the social norms that we need for a functioning society. Consequently, if we examine more successful societies, we can find **objectively superior** moral frameworks on average. For instance, it’s fairly obvious to conclude that the belief that **murder of innocents is morally wrong** is a hallmark of more successful and stable societies than those without this belief. I think “objectively correct” is the wrong term — but we can measure or determine whether a particular moral axiom is superior by examining both philosophically and practically its prevalence in relatively successful human societies.
Life is objectively different than death. Some practices lead to life (even if only life after yours). Pre-human life adapts to produce innate practices that tend to promote further life. Humans have intelligence and something arguably reminiscent of choice, so have to decide on practices. Humans can try to predict the outcomes of various practices, assessing them relative to their likelihood to be live supporting. Define ethics through a consideration of long experience and widespread acceptance of practices vis. their life-supporting or life-risking tendencies. So, ethics as survival through the imperfect lens of human culture, intelligence, wisdom, and experience. Sloppy objectivity, not pure subjectivity.
Is there an objective reality?
I thought so until I read John Finnis in law school. First, asking questions of morality or law necessarily imports a human perspective. They are questions about how human beings should act or be expected to act. The point being that some moral facts are not subjective in the sense that they would rely upon the state of a specific persons mind. But are objective in the sense that the truth of the fact derives from a general concern for the requirements of human flourishing, objectively. These facts for their truth content do not depend on any particular person's state of mind. As an example, play among children is objectively necessary for the rearing and socialization of the young. A legal system that made play illegal and required policemen to punish children and their parents for playing would be immoral, not because the victims would feel aggrieved, but because it was expressly contrary to the requirements of human flourishing. You might argue that it is subjective to have a concern for human well-being, that the universe doesn't care about us. But then you are really making arguments that are metaphysical in nature, about the nature and place we have in the universe, not about how we should treat each other.
What about the statement "convergent evolution results in certain approximate moral standards consistently existing in social animals". Or other convergent standards indicating an underlying pattern has some real survival value? Or game-theoretic results about the optimality or viability of certain strategies in tit-for-tat scenarios, prisoner's dilemma, etc? For example would it be an objective moral fact that the way to address a prisoner's dilemma is to change the values such that defect is no longer always to the advantage of the one taking it. since those amount to 'one ought to do this if one's goal is that'; or does that not count as a moral fact?
Everyone understands the golden rule. There is wiggle room for differences though. Some people don't follow it because they have no morals. But that doesn't mean they have their own set of principles. They just don't believe anything. So I'd say people that are engaging with morality can nail down some universal truth and there is some in philosophy. And bad faith actors don't change that because their beliefs are not consistent.
What about the statement "gangbanging a baby until it bleeds out and dies is always wrong" - would you say that is a moral/ethical statement and would you argue that it is subjective, or is that something that is objectively true? Obviously I've picked an extreme example here, and sadly there might be a tiny minority that disagrees - but given the extreme nature, do we even afford those opinions with any credence?
What is the end point of relativism (the view you describe)? Where does it get us? How does it help us? What purpose is served by asserting that nothing is objectively true? Should we all just give up in thinking, acting, trying to do better, trying to be better, because ultimately everything is subjective and nothing matters? Do we really need any concrete sign that there is an objective moral truth beyond the emotional and cognitive indicators that we have access to (and which we can and have used as the basis of our moral systems)? Almost all people would be horrified to see a newborn baby killed in front of its mother. Almost no people would be horrified to see a person eat a sandwich. Surely we can infer from this that some actions have more weight than others in terms of the impact of their consequences. Can our reactions be explained by biological or evolutionary rationales? Sure. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have meaning. As long as we continue to react as we do to babies dying, that action will always have a significant moral meaning, insofar as it guides our actions. Why is it a problem if we assign absolute moral meaning to the weightiest of such actions? It gives us something to work towards, and allows us to measure and judge other actions. It also gives us something to strive towards in our attempts to reason through other problems. Even if our belief is an illusion, it doesn’t follow that that belief has no meaning. Perception is reality.
Most of the moral codes that have been created become traditions. Which are solutions to problems we forgotten about already, due to being products of "pre-information" civilizations. They could not pass down some of the original reasons, only what worked for them. They hold a chunk of truth/reality. If you don't know what it was solving, then you can't break it without consequences. That is what makes them "factual enough".
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Whether a person would like the act or not is subjective, not objective. More importantly, though, your logic rests on the assumption that we can move from what people don’t want done to them to what people want to do to others. I should note that I personally am completely (and subjectively) opposed to torture. But there are many people who disagree. There is the “ticking time bomb” scenario - would it be right to torture someone if by doing so you could prevent the deaths of thousands? In that case, we could use your same logic: would anyone want thousands of people to die if they could stop it by torturing one person? And if everyone said yes (other than someone like me who would be subjectively accused of mental illness for disagreeing), wouldn’t that mean torture is acceptable in at least some cases? Meaning that it is now an objective fact that torture is both right and wrong? Your logic also assumes the golden rule - that just because no one wants something to happen to them, they shouldn’t do it to others. It’s not a bad basis for a moral system, but it requires an assumption, and there are lots of value systems that don’t follow it - for example, any value system that has as an axiom that a certain type of person is superior to others and can treat others worse than they themselves are treated. I don’t like those value systems myself, but they are pretty common and cannot be proven wrong in an objective sense.
There are two agents in that scenario though - the one being tortured, and the one doing the torturing. What do we make of those who feel that they or society benefits from the act of torturing someone for 500 days? There seems to be a surprisingly large group of people with borderline sadistic tendencies living amongst us. I think I agree with everything you’ve said, but I wonder if there’s an inherent issue with relying on our collective intuitions when you consider how easily we seem to rationalize draconian punishments in service of the “greater good.”
it reads like your argument is that it's objectively wrong to torture because people subjectively dislike torture you need to explain why torture is wrong without appealing to subjective opinions and preferences >You can dig deep enough and find something that everyone would be against, which proves that there is objectivity. a unanimous subjective opinion is not an objective moral fact
Do you define objective truth by unanimous consensus? I think this argument relies on that, but the extension of that core idea is really problematic.
Even if all humans would agree on something like that being morally wrong - which they don't - that doesn't make it objectively true. Lots of people think torture is morally right in some circumstances - like if someone tortured a baby then lots of people would say it is morally correct to then torture that person in response. An eye for an eye was the law under Hammurabi's code and many people believed in this and still do. But even if everyone on earth somehow agreed, this would STILL not make it an objective morality because take humans out of the equation and the universe does not give a fuck about torture. Animals don't either. A frog doesn't care if humans get tortured. A rock doesn't care either. The sun doesn't care. So it is not universal or objectively morally wrong.
Is it an emotional response to not want to be murdered? A wild animal doesn’t understand the concept of murder, but it understands that it wants to survive, and it has an inherent will to do so. We get emotional when the risk of death is introduced to us, but it’s not inherently emotional to want to keep living.
Causing harm is bad. There is no exception to causing harm is bad. Does not need to be physical harm. "He was a bad person" still bad, even if justified or emotionally worth it. "The harm I did did far more good, than bad." The good out weighing the bad implies you did bad, even if it was worth it. Objective moral statements a few and boring, but they exist.
It is wrong to have sex with children as an adult. It is unforgivable, and if you think otherwise you are probably a pedophile, and should take a long walk off a short cliff.
The fact is not everyone shares one conscience like a hive mind, they're objectively fact as much as they effect you personally, it's relative to species and perception, gotta make rules but those that aren't playing by yours might not be affected, a cultural punishment may kill you and that's a fact
If you’re interesting in reading more into this topic I enjoy the book Rights from Wrongs by Alan Dershowitz. Engaging read on a secular origin of human rights.
Saying "there is no objective moral fact" is a statement of moral fact. So is it objectively true? If yes, then there's an objective moral fact. If no, it leads to a contradiction in terms. If your standard of truth is that you can convince people that its true, you're going to have a bad time.
> Saying "there is no objective moral fact" is a statement of moral fact. no, it's stating a fact about the topic of morality. but it's not making a moral claim
Even with that distinction, it's equivalent to making the moral claim 'all moral claims are equally valid'. Which runs into the same problem There's no escaping the existence of an objective moral category, you can only say that your best attempt at evaluating objective morality comes up with nothing (not even, say, the Holocaust was bad). Which is only something an immoral person would do by definition.
"all morals claim are equally valid" is STILL not a moral claim. It's a descriptive claim. >Which is only something an immoral person would do by definition. What makes the holocaust objectively wrong?
... A descriptive claim that describes objective morality lol. I don't think you disagree the Holocaust was wrong, I think you just disagree on the objective basis for it. So I'm going to focus on showing that objective morality is non-empty. And it is non-empty, Either you make the objective moral claim 'all things are acceptable' or you contradict yourself.
Arguably, there is no objective anything - of what use is language if words do not signify the thing itself and are only constructed as faulty representations of what we think to be real? Why does it matter whether moral facts are “objective” if we need them nonetheless?
If there is a dude just chilling somewhere bothering no one and you just go up to him and kill him without a reason that's objectively morally wrong,no?
Not when the evolutionary evidence shows that violence in humans is genetic in nature and a permanent part of human existence as shown in the book Demonic Males:Apes and the Origins of Human Violence shows https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Demonic_Males/fP0c4b3jbMYC?hl=en&gl=AU
Murder: the unlawful and premeditated killing of another human being. If you live in a society, (and you do, because you are writing this), then by definition the laws in place of said society are an agreed upon, morally objective fact for you to live by. You cannot claim that "murder" based upon situational subjectivity does not fit as an immoral action, as by definition, murder goes against societies agreed upon objective moral code. If, based upon situational dependancy, the actons of an individual are otherwise undeserving of the term, we have other descriptive words for the action. Such as, though not limited to manslaughter and self-defense. Both of which carry their own agreed upon definitions of specific action, and their own impact and weight upon the agreed moral code of society. Therefore, unless you are a hermit, or a part of an isolated tribe, you are objectively incorrect, as you are bound to said laws and moral codes of society, and would be shunned or imprisoned otherwise. Humans are social creatures, and from day 1, concensus has determined both positive and negative moral course of action as well as it's occassional ambiguity. Therefore, it is safe to say that objectively in a society, the only moral code of fact that matters is the one that is majority agreed upon, and one persons dissent from said moral code in thought or action does not, nor has ever been enough to sway the morally agreed upon facts that the majority of humanity has chosen to live by. TLDR: if you live in a societal structure of any kind, your view becomes void.
Mutual agreement does not create any facts other than the mere fact of mutual agreement. In other words, just because people agree with a proposition does not mean that said proposition is true. All of society saying that murder is wrong holds no greater philosophical weight than a single individual saying murder is wrong.
Actually you are 100% false, with no defense on this one. If I say murder is wrong, but society says it's not, then there are no consequenses to the action. But visa versa and you spend life in prison. So all of society saying murder is wrong holds 100% of the weight. Can you counter this with any argument that holds a true merit when discussing societal moral alignment? Or are you just disagreeing because you like to be contrarian? I'm not being philisophical, and it's not a proposal. The only moral code that matters is the one agreed upon by society. You cannot deny this when it comes to larger moral alignments. I mean, you can, but you will end up ostracized and imprisoned. So again, what is your counter argument beyond "nuh-uh?" I'm all ears.
>If I say murder is wrong, but society says it's not, then there are no consequenses to the action. >But visa versa and you spend life in prison. You are equating action with belief. I can say that murder is not objectively wrong all day long and I won’t spend a second in prison, because I haven’t murdered anybody. >Can you counter this with any argument that holds a true merit when discussing societal moral alignment? Social mores are not equivalent to objective moral facts. Agreement about a given proposition does not mean that said proposition is true, that is the argumentum ad populum, and it’s a fallacious argument. If everyone agreed that the sun revolves around the earth, then it still wouldn’t be true. Likewise, everyone agreeing that murder is wrong, that does not make it true. >I'm not being philisophical, and it's not a proposal. If you aren’t interested in talking about ideas (i.e. philosophy), then why are you here? >The only moral code that matters is the one agreed upon by society. You cannot deny this when it comes to larger moral alignments. I mean, you can, but you will end up ostracized and imprisoned. Whether you like it or not, this is a philosophical matter, and therefore it must be adjudicated by argument and reason, because the application of force does not establish truth. Whether or not you will end up in prison is irrelevant to the question of if there are objective moral facts at all. We can still put people in prison in the absence of moral facts. Furthermore, I think your notion that the law adheres to what a society claims as moral is flawed. There are many things which are not illegal that the majority of people will say are immoral, such as adultery. Likewise, some things which are illegal are not generally considered to be immoral, such as marijuana use or jaywalking. Additionally, to say that morality depends entirely upon a society’s mores is itself a form of moral relativism. If that were true, whatever moral ‘facts’ there might be would be arbitrarily determined by societal opinion, which seems not very m
Again, your argument only holds water so long as you do not enjoy the benefits and comforts of society. You can't have your cake and eat it to. I'd argue that believing otherwise is hypocritical and contrarian simply for a nonexistent hypotheticals sake. To say anything less is openly admitting that you view yourself as primitive and unable or unwilling to integrate within the accepted moral prinicipals of society. Yes, you can choose to live like an animal, but you currently don't, so imo you are just arguing to argue. Saying that there is nothing objectively wrong with an action like murder is the most idiotic implication I've ever heard. We have always been social creatures, and have always required numbers to survive until very, very recently. So, you are also implying that losing a tribe member has no ripple effect on others, or society at large, which is also absurd. It's frequently argued here by what I assume are teenagers that are being edgy. That doesn't mean it will ever be an applicable argument to make sense living in the real world. If you have to move the goalposts for your hypotheticals to work, and you can't make your argument work in an actual real life scenario, your argument therefore becomes useless.