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Objecting to objective morality
spacekungfuman
Poor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERS regular
Poor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERS regular
Knowing right from wrong used to be very simple, since all the rules were carved into stone tablets by god himself. As time has gone by and religion has become less and less prominent, morality by fiat has become less and less compelling as a reason to act. And so, as all the old defenses of objective morality based on the proposition that an omnibenevolent God was in his heaven determining right from wrong have fallen by the wayside for much of the world (and many of the posters on these forums), the question of how objective morality could exist in the world, independent of our own perceptions of it has become paramount.
To be clear, this is a thread to discuss whether moral truths exist in the world as properties of the world, independent of our awareness or cognition of them.
Here is my view, from [Chat]:
Some ground rules:
1. If you want to raise a defense of objective morality based on the existence of God that is fine, but recognize your arguments will only work based on the assumption that God exists. This is not a topic to discuss whether God exists.
2. Please do not make ad hominem attacks against posters for disagreeing with you. "You are a terrible person" is not a productive comment.
@mrmister
@ronya
@surrealitycheck
@_j_
To be clear, this is a thread to discuss whether moral truths exist in the world as properties of the world, independent of our awareness or cognition of them.
Here is my view, from [Chat]:
This [chat] reminds me that I owe you my reason for not believing in objective (mind independent) morality. The reason I do not is quite simple: to believe in objective morality independent of minds (including a god with a mind) is to believe that there is an inherently right and wrong way for the world to be, which may differ from how the world in fact is. Since the way that the world is is an empirical and objective fact (putting aside skepticism), I cannot understand how the fact of this existence can, in and of itself, be "wrong" in some objective sense. Once properly elucidated, the laws of physics, chemistry, etc. are immutable, such that a full understanding of these laws explains how the universe is and must be. How can it be that a full and proper elucidation of one property of the universe (morality) could leave us to understand that things are in fact as they ought not to be, and how can we have arrived at that state?
Some ground rules:
1. If you want to raise a defense of objective morality based on the existence of God that is fine, but recognize your arguments will only work based on the assumption that God exists. This is not a topic to discuss whether God exists.
2. Please do not make ad hominem attacks against posters for disagreeing with you. "You are a terrible person" is not a productive comment.
@mrmister
@ronya
@surrealitycheck
@_j_
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the question of how concepts, rules, physical/mathematical laws, and non-physical truths exist, or whether they can be said to exist as such, is a field full of merry debate and weighty discussion itself.
one of the appealing things about moral realism is that it suggests moral facts exist and can be deduced in the same way that mathematical facts do. mathematicao facts are true in terms of internal consistency, but to say they are concretely true about the world relies on assumptions about the nature of quantity, divisibility, the fundamental countability of physical entities. We can grant ethical facts similar footing.
suffering is bad.
note that counter examples of masochism etc miss the point that if you enjoy it, it isn't suffering.
You have two options if you want to salvage your argument. You could say "well, I don't think we can make 'ought' claims about the flat earther." That seems nonsensical. Obviously the flat earther ought to change their mind. Your other option is "there is something different about a moral 'ought' claim compared to all other ought claims." I'm not sure what that difference could be, but that would be something you might try to draw.
'Torturing babies solely for fun is prima facie morally wrong or it is not.' The truth of the previous sentence is objectively determined and does not depend on anything anyone thinks about it.
It matters because how one feels regarding the objective truth of moral claims will probably influence how one feels regarding imposing his moral system on others. It's not the end of the conversation, of course, but it's a lot easier, I would guess, to justify liberalization by the sword, ala Iraq and Afganistan, if you believe in the objective morality of the liberal values you're trying to impose.
http://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_show_what_s_right.html
"Suffering is bad according to many people" is, I think a statement that could be objectively true, and I think is probably objectively true (albeit with many nuances at the individual level). "Suffering is bad", I don't see how that could be objective, according at least to my understanding of objective.
I haven't yet read MrMister's comments though, so I'll be right back.
If want objective morality that isn't dependent on an external being, there's nothing wrong with going with Kantian Ethics (aside from requiring you to read Kant). I don't like Kant and I think Kantian ethics leads to some counter-intuitive positions but if you want a consistent system of objective morality that is dependent only upon logic, go read Kant. If you don't want to torturer yourself but are still curious, go read the Wikipedia summery or something. I'm not qualified to explain his ethics in anything other than broad strokes and you can find better explanations with Google and 30 seconds of free time.
suffering is not devoid of moral content; the whole point is that suffering is the source of moral obligation, regardless of whether the cause of said suffering is a moral agent.
As an example, suppose there are two groups of citizens: Workers and thieves. Workers work together and earn money. As they help each other, the more workers there are the more productive each worker is. Thieves steal money from both workers and other thieves.
Both workers and thieves want there to be as many workers as possible. Workers become more productive while thieves have more to steal as well as less rival thieves to deal with.
Both workers and thieves want there to be as few thieves as possible. Workers become less productive, there is less to steal, more thieves steal from more people and so each individual is more likely to be targetted.
Thus the goal of every worker and thief is to ensure there as as many workers as possible and as few thieves as possible. In this case, one can say that thievery is objectively immoral while working is virtuous.
*Except for the criminal, but when the goal of every other person alive is to stop you then I think its safe to call you immoral.
the elusive loren michael appears
he uses physicalism! it's very effective.
see my above post re: the complications of questioning the ontological properties of non physical concepts.
However, I am also inclined to believe that when speaking about human morality, the human experience is consistent enough morality can be considered universal and objective.
Now, xeno-morality could be an interesting topic, as could the morality of bacterium, natural matrioshka brains, or n-dimensional beings... but as far as the human race goes I'd say morality can be considered objective.
Consesus of society.
Not really, Kantian Ethics is completely divorced from results. If telling the truth harmed the entire human race but was still logically consistent, Kant would tell you do it. His ethics requires no premises aside the one that other people exist and everyone can reason. The two big things in Kantian ethics are universality and reason. Any correct action must be correct for everyone, there are no special exceptions for yourself. Thus lying fails because it only works in a world where some people lie some of the time and hence can not be made into a universal rule. The other main one is that other people are just as important as you (because you're both rational beings) so it is irrational to place your wants and needs over others. I'm doing my best to make it simple as I can but Kant has an exhaustive defense of his system with lengthy German prose if you want to read him.
The criticism of Kant comes not from any logical flaws in his system but from areas of practicality (most ethical problems don't easily map to these rules) and counter intuitive results (Kant would tell you to tell the truth if a murderer came in and asked where his victim was hiding). His system of objective morality is internally consistent and requires nothing else but I don't like it.
If anything in modern days we enjoy more rights to point of moral failures than people used to.
I saw it; I see that you pointed out how moral objective facts could exist by analogizing them with math, but you didn't show the logic that could hold them together, at least as far as I could see. Your example of an objective moral statement seems like an aesthetic statement to me, but maybe I'm working with an alternative set of semantics there.
this is certainly a debatable position and one that very much depends on degree, even within a utilitarian framework.
besides that, asserting that there is a moral fact does not mean asserting that everyone agrees with it. people can be wrong about facts. the question is, aside from consensus, how do you establish its facticity? as in any system you must begin with a self evident axiom, or at least one. I believe the ethical first principle we cleave to is that suffering is bad. any system of thought that denies that - with the understanding above, that suffering for a greater good for yourself or others is not net suffering - is plainly faulty.
Of course, nothing can be said to exist independent of the observer's own mind.
Which leads to solipsism which is a problem I have never heard adequately refuted but to say "I choose to believe in an objective reality".
Here's a law: "2+2=4." Can I break this law of mathematics? Well, sure, if I add 2+2 and get 5. If I do that, I'm wrong, though. 2+2 doesn't equal 5 just because I went against the law. Here's a law: "torturing babies for no reason is wrong." Can I break this law of morality? Well, sure, if I torture a baby. If I do that, I'm wrong, though. Torturing babies isn't OK just because I went against the law.
You can "break" morality by going against what it says you ought to do. But you cannot "break" morality by making it the case that you ought to do something that you ought not to do. Nothing you can do will ever make torturing babies for no reason moral. This doesn't depend on what you think or on what I think. It's just a fact of the matter, just like 2+2=4.
Yes, a single example does green light the whole concept. If one moral truth is objective then morality is objective. "Objective" means "mind independent," such that changing our minds about torturing babies wouldn't change whether it's actually wrong. If you actually think the wrongness of torturing babies is based on consensus then you don't think it's objective.
So I will repeat: here is a precept of objective morality. It is the case that torturing babies for fun is prima facie wrong or it isn't. The truth value of that precept does not depend on what anyone thinks about it. You asked for an example and I have given one: I'm not sure why you asked for the example in the first place, so where we go from here depends on what you wanted to do with the example.
This is a perfectly fine argument for solipsism, but of course it works against the existence of everything, not just against morality. So really it's not a very helpful argument in this context, because most people believe in the existence of some things (@spacekungfuman believes in gravity, for instance). Unless you have something special to say about morality you don't have a lot to add to this discussion.