If i were a true atheist....

[dragonstar57]

i'm in the group that believes in a designed universe.. thus the relevance for seeing there exists an intended way of living with regards to the design intention..

How about you?

with design, there will be an intention..

No you are in a group who wants to give the credit for human morality to your god.

Why do you keep using deist arguments?

Are you a deist?

Edited August 3, 2012 by dragonstar57

[Iggy]

The fact is that different people's views on morality differ widely. this is proof positive that morality is subjective.

If morality submits to that reasoning then it is somewhat unique. You can't say that different people's views on evolution differ widely therefore evolution is subjective. There are other considerations before public opinion rules the day.

 

The insane don't just not care that something is wrong. The insane don't just not see the difference. The insane actually believe that that they are morally justified in doing something insane.

People who lack empathy (psychopaths or sociopaths -- the terms are somewhat interchangeable) aren't necessarily, or usually, insane (insanity usually implies not knowing right from wrong).

 

Yeah, I agree there is no true morality, but truth and objectivity are different beasts altogether.

Their is no uniform way to view morality, no "correct" way and to think that you have found the "true" morality is the height of arrogance and only the opinion of the pious.

uh huh

 

so in cases like the on you described (about being able to say being cruel to children) our morality is based on consensus and while this reduces the subjectivity somewhat it does not in any way make it objective

My values aren't based on consensus, and really no one's should be. We shouldn't need a consensus to tell us that being cruel to children is morally wrong.

 

If morality is based on a culture's consensus then imagine the following: In a certain culture 90% of the people believe slavery is morally good and 10% believe it is morally bad. We're left with the awful conclusion that the 10% who are anti-slavery are, in fact, immoral for holding that belief. Anti-slavery is an immoral position to be holding under the consensus assumption.

 

The two traps here are that 1) morality has no objective basis, and 2) without god morality has no objective basis. The 10% who are considered immoral for being anti-slavery are hoping that both are wrong.

Edited August 3, 2012 by Iggy

[dragonstar57]

If morality submits to that reasoning then it is somewhat unique. You can't say that different people's views on evolution differ widely therefore evolution is subjective. There are other considerations before public opinion rules the day.

I'm sure we can agree that weather or not something happened is objective and can be proven one way or the other.

People who lack empathy (psychopaths or sociopaths -- the terms are somewhat interchangeable) aren't necessarily, or usually, insane (insanity usually implies not knowing right from wrong).

insane:In a state of mind that prevents normal perception, behavior, or social interaction; seriously mentally ill.

https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&tab=ww#hl=en&safe=off&sclient=psy-ab&q=define:insane&oq=define:insane&gs_l=serp.3...3088.6692.0.6796.13.13.0.0.0.0.178.1413.3j9.12.0...0.0...1c.t2eyod6ou1w&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=5f6f9e525258df09&biw=1600&bih=718

 

uh huh

are you surprised I said something that contradicts someone else who has a similar view??

 

My values aren't based on consensus, and really no one's should be. We shouldn't need a consensus to tell us that being cruel to children is morally wrong.

we also shouldn't need a the threat of hell or a deity to tell us so

If morality is based on a culture's consensus then imagine the following: In a certain culture 90% of the people believe slavery is morally good and 10% believe it is morally bad. We're left with the awful conclusion that the 10% who are anti-slavery are, in fact, immoral for holding that belief. Anti-slavery is an immoral position to be holding under the consensus assumption.

 

The two traps here are that 1) morality has no objective basis, and 2) without god morality has no objective basis. The 10% who are considered immoral for being anti-slavery are hoping that both are wrong.

while it might seem awful to us it would seem absolutely right to them. they would lament the horrors of a world where 90% of the rest of the world would be fine taking their "propriety" from them.

there are traps with your belief as well

1. it lacks cultural empathy

2. it insists that your morality is superior to others' morality

3. it has the potential for causing unneeded inter-cultural conflict when people have conflicting belief.

keep in mind the bible condones slavery in several passages

When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

do you think we know inherently what is right and wrong? in which case why is there so much disagreement?

if the bible is so moral why is there so much morally reprehensible stuff in it?

so as stated in this video prove something to be right or wrong based on something that is not opinion.

I could reiterate her argument but I wouldn't be able to put it as well as she does.

[Iggy]

keep in mind the bible condones slavery in several passages

When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

do you think we know inherently what is right and wrong? in which case why is there so much disagreement?

if the bible is so moral why is there so much morally reprehensible stuff in it?

There is so much in your post I want to reply to, but before I do I have to ask about what looks like a pretty big misunderstanding. Why would you think I believe the bible is moral? Religion's subversion of morality has disgraced us time and again shamefully. I've argued strongly that morals can't be traced to a god or a design.

[TheVillageAtheist]

No doubt math is the very model of objectivity. Godel's incompleteness theorem is good on showing that some axioms must remain unproven by a math theorem.

 

Come to think of it, I hope I don't imply that a theory explaining morality would be as objective as a math theorem. No hope of that. It's just that they have in common the idea that first principles are judged by their usefulness rather than the ability to prove them true.

 

Fair enough, but usefulness is a subjective quality as well.

 

 

I may be unfamiliar with how you're using the term. There is, to my knowledge, no requirement that objective quantities be constant.

 

Planetary mass is objective because different astronomers independently find the same mass for any given planet -- that is to say, because the method of finding mass doesn't depend on the astronomer's subjective interpretation of personal experience it is an objective matter. The same could be said for tailors measuring a person for a suit. The tailor could be a computer devoid of subjectivity and the arm could belong to a dead person for whom all subjectivity is lost and the result would be the same as anyone could predict. That is my understanding of something that is entirely objective... even if it is a body part

 

Okay, it was admittedly a poor example. But morality isn't something you can measure. You can look at a planet and say "That planet is objectively this size," but you can't say "This ethical code is objectively good." It all depends on what you consider "good" to be. You've proposed Sam Harris' "Avoid the worst possible suffering," which is noble, but not one I agree with.

 

If you ask a psychopath which is the greater moral good: giving blood at the blood bank or mocking the mentally handicapped, they know the answer. They recognize morality without feeling empathy.

 

You're making two huge assumptions here. First, that they agree with the concept of charity, and secondly, that they find no humor in making fun of those with diseases. And in either case, it's only because of social conditioning. There is nothing inherently good or bad about either of those items. For instance, people have contracted diseases through tainted blood transfusions, and making fun of disability can help people coping with it...well, cope with it.

 

Yeah, I agree there is no true morality, but truth and objectivity are different beasts altogether. Newtonian mechanics (for example) is objective, and it was objectively derived, but it isn't true. Objectivity makes a well marked path that anyone can follow regardless of how their personal perspective is colored by their feelings, but... right, it doesn't guarantee the truth of the destination.

 

But again, morality can't be measured in such a way.

 

To be fair to psychopaths I would doubt the law's ability to inform anyone of morality. Although... thinking about it... that might explain why there are so many sociopaths in congress. They tried looking into the law to sharpen their skills in faking morality and almost all of the legal statutes ended up being a long ongoing story of political hackery that taught our young sociopaths to be politicians.

 

How else would they know? Because they do not feel empathy or remorse, the societal restrictions put upon them appear arbitrary.

 

It suddenly makes perfect sense

 

Seriously though, psychopaths certainly aren't like replicants from Blade Runner where a few questions from an empathy test reveals them for what they are. They know moral right from wrong. Even when considering a unique moral dilemma previously unconsidered, morality isn't so hard to reason -- even without the feeling of empathy pulling them toward morality they can still find it and recognize it by reasoning out a concept which isn't overly complicated.

 

I don't agree with that at all. Without empathy, much of our moral consciousness is not intuitive. Solidarity with strangers is not intuitive. Sharing resources is not intuitive. Are the morals of Wahabi Islam intuitive? Would you know instinctively that you should remain faithful to your partner without an intuitive understanding of what it might feel like to be cheated on? Of course not.

 

 

 

When I say objective quality I mean that we know enough to objectively say,

 

• Humans do better with a drive towards solidarity.
• We benefit from our tendency to value others.
• We thrive when compassion strengthens our connection to others.

But none of these are actually objective qualities. What does "better" mean? What does "benefit" mean? How do you mean "value others?" Even "compassion" doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. Does "thrive" simply refer to how many people there are in the world, or to the extreme level of comfort available only in a few places in the world? You may value population growth, but all that really means is that there are more people suffering from illness, hunger, and poverty than at any time in history. Is that really something worth valuing, or is it just a part of existence that is neither inherently good or bad? And going to the other extreme, all of our success through cooperation might just lead to our destruction. People are only now starting to realize just how badly we have damaged our environment since the beginning of the industrial revolution, and we be approaching a point where the damage is irreversible. That's what our progress has wrought. I'm not saying it's a bad thing objectively, I'm just saying that things you're tempted to call objectively good are actually very bad by the same logic in the long run.

and to say, even, that our drive toward morality owes its existence to the objective value of those qualities.

 

As far as first principles go, those don't appear half bad.

 

To you and me, perhaps. Others may not agree. Humans don't need to live in cities to survive. We don't need to cooperate beyond our family unit. We can, and we do, but it's not necessary, so in order to call those things "good," you have to apply our own subjective valuation of those other items.

[Moontanman]

I would still like for Beanieb to tell us where his objective morality comes from. Why is human trafficking wrong? Why is might makes right wrong. Where is his objective morality coming from? If you think that morality is objective then you must have a source outside the human experience to obtain that objective morality from, from where does this objective morality come from?

 

So far all he has done is evade this issue by asking about my morality...

[dragonstar57]

I tried to edit my previous post because I made a mistake but it wont let me

Edited August 3, 2012 by dragonstar57

[beanieb]

How do we conclude if a person is insane or not?

Is it by comparing him to the majority of the people in his society deemed "normal", or is there an objective way (though society may not be aware of)?

If so, what about Galileo Galilei, who was imprisoned for being the one to claim the earth is round in his time?

 

The problem for subjective morality is that since all concepts of right and wrong are derived from our own opinions.. and thus all judgment are floating and and personal..

In that respect, subjective moralists should not be able to conclude, judge, the kinds of common bads eg "slavery is wrong" for OTHERS.. because there should be no "universal reference" to fall back on to to push any point to anyone..

If they were to say it is by logic or evolved compassion they based their conclusions on (for their views on rights and wrongs), are they claiming it is by the same common 'universal' logic that all should have?

If so then this group would not be true subjective moralist anymore too..because they are claiming by grounds of the laws of nature (which is objective) to push their stand..

 

My views on slavery is that it is wrong.. because it willfully disregards the other person's quality as a fellow human, to treat them as a commodity/property to be used..

I would say even the enslavers know this inside their heart, and know it is not 'right' to do that.. but it's just that it probably didn't matter to them...

and ultimately, if we pursue deeper the purpose of the moral law, we should see it is to govern oneself more than it is to for others...

consider this.. for people living in a community, the basic civic laws should suffice (no stealing.. murdering... etc)

why the need for a law that dives deeper into our hearts to govern, limit and guide us against our natural desires.. to push us towards goodness (if we could define it in the 1st place)?

is there still a need for if we know no one is looking or we can get away with it?

if the answer is yes.. then consequently objective morality will exist...

if no..then it would mean we could truly do whatever we want (even killing etc) since the concept of 'justice' is after all just a theory..

 

my point is not to describe what is the current physical condition of the world...

but what is the honest condition we understand or "feel" inside our hearts...

 

I would still like for Beanieb to tell us where his objective morality comes from. Why is human trafficking wrong? Why is might makes right wrong. Where is his objective morality coming from? If you think that morality is objective then you must have a source outside the human experience to obtain that objective morality from, from where does this objective morality come from?

 

So far all he has done is evade this issue by asking about my morality...

 

to moontanman..

i think it is necessary one agrees the existence of objective morality 1st before we can ask where it comes from...

isn't it?

[iNow]

No.

[dragonstar57]

i think it is necessary one agrees the existence of objective morality 1st before we can ask where it comes from...

isn't it?

yes, we cannot establish where the Loch Ness Monster came from if is not established that it indeed exists.

if it does not exist it did not come from anywhere.

however I CAN ask "where did the loch ness monster come from" in such a way as to question its existence

Edited August 4, 2012 by dragonstar57

[beanieb]

my bad for the presentation of the last question.. i shouldn't use the word "agree"..

let me try in another way..

 

Couldn't objective morality still be operating in the background of the world's system.. despite people being able to form their own standards of right and wrong?

As mentioned earlier.. the best we could conclude from observation is that we are free to choose our beliefs...

but not enough to conclude morality is objective or truly subjective...

 

Consider these thought processes:

1) I believe there is no A (so it is B)

2) I don't believe in A (because i believe in B)

 

when we say we believe in subjective morality (represented by B)..it is via process 1) or 2)?

my point is.. if it is thru 1), the premise for disbelief is there and there will be no way to explain anything into it..

[dragonstar57]

my bad for the presentation of the last question.. i shouldn't use the word "agree"..

let me try in another way..

 

Couldn't objective morality still be operating in the background of the world's system.. despite people being able to form their own standards of right and wrong?

As mentioned earlier.. the best we could conclude from observation is that we are free to choose our beliefs...

but not enough to conclude morality is objective or truly subjective...

 

Consider these thought processes:

1) I believe there is no A (so it is B)

2) I don't believe in A (because i believe in B)

 

when we say we believe in subjective morality (represented by B)..it is via process 1) or 2)?

my point is.. if it is thru 1), the premise for disbelief is there and there will be no way to explain anything into it..

so "what if the rules are written in the sky but we can't see them."

then they are meaningless and irreverent

btw we have a thread for this morality conversation now anyway.

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/68142-does-morality-depend-on-religionobjective-vs-subjective-morality/page__gopid__695319#entry695319

Edited August 6, 2012 by dragonstar57

[tar]

The only premise necessary in recognizing that slavery is morally wrong is a sense of compassion toward fellow human beings. Because people evolved in groups it is natural to have an evolved sense of compassion toward our fellow primates. It is no more surprising than finding that wolves have a sense of solidarity with other wolves. You don't seem to recognize a refuted point when you see one.

 

By the way, morality is different from "good and bad". Chinese food is good. That doesn't make it moral. Morality has the added aspect of coming from a place of compassion and solidarity.

 

Iggy,

 

I am not arguing against your point that morality does not require a supernatural designer.

 

But I am of the opinion that somebody is responsible for designing morality. And by all evidence, that designer is most likely human.

 

Here I would agree with some of beanieb's points, that religion has something to do with it.

 

There is not a great deal of evidence that would suggest that humans are automatically on the side of all other humans, just by virtue of their primate status. Outside of ones family or clan, or club, or pack, there are not a lot of survival reasons to look out for all primates. There has to be something in it, for you and your pack. Associations and agreements that would not be made, unless someone, some human came up with the idea. I don't think you can put these reasons together, without some idea of a "greater" good. And this, I would argue, would have to have been, somebody's idea.

 

Regards, TAR2

[TheVillageAtheist]

my bad for the presentation of the last question.. i shouldn't use the word "agree"..

let me try in another way..

 

Couldn't objective morality still be operating in the background of the world's system.. despite people being able to form their own standards of right and wrong?

 

No. Even if we were the product of a supreme creator, the mandates of that creator must still be given a subjective value by its subjects (i.e. "us"). Without that valuation, even the words of a god are empty.

 

 

As mentioned earlier.. the best we could conclude from observation is that we are free to choose our beliefs...

but not enough to conclude morality is objective or truly subjective...

 

We can say much more than that. It is a fact that morality is subjective. It's entirely up to the individual to decide for itself what constitutes "right" and "wrong." We can intellectualize these opinions and make compelling, logical arguments for one code over another, but the strength of our position ultimately lies in our ability to build consensus. In other words, morality's strength is in its numbers.

 

 

 

[Iggy]

Sorry it took so long to get back here for a response. Maybe this post or this conversation should be moved. Sorry for the long post as well. Please feel no rush to respond. I may not be able to get back in quite a while.

 

Fair enough, but usefulness is a subjective quality as well.

I was cryptic before. My point is like Poincare said, "no geometry is more true than another, it is only more useful".

 

If usefulness is the only thing that lets us pick one geometry over another it doesn't make geometry subjective (I'm sure we can agree geometry isn't subjective)... and so the same should follow for morality. Having to judge it by usefulness wouldn't be a reason to call it subjective.

 

You can look at a planet and say "That planet is objectively this size," but you can't say "This ethical code is objectively good." It all depends on what you consider "good" to be. You've proposed Sam Harris' "Avoid the worst possible suffering," which is noble, but not one I agree with.

I'm sure it's fine to disagree with Sam's postulate. You would end up with two versions of your statement,

 

• This ethical code is objectively morally good according to Sam's model of morality
  
• This ethical code is objectively morally bad according to my model of morality
  

and we've established: even if the only thing offering us a choice between your model and Sam's is their relative usefulness that doesn't make the thing being modeled subjective. Both statements can be true and both models objective. Continuing the planet size analogy, both of these statements could be true:

 

• That planet is objectively 2500 km in diameter according to classical mechanics
  
• That planet is objectively 2490 km in diameter according to general relativity
  

Both classical mechanics and general relativity are objective -- they are just built on different postulates. You are free to disagree with Sam's postulate or to disagree with the postulates of classical mechanics without making either resulting model subjective.

 

So, again, it appears to me that disagreeing with the core principle of a model wouldn't be a reason to call it subjective.

 

How else would they know? Because they do not feel empathy or remorse, the societal restrictions put upon them appear arbitrary.

They would know morality without empathy because a person can know something without having an emotional affinity for it. Sociopaths are usually quite good a mimicking normal moral behavior when they want. I'm sure they couldn't do that if morals appeared arbitrary to them.

 

In other words, a sociopath would know that a ponzi scheme is morally wrong even when first learning what a ponzi scheme is... not because they once memorized a list of every conceivable morally wrong action, but because ponzi schemes cause suffering and devalue others. From first principles it is simple to rationally deduce that it is morally wrong. They don't need to flip a coin when confronted with previously unconsidered moral dilemmas as if moral rights and wrongs appear arbitrary... as if randomly picked out of a hat.

 

I don't agree with that at all. Without empathy, much of our moral consciousness is not intuitive.

I'm not saying it would be intuitive. The opposite really -- I'm saying morality makes sense without emotion. It can be reasoned and rationally understood.

 

Empathy is actually a very unreliable way of identifying morals.

 

• Humans do better with a drive towards solidarity.
  
• We benefit from our tendency to value others.
  
• We thrive when compassion strengthens our connection to others.
  

 

But none of these are actually objective qualities.

I'm not sure about how you're using the term objective. When I say objective I mean that the statement doesn't rely on personal perspective and emotional bias. If we can logically put "a study of cultural and archaeological anthropology determines that..." before those statements then they should be objective.

 

What does "better" mean? What does "benefit" mean? How do you mean "value others?"

I mean them in the usual sense. As part of a complete and balanced breakfast the national institute of health has determined through exhaustive research that cheerios are of better value and greater benefit than cyanide.

 

Even "compassion" doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. Does "thrive" simply refer to how many people there are in the world, or to the extreme level of comfort available only in a few places in the world?

Compassion... let's see... sharing the spoils of a hunt with our neighbors rather than hunting our neighbors for their spoils.

 

Thrive... being more and more able to control our own fate while our ancestors were more at fate's mercy.

 

If every word in a statement needs to mean the same thing to everyone for it to be objective then no statement would ever be objective.

 

Would you know instinctively that you should remain faithful to your partner without an intuitive understanding of what it might feel like to be cheated on? Of course not.

Indeed so. Even if I imagined no problem with my girlfriend cheating on me (it wouldn't bother me at all) I should still know not to cheat on her because it will cause her great emotional pain. Thick skinned people know that causing emotional harm is morally wrong even if they themselves can't imagine being so harmed. It would be a very different world otherwise.

 

Similarly, a high school jock should know that it is morally wrong to give a nerd a wedgie even if they feel no empathy for the nerd and no remorse for having done it. Empathy is clearly an unreliable push toward morality rather than being the only means of identifying it.

 

It's like a bird's emotional need to migrate north in spring. Each bird could be drawn to fly in a slightly different northerly direction. This doesn't make the concept "north" subjective.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

Iggy,

 

I am not arguing against your point that morality does not require a supernatural designer.

 

But I am of the opinion that somebody is responsible for designing morality. And by all evidence, that designer is most likely human.

 

Here I would agree with some of beanieb's points, that religion has something to do with it.

 

There is not a great deal of evidence that would suggest that humans are automatically on the side of all other humans, just by virtue of their primate status. Outside of ones family or clan, or club, or pack, there are not a lot of survival reasons to look out for all primates. There has to be something in it, for you and your pack. Associations and agreements that would not be made, unless someone, some human came up with the idea. I don't think you can put these reasons together, without some idea of a "greater" good. And this, I would argue, would have to have been, somebody's idea.

 

Regards, TAR2

Does it follow that it was the wolf's idea to care for old or injured members of the pack? If caring for the old and infirm is a moral action and somebody is responsible for designing morality then who designed the wolf's moral attitude toward its pack?

Edited August 8, 2012 by Iggy

[TheVillageAtheist]

Sorry it took so long to get back here for a response. Maybe this post or this conversation should be moved. Sorry for the long post as well. Please feel no rush to respond. I may not be able to get back in quite a while.

 

 

I was cryptic before. My point is like Poincare said, "no geometry is more true than another, it is only more useful".

 

If usefulness is the only thing that lets us pick one geometry over another it doesn't make geometry subjective (I'm sure we can agree geometry isn't subjective)... and so the same should follow for morality. Having to judge it by usefulness wouldn't be a reason to call it subjective.

 

How could geometry be subjective or objective without making some statement about it? I mean, are you saying that morality is objective just because it exists as a concept? And anyway, to say that one morality is more true than the other, or that the more useful morality should be applied is a subjective statement, even if the usefulness of said morality is objective.

 

 

I'm sure it's fine to disagree with Sam's postulate. You would end up with two versions of your statement,

 

• This ethical code is objectively morally good according to Sam's model of morality
• This ethical code is objectively morally bad according to my model of morality

and we've established: even if the only thing offering us a choice between your model and Sam's is their relative usefulness that doesn't make the thing being modeled subjective. Both statements can be true and both models objective. Continuing the planet size analogy, both of these statements could be true:

 

• That planet is objectively 2500 km in diameter according to classical mechanics
• That planet is objectively 2490 km in diameter according to general relativity

Both classical mechanics and general relativity are objective -- they are just built on different postulates. You are free to disagree with Sam's postulate or to disagree with the postulates of classical mechanics without making either resulting model subjective.

 

But the valuation you give to each of the items in your code of morality is subjective, even if you are basing it its usefulness to the human race, because you must apply a subjective value to whatever end you are attempting to reach through this code. For example, if your morality states that harming children is bad, and you base this on a study that finds children who have been abused are 70% more likely to commit a violent crime, you are placing a subjective value on the decrease of violent crime. So it may be "objectively" immoral according to your code, your code itself is subjective. This is not like saying geometry is subjective, it's like saying that your preference for this particular geometry is subjective.

 

So, again, it appears to me that disagreeing with the core principle of a model wouldn't be a reason to call it subjective.

 

Of course it would, because morality is not the measure of a planet, but the proposition that one planet is better than the other.

 

They would know morality without empathy because a person can know something without having an emotional affinity for it. Sociopaths are usually quite good a mimicking normal moral behavior when they want. I'm sure they couldn't do that if morals appeared arbitrary to them.

 

Your use of the word "mimicking" does my work for me on this one, but I'll go ahead and sum it up anyway: People who feel no empathy only know right from wrong based on what they've learned from society. A sociopath blends well (or doesn't) because they're good at copying what they see. A sociopath in Qatar is quite likely to answer the question of "What is right?" differently than a sociopath in Idaho.

 

In other words, a sociopath would know that a ponzi scheme is morally wrong even when first learning what a ponzi scheme is... not because they once memorized a list of every conceivable morally wrong action, but because ponzi schemes cause suffering and devalue others. From first principles it is simple to rationally deduce that it is morally wrong. They don't need to flip a coin when confronted with previously unconsidered moral dilemmas as if moral rights and wrongs appear arbitrary... as if randomly picked out of a hat.

 

I disagree. They may see it as suckers with money getting what they deserve for being stupid. By your logic, they would also see prison as immoral, since prison almost by its definition devalues others while causing their suffering. You could argue that people in prison are there for doing something stupid, but you could say the same thing about the victims of a Ponzi scheme. Had they been more thorough, they could have avoided their loss. The point is, no action is objectively wrong; it all depends on where the individual places their values.

 

 

Empathy is actually a very unreliable way of identifying morals.

 

Yet without it, we have no basis for avoiding things like the causing of suffering, and no drive to alleviate it. There would be no such thing as charity if not for empathy, no orphanages or hospices.

 

I'm not sure about how you're using the term objective. When I say objective I mean that the statement doesn't rely on personal perspective and emotional bias. If we can logically put "a study of cultural and archaeological anthropology determines that..." before those statements then they should be objective.

 

I'm using the word "objective" to mean how everyone means it in this context: That there are inherent and definitive "good" and "bad" acts in this world, that there is some cosmic rightness and wrongess, independent of what anyone believes. Like, a morality mathematics. And it doesn't exist.

 

I mean them in the usual sense. As part of a complete and balanced breakfast the national institute of health has determined through exhaustive research that cheerios are of better value and greater benefit than cyanide.

 

 

Compassion... let's see... sharing the spoils of a hunt with our neighbors rather than hunting our neighbors for their spoils.

 

Thrive... being more and more able to control our own fate while our ancestors were more at fate's mercy.

 

If every word in a statement needs to mean the same thing to everyone for it to be objective then no statement would ever be objective.

 

Exactly! What you call compassion is not what I call compassion, and even if we agree on the definition we almost certainly won't to which degree we should be compassionate. In other words, subjective valuations.

 

 

Indeed so. Even if I imagined no problem with my girlfriend cheating on me (it wouldn't bother me at all) I should still know not to cheat on her because it will cause her great emotional pain. Thick skinned people know that causing emotional harm is morally wrong even if they themselves can't imagine being so harmed. It would be a very different world otherwise.

 

You could only know this from experience; ie You've hurt someone before. Or you've read about it, or heard second-hand stories. Without empathy, there is no intellectual reason to assume that others feel pain unless you have experienced that they do. And even then, a thick-skinned person is more likely to say blunt, hurtful things, because they don't have that hitch in their throat to stop them that someone more sensitive might. Couples get into arguments about this sort of thing all the time, where one is called "thoughtless" for not doing something amazing on an anniversary. It's not that the thoughtless person didn't care, it's just that they never would have expected or needed some kind of hubbub made over the occasion, so they had no reason to expect that the other would. Unless, of course, the other said something beforehand.

 

Similarly, a high school jock should know that it is morally wrong to give a nerd a wedgie even if they feel no empathy for the nerd and no remorse for having done it. Empathy is clearly an unreliable push toward morality rather than being the only means of identifying it.

 

Why would they know?

 

It's like a bird's emotional need to migrate north in spring. Each bird could be drawn to fly in a slightly different northerly direction. This doesn't make the concept "north" subjective.

 

This analogy requires there to be some kind of over-arching truth to morality, as in "this concept is good always, even if it takes slightly different forms." But this is inaccurate. There is no moral statement that can be shown to be true as a concept always, even if it varies slightly from time to time. Not rape, not killing, not theft. There are no objective moral truths.

 

Keep in mind, however, that I do not disagree with Sam's general assessment of science and how it can relate to morality. But even he does not maintain that morality is objective. He says that science is capable of having its own say in the realm of morality by adopting a particular worldview--ie That we are to avoid the greatest possible suffering--but he never asserts that this is more correct than any other moral code, only that it is a moral code that can be derived from science.

Edited August 9, 2012 by TheVillageAtheist

[Iggy]

How could geometry be subjective or objective without making some statement about it?

I noticed you categorically identified morality as subjective without qualifying it with a corollary statement, but in the present circumstances I can't help but point out that "geometry is objective" is a statement about geometry

 

If you apply the definition of objectivity that I've offered in my last couple posts (objective = divorced from personal sentiment and emotional bias) nothing that comes to mind is more objective than geometry. The steps in a geometry proof (the deductions in the Principia for example) are valid no matter if Newton had an emotional preference for circles or if he preferred pentagons with very slightly rounded edges.

 

I mean, are you saying that morality is objective just because it exists as a concept?

I hope I didn't give that impression.

 

And anyway, to say that one morality is more true than the other,

and I certainly hope I've distinguished truth and objectivity and demonstrated that neither the latter nor my position regarding the latter relies on the former. If I were arguing moral universality or moral absolutism I might have to lean on moral truths, but as it is I don't

 

or that the more useful morality should be applied is a subjective statement, even if the usefulness of said morality is objective.

Whew -- we've become caught in an incremental loop. You said first that morality is subjective, then said that Sam's postulate for deriving morality is subjective, then that the usefulness of the morality derived from the postulate is subjective, and now that the applicability of the usefulness of the morality derived from the postulate is subjective.

 

Each link in the chain separates us from the issue because even if I grant the truth of what you just said (although I don't) it does *not* follow that morality is subjective, and subjective morality is specifically the claim I'm refuting. An analogy to simplify... a NASA scientist could say, "Classical mechanics should be applied to the problem of landing a rover on Mars because it is the most useful system of laws in that domain.". If I grant that this statement is subjective (again, I don't) it does not make classical mechanics subjective nor does it make mechanics subjective.

 

Bringing the analogy home... a philosopher can likewise say, "Nagel's model of morality should be applied to the problem of judicial punishment because it is the most useful system of laws in that domain", and if I grant that this statement is subjective (you guessed it -- I don't) it doesn't mean that Nagel's model is necessarily subjective or that morality itself is necessarily subjective. So... I see no value in this argument.

 

But the valuation you give to each of the items in your code of morality is subjective, even if you are basing it its usefulness to the human race, because you must apply a subjective value to whatever end you are attempting to reach through this code. For example, if your morality states that harming children is bad, and you base this on a study that finds children who have been abused are 70% more likely to commit a violent crime, you are placing a subjective value on the decrease of violent crime.

I notice a misconception that is likely partly my doing.

 

You should not expect a model of morality to describe specific moral actions just like you wouldn't expect thermodynamics to describe specific perpetual motion machines.

 

Thermodynamics is based on 3 postulates... the three laws of thermodynamics. From those three postulates the behavior of nearly any thermodynamic process can be predicted and explained. I wouldn't expect morality to work much differently. Earlier I gave three postulates on which moral behavior could be based:

 

1. a drive towards solidarity
   
2. the tendency to value others
   
3. having compassion for others
   

Evolution decided these for us when natural selection gave them precedent over their inverse. One could deduce the immorality of some specific instance of harming a child by deduction from these postulates... not because a study concludes that a majority of harmed children grow up embracing violence and violence is subjectively bad (that is a strawman), but because they logically derive from our postulates.

 

Yet without it [empathy], we have no basis for avoiding things like the causing of suffering, and no drive to alleviate it. There would be no such thing as charity if not for empathy, no orphanages or hospices.

On the contrary, there would be no such thing as empathy if not for moral actions and their benefit. It is hard for a group to prosper when its members are entirely selfish and cutthroat. A class of behavior, now called morality, was more beneficial to the group's cohesion in ancient times, so evolution selected for an emotional drive towards that behavior.

 

I'm using the word "objective" to mean how everyone means it in this context: That there are inherent and definitive "good" and "bad" acts in this world, that there is some cosmic rightness and wrongess, independent of what anyone believes. Like, a morality mathematics. And it doesn't exist.

I suspect my idea of "universal" and "absolute" is your idea of "objective".

 

Let me try this thing I've tried before again with a different example... Kepler's laws are not inherent and they cannot be applied definitively. They do not apply exactly to the motion of the solar system, for example, and indeed -- each planetary system in the cosmos would deviate slightly differently from Kepler's laws.

 

This means that Kepler's laws are not universal and not absolute -- but, they *are* objective. Even though they only approximately agree with real world situations, they are scientifically objective. If you understand that then you understand why the objectivity of morality isn't necessarily foiled by different people having different moral codes.

 

Most of your arguments are some variant of this topic, and I'm unsure what more to say. Do you disagree that Euclidean geometry, classical mechanics, Kepler's laws, and whatever other examples I've given are objective? Or, do you think they are not analogous to your point about morality's irresolute nature?

 

Exactly! What you call compassion is not what I call compassion, and even if we agree on the definition we almost certainly won't to which degree we should be compassionate. In other words, subjective valuations.

No, no, not a bit of that. What you call "energy" may not be what I call "energy". We could disagree firmly on what it means to be "energetic" or what importance energy holds. Do you conclude from this that every theory making use of energy is subjective? Of course not, so what are we talking about

 

It's like a bird's emotional need to migrate north in spring. Each bird could be drawn to fly in a slightly different northerly direction. This doesn't make the concept "north" subjective.

This analogy requires there to be some kind of over-arching truth to morality, as in "this concept is good always, even if it takes slightly different forms."

No. It requires an objective method of consistently determining morality. The compass doesn't have to point true north for the bird's subjective migratory instinct to lose its monopoly on the direction they migrate.

 

There is no preferred spatial direction in physics, and north could just as easily have pointed to Antarctica had maps been drawn differently in the middle ages. I specifically used an arbitrary example as an analogy to avoid this predictable objection.

 

But this is inaccurate. There is no moral statement that can be shown to be true as a concept always, even if it varies slightly from time to time. Not rape, not killing, not theft. There are no objective moral truths.

I have only mentioned moral truth in order to reject its appropriateness to my argument.

 

Keep in mind, however, that I do not disagree with Sam's general assessment of science and how it can relate to morality. But even he does not maintain that morality is objective.

In his book, The Moral Landscape, he defines two types of objectivity. He explains that the type he refers to is epistemological objectivity and he defines it in the same way that I've defined objectivity in this thread. He says,

 

"it is objectively true to say that there are right and wrong answers to moral questions whether or not we can always answer these questions in practice"

 

-Sam Harris -- The Moral Landscape -- Ch. 1 Moral Truth

 

He takes the argument further than i have (I'm just asserting that morality can be scientifically objective -- he asserts that it can be scientifically objective and absolute). I didn't know any of this until I just now looked it up.

 

Why did you determine that he never made this claim?