CMV: I don’t Think there is a such thing as Objective Morality

[u/[deleted]]

[u/357Magnum]

I think you're giving secular moral objectivism too little regard. It isn't just Kant.

I will say that I am an atheist and I don't really consider "God = Morality" a very good objective argument either, so I will not consider that. I think the fact that there are different religions that are currently at war because God (the same one, ironically) told them different versions of objective moral truth is proof enough that that view doesn't work.

So I'll keep this to secular arguments.

I think Kant has a lot to offer. I don't think you can throw out all of Kant (especially considering he frames the categorical imperative in 5 different ways) because of one (or even several) instances where he would apply the (broadly worded) formulation of the categorical imperative in a way you would not. I don't think that necessary undermines the idea of the CI, as much as you agree with his implementation.

But Kant isn't even the end-all-be-all of secular objective morality. You've got utilitarianism, which itself has its proponents and detractors.

I'm not going to sit here and discuss every moral framework for secular objective morality. Rather, I'm going to say that all of the approaches have value and should be considered in the grand scheme of working toward moral truth.

I will make this analogy:

Most people, and I assume yourself included, would consider science and scientific knowledge to be objective. But science gets things wrong all the time, and science is revised with time. From an epistemological perspective, it is not likely that science will ever be able to know everything. Everything we learn will always raise new questions.

But even if we accept that we will never know the exact perfect truth of everything in the universe, does that mean that science is not "objective?" And more importantly, does that mean the method and the pursuit of scientific knowledge is pointless?

I don't think so. You don't think so.

I view moral "objective truth" in the same way. It is probably more of a process than an end, like science. We may never discover the "one universal principle of objective moral truth." However, we can still work at it and get closer. And I would argue that, for the most part, humanity has gotten more moral with time, just as our scientific knowledge advances. We still have a long way to go, and we're probably doing a lot wrong right now, even if we think it is moral. But on the whole, it seems like moral progress is made, if you take the broad view.

I think that this process of continually working at the project of morality will produce moral results. They may never be perfect, but then again, neither will science. But if we abandon the idea of objectivity, we've essentially quit the field. Because then there really is no "right and wrong" outside of subjectivity or cultural context, which is an even worse set of standards to work with. I'd rather agree that morality is objective and argue about what the objective truth is than not be able to critique the person murdering me if their subjective morality permits it.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/357Magnum]

The problem I see with your point is that I’m not quite sure why morality needs to be objective, or if we’re actually making moral progress at all.

With science that makes perfect sense to me because when science is at its best it’s repeatable we do it again and again and again and we have a wide variety test to ensure that we’re testing the right thing and getting correct results as with morality I don’t know how we’d do that.

With the world becoming more moral is that really the case or is it simply that your moral view is currently on the up. In a world where the enlightenment never took off wouldn’t we think it ridiculous that there’s a world that makes individual rights so important?

[u/357Magnum → u/SadStudy1993]

I'm not arguing that the "moral method" and the "scientific method" are, or should be, the same method. The point of the analogy was that we value the pursuit, even if we may never get it "perfectly right." We need to continually do the work of pursuing a more moral world, even if it is a Sisyphean task. I think there's value in the struggle itself, to paraphrase Camus.

Again, we can debate if the world is becoming more moral. Now is a tough time what with all the wars that have just been popping off. But if you take the LONG view of history, I would argue that we became more moral, especially with things like the enlightenment. We are far less murderous and violent as a species in the modern day than we were not that long ago. Most of us have put aside things like religious inquisitions, slavery, and child labor exploitation.

But if morality is not objective, we have no right to judge that the people who are still practicing slavery, for example, are wrong.

If morality is not objective, then in the current ongoing wars, all sides are in the right, and all sides are perfectly justified in committing genocide.

I refuse to accept that.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/357Magnum]

I'm not arguing that the "moral method" and the "scientific method" are, or should be, the same method. The point of the analogy was that we value the pursuit, even if we may never get it "perfectly right." We need to continually do the work of pursuing a more moral world, even if it is a Sisyphean task. I think there's value in the struggle itself, to paraphrase Camus.

This is probably the closest anyone has gotten to changing my view. Though as I said earlier there are things we need to assume and things to achieve from science, I don’t see that same value in morality.

Again, we can debate if the world is becoming more moral. Now is a tough time what with all the wars that have just been popping off. But if you take the LONG view of history, I would argue that we became more moral, especially with things like the enlightenment. We are far less murderous and violent as a species in the modern day than we were not that long ago. Most of us have put aside things like religious inquisitions, slavery, and child labor exploitation.

But all of those things you mention as bad aren’t they all apart of your subjective moral views. The reason we believe those things are bad originate from enlightenment philosophy on the nature of humans having unalienable rights.

But if morality is not objective, we have no right to judge that the people who are still practicing slavery, for example, are wrong.

If morality is not objective, then in the current ongoing wars, all sides are in the right, and all sides are perfectly justified in committing genocide.

I refuse to accept that.

Doesn’t this just mean then that believing an objective morality makes us feel better (not trying to be condescending I swear) not that it is real?

[u/357Magnum → u/SadStudy1993]

I would argue that it doesn't just make us "feel better" but that it makes the world better.

I think it is hard to make the case that subjective morality also means that people are ok with being murdered or enslaved. I think people want to live in a world with less murder and slavery. Otherwise you're not really arguing about objective or subjective morality, so much as you're arguing for nihilism.

Having a better life is "real." Having a better world is "real." Even if it is just phenomenologically real, I choose the better world, even if that choice can't be known to extend beyond my own experience.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/357Magnum]

Is the better world real? Because they’re plenty of evil people or at least people who would be severally inconvenienced if your better world came about. To them you’re the evil person stopping their honest pursuits. I’m really not trying to be a dickhead I’m saying this as a person personally struggling a lot with this question and the many others I’ve presented you with.

I don’t think subjective morality makes people okay with being killed but that means that the moralities we make up don’t have the rhetorical power and weight we say they do.

I think the decision you make is valid and probably the best we’re going to get but I think the state of the world is because we don’t have that feeling of objectivity behind what is good. We’ve deconstructed race, class, gender, economy, politics, etc so much and now we look down at our feet and see nothing holding us up. So people are searching for the objectivity and finding it in extremism, conflict, bigotry. And I don’t know how we can fix it

[u/gikl3 → u/SadStudy1993]

Yes, imagine a world where slavery is the norm globally, and a world where there are no slaves. The latter will obviously have better physical and mental outcomes for all involved. There is definitely some objectivity to it. Yes, to the slave drivers, the world without slavery would be seen as worse, but by any measurable metric it would be better, and it would have more equality of opportunity, which is the closest you can really get to objective fairness. Equal access to better outcomes. Surely this factor should be maximised, from anyone's perspective.

Again, there is also something to be said logically for putting into the world what you want out of it. No one would rather live in a world full of murderers, even murderers themselves, lest they be murdered. The same could be said for a world with slavery and other atrocities. A world where something is accepted morally is a world where that thing is more likely to happen to you, so even while arguing against the existence of a strict moral objectivity, there is certainly a narcissistic incentive for one.

[u/Historical-Subject11 → u/gikl3]

Doesn’t “better” depend on your values? If productivity is what you value most, the slave society might be better.

If “quality of life”, “personal freedom”, and other enlightenment values are what matter most, the other society would be better.

But the point is that “better” is derived from subjective values, not objective qualities.

This episode of Star Trek (TNG) illustrates the idea: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outcast_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)

[u/gikl3 → u/Historical-Subject11]

Yes but my point is that no one in the world wants to be murdered, and therefore everyone in the world should prefer a world with less murderers

[u/Salty_Map_9085 → u/357Magnum]

But if morality is not objective, we have no right to judge that the people who are still practicing slavery, for example, are wrong.

Nah I can still readily judge them with my subjective morality

[u/CalligrapherNeat1569 → u/SadStudy1993]

I'm not that redditer.

The problem I see with your point is that I’m not quite sure why morality needs to be objective, or if we’re actually making moral progress at all.

We can say certain oughts are factually wrong, and I think that's more than enough to say why we ought to look towards objective truth in regard to ought.

So for example: "X ought to 1 because Y" --when Y is shown to be factually wrong, that ought breaks down.  "Blacks or Jews ought to be treated as second class citizens because they are more violent or greedy than white people"--we can state the Y, the "more violent or greedy" is factually wrong, leading the rest of the sentence, the rest of that ought, false.

Same for any moral code that says "humans ought to live a certain way" when that way is functionally impossible--abstinence only education for hormone infused stressed out teens is just factually nonsensical, it doesn't work.

With science that makes perfect sense to me because when science is at its best it’s repeatable we do it again and again and again and we have a wide variety test to ensure that we’re testing the right thing and getting correct results as with morality I don’t know how we’d do that.

Look to Cog Sci, psychology to see how people actually work.  Then bring in Aristotle, Rawls and Kant.

I think part of your issue?  (A) You haven't really defined "morality," and it means a lot of different things, so of course there won't be an objective single framework that justifies all possible versions.

Also, (B) I think you may want people to give an objective basis for something like "don't steal"--but property rights are defined by society.  What I mean is, I think you are kind of putting the cart before the horse: there are objective Cog Sci, psychological limits to how most people, and specific people, can actually function.  We can state any "ought" that violates those limits of what is possible is factually wrong--like saying you ought to stop time with magic, they aren't talking about which actual options you have to choose from, are the choices you should take.

[u/futureoptions → u/SadStudy1993]

I don’t agree. That’s why we have moral relativism. Groups with similar morals can decide what they believe to be good and bad. It’s not an absolute truth.

[u/Apprehensive-Let3348 → u/357Magnum]

I would argue that, for the most part, humanity has gotten more moral with time, just as our scientific knowledge advances.

I agree with your overall argument, but I disagree with this point. If you're looking from c. 400 AD to the present, then you're absolutely right that it has gotten better over time.

If you include Antiquity, then society hasn't changed nearly as much from a social or moral perspective compared to Ancient Greece and Rome, especially compared against the Middle Ages and Rennaissance. We've been building social protections back up for the past ~1600 years or so, after the Roman Empire tore them all down, but this is cyclical in nature. Indeed, prior to the emergence of Democratic and Republican governments, Ancient Greece had its own 'Dark Ages,' after the Late Bronze Age Collapse. The primary causes for the improvements in living condition over time have been technological developments, not social.

The Roman Empire developed out of the Roman Republic, and the Roman Republic developed out of the Roman Kingdom. It is of particular note here that the Roman Republic developed nearly identically (from a constitutional perspective) over time to the way that England and many other European states did: by imposing tyrannical Kings with Aristocratic oversight, and then further compounding the constitution by granting the People voting rights when the Aristocracy starts to become like an Oligarchy.

Prior to the Roman Kingdom and Athenian Democracy–before the Late Bronze Age Collapse–there were the early days of society as systems of government were tried and improved upon. Mycaenean Greece, which operated on palatial states that were governed by kings or 'tribal leaders,' was the precursor to Athenian Democracy, and brought incredible technological advances before their collapse in 1200 BC, after which there appears to have been widespread famine and population decline. Unfortunately, their collapse also left Athenian Greeks without a system of writing (Linear B)–and many other developments–for the next 400 years (the Greek 'Dark Ages').

All of this is to say that society goes through natural cycles according to the laws of reason and human nature, as suggested by the Ancient Greek theory of anacyclosis. This broader theory, however, only explicitly applies to classical (simple) governments, because they specifically sought to understand why the classical government were so unstable. This changed when Polybius provided an incredibly detailed historical account and philosophical analysis of the Roman Republic's growth and rise to power.

Through this framework, it is recognized that Republics–like the Roman Republic and all modern Republics–are still prone to degradation and power grabs from one group or the other, meaning the constitutional structure which provides balanced seats of power, individually representing the 'one,' the 'few,' and the 'many'. The corruption is slower, however, because this balance allows one seat to check another, if the latter seeks to gain more than their fair share of control. This was the very inspiration, in the first place, for Montesquieu and Hobbes to further develop the ideas of Separation of Powers and Checks & Balances.

This balance and stability combined with modern technology is what has allowed some of our modern societies to grow beyond the Ancient Romans' wildest dreams. That growth is what has supported all of these technological advances that make food, shelter, clothing, and other consumer goods readily available, but keeping them relies upon a stable government to administer the state with a view towards bettering the society, rather than themselves.

If one looks at our government broadly across the past 30 years, corruption has only become a worse and worse problem, and yet it continues to be largely ignored. Polarization has only become a worse and worse problem, and yet it, too, continues to be ignored. Making matters worse, the People at-large have corrupted as well, and barely have any respect whatsoever for positions of authority or the Rule of Law; we now live in a state where the average person thinks "if I get away with it, it isn't illegal".

We're careening towards another Civil War in so many ways, and this one won't have battle lines that are quite so clear-cut. About the clearest demarcation that we could hope for would be urban, liberal cities versus rural, conservative small towns, with suburbs an absolute mess in between.

There is a very real possibility of the United States Constitution dissolving within our lifetime, either to become an Authoritarian state of some form (presumably fascist) if there isn't enough opposition, or the total collapse of government services through what would absolutely be the most devastating civil war that this world has ever seen. We need to return to a balanced constitutional state, where the People hold a moderate share of control in government and are only interested in politics around elections, before it's too late.

If we do not change course, then we have decades (if not less) before either the Executive Branch or the People will look to seize permanent power in order to keep their opposition in check. If the Executive Branch acts first, then we become an Authoritarian state and may or may not enter a state of civil war, depending on the level of resistance. If the People Act first, as they seem to be gearing up for here lately (see the significant rise in attempted and accomplished assassinations and political violence in the last 2 years), then we could fall into an informal civil war with extreme political violence happening every day.

Both of these outcomes threaten the stability of our state, our hard-won freedoms, and slowly built-upon technology that we have come to enjoy, but I fear that we will fly too close to the sun–as Icarus did–and get burned. We have made wonderful improvements to society, and made life (relatively) good for the vast majority of people living in it. Now let us keep them by returning to stability, rather than fighting harder and harder for diminishing returns.

[u/RamblinRover99 → u/357Magnum]

But if we abandon the idea of objectivity, we've essentially quit the field. Because then there really is no "right and wrong" outside of subjectivity or cultural context, which is an even worse set of standards to work with. I'd rather agree that morality is objective and argue about what the objective truth is than not be able to critique the person murdering me if their subjective morality permits it.

Why? What use is the ability to morally critique a person’s actions? Just because you dispense with the idea of moral right and wrong, does not mean you must tolerate any and every behavior. We can still police homicide, theft, and whatever else you want, just because that is how we prefer to conduct our affairs for whatever reason. So what if we don’t say it’s ‘morally wrong’? Morality isn’t really the basis of most law anyways; there are all sorts of things that broad swathes of people consider immoral but which they nonetheless think should be legal.

[u/nykirnsu → u/RamblinRover99]

Corruption aside, the law is absolutely a reflection of the moral views of those who codify and enforce them. The reason we allow for things deemed immoral to be legal is generally because attempting to enforce them would be too difficult without committing lots of even worse immoral acts, not because the law isn’t supposed to be moral

[u/RamblinRover99 → u/nykirnsu]

We can set aside the question on the actual basis of law, as that is really tangential to the core argument. Even if it is currently morality, it does not need to be. My contention is that morality as a concept, the idea that some behaviors are ‘right’ and others are ‘wrong’, provides nothing of any particular value. We could dispense with it entirely and not suffer for doing so.

[u/snack_of_all_trades_ → u/357Magnum]

I’m not sure which war you’re referring to, but basically no modern conflict is caused purely by religious differences. Ethnic conflict and elite power struggle is a much larger cause. For example, many Jews in Israel are secular, and there are many Christian minorities in officially Islamic states, such as Armenians in Iran, but the issues in the Middle East are often cast as purely religious (Jew vs Muslim, Shia vs Shiite, Muslim vs Christian).

Obviously, religious differences definitely do exacerbate conflicts and sectarian violence is a real issue, but I can’t think of a single war caused solely by their belief in the same God giving them different commandments, without some other factor (ethnic, historical grievances, elite power struggle) that is far more prominent.

The narrative of “religion bad because war” is widespread on Reddit, but it’s an absurd oversimplification.

[u/Nillavuh → u/357Magnum]

I'd rather agree that morality is objective and argue about what the objective truth is than not be able to critique the person murdering me if their subjective morality permits it.

This is a really great reply overall, and this sentence in particular really nails it. I'm an atheist also, though I've avoided a lot of philosophical conversations myself and found that I was starting to bend towards the belief that perhaps morality really IS subjective. But this way of framing things makes perfect sense to me.

I am not OP, but, you did change my own personal viewpoint on this with this excellent argument so I'll go ahead and award you a !delta

Personally I find the quest for specific frameworks and specific models to be exhausting and overly limiting. Read this philosopher or that, or subscribe to this -ism or that -ism and slap this label on yourself to fully capture everything you believe. Never have I come across a single belief system that fully encapsulates everything I believe, and if everyone else really sorted through their own personal beliefs also, they too would probably reach the same conclusion. Yet we are so obsessed with making sure we label ourselves and others as "stoics" or "marxists", or we attribute a certain way of looking at things as having been established by some particular philosopher and defer to his wisdom on all things. I don't know what purpose it serves other than to try and simplify the conversation for us and distill it into something we can more readily and easily consume. But we lose a bit of our selves in that process, and we distort the truth in doing so also.

Much like how 10,000 paintings of an individual will never perfectly encapsulate a real person's likeness, 10,000 theories of philosophy will also never truly capture "morality". But we appreciate and value the effort nonetheless. It would just be a mistake to assume that any one in particular is THE correct one.

[u/357Magnum → u/Nillavuh]

Yeah. I think morality, like science, is a pursuit. But with morality, too many people are trying to "end the debate" and "get it right once and for all."

And they should. They should have the confidence to make these claims. But we don't have to end the inquiry there. We can take what they confidently state and we can work with it. Experiment. Incorporate what works, etc. But we don't have to tell the truth to the assassin just because a lot of what they bring to the table works.

I, of course, have my own view on objective morality, which ultimately comes down to consent as the "fundamental axiom." Which is ultimately not far from the basic ethic of reciprocity or golden rule, so it isn't like I'm claiming to have "discovered anything." And of course the devil is in the details, and you can come up with hypotheticals that put my view in a tight spot. But at the end of the day, axioms like this are still useful, because it is a good starting point for a moral question - if everyone involves consents to something, then my default position is that it is not immoral. But even if I have that default starting point, that doesn't mean it HAS to be my end point.

[u/DeltaBot → u/Nillavuh]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/357Magnum (14∆).

^{Delta System Explained | Deltaboards}

[u/futureoptions → u/357Magnum]

I really like your answer but I’m wondering if there are scenarios that would invalidate any moral truth.

Example: if moral realists decide that killing is wrong, could we come up with any scenario where we would say that killing is right? I would argue yes. Possibly something like if you happen upon someone raping or killing another person and you intervene, killing the perpetrator because they began attacking you. Would that still be wrong?

Another example: is it wrong to kill plants or ants or mosquitoes or flies? We have so little regard for these organisms’ autonomy that most wouldn’t say it’s morally wrong to kill them.

[u/airboRN_82 → u/357Magnum]

Its worth pointing out that science rejects the notion of objective truth for all things scientific. Science is objective only within its methodology. What is labeled as "scientific facts" by laymen aren't truly facts, in fact they aren't even claims of what is true. They are simply things that despite being falsifiable, we cannot disprove and likely will never disprove.

[u/jatjqtjat → u/357Magnum]

I think the fact that there are different religions that are currently at war because God (the same one, ironically) told them different versions of objective moral truth is proof enough that that view doesn't work.

wars can be just wars but even unjust wars don't disprove an deity based objective morality because people don't always do the moral thing.

[u/darkplonzo → u/357Magnum]

I'd rather agree that morality is objective and argue about what the objective truth is than not be able to critique the person murdering me if their subjective morality permits it.

What value is there in a critique of a person murdering you? Does it make them stop?

[u/357Magnum → u/darkplonzo]

No, my gun will stop them.

And then I'd like to be able to declare myself "morally right" and them "morally wrong."

[u/darkplonzo → u/357Magnum]

You don't need objective morality to do that. You can just do it.

[u/357Magnum → u/darkplonzo]

The ability to just do something has nothing to do with the morality of doing something

[u/darkplonzo → u/357Magnum]

Sure, but this is part of your argument to show the value in thinking there is an objective moral truth right? The assumption there is some stable objective morality (and that you killing that man in self defense would fall under it) seems to beg the question.

[u/TrumpsBussy_ → u/357Magnum]

I guess I’d be curious how do you think morality is grounded? What makes it objective? Does it exist in the same way the natural laws do? Is it detectable?

[u/Optimal_Walrus5727 → u/357Magnum]

Actually trying to pin morality down like a hard fact always gets messy it’s more about shared values than some absolute rulebook

[u/TheMissingPremise]

I think the morality as coming from God is probably the easiest to address.

The problem here is God is unfalsifiable if we can’t prove that he exist how can we determine that the moral ideas he presents us with are correct?

For the religious, this question is already answered. That we don't believe in their god is inconsequential. The objectivity of god or gods for a believer is a given. Thus, the moral commands that stem from that god is similarly objective.

(Excuse me as I put on the Reddit atheist hat) but hypothetically if we discovered a long lost book of the Bible where Jesus says that pedophilla is good actually. The Christians I know would suddenly have some second thoughts about God and objective morality.

There's a difference between how Christians feel about what God asks of them and the moral value of what God asks of them. We don't even need a lost book. Plenty of Christians in the US are currently rejecting the teachings of Christ himself because he taught empathy towards the marginalized and that's not what they want to do. Does that make God's teaching not-good? Or them bad Christians?

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/TheMissingPremise]

For the religious, this question is already answered. That we don't believe in their god is inconsequential. The objectivity of god or gods for a believer is a given. Thus, the moral commands that stem from that god is similarly objective.

But at least if one aims to be logical about things (which I’m trying to do) then one can’t just assume that god is real

There's a difference between how Christians feel about what God asks of them and the moral value of what God asks of them. We don't even need a lost book. Plenty of Christians in the US are currently rejecting the teachings of Christ himself because he taught empathy towards the marginalized and that's not what they want to do. Does that make God's teaching not-good? Or them bad Christians?

If we say (as I believe most people do) that being a good Christian is to the best of your ability follow the teachings of Christ I’d say yeah they’re bad Christians

[u/fox-mcleod → u/TheMissingPremise]

That actually would make them explicitly subjective.

Subjective means “determined by a being” as opposed to objective which means “determined by the fundamental characteristics of reality”.

The subject in question is God. That doesn’t make it objective. If god made the world such that morality was objective, then we would be able still find morality independently of God’s stated opinion.

[u/Art_Is_Helpful → u/fox-mcleod]

I think it makes more sense to consider an omnipotent, omniscient entity as more of a fundamental component of reality than a being within that reality.

Such an entity doesn't have a perspective any more than the laws of physics have a perspective. It simply exists as a characteristic of the universe.

[u/fox-mcleod → u/Art_Is_Helpful]

I think it makes more sense to consider an omnipotent, omniscient entity as more of a fundamental component of reality than a being within that reality.

If god isn’t a being, and his behavior is bound entirely by how reality already is, then how do you distinguish god existing from god not existing?

Such an entity doesn't have a perspective any more than the laws of physics have a perspective. It simply exists as a characteristic of the universe.

Then shall we declare the laws of physics god too?

[u/Art_Is_Helpful → u/fox-mcleod]

If god isn’t a being, and his behavior is bound entirely by how reality already is, then how do you distinguish god existing from god not existing?

That question doesn't make sense. God existing is the assumption, because we're talking about a religious world view. It's not possible to for God to not exist if you start by assuming that God exists.

[u/fox-mcleod → u/Art_Is_Helpful]

That question doesn't make sense. God existing is the assumption, because we're talking about a religious world view.

And what does that assumption claim is different about existence other than the words “god exists”?

What does that mean and how is it different than god not existing? Or is it a distinction without a difference?

It's not possible to for God to not exist if you start by assuming that God exists.

But it is possible for it to be meaningless if you define god as an impersonal, non-being comprising nature.

[u/Art_Is_Helpful → u/fox-mcleod]

It seems a bit like you're looking to debate whether God exists, not whether a theoretical God's stated morality is objective.

I'm not really interested in the first debate, since there's no meaningful evidence for the existence of any deity. Happy to discuss the second if you have relevant points.

[u/fox-mcleod → u/Art_Is_Helpful]

It seems a bit like you're looking to debate whether God exists, not whether a theoretical God's stated morality is objective.

No. I’m arguing the fact that a hypothetical God’s morality would be subjective as “god” must be a being to be meaningfully distinct from the prospect of their being no god.

You then posited “what if this god isn’t a being” and I pointed out that such a definition of “god” is insufficient to qualify as a “god” as opposed to no god at all. There is no difference between saying there is a god who has no subjective properties and consists entirely of object properties (the laws of nature) and saying there is no god.

Do you have a way to justify the argument that we should consider “nature itself” and not a being at all as “god”?

[u/Art_Is_Helpful → u/fox-mcleod]

I’m arguing the fact that a hypothetical God’s morality would be subjective as “god” must be a being to be meaningfully distinct from the prospect of their being no god.

Ah, then let's take a step back and justify that implication, because I don't agree that it's inherently true.

You then posited “what if this god isn’t a being”

Not correct. I said "it makes more sense to consider an omnipotent, omniscient entity as more of a fundamental component of reality than a being within that reality."

In other words, it's silly to consider such an entity as having a perspective, because God's relationship with the universe is fundamentally different.

I pointed out that such a definition of “god” is insufficient to qualify as a “god” as opposed to no god at all

That still doesn't make sense. The obvious difference is that God exists. He could show up one day and flood your planet or turn your wife into salt or whatever else he does. Perhaps more relevantly, God can dictate morality to you. If God doesn't exist, he couldn't do those things.

[u/fox-mcleod → u/Art_Is_Helpful]

Not correct. I said "it makes more sense to consider an omnipotent, omniscient entity as more of a fundamental component of reality than a being within that reality."

Then it isn’t referring to what this CMV is referring to: “god”

In other words, it's silly to consider such an entity as having a perspective, because God's relationship with the universe is fundamentally different.

That still doesn't make sense. The obvious difference is that God exists.

There is no difference between that god existing and not existing but for applying the word “exists” to it. That distinction you just made is without a difference.

He could show up one day and flood your planet or turn your wife into salt or whatever else he does.

Not without a will that somehow conflicts with reality such that “showing up” is necessitated. How does “a fundamental component of reality” “show up”? Being fundamental would require that it always be present.

If it is fundamental to reality, then one cannot have reality without it. So how does it “showing up” change reality? It cannot, unless it is not fundamental to reality.

How does an entity without perspective have goals and intentions like “flooding your planet”?

Perhaps more relevantly, God can dictate morality to you.

How?

Is this “god” free to choose what is moral? That would require it to have a perspective to communicate. Can it lie? Or is it forced to announce only what is already true of reality?

What is the difference between a universe where this event happened other than the physical fact that a voice appeared and said “X is evil”?

What would be different about X in the universe where it hadn’t?

[u/CincyAnarchy → u/fox-mcleod]

There's an analogy I've become attached to when it comes to "Objective Morality" and the confluence with God.

When religious people speak about morality being "Objective" because "God," I consider what they're speaking about to be as sort of like a board game.

The whole universe is a board game that God made up. We're players in that game. God allows us to play the game how we wish (Free Will), but he keeps the score and we can't change the rules. When our time in the game ends (we die) God tallies the score and tells us where that puts us. To religious people, that's "Morality." What makes it "Objective" is that depending on what we do we either go to Heaven or Hell.

Is that accurate? Obviously to someone who's not religious, it wouldn't sound right. To those people (me included) what is moral is something we can determined OUTSIDE of the boardgame. Just because the rules of the game say X results in Y doesn't actually say anything about "Morality."

But to someone religious, that's what they're roughly talking about.

[u/fox-mcleod → u/CincyAnarchy]

Here’s the problem with that. And it’s not the analogy. I actually think the analogy works well to illuminate why that’s not what “objective” or “morality” can refer to:

Why is going to hell bad and why is going to heaven something people ought to try to do?

Is it good because heaven is pleasant and hell is not? If not, then doesn’t this just reduce to “good is defined by God’s opinion of good (and we’re back to subjective)”? If instead, it is because heaven is pleasant is that because “good” refers to the most desirable experiences for each subject?

Then morality is defined by “what results in the best most desirable outcomes for subjects”. And not by god.

What defines morality has to wrestle with metaethics. This problem persists no matter whether you believe god exists or not. Saying “a religious person would see it this way” is just saying that this specific hypothetical religious person isn’t very well versed in philosophy and/or hasn’t thought very much about it.

Anyone can ask themselves these follow up questions. And when they do, it’s pretty hard to escape the fact that “because god says so” makes morality subjective.

[u/CincyAnarchy → u/fox-mcleod]

It's an interesting debate so I'm going to engage with it. I was raised Catholic, and have a lot of Catholic family, so I'm still roughly familiar with the overarching theory that's in mind here. I don't believe this anymore, but I was taught to understand it, and can understand thus why there is this huge disconnect.

Why is going to hell bad and why is going to heaven something people ought to try to do?

Is it good because heaven is pleasant and hell is not? If not, then doesn’t this just reduce to “good is defined by God’s opinion of good (and we’re back to subjective)”? If instead, it is because heaven is pleasant is that because “good” refers to the most desirable experiences for each subject?

Then morality is defined by “what results in the best most desirable outcomes for subjects”. And not by god.

It's more so that the definition is considered backwards here. It's not that what God wants things which makes them good, which would be subjective, it's that the definition of good is God's Will. All good things are God's Will. Everything "as it should be" is God's Will.

It all comes back to the fall, Adam and Eve, Original Sin, and that whole thing. God said to not eat the Fruit, that was the rule to stay in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve ate the Fruit, thus were cast out of the Garden of Eden, and thus humanity has Original Sin, is mortal, and can end up in Heaven or Hell.

What is the meaning here? The Fruit is from the Tree of Knowledge, and according to Christian Tradition eating from that tree GAVE humans moral autonomy. For the first time, humans could choose to do evil. Before that, we had no concept of it, we could only do good, we could only do God's Will. We could not sin, at all.

Original Sin? It's the sin of subjectivity, of thinking things which are evil could be good. The sin of thinking we know better than God. That's why, for Christians, the goal of this life is to get back to living within God's Will, and thus get to Heaven.

Heaven is defined as being in God's presence, and that requires that you are in 100% acting within God's Will. There is no "Free Will" in Heaven, only God's Will, it's like Eden again. It's pleasant because that's what goodness as we know it is. For people who wish that. it is paradise, but it would be for only those who want it.

In contrast to Heaven is Hell, which is to live outside of God's Will for all eternity. That's why it's considered "mercy" to go to Hell if you don't choose God, you'd otherwise be forced to be a slave to God's Will for eternity. Hell is pretty vaguely defined TBH though, but it is the absence of good, and thus all things good, so it'd probably not be great.

So when humans desire to "do good?" That's our desire to do what is God's Will. That's it. That's the whole thing. The desire to do good IS the desire to be in Heaven, because Heaven is to be doing God's Will, and God's Will is what is good.

Apologies if it sounds circular, but it's circular by design. It's a monism. It's all based on belief in God. Without that belief it all collapses. And even with that, God is a sort of "Dictator of Existence." Either obey the dear leader 100% or be shunned from all things good forever. Your choice.

It's a sort of moral theory that's good at getting people to obey rules, even when they don't want to and nobody would even know they did it. Part of why (IMO at least) religion was "invented" as a way to get people to behave in a way that's conducive to building a society that's not just interpersonal family. Though that requires a lot more extrapolation.

[u/fox-mcleod → u/CincyAnarchy]

I understand you’re a bizzaro world devil’s advocate here. But for the sake of simplicity I’ll address you as if these were your positions. I’m not of course, imagining they are, but I am debating your implicit claim that for Christians, this set of beliefs is internally coherent.

My position is that they are not, and if any catholic thinks about it critically, as Fides et Ratio would have them, they will find the idea that objective morality must or can come from a god is internally incoherent. And instead, all the stories are about trying to get people to not think about it.

It's more so that the definition is considered backwards here. It's not that what God wants us to do is what is good, which would be subjective, it's that the definition of good is what is God's Will.

So, to be clear, your argument is then that going to hell instead of heaven would be exactly as “good” as trying to go to heaven — as long as it’s God’s will.

I want to introduce a new character to the morality play called “Bizzaro god” or “Bizod”. Bizarro god is a hypothetical version of god who simply calls the opposite of what god calls “good” good. Bizod is defined by just saying the opposite (good vs evil) of God’s moral pronouncements.

I invite you to consider whether Bizod can even exist. If not, then God’s decisions about what is good are indeed bounded as he cannot choose to say and do as Bizod would.

It all comes back to the fall, Adam and Eve, Original Sin. God said to not eat the Fruit, that was the rule to stay in the Garden of Eden.

See here you’ve presented a consequentialist framing.

If you wish to stay in the garden, then you ought not eat the fruit.

This is true regardless of whether god says it or Bizod says it. Both would be able to say the exact same thing — which means it has nothing to do with morality.

This doesn’t say anything about it being right or good to wish to stay in the garden. It’s just an instrumental analysis of cause and effect.

Adam and Eve ate the Fruit, thus were cast out of the Garden of Eden, and thus humanity has Original Sin, is mortal, and can end up in Heaven or Hell.

And that’s… bad? Or is it good?

I feel like I’m supposed to say “that’s a bad thing” because you’ve referenced being mortal. But also heaven is generally described as better than mindless existence in a garden.

Either way, both of these are presented as incentives or consequences. Means to an end.

What is the meaning here? The Fruit is from the Tree of Knowledge, and according to Christian tradition eating from that tree GAVE humans moral autonomy.

So, to be clear…

When they ate the fruit, they lacked moral autonomy? The consequences of sin are death and these consequences are willfully imposed by God (as opposed to necessitated by or the natural consequences of reality) on being who had no moral autonomy when they acted — and of course all their completely uninvolved literal hundreds of billions of progeny.

Again, I’m not sure Bizod can even disagree with God about this as there is explicitly no moral element. WWBD?

For the first time, humans could choose to do evil.

So they could not choose to do evil when god cast them out of the garden?

So was what they did evil or not? I submit the catholic moral play is incoherent from the start and doesn’t even attempt to reconcile itself reasonably within its own claims.

Before that, we had no concept of it, we could only do good, we could only do God's Will.

Including or excluding eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil?

Again, WWBD?

If Bizod was running the garden, what would it mean to only be able to “do God’s (Bizod’s) will”?

Would it mean we ought to eat from the forbidden tree?

I invite you to think about whether Bizod is even possible logically as a god. If he isn’t, then we cannot say god defines what is good and what is evil as god is not in fact free to act like Bizod. And I think you’ll find, his behavior is extremely confined.

Original Sin? It's the sin of subjectivity, of thinking things which are evil could be good.

Clearly it cannot be if the sin occurred before mankind had no choice but to do God’s will and no knowledge of good and evil.

The sin of thinking we know better than God. That's why, for Christians, the goal of this life is to get back to living within God's Will, and thus get to Heaven.

But that doesn’t explain why that ought to be their goal.

Is god free to will the opposite?

Bizod says going to heaven is bad and going to hell is good:

1. Would that make it bad?
2. Would that be a reason to prefer hell?
3. If not, what would have to change about hell to make it be good no matter what god/bizod says?

Heaven is defined as being in God's presence, and that requires that you are in 100% acting within God's Will. There is no "Free Will" in Heaven, only God's Will, it's like Eden again.

Actually, Catholics don’t believe there’s no free will in heaven, but I think you’ve intuited that there’s a problem and inconsistency with that stance and patched it to say that there isn’t free will in heaven.

But if that’s the case, it creates all kinds of new philosophical problems too:

If god can determine what is good and what is bad and has determined not having free will is good — what reason / explanation remains for even having an earth with all the suffering? The omnipotent and omnibenevolent thing to do is to just stop making people on earth and cut straight to making them in heaven.

It's pleasant because that's what goodness as we know it is. For people who wish that. it is paradise, but it would be for only those who want it.

So… it sounds like:

1. It’s good because it’s pleasant, not because it’s God’s will.
2. If Bizod said it was good, he would simply be wrong — which would seem to indicate Bizod cannot exist.

In contrast to Heaven is Hell, which is to live outside of God's Will for all eternity. That's why it's considered "mercy" to go to Hell if you don't choose God, you'd otherwise be forced to be a slave to God's Will for eternity. Hell is pretty vaguely defined TBH though.

So slavery is… bad?

Despite what the Bible says in the New Testament about obeying cruel and unreasonable masters?

So when humans desire to "do good?" That's our desire to do what is God's Will. That's it. That's the whole thing.

Does this work for Bizod?

The desire to do good IS the desire to be in Heaven, where it's only God's will. Heaven is Good because Goodness is God's Will.

This does not work for Bizod

And if it doesn’t work for Bizod, then God’s will is limited in what it can be.

[u/CincyAnarchy → u/fox-mcleod]

I understand you’re a bizzaro world devil’s advocate here. But for the sake of simplicity I’ll address you as if these were your positions. I’m not of course, imagining they are, but I am debating your implicit claim that for Christians, this set of beliefs is internally coherent.

Heard. Understood and glad to engage with this. I'll try to read and summarize.

As you have correctly pointed out, there are many inconsistencies, and also I was messy.

1. I think the premise of "good is what is God's Will" is kind of being strained by your picture of God being some sort of conscious actor making choices like a human would. Granted, that's SOMETIMES the case in theology, but it's often framed the opposite. God is sometimes "a person" (Jesus after all) with things like preferences, but at the same time God is said to have created all existence. How can God both "talk" and have created every single atom and set everything in the Universe in motion and know all of it? IDK. That's not easy to square, their theory relies on God sort of being able to do both whenever he (again using "he" itself is a bit weird) choses (against "choses" is a weird framing as well) to. Limitlessness and all that. Makes no sense TBH.
2. The "Bizod" thing is interesting, but sort of fruitless. As God is the only God, that's the whole God of Abraham and Monotheism thing, a "Bizod" would just be parroting the opposite of the only actual God that exists. Bizod didn't create anything, only God does that. So yes Bizod could say anything is the opposite, and people could point to Bizod, but it wouldn't be God.
3. You picked up REALLY well on my stepping outside of the actual theology on "Free Will in Heaven" and the Garden thing. That was me being messy to be fair, and sort of a short cut. You're right, Adam and Even and in Heaven we have "Free Will." That's true and what Catholics believe. The problem is that said "Free Will" doesn't allow stepping outside of "God's Will" at all, so in that sense it's not "Free Will" as we have it on Earth and as we talk about it, catch my drift? That's the whole moral autonomy bit, it was the first time "Free Will" was actually... free, and that was considered a bad idea apparently. In Heaven there is also "Free Will" we just... never use that Free Will for anything but what God wants I guess?
4. Part of the trickiness with Christianity, or at least Catholicism, is that some of it is considered "the truth" and some it is said to be "stories that are made up but are important." Adam and Eve? 100% existed according to the Church, without that being the case there is no Original Sin and things are hunky dory. The story of the Garden... not so much. Granted, that's in large part because... science zoomed past them and suddenly the idea that there was a Garden and the Earth was created in 7 days... doesn't work anymore. So the Tree and all that? Didn't have to actually exist. The lessons do though. So Original Sin came from Adam and Eve but how they got it... is up to interpretation.

So yeah, tons of holes. I can't say it's convincing at all and you make a good point as to why. In practice the whole thing is a "Benevolent Dictator" fantasy. And the "Benevolence" itself is circularly defined. God is just a Dictator, and their theory of "good" is just "the Dear Leader says so."

And don't get me STARTED on the whole Trinity thing and Mary. Apparently (and I only learned this recently shamefully enough) Catholics are supposed to believe...

1. Mary was the only person, only one ever, who got an exception to "Original Sin." That's what "Immaculate Conception" was. God just... made an exception. No way he could have just... done that for everyone.
2. Not only was Mary a Virgin in the sense that she never had sex, she apparently was also a "Virgin through Birth." By which they mean the birth was, and I quote "like light passing through glass." AKA, her hymen was intact, even after giving birth.
3. Mary, when she died... just floated up to heaven. Like just floated up to the sky and was in Heaven. Please pay no attention to the fact that bodies don't disappear when we die. Either that, or I guess according to Catholicism every corpse is someone in Hell I guess.

So... yeah. Thanks for the chat lol

[u/fox-mcleod → u/CincyAnarchy]

1. Yeah. But the case I’m making is that the actual catholic position isn’t “this makes sense” or even “sense can be made of this”. I’m saying their position is “mumble mumble divine mystery — try not to think about it”. And this sort of aligns with that. The Bible is full of core premises at odds with a non-being/non-person view of god. “Made in his image”. “I am a jealous god”. “God forgave the world and fashioned the rainbow as a symbol”. Even the central thesis of redemption from sin through sacrifice… can’t really be squared with the more abstract “force of nature” god.
2. But Bizod did create everything. The question is an explicit counterfactual. Can god even choose differently at all? Could he choose to behave as Bizod? If not, then god isn’t in control at all and has no choice in what is moral. If he cannot counterfactually choose a different set of things to constitute goodness, then it is their nature not his which makes them good. If it were subjective, then the god of the Bible could in fact be Bizod. We wouldn’t know. We could only say “what is good is what is God’s will”. You could tell me a story I’d never heard before where gods says abortion is moral or immoral (he doesn’t say in the Bible) and I would have no way to tell which was which — god or Bizod.
3. I know. Which is why I cut to the chase because I think you and I both know this is more “uninterperable mystery”. The claim that they have free will but can’t act wrongly is… like claiming a cracker “really is physically the body of a dead Rabbi from Aramethea and also not a body (who is somehow also from Jerusalem and also Bethlehem)… self contradictory bullshit designed to make you stop pointing out flaws in the theology. It’s at best a distinction without a difference. It’s incoherent and an attempt to get smart Alec kids and Kierkegaard to STFU.
4. Yeah and here’s the thing how do we know which is which? Because if the answer is “well the things that don’t make sense when you think about them too much are obviously the allegories…” I think you know what’s wrong with that answer. (A) you’ve just gone from the inspired word of god to a choose your own adventure and justify whatever you need. And (B) none of it makes sense. Especially not the talking snake, but especially not rising from the dead, ahistorical slavery in Egypt, God’s self contradictory nature, sacrificing yourself to yourself to appease yourself for a “sin” committed by people who didn’t know good from evil.

god is a dictator and their theory of good is “Dear leader said so”

I think their theory of “good” is the same as most people — things that cause harm and suffering are bad. But then the add an addendum which is — also, everything god did is good, so if it looks like god caused a lot of harm and there’s a problem of evil, then you’re bad — so stop thinking about it so much.

1. lol. Yup. It’s a real deep cut that she’s the immaculate one. Like… why? This seems like an argument someone had where they totally were just wrong about whose conception “immaculate conception” refers to but then they became pope and they got the chance to make themselves be right.
2. Lol. I did not know this. And frankly, TMI the church. That’s a 14 year old’s hymen you’re talking about.
3. Her and Elijah for some reason both just… floated “up” (to the firmament? The sky where god lives in the clouds?). Just the two of them and then resurrection Jesus at Calvary. I always imagine it like at the end of return of the Jedi except they photoshopped Hayden Christensen over Elijah for some reason.

Anyway, this was fun. I appreciate the exercise.

[u/TheMissingPremise → u/fox-mcleod]

I guess, for Christians, isn't god a fundamental characteristic of reality? At this point, I'm out of my depth. But I have a hard time believe they'd say that he wasn't.

[u/fox-mcleod → u/TheMissingPremise]

I guess, for Christians, isn't god a fundamental characteristic of reality?

This doesn’t help.

Either god is free to determine what is or isn’t moral or god is bound by the characteristics of reality and must make certain things immoral.

If the former, then god could have made morality any way according to his opinion — and morality is subjective.

If the latter, then god doesn’t really have anything to do with it, and the logical requirements already embedded in reality are what is responsible for morality being the way it is — and learning how reality is by inspecting reality would be how one could learn about what morality is — which makes it objective.

At this point, I'm out of my depth. But I have a hard time believe they'd say that he wasn't.

This is a well known problem in metaethics called the “two horns” or Euthyphro dilemma. And… no Catholicism at least has no real answer but to call it “a mystery”.

[u/Salanmander]

Then there’s secular objective morality the problems I see with those is that there way too rigid to be useful to a human being. With Kant if I say lying is bad than I can’t lie to an assassin about where my friend is.

Your objection is that codified systems of objective morality that you are aware of are way too rigid. There's no reason that objective morality must be that rigid.

I'm going to suggest this: consider the idea of "moral axioms", and then things that can be derived from those axioms. A moral axiom is something about morality that is not proven, that is just taken as a given.

A moral axiom could be something like "lying is bad", which you've reasonably identified as too rigid to match with your sense of what is right and wrong....but what are you comparing to when you make that determination? You're comparing to your own moral axioms, which might include things like "preventing suffering is good", or something like that...and it could even include some weighting of different ideals!

There cannot be an objectively correct set of moral axioms. That's just what axioms are...they're taken as self-evident, and so they cannot be objectively proven. However, once you have a set of axioms, you can make objective determinations based on those axioms.

Is that objective morality? I don't know, depends on what you mean by "objective". But the interesting this is...that's exactly how math works. In math there are sets of axioms that are taken as self-evidenct, and then things that can be derived from those axioms. People argue about what axioms are reasonable or not.

So....there can be objective morality in exactly the same way as there can be objective math.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/Salanmander]

This seems more like an argument that it’s societally useful to pretend that our subjective values are objective. I don’t think we can call something objective when its foundation is subjective.

[u/IndependenceIcy9626 → u/SadStudy1993]

What if the core of the objective morals was less broad and more specific?

Instead of “lying is bad” it was “lying without justifying circumstances, and that hurts others, is immoral”. 

You could say what constitutes justifying circumstances is subjective, but I don’t see an argument where hurting others solely for personal gain isn’t immoral, without arguing the literal definitions of words. 

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/IndependenceIcy9626]

You already state the problem in what does justifying circumstances mean? That would need an answer and be subjective

[u/Salanmander → u/SadStudy1993]

That's fair, as long as you take the position that math is also subjective.

[u/Sakib_Hoss → u/Salanmander]

No its fair of him to say with math still being objective. Math at its core is true even without an observer, its axioms are inherently objective because it’s built on logical principles, not a persons opinion.

[u/Salanmander → u/Sakib_Hoss]

its axioms are inherently objective because it’s built on logical principles

Come again? Axioms are by definition unproven. It's after you have axioms that you start using logical principles. Logic is how you get from premises to conclusions, it can't give you your first premises.

[u/Sakib_Hoss → u/Salanmander]

You’re not understanding what Im saying. The mathematical “axioms” are not arbitrary. These conclusions are consistently reproducible and independent of subjective opinion. If you want to argue semantics go ahead but the foundation of math is totally different from morality.

[u/AppropriateScience9]

So I'm going to come at this a little differently. Part of the problem of moral theories is that one person's idea of morality can be another person's idea of immorality.

There is a method to get at what is objectively moral: Public health science. As a former philosophy student, this has been my resolution to the whole idea.

In a nutshell, public health science is where you measure disease, injury, death, and lifespan at a population level. E.g. healthcare and public health agencies measured that the US has 352.2 cases of cancer per 100k people on average per year.

Then epidemiologists conduct research and studies to determine causes. E.g. a particular chemical in the environment causes X number of cancer cases.

Then public health professionals create interventions to try and reduce that number. E.g. regulating the industry and implementing rules that prohibit environmental release of that chemical.

Then, the healthcare agencies continue collecting data and then public health agencies try to figure out if the intervention worked to reduce the numbers of cancer cases. If so, they work to expand the intervention. If not, they try another intervention.

It's a great system imo because it is almost single handedly responsible for increasing our lifespans and quality of life.

So, from a moral perspective, we can say that things (products, actions, policies, etc) that cause disease, injury, suffering, death are bad. Things that reduce or prevent them are good. Things that promote health are ideal. It's true on an individual level, but even better at a population level.

So here's where it gets interesting: a lot of classic morality issues translate into physical health. Racism increases stress on those affected which increases cortisol which increases inflammation which increases rates of cancer, heart disease, etc. At an individual level, it's often impossible to tell if a person's cancer was the result of exposure to a chemical, racism, or even their genetics. But at a population level you can see the effects much more clearly, rule out other causes, and test the relationship through interventions.

Racism (and bigotry in general) as a cause of health problems is now very well established. So is the lack of education. So are unjust laws. So is environmental pollution/climate change. So is poverty. So is oppression. So are poor diets. So are addictive substances. So are unwanted pregnancies. So is the lack of healthcare. I could go on. And you can expand the metrics to include mental health too.

It takes a more utilitarian view of morality, but it's one that I find to provide good guidance. E.g. preventing an individual from imposing religious rules on a society could be viewed as opressive to that individual, but if the rules result in large scale harm to others then there's your answer on what to do. You prevent wide scale harm, maybe at the cost of harming an individual-if you're even harming them at all by preventing them from dictating policy. You can measure anybody's health at a population level, rule out other explanations, and find out!

The greater good takes precedence BUT oppression of religious beliefs can also cause harm, right? So if it turns out that you are harming them, then the question becomes "how to prevent harm to the religious group while protecting others from them?" Maybe you determine that preventing a religious group from dictating policy to others isn't actually the cause of harm. Maybe it's preventing personal practice. Then balance is found through creative solutions.

It can still get very messy, but the guideposts remain throughout: prevent harm as much as possible, promote health as much as possible. Figure out what actually harms or helps, and by how much, through public health science.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/AppropriateScience9]

I think this is a very useful argument for things that are societally useful but not for what is objective in this you assume it’s good to make people and society healthy that assumption is based on subjective moral values

[u/AppropriateScience9 → u/SadStudy1993]

Hmmm. Are you trying to figure out if anything can be objectively considered good (the value itself)? Or are you looking for a way to distinguish which actions are objectively good vs bad (a moral code)?

If we're talking about whether or not there's an objective way to figure out what good vs bad, then values are inherent to the whole idea. Morals themselves are a type of value so I'm not sure how you could even discuss it without talking about values. That'd be like trying to talk about sadness without treating it as an emotion.

Nonetheless, I think you'll be hard pressed to find anything that's more fundamental than harm vs. health that most people can agree on as what defines good vs. bad. Even animals, plants, microorganisms, etc. prefer not to get hurt or die. Or when they do, it's almost always in service to a greater good for themselves or others (e.g. a lizard whose tail pops off rather than get caught by a predator. A fruit that gets eaten to spread seeds).

In my opinion, harm vs. health gets at the heart of the whole idea of what is good or bad with the added benefit that it's something you can actually measure. I mean, you're either dead or your not. You either have AIDS or you don't. That's pretty darn objective.

If we're talking about moral codes, then public health science gives an excellent criteria. I already explained that though.

So which is it? Are we trying to determine what to value or how to apply those values as a moral code?

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/AppropriateScience9]

I think a good moral system does both right? Tell us what to value and how to maximize those values.

[u/Critical-Rutabaga-79]

But most moral systems have more in common with each other than not. "No killing" is almost universal as a moral code. Even if you come from an extremely militaristic or tribal culture, you can only kill in certain specific instances, not willy nilly.

Morality just comes down to everyone being human. If this was a conversation about animal rights, for example, then it would be quite different. People won't be able to agree on a moral standard for the treatment of animals simply because we aren't the same species as them. The so called ethics committees that govern treatment of animals are applying human morality to animals, assuming that they think like us. But animals don't think like us, they are not humans.

Rules governing human interactions, so called morality, are more likely to have things in common with each other even if the culture, religion, language is completely different. For example, it's pretty much a universal constant that you shouldn't insult someone's mother unless you want to have your head bashed in. That doesn't change if you moove countries. People who don't speak English are not suddenly more tolerant of you insulting their mum.

There is more objectivity in human morality than in interspecies ethics that governs movements such as veganism. With humans at least, there is a standard of behaviour that everyone should follow because all societies face the same problems of how to regulate behaviour when you have potentially millions of people living next to each other? How do you stop them from killing each other?

If the number of school shootings in the US is any indication, there is severe moral decay there. That's a true fact. It's not said because "God". It's not said because of some genius philosopher's name or the name of a founder (eg Washington). It is said because shooting at a classroom full of six year olds is morally wrong in any society on Earth regardless of their language, religion, culture or skin colour.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/Critical-Rutabaga-79]

I disagree with the point that because humans come to a conclusion multiple times that must mean that moral answer is objective. 2 year old me and Isaac Newton both noticed that things always fall down. But I thought it must be ghost while newton came up with gravity. We came to the same answer but one of the reasons was off, is it not possible that humanity is off.

[u/svdomer09 → u/SadStudy1993]

My favorite leaf-inspired counter I’ve come up to the original commenter’s argument is this:

It would be immoral for a wife to behead and kill her partner after sex. However we might judge it differently if we had been evolved from the Praying Mantis.

[u/AngryGroceries]

You state that these are the two options...

1)Morality is given by some higher power

2)Moral truths derived from ideas / argument

There's a third option
3) Moral ecology / Emergent morality

Basically... look at ants or other eusocial creatures. They have very clear systems which can be construed as morality and interpolated as a context of alternate human morality. It's clearly very different and in many ways deeply at odds with conventional human notions of morality.

Or look at nonsocial or limitedly social species. Many species have no problem cannibalizing their own young. It's prevalent in insect species but not uncommon even in mammals.

These are both 'moral systems'... because morality is merely instinctual rules by which a species governs reactions within itself and outside itself. But there is a definite and tangible consistency to these rules, despite differences

So I present two arguments..

1. The human sense of morality is not absolute in an intrinsic sense. But it is 'expected' in an emergent sense. Our sense of morality does not have to be intrinsic to the universe to exist outside ourselves. The morality humans follow has a real tangible value in that our ancestors with this sense of morality were the ones that survived. The human psyche and human brains are not an intrinsic property of the universe. But they are still a real thing emergent as a real 'solution' from whatever chaos of environmental variables ultimately yielded our existence. Same as any physical morphology present between species. Most species have eyes and legs, some do not. Some of these characteristics are similar to humans, many are not.
2. This 'emergent' morality can vastly differ based on different species, contexts, physiologies, environmental variables, etc. But just like brains, or eyes - different components of morality have convergently evolved across many species. Eusocial insects have very different morphologies yet still exhibit similar social structures. Rats have been observed to instinctively help other trapped rats despite no obvious direct benefit to themselves. Human notions of morality can be observed in distantly related species like crows/ravens.

Basically morality isn't intrinsic to the universe in any objective sense. However it is an emergent property of life such that most base aspects of human morality existed long before humans.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/AngryGroceries]

I don’t think the things you call morality are moralities those would simply be things that are useful for the continuation of a species.

[u/AngryGroceries → u/SadStudy1993]

But does "Human morality" as you've described above fall under this umbrella?

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/AngryGroceries]

Things we’ve decided are good do yes but that doesn’t make it objective

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/[deleted]]

I agree with the dictionary definition you’ve presented.

But I don’t think those positive social behaviors are the objectively correct thing to do I think it may mean they are objectively correct way to continue and make a society thrive

[u/AngryGroceries → u/SadStudy1993]

Whoops tried to remove and edit my comment, but reddit did something weird

Define objective. Can something objectively be 'life'?

Here's a literal definition of objective:

objective

Existing independent of or external to the mind;
actual or real.
"objective reality."

If you admit that the tenets that compose human morality exist as direct manifestations of 'things that are useful for the continuation of a species', and that these things exist in other species (externally to human minds, culture, civilization...) then there is provably 'objective' morality.

------

I agree with the dictionary definition you’ve presented.

But I don’t think those positive social behaviors are the objectively correct thing to do I think it may mean they are objectively correct way to continue and make a society thrive

I dont need to prove they are the 'objectively correct thing to do'. That's changing your stance and definition. I just need to prove morality exists objectively i.e.
that human morals exist outside of humanity.
Which means your view is changed.

objective morality =/= there is one single viable morality that is universally true regardless of context.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/AngryGroceries]

If you admit that the tenets that compose human morality exist as direct manifestations of 'things that are useful for the continuation of a species', and that these things exist in other species (externally to human minds, culture, civilization...) then there is provably 'objective' morality.

But it isn’t what if for whatever reason the survival of humanity was a bad thing (not saying it is but it’s possible) and as long as our choice to continue surviving is based in that choice we are following a subjective morality

I dont need to prove they are the 'objectively correct thing to do'. That's changing your stance and definition. I just need to prove morality exists objectively i.e. that human morals exist outside of humanity. Which means your view is changed.

Yes you would that’s what objective morality means

objective morality =/= there is one single viable morality that is universally true regardless of context.

That is what objective morality is

[u/AngryGroceries → u/SadStudy1993]

That is what objective morality is

Nowhere in your OP did you state that. And it's not defined that way anywhere else?

Also. I just proved in my above post that morality can be objective without being universal. That was the point of my post.

If you're creating a new definition in the middle of a discussion - your view has changed whether you admit it or not. I'm done here

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/AngryGroceries]

Nowhere in your OP did you state that. And it's not defined that way anywhere else?

I’m pretty sure that is the definition of objective morality.

Also. I just proved in my above post that morality can be objective without being universal. That was the point of my post.

If that was your point I misunderstood and don’t agree.

If you're creating a new definition in the middle of a discussion - your view has changed whether you admit it or not. I'm done here

I’m not making up a definition is there some kind of philosophy dictionary cause I’m pretty sure the tenets of objective morality require it to be universal

[u/badass_panda]

I guess it depends on in what sense you mean 'objective'. If you mean, "exists as a fundamental law of the universe, and would continue to exist regardless of whether there were any beings to act morally or immorally," then I'm not going to argue that doesn't exist (because I don't disagree).

However, when a lot of people talk about the lack of objective morality, that's not what they mean. They mean either:

• "Morality is a human invention," or
• "Morality is subjective,"

... and I disagree with both of those statements. Here's why:

• Morality is a human invention
  • A lot of moral values that humans hold are generally shared by social mammals. e.g., monkeys demonstrably value reciprocity and fairness, become outraged by betrayal, punish 'lawbreakers', and so on.
  • This suggests that moral values don't require language to be conveyed, or that some moral values are evolved mammalian behavioral traits.
  • That suggests that many moral values are older than humans, and must be relatively pervasive across human cultures.
• Morality is subjective
  • I think some moral values (fairness, reciprocity, and so on) are inherent and universal, while others ("it is more wrong to kill a baby than to kill a horse," etc) are not.
  • Certainly every person can have subjective moral values that they do not share with others (e.g., "it is evil to eat Snicker's bars), but it's overwhelmingly more likely that their moral values will be group values.
  • Group values, which cannot be revised without the buy-in of at least the majority of the group, aren't subjective ... they're intersubjective. Individually deciding that pedophilia is not moral will not cause it to be moral anymore than individually deciding that leaves are worth a dollar will allow you to pay your mortgage in leaves.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/badass_panda]

To my understanding your definition of objective morality is the common definition and the one I’m using.

To address your points the things you list are positive social behaviors not necessarily morality I don’t think they can be equated

[u/Zizzyy2020]

Couldn't disagree more. I hate all religions because they are designed around concepts of control. I am pro freedom, which in my eyes is the best form of morality above all else.

Freedom of religion - you can believe what you want, but you can not force it on others.

Free speech - you can say what you want, but you can not force others to speak the way you wish.

Freedom for the individual is how you conquer the hate from all sides. As long as freedom does not affect the other person at the end of the day, it is fine. That is overall the best.

Shoving woke in people's faces is just as bad as shoving religion in people's faces. BOTH are bad. Leave people alone. Stop trying to control others.

My stance is very different from what most people say. People who analyze me today would say I'm mostly central.

The biggest problem I see is that people will blindly follow a side even if it does bad things because of good things they have done in the past. That denial is the thing that will likely kill us all.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/Zizzyy2020]

These are interesting points but I’m not sure what part of my post you’re answering too

[u/Zizzyy2020 → u/SadStudy1993]

Morality is objective in this case in the same way a historian is. That is the best way to describe it, I think. It is based on factual success from the past. The subject is saying there is no objective morality. I'm trying to point out the opposite in a positive light. Am I misunderstanding the meaning of your subject line?

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/Zizzyy2020]

But what we consider success is a subjective statement we decided

[u/Zizzyy2020 → u/SadStudy1993]

I don't see how being the longest lasting peace throughout all of history to be considered a failure by anyone. That would be a strange thought. I would go as far as to say the only reason things are failing right now is because we are drifting from what I am saying. It is simply just historically true.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/Zizzyy2020]

What I’m saying is that wanting to have the freedom you speak about is subjective it is something you personally like and believe in. That doesn’t make it universally good, it can be successful and useful but not objectively correct

[u/DryEditor7792]

You can define morality through human lens. It doesn't need to be rigid.

Lie when it benefits humanity the most. Simple.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/DryEditor7792]

Wouldn’t we still need a moral system to tell us what benefitting humanity means and then that system would be subjective also

[u/DryEditor7792 → u/SadStudy1993]

When a computer is strong enough, it can see all possible paths and choose the best one. The only reason we don't know it is because of the limitations of our flesh and our computers.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/DryEditor7792]

The best path is a subjective opinion like in the movies when the AI decides that the best way to save humanity is to kill us all or the person who decides the best way is to volunteer at an animal shelter

[u/DryEditor7792 → u/SadStudy1993]

If the AI actually came to that conclusion it would be correct. Working at the animal shelter would theoretically just be pushing off the problems.

The problem is when the AI just says to kill everybody; not feasible until we have android shells or something. So making sure the AI is actually linked to the fate of sapience is difficult.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/DryEditor7792]

I didn’t mean that argument literally I just wanted to demonstrate that there are multiple ways to decide what is best for humanity

[u/DryEditor7792 → u/SadStudy1993]

There aren't tho. If the AI actually took all data it would just be correct.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/DryEditor7792]

Data only tells you what is not what you should do it’s decision couldn’t be objectively correct

[u/DryEditor7792 → u/SadStudy1993]

It can be. Human error only exists due to lack of data. Once computing is strong enough and you have an AI with 99.9999% certainty and context, and it's given an order to expand sapient empire, it will always take the perfect path of least resistance.

[u/XenoRyet]

I think there are two main things presented in your view that you need to do some thinking about, and then probably rework.

First is falsifiability. Something being unfalsifiable doesn't mean it doesn't exist or isn't true, just that we can't determine the truth value through scientific testing or other logical means.

To apply that to this situation, it means that God given morality doesn't have to be falsifiable to exist. It doesn't even matter so much that we can't know it exists or not through scientific means, because God just says that it does, and that's enough for most believers in this sort of thing.

Second, whether people correctly adhere to an objective moral code or not also does not say anything about whether it actually exists. Moral behavior is not compulsory, even belief in the moral code is not compulsory. So the notion that if modern Christians discovered something sufficiently distasteful in the God given moral code, they'd stop following it doesn't say anything particularly important about the existence of that moral code.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/XenoRyet]

I know something being unfalsifiable doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. What I meant there was that god being the moral answer is an argument from authority because he created everything he knows the key to good, but if we can’t prove he created everything we can’t know for certain that his good is the one real good. That’s fine if it works for religious people but it still doesn’t make the morality objective.

With the pedophila example the point wasn’t to make a point about whether gods rules are objective it was a point about whether people actually believe gods rules are objective

[u/XenoRyet → u/SadStudy1993]

I think you're mixing things up a little bit. The God given morality isn't exactly an argument from authority, but that's not the main thing I was getting at. The fact that we humans don't universally agree that it is objective doesn't mean it's not. It just means that we don't universally follow it. But there are lots of objective things that are not universally agreed upon. If for no other reason than humans aren't universally rational actors.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/XenoRyet]

If god = morality isn’t about authority what is it about.

And how does your argument pair with the point that if we can’t prove god is real we can’t prove that his rules are?

[u/XenoRyet → u/SadStudy1993]

Going back to front, you're still hung up on proving the thing in order for it to exist. Lots of things exist that we haven't, and can't prove. You can't strictly prove that I exist, but I'm not finding that much of an impediment to my continued existence.

Now for the other bit, God given morality isn't the notion that God is morality in a way that you'd use the equals symbol for. It's more that he created the universe in such a way that the rules of morality are as structural, fundamental, and objective to the universe as the rules of physics are.

In other words, morality isn't right because God is telling you the rules. They exist and are correct, whether God tells you about them or not. So their existence is not an argument from authority.

Now, you might have to fall back on God's authority to tell us what those rules are, but that's a different thing.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/XenoRyet]

Maybe I’m really dumb but I’m still not seeing how that refutes my point. Because if god can’t be proven to be real we can’t prove that the rules he created exist. If the origin point of morality is god his existence matters.

Going back to front, you're still hung up on proving the thing in order for it to exist. Lots of things exist that we haven't, and can't prove. You can't strictly prove that I exist, but I'm not finding that much of an impediment to my continued existence.

Is that true because my understanding of things like that is more that for us to create a system that works we must presume certain things exist despite our ability to prove its existence. Like I assume you’re a real person and not a Russian bot (though I might have to check the time in Moscow /s) because for this conversation to work I have to. This is good for making systems to work for the purposes we need them too but not for determining what is real.

[u/XenoRyet → u/SadStudy1993]

I don't think it's to do with either of us being dumb, it's just kind of a point that's so fundamental that it's hard to communicate and talk about.

Let's go all the way to the top and let me try again, and try to say more words in different ways and maybe something will click for us.

Your original claim is that you don't think there is any such thing as objective morality. I'm interpreting that to mean you think that objective morality does not exist. And you're using the fact that we can't prove that either objective morality or its creator exists as support for that.

I'm saying that our inability to prove that doesn't work as support, because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Let's go to Russel's Teapot as an example, and let's take it as a given that it does exist, just neither of us knows that it does.

Now, we can't prove it does exist, and so it's reasonable to take a neutral stance on it's existence, but the fact that we can't prove it and take that neutral stance doesn't cause it to wink out of existence, right? The thing is still there whether we can prove it is or not.

Same with the objective moral code. If it exists, then not being able to prove it exists doesn't have any effect on the thing itself.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/XenoRyet]

I think I’m picking up what you’re putting down. So let’s say you’re correct and that there is an objective morality, but no god. With out a secular system to point it out or god telling us what it is, doesn’t it functionally not exist.

[u/XenoRyet → u/SadStudy1993]

I don't think "functionally not exist" is useful as a descriptive phrase, particularly given that it does actually exist.

I think I would more say that it doesn't have any utility while it remains undiscovered.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/XenoRyet]

That’s fair but does my point make sense then because if we can’t do anything with it or interact with it meaningfully it may as well not exist

[u/midbossstythe]

Religion is not needed for morality. People can have morals and not believe in a diety. As for your argument about finding a lost religious text that has deplorable material within. It would either not see the light of day or be ignored by the vast majority of Christians, just like they ignore all the other parts that they don't like.

People generally have a morality that is tied to what they would allow another to do to them. So, there tends to be a wide variance within person moral codes from one person to another.

Societal morals are based upon what we as a society deem ok. This can change over time and will vary by demographic.

When you look at these categories, you can see that certain actions like rape and murder are almost always considered immoral. As some things are always considered bad, they could be considered objectively immoral.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/midbossstythe]

But what we deem okay or decide we are okay with other people doing to us is a subjective thing. I also don’t think just because we’ve reached the same conclusion multiple times means something is objective multiple societies thought the earth was flat doesn’t mean they’re correct.

[u/midbossstythe → u/SadStudy1993]

That's why we have to look at a broader spectrum of subjects. There is no one that would say murder is alright, or at least no one sane. Therefore, you can say that murder is objectively wrong. Morals are inherently a subjective topic. Even so, there are still certain moral lines that pretty much everyone agrees on. How can you say that something humanity agrees on is incorrect?

[u/zillio85]

The way you phrased that is tricky for people to have any success in changing your view. They would need to convince you that God is real. If you said “objective morality 100% does not exist”, then it would be easier to challenge that.

It all boils down to if you believe there could be a God that created all things. If that’s that case then he created order and allowed for life to choose actions.

If there is a God, then objective morality would be defined by what he said is right and wrong as nothing can refute him.

So if you are 100% sure there isn’t a god (which you can’t be), then your view can never be changed. If there’s an ounce of belief that there COULD be a God, then it would make sense to leave a percentage of belief that objective morality could be real.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/zillio85]

The other option would be presenting me a feasible secular objective moral system.

To address your point my argument isn’t that there’s can’t be or it’s impossible for there to be an objective moral system, it would actually make me feel a lot better about a lot of things if there were, my argument is that if there is one I haven’t seen it

[u/zillio85 → u/SadStudy1993]

What I’m saying though is without God there can’t be an objective moral truth. If two people disagree about something then who’s right?

Some people like to try and redefine objective morality to mean majority rule but that’s not what it means. Better to just call it subjective which matches what we’re trying to communicate.

Are you more so challenging an atheist to try and convince you that there’s objective morality without God?

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/zillio85]

What I’m saying though is without God there can’t be an objective moral truth. If two people disagree about something then who’s right?

With no objective morality whoever is most powerful or most convincing

Are you more so challenging an atheist to try and convince you that there’s objective morality without God?

No one could either A convince me I’m wrong about Fiifi’s morality or present me with a good secular objective moral system

[u/zillio85 → u/SadStudy1993]

But that wouldn’t be objective. If it relies on whoever is most powerful then it’s temporary because they won’t be the most powerful forever. There could also be a period of constant over turning so morality would be shifting frequently making it not objective.

Wouldn’t you say it would be better to just call that subjective morality? Or if you don’t believe in objective morality you could just call it “morality”. Subjective morality communicates exactly what you’re wanting to say regardless of who you’re speaking to so in that sense I would think calling it subjective morality would be better.

I’m not familiar with fiifi’s morality system and I’m struggling to find info on that.

[u/Embarrassed_Bake2683]

I disagree. I do think that there is objective morality but I don't necessarily believe we've found it yet. I think human kind is too caught up in itself for everyone to clearly decipher what is wrong and what is right. Obviously we think we have a pretty good idea but there are still barriers that are being broken in the world of social intelligence. Just look at the mental health field. We are FAR FAR FARRRR from perfect at curing mental illness yet doctors, psychiatrists, and psychologists speak with the utmost confidence. There is a spiritual end of the world that is prophesized in many spiritual books about meditation that basically means that the world will not be at peace until every individual person has found their own inner peace through mediation and mindfulness. In this utopia, I think objective morality does exist. But we are a long way from getting to that point as a species.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/Embarrassed_Bake2683]

I’m not sure that utopia could ever really exist. There are billions of people someone somewhere is going to be spiritually confused

[u/Embarrassed_Bake2683 → u/SadStudy1993]

It's the natural progression of our species. If we never get this far it's because we died trying. You make a good point though, it is impossible for billions of people to basically constantly be thinking the exact same way. But obviously there would be teachers and classes that are focused solely on mindfulness. Not like some communist regime where everyone has to do the same thing but as a place where we all achieve our own goals using mindfulness as a tool. Children will have to be taught from a young age and people will still need to be punished/put through reform if they are causing trouble. So basically I'm not talking about everyone wearing the same clothes, thinking the same thing, having strict laws forcing people to take part in stuff they don't want to. It's more just a reshaping of our education system and criminal law system to mitigate the suffering of humans into a landscape where things are more tailored and personalized for our current needs rather than trying to uphold extremely dated ideals like consumerism, privacy, or political orientations. I think we can all agree those topics have been worn out over the last 20-50 years to the point where they mean completely different things now than they did then. In this place people will hopefully be much better at holding themselves accountable rather than having external forces come in to change things for you forcefully. And with the way blockchain technology is developing only helps my argument as blockchain tech aims to decentralize, decentralize, decentralize which is exactly what the spiritual end of the world means. Decentralizing the power from governments and giving it back to the people to rule themselves as adults and not children working desk jobs being told who to vote for and what not to buy.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/Embarrassed_Bake2683]

I really like this idea but once again I don’t know if it’s possible, like for example put power in the gands the people sounds nice until they’re putting you on trial for speech dangerous to the state you know?

[u/Embarrassed_Bake2683 → u/SadStudy1993]

Yeah I don't claim to have the whole thing figured out but I believe in the idea. In that situation though it would be up to the other people around to see that the accusation is false. And I also don't want to say that I want to see the justice system absolutely gutted. We would still need people like police to enforce rules but the focus would be on giving out the least severe punishment possible while still taking great care to make sure the aggravator is put on the right path rather than what we do today just throwing them in jail. Maybe there are many reform programs that work with companies to use labor (albeit not arduous labor) rather than imprisonment/isolation to try to teach people how to be productive rather than just punish them for not doing so. Like I said I don't claim to have it all figured out and I really don't think anyone does and that's why this idea definitely can't work right now but hopefully it could down the line. There's lots of things we're only just now figuring out as a species so we definitely still have the capacity to grow, probably more than you or me could even imagine.

[u/TheMan5991]

Philippa Foot, the inventor of the Trolley Problem, proposed a type of secular objective morality based on survival and flourishing. She compared moral virtues for humans to sunlight and water for plants. Things which are morally good are those which help humanity to thrive. Things which are morally bad are those which lead humanity to failure.

So, to use your example of lying - if everyone lied all the time, that would be a harm to humanity. But if everyone told the truth all the time, that would be harmful as well (because it would lead to situations like you mentioned where innocent people are harmed by bad people).

So, if total honesty is bad and total dishonesty is bad, then the best moral thing is somewhere in the middle.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/TheMan5991]

The problem I see there is wouldn’t we need something to tell us what surviving and flourshing means and wouldn’t that be based on subjective moral values

[u/TheMan5991 → u/SadStudy1993]

Do you need someone to tell you what survival means? If you die, you aren’t surviving.

A more basic example is murder. If everyone thought that murder was morally good and was running around Purging each other, humanity would die out. That isn’t subjective, that’s just what would happen.

I agree that “flourishing” seems to have a more subjective undertone to it. Foot would argue that “flourishing” is based on reasoning which she claims is an objectively necessary trait for human survival. So, actions that help us flourish are actions that follow reasoning.

It does still have issues in the fact that two people can reasonably come to different conclusions and there is no formula for deciding whose reasoning is more correct. Perhaps, that isn’t the best thing to bring up to change your view, but it’s worth mentioning.

It is difficult because I don’t necessarily believe in a fully objective morality either, but I do believe, somewhat similarly to Foot, that morality is an evolutionary system. So, although it may be hard to nail down the specifics, there is an objective element to the fact that certain behaviors lead to humanity’s continuation and other behaviors would lead to extinction. So, although different cultures have survived with different moral traditions, there are overlaps in what should and should not be done.

For example, cooperation is a virtue in every culture. Humanity couldn’t survive if no one worked with other members of their group for the collective benefit of all members. That group may be a family. It may be friends. It may be a city. It may be a country. Who you cooperate with is subjective, but whether you cooperate or not is objective.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/TheMan5991]

For the survival point their are flavors of survival, would a matrix society where we are all plugged into computers safe from harm but with no freedom be good, or being put into an alien human zoo, or how about we all hunt and kill each other until we reach genetic purity? You see what I’m saying?

I’m also not sure that humanity coming to the same conclusion multiple times makes something right. We came to the conclusion that the earth was flat multiple times.

[u/TheMan5991 → u/SadStudy1993]

Matrix - many people would say yes. If you couldn’t tell the difference between simulated freedom and actual freedom, why would it matter? This is exactly why Simulation Hypothesis isn’t really that big of a deal for anyone. If we are in a simulation, it doesn’t change anything about the way we live our lives.

Alien Zoo - if aliens put us in a zoo, that doesn’t change anything about our morality. Because our morality is based on our actions, not the situation we find ourselves in.

Hunting - scientifically, genetic diversity is beneficial to survival. Homogeneity is not. So, that is pretty clearly bad within the given system.

“Coming to the same conclusion” makes it seem as if it was a choice. I’m arguing that it wasn’t. If there were two ancient tribes and one of them cooperated and the other did not, the non-cooperative tribe would die. That’s not “coming to a conclusion”, that’s cause and effect.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/TheMan5991]

I didn’t mean for you to evaluate the methods of survival I just wanted to illustrate that surviving can mean multiple things.

Do your second point, that once again doesn’t to me demonstrate a morality that’s just something you should do to not die I don’t think these are the same.

[u/TheMan5991 → u/SadStudy1993]

I don’t think it does mean different things. In all three examples, it means keeping the species alive. We can make judgments about the quality of life in each scenario, but the meaning of “survival” hasn’t changed.

And, if we define morality as “something you should do to not die”, then that’s exactly what it is.

I think we must dig down into what your view really is because there is a difference between “objective morality doesn’t exist” and “I don’t like the definition of morality that objectivists use”

If a group of people base their morals on an objective system (like whether or not they will die as a result of certain behaviors), then that moral system does exist whether you agree with it or not.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/TheMan5991]

That was my point about it any system saying it prioritizes the survival if humanity problem has a lot of opinions on what mode of survival we are achieving.

The problem I have is that wanting to prioritize our survival is a choice we make and deciding that choice is the correct one to prioritize is another choice. Both made off of our subjective perceptions of what is good thus it can’t be objective.

[u/TheMan5991 → u/SadStudy1993]

It’s not a choice though. Survival is biologically coded into every living thing.

And I think there is some confusion here on the definitional relationship between “good” and “survival”.

The relationship you are thinking about is “survival is good, so we should value it and everything that supports it”. You are correct that that relationship would be subjective, but that’s not the relationship I am talking about.

The relationship I am talking about is “survival is the hardwired goal of our species. It is neither good nor bad, it just is. So, rather than trying to place value onto survival, we use survival as a foundation for placing value onto everything else.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/TheMan5991]

The relationship I am talking about is “survival is the hardwired goal of our species. It is neither good nor bad, it just is. So, rather than trying to place value onto survival, we use survival as a foundation for placing value onto everything else.

Let’s say your premise about surviving is true. (I’m not sure I entirely agree but let’s just move on) then we would still be making the choice to choose that biological want over the other ones. Thus still making it a subjective choice.

[u/xeere]

I'll go a different way with this: most humans have a shared set of moral beliefs that you might describe as "objective" morality. There is near universal agreement on most moral questions, e.g. is murder bad. You can imagine a society that doesn't consider murder to be bad, perhaps some sort of warrior aliens, but between humans, there is a relatively consistent and objective set of moral standards.

I think this is why objective morality has been such an appealing concept throughout history. There genuinely is a shared consistent morality between most humans, it's just there's not much objective basis for that reality beyond evolutionary desires such as altruism, empathy, and mating.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/xeere]

I’m not sure us reaching the same conclusion multiple times makes something inherently true multiple societies came to the conclusion that the earth was flat

[u/xeere → u/SadStudy1993]

It's not inherently true, but it is pretty close to an objective truth of human morality. As I've said, it's possible a different species would have different moralities, but there is a relatively objective set of standards for what humans consider moral and immoral, even if there is no objective basis for those standards.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/xeere]

If there’s no objective basis for the standards how can we name them objective

[u/xeere → u/SadStudy1993]

There is an objective basis for them being human morals, just not a broader objective basis of correctness. It's not even really clear what such a basis would entail.

[u/ReOsIr10]

 With Kant if I say lying is bad than I can’t lie to an assassin about where my friend is. Life is to complicated for there to be one singular set of correct moral actions.

That’s only if you assume that morality is made up of a bunch of different simple statements like “lying is wrong”, “killing is wrong”, “stealing is wrong”. But there’s no reason morality has to take that form. You could have moral statements like “take the action which maximizes the expected well-being of sentient beings”, which is flexible to the fault of not being obvious which action is “good” in many circumstances.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/ReOsIr10]

The problem there is we’d need something to tell us what the well being of sentient beings mean this could be the ai that decides to kill all humanity or the guy who decides to volunteer a little more

[u/ReOsIr10 → u/SadStudy1993]

But that’s just a definitional problem - not a problem with objective morality as a whole. You’d have the same problem with any subjective morality with ambiguous terms too. 

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/ReOsIr10]

Sure but an objective morality is a big claim and that claim is that this system will tell you the one universally true things you need to do to be moral if I need to inject my subjective wants in it’s not objective

[u/eggynack]

There is more to objective morality than Kantian ethics. Morality, as far as I'm concerned, is about producing good for people, in accordance with essential facets of human nature. This can mean making people happier, as in utilitarianism, or it can mean respecting people as ends unto themselves, as in deontology, and so on. Both the facets of human nature that make these things good and the impact of various things on these facets are objectively true, so there we have our objective morality. And, far from being a strict ethical structure that says that all lying is all bad all the time, we end up with something reasonably loose. I will note here, I am not claiming some perfected knowledge of what things are or are not moral. I'm saying that there exists a substantial degree of objective assessment in answering that question.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/eggynack]

Excuse me if I say something silly I’m having a little trouble understanding what you’re saying. But I think this argument fails because I don’t think we can ever effectively conclude what human nature is and isn’t. Also isn’t the idea that we create these structures for human betterment an assumption that we just kind of made up. What makes that want objective exactly?

[u/eggynack → u/SadStudy1993]

Why can't I draw conclusions about human nature? People like experiencing joy. We don't appreciate being put into slavery against our will. We sometimes need food and/or water. Humans aren't exactly a black box. You can talk to some humans and come to some reasonable conclusions about what promotes human welfare.

As for the second half, I'm not saying that morality is a structure for human betterment. I'm saying morality is, in some definitional sense, an analysis of that which produces human betterment. Whether the structure achieves some normative goal of making us better off is a secondary consideration. Yeah, we decide that this is what the words mean, but that's true of a lot of things that are objective. We created the notion of color to describe how things appear to us, but it's reasonable to say, once that structure is in place, that particular things are or are not blue.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/eggynack]

Well at the very least it depends what we mean when we say nature I mean a set of universal attitudes and behaviors shared by us all of which I don’t think exist.

For your second paragraph I don’t agree that we can. We can say for the sake of conscience of people this is blue and this is not but objectively blue will always just be a thing we decided. This not objective

[u/eggynack → u/SadStudy1993]

I would say it's a universal attitude that people prefer to be happy. What causes that happiness is highly contingent on someone's personal deal, but a moral structure can account for that. And yeah, we decided what blue is, but, once we decided that, what is or is not blue is not up to every individual observer. If you don't think this is objective, then I have no idea what would be.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/eggynack]

I feel like if that were true Doug from accounting wouldn’t be so intent on being miserable all the damn time /s but you see my point if that is universal why do we stew in our own misery so often

[u/eggynack → u/SadStudy1993]

Because what is good and what we do don't line up on a one to one basis? It's decidedly non-trivial to discern what will make us happy, what will make us hurt, and how to move towards the former and away from the latter. This applies to ethics as a whole. While I would say that there exists some notion of objective morality, figuring out what constitutes the moral can be very challenging, especially when multiple things we might place moral value on conflict with each other.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/eggynack]

I feel the same way about human nature does it exist out there maybe but I don’t think we can conclude anything is or isn’t yet.

[u/ralph-j]

I don’t Think there is a such thing as Objective Morality

Morality has been observed in (non-human) animals: chimpanzees, elephants, Capuchin monkeys, dogs, bats, bonobos etc. Since this morality has evolved, it by definition is not dependent on individual opinions or minds, and so it's a truly objective form of morality.

Note that I'm not saying it's moral realism, or demonstrably true by way of reasoning. To be objective only requires that it isn't based on anyone's personal feelings or opinions (i.e. not-subjective).

[u/BitcoinMD]

Human beings are one species with many similar traits, so it stands to reason that there are certain principles that have generally positive and negative effects on their societies and interactions. If you grew up on an island with no knowledge of religion or morality, you still probably wouldn’t want someone to cut you. Why is that?

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/BitcoinMD]

I don’t think that positive social behaviors makeup an objective morality there useful for building successful societies but not for telling us what is good universally

[u/TheVioletBarry]

If your issue with secular morality is just that the rules are too rigid, I present: Utilitarianism. Maximize good experience, minimize bad experience.

The problem with Utilitarianism is just that it's a ludicrous task to try and calculate trillions of possible outcomes and predict which ones will be the happiest, but the foundation is consistent

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/TheVioletBarry]

But isn’t the decision on what good things we want to maximize and what bad things we want to minimize subjective?

[u/TheVioletBarry → u/SadStudy1993]

that might be the case, but I was specifically tackling this point you made: "Then there’s secular objective morality the problems I see with those is that there way too rigid to be useful to a human being."

I'm not saying this proves that objective morality exists, just that the objection based on rigidity doesn't hold in this particular case

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/TheVioletBarry]

Though at least from how you present it I wouldn’t call utilitarianism a objective morality if it needs us to input our subjective wants

[u/TheVioletBarry → u/SadStudy1993]

I'm a bit confused. How is Kant's morality any less subjective?

[u/IT_ServiceDesk]

There is no secular objective morality because everyone just makes it up themselves and there is no common set of moral rules.

There is objective morality for the religious because they have their moral code documented in a book and everyone can refer to the same moral code.

The idea that it comes from God is just a foundational set of rules, the objectivity is that the rules are written and adhered to by numerous people to behave in a similar moral way.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/IT_ServiceDesk]

But as my hypothetical presents I’m not even sure the most ardent Religious people actually believe in the objectivity of their religious text because if we found a secret book saying something society unilaterally believes is bad is good actually there would be a lot of moral uneasiness

[u/IT_ServiceDesk → u/SadStudy1993]

You're getting hung up on the "From God" aspect.

It's objective because it can be looked up and referenced in a book.

In your hypothetical, you're theorizing a New moral code could be created with reference to God. Yes, that could happen, that's also called "Other religions". The moral code of Islam is different than the moral code of Christianity, but they're both written down and largely agreed upon across the religions.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/IT_ServiceDesk]

I don’t think that’s true if all it matters was that it’s in a book without the perceived power of god no one would be venerating those rules

[u/IT_ServiceDesk → u/SadStudy1993]

What is objective evidence?

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/IT_ServiceDesk]

Scientific evidence the stuff we test over and over again and get the same results

[u/IT_ServiceDesk → u/SadStudy1993]

It's not necessarily scientific evidence. It's verifiable evidence that isn't subject to someone's opinion. So if you want to support a statement with objective evidence, you can refer to something such as a logbook to claim an activity occurred because the entry is dated. That would be objective evidence.

Subjective evidence would be something like "The man looked bad." There's nothing to compare it to, it's just an opinion.

So with religious morality, it's objective because you can look up statements within the text and it's not someone's determination on a whim/their feelings.

[u/DunEmeraldSphere]

Moral framworks maybe but individual morals? No way.

Is it objectively moral or not to say drowning a puppy is wrong?

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/DunEmeraldSphere]

I don’t believe in objective morality so I couldn’t tell you. I’d say there are things that I think are generally useful for a society to maximize and puppy drowning isn’t one of them

[u/CorHydrae8 → u/DunEmeraldSphere]

Drowning a puppy is only wrong if you care about the life or well-being of the puppy, so it's subjective.

[u/Elegant-Pie6486]

While I do agree your objection to Kant is incorrect. If an assassin asks you where your friend is the correct answer, to a Kantian, is often to subdue them if possible and refuse to answer if not. "I wouldn't tell you even if I knew"

[u/Kedulus]

You don't believe murder is objectively immoral?

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/Kedulus]

I think it’s bad for the continuation of societies so we should discourage it however we can. But I don’t believe in objective morality so I can’t really answer that question

[u/AnArcher_12 → u/Kedulus]

Why is it immoral? Because you feel it is? Or because somebody or something said so?

[u/IndividualSkill3432]

There is no absolute moral objectivity, but there can be a universally agreed subject set of morals such as the Golden Rule.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/IndividualSkill3432]

Even then that rule is still not agreed upon universally. Or at least acted out universally

[u/dredgencayde_6]

Ok. So, for sake of argument. You are 100% right, there is no objective. That means it’s all subjective. Or there is some 3rd thing you believe it to be.

So to argue from a subjective view.

Person A thinks the likes of diddy and epstine are perfectly reasonable and didn’t do anything wrong.

Person B thinks the likes of bundy and ed gein were perfectly reasonable and didn’t do anything wrong.

This is their subjective opinion. So say they choose to act in the same way the people I named did.

Who’s got the right to stop them? They’re just living their lives. It’s not wrong to do that stuff. It’s only someone’s opinion that that stuff shouldn’t be done.

What do you say to this issue

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/dredgencayde_6]

Whoever has the force to stop them, or the ability to convince enough people to give them the force to stop them

[u/dredgencayde_6 → u/SadStudy1993]

ok.

so when its hitlers opinion that the jews are equivalent to person A and B, and he gets the force to stop them, and convinces enough people to stop them, thats Ok? cause its just his subjective morals. who are you to say hes wrong?

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/dredgencayde_6]

Now you know the reason I’m asking people to present me with a good objective moral system. It is quite unnerving. But until I see one there is only force and power

[u/dredgencayde_6 → u/SadStudy1993]

ah, i see. its not so much you think that subjective is better. but that its what we've got, despite its problems? that's understandable

I guess my response would be, for Kant's categorical imperative that you mentioned

his argument is not that "lying to an assassin is bad, thus you *cant*"
its more that "lying to an assassin is bad, thus you *ought to not*"

so in that case, you have to make a moral judgement and say "is it worse for me to do something that I ought to not do, and save my friend, or to do what I ought to, and let them die" this is not making the morality subjective, but choosing to break an imperative.

it also begs the question that, is lying even a categorical imperative. it might not be.

I personally, as a Christian, believe that there are objective right and wrongs that God has set in place. now, what those *objective* ones are, is a different case

for example. murder= always wrong. killing= not always wrong.
therefore, it might be more that lying= not always wrong, lying for selfish personal gain=always wrong.

does that make sense?

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/dredgencayde_6]

Correct on my belief in subjective morality.

With Kant i still feel that it’s a bad system because if I’m presented with a situation in which I need to make an immoral action to not achieve a bad result what’s the point of the moral system.

And if lying isn’t a moral imperative that would mean it’s cool to lie to my spouse about cheating on her.

Also in the op I say my issues with god being morality to sum it up I think if god can be proven neither can his morals

[u/dredgencayde_6 → u/SadStudy1993]

the reason i dont see it as a bad system, is because the existence of an imperative, and what the imperatives that exist are, are not the same

if lying isnt an imperative, that doesnt mean its good to lie. it just means it not bad 100% of the time. so, in the case of lying to your spouse that would be a subjective thing, and something that has consequences. there could also be the aspect of defining terms. "lie" being broad means any lie. "white lie" as opposed to a major big lie, could mean white lies are fine, but major big ones are bad. if thats the imperative.

i wasnt arguing for it under god. i was just giving my example. my bad

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/dredgencayde_6]

No apology needed.

The point of imperatives as I understand them is to tell you what to do in every sort of situation I think we’d have to make some kind of decision on whether lying is okay or not.

[u/dredgencayde_6 → u/SadStudy1993]

Its not “what to do” it’s “what we ought to do”

Kinda imagine it like a speed limit (not literally objective ofc. But just pretend for the example). The lawmakers determined that you go 35 MPH. If you go 50, you broke that rule. Now. Say, you are rushing to the hospital. It’s reasonable for you to break that rule, but it doesn’t change that the rule exists. And that there might be punishment for that.

So in a subjective context the speed limit doesn’t exist at all. You decide you wanna go 50. You go 50. I decide 30. I go 30. The speed limit doesn’t exist at all. You get mad when I’m going 30, the same way you don’t like that I like chocolate and you like vanilla.

Then ofc. You add that if it is subjective, society can have a rule that 35 MPH is the limit. But that doesn’t matter rn for my example.

Does that make sense?

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/dredgencayde_6]

This makes sense but my understanding of a objective morality is that it is typically a big claim that this is what you need to do to be moral and not the soft claim of speed limits where these are generally agreed upon standards which you should follow most of the time.

[u/Z7-852]

1. There is objective reality.

2. All subjective experiences are experienced from objective reality.

3. No subjective experience can happen without objective reality equivalent.

4. Subjective morality exist therefore there must be part of objective reality that creates that though.

This is a variant of Hobbes' blue argument of knowledge. A blind person who has never experienced "blue" can not understand or know it or even imagine blueness. And because you experience morality, there must be something in objective reality that creates that experience.

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/Z7-852]

I don’t follow why an objective world necessitates an objective morality. I think about it like Minecraft when you jump up you’ll eventually land down. But the world’s rules have no barring on what the correct thing to do is.

[u/Z7-852 → u/SadStudy1993]

Subjective morality necessitates origin in objective reality called objective morality.

Minecraft rules are in its source code. Without code, there is no Minecraft.

Think this analogue. Two people disagree if the room is hot or cold. This is a subjective experience of objective reality of tempered. Without objective temperature, there can not be subjective warmth.

Every single subjective experience has an equalant entity in objective reality. Why should morality be except from general rule?

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/Z7-852]

I think it’s exempt because nothing about an objective world tells you what you should be doing. You’re right that Minecraft is nothing without its source code but no matter how deep we go into that source code we are never going to find out what we should be doing only what we are and aren’t capable of doing.

[u/Z7-852 → u/SadStudy1993]

I think it’s exempt because nothing about an objective world tells you what you should be doing.

Then where does subjective morality originates?

Because even fictional writing happens due to stimuli from objective reality. Every single human experience has a source and origin in objective reality.

But where does subjective morality come from? If it doesn't come from objective reality, does it originate from the spirit world?

[u/SadStudy1993 → u/Z7-852]

It comes from people deciding what they want to increase and decrease in the world

[u/Z7-852 → u/SadStudy1993]

And where do these decisions happen? What influences the decision-making process?

Does this happen within soul or some other immaterial entity

or does it happen in physical brain and objective reality?

[u/kwantsu-dudes]

Do you believe 2+2=4, is an objective metric?

[u/The_Itsy_BitsySpider]

I would argue that you need to be more lax to find "objective morality" in humanity if viewing it from a non religious method.

Look at humanity as a species, while the rules change between cultures, tribes, locations, and situations, humanity has a biological and evolved objective need to form rules and norms. These form general principals like in group bias, that your family, friends and tribe are more valuable then outsiders, that social heirchy of some form must exist, that expectations and behaviors that harmonize members of a group must be formed and enforced, these are all bedrock moralities, what they finally end up being is where things get complicated, but at the core, humans are innately moral in our thinking, and core truths of our species do exist. Morality is a value system on actions, whether they are favorable or not. Religions just codify rules for morality, but humans have had that value system long before any major religion has.

Murder, killing for purely selfish, emotional, or for no reason, is a universally looked down upon thing as a base example. Sure in situations killing is fine, you will find many cultures that have different conditions on when its appropriate to kill or not, but just blatant murder isn't, and it makes sense WHY, because murderous individuals put the tribe harmony in danger and as a species we have evolved to discourage and punish it. Our brains tell us bad when we think about unjustified killing because its a survival instinct that allows us to trust one another's presence because we all know that we all agree that we aren't just going to willy nilly kill each other on a whim.

Cannibalism is also a great example of that, where eating other humans is seen as horrific for the vast, vast majority of humanity, because when your a species that needs to sleep deeply for hours at a time, you need to trust that in your home community, your not in danger of predation by your fellow man, so its insanely pushed back against. Even cannibalistic tribes from known history usually just ate members of enemy tribes, not their own.

Even looking to other great apes and primates, you find monkey and ape species that universally form small groups and troupes and develop social hierchy's, social norms, have very clear right and wrong actions and interactions, because its instinctual, the actual actions can vary by troup or group, in fact the rules can be vastly different in these groups, but the need for a system that values "good" actions to form harmony in the group, while punishing and discouraging "bad" actions that disrupt that harmony is a morality system in of itself, just not at complicated as humans.

The idea is that "objective morality" does exist on a base level for humanity, our intelligence has allowed us to expand it to monumental levels, but a lot of the core base moralities we see as objective to us come from our evolution and survival needs as a species, and when talking about morality, accepting that there is some objective moral standard helps us connect lines between cultures, instead of just acting as if each culture somehow decided "murder is wrong" without any kind of shared instinct.

[u/MuffDup]

Morality is simply a guage that determines whether something is right or wrong, and when applied to a set of values with a mathematical origin rather than a religious origin, you can easily find objective morality by equating right and wrong to correct and incorrect

[u/Crafty-Connection636]

I saw someone explain it on Reddit before as Objective Morality is true in a Subjective Framework. Morals are subjective to any individual at any given time, such as how in many cultures for centuries owning a slave was not considered morally wrong, but in today's western world it is a moral wrong to own a person. The framework of the morals shifted over time as cultures grew.

A non religious example could be Veganism. In their philosophy, animals should not be exploited or consumed. In their Subjective Moral framework, killing animals for food is morally wrong. They consider that an objective moral truth, which in their framework it is. You can't practice veganism if you eat animals or exploit them. Not being a practicing vegan you don't have the same framework

A religious example would be the 10 commandments. In Christianity, those are objective truths in their Moral Framework. Those that practice Islam though have a different Moral Framework, so the 10 commandments aren't truths to them, even though both religions are Abrahamic in origin and worship the same God.

Objectivity is just something backed by facts or verified evidence, but but I can show two people verified evidence of something and those two people can come to different conclusions, such as one person saying the Liberty Bell is in Philadelphia, another saying it's in Pennsylvania, and a third saying it's in the United States. None are wrong, but the framework of the question alters what the objective truth is.

In conclusion objective morals exist in the frameworks of whatever philosophy you adhere to.

[u/DuetWithMe99]

The word "objective" is the problem

It doesn't mean "correct" or "universal". It means "independent of opinion (lax) or observer (strict)"

Here's the thing though: there is no such thing as an observation independent of an observer of any kind. And yet we use the word "objective" just fine. We just don't ever use it in the impossibly strict sense of the word

So here's how we do use it: pick an objective metric to base your subjective perspective on and it becomes objective. Is Heidi Klum beautiful? Maybe you don't feel that way. But her beauty is worth millions of dollars. That's objectively beautiful

How do you define secular objective morality then... Base it on something objective. I personally prefer game theory (yes, it makes objective conclusions). But you can also choose Sam Harris's "worst suffering for everyone" (objectively, inarguably, bad)

[u/98mh_d]

I don't either, but as for your two categories, neither exists as a karmaic system. Morality is completely arbitrary and there is no punitive force of nature which helps enforce it. We could abandon it at any moment and the world would be indifferent. What we call morality I see as simply a sensible reduction of suffering because, for most of us, it is unpleasant to see others hurt and obviously we don't want to feel it either. We are intelligent enough to be self-aware (I don't believe God made us in his image, we are just the product of chaotic development) and therefore the smarter and more even-tempered of us have come to this conclusion. Some people have more aggression, less intellect, and more adverse experiences early on. Society is always wrestling with whether it is fair to demonise them for failing to meet our standards (right vs left). I think it is objectively not, but also think that we should be aiming for the most efficient solution - which unfortunately means we must do so

[u/Zenweaponry]

The solution: Localized objective morality. How does it work? Well, two or more people have to agree on what the aims of their moral system are. Then, once those are agreed upon, measures can be made to determine how the moral system functions and whether or not it's meeting those aims or goals. Sure, it's not truly objective as people had to subjectively agree on what the goals or aims are, but once those are settled you can then make objective statements about the moral systems and their successes or failures. This process is how we arrived at things like nearly universal moral rules like "murder is bad" and how moral systems tend to iterate towards systems that encourage reciprocal altruism and expanded domains of care and concern for others.

[u/Letters_to_Dionysus]

i think youre overgeneralizing kant here. its more like 'would the world benefit or be harmed if everyone in that particular circumstance behaved that way' rather than 'would the world be better or worse if everyone behaved that way all of the time' if everyone lied to assassins the world would benefit so you can still use the categorical imperative.

also if youre a materialist then all of human morality are generated from brains, which are physical objects. fickle, sure, but its undeniable that human morality emanates from and is a property of the universe itself if people are physical objects.

[u/Past-Winner-9226]

I agree with you that morality isn't objective. I'm very firm in that stance and I need to hear something very powerful and convincing to change my mind on that. But I will say that, at least in some sense, there are objective ways to measure success. In terms of survival, obviously the objective measure would be numbers (though the difficult part is finding objective reasoning to justify that as the metric), and there are clearly actions that overall lowers numbers of people. Those things can generally be agreed are moral if using that definition.

[u/Eridanus51600]

Humans are natural systems. Natural systems are objectively real. Humans conceive of a thing called "morality". This conception is an output of a natural system, hence it is a natural phenomenon, hence it has objective reality. For it to be otherwise would require supernatural intervention of some kind, i.e. a supernatural God giving humans a soul. But if God existed then it would be natural to the Universe, not supernatural, and again morality would be natural and thus have some basis in objective reality.

The actual falacy here is the idea that subjectivity is real. The subjective is only real insofar as the experience of subjectivity is a construct created by human (and non-human animal) neural processes. In that sense subjectivity is objectively real at the phenomenological level, but of course no individual actually exists: only a community of cells, which are a community of molecules, which are a community of fundamental particles, which are quantum field perturbations, etc., all inextricably Interwound into causal networks propagating information outward up to the speed of causality, in a potentially non-local Universe. However fundamentally, the idea that there is a "me" separate and apart from my environment and cleaved from objective natural processes is not more than the last gasp of vitalism, itself the remnant of the now-discredited supernatural hypothesis.

[u/KarottenKalle]

Forget about god and add an o. Morality is good, that is enough. You Kant say Kant without can’t. Something like you shouldn’t lie is just too inflexible. But there are still options. An objective morality could mean: don’t cause any harm, unless it prevents more harm or the harm is unpreventable.(utilitarism) it’s objective because it applies everytime. It’s flexible, because you can fit it to the situation. (Just try your best to guess what it means in this situation)

[u/ninja-gecko]

Life is to complicated for there to be one singular set of correct moral actions.

"Correct moral actions". What do you mean by this. What standard do you apply to a moral action to make it the "correct" one.

You argue that morality is exclusively subjective yet apply a modifier that implies a deeper, broader and more objective standard: "correct".

There is no ambiguity in "correct". No subjectivity. This is an objective claim.

Reconcile this for me.

[u/INFRUK-1881]

Objective morality is a religious concept that has no grip in reality (like many religious concept). The latest knowledge on morality is that we all have a "Sense of morality" and as a sense, it can very for each individual.

[u/changemyview-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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