Why it's important to know there is an objective morality.

[pocaracas]

The final question is where does God come in all this?

I think there is a world of difference in believing a living spiritual reality to goodness and morality, and that we are connected to something absolute and great, even though we don't fully grasp it, but to most of it, it's a very distant star, then believing our morality is just a program that we experience to biological reasons and evolution.

There may be something to a common shared morality... but it need not be handed down by a god...
The god bit is your own indoctrination talking... not your abstract thinking self.

With it being a program from evolution, the question, of the euthyphro dilemma should be asked, is it good to do because evolution made it out to be that or did evolution make it out to be because it is good? If the latter, then good exists before evolution, and if evolution decides what is moral, then to me, this seems baseless for many reasons. Why should we pay attention to commands or instructions in us from evolution? 

It seems to me you're looking at it from the point of view of the individual...
Evolution operates on populations.
It's good, because the population has learned what harms its health and labelled that as bad.... and what actively avoids such bad things is labelled good.

It's important to remind ourselves, once in a while, that words are labels for concepts.... and sometimes the concepts are not what they seem. Nowadays, many concepts have evolved to become strange things, heavily imbued by the religious thoughts of the past.

Think about what it means to be "a healthy population" and you'll find the concept of good and bad and, if you so wish, an absolute kind of moral code that each individual within that population should adhere to.

You may also find that there are several ways to achieve a healthy population and, as such, several "absolute moral codes"... and that is what is commonly called non-absolute morality, right?
And that is how evolution works.... finding ways to make things work, not necessarily always finding the same ways... nor at the same time...

[robvalue]

I can only come to the conclusion that some sort of fixed moral code would only be any use to someone having serious trouble fitting into society, such as a psychopath, who wouldn't have any natural moral compass. But of course, that code would have to be based at least partly on the society itself anyway, or else it would fail to achieve this. It would be objective, but subjectively generated.

If it's any use to anyone else, no one has been able to tell me how.

[Mystic]

I will be back later today. Pocaracas, you should look about what Philosophers have said about defining good in the way you defined it. It's problematic for many reasons.  The video that Catholic_Lady posted also briefly mentioned that definition and briefly addressed a problem with it.

I will be back though and address it myself as well.

[pocaracas]

I will be back later today. Pocaracas, you should look about what Philosophers have said about defining good in the way you defined it. It's problematic for many reasons.  The video that Catholic_Lady posted also briefly mentioned that definition and briefly addressed a problem with it.

I will be back though and address it myself as well.

Very well... I await to see how it can be problematic.
Not saying that evolution does things in the most perfect way... just the way that works, so problems are bound to exist.

[Joods]

So, no one really answered my post. I'd like to know if I was correct or if I need some clarification.

[robvalue]

Alrighty, well. You say it's important to know this.

But I'd still like to know what practical difference it makes to anything. If you didn't know it, what difference would that make? Would your behaviour be worse, and if so in what way? I imagine you've pretty much always believed this, so would the perceived differences be realistic, or based on what seems like a jarring new world view?

I certainly don't know it or even believe it, and I'd be interested to know what I'd gain if I did.

[Joods]

Alrighty, well. You say it's important to know this.

But I'd still like to know what practical difference it makes to anything. If you didn't know it, what difference would that make? Would your behaviour be worse, and if so in what way? I imagine you've pretty much always believed this, so would the perceived differences be realistic, or based on what seems like a jarring new world view?

I certainly don't know it or even believe it, and I'd be interested to know what I'd gain if I did.

Well, actually, there is a good example of it making a big practical difference. Objective vs Subjective make a huge difference when you are looking at a child's IEP. This is the best example I can come up with for the objective vs subjective debate. Remove the word "morality" from the scene and let's just focus on the words objective and subjective for a moment here. 

An IEP (Individualized Education Plan) is a plan written up for a child with developmental delays. It is carried out and implemented in school. There are various parts to it, but where the objective vs subjective parts come into play are with how the short term goals and the benchmarks that the child needs to reach during the school year are measured. 

If a child has a reading goal that looks like this: "Johnny will reach a second grade reading level by the end of the school year", and it is followed by a short term benchmark of this: "Johnny will learn 20 new vocabulary words every other week", then it is up to the IEP team, to determine HOW the benchmark and the goal will be measured. 

If the idea is presented that they will be measured by observation through the teacher (we'll call this Idea A), then it is subjective. 
If the idea is presented that they will be measured through tests and quizzes twice a month, showing a graph of progress (we'll call this Idea B), then it is objective. 

The difference here is huge because Idea A relies solely on teacher opinion, in other words, what the teacher thinks and what the teacher sees. It is subjective to her opinion. The child could be having a bad day, as some children with developmental disabilities often do. That bad day could happen during a time when the teacher is observing the child during a reading class and the child doesn't feel like participating. This is problematic because the child could very well know those vocabulary words, but because they are having a bad day, any real progress made is going to get an inacurate assessment from the teacher. 
Idea B comes from measurable testing of the child's knowledge of the words. Many IEP's are written so that the annual measurable goal, is measured objectively. This is mainly due in part because of changes to the law called IDEA.  (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act). Parents were concerned that their children were just being pushed through the system without actually making progress so the IEP's were changed to reflect the Annual Measurable Goals must be measured through objective means such as charting progress and continued testing. 

Most times, these children are working with teacher aids, other people in the classroom who are there to help the teacher out. My daughter has an aid who works with her throughout the entire day. Some days are better than others. Some days she is cooperative and stays on task. Other days, she's not as willing to do her work and is quiet. This is the main reason why subjective measuring doesn't work. It relies solely on what the teacher thinks and observes and is therefore, not accurate. 

I know, this has nothing to do with objective and subjective morality, but in a way it does. Because if the morality is subjective, the only way it can be measured for it's goodness or badness (is that a word?) is through the opinions and observations of others, largely, society. If morality is objective, then one can assume that there are laws built around that morality. If one breaks the law, it can be documented properly. 

I hope I worded that right.

[robvalue]

Sure, I see what you are saying. Thanks for the explanation I agree that when you have useful, agreed objective standards, these are more reliable than judgement calls in many situations.

I don't see how "objective morality" is supposed to make someone a better person, though. Sure, someone could write down a bunch of rules they have to follow. But who gets to write it down, and who says those rules are the best ones?

If you're doing an action "because it's objectively moral", and not because it's a conclusion you've come to yourself, then you're being amoral. It's mindless obedience. Any set of nonsense could be written down, and becomes a form of "objective morality". Unless multiple people all agree on those principles, it isn't of any use as far as I can see. And even then, everyone interprets principles and situations differently. Covering every possible scenario is monumentally impractical. It would amount to something resembling computer code. People will either ignore it when they disagree, or be forced to live by it (theocracy). This is different to laws, which aren't meant to reflect morality at all.

For one thing, I've never heard anyone explain how you can objectively bring animals into morality. How much do they matter, in relation to humans? How much are their lives worth? How much does their suffering matter, compared to human suffering? How much is their happiness worth, compared to ours? I'm suggesting there is no correct answer to this. The answers range from "don't matter at all" to "matter as much as is practically possible".

[Joods]

You are right Rob. And I agree with you. I guess I was trying to figure it all out and the only way I could cite an example was to take a page from an IEP but yes, two totally and completely different things.

Thank you for educating me about the morality part of it. I've always had trouble trying to understand exactly what it was.

[Brian37]

I am tired of mental masturbation really. Nobody needs a religion to know it is wrong to physically harm others or steal from them. Our species ability to be cruel or compassionate is in our evolution. Unfortunately BOTH work, so our collective morality is simple, seek to avoid harm to others as much as possible and and seek cooperation as much as possible. Everything outside that is politics, and when I say politics, that is every ideology that gets political, including religion and economic views, and no, sorry those ideas are HIGHLY SUBJECTIVE.

To view morality as set in stone is sick. If our species never questioned social norms our species never would have left the caves. It isn't that anyone is or should claim there is no right or wrong, that is not what anyone is arguing. But every action humans take have to be in the context of the individual and case by case.

But no, you don't need to believe in old books and myths to understand nobody likes being physically harmed and nobody likes living in fear of others. But unfortunately our species also evolved to be selfish and narcissistic and while that can lead to survival, it also leads ideas to get political, both religion and economic views, and that may help one group survive, it also pits one group against another.

No, it is NOT a call to end any religion or disagreements, that is impossible on a planet of 7 billion. But no, this argument of "objective" morality and "moral relativism" is not going to work. Harm is harm and pain is pain and nobody owns a patient on that but nobody should be able to hide behind it either to justify doing harm to others.