I'd add that not only is that not a good example to object to moral realism with, moral realism can produce clarity otherwise lacking in it.

It may not be the case that stealing bread "turns moral" when it's for a starving child, even if we allow it as morally permissible.  Exclusively sub optimal courses of action or outcomes -moral dilemma- is exactly the sort of thing an objective morality can solve..that a subjective morality simply cannot.  There is no such thing as resolving a floating difference of opinion.

So, faced with nothing but shit ways forward in the situation set up, we might pick the one that causes the least damage.  If we starve a kid, they die.  If we steal a loaf of bread...someone will be deprived of a loaf of bread.  The "lesser of two evils" bit is only cogent if one of those evils actually is lesser.

A moral realist can continue, if it happens to be the case that both evils are equal (say, you're stealing the bread from a person in the same starving kid situation), and if both evils are profound...a persons moral agency is compromised. They are wholly in the wrong, they may know it or they may not...but we understand why they did what they did and it may be that they could do no other thing...our notions of what they deserve on account of it are modified.

Stealing a loaf of bread - immoral.
Stealing a loaf of bread for a starving child - morally permissible
Stealing a loaf of bread for a starving child from a starving child - immoral.

I'm interested to see whether or not that describes anyone's moral intuitions better than a simple moral/not moral..and additionally whether something like that - which does possess an objective justification..is taken by some to be a demonstration or moral subjectivity or relativity?

(October 15, 2018 at 11:42 am)MysticKnight Wrote: It's an oxymoron.

Actually, it's an identity.

I keep hearing are that morals are conditional ( even if called objective). Sorry, having conditions attached makes them subjective. 

I looked for a list of objective morals and could find none. Seems christians are about as inclined to give a list as they are to define god.

I have to be honest at this point-- I really don't understand what an objective moral might even be. It seems that any kind of objectivity or realism is just the imposition of outside influences on my actions. . . but an imposition based on OTHER people's subjective feelings and ideas about the way the world should be or how people should act.

Can someone give a super-simple example of objective morality, not buried under semantics or rhetoric?

I just saw this post by outtathereligioncloset on an intro thread.  I thought it might apply here.

(October 17, 2018 at 6:25 pm)outtathereligioncloset Wrote:

Unless one can vouchsafe for oneself that what you do is moral, it having been anointed as the objective moral truth really isn't sufficient.

(October 17, 2018 at 6:53 pm)Whateverist Wrote: I just saw this post by outtathereligioncloset on an intro thread.  I thought it might apply here.

(October 17, 2018 at 6:25 pm)outtathereligioncloset Wrote:

Unless one can vouchsafe for oneself that what you do is moral, it having been anointed as the objective moral truth really isn't sufficient.

It's a clever slogan. But it's foolish slander.

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(October 17, 2018 at 6:51 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Can someone give a super-simple example of objective morality, not buried under semantics or rhetoric?

Ethical axioms are unprovable but self-evident, like those in math. Objective morality is when we apply those axioms in a disinterested and unselfish way.

Axiom: flourishing of living things is good.

Application: chopping the arms off of healthy babies for fun is bad.

(October 17, 2018 at 7:42 pm)DLJ Wrote: (unless you are Belaqua)

Hey, it's OK with me. As long as he's clear about it.
It's not like word definitions are universal and eternal... what's the word for that?