General question about the possibility of objective moral truth

[Michael Wald]

Hello to everyone

I have a general question about moral: The discussion between religious people and atheists often turns around the question if someone needs to be believer in order to follow moral rules.
In my opinion an atheist can be as much a person of high moral standards as a religious person (and some atheists can even have a higher moral standard than some religious people). Just to say that right at the beginning.

Now I would like to ask: Is from an atheistic point of view a moral conviction like "killing of people is morally wrong" an objective fact? Or is it a social convention, which means it is a subjective view?

Thanks for any answers!

[Chad32]

Morals are subjective. Is it ever ok to kill someone? Most people would say yes, meaning it's subjective. The bible seems to give more examples of when you can kill someone, than when you shouldn't. What determines when it's ok can be based on objective data. If you're stuck in a corner, and it looks like someone is going to have to die, or get seriously injured, then it might as well not be you.

Objective things exist in this world. Right and wrong are not objective, but you can use objective means to figure it out. As a social species, there is a need for us to work together. We have rules for getting along, and one of the basic ones is don't kill each other. This tends to break down the father you get from your group, though. Strangers get dehumanized to the point where almost anything is acceptable if there's motivation for it. Torture is at the extreme end of this.

There's objective data saying that torture isn't constructive. I can get you to say anything I want to hear if I inflict enough pain. Despite this, many people say it's justified somehow. their morality is different, because they refuse to see what studies show.

[ignoramus]

Welcome...
Search the forum. It's been done to death. We're all a little fatigued by this topic.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

From the point of view of the atheist I know best, ALL moral rules are subjective, but that doesn't mean that they don't merit following.

To cite your specific example, I agree that killing people is generally morally wrong, but there are instances where killing a particular person in a particular circumstance is morally justified.

Boru

[Pyrrho]

Hello to everyone

I have a general question about moral: The discussion between religious people and atheists often turns around the question if someone needs to be believer in order to follow moral rules.
In my opinion an atheist can be as much a person of high moral standards as a religious person (and some atheists can even have a higher moral standard than some religious people). Just to say that right at the beginning.

Now I would like to ask: Is from an atheistic point of view a moral conviction like "killing of people is morally wrong" an objective fact? Or is it a social convention, which means it is a subjective view?

Thanks for any answers!

The question of whether morality is objective or subjective is a separate question from whether there is a god or not.  One could take any combination of opinions on this subject.  Indeed, suggesting that morality depends on god strongly suggests that morality is merely a subjective whim of god, rather than something actually objective.

[Faith No More]

Welcome to the forum.

Social convention. I'm reading "Touching a Nerve" by Patricia Churchland right now, and she talks a lot about how humans are blank slates when it comes to morality. We pick up what is right and wrong from social cues and our parents. Churchland often cites(she's actually citing another author) the Inuit people, which have drastly different morals in certain areas. In that culture, if you eat the flesh of another human being, even if you did to keep from starving, you are to be killed. There was a case mentioned in the book where a woman ate her husband that had died and fed some to her child, and an elder from the tribe strangled them both. What he did was considered a moral action to their people.

If you grew up in a society where killing people was acceptable, you would also most likely believe that killing people was acceptable. I think, however, the reason we like to think of not killing someone as objective is due to many people's strong belief in inalienable rights, and taking a life is an extreme violation of those rights. We can see, though, from studying isolated cultures that morals vary greatly.

[Chad32]

Just try not to fall into the trap of thinking something has no value just because it isn't the end-all answer to everything. There was a time where the supposed author of morality was apparently more concerned with what people ate, wore, and who they had sex with, than to really solve the problems of Humans being treated like chattel. I was in a discussion with another user named Rekeisha, where he just kept reapeating that because morality isn't absolute, there must be no value to it. It got so irritating that I just gave up on the discussion.

[Natachan]

Before we talk about the question of making moral judgements of good or bad we need to first establish what morality is. The question takes it for granted that morality is understood by all, and I don't think that's right. So what is morality? It is a determination as to how things fit into certain value sets. Let's say I value human life. As such a moral action would be one that would promote that value of human life. If I don't value human life, then I have no reason not to kill people. As such I would not find it immoral to kill someone. You might disagree with me, and there we have a conflict.

Is either party OBJECTIVELY right? Well, in the sense of "does some external force give a damn" then the answer is no. Neither party has a more valid set of values in this particular situation. However we as humans have evolved as a cooperative social species. Those of us who don't value life don't generally live to tell about it. Those of us that don't value positive social structures generally don't survive to reproduce. As such you could say that we share a similar set of values that lead us to generally similar moral judgements.

[paulpablo]

Hello to everyone

I have a general question about moral: The discussion between religious people and atheists often turns around the question if someone needs to be believer in order to follow moral rules.
In my opinion an atheist can be as much a person of high moral standards as a religious person (and some atheists can even have a higher moral standard than some religious people). Just to say that right at the beginning.

Now I would like to ask: Is from an atheistic point of view a moral conviction like "killing of people is morally wrong" an objective fact? Or is it a social convention, which means it is a subjective view?

Thanks for any answers!

Didn't read anyone elses answers but...............

There is no atheistic point of view about moral convictions, "killing of people" isn't an objective fact and it's very rare for it to be socially conventional, it is subjective though.

 Additionally I doubt that Christians believe killing people is morally wrong because that would make the God of the bible one of the most morally wrong beings to ever exist.

[Whateverist]

Now I would like to ask: Is from an atheistic point of view a moral conviction like "killing of people is morally wrong" an objective fact? Or is it a social convention, which means it is a subjective view?

It is a fact that there is a huge amount of consensus regarding the unacceptability of murder. Of course, what ever standing you or I may give it, the psychopathic killer doesn't care. But I don't think objective morality is entirely coherent.