My views on objective morality

[Thumpalumpacus]

Thanks for the reply, CL. I'm on my phone and can't comfortably give your lengthy post the attention it deserves, but I will when I get home. 'Til then!

[Rhondazvous]

Objective morality has been discussed many times on these forums, and many times by me. A lot of times I feel like I have a hard time trying to explain objective morality or why objective morality makes sense to me, which in turn helps make the existence of a god make sense to me. It isn't the only reason by far, but it is part of it. 

I saw this short video today and thought Kreeft summed up all my thoughts in a way that I never felt I could accurately do. 

I don't agree with the part where he says people "think they are atheists", but as for his explanation of morality, I couldn't have put it better myself. 

https://www.prageru.com/courses/religion...-evil-come

Whether you agree or not, it's still an interesting issue to discuss.

Hey CL,

I won't argue about whether or not humans need objective morality. The argument could be made that maybe we do. But where you lose me is when you try to say that god provides this objectivity.

You are catholic, so when you say god, I feel safe in assuming you mean the Christen god. I find this problematic on 2 points.
1. It means objective morality only for Christians. Which defeats the whole purpose. We can’t have a moral standard that excludes the vast majority of people on this planet and call it objective.
2. Even within Christianity, there has not been a consensus of what is and is not moral. Throughout history, the Church has been like a chameleon about what it considers sin. Within the Bible, moral standards are quite arbitrary. The idea that some Christians do not hold to sola scriptura only erodes the claim that god provides objectivity even further.

[Silver]

My objective morality is better than your objective morality.

[Whateverist]

My objective morality is better than your objective morality.

Yeah but mine is objectively better.

[God of Mr. Hanky]

My objective morality is better than your objective morality.

Yeah but mine is objectively better.

Well, mine is bigger!

Whoops, wrong forum!

[Thumpalumpacus]

I feel very confident that it is. Of course, there is always the chance that I could be wrong. But let me put it this way, I feel as confident in my beliefs as I am confident that my husband loves me. Could I be wrong about my husband loving me? I mean, sure... anything is possible. but I feel confident enough that he loves me to the point where I am ok with saying "I know my husband loves me." Same thing applies to my religious beliefs. I feel confident enough to say "I know God is real, I know He gave us free will, I know He is love and goodness, and that anything outside of that is immoral." How do I know? How am I so confident? Again, it is not something that can ever be summed up in a forum post. The short answer is, given everything I have experienced/seen/learned in my life, has led me to believe what I do. 

Does you belief in objective morality stem from your faith in your god? If you lost your faith, would you still believe in objective morality?

If you are referring to when God literally talks to people in the Old Testament, I don't believe that ever happened. I believe Jesus is God, and I believe in what He taught us about morality - doing good for others as we want them to do for us, loving others as ourselves, and forgiving our enemies, etc. I believe that is the basis for all of morality.  

Does that not require interpretation, which of necessity involve subjectivity?   

I'm not trying to explain why anyone else should believe as I do. Also, there is no way I know of to convince anyone. I think it's something that a person would need to conclude for him/herself based on their own understandings. I don't understand how that ties in to objective morality though. Perhaps you can clarify?  

Your OP seemed like you were trying to explain why you accept morality as objective. Is not your belief that morality is objective a belief?

I disagree that one cannot convince another of certain things and that morality is one of those certain things, myself. I think if morality is objective -- if it exists outside of human experience and is simply a fact of the Universe -- then I should think that as with any fact, its factuality would be demonstrable. I know that if you could demonstrate its factuality, I would be forced to revise my views so that they comport with objective reality.

How do you know that what has been revealed is actually your god's mind, and not some human interpolation subject to the fancy, whim, and error that accompanies such an endeavor?

My answer for this is the same as up top (the why are you Catholic question, basically). I think the first part of my response works to answer this.

[/quote]

But your Catholicism is based on your personal (which is to say, subjective) experiences.

[robvalue]

There's so much confusion over language.

What does morality mean? If it means what a particular person feels is right and wrong, then clearly it's subjective. It makes absolutely no sense to say it's objective. It's not, unless you want to claim everyone agrees about every moral position.

So what's left? What other morality is there, except the morality individuals have?

We can have societal norms. These are what is generally accepted. But these are entirely dependent on the society itself, and so they are again subjective.

What's left after this? Idealised versions of morality. Possible moral systems that could be followed, if we knew what they were. Anyone can pick any arbitrary one of these they like, by just making it up, and follow that. If everyone decided to do the same thing, follow that same arbitrary group of rules and never ever change them, then we would have an objective morality of sorts (although individuals would still interpret principles subjectively) out of an infinite possible number of choices.

So... what is left after all that? The objective morality? The only way this makes sense is if it's the best version of objective morality. Surely, that is what theists actually mean. If they don't, I literally have no idea what they are talking about, and are denying how reality works.

What does it mean to be "the best"? How can we possibly compare two things, of any description, without a criteria?

What is morality supposed to achieve? Unless we specifically agree on this question, "best" is meaningless. The idea that it's "obvious" is exactly the problem. It's not obvious. Everyone has their own slightly different ideas about what goals if should achieve. And as such, the "best" morality would depend, subjectively, on those goals.

So now, what could possibly be left... the best goals? How can you possibly decide what are the best goals... you'd need a criteria for the goals. Where does that criteria come from? Who decides it? How can a goal be objectively the best one, when a neutral universe doesn't care about anything?

Of course, theists are desperately trying to pin this all "on god". He's external, and so it's a standard that doesn't change (although we actually have no idea if he changes or not). However, something that doesn't change isn't necessarily good. In the case of morality, I'd say it's a hideous and dangerous failing. If your only goal is to follow one arbitrary set of rules set out by an external being, you're a mindless automaton. If you don't come up with your own goals for morality, you have no way of knowing whether you're achieving anything except following instructions.

If you do come up with your own goals, and apply your own filter to these rules, then the rules themselves are irrelevant. They are merely a mirror for your own standard by which you judge the rules. In other words, "I do what God says, as long as I was going to do it anyway".

[robvalue]

It's dinging it's way up the tube! It's dinging it's way up the tube! Ding dong, bing bong, it's dinging it's way up the tube.

I had another thought:

If the Catholic Church says you are free to interpret the OT literally or metaphorically, does this mean the CC doesn't know whether it is literal or not? They have a guy who can talk directly to God, yet he hasn't managed to settle this crucially important detail? What are they talking about instead, carpet fibres?

[bennyboy]

What are they talking about instead, carpet fibres?

Which altar boys are the most "naughty" and need to be spanked?

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

I feel very confident that it is. Of course, there is always the chance that I could be wrong. But let me put it this way, I feel as confident in my beliefs as I am confident that my husband loves me. Could I be wrong about my husband loving me? I mean, sure... anything is possible. but I feel confident enough that he loves me to the point where I am ok with saying "I know my husband loves me." Same thing applies to my religious beliefs. I feel confident enough to say "I know God is real, I know He gave us free will, I know He is love and goodness, and that anything outside of that is immoral." How do I know? How am I so confident? Again, it is not something that can ever be summed up in a forum post. The short answer is, given everything I have experienced/seen/learned in my life, has led me to believe what I do.

See, I was reading this and I immediately thought,she has evidence to show for the love of her husband but what evidence does she have to show for the love of her God?