My views on objective morality

[LadyForCamus]

Because thanks to evolution, biology, and genetics, I feel empathy.  Empathy drives most of us.  

Empathy is one of many emotional responses to circumstance. People also feel fear, anger, contempt, and loyalty. In-group loyalty is a particularly strong evolved emotional response and often at odds with empathy. By what criteria do you priviledge empathy over all other evolved responses?

Have we not seen anger, contempt, and loyalty all at play within organized religion?

[LadyForCamus]

If I have to choose between acting in accordance with my empathy despite the fact that it may be confounded by other evolved responses, and what some book says "God" tells me I should do (even though there is no official consensus on how said book should be interpreted), I'm gonna go ahead and say my empathy is probably more efficacious. Thanks.

[Neo-Scholastic]

What I hear you saying is that reason cannot override our innate desires moral judgements.

Fixed.

Your correction amounts to about the same thing. It treats moral judgements like involuntary reflexes that cannot be questioned. On the other hand, if you are saying that wisdom is not easily gained then I most certainly agree. Part of moral reasoning is to question and temper snap judgements.

[Neo-Scholastic]

If I have to choose between acting in accordance with my empathy despite the fact that it may be confounded by other evolved responses, and what some book says "God" tells me I should do (even though there is no official consensus on how said book should be interpreted), I'm gonna go ahead and say my empathy is probably more efficacious.  Thanks.

All you are doing is criticizing a straw man. You avoided giving an answer. It will not do to make vague references, like most atheists do, to evolution and empathy without acknowledging other evolutionary responses or justifying why reproductive-advantage is a moral virtue.

[LadyForCamus]

If I have to choose between acting in accordance with my empathy despite the fact that it may be confounded by other evolved responses, and what some book says "God" tells me I should do (even though there is no official consensus on how said book should be interpreted), I'm gonna go ahead and say my empathy is probably more efficacious.  Thanks.

All you are doing is criticizing a straw man. You avoided giving an answer. It will not do to make vague references, like most atheists do, to evolution and empathy without acknowledging other evolutionary responses or justifying why reproductive-advantage is a moral virtue.

No...you asked me why I privilege empathy over other evolutionary responses. My answer was 'I don't'. What is your point?

[LadyForCamus]

Kind of feels like you are the one strawmanning me.

[Whateverist]

Subjectivity doesn't speak to the truth or falseness of a claim. It speaks to the basis of the claim, the epistemology of it.
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Of course a subjective claim can be true.  That doesn't mean it is any less subjective. In my subjective morality, murder is always wrong. That happens to coincide with your allegedly objective view. So clearly, you would agree that this subjective claim of mine is true, even though you might think I am right for the wrong reasons.

My understanding is that subjective means there is no right or wrong answer.

You'll have to take my word for it because I can't prove it but saying morality is subjective definitely does not mean there is no moral right or wrong in my universe. 

I can say "rape is evil"... that's objective because it is fact. Other people can say rape is good, and they are making an incorrect statement by doing so. They can say all day long "rape is good, rape is good, rape is good", it doesn't matter what they think/say, they are still wrong.

Notice you are no longer saying "rape is objectively evil according to my Catholic beliefs". Now you seem to be saying that what you say is evil is evil because it is an objective fact. That makes everyone of us moral subjectivists have to ask exactly how you in your subjectivity get hold of the alleged objective moral facts? Does believing there is a God who decides what is moral objectively bestow the power to know the difference to those who believe in that God? Is every Catholic a moral genius on this account?

It would seem that the most you are in a position to say is that "rape is objectively evil" in case my religious beliefs are true.. We all have to assume that your position for recognizing the truth is no better or worse than any of ours. If indeed there are objective moral facts you must at least explain how you arrived at these from within your human subjectivity.

[Catholic_Lady]

Hi, I don't have time to answer any more posts right now, but just wanted to come by and say I'm sorry for the snappy/short responses I've made to several of you. Kinda disappointed in how I've handled things and wanted to apologize.

[Angrboda]

Fixed.

Your correction amounts to about the same thing. It treats moral judgements like involuntary reflexes that cannot be questioned. On the other hand, if you are saying that wisdom is not easily gained then I most certainly agree. Part of moral reasoning is to question and temper snap judgements.

Can you reason your way out of thinking murdering an innocent is wrong, or that fairness is right?

We can't always see the entailments of our moral judgements and it's our understanding of the entailments which we must temper as we are, or can be, wrong about those entailments. But the moral foundations come to us like immovable pillars within which we must fit our moral reasonings.

[bennyboy]

Hi, I don't have time to answer any more posts right now, but just wanted to come by and say I'm sorry for the snappy/short responses I've made to several of you. Kinda disappointed in how I've handled things and wanted to apologize.

My advice is this: if you are going to present arguments, be ready to present arguments.  Do your homework.  Take a more serious interest in the Catholic dogma.  Read more books.  Go to college if you haven't already.  Or just sit down with a cup of tea and think things out as deeply as you can, on your own.  But if your arguments are going to hold interest to anyone outside your church bridge club, you'll have to find a little more depth.  You simply haven't had enough to say about the OP to merit making it, in my opinion.

I hope you WILL do some of those things I just said, because you're clearly clever, and you are quite brave even being here and trying to carry a thread of your own.  Maybe you will be the first one who can make sense out of your religious ideas for people like us.  But so far, we're not there yet.