My views on objective morality

[Thumpalumpacus]

For my two cents, our moral faculties exist in our subconscious and are not amenable to change by consciousness.  Our moral judgements come to us from the depths of our being.  Since we don't have access to the formation of our moral judgements, they appear to us as fixed and objective.  They are semi-fixed, being the product of culture, genes, and development, as well as our current experiences.  So moral judgements are not subjective like tastes in ice cream; they are more durable than that.

When you write, "our moral faculties exist in our subconscious", what do you mean? That they are simply below perceptual levels? If that's your point, I definitely disagree. If you're saying that their construction lies so deep in our past that we don't comprehend their origin, then I can see that there are plenty of folks who never dig that deep -- but there are enough who do that it throws doubt on your point.

I agree that they are more durable, in the sense that it is harder to change them. But -- perhaps accidentally -- you've raised another really nice point about moral subjectivity, which is that moral sensibilities can and do change within an actor (or judge) over time ... which again points to the fluid nature of morality.

[Thumpalumpacus]

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

Can you define "innocent" without invoking subjective judgement?

[robvalue]

This is another way of presenting the problem with "objectively morality" based on god. It probably has a name, but let's call it Probvalue's dilemma

Would you do absolutely anything god told you to do?

If no, your morality is not based solely on God.

If yes, you're a highly dangerous person who could turn into a mass murderer after having a hallucination.

I suspect that most people who say "yes" are actually thinking "no", but they realize that saying "no" will invalidate their beliefs. Only those who are prepared to utterly dispense with their humanity would follow any command blindly.

[LadyForCamus]

[...] without acknowledging other evolutionary responses or justifying why reproductive-advantage is a moral virtue.

You'll need to first explain how evolutionary advantage has a moral dimension at all.

Yeah, this exactly. Or why he seems to think reproductive advantage is the only facet of natural selection for that matter.

[LadyForCamus]

This is another way of presenting the problem with "objectively morality" based on god. It probably has a name, but let's call it Probvalue's dilemma

Would you do absolutely anything god told you to do?

If no, your morality is not based solely on God.

If yes, you're a highly dangerous person who could turn into a mass murderer after having a hallucination.

I suspect that most people who say "yes" are actually thinking "no", but they realize that saying "no" will invalidate their beliefs. Only those who are prepared to utterly dispense with their humanity would follow any command blindly.

Or they will say "God would never ASK me to do anything immoral like kill someone," which is just them projecting their own subjective feelings onto God.

[LadyForCamus]

It's just like when mystic says no possible world exists where it is moral to torture a baby over and over for eternity. They don't realize they are simply invoking their own personal judgements of right and wrong and laying it on God; saying "God would never do that because I believe it's a horrible thing that my God would never do."

[Losty]

This is another way of presenting the problem with "objectively morality" based on god. It probably has a name, but let's call it Probvalue's dilemma

Would you do absolutely anything god told you to do?

If no, your morality is not based solely on God.

If yes, you're a highly dangerous person who could turn into a mass murderer after having a hallucination.

I suspect that most people who say "yes" are actually thinking "no", but they realize that saying "no" will invalidate their beliefs. Only those who are prepared to utterly dispense with their humanity would follow any command blindly.

Or they will say "God would never ASK me to do anything immoral like kill someone," which is just them projecting their own subjective feelings onto God.

That's the thing though, they get to do that. All religious people only believe in their own specific version of God. If they find out God doesn't match up to it then he's not the god they've been worshipping. I remember saying that a lot to other Christians growing up "not my God".


I'll have faith in God so long as he matches up with my own standards for the bare minimum of what a God must be. If not then he's not my god and I'm not interested.


It actually makes sense to me and it seems the smartest way to be religious.

[robvalue]

This is another way of presenting the problem with "objectively morality" based on god. It probably has a name, but let's call it Probvalue's dilemma

Would you do absolutely anything god told you to do?

If no, your morality is not based solely on God.

If yes, you're a highly dangerous person who could turn into a mass murderer after having a hallucination.

I suspect that most people who say "yes" are actually thinking "no", but they realize that saying "no" will invalidate their beliefs. Only those who are prepared to utterly dispense with their humanity would follow any command blindly.

Or they will say "God would never ASK me to do anything immoral like kill someone," which is just them projecting their own subjective feelings onto God.

Yes! Perfect. I've heard this cop out many times. So the person already knows what is immoral and what isn't, and god has nothing to do with it. The fact that they often can't even consider the hypothetical for a second (some people really can't) shows how firmly their subjective morals have been plastered all over what they think is god.

[LadyForCamus]

Or they will say "God would never ASK me to do anything immoral like kill someone," which is just them projecting their own subjective feelings onto God.

That's the thing though, they get to do that. All religious people only believe in their own specific version of God. If they find out God doesn't match up to it then he's not the god they've been worshipping. I remember saying that a lot to other Christians growing up "not my God".


I'll have faith in God so long as he matches up with my own standards for the bare minimum of what a God must be. If not then he's not my god and I'm not interested.


It actually makes sense to me and it seems the smartest way to be religious.

Unless you're a crazy psychopath who thinks your God is telling you to murder every non-Christian in your path! Sadly, it works both ways.

[Jenny A]

For my two cents, our moral faculties exist in our subconscious and are not amenable to change by consciousness. Our moral judgements come to us from the depths of our being. Since we don't have access to the formation of our moral judgements, they appear to us as fixed and objective. They are semi-fixed, being the product of culture, genes, and development, as well as our current experiences. So moral judgements are not subjective like tastes in ice cream; they are more durable than that.

My initial reaction to this was to nod and say true, true. But after thinking it over, I'm not so sure. My taste in ice cream isn't of any real import, but although it changes over time, I don't think I made a conscious decision to prefer coffee to my previous favorite chocolate chip vanilla. And I don't think I could have made a conscious choice to change my preference, though I could certainly have chosen to eat coffee instead of vanilla chocolate chip for for some reason other than taste. And if I did, I might have grown to prefer it.

But I think I not only can, but have made changes in my moral judgments based on conscious reasoning or conscious learning. Some examples include coming to the conclusion that there is nothing morally wrong with being homosexual, a conscious change made thirty years ago, based upon reason over gut feeling. The reasoned change now feels like a gut instinct. More subtle, are the gut feelings I have about legal ethical issues such as exparte communications, since I learned that particular set of morals in my twenties in the classroom. At the time some of them felt intuitively wrong. But these too now feel like a gut instinct. Finally, when I look at past moral structures now inimical to our current one, I can immerse myself in that world view and read without gut level moral disgust, about events that would disgust me if they were contemporary events.

I don't think I'm unique in this.