Atheism and Ethics

[Sheldon]

If something is mind independent it exists even if no one is aware of it, it doesn’t require a mind for it to be real, such as the colour red does.

Colour is a bad example, since "it is a function of the human visual system, and is not an intrinsic property. Objects don't have a color, they give off light that appears to be a color. Spectral power distributions exist in the physical world, but color exists only in the mind of the beholder. Our perception of color is not an objective measure of anything about the light that enters our eyes, but it correlates pretty well with objective reality."

I agree that morality is subjective, I don't see how it can be otherwise. the best one can hope for is a broad consensus, but if we pick something almost everyone would eschew as evil, it would remain a subjective claim. 

It doesn’t matter whether anyone things torture for the shits and giggles is wrong;it just is regardless of what people believe. 

I wonder if anyone thinks they can demonstrate objective evidence to support that idea? I must say I am dubious, but will keep an open mind. NB I think causing unnecessary suffering is wrong, I can even reason why, what I cannot do is demonstrate it is objectively true. I also think morality is relative as well as subjective, again I am happy to adjust my position if any objective evidence suggests otherwise. 

It's worth noting that even if someone could demonstrate sufficient objective evidence that a deity exists, and that it had offered divine diktat on morality, these would remain subjective. 

If everything resolves down to a question of harm grounding morality then it seems something important has been missed off.

Well for a start we would need to distinguish between necessary and unnecessary, a surgeon caused me harm, but it was to prevent a worse harm, no one I suspect would view those actions as immoral, suggesting again that morality is relative. 

My apologies for the clumsy quoting, but I can't find a way to use the quote function just for selected text, and editing the whole post is frustratingly clumsy. hopefully I will become more adept at this, as the links to the original post are useful for clarity, while quoting small parts of it are useful for brevity.

[Lucian]

I feel your pain with the quoting. Using my iPhone is painful on it. I will try to work it out better tomorrow and reply properly

[The Grand Nudger]

So this mind independent thing is a sticking point for me and I seem to be misunderstanding something. If something is mind independent it exists even if no one is aware of it, it doesn’t require a mind for it to be real, such as the colour red does. So the way I have employed it almost everything in the universe is mind-independent. I am however denying that there is anything that can be called a moral standard that is such as that. A belief in such a thing does seem to run through most moral realist stuff I have seen so far, eg. It doesn’t matter whether anyone things torture for the shits and giggles is wrong;it just is regardless of what people believe. 

Well, I thought we'd agreed on at least one objective standard?  You and I both accept that a thing can be objectively harmful regardless of whether or not someone get's a kick out of it - that a thing can be objectively harmful regardless of personal or public ignorance.  No?

Also, I totally get that metaethics isn’t giving an answer to any one question, and I don’t think I am trying to make it do that. Whether it can be grounded in some natural phenomenon, such as harm, is relevant to a discussion of metaethics as not all positions argue for that, and the issues and argument differ depending on whether that is being argued for

When I talk about harm I often refer to natural harm.  I do this because I think it's the simplest (and easiest) to establish..particularly here at af.  Lotta naturalists.  I'm a naturalist too.  It doesn't have to be.  A harm basis (like moral realism) can be natural or non natural or a mix.  A harm basis can also fail to be objective.  Can be a misreported fact - wrong about what it claims - correct about something else.  They can be relative, they can be subjective.  

I don't want to pigeonhole harm basis to just my preferred set of harm bases.

Re the immorality point. I was trying to get at the fact that an explanation of moral actions that do not function as a reduction of harm do need discussion. If everything resolves down to a question of harm grounding morality then it seems something important has been missed off.

Value monism vs value pluralism.  Pluralist myself (descriptive and normative) - harm and help..at least.  There are lots of other options - the majority of which have content "missing" from my preferred system, for sure.  There's not much to do in general but acknowledge that this is true...and also kind of the point of metaethical objectivity.  If and insomuch as my preferred system has  "moral" content - as opposed to the "immoral" content of morality - that'd be in the help column.

So, if we were to look at the idea that we should add a third, and a specific third - loyalty, and to a transactional god, I would (descriptively) say that loyalty helps your situation, your people, your world, your god and disloyalty harms it. This is the basic truth claim, however expressed or reported in moral assertions to this effect, rightly or wrongly. Normatively - I'd have to reject loyalty to a transactional god as good or bad in and of itself even before we get to the nagging bit about there being no gods...because I don't have enough facts to make that determination. Loyalty to what - what does this loyalty entail, what's it have in mind...right? Do I have to march over to the neighbors house and rape his wife, or just tickle his kids?

-just an example, not a question I expect you to answer.

[Lucian]

So this mind independent thing is a sticking point for me and I seem to be misunderstanding something. If something is mind independent it exists even if no one is aware of it, it doesn’t require a mind for it to be real, such as the colour red does. So the way I have employed it almost everything in the universe is mind-independent. I am however denying that there is anything that can be called a moral standard that is such as that. A belief in such a thing does seem to run through most moral realist stuff I have seen so far, eg. It doesn’t matter whether anyone things torture for the shits and giggles is wrong;it just is regardless of what people believe. 

Well, I thought we'd agreed on at least one objective standard?  You and I both accept that a thing can be objectively harmful regardless of whether or not someone get's a kick out of it - that a thing can be objectively harmful regardless of personal or public ignorance.  No?

i actually think we disagree that this is a standard. Harm is indeed measurable and objective, but harm itself is not a standard it is a matter of physics chemistry and biology. A standard can be applied to it, where more harm is bad and less harm good, and luckily we both subscribe to that. The question of whether that standard is down to a moral realist conception of morality being accurage though is the dispute. I mentioned it being objectively bad regardless of what people think earlier as an example of a typical moral realist position that I have heard / read.

A harm basis (like moral realism) can be natural or non natural or a mix.  A harm basis can also fail to be objective.

That is an interesting point I had never considered. Much like I am a hybrid non-realist never really considered that realists can be hybrid also. 

 just an example, not a question I expect you to answer

PHEW

[Lucian]

If something is mind independent it exists even if no one is aware of it, it doesn’t require a mind for it to be real, such as the colour red does.

Colour is a bad example, since "it is a function of the human visual system, and is not an intrinsic property. Objects don't have a color, they give off light that appears to be a color. Spectral power distributions exist in the physical world, but color exists only in the mind of the beholder. Our perception of color is not an objective measure of anything about the light that enters our eyes, but it correlates pretty well with objective reality."

Sorry, communication of forums is not my strong point. I was saying that colour is not such an example of a mind-independent property, the bad comma placement gave the other reading. I was trying to say that I don’t believe all thing are mind independent but definitely see some things as in that category.

 I agree that morality is subjective, I don't see how it can be otherwise. the best one can hope for is a broad consensus, but if we pick something almost everyone would eschew as evil, it would remain a subjective claim.

glad we agree on that broad point

 My apologies for the clumsy quoting, but I can't find a way to use the quote function just for selected text, and editing the whole post is frustratingly clumsy. hopefully I will become more adept at this, as the links to the original post are useful for clarity, while quoting small parts of it are useful for brevity.

try opening two instances of the forum, one that you are editing the reply on and the other you can copy and paste from, then use this guide https://atheistforums.org/thread-3560.html Seems to work for me on a mobile device this morning

[Angrboda]

Everything is mind-dependent because everything is an idea in the mind of God. Prove me wrong!

[Disagreeable]

So I guess there can be moral facts if we define morality as being about wrongness and wrongness as being about harm.

Right.

But it seems tautological and just an arbitrary definition.

I have no problem with it being tautological because that just means it's true by definition.

I don't agree that it's an arbitrary definition, though. I think it's a definition that makes sense of moral language. When people talk about 'right' and 'wrong' . . . harm seems to be the topic.

Why should I care about harm (I do, but by what standard should I).

Well under my system of morality being about harm, to say you should do something just means that doing it decreases harm. So the question you are asking is "Does caring about harm decrease harm?". The correct answer is probably "sometimes". But it's a practical ethics question, rather than a metaethical question.

Perhaps that is not a mind independent (non-institutional) categorical imperative, and if so fine I get on board with it and fail as much as the next man and succeed hopefully at least as well.

Well good!

But to be moral realist to me is to say that this isn’t just a matter of definition, it is a matter of a property (of the universe?) that exists, that our actions can live up to or fall short from.

And the property of harm exists. We just have to start with definitions. We always have to start with definitions.

We don’t think that there are objective standards about tickling (apart from the way my brother bullied me with it as a child and might explain a lot), so why think there are standards about harm

Because there are moral facts about what is most and least harmful. There are also facts about what tickles us. But the difference is that tickling is not a plausible definition of wrongness. But harm is. It's about making sense of moral language. That's what metaethics is about!

[Disagreeable]

Harm seems to reduce to instrumental utility, in which case, why isn't instrumental utility a measure of moral right and wrong.  If it's not, it's hard to see what harm offers that utility doesn't.

Why do you think that harm is instrumental rather than intrinsic? I'm not saying that harm is harmful for some other reason. It's harmful in itself.

Everything is mind-dependent because everything is an idea in the mind of God.  Prove me wrong!

I have sometimes pondered this because cosmopsychism is sometimes intuitively attractive to me. But ultimately I see no reason why there is one big mind above the very many smaller minds. So I don't believe in God. We know there are many smaller minds. We don't know that there is one big one.

And even if I did believe in God, I'd still think that religion was very harmful. Nothing is going to make me follow a religion.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, I thought we'd agreed on at least one objective standard?  You and I both accept that a thing can be objectively harmful regardless of whether or not someone get's a kick out of it - that a thing can be objectively harmful regardless of personal or public ignorance.  No?

i actually think we disagree that this is a standard. Harm is indeed measurable and objective, but harm itself is not a standard it is a matter of physics chemistry and biology. A standard can be applied to it, where more harm is bad and less harm good, and luckily we both subscribe to that. The question of whether that standard is down to a moral realist conception of morality being accurage though is the dispute. I mentioned it being objectively bad regardless of what people think earlier as an example of a typical moral realist position that I have heard / read.

I'm using it as a standard, and it's easily the most common standard on earth.  You think "an objective standard can be applied to it"... I have to ask, what do you think realism is saying if not that?

[Lucian]

i actually think we disagree that this is a standard. Harm is indeed measurable and objective, but harm itself is not a standard it is a matter of physics chemistry and biology. A standard can be applied to it, where more harm is bad and less harm good, and luckily we both subscribe to that. The question of whether that standard is down to a moral realist conception of morality being accurage though is the dispute. I mentioned it being objectively bad regardless of what people think earlier as an example of a typical moral realist position that I have heard / read.

I'm using it as a standard, and it's easily the most common standard on earth.  You think "an objective standard can be applied to it"... I have to ask, what do you think realism is saying if not that?

Ok, we are talking past each other
Harm exists. I agree. 
We can say we ought to minimise harm unnecessarily and that we can apply a standard we can morality against such actions. Wonderful
We can say that this is some sort of binding principle true regardless of what people believe.  Balderdash; no such binding principle exists. 

There is the disagreement in an oversimplified form between a form of moral realism and someone who denies it like I do. Moral realism without that latter part and a discussion of normative force (not normative ethics) just isn’t moral realism as far as I understand it, and perhaps that is just me being ignorant