RE: Is it true that there is no absolute morality?
March 4, 2017 at 9:40 am
(This post was last modified: March 4, 2017 at 9:41 am by Mister Agenda.)
I think objective morality is commonly taken as there being things about the universe that can make at least some moral claims objectively true (or false). I think that leaves room for variation, a moral claim that is true for the octo-aardvaark people of Life Mother Star 12 may not be true for humans because of our different natures and situations. So I don't think objective morality means universal or absolute morality. It would mean that it's possible to say that one action is more or less moral than another for a particular person in a particular situation, and that saying that could be true.
You could have a logical morality based on at least one axiom. like Harris's 'human thriving'; but since the axiom can be rejected, there doesn't seem to be a way to escape from subjectivity. It could, however, be objective in the sense of the moral arguments derived from it being unbiased and impartial except for the assumption that human thriving is good. It may be worth noting that the axiom 'reality is real' can also be rejected, so we can dispense with the idea of objectivity entirely unless we're willing to concede an imperfect 'middle world' that allows for relative instead of perfect objectivity.
You could have a logical morality based on at least one axiom. like Harris's 'human thriving'; but since the axiom can be rejected, there doesn't seem to be a way to escape from subjectivity. It could, however, be objective in the sense of the moral arguments derived from it being unbiased and impartial except for the assumption that human thriving is good. It may be worth noting that the axiom 'reality is real' can also be rejected, so we can dispense with the idea of objectivity entirely unless we're willing to concede an imperfect 'middle world' that allows for relative instead of perfect objectivity.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.