Objective Morality?

[theVOID]

You would need to help me understand that. Independent of what a person exactly means when they refer to morality, it still would seem to me to be an abstract, at least I have never heard a of a concrete instantiation of morality in the universe. And that is the point for me, without the framework of ethics talk of morality is meaningless as any abstraction needs a framework in which to 'exist'. But existence within a framework is not existence as we know it. Thus I would be forced to conclude that morality doesn't exist. But people and their actions clearly do, and what we at least know through study is that given time, cultures adopt certain values some shared and most not. But again I am not aware of any value that has been consistently shared throughout time/space.

'Moral good' and 'moral bad' are no more abstract than 'good' and 'bad' are in regards to subjective value, they are all evaluative terms that measure some quantifiable change in a system, in the latter it's quantifiable changes in an individual as they experience phenomenon that thwart or promote their desires/pleasures and in the former it's quantifiable changes in multiple individuals as they interact. Something being 'morally good' to me simply means that when two value systems interact there is a net increase in value, such as the act of voluntary charity, it promotes the values of both the person giving and the person receiving - both their values exist, moral language is simply a set of evaluative terms to describe the result of an interaction.

You don't need values to be "consistently shared throughout time/space", nor do you need to consider the change in cultural values over a length of time or some framework. Moral theories that use frameworks often end up with the problem of the framework being arbitrary.

Take the following example; In a society where water is extremely scarce bathing would be morally bad, consuming water in such a way would be an action that has a negative impact on the values of other people to have enough drinking water, so in such a scenario bathing would be condemned because the availability of water would be more valuable than the negative experience of smelling someone else's stench, contrast that to a society with an abundant supply of water, in that circumstance not bathing would be an act that would negatively effect the values of the other people to avoid foul odours and seeing as there is abundant water the value given to water is low.

I agree that it does not exist in the concept that a theist would purport that is exists. However, objective morality may exist on some level. It may very well be the smallest of platforms, but I think it could be argued that it does exist. I don't know of any society (correct me if I'm wrong) that has ever endorsed random violence (killing) of its own people or a society that has ever excused all forms of murder, rape and theft. There does seem to be a general consensus the world over of a very basic nature that opposes violence when it is unchecked and unwarranted within it's own group.

Something being a consensus opinion doesn't make it objective, all you are doing is multiplying the values of individuals and if you're concluding from that "rape is morally wrong" you've got little more than an argument from authority/popularity.

Even the majority of captured serial killers (and of course there are exceptions) who admittedly do not understand why they killed for no reason understand that what they did was wrong on some level. Could this not be argued as objective morality?

No, it's still individual opinions/attitudes.

The understanding that unwarranted violence is inherently wrong seems to be a global phenomenon.

Nothing is "inherently wrong", it's only wrong relative to the subjective values of the people experiencing it.

Ruling out war and all things associated with conquest and even slavery, there seems to be a basic platform of object morality that may very well have never been defined but exists none the less.

Still not objective

Perhaps a natural ancient survival instinct ... "If I kill indiscriminately, I will be killed." or maybe, "I do not kill my own kind, cause we need each other to survive." Perhaps this concept became the platform we now call morality. Just theorizing at this point. All I'm saying is there seems to be a general sense of objective morality that seems to be at the core of all the subjective morality - which of course, is where you get the supernatural input. God gets to take the credit for all morality when in reality, the object morality platform is simply a result of millions of years of evolution.

I generally make a distinction here between "morality" and "evolved social/consequential dynamics", the former is an evaluation of a interacting values, the latter is the product of selection pressures. If we all evolved to prefer the colour green and thought that saying we like blue more would get us locked in an orange box (and nobody liked orange) then it would be just the same as our evolved sense not to kill indiscriminately would put an individual in a situation where killing would get them killed (which nobody likes), giving them reason for action to abstain from killing and giving people who fear being killed reason for action to condemn murder.

Take this example for instance; We evolved to avoid pain and self harm, but someone who chose to hack off their own foot (or the foot of a willing participant) could not be said to be doing something "morally wrong" even though they may be doing something contrary to evolved values.