[Serious] Good vs Evil

[Smaug]

There are great many examples that show that moral behaviour is formed by the society and lifetime experience.

True. But this merely shows how a moral sense usually develops. It says nothing about whether moral ideas may be correct or not.

Let me ask you: Do you think science is objective? What about math? You don't have to answer "yes." There are theories which say that math and science do not produce truth statements... they are (ultimately) useful fictions. And there is more to these theories than just raw skepticism. Mathematical fictionalists make some pretty strong arguments against mathematical statements having any real truth value. It is an issue worth exploring, but (on the face of it), it appears that math and science ARE capable of producing truth statements (ie. it is true that the Earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa... it is true that that --in Euclidean space-- the square of a triangle's hypotenuse is equal to the square of the other two angles.)

In short, despite arguments to the contrary, I am working with the assumption that math and science qualify as "objective"... that is NOT fictional and NOT a matter of opinion. If you agree with me here, then I can proceed with my arguments. If you do not agree that math and science are objective, then I see no way I can show you that morality is.

With this in mind, let's examine your premise: "Moral behaviour is formed by the society and lifetime experience." As I said before, I agree with you here. There is no disputing this. But let's wind the clock back a couple thousand years and examine theories of nature of different people. The Greeks thought that thunder and lightning were caused by Zeus. The Hebrews might have thought that it was Yahweh expressing anger.

With these two facts in mind, one could formulate the following premise: "The theory of the origin of thunder and lightning is formed by one's encompassing society." While this IS true, it has no bearing on the fact that there is a more correct objective theory of the cause of thunder and lightning out there to be discovered. Over the centuries, we have worked out the water cycle and electromagnetism and thus have produced an objectively more accurate theory of the cause of thunder and lightning.

Why I stress 'survival'. Certain types of behaviour are results of an organism pursuing some goal. In Nature the only global goal known to science is survival (and procreation which is part of it), if I haven't missed something out of course. Life as a whole strives to survive, species struggle for survival and on the lowest end are the individual organisms. This global goal breaks apart into smaller goals each of them generating certain types of behaviour. With simplier loner ogranisms this stays relatively primitive. Hunt, eat, evade predators, find a mate etc.

I wanted to respond to the rest of what you wrote, but I'm short on time. So let me address the point of the instinctual origins of morality, and if you want to continue discussing the sociological dimension, we can.

Again, I'm going to invoke the objectivity of math and science. Like morality, a primitive form of math and science existed in early hominids/homo sapiens. The ability to distinguish poisonous berries from edible ones, the foresight to horde food and prepare for winter, the tracking of celestial bodies across the sky and naming them after gods etc-- these could be viewed as rudimentary attempts to understand nature (the "nub" of science, if you will.) Such inclinations are rooted in survival and instinct and ARE the product of millions of years of evolution. Modern science is nothing more than a more systematic --and less error prone-- version of this same primal inclination to understand facts about our surroundings.

So the argument could be made that, just like morality, science is the product of evolution. So what? Does that mean that there isn't a correct way and an incorrect way to do science? Does this mean that scientific facts are really just opinions?

The same could be said for math. The ability to do simple math helped our survival. We built on this ability to distinguish quantities and made geometry and algebra... So math is also is the product of evolution.

Millions of years ago, our ancestors used rudimentary logic to aid them in hunting/gathering. It might have went something like this:

1) I saw the rabbit run toward the bush. But then I lost sight of it.
2) As I approached the bush, I heard a rustling from the bush.
3) THEREFORE, the rabbit probably ran into the bush.

This IS logic. And evolution has given us the ability to use it. The thing is there is an objectively right way to use logic. Our innate abilities of reason are often fallacious. So (with the help of the ancient Greeks) we began to figure out the objectively correct way to use logic.

What I propose is this: our moral inclinations ARE the product of evolution. But these inclinations can be in error sometimes. Therefore, as rational beings, we ought to search for the objectively right way to determine moral truths... which is the same thing we have done with science, math, and logic.

Again, thanks for clearing out your opinion. Now I can say that I fully agree. Maybe I misunderstood what you meant under relativism. I view this term in a more 'physical' way, such as dependapce upon initial values or upon choice of coordinate system. Maybe philosophers put something different into it.

In fact my main point was that moral behaviour as any other type of behaviour has certain underlying objective goals (survival being the most general of them). But different types of societies have somewhat different ways of pursuing their goals. I guess it can be assumed that there is some kind of optimum. Although saying that there is a single optimum in such a complex problem is extremely far-fetched. In this interpretation it can be said that such an optimum is objective since it is a property of an objective process of life. Although it may not be stationary, actually.

For many thousands of years the search for such optimums was almost blind. Hence all the gruesome extremities we have. But since the birth of philosophy the search gradually became more systematic and logical.

Speaking of science, if we're talking about human constructs it's the best we have in terms of objectiveness.