Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?

[Soberman921]

In an objectivist view, the same thing it does in a universe bursting with life in principle.  Things don't have to be alive for us to feel as though defacing them is an issue of moral import, though we do tend to limit moral responsibility to those agents we deem competent, all of which, so far as we know...are alive.  

Conceptually, defacing a mountain isn't not-bad because it's just lifeless rock, and we might hold a person accountable where we don't hold a flash flood..though we may also believe people to have been negligent if some preventable natural disaster effects the same outcome.

That we are here to apprehend all of this is a given - but, again in an objectivist view, even without any witness, nothing about an act itself changes.  This is what's meant by objective morality.  That the bad making properties of x are properties of x...rather than properties of the observer y.  Saying that people apprehend good and bad and sentient creatures must be present to apprehend at all - full stop, is not equivalent to saying that the bad of x is due to those creatures' y(s) apprehensions.

Or, tldr version..it's not because I saw it that curbstomping an infant is bad, or anything about me at all.  Moore would contend....in the same context, however, that any competent moral agent y who did see an infant curbstomped would notice the bad of that x.  This is moral intuition, as described.  What sorts of things do you reference when you want to assert that a given x is bad?  Your personal opinions, your taste or appetite for x?  Is there anything that you think is so bad..rather than explain it to a person questioning or skeptical, you'd just say  "let's take a walk, I'll show you, and you tell me what you think"?

The issue I raise isn't that morality requires sentient observers. It's that morality requires actions by sentient agents in a universe in which their actions can affect other sentient agents. It is not surprising that the example you give on which you can expect moral agreement, the curbstomping of babies, involves a sentient agent and sentient target. Your example of rock defacement requires at least a sentient agent, as you acknowledge we don't attach moral import where this occurs through natural processes. Give me an example of something you find intuitively "bad" from a lifeless universe. If you can't, you should agree that morality requires subjects.

My view is that morality only makes sense in reference to certain goals that must be agreed upon. Humanity has a common interest in human flourishing and the avoidance of pain. If we can agree on those as goals, then we can discuss actions that objectively lead to those goals. Our moral intuitions generally align with those goals, which I attribute to millions of years of evolution in which those without such intuitions would have been at a survival disadvantage. If I am arguing for the morality of an action, I would either seek to obtain agreement to these goals or assume such agreement and argue how the act furthers them. Curb stomping babies furthers neither goal but in fact is contrary to both.

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What would math mean in a lifeless universe? What would science mean? There would be no math or science in a lifeless universe. Remove all life from the universe and you wouldn't have things like math or science. That doesn't mean those enterprises aren't objective.

As it turns out, morality is often (if not always) concerned with the welfare of living beings. If you remove all living beings, then you remove the object for moral concern. Think about it like this: if you removed all gravitational bodies from the universe, would that mean there is no gravity? Gravity as we understand it currently has to do with distortion of spacetime as it interacts with massive objects. That property may be a property of space.

I see where you're coming from... just giving a counter argument.

In philosophy, most ethical theories strive to be objective. In hedonistic utilitarianism, you have an objective (even empirical) approach to what right and wrong are. The question is: is hedonism a correct moral theory? And how do you determine if it's correct or not? It's hard to come up with a moral theory that can survive rigorous scrutiny. But the reason I like to argue for moral objectivism is that the competing theories, moral nihilism and moral subjectivism, also begin to crack and fail when subjected to rigorous scrutiny.

Math and science would still exist in a lifeless universe because these are words we use to describe how matter and energy work, and wherever there is matter or energy, we can describe them with math and science. We may not be there to do so, but that in no way means they wouldn't apply. Morality is different because, as you acknowledge, sentient agents and subjects are required for morality. It makes no sense to speak of morality in their absence. The equivalent for gravity would be removing all spacetime, in which case I say that yes, there is no gravity since gravity is a function of spacetime. What are the cracks you see in a subjective view of morality as I describe it?