The Stage is Yours.

[Mystic]

What exactly do you mean when you say "for morality to be objective". This seems to be what motivates your entire argument. In what sense do you feel morality must be objective?

What is moral actually seems quite contingent to me. We are the only sapient species we know so it is pretty hard to know whether what we deem to be moral must apply to all such creatures. (Apparently we don't think it applies to non-sapient creatures since we harvest these for food without batting an eye.)

If we were not a gregarious/pack sort of animal, what counts as moral might be very different. If we lived an orangutan like existence only meeting our own kind very rarely to mate, our moral concerns would be different.

If we were the only creature on a planet we would have no choice but to be cannibals and it would never occur to us that there was any option but to eat one another. If such creatures were sapient, it is doubtful that our sense of morality would fit their circumstances very well at all ... and yet they may well have their own moral sense.

I suggest that what is moral is contingent on the nature and circumstances of the creatures involved. If there was no life in the universe morality would have no existence either. It wouldn't float around as a disembodied potential. In a universe full of life, the form morality takes might well vary.

You mention rape as a universally, morally repugnant act. But for snails it is the only way they mate. There is no courtship or consent. As hermaphrodites when any ready to mate snail meets any other snail, it's on. Each impregnates the other as well as shooting rather nasty (and sometimes fatal) barbs into each other. Now, did God create an abomination in the snail, or do moral considerations vary with the creature involved? Do you think we are the only creature on this planet for which morality is in play?

I would say many animals have things that resemble what we consider morals, but really, should not be classified as morals, because they are acting on instinct. For example, they care about one another often, but this caring is not thought about, why they should do it, if they should do it, it's simply instinct.

Likewise their mating ways are all based on instinct. They do experience love, caring, bondage, and I understand even have the "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" approach...but what's the difference with humans?

Here is the difference. Our conscious is more developed, that we can question, "why should we act on these feelings"...or we even get to chose how we feel to a degree over issues, and we make judgements over issues...as our conscious is more developed, it needs our morality to be based on something higher then simple instinct developed by evolution...For there is no reason why we should give in to evolution instincts, no reason why we should care about well being of human race which is often the fundamental component of an ethical system, but we know there is a reason, there is something commanding us to do so, and not just "I feel I want to" way, but "you really should do" way. Animals don't think why they do what they do, they don't need to, their concious is not that developed.

So animals I would say don't have objective morality, because they simply acting on instincts, even though some of these are love, compassion, empathy, etc...

However, you are right that morality is often situational, but this doesn't deter it from being objective. For x situation with y factors, z should do c and would be morally wrong not to do c. This an example of an objective moral fact. But without the situation, it would not be universal.

So going back to the premise, it would mean God cannot determine for x situation, with y factors, z should do c...rather he must always know that in x situation, with y factors, z should do c.

So it is dependant on situations, but I would say, it's possible we have "instinct" to rape, and feel nothing wrong with it, but it's not possible to be given moral conscious at the level we have it, and then feeling that it is ok, to the same moral fabric we have that makes other things wrong.

As for our moral conscious, the level we have it, which is not like instinct of animals, it needs to be based on an eternal basis and linked to a metaphysical absolute authority. Otherwise, it will appear as a delusion and there would be no reason to give in to it, because we don't simply have to give in to instincts.