Objective Morals+

[John V]

Oooooookeeeey, I'm confused then. Perhaps you can help me understand what you are saying when you said:

Sure. Suppose you adopt a utilitarian model of morality, and I adopt the harm principle. These choices were subjective. However, the results they each produce are constrained. So, I said that subjective is not equivalent to anything goes. It can be anything goes, but isn’t necessarily.

Now the hypothetical "king" (hereafter, KT for short) that you referenced from TA's post was described as such:

King Theist, decrees that all women are property, have no rights at all, and are basically slaves to Males. King Theist proceeds to decree that homosexuality is a such a heinous crime, that anyone who is caught gets executed, same with aldultery, speaking out against the King, or his government, ect. King Theist is also a child molester.

So, correct me if I got anything wrong here, you seem to suggest that KT's "morals", which include slavery, persecution and child molestation, are equal to TA's morals, which seem to condemn such things. You said TA "can't prove" that his morals are "more sound" than KT's. You accused TA of the logical fallacy of "appealing to emotion".

Really? Are you serious?

Yes. If you could prove it, you’d do so, rather than repeating it and expressing incredulity.

In reality, not all subjective evaluations are equal. Some are better supported by objective data and rational argument than others.

Part of a debate is batting around different subjective evaluations of our world. We do so by offering objective facts to support our subjective evaluations, hopefully to discard weaker subjective evaluations (those not supported by facts or rational arguments) in favor of stronger ones.

Let's take the "King Theist" example. You said TA can't prove his morality is more sound than this hypothetical child molesting king. How about showing the damage that child molestation does to the victim?

As noted above, I’d ask you to prove that the harm principle is objectively the correct foundation of morality.

How about discussing how the child's rights are violated? How about arguments that involve "The Social Contract" (i.e. "how would you feel if that happened to you"). I think TA would be able to make a strong case that his subjective evaluations are stronger and better supported than KT's.

You should have stopped at harm. By mentioning other systems, you’re showing yourself that you don’t know that one is correct.

I would interpret this as a stronger subjective evaluation better supported by the objective data but I dislike semantic quibbling so I will just accept your definition for now...

OK, so morality can be discovered then with sufficient wisdom, right?

So morality exists independent of God, potentially discovered by anyone with sufficient knowledge (i.e. "discovered") and rational capacity (i.e. "all reasonable people")?

No, not to my knowledge.

If just ONE person would come to the same conclusion, it demonstrates that morality can potentially be discovered with sufficient knowledge, which answers my question.

No, that simply demonstrates that subjective does not mean arbitrary and unique.