Objective Morality, Anyone?

[xpastor]

What is objective morality?

The only explanation that I've seen that is even remotely applicable is the Christian idea that whatever god says is moral is moral. I don't think that is objective morality (since god's directives change) as much as it is absolute obedience. Communities and societies define, and many times re-define, what constitutes moral behavior. I cannot imagine that there has ever been a community or society that did not modify its moral standards over time, assuming they lasted more than a week.

I think that these days, the term is mostly used to reinforce the laughable idea that without god, men would become "immoral beasts."

The thing is that beasts are not immoral. Each species has its own code of behavior. It's been shown that many species (including our own) have a couple of inborn evolutionary adaptations, namely empathy and a "debt calculator" which often result in philanthropic or other-regarding actions. The phrase debt calculator is from Dawkins; it involves keeping track of favors to repay them but also guarding against freeloaders who take without giving.

So objective morality is probably not an accurate phrase, but innate or species-wide morality is meaningful. Not to say there are not a few rare individuals who seem to be born without the appropriate neural circuits just as some people are born with visible physical deformities.

Of course, for humans at least, there are also culturally imparted morals, which can be worse than the inborn morality (e.g., overwhelming empathy with a notion that Jews or blacks are evil) or better in that empathy is extended to a wider range of people. I believe that we also (like chimpanzees) have an innate suspicion of individuals from outside our own group. The Enlightenment of the 18th century had a great deal to do with extending our ideas of empathy and fair play to all of humanity.