Atheists only vote please: Do absolute MORAL truths exist? Is Rape ALWAYS "wrong"?

[DeistPaladin]

It confuses me.

Perhaps I wasn't clear.

I want to argue this. It seems to me that "objective" is the opposite of "subjective,' not of "relative." I don't see why you couldn't have objective moral rules that were relative, the same way as we have objective-but-relative rules about how fast an astronaut's watch is ticking.

I probably did confuse you because I don't disagree, as you seem to think I do. In fact, I was arguing for subjective-and-universal rules for morality. The OP, like most theists using the moral argument, tends to conflate "objective" with "universal" or "absolute". Like most theist apologetic arguments, it relies heavily on a false dilemma between "either our god determines what is moral or anything goes and who can say really what is right or wrong."

Getting back to why I consider morality "subjective", consider that in our discussions of morality, there are some implicit assumptions that can't be objectively proven:

• Life is preferable to death
  
• Pleasure is preferable to pain
  
• Health is preferable to disease
  
• Wealth is preferable to poverty
  
• Justice is preferable to injustice
  

etc.

It's kind of like that survey I once saw for consumer behavior in one marketing-strategy class I took back in business school. Consumers were asked why they pick a certain product. Then they were asked a follow up question "and why is that important to you?" and then another follow to that answer "and why is that important to you?" and so on until finally the consumer just answered "it just is", at which point we know the consumer's ultimate objective.

Why do we prefer life over death or pleasure over pain? We just do. It's in our nature. Where our actions impact the life, well-being, happiness, etc. of others, questions of morality apply.

By the end of your post, you seem to be suggesting that objective things are those that can be measured.

...assuming we have enough knowledge and accurate measuring devices, yes. By definition, at least as I understand it, is objective means "not subject to opinions, values or judgment". So, it's measurable then?

Okay, now I get to disagree with you. Lots of people believe the world really exists (not just inside your head) but that moral claims are not truth-apt.

OK, how about relativism to me only makes sense if you also waste time wondering if the outside world is real. I say this because actions have consequences in the real world. It genuinely confounds me that someone can seriously observe barbaric religious practices that clearly result in increased misery and decreased joy in life and decide it's not less moral but just a matter of culture.

So why aren't you calling morality objective?

Objective data used to support a subjective evaluation doesn't make the subjective matter objective.

Example:
Two politicians in a hypothetical country are debating one another, one is the incumbent and the other a challenger. One says the economy is great the other says the economy is in terrible shape. The incumbent uses the lower unemployment rate to back his assertion that the economy under his administration is in great shape. The challenger points out that the inflation rate is higher than when the incumbent came into office. Both are using objective data to support their subjective evaluations.

When we say things are "good" or "bad", we are using our judgment and comparing it to our values (subjective). When we measure things using units of measure, that is objective.

First, I'm going to recommend The Moral Landscape, by Sam Harris. It got me past this notion that we can't measure the effects of moral rules. If you look at the moral landscape thru a wide-angle lens, it becomes obvious that some rules are better than others.

I'm fond of Sam Harris' work. I have not read the book you mention but he did write on the subject of morality in "The End of Faith" and "Letter to a Christian Nation". I think we may be tripping up over semantics more than anything else.

Which is pretty much what you conceded in your previous paragraph: Different moral systems have different effects, and sometimes its obvious which rules cause flourishing instead of suffering. We can tell this objectively.

But why is flourishing preferable over suffering? This is a value. The objective data shows us the most effective path to reach our value but that doesn't make our values objective.

There's no point in bemoaning the fact that you don't have a spreadsheet number out to six decimal points on the question of whether the Sabbath should start at sunset the day before, when we know for a fact that ripping out clitorises is painful and denies people sexual satisfaction.

...and this too is about values. We value life. We value liberty. We value the pursuit of happiness. We see suffering and our sense of empathy compels us to relieve it. Our sense of the social contract (as we are evolved as community animals that depend on one another for survival) tells us that this is wrong because we wouldn't want it to be done to us. Our sense of justice tells us that it is wrong to do unto others as we wouldn't want done unto us.

These are all emotional values. There's nothing wrong with that. Just because something is "subjective" doesn't mean that all opinions are equal in merit or that one society that promotes suffering with its culture has an equally valid moral code to one that promotes happiness.

Since we do have some objective moral facts, it isn't right to conclude that morality is subjective just because there are other questions that we don't have answers to.

That's not what I've said. It's not the lack of knowledge that makes something subjective. It's the fact that it grows out of values rather than numbers. Morality is the domain of philosophy, not science.

We don't call meteorology subjective just because there are some things weathermen can't plug into their spreadsheets.

But meteorology does involve data and forecasting based upon it. Temperature, barometric pressure and precipitation are all measurable in numbers. Forecasting, while not always precise, involves looking at trends in the objective data. Like it or not, whether you think it "good" or "bad", it's raining outside. The rain is an objective reality.