There is no objective Morality

[Violet]

Why would rape be objectively wrong? I think that the only thing your disagreement with it proves is that objectivity is nonsense for you (and you are a subjective being).

Any suggestion of objectivity would, by necessity, be subjective, wouldn't it?

No.

After all, an objective statement of a thing's objective place in the world is, by definition, not subjective.

But we'd probably think that is was the ravings of a madman, and it probably wouldn't make any sense to us And then we'd go and say that the objective truth is total nonsense, because clearly we know best

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPpn6Nt3veo

[Ryantology]

Any suggestion of objectivity would, by necessity, be subjective, wouldn't it?

No.

After all, an objective statement of a thing's objective place in the world is, by definition, not subjective.

But we'd probably think that is was the ravings of a madman, and it probably wouldn't make any sense to us And then we'd go and say that the objective truth is total nonsense, because clearly we know best

No, I mean, specifically, the suggestion of objectivity. There are easy examples of objectively* true statements such as "Breathable air is necessary for humans to survive", but that can be demonstrated (or are theoretically demonstrable).

I wouldn't argue that demonstration, right now, today, is necessary to label something as true outside of subjectivity, but on a subject such as morality, how can any single combination of behaviors constitute an objectively 'moral' code? Doesn't someone have to make that call (even if that someone is God), and does that not destroy objectivity?

*or, as near as makes little difference

[Violet]

Given enough technological advancements, it's wholly possible that we will not need breathable air. The suggestion of objectivity would depend upon where it comes from... and how one would answer 'is an objective view also a subjective view?'. When pressed, I'd hesitantly answer 'no' on the basis that even were it observed by an individual, the objective view would remain wholly apart from a subjective interpretation of that objective view... and that even were both the reality and the interpretation identical: why would it mean anything more than any other interpretation of the universe? Points on hitting the nail on the head... don'cha feel special?

The term you're looking for is intersubjective, or 'that which seems true for both my world and yours'. It might be that you're making everything intersubjective up, and that you are the objective observation of the universe as there is only you... but if you're party to the belief that other people exist independently from you, and it is also true that you are a part of everything (and not the whole): intersubjectivity then has meaning.

Such intersubjective things as science, for instance

[Tonus]

Given enough technological advancements, it's wholly possible that we will not need breathable air.

Or evolutionary advancements. I, for one, welcome our nitrogen-breathing overlords.

[Simon Moon]

Mmmmmm... no. I don't think so.

"In many cultures rape is treated as a crime against the victim's husband."

Those cultures wouldn't happen to be the ones that let their religious dogma override their natural inclinations to be empathetic, would they?

[jstrodel]

Without making any kind of judgement of whether objective morality exists or not, I hope you all agree about this one proposition:

1. If objectivity morality exists, to deny that it exists is one of the worst possible crimes

Would anyone dispute that statement?

---

Quit often , i have heard theists and atheists arguing and debating about how a deity and evil can simultaneously exist. Many people during their daily lives assert ‘so and so is evil’ or the acts of a certain person is evil. The fact is, across history and across varying cultures on our planet, although murder and other acts are universally evil, there is so much of morality which is entirely subjective. Thus…what actually constitutes morality?

To give you a practical example, take the below cell. You can have two positive electrode potentials, but the least positive one will be the negative terminal, i.e the one donating the electrons overall.




So why can’t we find anything concrete like this in morality?

Why is this relevant? Evil and good are all relative.

As an atheist, you are obliged to accept there is no objective morality. Any kind of moral act has some sort of evolutionary benefit to promote survival. Richard Dawkins agree’s with me on this, in addition of a plethora of atheists.

Let me break it down further:

As an atheist you believe humans are complex organisms made out of trillions of cells, each cell made out of many more atoms ect. You arose through a process of random mutation and natural selection. There is no good or evil: there are only acts which promote survival, and acts against survival. This is the ‘scale’ by which you can compare good and evil.

Thus, there is nothing objectively wrong with rape. However, rape destabilizes society. To an atheist, a stable society grants benefits in terms of survival, so it is in ones interest to not rape. There is nothing objectively disgusting about it, but it is ‘immoral’ because of it’s consequence ultimately on survival.

Furthermore, the scale by which you measure morality is survival. If a deity chooses to give eternal life for the finite one we live here, this nullifies the ground by which anyone can say ‘ x is good’ or ‘x is bad’. Thus, the argument for evil disproving God really is superfluous. If your morality is coming from acts which benefit your survival, eternal life for any suffering in a finite one, even according to atheistic morality is a positive ‘moral’ act because you end up surviving -forever.

This Quote sums it up rather neatly:

The thesis: “conscience, the seat of our moral sense, evolved as a survival mechanism. When…we feel guilt because we have harmed a sibling, it is because we have thereby imperiled the proliferation of our genes. When we feel guilt because we have harmed someone outside the family circle, it is because we have potentially damaged our own (survival enhancing) status.”

The Moral Animal–Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology , by Robert Wright, published by Pantheon Press

How do you know to base good and evil and survival? What if someone thought to base it on the number of people that they killed?

[Sagasa]

What makes their culture 'outmoded' or 'misguided' any more than your own?
You seem to have struck the upon the 'heartless asshole' argument all on your own.

What makes their culture outmoded and misguided? How about the fact that they treat women as mere property upon which rape is treated to be an insult to their supposed owners: the husbands?

If you think a culture that thinks of its women that way is good, then I can see that we're not going to find any sort of common ground here.

I wasn't aware rape had the power to 'destabilize' society unless it becomes systematic, at which point the eating of oranges also upsets the 'stability'. Rabid orange fanatics, I swear.

Some of us are moved, others of us are not. Why do presume you can speak for all of us?

I don't even know what possessed you to somehow relate rape and oranges together. I'm going to assume that it's lack of sleep. If you had actually read the post, you'd notice I was replying to the claim that rape is bad purely because it destabilized society. I said it didn't. It was bad because it hurt the victim. Now if you don't agree with that, that the victim isn't actually hurt by the rape, then you're a terrible person.

Does it really matter if some hooker gets raped? Surely some studies must have shown that only fanatical college kids and your occasional feminazi give two shits what happens to people they don't know, and never will know. Because murdering, raping, theiving bastards aren't human, right? They couldn't be, since nonrapeymonsterness is clearly a universal human trait, as can be seen clearly with your average porn site. And wars never happen, I mean: get real, dawg!

What exactly is your point here, that humans can be bastards? Yes, we can. But we also display the capability to be emphatic, to recognize injustice even over cultural boundaries, that we can recognize when an act is horrible and should be condemned.

Further, how does being law-abiding matter? And why are you assuming that everyone I might care to name is either 'moral' or 'law-abiding'? Yeah sure, we all follow them thar assassin's credes and the pirate's code!

Please read the damn thing before actually replying to it. I'm saying that because a lot of theists think that atheists don't have any absolute authority in moral matters, they claim that nothing prevents us from going around murder-raping everyone we can get our non-believing claws on. I said that no, because if that were the case, we would in fact go around doing that and we don't. Isn't that an indication that atheists can be just as moral and law-abiding as any other Joe on the street?

*Edited for grammar issues.

[Ryantology]

Without making any kind of judgement of whether objective morality exists or not, I hope you all agree about this one proposition:

1. If objectivity morality exists, to deny that it exists is one of the worst possible crimes

Would anyone dispute that statement?

Thoughtcrimes are your problem, not ours.

[Jackalope]

Without making any kind of judgement of whether objective morality exists or not, I hope you all agree about this one proposition:

1. If objectivity morality exists, to deny that it exists is one of the worst possible crimes

Would anyone dispute that statement?

Thoughtcrimes are your problem, not ours.

Not to mention that it would be a victimless crime.

[jstrodel]

How is deceiving people a victimless crime? To say that rape is culturally defined as a bad thing, how is that a victimless crime? It only becomes a crime when someone chooses to rape. What if the country institutionalizes rape?