Objective Morality, Anyone?

[Mudhammam]

Hmm. Ok then.

I'd be happy if you could demonstrate what makes suicides objectively wrong in ending their lives. I just don't think it's possible.

If a person doesn't value their own life, what could you possibly say to them? At least when a person is acting selfishly you have some grounds to work with.

[tor]

I'm cool with suicides. Freedom to me is most important of all.
But burning other people alive seems to be very very wrong in objective sense.

[Tonus]

So everybody has an opinion. How do we settle it? With tanks and helicopters?

That's how humanity has done it, for the most part. Even today, different nations have different laws. Each society or community is going to tailor its laws (whether legal, ethical, or moral) so that these promote the survival of the group. I think that if there was a true objective morality, at least some components of it would be evident throughout recorded history, but most of recorded history seems to follow the us/them or protect-the-pack pattern. Burning someone alive? Moral, if the person is a witch. Ripping out the still-beating heart of a young man? Moral, if it makes the rains come.

[xpastor]

If morals are subjective what arguments you gonna propose against lets say bullying? Bullying comes from evolution.
Lets say there is a continent on which bullying is considered fine thing. How are you gonna argue against it?

First of all, I will go with the people who are saying that objective morality is not the best term for what you are talking about.

I would suggest a term like "nearly universal morality." I think I have already discussed my reasons for this, but I will repeat briefly. Morality is based on certain impulses implanted by the evolutionary process. They are part of the equipment of the normal human being just as two legs are. However, we have to use the qualifier "nearly" because a few individuals (e.g. psychopaths) seem to be born without any sense of morals as other unfortunate individuals are born with physical defects.

Morals are species-specific. We seem to share a lot of fundamental morality with some species like dogs and apes. However, other species have moral norms quite different than ours. For instance, among both horses and lions a new alpha male will often kill the immature offspring of the previous leader.

As you point out, we humans have conflicting impulses implanted by evolution. It has been shown in experiments that dogs and non-human primates share with us both empathy and sense of fairness with regard to the other individuals in our ingroup. Unfortunately, we also have a tendency to suspicion and hostility towards those outside the group we grew up with, just like the members of a chimpanzee troop who will attack and kill members of other troops.

Humans differ from other animals (so far as I can tell) in that we can modify the application of our instinctive responses by means of cultural conditioning. Over thousands of years this has gradually reduced the number of people that we see as outsiders.

At first the change was caused by changing social conditions. People were brought in contact with more and more others as we changed from small isolated groups of hunter-gatherers to a more complex agricultural society and eventually nation states, so that we would see most people who spoke the same language as part of our group.

The 18th century Enlightenment increased the scope of our acceptance of others by teaching that all human beings are entitled to be treated fairly, an idea that had been suggested before its time by a few Greek and Roman philosophers. Perhaps it needed printing and near-universal literacy to catch on.

So how ya gonna argue against bullying? By appealing to culturally-conditioned norms that all people are deserving of respect and fair treatment. It boils down to the argument that Sam Harris makes in The Moral Landscape, that "maximizing the well being of sentient entities" is a principle to which most people will assent.

However, there is a weakness. Culturally imposed norms do not have the strength of biologically-based instincts produced by millions of years of evolution. Right now it is still conceivable that a twisted mind could succeed in convincing large numbers of people that jews or blacks or some other group are evil-subhumans. Maybe some day we will evolve beyond that.

[bennyboy]

I'm cool with suicides. Freedom to me is most important of all.
But burning other people alive seems to be very very wrong in objective sense.

Then you still haven't learned what the word means.

[tor]

I'm cool with suicides. Freedom to me is most important of all.
But burning other people alive seems to be very very wrong in objective sense.

Then you still haven't learned what the word means.

So why don't you tell me RIGHT NOW?

[DeistPaladin]

So why don't you tell me RIGHT NOW?

Objective: Something completely independent of opinions or values.

[MindForgedManacle]

Link.

Now, I think some of you are just going the wrong route here in ttying to rebutt moral realism (that's what it's called, God Dammit! :p ).

Firstly, things can be what you might call contingently objective. Mathematics (and truth and logic, etc.) only exist in the minds of beings capable of apprehending them (unless you're a mathematical Platonist, which is a whole other can 'o worms). Hence, mathematics is only true if their are sufficiently advanced conscious minds in existence. And yet, mathematics is necessarily true, but only if such a class of agent exists. But are you really going to respond that "Oh well then maths are subjective." That self-evidently will not do at all.

And the same goes for logic. There are scores of logical systems, all of which are contingent on the existence of sufficiently advanced conscious agents. Further, these numerous logics ALL take on different axioms and inference rules, namely because they have different aims. Hence, one must choose the logical system one is going to work with based on what one subjectively thinks will be the most apt one for the task. Paraconsistent logics reject the law of non-contradiction, but classical logic does not. Does that make LOGIC subjective?

Perhaps you guys are seeing the problem with that kind of critique y'all are giving.


Now, how would a consequentialist like myself, who leans towards moral realism, sketch out an objective moral framework? Essentially, to ground morality in some verifiable fact in the world. In this case, the prevention and/or minimization of pain and suffering in conscious creatures and the promotion of physical, mental and social well-being to the extent reasonably possible. That conscious creatures experience pain and suffering is, I daresay, not in dispute? And given that, clearly I've selected the aforementioned approach as a sort of moral axiom, muchin the same way that logics and mathematics have their own systemic axioms. Hence, so long as I'm consistent with my axioms I see no problem in saying that certain behavoirs are - to put it in a way I find a bit stupid, yet regardless - objectively moral. Now if you ask something like "Why should I accept your moral axiom and system?", my response should be evident: If you see it as the approach apt to the task of having a consistent and useful moral framework.


QED (until Rasetsu or Genkaus show up and wreck my shit).

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I liked it. But I don't think you were using "objective" in the same sense that tor is using it in.

As I noted earlier, the way he's using it makes no sense, unless he's going to be consistent and say that therefore math and logic are subjective.

[bennyboy]

Then you still haven't learned what the word means.

So why don't you tell me RIGHT NOW?

I can do better than RIGHT NOW. I can magically go back in time, and have clearly told you what it means FOUR PAGES AGO.

Ok what does it mean?

It means the more is not dependent on the whims, predilections, opinions, authority, or world view of the people holding it.