Morals - Objective and Subjective

[Knowledge of God]

Galatians 5;22-23

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

[Jenny A]

Galatians 5;22-23

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

*exercises self control and waits to see if KOG can do the same*

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Galatians 5;22-23

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Every conceivable act known to man has been, is, or will be illegal somewhere in America.

[GrandizerII]

Theist quite frequently use the argument of objective morals to justify the existence of a certain deity.

This is not however what I'm looking to discuss, but rather - Do you think we can talk about objective morals from a secularist point of view (without god)?

Even theists can't. So they believe in God. So what? That says nothing about how they know what is morally good and what is morally bad.

[JuliaL]

I think you are mistaken.

Often mistaken, never uncertain.

Moral absolutism: There is at least one principle that ought never to be violated.

I claim-
The unqualified universality of, 'ought never to be violated' as equivalent to, "external to and consistent for any and all individual observers."
and " are agreed on and consistent for a [limited] set of individual observers" roughly expresses the idea that -

Moral realism is a non-nihilist form of cognitivism. In summary, it claims:

1. Ethical sentences express propositions.
   
2. Some such propositions are true.
   
3. Those propositions are made true by objective features of the world, independent of subjective opinion.

(Moral Realism)

Though 'independent of subjective opinion' makes this definition more comprehensive than I prefer or expressed.

I apologize for my inability to make my ideas clear as I do not have much specific philosophical training (after several years of practising medicine I went back to university and took some ethics (irony noted) and women's studies 30 years ago. And I may be mistaken again, but I think we're largely in agreement.
OTOH, I have a personal, idiosyncratic notion of morality which expands on what I find is the usual, standard definition. I see morals as a set of preferred behaviours which emerge because they benefit a recognizable self replicating informational organism. For example, in the case of human moral codes, they benefit the society in which they embed. As an example of a different organism and behaviour set, I offer the memeplex of 'a business model' which in its own context would be moral if it, built desirable products, made money and treated its customers well. By 'behaviours which benefit' I mean those that better provide the organism with opportunity to persist, expand and flourish.

I have not found my extended definitions to be used by others but I may have simply not looked hard enough.

[Tonus]

God sees that justice is done,

You forgot to add the GIF of god making a jerking-off motion.

[DeistPaladin]

...

You realize you have a picture of an atheist as your avatar, yes?

---

There is no objective morality.

This was demonstrated in the movie Terminator 2. I'll explain.

In the movie, there's this scientist that's working on a breakthrough in AI. His dream is seeing this technology used for peaceful purposes. He has no idea his breakthrough will be used to manufacture a military super computer that causes a nuclear war and attempts to kill all of humanity.

One of the protagonists learns of this scientist and how he will contribute to this nightmare future. She sets out to kill him. If morality were objective, then murdering one man, even an innocent man (since his intent was not to cause such death and destruction), in order to save the lives of 3 billion, represents a net gain of 2,999,999,999 lives. Expressed in objective, mathematical terms, this should be a bargain.

The fact that morality can't be expressed in numerical terms is evidence that it is not objective in nature. We can't plug numbers into a spreadsheet and calculate the morally correct course of action.

The subjective nature of morality is underscored by our use of the term "moral judgment". We judge, we evaluate, we form opinions on the nature of morality.

Contrary to Christian assertions, this does NOT mean that "anything goes" or that all opinions are equal. Some subjective opinions are stronger than others. If it were not so, there would be no point to a debate.

Some subjective opinions are supported by objective data. Others have only the strength of the convictions of those who argue for them. Some subjective evaluations are based on verifiable observations and repeatable experiments. Others are based only on theories that can't seem to be produced in the real world. Some ideas are put into practice that get the intended results. Others are tried only to fail and have the proponents try to explain why that one doesn't count.

Sure, it's complicated. That's no reason to plug in simple answers like "JesusWillsIt" and appeal to ignorance.