My views on objective morality

[Catholic_Lady]

If our understanding of God or of morals has changed, then who is to say that they have changed for the better?  You're assuming that our understanding has improved.  Yet everything has been getting worse since the Fall, why is our understanding any exception?  How do you know that your current moral feelings about slavery aren't a misunderstanding rather than an increase in understanding.  How do you know you have the best understanding of morals, and that say people in another country who stone people for homosexuality and rape are not superior.  How do you decide what is a part of this objective morality?

Jor, it revolves around our belief that life is sacred and that we all have inherent, God given human rights that ought to be respected.

[ApeNotKillApe]

Then your ethical standards would be up for review.

Are your ethics objective or subjective?

Whichever answer I give, it's my personal opinion either way.

[robvalue]

God can't give us rights. We grant each other rights.

Claiming you have the "right" to do something is meaningless, if no one else will physically let you do it. You can say you should have the right to such and such, of course. That is a matter of opinion and debate.

Like morality, "rights" are an abstract human construct.

[Parashu]

Hello,

My perspective on "objective morality" is that it exists in a very discrete way. Objective "Good" is constructive : killing to eat is "good", it's moral. Killing for fun serves no constructive purpose, so it's "evil". Killing somebody who's opening fire on a crowd is "good", while opening fire on a crowd is "evil". The common interest would define "good" and "evil" and what may appear on a small scale to be "good" or "evil" might turn up to be the contrary on a larger scale/over a long period of time. This would not mean that "normal" (commonly accepted) is "good" and that we could say for instance that "enslaving 10% of the population would be good because it would be a small sacrifice to favor the existence of the others"... since enslaving 10% of the population would lead to suffering, which would be shared and lead to thirst for revenge, hate,... affecting everyone negatively. If humanity hadn't spent so much time asking for the liberation of slaves, we would already be on every planet of the solar system... which would be "good" because it would increase immensly the chances of earthlings to keep existing. So, slavery is "evil" since it is holding us back from important things we have to do... since none will ever accept to be a slave forever and slaves will always rebel at some point... so it can't be sustained and is holding us back...

And that's where the concept of "free will" makes sense IMO. We cannot see much of the real "Good" and "Evil" since we do not understand the Universe yet, how it works and what we are supposed to do in it. But we can establish moral values based on our limited views. We are not bound to our old moral values because of this free will and the more our consciousness spreads, the better we will be able to make the right choices.

[Chas]

Objective morality has been discussed many times on these forums, and many times by me. A lot of times I feel like I have a hard time trying to explain objective morality or why objective morality makes sense to me, which in turn helps make the existence of a god make sense to me. It isn't the only reason by far, but it is part of it. 

You're having a hard time because it is hard to sell a circular argument to rational people. 

I saw this short video today and thought Kreeft summed up all my thoughts in a way that I never felt I could accurately do. 

I don't agree with the part where he says people "think they are atheists", but as for his explanation of morality, I couldn't have put it better myself. 

https://www.prageru.com/courses/religion...-evil-come

Whether you agree or not, it's still an interesting issue to discuss.

What is interesting is to avoid pre-suppositionalism and look at societies as constructs of humans who evolved having both empathy and cruelty.

[Chas]

If our understanding of God or of morals has changed, then who is to say that they have changed for the better?  You're assuming that our understanding has improved.  Yet everything has been getting worse since the Fall, why is our understanding any exception?  How do you know that your current moral feelings about slavery aren't a misunderstanding rather than an increase in understanding.  How do you know you have the best understanding of morals, and that say people in another country who stone people for homosexuality and rape are not superior.  How do you decide what is a part of this objective morality?

Jor, it revolves around our belief that life is sacred and that we all have inherent, God given human rights that ought to be respected.

It more rationally comes from a simple sense of fairness and self-interest.  It's simply the golden rule.

[Angrboda]

If our understanding of God or of morals has changed, then who is to say that they have changed for the better?  You're assuming that our understanding has improved.  Yet everything has been getting worse since the Fall, why is our understanding any exception?  How do you know that your current moral feelings about slavery aren't a misunderstanding rather than an increase in understanding.  How do you know you have the best understanding of morals, and that say people in another country who stone people for homosexuality and rape are not superior.  How do you decide what is a part of this objective morality?

Jor, it revolves around our belief that life is sacred and that we all have inherent, God given human rights that ought to be respected.

That is what you believe now, but why is that privileged over what people believed then? You've essentially just said that your current view is superior because you believe it is superior. Besides being the hallmark of subjective morality, that's a circular justification for believing that the prior generations' morals are inferior. In other words, that's no justification at all. Try again.

[bennyboy]

Jor, it revolves around our belief that life is sacred and that we all have inherent, God given human rights that ought to be respected.

Your idea of "inherent" rights is a broken concept. If they were really inherent rights, they would be protected by God. When God asks us not to say rape and murder children, but does not prevent pedophiles from doing so, it becomes clear that rights are ideas of a hypothetical perfect world, not properties of an individual. If something isn't a property of an individual, it is by definition not inherent to them.

[Jenny A]

@CL

It seems to me that we/you need to start with a very basic question: what would we expect to find in terms of human and animal behavior and the consequences for that behavior if morality is objective and if it's subjective.

Objective truths are quantifiable and have conseqences. We tend to deduce the existence of objective laws by their conseqences, and not by asserting there is a law and then looking for proof that the world conforms to that law. Gravity describes a phenomenon observed first (things fall) and later described in detail by Newton. Such truths are the same regardless of who the observer is. Be you a rock, and ant, or a man, gravity will affect you in a predictable way.

Evolution is similar but different , life forms change over time and rapid environmentalchanges either speeds change or results in extinction. All life is subject to it, and the only question is why. And there is an objective standard, what survives to produce reproducing off spring continues. But there is no objective best form of life beyond circumstances, only that which does best in a particular set of circumstances.

Then there are almost entirely subjective things, like our perception of beauty, though our liking of certain human forms may have to do with the evolutionary fitness of those forms.

So what is it about morality, that makes it look highly objective to you as opposed to the more circumstantial evolutionary fitness standard or the extremely subject beauty perception?

What I see in morality is an evolutionary tendency of social animals, particularly mammals and birds, but not insects, reptiles, or crustaceans except to the extent truce is necessary to copulation and open warfare would lead to extinction. Birds and mammals raise small numbers of offsring, as opposed to insects that abandon huge numbers of eggs. I see morality as a natural consequence of the necessity of copulation and when small numbers off offspring are involved. Self reproducing species are amoral. The more social a species, the more it has cooperative rules, i.e. morals. Those morals are circumstantial, like evolutionary fitness, because they are a kind of evolutionany fitness. We make pets of other highly social animals because we share some sense of morals with them.

But morals are not like gravity in absolute conseqence, or perception of beauty in almost pure subjectivity. They change with circumstances.

[robvalue]

I don't see what connection God is supposed to have to morality. To me, it's mainly about the wellbeing of others. If god's opinion lines up with that, fine. If it doesn't, then I'll ignore it. So what use is it?

If it's ever causing someone to treat people less well than they would without considering "God", then it is detrimental to that goal. So what else is being achieved that justifies this? And if there is no deviation, it's a useless criteria, is it not?