My views on objective morality

[Catholic_Lady]

Hmm I don't see how I'm doing that, as I feel I made myself very clear.

You are making yourself clear, just not in the way I think you mean to. You saying there is a concrete right and wrong, we just don't know what it is, but at the same time we are moving towards it--that's subjective morality.

I guess I just don't see how saying there is a concrete right and wrong can = subjective morality. I mean, that's what makes it *not* subjective in the first place. 

And I never said we outright "don't know" what real right and wrongs are. I listed a few already - rape, theft, adultery, slavery, intentional killing of an innocent person. I 100% believe those are all objectively immoral. I believe anyone who thinks those things are moral are mistaken. Of course, there probably are other things we don't know are immoral yet, but that doesn't mean they aren't.  

Especially if you cannot point to a reason why the direction we are moving is the right one. What if God's original plan was what he laid out in the OT? What if the Catholic Church had it right in the 15th Century? 

What if the Catholic Church has it all wrong now, and the ultimate in morality is personal bodily autonomy? 

When you define the ultimate objective morality as "I don't know what it is, but I know we're moving towards it"--then you've just cloaked subjective morality with a lot of hand waving.

This is more of a question of "why are you Catholic/why do you believe Catholicism is right." Not something I can ever put into words, since it literally involves my whole life and all my experiences/etc. The short answer is, given everything I've learned/seen/experienced, it makes sense to me.

[Minimalist]

I don't believe God ever ordered people to do things like the OT stories say He did.

Have you written your own bible, C/L?  Because the damn thing has all sorts of juicy stories like that.

[bennyboy]

With that being said, I think we have always had an inherent understanding that human life has value.

Is this an understanding, or a feeling? I'd say your "inherent understanding" is simply an awareness of the feelings that the majority of people (though not all) have.

The rationalization often was to say that certain groups of people weren't really fully human. That's partially how a lot of civilizations have justified genocide or enslavement. Now a days, many of us justify abortion with the same rationale - that a human being in the womb is not really human.

Nobody said a fetus isn't human. They say that it's not a human being with a mind worth protecting or a nervous system capable of much suffering. If the death of unfeeling cells with DNA is a crime against God, then I need to cut off my fingers to stop the constant murder of fingernail cells.

I think in the future people will look back on it the same way we look back on slavery and the slaughtering of the indians. Of course, that won't begin to happen until we discover a different way of dealing with unwanted pregnancies that don't involve having to kill the fetus. We have a tendency to rationalize a lot of things when committing them is convenient or beneficial to us.

Are you vegetarian? If not, I brand you a hypocrite, since adult mammals are more developed than human fetuses-- more memories to lose, more feelings with which to suffer, and a more advanced nervous system by which to feel pain.

Or do you rationalize the killing of animals because it is convenient and beneficial to you?

[Thumpalumpacus]

I don't know why. For whatever reason, He thought 2000 years ago was the right time to make Himself man and point us to the right direction. I'm ok with not knowing all of God's motives.

Then how can you think you're qualified to speak with any truth about any of his assumed motives?

[Catholic_Lady]

So I can't believe I know some things about God without believing I know everything?

[IATIA]

[SteelCurtain]

You are making yourself clear, just not in the way I think you mean to. You saying there is a concrete right and wrong, we just don't know what it is, but at the same time we are moving towards it--that's subjective morality.

I guess I just don't see how saying there is a concrete right and wrong can = subjective morality. I mean, that's what makes it *not* subjective in the first place. 

And I never said we outright "don't know" what real right and wrongs are. I listed a few already - rape, theft, adultery, slavery, intentional killing of an innocent person. I 100% believe those are all objectively immoral. I believe anyone who thinks those things are moral are mistaken. Of course, there probably are other things we don't know are immoral yet, but that doesn't mean they aren't.  

This line of reasoning, though, is easily undercut by several thought experiments.

The railcar experiment comes to mind:

There is a runaway railcar with nobody on it. You are standing at a rail switch, and the railcar is going to go down one of the two paths. On one side, there is a disabled school bus, filled with small children, kindergarten aged. On the other side is a disabled car with one man in it. The switch is currently oriented so that the railcar will hit and kill the children. You can pull the switch so that instead, the railcar hits the car and kills the one man. Or you can do nothing.

What is the moral thing to do?

Especially if you cannot point to a reason why the direction we are moving is the right one. What if God's original plan was what he laid out in the OT? What if the Catholic Church had it right in the 15th Century? 

What if the Catholic Church has it all wrong now, and the ultimate in morality is personal bodily autonomy? 

When you define the ultimate objective morality as "I don't know what it is, but I know we're moving towards it"--then you've just cloaked subjective morality with a lot of hand waving.

This is more of a question of "why are you Catholic/why do you believe Catholicism is right." Not something I can ever put into words, since it literally involves my whole life and all my experiences/etc. The short answer is, given everything I've learned/seen/experienced, it makes sense to me.

Again, your subjective experience has informed your own understanding of what's "objectively" moral. Were you living 200 years ago, you understanding of what's objectively moral would be different. What we're saying is that your understanding of the objective moral "truths" is entirely shaped by the moment in time you live in. It's an ad hoc absurdity to assume that your current understanding is what god intended.

[Minimalist]

So I can't believe I know some things about God without believing I know everything?

We're all left wondering what criteria you use to ascertain the difference.

[Jehanne]

[abaris]

I don't believe God ever ordered people to do things like the OT stories say He did. But it should be noted that many of those things are still a step up for those times. 

Why? Far as I know, the Catholic church didn't declare the OT to be invalid.