My views on objective morality

[LadyForCamus]

[quote='LadyForCamus' pid='1216110' dateline='1456879780']
Hmm...okay, I see your point.  So, we could consider each individual's genetically expressed tendencies as objective for that specific person?  

There are certain behaviors that are clearly mediated by instinct and for the most part are uniform across culture and time. A mother not taking care of her baby, for example, would be seen as immoral in probably every culture-- or it would be a short-lived culture, indeed. Even though some mothers in fact do not take care of babies, or some cultures have cases in which particular babies are discarded cruelly, I'd say that child-rearing rules might be said to represent an objective morality.

Sure, but I think when we are talking about norms across entire cultures that differ significantly from one another (forgive my bumpy language I have no formal education in sociology [emoji15]) like the female infanticide which was common practice in China (though never legally sanctioned as I understand), it's a lot harder to justify a case for an over-reaching objective morality.

I mean, the Chinese justified their baby-killing through Buddhism and the idea of reincarnation the same way Christians use original sin and eternal life to justify other terrible acts.

We still end up stuck with the problem of cross-cultural norms that don't agree.

[bennyboy]

There's no doubt that human decision-making is extremely complex. However, I'd argue that when you have trends over a population, the motivator for the trend must be external to the individuals in that population-- specifically, there is something happening in their environment that leads to their behavior.

[robvalue]

Even assessing norms is rather subjective. I mean, how exactly do you do it? You can observe, and you can ask people what they think. I doubt there's going to be an objective way to bring all that together in anything other than a very vague way, especially since people change all the time. The best you can do is, "Most people seem to think that..."

@Spanish Inquisiton: I agree, it's an oxymoron. It's an incoherent concept. A non-user dependent user judgement. Theists try and define it so that it's not a judgement, which stops it having anything to do with reality.

[LadyForCamus]

Sorry, my post went up before I finished!

[LadyForCamus]

It's complete now

[LadyForCamus]

Not to mention that DNA's expression is greatly affected by the environment.

In the context of behavior, that too imposes some subjectivity on the process.

I don't think that's quite right.  If the DNA is interacting with the environment, and the conscious agency doesn't have control of this interaction, it's still objective.

Well, for instance, in the field of dietetics we are learning that certain lifestyle choices and diet choices have the potential power to "turn on" or "turn off" particular genes (nutrigenomics), so in that particular area of genomics, the individual does have some control over gene expression.

[LadyForCamus]

My problem with the idea of an objective morality being "out there", is how would we know if we found it? What exactly are we looking for?

IThis is part of the human condition: that given any circumstance, we can't know the details so we hedge our bets by playing odds-maker.  But this is no more true for morality than for economics, or for weather, or for many other highly complex systems.

With regard to God, one could almost DEFINE God in terms of those hidden objective truths: God is that (whatever it is) that caused the universe.  The will of God is that moral system (whatever it is) that we can say might hypothetically give us our ideal outcome as a species.

Okay, so in that sense we could perhaps call these objective moral truths our species "goal"? But...without knowing what they are, how do we know what we are striving for, and when we've found them? It seems that no matter what, they are necessarily subject to human interpretation and judgement to become useful or meaningful in any way. I don't see any way around this.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Not to mention that DNA's expression is greatly affected by the environment.

In the context of behavior, that too imposes some subjectivity on the process.

I don't think that's quite right.  If the DNA is interacting with the environment, and the conscious agency doesn't have control of this interaction, it's still objective.

I disagree. Example: you can have a genetic proclivity for addictive behavior, but because you were raised to despise drug users, your personal feelings kept you from being an addict. A result of environment, yet still intensely subjective.

Morality is no different. Altruism may be wired into our genetics at different levels for different individuals, but one's upbringing influences one's mental attitudes towards the morality of altruism. And when you invoke one's upbringing, you are introducing subjectivity into the process, because experiences do not matter until we mentally process them.

[LadyForCamus]

I think we lost CL, lol.

[bennyboy]

I don't think that's quite right.  If the DNA is interacting with the environment, and the conscious agency doesn't have control of this interaction, it's still objective.

I disagree.  Example: you can have a genetic proclivity for addictive behavior, but because you were raised to despise drug users, your personal feelings kept you from being an addict. A result of environment, yet still intensely subjective.

Morality is no different. Altruism may be wired into our genetics at different levels for different individuals, but one's upbringing influences one's mental attitudes towards the morality of altruism. And when you invoke one's upbringing, you are introducing subjectivity into the process, because experiences do not matter until we mentally process them.

I think this is pretty consistent with the kind of objective morality that CL believes in: there IS an objective morality, and we are aware of it on some level, but we are free to regard or disregard that moral sense.  In other words, the individual person isn't guaranteed to express moral predispositions.  And that would be where Christian ideas about free will (and punishment/reward) come into play.

I'd also like to introduce the idea of the 7 Deadly Sins as a catalogue of those animal instincts which are most likely to influence people to subject their ability to act morally.  If you think, it's kind of a list of those natural motivations which, if we feed them too much, may subvert one's will.