My views on objective morality

[God of Mr. Hanky]

Justice doesn't matter here? Good, then in that case we don't need any mods!

I can say from experience, moderators are in place to ensure that the flow of discussion isn't disrupted by people misbehaving. It's a bit much to think of forum rules as 'justice', as they are an analog at best for that concept.

Honest to serious fuck, if we didn't take the injustices of religion very seriously, then we'd all be somewhere discussing Justin Bieber, or at a book club.

Take it seriously. You should. But, when the tone gets personal and insulting, your message gets lost. It's no longer about combating the injustices of religion. It's about browbeating another individual until they shut up.

You can attack a person aggressively for holding a viewpoint, but you're not likely to change their mind doing so. The viewpoint is the actual problem, why not focus on that?

Tell that to your friends Rythm and Rob, regarding tone. They are both men who I have great respect for, but they are also the guys who started this fire, they are your fellow mods, and I doubt it ever would have come to this if they had avoided being so blunt before they walked off.

[Kiekeben]

I say morality is subjective because I think that claiming that something is morally good or bad, etc., depends on one's attitude towards that thing. It is not a claim about the properties of the thing itself, independent of what anyone feels about it. So, although I maintain that torturing someone for fun is always wrong, I do not mean by that that there is a fact about the action of torturing someone that makes it wrong - such that one could determine by examining the action itself that it really is wrong, and that anyone who disagrees is making a factual mistake. In saying it is always wrong, I am merely expressing my complete disapproval of it.

If I'm reading you correctly, what you're delineating is the difference between objective morality and absolute morality. You hold that torturing someone for fun is absolutely wrong, but that isn't a property that anyone can see in the action itself. Is that a fair restatement of your view?

Pretty much. Unfortunately "absolute" and "relative" are also used in more than one sense, but in general one should separate the objective/subjective distinction from the absolute/relative ones. 

Incidentally, I'm an absolutist in the sense that I hold moral principles to apply equally to everyone (=universalist). That is what relativists usually deny - they say that moral principles are relative to culture, or even to the individual. But I'm not an absolutist about most moral principles a la Kant, that is in the sense that moral principles have no exceptions. Torturing someone for fun is absolutely wrong (in my opinion) in this sense (that's what the "for fun" is doing there); but not, say, the killing of an innocent person. It's almost always wrong, but one can easily think of exceptions. Nevertheless, where it is wrong, I regard it as wrong for anyone to do, even for someone in a society that regards it as okay.

As to being objective: it doesn't necessarily have to be a property one can see, but it does have to be a property of the thing that is supposedly good or bad, right or wrong. This is what I deny exists.

[robvalue]

Agreed, my tone was off, and I've apologised multiple times in public and by PM. I made maybe 3 posts which could have been more tactfully put.

[Whateverist]

But she doesn't need rescuing because she is a woman.  She needs support because she is seriously out nunbered as a believer here.  I came to her support because she asked me to.  She was feeling overwhelmed by the negativity and didn't feel anything she could say while still be true to herself would help.  I'm not the only one she asked, nor is she the only one I've ever supported when asked.

She doesn't need rescuing at all is what I am saying.

She thought otherwise and she seemed to be in the best position to make that call.

[God of Mr. Hanky]

So....my question is, why does it matter if objective morality exists if it's impossible to know if god really exists and/or what the objective morality is?

If you want to believe that somewhere out there a god exists and his morality is objective and you can't know 100% for sure what he believes is right or wrong but you're working towards it. How is that any different than not believing in objective morality and working towards being what you believe to be subjectively good. It seems like the same thing to me. So who really cares if there's an objective morality. I feel like I'm just as likely to get it right with my subjective morals based on personal experience and rational thinking as a religious person is based on guessing what they think god likes.

Relative and objective morals work together my love.

How close or how far from the truth, what knowledge, etc, are all important things to consider in relative morality.

Relative morality with objective morality makes sense. Relative morality without objective morality does not.

You and I definitely don't recognize a single good act as it truly is, and don't recognize an evil act as it truly is.  We see relative to our perceptions and luminosity and the hues we been given. However that relative perception would be impossible without some sort of relation to objective perception.

This is one of the signs of God in your Soul and your link to him sweetheart. 

There you go again with that Insert God argument, whether or not anyone other than you needs it. Because "God" said so, whether it was from the minaret, the mosque, the temple, or the church pulpit.

[robvalue]

Getting back on topic:

I'll tell you the really pointless thing about objective morality claims: they don't achieve anything.

I am proud to own my subjective morality as my opinion, and I back up those opinions with arguments. This means that I am sometimes able to win others round to my point of view, and to what I think is right.

However, if I went to try and change someone's mind and I instead claim my morality is objectively superior to theirs, for whatever reason, then that's not going to achieve anything. If people and societies with very different values are ever going to reach some sort of compromise, it won't be by either (or both) sides claiming to simply "be right". It will be by reasoned arguments about what the goals of morality are, what they should be, and how we can go about achieving them.

Standing in pious judgement does nothing but puff up your own ego.

[God of Mr. Hanky]

I'm not going to bother dealing with your shit anymore, Nympho. Your attacks against me over the past two days are in black and white, and you've really been a bigger cunt about everything than most theists which I've encountered. You've been acting like nobody other than you and your select few friends deserves any respect on this site, therefore you can go fuck yourself.

So you deliberately put words in my mouth and then when asked to show where I said what you assume I said, you tuck your tail and run.

Excuse me but I'll take being a cunt any day over being a fucking coward who doesn't have the balls to back up an accusation. You, sir, can go fuck YOURSELF.

I don't have to rummage through the posting history, the mods have already done this. You attacked me when I was defending myself against Huggy, who everyone knows to play the race card and everyone knows to play vindictive games with our prior posts when you stand up to his bullying. You attacked me again when I was attempting to reason with CL, you had no idea what was really going on. So if you want to review your actual posts, then you'll just have to review your posts yourself, or go take it up with the mods. And you really are being a nasty, and most irrational cunt. I'll give you the credit that I've never seen you behaving like that before, and am really disappointed to see you doing it now, but it's your problem, not mine.

[IATIA]

Relative and objective morals work together my love.

How close or how far from the truth, what knowledge, etc, are all important things to consider in relative morality.

Relative morality with objective morality makes sense. Relative morality without objective morality does not.

You and I definitely don't recognize a single good act as it truly is, and don't recognize an evil act as it truly is.  We see relative to our perceptions and luminosity and the hues we been given. However that relative perception would be impossible without some sort of relation to objective perception.

This is one of the signs of God in your Soul and your link to him sweetheart. 

There is no such thing as "objective morals".  The universe would be incapable of asserting objective morals. Let us say, for sake of argument, that there is a god.  From where did this god get it's morals, because, again, the universe would be incapable of asserting objective morals.  If a god asserts morals, then they are subjective from the god's point of view.

[God of Mr. Hanky]

Meh...people aggressively defend CL on this forum all the time. Often when she doesn't appear to need to be defended and more often when she is actually wrong (IMO) and her opponents just happen to be being a little bit mean. And I do think some people do it just because she's sweet and pretty. I like CL and I don't think she needs an army of angry defenders every time someone is harsh with her when she puts herself into clearly hot topic debates. I find it annoying and hypocritical that a lot of these same people who defend her are mean to other forum members. CL is a big girl and if she doesn't want to debate these topics or if she doesn't want to debate them with people who aren't gentle enough with her then she doesn't have to.

Yes, it always seems to be strong case of the pot calling the kettle black with CL's defenders. I feel bad for her to be caught in the middle of their little war with their own projectionist egos.

[Mystic]

Eh, since hardly anyone is responding to my thread (sheds tear), I thought I would post what I posted here:

I think we are using moral relativism and moral objectivity perhaps in a way that neither are true in reality. By we I mean how humanity is using the words currently.

First if we define moral relativism to be the view that morals differ person to person and that no one is right, then that makes morality unreal. For morality is all about telling you the right thing to do. It has to be at the very least the right thing for that person to do, but the definition as it's defined is more or less, there is no right thing, it's just a perspective.

And if we define morality as something that is right regardless of our opinions or anyone opinion, I'm sorry, but morality is all about perception. If we had no perception of it, it would be not be good of us to do anything or wrong of us to do anything.

The problem is that these are commonly or even philosophically defined in a way that makes both of them wrong automatically.

The way I understand morality is somewhat in between.

1. Do I know anything is moral in the sense it's truly right for me to do?

Yes. For example kindness to my parents who raised me is good to do. Exactly what consists of that kindness is a little more complicated. But this is not due it being independent of my opinion, it's actually, because it's part of my knowledge to do so.

2. Do I know ALL things that are moral for all humans to do?

No I don't.

3. Is important to know all things that are objectively moral? Not for me, it simply is important to know whatever I ought to do in my current state.

What I am required to do in the current moment, what I must improve myself in, and I feel most humans know enough to improve their current state.

If we act upon what we know, we will increase in knowledge. The more you act on what you know to be good, the more you increase in knowledge of what more can be to do more good or be more good.

This has been my experience in life. In fact seeking to know all of morality is fools errant for most humans except a few.

4. People often confuse for morality to be right, it has to apply universally. This from my perspective is very limited in view. That are barely any universal morals in the sense that there is something that applies universally.

Rather the reality is there is no hard code, but that there is things we know apply 90-99% of the time.

I don't like the words objective morality or relative morality for what I stated earlier but from what I understand, there is a morality that is absolute.

So I will use absolute morality vs non-absolute morality.

Absolute morality as far as knowledge of right or wrong goes, why is this important to believe in? And not simply non-absolute morality?

I gave an example before if I look at the moon, and I know there is a measurement to it, even though I don't know it's exact size, I will estimate it my head.

Non-absolute morality in somewhat similar to look at absolute morality (the sun) from a distance, that it's like a distant star. We don't know the size of the star with just looking at it from far, I know science has a way of measuring things now, but try to bear with the parable so as to understand.

If I don't believe there is a absolute vision of my good action or evil action, I will not have an estimate of it. The non-absolute view.

Some how I am trying to ascend in rank, get more good, be a better person. This takes belief that there is something I am heading towards, that there are ranks, that there is better or worse that states that I can be.

With relative morality, there is no better or worse. It's all just perception.

With belief in absolute morality, our non-absolute morality which is more of acting to light/knowledge from the absolute light, that is not absolute, we believe there is a basis, there is really better or worse states, there is ranks to ascend, etc.

That said, ultimately, I do believe we can gain vision of what we ought to do that is 100% correct, as opposed to what most people are in, in which some of what they know is 100% correct, some of it they don't know, and some it they know they are wrong inwardly but are holding to it never the less. But this vision to be 100% correct is only through divine help through a spiritual guide in the journey that appears to show inwardly the path.

If anyone was upon this guidance, they would not state to others they were upon this guidance. Anyone who is pure would not declare he is pure unless God manifests it through a revelation or the words of an appointed guide. We cannot declare ourselves pure without proof nor claim we are guided without proof from God to others.

That said, a lot of our non-absolute views are very much in line with absolute view, and we can know it.

The lowest heaven is adorned with shinning stars. These stars are arrows and missiles against the devils for us to make use of. We can fight back with them.

However, just because we can see them to a degree, doesn't mean our vision is absolute nor that we cannot fully see them as they truly are in their true state, that our view is baseless.

To be correct doesn't mean we see the action as it truly is.

The final question is where does God come in all this?

I think there is a world of difference in believing a living spiritual reality to goodness and morality, and that we are connected to something absolute and great, even though we don't fully grasp it, but to most of it, it's a very distant star, then believing our morality is just a program that we experience to biological reasons and evolution.

With it being a program from evolution, the question, of the euthyphro dilemma should be asked, is it good to do because evolution made it out to be that or did evolution make it out to be because it is good? If the latter, then good exists before evolution, and if evolution decides what is moral, then to me, this seems baseless for many reasons. Why should we pay attention to commands or instructions in us from evolution?

And the last thing I want to say, our perception of morality doesn't all come down to empathy and being empathetic. This is important, but morality we all believe in is more comprehensive then that. I don't want to make this post any longer...so I won't go into details of this but I believe this is fairly obvious to anyone who thinks about the issue.

Lastly, the distant star is not meant to be a distant star forever, but we are meant to get closer to it, till our vision of our souls pierce the veils of light and reach the source of greatness while our souls get suspended by the glory of it's sanctity.

The last statement is the most important reason for believing the link between the light and the source in my view.