Why it's important to know there is an objective morality.

[Joods]

I hope that wasn't directed towards me.

[robvalue]

You are right Rob. And I agree with you. I guess I was trying to figure it all out and the only way I could cite an example was to take a page from an IEP but yes, two totally and completely different things.

Thank you for educating me about the morality part of it. I've always had trouble trying to understand exactly what it was.

You're welcome

I think it's a fascinating subject, and that I'm still learning about it. I didn't mean to belittle your example at all, objective standards have a very important role to play in many areas of life.

The important thing, for me, is whether the objective standard is useful. Measuring progress, based on what people have been learning, is very useful and can often be done using an objective standard. Agreeing exactly on what the standard is and how it's applied are very much up for discussion, but it makes sense to apply the current most meaningful standard to everyone equally. I agree that individuals making judgements about other individuals is going to be problematic, although in some situations in may be appropriate.

Morality is such a very strange and different beast, so much so that people end up talking past each other much of the time. People can mean any one of, or combination of:

1) Individual's morality
2) Societal norms
3) Scientific explanations for empathy
4) Measuring outcomes of actions
5) Assessing intent of actions
6) Allowing for beliefs held at the time
7) Allowing for state of mind
8) What God wants

And so on. There are so many possible facets of it that to try and describe the whole thing in one go is extremely hard. Making "moral progress" is not quite the same as progress towards a learning goal. For the latter, you have very clear and agreed things to achieve. For morality, every individual decides on their own goals, and there is no consensus. Nor should there be, except to try and agree to reasonable compromises within a society.

The problem with theists is agreeing goals in the first place. If they want "to please God", first and foremost, we're just not talking about the same thing anymore. That is generally the hardcore ones who will put that as their first goal, though. But having it in there at all is potentially poisonous, whatever weighting it has.

[pocaracas]

If they want "to please God", first and foremost, we're just not talking about the same thing anymore. That is generally the hardcore ones who will put that as their first goal, though. But having it in there at all is potentially poisonous, whatever weighting it has.

Truer words haven't been said.... and you have no idea where I'm coming from with this.... but I hear you, man! I hear you!

[robvalue]

Thank you!

[IATIA]

[The Grand Nudger]

I'd caution against any strong conflation between morality and law. If the benefit of objective morality pertains to writing law, it's not much of a benefit, if at all. That's probably the most poisonous portion of gods "objective" morality, to begin with....the danger of having it represented in human law. Regardless of any god, or even of any objective or subjective morality, there are good reasons that we don't write or justify law based upon moral proclamations. We don.t say, for example "murder is illegal because murder is bad". We justify it;s legal status by reference to the rights of the victim, and the violation of those rights by the perpetrator.

[popsthebuilder]

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.

There may be something to a common shared morality... but it need not be handed down by a god...
The god bit is your own indoctrination talking... not your abstract thinking self.

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? 

It seems to me you're looking at it from the point of view of the individual...
Evolution operates on populations.
It's good, because the population has learned what harms its health and labelled that as bad.... and what actively avoids such bad things is labelled good.

It's important to remind ourselves, once in a while, that words are labels for concepts.... and sometimes the concepts are not what they seem. Nowadays, many concepts have evolved to become strange things, heavily imbued by the religious thoughts of the past.

Think about what it means to be "a healthy population" and you'll find the concept of good and bad and, if you so wish, an absolute kind of moral code that each individual within that population should adhere to.

You may also find that there are several ways to achieve a healthy population and, as such, several "absolute moral codes"... and that is what is commonly called non-absolute morality, right?
And that is how evolution works.... finding ways to make things work, not necessarily always finding the same ways... nor at the same time...

Evolution is a guided system. It is guided by the will of life to continue. To say it is random or not at least both a cause and an effect is being closed minded due to bias for whatever reason, and has absolutely no evidence to back it.

Faith in selfless Unity for Good.

[popsthebuilder]

I can only come to the conclusion that some sort of fixed moral code would only be any use to someone having serious trouble fitting into society, such as a psychopath, who wouldn't have any natural moral compass. But of course, that code would have to be based at least partly on the society itself anyway, or else it would fail to achieve this. It would be objective, but subjectively generated.

If it's any use to anyone else, no one has been able to tell me how.

Everyone has a natural moral compass. Not all use it fully, or even partially depending on their level of greed and privilege.

Faith in selfless Unity for Good.

[robvalue]

No, they don't. Some people don't have empathy. To such people, killing someone isn't much different to opening a bag of crisps, in extreme cases.

[pocaracas]

There may be something to a common shared morality... but it need not be handed down by a god...
The god bit is your own indoctrination talking... not your abstract thinking self.



It seems to me you're looking at it from the point of view of the individual...
Evolution operates on populations.
It's good, because the population has learned what harms its health and labelled that as bad.... and what actively avoids such bad things is labelled good.

It's important to remind ourselves, once in a while, that words are labels for concepts.... and sometimes the concepts are not what they seem. Nowadays, many concepts have evolved to become strange things, heavily imbued by the religious thoughts of the past.

Think about what it means to be "a healthy population" and you'll find the concept of good and bad and, if you so wish, an absolute kind of moral code that each individual within that population should adhere to.

You may also find that there are several ways to achieve a healthy population and, as such, several "absolute moral codes"... and that is what is commonly called non-absolute morality, right?
And that is how evolution works.... finding ways to make things work, not necessarily always finding the same ways... nor at the same time...

Evolution is a guided system. It is guided by the will of life to continue. To say it is random or not at least both a cause and an effect is being closed minded due to bias for whatever reason, and has absolutely no evidence to back it.

Faith in selfless Unity for Good.

Did anyone say evolution was random?