Is morality objective or subjective?

[bennyboy]

There may be in some sense (given some shared set of assumptions) but what difference does that make if it isn't binding or even obvious to everyone?

Personally, I think there's a very important difference. People tend not to really accept the degree to which their animal instincts and capabilities limit them, and this certainly extends to morality-- its existence as a faculty, and the moral ideas which people make.

Here's an example-- the demonization of males who cheat. The idea-- that people don't like being cheated on, and that cheating is a dick thing to do-- is fair enough, and very few people would argue against it. However, the animal reality is that the brain does all kinds of complicated things to arrive at a reproductive moment.

I don't think you can have justice without the instincts that go into a moral sense, since it is feelings that allow us to establish value statements about situations.

[Mister Agenda]

Evolution is the source of our pro-social moral sentiments. It's why we care about fairness and protecting children and not causing needless suffering. It's also the source of our less-than-stellar sentiments like jealousy and greed that nevertheless helped our ancestors propagate. Those pro-social sentiments are the root of our motivation for caring how we treat each other, and the selfish sentiments are why we need rules and laws instead of it all working out by instinct. Our instincts are at odds with each other.

So we have the instinctual moral commonality that the vast majority of us would agree that pointless suffering that can be prevented should be prevented and that a society where people are more likely to be happy, healthy, and fulfilled is better than a society that does more poorly in those areas. Those ideas are both useful and self-evident enough that it would be hard to find someone who would sincerely argue the opposite. Granting that they're self-evident because we're genetically programmed to like things that are good for us, they make good first principles/premises/axioms for further moral reasoning.

It doesn't get us from an 'is' to an 'ought', but I think the idea of some sort of ultimate grounding for morality being a requirement is refuted by the existence of moral systems in every society. Morality is a practical matter, not a cosmic one.

[Whateverist]

Also, any argument for an ultimate grounding would have to account for the fact that acting against even those considerations which we embrace in theory is absolutely commonplace given the least of incentives. Oughts are often inconvenient and all too easily ignored regardless of the grounding.

[bennyboy]

Also, any argument for an ultimate grounding would have to account for the fact that acting against even those considerations which we embrace in theory is absolutely commonplace given the least of incentives.  Oughts are often inconvenient and all too easily ignored regardless of the grounding.

I think this is very easily explained: it comes down to a conflict of motivations, rather than a conflict of moral ideas.  Nobody really thinks that murder is okay-- yet people sometimes murder due to the emotional motivations of jealousy, greed, and so on.

[popsthebuilder]

It is objective in all cases if one removes self from moral equation, or rather reward/ detriment of self.

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[bennyboy]

It is objective in all cases if one removes self from moral equation, or rather reward/ detriment of self.

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That's right.  And this is the essential question-- does the existence of mind add anything to moral decisions, or is mind intrinsic to certain kinds of physical systems or functions?  Does our physiology (including that of the brain) DETERMINE our ideas and behaviors, or merely influence them?

I don't know the answer.  I'm a little on the theist side of this-- I think that perhaps mind means the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and so examining the function of the parts can't give a complete picture.

[popsthebuilder]

It is objective in all cases if one removes self from moral equation, or rather reward/ detriment of self.

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That's right.  And this is the essential question-- does the existence of mind add anything to moral decisions, or is mind intrinsic to certain kinds of physical systems or functions?  Does our physiology (including that of the brain) DETERMINE our ideas and behaviors, or merely influence them?

I don't know the answer.  I'm a little on the theist side of this-- I think that perhaps mind means the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and so examining the function of the parts can't give a complete picture.

Damn....that's a really honest thing to say here. Sorry if any take offence to my surprise.

It wasn't long ago that most uhm....sceptics denied objective morality just because of supposed or presupposed implications.

It's good to see things change over time.

That was a good post.

It is objective in all cases if one removes self from moral equation, or rather reward/ detriment of self.

Sent from my Alcatel_6055U using Tapatalk

That's right.  And this is the essential question-- does the existence of mind add anything to moral decisions, or is mind intrinsic to certain kinds of physical systems or functions?  Does our physiology (including that of the brain) DETERMINE our ideas and behaviors, or merely influence them?

I don't know the answer.  I'm a little on the theist side of this-- I think that perhaps mind means the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and so examining the function of the parts can't give a complete picture.

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[Edwardo Piet]

Objective in one sense and subjective in another.

[The Grand Nudger]

It wasn't long ago that most uhm....sceptics denied objective morality just because of supposed or presupposed implications.

It's good to see things change over time.

Whaaaaaaa?  Objective moral philosophy is a subject crowded to the brim with "skeptics" and has been for a few hundred years now........- somebody had to do the work, what with the faithful stopping at "goddidt". I think it;s far more accurate to say that you have long suffered from a misapprehension about the status of objective moral philosophy brought about by your confusion as to what tense was being discussed -by- moral philosophers when they commented on the subjectivity of morality - or perhaps confusion over criticism regarding whether or not any of the various subjective moralities that -do- exist were, in fact "the objective one".

The dominant paradigm in objective moral philosophy at present and for some time is a secular one, available to both "skeptics" and believers alike.

[Amarok]

Morality is objective but not platonic magic woo floating around in cosmos like theists will assert