Objective morality as a proper basic belief

[Astonished]

Ok.... What you are describing still doesn't make it subjective ontologically.  This could be a problem with equating objective with absolute, or subjective with relative. For instance if we are talking about hair color of a particular person.  The color of the hair is objective.  It does not change even if you and I disagree on what that color is.  It is also relative, as it depends on the person, that we are talking about.

Why are you talking about hair? I'm talking about moral subjectivity. Do you really not grasp that?

If you are using different value judgements for the same act based on who the actor is, you are practicing moral relativity. This horseshit about ontology is irrelevant.

Try extrapolating it out to different nations and maybe that will help, and remove god from the equation (although Israeli schoolchildren were tested in this way and said it wasn't wrong for a god-backed army to do the same thing as a Chinese army that they did consider wrong). Is it wrong for X nation to gas the minority population that disagrees with the ruling party, but not for Y nation to do the same? If not then there's no way to justify any other party's immunity to this. Distinctions destroy the entire argument.

[Little Henry]

I am merely pointing out the logical conclusions if morality is subjective. 

All you people keep on saying i that there certain acts are right or wrong morally. If you say this you are ADMITTING to OM.

I admit no such thing.  Stop pretending to read our minds.

Until otherwise demonstrated, all morality is subjective -- including morality that allegedly comes from a god.

The god of the Bible is a particularly egregious and ugly example of this.  It sets up the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" but violates it regularly, with wild abandon.  If there is an objective standard upon which the commandment is based, Yahweh is in clear violation of it and accordingly can be ignored as an authority on morality.

Subjective morality is simple:  If you don't want it to happen to you, don't do it to someone else.

But everytime you look at an act like rape and murder, you are admitting to objective morality.

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@Little Henry:

You make the same mistake that creationists do, assuming that by attacking an alternative explanation of the facts they will thereby be validating their own.  It doesn't work that way as that presents a false dichotomy between your views and the alternative.  You still have to defend your own view of objective morality if you want to claim that it exists.

"Is God's nature good because it is God's, or is God's nature good because it is morally good (i.e. it conforms to an independent standard of good)?"  You see, playing the ontology card has gained you nothing.  Just as the Euthyphro dilemma applies to Divine Command Theory, it also applies to the argument that morality is derived from God's nature.  Either God's nature is arbitrarily good simply because it is God's, which results in an arbitrary set of morals which by definition is not moral.  Or God's nature is good in that it conforms to a standard of goodness that is independent of God, making God's nature superfluous to the question of morals.  You have accomplished nothing by your detour into ontology except to confuse the issue.  God is still an unsatisfactory source of morality, and you're left empty handed, claiming the existence of objective morals that you can't explain.

Euthyphro dilemma is a false dilemma. It fails to take int account the 3rd option.

Goodness is grounded in Gods nature and his commands flow from that.

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Any concept of taking life is killing

And he has this right because ? don't tell me

He created life . And that means he has the right to kill it because?

He owns you. And that ownership comes from ?

He can . Might makes right ?

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I am merely pointing out the logical conclusions if morality is subjective. 

No your not your masking empty assertions and being called out for it

He doesnt kill...He merely removes people from this temporal existence into another existence.

The author of a book doesnt have the right to remove characters from his book?

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Little Henry, you claim I don't believe in OM. How did you arrive at that conclusion?

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You guys need to read more of Michael Ruse

"Morality, or more strictly our belief in morality, is merely an adaptation put in place to further our reproductive ends. Hence the basis of ethics does not lie in God’s will—or in the metaphorical roots of evolution or any other part of the framework of the Universe. In an important sense, ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate. It is without external grounding. Ethics is produced by evolution but is not justified by it because, like Macbeth’s dagger, it serves a powerful purpose without existing in substance.…Unlike Macbeth’s dagger, ethics is a shared illusion of the human race.16"

Again, if you dont believe in OMVs, then everytime you say acts like rape and torture are wrong, you are sufferring from an illusion.

You like Michael Ruse because he agrees with you about 'what atheists must think'. I don't agree with him, and I don't see him saying anything that compelling. As philosophers go, he's a mixed bag, and there are literally hundred of other atheist philosophers you could have turned to if your goal was to find nontheistic philosophical support for moral realism.

You dont agree with him because you dont like the logical conclusion from it.

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God does not kill.

As the author of life he has the right to remove anyone from this temporal existence to another existence as he sees fit.

Still practicing moral subjectivity, and adding semantics into the mix. Good times!

Its not though

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And once again there is no conflict between objecting to rape and torture and saying it's subjective . And Once again Ruse isn't the final authority on morality. Just because he happens to be an atheist.

Sure, but the most you can say is, i dislike rape, murder etc.

But you cannot say it is wrong.

Because right and wrong ONLY exist in relation to facts.

Taste in food is subjective, i can prefer grapes to olives, but i cannot say it is a fact that grapes taste better than olives. I cannot say that it is right that grapes taste better than olives.

Your preference or desire doesnt make something right or wrong.

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I want all of you to explain to me how your preference or desire makes something right or wrong.

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I want all of you to explain to me how your preference or desire makes something right or wrong.

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I want all of you to explain to me how your preference or desire makes something right or wrong.

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I admit no such thing.  Stop pretending to read our minds.

Until otherwise demonstrated, all morality is subjective -- including morality that allegedly comes from a god.

The god of the Bible is a particularly egregious and ugly example of this.  It sets up the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" but violates it regularly, with wild abandon.  If there is an objective standard upon which the commandment is based, Yahweh is in clear violation of it and accordingly can be ignored as an authority on morality.

Subjective morality is simple:  If you don't want it to happen to you, don't do it to someone else.

But everytime you look at an act like rape and murder, you are admitting to objective morality.

---

@Little Henry:

You make the same mistake that creationists do, assuming that by attacking an alternative explanation of the facts they will thereby be validating their own.  It doesn't work that way as that presents a false dichotomy between your views and the alternative.  You still have to defend your own view of objective morality if you want to claim that it exists.

"Is God's nature good because it is God's, or is God's nature good because it is morally good (i.e. it conforms to an independent standard of good)?"  You see, playing the ontology card has gained you nothing.  Just as the Euthyphro dilemma applies to Divine Command Theory, it also applies to the argument that morality is derived from God's nature.  Either God's nature is arbitrarily good simply because it is God's, which results in an arbitrary set of morals which by definition is not moral.  Or God's nature is good in that it conforms to a standard of goodness that is independent of God, making God's nature superfluous to the question of morals.  You have accomplished nothing by your detour into ontology except to confuse the issue.  God is still an unsatisfactory source of morality, and you're left empty handed, claiming the existence of objective morals that you can't explain.

Euthyphro dilemma is a false dilemma. It fails to take int account the 3rd option.

Goodness is grounded in Gods nature and his commands flow from that.

---

Any concept of taking life is killing

And he has this right because ? don't tell me

He created life . And that means he has the right to kill it because?

He owns you. And that ownership comes from ?

He can . Might makes right ?

---

No your not your masking empty assertions and being called out for it

He doesnt kill...He merely removes people from this temporal existence into another existence.

The author of a book doesnt have the right to remove characters from his book?

---

Little Henry, you claim I don't believe in OM. How did you arrive at that conclusion?

---

You like Michael Ruse because he agrees with you about 'what atheists must think'. I don't agree with him, and I don't see him saying anything that compelling. As philosophers go, he's a mixed bag, and there are literally hundred of other atheist philosophers you could have turned to if your goal was to find nontheistic philosophical support for moral realism.

You dont agree with him because you dont like the logical conclusion from it.

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Still practicing moral subjectivity, and adding semantics into the mix. Good times!

Its not though

---

And once again there is no conflict between objecting to rape and torture and saying it's subjective . And Once again Ruse isn't the final authority on morality. Just because he happens to be an atheist.

Sure, but the most you can say is, i dislike rape, murder etc.

But you cannot say it is wrong.

Because right and wrong ONLY exist in relation to facts.

Taste in food is subjective, i can prefer grapes to olives, but i cannot say it is a fact that grapes taste better than olives. I cannot say that it is right that grapes taste better than olives.

Your preference or desire doesnt make something right or wrong.

---

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I want all of you to explain to me how your preference or desire makes something right or wrong.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Your preference or desire doesnt make something right or wrong.

This is a strawman. Morality can be arrived at through means of reason rather than emotion, so long as we regard the good life as axiomatic.

I will assume that you, as a Christian, do regard the sanctity of life as axiomatic. Correct if me if I'm wrong on either count.

---

Why are you talking about hair? I'm talking about moral subjectivity. Do you really not grasp that?

If you are using different value judgements for the same act based on who the actor is, you are practicing moral relativity. This horseshit about ontology is irrelevant.

Try extrapolating it out to different nations and maybe that will help, and remove god from the equation (although Israeli schoolchildren were tested in this way and said it wasn't wrong for a god-backed army to do the same thing as a Chinese army that they did consider wrong). Is it wrong for X nation to gas the minority population that disagrees with the ruling party, but not for Y nation to do the same? If not then there's no way to justify any other party's immunity to this. Distinctions destroy the entire argument.

I think it's wrong for any nation to gas any minority population for any reason. But that's just me. Clearly the Germans didn't think the same in WWII ... and they were overwhelmingly Christian.

What, again, was your point? That morality is objective based on how we know what we know?

Fact is, humans most often adjudge the morality of any action 1) based on how they sit in the equation, 2) how creepy it makes them feel, and 3) how they've been programmed by their societies.

All three aspects speak to subjectivity.

Rather than toss about spurious crap, make your case for moral objectivity plainly. Quit muddying the waters, and clarify the conversation, if you'd be so kind.

[Little Henry]

Your preference or desire doesnt make something right or wrong.

This is a strawman. Morality can be arrived at through means of reason rather than emotion, so long as we regard the good life as axiomatic.

I will assume that you, as a Christian, do regard the sanctity of life as axiomatic. Correct if me if I'm wrong on either count.

---

Try extrapolating it out to different nations and maybe that will help, and remove god from the equation (although Israeli schoolchildren were tested in this way and said it wasn't wrong for a god-backed army to do the same thing as a Chinese army that they did consider wrong). Is it wrong for X nation to gas the minority population that disagrees with the ruling party, but not for Y nation to do the same? If not then there's no way to justify any other party's immunity to this. Distinctions destroy the entire argument.

I think it's wrong for any nation to gas any minority population for any reason.  But that's just me. Clearly the Germans didn't think the same in WWII ... and they were overwhelmingly Christian.

What, again, was your point? That morality is objective based on how we know what we know?

Fact is, humans most often adjudge the morality of any action 1) based on how they sit in the equation, 2) how creepy it makes them feel, and 3) how they've been programmed by their societies.

All three aspects speak to subjectivity.

Rather than toss about spurious crap, make your case for moral objectivity plainly. Quit muddying the waters, and clarify the conversation, if you'd be so kind.

Re reasoning, This presupposes a TRUTH exists, hence OM.

You just cant escape it, no matter how hard you try and dance around it.

[Astonished]

Your preference or desire doesnt make something right or wrong.

This is a strawman. Morality can be arrived at through means of reason rather than emotion, so long as we regard the good life as axiomatic.

I will assume that you, as a Christian, do regard the sanctity of life as axiomatic. Correct if me if I'm wrong on either count.

---

Try extrapolating it out to different nations and maybe that will help, and remove god from the equation (although Israeli schoolchildren were tested in this way and said it wasn't wrong for a god-backed army to do the same thing as a Chinese army that they did consider wrong). Is it wrong for X nation to gas the minority population that disagrees with the ruling party, but not for Y nation to do the same? If not then there's no way to justify any other party's immunity to this. Distinctions destroy the entire argument.

I think it's wrong for any nation to gas any minority population for any reason.  But that's just me. Clearly the Germans didn't think the same in WWII ... and they were overwhelmingly Christian.

What, again, was your point? That morality is objective based on how we know what we know?

Fact is, humans most often adjudge the morality of any action 1) based on how they sit in the equation, 2) how creepy it makes them feel, and 3) how they've been programmed by their societies.

All three aspects speak to subjectivity.

Rather than toss about spurious crap, make your case for moral objectivity plainly. Quit muddying the waters, and clarify the conversation, if you'd be so kind.

Fuck, dude, you bit my head off for no reason. I'm piggybacking off of what was already said, otherwise I'd have written a hell of a lot more. I'm just saying if you can't justify a moral exemption between any two groups, there's no defense for any other groups so to try and give god a free pass is just ludicrous and not only undermines any absolute morality, but verifies that any biblical-based morality is just as spurious as you accused me of being. Saying one group has X attribute that gives it an exemption is preposterous if the concern is the consequences and not the identity or characteristic of the agents involved.

[Angrboda]

@Little Henry:

You make the same mistake that creationists do, assuming that by attacking an alternative explanation of the facts they will thereby be validating their own.  It doesn't work that way as that presents a false dichotomy between your views and the alternative.  You still have to defend your own view of objective morality if you want to claim that it exists.

"Is God's nature good because it is God's, or is God's nature good because it is morally good (i.e. it conforms to an independent standard of good)?"  You see, playing the ontology card has gained you nothing.  Just as the Euthyphro dilemma applies to Divine Command Theory, it also applies to the argument that morality is derived from God's nature.  Either God's nature is arbitrarily good simply because it is God's, which results in an arbitrary set of morals which by definition is not moral.  Or God's nature is good in that it conforms to a standard of goodness that is independent of God, making God's nature superfluous to the question of morals.  You have accomplished nothing by your detour into ontology except to confuse the issue.  God is still an unsatisfactory source of morality, and you're left empty handed, claiming the existence of objective morals that you can't explain.

Euthyphro dilemma is a false dilemma.

Well it's a good thing that I didn't give the Euthyphro dilemma then isn't it?

It fails to take int account the 3rd option.

Wrong. You've failed to actually read the dilemma I've given you, and substituted your own false version.

Goodness is grounded in Gods nature and his commands flow from that.

Hurr durr! This is not a valid response to the dilemma I've posed. Try actually reading what I wrote instead of what you imagine I might write.

[Astonished]

This is a strawman. Morality can be arrived at through means of reason rather than emotion, so long as we regard the good life as axiomatic.

I will assume that you, as a Christian, do regard the sanctity of life as axiomatic. Correct if me if I'm wrong on either count.

---

I think it's wrong for any nation to gas any minority population for any reason.  But that's just me. Clearly the Germans didn't think the same in WWII ... and they were overwhelmingly Christian.

What, again, was your point? That morality is objective based on how we know what we know?

Fact is, humans most often adjudge the morality of any action 1) based on how they sit in the equation, 2) how creepy it makes them feel, and 3) how they've been programmed by their societies.

All three aspects speak to subjectivity.

Rather than toss about spurious crap, make your case for moral objectivity plainly. Quit muddying the waters, and clarify the conversation, if you'd be so kind.

Re reasoning, This presupposes a TRUTH exists, hence OM.

You just cant escape it, no matter how hard you try and dance around it.

Explain, simply, how god giving no regard whatsoever to our consent to be created or terminated in any fashion he so flippantly chooses is 'good'. By definition acting upon someone without their informed consent is a serious violation, and any number of crimes stem from it (rape, fraud, assault). Or is his mere existence above requiring the consent of others? Because you can't get around the fact that it's a violation, all you can do is twist words around and say that a violation isn't wrong if it's at god's hands. Do you not see how you have to fuck the whole concept of morality until it looks like Swiss cheese to make your god fit into it?

[Astreja]

But everytime you look at an act like rape and murder, you are admitting to objective morality.

Nope.  I subjectively do not want to be raped or murdered, nor do I want it to happen to others because I can imagine the pain that it would cause them.

"Objective": You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.

[Amarok]

1. have read all of Ruse i'll ever need to he's wrong

2. You have said relevance to anything I have said repeating what have already said does not help you

3. For the love of Kermit the frog learn term terms

http://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/11727

Summed up I don't care 28 pages have proven how much you suck at defending objective morality . And this is coming from a moral realist

Goodness is grounded in Gods nature and his commands flow from that.

For the love of pastry this DOES NOT DEFEAT THE PROBLEM   it only moves it back idiot.

[Little Henry]

Euthyphro dilemma is a false dilemma.

Well it's a good thing that I didn't give the Euthyphro dilemma then isn't it?

Gods nature is not arbitrarily good. It is necessary.

It fails to take int account the 3rd option.

Wrong.  You've failed to actually read the dilemma I've given you, and substituted your own false version.

Again, your version is based on an incorrect assumption that his nature of goodness is arbitrary.

Goodness is grounded in Gods nature and his commands flow from that.

Hurr durr!  This is not a valid response to the dilemma I've posed.  Try actually reading what I wrote instead of what you imagine I might write.

Again, your version is based on an incorrect assumption that his nature of goodness is arbitrary.

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Re reasoning, This presupposes a TRUTH exists, hence OM.

You just cant escape it, no matter how hard you try and dance around it.

Explain, simply, how god giving no regard whatsoever to our consent to be created or terminated in any fashion he so flippantly chooses is 'good'. By definition acting upon someone without their informed consent is a serious violation, and any number of crimes stem from it (rape, fraud, assault). Or is his mere existence above requiring the consent of others? Because you can't get around the fact that it's a violation, all you can do is twist words around and say that a violation isn't wrong if it's at god's hands. Do you not see how you have to fuck the whole concept of morality until it looks like Swiss cheese to make your god fit into it?

If Gods nature is perfectly good and JUST, then any act God does is good and JUST including creating free willed human beings who have the choice to reject him.

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But everytime you look at an act like rape and murder, you are admitting to objective morality.

Nope.  I subjectively do not want to be raped or murdered, nor do I want it to happen to others because I can imagine the pain that it would cause them.

"Objective": You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.

Which is just as valid as the offender who subjectively wants to rape you.

If their is no objective right or wrong, then its just preferences and desires.

You not wanting to be raped is just as valid as the rapist who wants to rape you.

Objective means it is true or right regardless of what anyone thinks about it.

The earth rotates around the sun. It doesnt matter what you or i or anyone wants, wishes or believes it, the earth rotates around the sun.

This is what we mean by objective.

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Even Richard Dawkins gets it.

"The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”