Subjective Morality?

[mfigurski80]

That would make killing relative, not to be confused with subjective.  The question is relative to what?  Is it relative to the subject, or to the specifics of the event.  Can throwing children into a wood chipper for the fun of it be moral, depending on the person?

Another example I seen recently was the old question, if a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound?  If something is objective, it is true regardless of opinions or knowledge of it. It exists and is true regardless if everyone agrees, or even if no one believes.

Are the children dead? 

Is the person throwing the children psychotic? If they find enjoyment then they have no moral objection to it.

Do the children have a communicable disease with 100% mortality and threaten the rest of the group? I might get enjoyment from saving my community while not enjoying the actual act. 

Tree, sound, detection............. again with the science? Um, does it make a ground vibration? Mixed metaphor again.

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Interesting ad hominem setup there. 

Also, you self-contradict in the span of 3 really short paragraphs:
"what religion a scientists is. Does not matter as long as the science is correct" ... "I'm not surprised that you continue the theist dance/dodge."
In the second phrase, you are clearly dismissing my explanations (which, notice, do not depend on any theistic precepts) based on your perception of my religion. In the first phrase, you claim that religion is irrelevant as long as the explanations are sound.

"Why are you going back to science with the "subatomic particle" crap. You wanted to discuss moral(s) not science. If there are errors (great or small) in objective morals then they are not objective."
Let me re-reiterate. 
Objective (adjective) - "The [objective] object is something that presumably exists independent of the subject's perception of it".
NOTE: An objective object presumably exists independent of one's perception of it!!!!!

Are you denying that you are religious??? 

I said as long as the "science" explanations are sound. Thanks for twisting my words. Completely what I expected. You need to dump the morals comparison to science. 

You have failed to demonstrate that morals are independent of a persons/subjects perception. 

No ad hominem, just an observation that theists seem to collectively demonstrate the same propensity for diversions and dodges.

"You have failed to demonstrate that morals are independent of a persons/subjects perception."
-_-
No dit. There is no BoP, I'm looking for a reasonable explanation.

"No ad hominem, just an observation that theists seem to collectively demonstrate the same propensity for diversions and dodges."
Ad Hominem - "(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining." (google)
-_-

"Are you denying that you are religious??? "
I have specified my Religion as: irrelevant. Because it's irrelevant. I can be creationist or hard atheist and the logic will still be sound
-_-

"I said as long as the "science" explanations are sound. Thanks for twisting my words. Completely what I expected. You need to dump the morals comparison to science. "
Science - "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world" (google)
-_-
You know that the meaning doesn't change if I fix my misinterpretation, right?



That's it for now, btw, I got a good explanation of subjective morality from someone else.

[RoadRunner79]

That would make killing relative, not to be confused with subjective.  The question is relative to what?  Is it relative to the subject, or to the specifics of the event.  Can throwing children into a wood chipper for the fun of it be moral, depending on the person?

Another example I seen recently was the old question, if a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound?  If something is objective, it is true regardless of opinions or knowledge of it. It exists and is true regardless if everyone agrees, or even if no one believes.

Are the children dead? 

Is the person throwing the children psychotic? If they find enjoyment then they have no moral objection to it.

Do the children have a communicable disease with 100% mortality and threaten the rest of the group? I might get enjoyment from saving my community while not enjoying the actual act. 

Tree, sound, detection............. again with the science? Um, does it make a ground vibration? Mixed metaphor again.

---

Interesting ad hominem setup there. 

Also, you self-contradict in the span of 3 really short paragraphs:
"what religion a scientists is. Does not matter as long as the science is correct" ... "I'm not surprised that you continue the theist dance/dodge."
In the second phrase, you are clearly dismissing my explanations (which, notice, do not depend on any theistic precepts) based on your perception of my religion. In the first phrase, you claim that religion is irrelevant as long as the explanations are sound.

"Why are you going back to science with the "subatomic particle" crap. You wanted to discuss moral(s) not science. If there are errors (great or small) in objective morals then they are not objective."
Let me re-reiterate. 
Objective (adjective) - "The [objective] object is something that presumably exists independent of the subject's perception of it".
NOTE: An objective object presumably exists independent of one's perception of it!!!!!

Are you denying that you are religious??? 

I said as long as the "science" explanations are sound. Thanks for twisting my words. Completely what I expected. You need to dump the morals comparison to science. 

You have failed to demonstrate that morals are independent of a persons/subjects perception. That objective morals are indeed a fact.

No ad hominem, just an observation that theists seem to collectively demonstrate the same propensity for diversions and dodges.

Edit: I see you added more. Interesting that you say objective morals presumably exist. Good one.

You seem to be trying hard to avoid the subject. More to get around the questions than to think about them.

[robvalue]

Mfig: You seem to have admitted that you cannot get around the is/ought problem in an objective way. There is no way to determine a single correct answer to what you should do, without first defining "should" so that it fits. It’s circular. That’s really all there is to it. That’s what subjective morality is saying. You can only get around this by compromise or by fiat.

Here’s an important point I think is being missed, and may account for what you’re trying to say. Once two people (or two societies) have agreed on a general principle as being the goal of morality (such as the wellbeing of its population) then it can sometimes be possible to identify beliefs or practices held by one that are a hindrance to that principle. Things can be made somewhat scientific/objective in this regard. But if they disagree on what the principles are, you’re comparing apples and oranges. Each side can tell the other their principles are "better", but we're back to the circular is/ought problem there.

Even wellbeing, once agreed, is a hugely vague term and isn’t something that can be measured objectively overall. It’s a mix of lots of different things, and how you weight all of these different aspects is a subject for discussion. In reality, most actions have positive and negative effects on wellbeing, and it’s about considering how to best balance things. How and when do the positives outweigh the negatives? There’s no non-arbitrary objective answer.

I don’t know if you watched my video, but the other glaring problem, even for people who agree on wellbeing as a principle, is nonhuman animals. Most people apply different rules to them (it’s okay to own, breed and kill them if it’s done "humanely") than humans. It’s become so normalised that people don’t even notice this arbitrary/tribal divide. My opinion is that this divide should not be there, and that we should have no right to own animals, any more than owning people. Am I objectively right or wrong? Neither.

[robvalue]

[The Grand Nudger]

Is ought is blissfully easy to "get around", you only need a single evaluative premise. People have that problem entirely wrong.

[robvalue]

Well you haven’t got around it, you’ve just chosen one possible path. That’s the whole point. There isn’t one correct path.

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Of course a person can pick what they ought to do, according to themselves. That’s trivially true. What they can’t do is pick the "correct" way to decide what to do, because that’s meaningless. That’s the is/ought problem.

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PS: I’m really confused, because what you do is to describe the is/ought problem, and then say that this has solved it!? The problem isn’t that a person can’t come up with evaluative premise(s); of course they can.

[The Grand Nudger]

Of course a person can pick what they ought to do, according to themselves. That’s trivially true. What they can’t do is pick the "correct" way to decide what to do, because that’s meaningless. That’s the is/ought problem.

"Is/ought" contends that a person requires at least one evaluative premise to traverse the logical space between the two with a valid means of inference.  Further, the contention states that no statement of fact necessarily entails an evaluative premise. If both of these contentions are true, then there are no value neutral judgments for evaluative conclusions.  This wouldn't be true solely of moral evaluation, btw, but all evaluative conclusions (or, if it were solely true of moral evaluation...some explanation as to why it is the exception or outlier is needed).  The contention that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow requires and contains silent evaluative premises just as much as any moral conclusion.  Both statements satisfy the condition of evaluative premises.

Supposing the open question and assuming that no evaluative premise necessarily entails from a statement of fact is not incompatible with discovering that, in point of fact,all x is good (or bad)

So, right off the bat, the objection does not and cannot contend that there can be no moral facts, or that there can be no "correct way", or that any such discussion is meaningless.  Is/ought describes the difficulty, the bar, the floor, if you will..and proposes that the matter of evaluative premises is both required for any valid argument, and a subject open for discussion and debate (ofc it is), but it does not presuppose that there is or can be no resolution to that debate.

It is not some rule that makes moral realism an impossibility. I know this might add complication to the mix...but moral realism doesn't contend that there is only one "right way", it simply puts constraints on whatever "right ways" you might come up with, as does is/ought. A moral realist can also be a moral pluralist. The crushing majority are. That you hear so much about one evaluative premise or another is more for convenience. It would take hours to talk around the entirety of moral theory just to make a comment that you could express simply with a single example from a single metric.

[DLJ]

...
Isn't the purpose of morality to rationally distinguish between good and bad actions?
...

Nope. (Depending upon how one defines morality) it's purpose is to emotionally distinguish between good and bad feelings.

It's about competence not comprehension.

And welcome to the forum.

It's an oxymoron.

Nope. It's a tautology.

...
I spot a chance to chime in with my pet peeve...

A lot of times when people say "objective" they seem to mean "universal and eternal." As if any objective judgment will be the same always and forever. But I don't think that's what "objective" means. 
...

My pet peeve too.

There was a notable moment in the W. Lane Craig / Hitchens debate when the latter observed that the former had dropped his usual favourite adjective in favour of a new one... 'absolute' was out and 'objective' was in.

If even christian apologists have dropped the idea of 'absolute morality', that's progress.

[Schwa]

Is morality an object or a subject?

[Aegon]

Hey all,

New user here, I thought this to be a good resource for a layman's morality question:

Whats the deal with Subjective Morality?

I know subjective morality is in nowadays, but I don't really understand how it's functional. Isn't the purpose of morality to rationally distinguish between good and bad actions? Can subjective morality do that, or are people defining things differently?


Thanks, any insight appreciated,
Mikolaj

Of course morality is subjective.  If it weren't, all cultures would have the same moral strictures, and all actions would be either moral or immoral.

Suppose I have a loaf of bread and you steal it from me.  If you committed the act because you hate me and wanted me to be hungry, that act would be immoral. But if you stole the bread to feed a starving child, that act would be moral.

Boru

Although I am on board with subjective morality, I could argue that cultures having different moral systems speaks to the variability of the human experience, but doesn't negate the possibility of an objective morality that we havent reached but can achieve.