Subjective Morality?

[Angrboda]

Wrong.  I do not claim that it's objectively wrong.  I claim that it may have an objective basis.  That incurs no burden of proof.  You do, however, claim that it is not objective.  That does incur a burden of proof.

You are free to prove or not bother to prove anything you want.  If you believe there are objective moral facts, and you can see that I do not, then you can go ahead and show one for consideration, and explain why any moral idea might be said to be correct (rather than, say, very popular in a given culture).

If you don't want to do that, then I will happily go along my way still holding the opinion that all value judgments are necessarily subjective, including judgments about what metrics to consider when forming ideas about how to behave.

You believe in the subjectivity of morals without being able to provide any justification for your belief, and when challenged to support your belief, you say that you're simply going to go on believing regardless of whether you can provide evidence for your belief, and you have the gall to liken me to someone holding a religious belief on faith alone? You're a joke, benny. Provide justification for your belief, or you're the one behaving like a religious nutjob who believes things without reason based on blind faith. So unless I believe what you want me to believe, and jump through the hoops you want me to jump through, regardless of whether they are relevant, you're going to consider me the irrational one? You're an idiot, benny. A clueless, fucking, idiot.

Opinions about the nature of reality have varied over time, too.  Opinions about the nature of reality are still the most variable of facts in existence.  Ask a Muslim, a Buddhist, and an atheist about where we go after we die and you'll get three different answers. Are you suggesting that therefore there is no objective reality?  Opinions about mathematical truths have varied over time as well.  Not about 2+ 2, but about the axiom of choice, the question of whether math and logic are explicable in terms of the one or the other, and so on.  In morality, some basic facts like fairness is good haven't varied at all over time, so you're simply cherry picking your facts in order to support your conclusion.  Even if that were not the case, at best this argument would show that moral facts are not like mathematical facts or facts about apples.  That's a proof by analogy which only follows if we have reason to expect morals to be analogous to mathematical facts or cat facts in the way you suggest.  Ultimately it's a very weak and inconclusive argument.  Additionally, there are explanations for why morals have varied over time.  Your ignorance of them is just that.  Ultimately this is an argument that because certain epistemological facts hold, then certain ontological facts follow, and that's simply a non sequitur.

I expect that if something is objective, it may be observed to be so.  If there are facts which are moral in nature, and the morality of which is not dependent on the feelings and ideas of a subjective agent, then bring a few forward, and we can talk about them.

If you can't demonstrate that objective moral facts even exist, then we might as well be talking about magical space monkeys or Zeus' thunderous cock or something.

You can expect anything you like, whether those expectations matter or not is something else. You privilege certain referents as facts because they are experienced phenomenologically in a different way than moral facts, something which has already been pointed out to you does not prove anything. You can't demonstrate that morals are predicated on feelings, so you can't demonstrate that any better than you can demonstrate Zeus' cock, the difference is that you believe that morals being predicated upon feelings is an objective fact, one which happens to fail all the tests for an objective fact that you place upon the necessity of moral facts being objective, yet suddenly those things don't matter. You're just engaged in special pleading. You can't demonstrate that "observed" referents are any more or less objective than moral facts, you simply assume they are, without reason, in the one, and assume, again without reason, that they aren't in the second.

My opinion doesn't depend on anybody getting anything right.  What makes you think that physical realist facts, or mathematical realist facts, or any other type of fact you can name are not in the same boat?  I don't know exactly what you mean by faith here.  It seems like you're simply trying to make an analogy between moral realism and something that you consider bad.  That doesn't lead to the conclusion that moral realism is wrong, so what's the point?

If there are real moral truths, then we have two choices: demonstrate at least one, and show it to be so, or have faith that somewhere out there is some kind of real truth, even though we have no direct gnostic access to it.  In the latter case, this is only a couple sprinkles of holy water from a religious position.

Or we can be agnostic as to whether or not morals are objective or subjective. As already noted, the inability to produce a moral that satisfies you as to its objectivity doesn't lead to any conclusion, as that is an argument from ignorance. However, belief that morals are predicated on feelings and subjective, as you do, without any actual ability to demonstrate that it is, is itself just a sprinkle of holy water away from a religious position. You're an idiot, benny. You accuse me, falsely, of the very thing that you yourself are guilty of, and think that I should be ashamed because you're a moron and a hypocrite. Sorry Huggy, I mean, benny, I'm not.

[bennyboy]

You believe in the subjectivity of morals without being able to provide any justification for your belief, and when challenged to support your belief, you say that you're simply going to go on believing regardless of whether you can provide evidence for your belief, and you have the gall to liken me to someone holding a religious belief on faith alone?  You're a joke, benny.  Provide justification for your belief, or you're the one behaving like a religious nutjob who believes things without reason based on blind faith.  So unless I believe what you want me to believe, and  jump through the hoops you want me to jump through, regardless of whether they are relevant, you're going to consider me the irrational one?  You're an idiot, benny.  A clueless, fucking, idiot.

Hmmm. You seem to be tilting. Are you sure you want to keep on with this discussion?

I've given justification, and am perfectly happy to give more, for my belief that mores are rooted in feeling. One is the variance across individuals and populations (and over time); if moral realism is true, then we as a species are spectacularly incompetent at finding the truth.

And while lack of evidence for, or even a good example of, any objective moral truth, is not proof that objective morality is wrong, it leaves one to ask-- why would anybody formulate the idea that it is right? On what basis would someone believe in the objective truth of something that cannot be either directly observed or strongly inferred from what can be directly observed?

You can expect anything you like, whether those expectations matter or not is something else.  You privilege certain referents as facts because they are experienced phenomenologically in a different way than moral facts, something which has already been pointed out to you does not prove anything.  You can't demonstrate that morals are predicated on feelings, so you can't demonstrate that any better than you can demonstrate Zeus' cock, the difference is that you believe that morals being predicated upon feelings is an objective fact, one which happens to fail all the tests for an objective fact that you place upon the necessity of moral facts being objective, yet suddenly those things don't matter.  You're just engaged in special pleading.   You can't demonstrate that "observed" referents are any more or less objective than moral facts, you simply assume they are, without reason, in the one, and assume, again without reason, that they aren't in the second.

I can't prove anything about feelings at all, even that they exist. This isn't a problem for me, though, because I know first-hand feelings about offense, about guilt, about insult, about harm, and about their relationship with moral ideas. I assume other people have access to these feelings as well, but if they do not-- well, I'm pretty sure they do.

Or we can be agnostic as to whether or not morals are objective or subjective.  As already noted, the inability to produce a moral that satisfies you as to its objectivity doesn't lead to any conclusion, as that is an argument from ignorance.  However, belief that morals are predicated on feelings and subjective, as you do, without any actual ability to demonstrate that it is, is itself just a sprinkle of holy water away from a religious position.  You're an idiot, benny.  You accuse me, falsely, of the very thing that you yourself are guilty of, and think that I should be ashamed because you're a moron and a hypocrite.  Sorry Huggy, I mean, benny, I'm not.

I don't need to hang my belief on faith. When I think about things which are called moral issues, I have feelings about them. I believe that there are other people in existence, and that they likely have feelings about moral issues as well. If non-solipsism is "faith," then I have much bigger problems than my view on morality. I have to figure out why I'm hallucinating other people, and pretending that their opinions matter.

[The Grand Nudger]

Are things true or false because of bennyfeels?  Is rape wrong, not because of any fact of the act itself, but because of bennyfeels?  Is morality subjective not for any fact of morality, but because of bennyfeels?

Obviously you don't think so...since you've been giving what you purport to be objective demonstrations of your contentions in each question. You're arguing in bad faith, from a position of ignorance....because.......

we as a species are spectacularly incompetent at finding the truth.

Ding ding ding, we have a winner! This is exactly what cornell realism, as a scientific explanation of objective moral values, is leveraged for. We're pretty shit at finding truth. We need reliable systems and metrics. This is known, you and your bennyfeels are an example of the problem we face.

[Angrboda]

You believe in the subjectivity of morals without being able to provide any justification for your belief, and when challenged to support your belief, you say that you're simply going to go on believing regardless of whether you can provide evidence for your belief, and you have the gall to liken me to someone holding a religious belief on faith alone?  You're a joke, benny.  Provide justification for your belief, or you're the one behaving like a religious nutjob who believes things without reason based on blind faith.  So unless I believe what you want me to believe, and  jump through the hoops you want me to jump through, regardless of whether they are relevant, you're going to consider me the irrational one?  You're an idiot, benny.  A clueless, fucking, idiot.

Hmmm.  You seem to be tilting.  Are you sure you want to keep on with this discussion?

I've given justification, and am perfectly happy to give more, for my belief that mores are rooted in feeling.  One is the variance across individuals and populations (and over time); if moral realism is true, then we as a species are spectacularly incompetent at finding the truth.

And while lack of evidence for, or even a good example of, any objective moral truth, is not proof that objective morality is wrong, it leaves one to ask-- why would anybody formulate the idea that it is right?  On what basis would someone believe in the objective truth of something that cannot be either directly observed or strongly inferred from what can be directly observed?

And your justification was shown to be without merit. Yes I'm sure you are aware that feelings are involved in moral judgements, that fact alone doesn't indicate that feelings alone are involved in moral judgements, that just doesn't follow. You keep making a big deal about not having observed any moral facts. I'll make you a deal. You show that the idea of a cat you have in mind corresponds to an objectively existing cat, and I'll show that a moral intuition corresponds to an objective moral fact existing independent of mind. Until you can do that, shut up and sit down. The sheer bollocks of someone who regularly argues idealism and views that reality may be nothing more than mind complaining that I can't demonstrate the objective independent existence of a different class of objective facts is nothing more than outrageous hypocrisy. Why would anybody formulate the idea that reality is objective and independent of mind if they cannot demonstrate that it is? Why don't you answer your own question. So show me conclusively that cat facts are real facts or shut the fuck up. As to whether we can directly observe moral facts, we do, it's called moral intuition. You just have a problem in that you want to privilege some ideas as real and referring to objective mind independent facts ("observations") for no good reason, and deny other observations of real, objective, mind independent things as false, including moral intuitions, mathematical truths, and all of a priori reasoning. Hell, if "observation" is the standard, then you've ruled out even being able to make an argument for the subjectivity of morals because such an argument depends upon logic which is dependent upon a priori reasoning which you apparently want to deny. You're behaving in a profoundly stupid way, and I've come to expect better from you. Maybe I have been wrong to expect more.

If I'm getting heated it's because you are behaving in a palpably stupid manner. You yourself acknowledge that my inability to show or demonstrate that moral facts are objective proves nothing, yet that has been the bulk of your posts for some time now. When somebody keeps pushing an argument which they know is false, I have good reason to infer that the person is no longer arguing in good faith and is simply continuing to argue simply to save face. You're being objectively stupid about this and I don't think that's any accident.

[bennyboy]

Are things true or false because of bennyfeels?  Is rape wrong, not because of any fact of the act itself, but because of bennyfeels?  Is morality subjective not for any fact of morality, but because of bennyfeels?

Obviously you don't think so...since you've been giving what you purport to be objective demonstrations of your contentions in each question. You're arguing in bad faith, from a position of ignorance....because.......

we as a species are spectacularly incompetent at finding the truth.

Ding ding ding, we have a winner!  This is exactly what cornell realism, as a scientific explanation of objective moral values, is leveraged for.  We're pretty shit at finding truth.  We need reliable systems and metrics.  This is known, you and your bennyfeels are an example of the problem we face.

As I've stated before, I accept as axiomatic the existence of other feeling agents.  Most moral ideas predate me, so they are based on other people's feelings.  But yes, the things I CONSIDER wrong I consider wrong either because of my own direct feelings about things, or ideas I've learned from others, maybe my family, but they were all predicated at some point on somebody's feelings.

I'm not saying that rape is intrinsically wrong, at all.  That's your view, not mine.  I've said that it (and all other mores) must be considered in the context of some philosophical positions.  Rape is wrong given philosophical ideas about liberty, harm, human rights, and so on.  But there's no objective reason why liberty should matter if you choose not to extend it, or why harm should be avoided, if you don't care about it.

The latter is evidenced by the lack of vegetarianism.  We accept the killing of pigs for food, but not of people.  Sometimes, we pretend we're nice about it-- we kill the pig humanely.  It's a free-range pig who's lived its life with access to a waterslide park and fed Eggo Waffles every day, whatever.

Or consider rape.  What's the difference between rape of a human woman, and the artificial insemination of the cow?  Do the farmers attempt to ascertain whether a particular cow would be welcoming of advances from a particular bull?  Isn't this bovine rape objectively wrong, also, since it's a violation of the cow's wish not to have a large plastic tube inserted into its vagina?  Is "It's not human, so it can be property" an objective moral fact?

[The Grand Nudger]

As I've stated before, I accept as axiomatic the existence of other feeling agents.  Most moral ideas predate me, so they are based on other people's feelings.  But yes, the things I CONSIDER wrong I consider wrong either because of my own direct feelings about things, or ideas I've learned from others, maybe my family, but they were all predicated at some point on somebody's feelings.

I'm not saying that rape is intrinsically wrong, at all.  That's your view, not mine.  I've said that it (and all other mores) must be considered in the context of some philosophical positions.  Rape is wrong given philosophical ideas about liberty, harm, human rights, and so on.  But there's no objective reason why liberty should matter if you choose not to extend it, or why harm should be avoided, if you don't care about it.

There either is or isn't an objective reason to avoid harm...regardless of whether or not you care about it.  Just like someone objectively did or did not win the super bowl last year..even if you don't follow american football.

The latter is evidenced by the lack of vegetarianism.  We accept the killing of pigs for food, but not of people.  Sometimes, we pretend we're nice about it-- we kill the pig humanely.  It's a free-range pig who's lived its life with access to a waterslide park and fed Eggo Waffles every day, whatever.

We maintain that there is something relevant that is objectively different between ourselves and pigs.  We may be wrong about this..but if we were..we would be objectively wrong, and so that purported difference would not yield the conclusion that we now arrive at.  

You might wanna hold the line on us not accepting the killing of human beings for food, btw. There may actually be some factual state of affairs where we do. I'm not there, you're not there, but it's at least possible that somebody might find themselves in that position and have the presence of mind to offer a valid and objective argument for the moral permissibility (or even necessity) of killing and eating people.

Or consider rape.  What's the difference between rape of a human woman, and the artificial insemination of the cow?  Do the farmers attempt to ascertain whether a particular cow would be welcoming of advances from a particular bull?  Isn't this bovine rape objectively wrong, also, since it's a violation of the cow's wish not to have a large plastic tube inserted into its vagina?  Is "It's not human, so it can be property" an objective moral fact?

IDK, is bovine rape objectively wrong, you're asking questions that would determine it to be (or not be) so..objectively.

Even in your objections..and throughout the entirety of this thread, you have assumed the semantics of objectivism. This is because you, like any moral realist, believe in facts..and believe that those facts are informative.

[bennyboy]

If I'm getting heated it's because you are behaving in a palpably stupid manner.  You yourself acknowledge that my inability to show or demonstrate that moral facts are objective proves nothing, yet that has been the bulk of your posts for some time now.  When somebody keeps pushing an argument which they know is false, I have good reason to infer that the person is no longer arguing in good faith and is simply continuing to argue simply to save face.  You're being objectively stupid about this and I don't think that's any accident.

The inability of religious people to show that God is objectively doesn't prove that God isn't real, either. However, their inability to provide evidence to support their claim means that if I don't already hold their belief, then there's little reason for me to do so.

I don't share your belief that morality is objective, unless you want to appeal to a determinist material monism, and claim it's all just brain states or whatever. But then, we've given up one of the axioms which I outlined as necessary for me to participate in a discussion about morality: the existence of meaningful subjective agency.

At any rate, here are some of the things you've done which I consider typical of religious faith-based argumentation:
1) Claimed an objective fact, despite having no real objective data or observations (at all) upon which to base your claim.
2) Attempted to put the BOP on a critic: "You can't PROVE God objective real morality isn't real."
3) Switched to dirty debating tactics: ad homs and outrage (feigned or otherwise) in lieu of actual support for your claim.

But what I can't understand (and this is sincere) is WHY an atheist would want to claim that there are objective true mores at all. Isn't one of the best features of atheism the dropping of shackles which bind you to an inflexible perspective, and the realization that we can live perfectly fine through a process of negotiation and discussion about the kinds of values we each would like to see represented in our society? It feels to me very much like despite being atheist, you have some kind of hunger for moral absolutism.

[The Grand Nudger]

Moral non naturalists are also realists.  It's realism for idealists and dualists.  There's no requirement of material monism in realism. Realists also think that human beings are necessarrily subjective creatures.

I keep saying it, but it doesn't seem to sink in, lol?

An atheist would refer to objective moral values because that atheist believes that facts exist, and are informative. At least some of them, have moral relevance...these, would be "moral facts". Nothing absolutist about it. If the facts are different between two situations then the moral conclusion, by objective necessity, would be different.

[DLJ]

He can't.  And I think I've worked out why.

What would it matter if he couldn't?

Then we'd need to hire a new consultant/rabbi.

But he wouldn't be alone.  It seems that 'moral facts' is a place-holder term; the 'if' of an 'if/then' statement.

(or perhaps it's the 'then'... who knows?)

He can't.  And I think I've worked out why.

Question to you:  Were you once a theist or deist and have since deconverted or were you never indoctrinated in the first place?

(I'm deliberately avoiding the question "Have you always been an atheist?" - which might give you a clue as to where these meta-ethicist schools have gone wrong).

I was exposed to fundamentalist Christianity at an early age by great-grandparents who raised me for a couple of years.  Plenty of it sank in for sure.

But I've never been a card-carrying member.

And FYI I don't identify as an atheist, but as an agnostic or ignostic.  Give me any specific definition of God (like Biblical Sky Daddy) and I'll probably declare as gnostic atheist for that God.  Not given a good definition, then I'm pretty open to all kinds of possibilities, more a marriage of QM and philosophical ideas than spiritual ones.
...

And I'll wager that you are not the kind of consumer who is persuaded by brand-names. You'll try something on and test it for comfort and fit or value (fitness for purpose / fitness for use).

If so, same here.

In contrast, how many times have we read deconversion stories where people have described how they hunted around for a label (Baptist, Wican, Stoicist, Aquarian etc.) before joining the tribe of atheism?  

For them it's about belonging / finding an identity (from label to self) rather than seeking knowledge and deciding whether that knowledge fits our models of reality and/or if those models need to be updated (not from self to label but from one model of the self/environment interaction to new knowledge and wisdom; the label is irrelevant).

Our Subject Matter Expert is not fulfilling our needs because he is playing the role of consultant rather than guide. All we get is 'it depends'.

We ask, which is the moral fact element of 2 + 2 = 4?  Is it the first 2, the second 2, both of them or the 4? Or is the factiness embedded somewhere in the structure of the equation?

All we get is:  
If you believe in bases 5 and above then 2 + 2 = 4 is a fact.  But if you are a member of the base 3 sect then 2 + 2 = 11 is your fact.
If you believe in Euclidean Geometry then the Pythagorean formulas are true but if you are a Lobachevskian then they are not.
Or if you belong to Religion x then orthodoxy + orthopraxy = salvation but if you hold to orthodoxy alone then you are Jewish (or catholic or whichever).

This is why it parallels, and comes across as, religion.

[bennyboy]

We maintain that there is something relevant that is objectively different between ourselves and pigs.  We may be wrong about this..but if we were..we would be objectively wrong, and so that purported difference would not yield the conclusion that we now arrive at.  

There's something objectively different between black people and white people, too. Or between men and women, or straight men and the Baskin and Robbins of gender declarations that we now deal with, or between you and me. But it is because of very strong feelings about black people, about women, or about straight men, that we now have the luxury of being so strongly entrenched in moral positions about those groups that we consider statements like "racism is wrong" or "women should be treated equally" objective truths.

How do you objectively arrive at the truth, "Pigs can't have rights because they aren't people"? You can't. You decide arbitrarily, very much without any negotiation with pigs, that it's better to call rape "artificial insemination," murder "humane cultivation of the animals" and so on.

How do people arrive at the idea that eating meat is morally wrong? I think in very many cases, it's because they think about (or see) the treatment and slaughter of animals, and develop a very strong negative emotional reaction to it. And that's why feelings about eating meat vary so much-- it's not rational, not really, it's because some people's feelings of "Yum" are stronger than their feelings of horror (in many people, completely absent), or vice versa.