Answer to the objective morality argument.

[Taffer]

It may be true that morals are subjective, but it is far from clear. The existence of different sets of morality among different cultures or species does not, in any way, mean that objective morality does not exist. Some cultures or species might just be wrong about their morality.

Ugh. Be careful, bluskool, where you go with this slippery slope.

"That country is wrong to claim that it is immoral for us to bomb them, they clearly don't understand how it is morally right."

If morals are objective, and one group can be 'right' about their morality, and another group 'wrong', how do you tell which is which? It becomes akin to an argument between two different Christian churches: God exists, but you are wrong about what he is, we are right.

 

[westprog]

Ugh. Be careful, bluskool, where you go with this slippery slope.

"That country is wrong to claim that it is immoral for us to bomb them, they clearly don't understand how it is morally right."

If morals are objective, and one group can be 'right' about their morality, and another group 'wrong', how do you tell which is which? It becomes akin to an argument between two different Christian churches: God exists, but you are wrong about what he is, we are right.

And how does subjective morality solve this problem?

 

[Taffer]

And how does subjective morality solve this problem?

It doesn't, one group will always claim to be right while another is wrong, but at least subjective morality doesn't claim anything different, nor does it try to justify the situation. Which would you prefer, two countries claiming the other is wrong about some objective, but unmeasurable property, or two countries which admit they simply feel differently about a situation?

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

There's a difference between the way that we surmise the existence of the universe, and the way we access the moral world. "The universe" is a model we construct to predict what happens to us when we do things. However, pain is something we directly experience. We can doubt that the fire that burns our hand exists. It's more difficult to doubt the pain. From suffering comes value, from value comes morality.

Pain is not morality. Morality is built upon a type of sensory experience -- our feelings about the world and others around us, but it is most assuredly not the feelings themselves unless you wish to sink back to emotivism.

We use our models of the moral universe in slightly different ways than we use our moral models -- one to help predict what might happen out there next and one to understand what we should do next (they have different directions of fit), but they are not so completely different as all that.

But all of this still misses the point I was making -- that to know, with certainty, objective truths is not available to us (with a very few exceptions). We simply do not know with complete certainty that killing is always wrong, we do not know this categorically. There are frequently exceptions (which is how we know that it is not a categorical truth). That is why we have these discussions in the first place. We don't keep battling back and forth that we know that thinking occurs (sure, it's brought up in discussions frequently, but we don't really debate it).

Of course there are differences in the way that we know the world and the way the we know moral 'truths', but they both suffer from not being 'objective' in the first sense (human mind-independent).

 

[westprog]

Pain is not morality. Morality is built upon a type of sensory experience -- our feelings about the world and others around us, but it is most assuredly not the feelings themselves unless you wish to sink back to emotivism.

Morality is not the same thing as pain, but pain/pleasure is what forms a basis for morality. If there is no pain, and no pleasure, then it doesn't really matter what we do. N.b. I'm using the widest possible definitions of pain and pleasure here.

It would be possible to have a rule-based form of morality where eating pork is evil, or it's allowed except on Fridays. That's fairly arbitrary though - and not accessible except through some kind of special revelation.

It is the fact that not all experiences are the same for us that leads us to the conclusion that the universe is not value-free. If we believe that the universe is value-free, we correspondingly have to accept that everything that happens to us is equivalent too.

We use our models of the moral universe in slightly different ways than we use our moral models -- one to help predict what might happen out there next and one to understand what we should do next (they have different directions of fit), but they are not so completely different as all that.

But all of this still misses the point I was making -- that to know, with certainty, objective truths is not available to us (with a very few exceptions). We simply do not know with complete certainty that killing is always wrong, we do not know this categorically. There are frequently exceptions (which is how we know that it is not a categorical truth). That is why we have these discussions in the first place. We don't keep battling back and forth that we know that thinking occurs (sure, it's brought up in discussions frequently, but we don't really debate it).

Of course there are differences in the way that we know the world and the way the we know moral 'truths', but they both suffer from not being 'objective' in the first sense (human mind-independent).

The issue of certainty is interesting, but it's a different problem. The OP was, if I interpreted it correctly, stating that objective morality is certainly wrong. I don't think that's correct, but it doesn't follow that objective morality is certainly true. However, I think that there is strong evidence in favour of its existence.

 

[bluskool]

It may be true that morals are subjective, but it is far from clear. The existence of different sets of morality among different cultures or species does not, in any way, mean that objective morality does not exist. Some cultures or species might just be wrong about their morality.

Ugh. Be careful, bluskool, where you go with this slippery slope.

"That country is wrong to claim that it is immoral for us to bomb them, they clearly don't understand how it is morally right."

If morals are objective, and one group can be 'right' about their morality, and another group 'wrong', how do you tell which is which? It becomes akin to an argument between two different Christian churches: God exists, but you are wrong about what he is, we are right.

Taffer, look again at the text you quoted above. I said "Some cultures or species might just be wrong about their morality." If I said that some cultures are wrong, then your statements would at least make sense. I was pointing out a bad argument, not asserting a position. If you had read the rest of the thread, you would have seen that someone had already made the argument you are making in response to the text you quoted and I had already pointed out why this argument is flawed.

That is an epistemological question, while the question I am asking in this thread is an ontological one. There's no use in asking how we know what is objectively right and wrong unless we can first figure out if objective right and wrong actually exists. The point I was making is that just pointing out that different cultures have different morals does not prove that morality is subjective. To pick an obvious example, it would be like saying that there exists a culture that believes that 2 + 2 = 5, therefore arithmetic is subjective.

 

[Taffer]

Taffer, look again at the text you quoted above. I said "Some cultures or species might just be wrong about their morality." If I said that some cultures are wrong, then your statements would at least make sense. I was pointing out a bad argument, not asserting a position. If you had read the rest of the thread, you would have seen that someone had already made the argument you are making in response to the text you quoted and I had already pointed out why this argument is flawed.

I'm not making an argument for subjective morality, only stating that objective morality would lead to the situations I gave. For all we know, there is such a thing as objective morality, but that doesn't mean we should consider it so when there are obvious differences in people's interpretations of it.

To use your mathematical example, if there are two groups in the world, one who knows that 2+2=4, and another that knows 2+2=5. If both have mathematical proof, how does one determine who is correct? Even if there is a true answer, as we know there is, we cannot ascertain the nature of it from these two positions.

ETA: Lets put it another way. Morals are objective? Ok, great! Provide a measurement of these morals, and we can all go home.