Is morality objective?

[wokeem]

Organized religion seems to attempt to put the concept of morality on an objective scale, removed from circumstances and intentions, and to show it as an area that is only black and white. However, different religions across the globe differ on their view as to what can be considered truly "moral." Many eastern faiths (as well as native american) are pantheistic, that is, they are of the belief that god lies within every living thing, and that killing a creature of any kind (without need) is wrong. Other faiths are based on ritualistic sacrifices. Islamic extremists view suicide bombings as the epitome of self-righteousness, while others who practice the Muslim faith view these acts as morally reprehensible.

I think that morality is a somewhat cheap and shortsighted concept and is at best, culturally relative. I feel that a more rational and sensible distinction, and one more easily examined objectively, is whether or not certain actions are "pro-social."

What are your thoughts and opinions on this? Do you believe that certain actions are inherently right or wrong? Is there an objective value instilled in every action?

[The Atheist]

I think that morality is a somewhat cheap and shortsighted concept and is at best, culturally relative. I feel that a more rational and sensible distinction, and one more easily examined objectively, is whether or not certain actions are "pro-social."

Yep; you've pretty much nailed it.

You've described humanist morality perfectly.

What are your thoughts and opinions on this? Do you believe that certain actions are inherently right or wrong?

Nope.

As you note, only religions try to suggest that things are inherently "immoral".

To me, it only works if you can explain how a cat is immoral for killing a bird.

Is there an objective value instilled in every action?

Not from where I sit, but others will differ.

[Revolte]

Awesome I get to dig into my bit of psychology knowledge.

There are three stages of moral development. ( I can't remember their names and I don't feel like turning the lights on and getting uncomfortable to read through my text book at the moment )

1.What toddlers tend to have, where what they don't see doesn't exist. For example: I show the baby my hand, he believes it is real, I hide my hand under a sheet, he no longer believes in it.

2.What people in their teen years ( perhaps more so early teens ) have, where what they are told is right is right. For example: Laws, religion ect.. ect.. Though this may be disputable due to the rebellion in children, that's just my opinion anyway, and I may be a bit rusty on this, but as far as I know I'm hitting the nail.

3.The final stage, where what you believe is right or wrong comes from your own personal beliefs and emotions.



With that being said, moral codes are only owned by the individual's themselves and cannot or at least should not be generalized into any one culture or religion. Aside from maybe, religious radicals, a lot of people of the same faith have different views on their faith, different thoughts on what they would consider to be right or wrong, different justifications for their religious beliefs.

[rabid reader]

humanity being able to justify. Whether their actions or their choices, they always seem to justify themselves in some sense or another. It could be something horrid like murder and yet they justify it as best they can, as if their action seemed not to have been evil just this once. I suppose a person is incapable of doing something bad without the purpose of seeing some good come from their action.

Eg. One might feel that theft is wrong but to commit a crime when incapable of feeding yourself, a person or individual might steal food, so that they can live. They did what they felt was wrong, but justify it by saying they committed a wrong for the chance at life, a greater good as some might say.

This would not be an unique characteristics of humanity, as it seems that all our wrong doings happen out of ignorance. We act in hopes of a beneficial end, but then latter regret it when that end is not achieved.

Eg. One might remorse that they had not spent their time during their math lectures (as an youth) playing tic-tac-toe with their friend, for they realize their options become more limited when they grow up.

Without hindsight the individual in question acted on the thought that immediate pleasure was the good, with he hindsight they can now not gain the lucrative wage of a civil engineer, which they now desire.

I think the easiest way to understand what I am saying is to hypothetically imagine a human that knew everything, whether or not this is possible is irrelevant merely for hypothetical purposes can we assume this human exists. This human that knows everything, knows what is good, whether that good is individualistic, whether it is socialist, whether it is the worship of green onions, is really quite irrelevant. Since this human knows everything, and knows what good is, this human will never be wrong, can never do bad, because it is impossible for a person to consciously do something they know to be wrong and unbeneficial in anyway toward accomplishing “the good.” People who do this under the individualist sense would see hard working people in first world countries producing less product in more expensive working conditions and note the effect that has as direct to their profit margins. This person, whose believes what benefits himself is "the Good" will then see a third world country with little labour laws and no minimum wage, realize the increase in personal profit and will be forced by their definition of "the good" to comply with their justification to move that company. Some would call this taking advantage of this third world nation human nature, I would disagree. I believe that it is derived from their nature, though. There have been known selfless communities, or people who have existed, they acted on their view of a social "good" and it is just as natural for them to share as it is for the individualist to take. Most earlier and modern hunter gather societies emulate this. The bottom line is that if there is on "objective" good, it will either be found via luck or omnipotence, but humans as a species are driven to commit their "good or bad deeds" through their subjective understanding of what is good.

My argument is not to claim that humans can achieve omnipotence, but rather I was trying to make a claim that we, as a species, naturally try to be good. Extrapolating my theory would be that each of us have conceived a different thought of what good is, and that certain people hold things like: “good for one’s self” as being better then: “good for a society,” and visa versa. If they believe that good is what benefits oneself their actions will reflect that principal. Which is where we see things like greed and excessive ambition come into play. If you believe what is good for society or humanity as a whole outweighs what is good just merely to you, your actions will reflect that too, (Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Caesar Chavez ect...).

Expanding even further, if you can control what other people consider the good, you can control the actions of those people, and you can see that with various cults, where brainwashing is seen, or you see it in the height of the Church in Europe and in Nazi Germany. Our desperation as a species to attain the good is so extreme that for some they become slaves to that attainment. Not all of course because as it has been proven with the fall of all these organizations, there are some in the world who naturally question and examine and begin to corrode the power that these organizations have over people's conception of the good.

And then I come back to the thing that all my social thoughts return to, which is education. This is where our concepts of the good are established, through our education. If we as a society wish to deem that the individual is the most important thing in the world, our education must reflect that and if we deem that it is the community that is to be relished then our education should build around that. Or we can leave it as it is, but at least we can acknowledge that it is not human nature to be greedy, it is human nature to try for goodness, almost a human obsession, that if we cater to correctly, can be rationalized and thereby make all our actions more purposeful. This is the true power of this theory: you can help push people to value something as "the good" or even the "greater good" you can control there actions, to a degree and if they step out of line you have them demonize themselves with guilt, not saying that I want to do this, but it is something that people can make themselves aware of.

I think the easiest way to understand what I am saying is to hypothetically imagine a human that knew everything, whether or not this is possible is irrelevant merely for hypothetical purposes can we assume this human exists. This human that knows everything, knows what is good, whether that good is individualistic, whether it is socialist, whether it is the worship of green onions, is really quite irrelevant. Since this human knows everything, and knows what good is, this human will never be wrong, can never do bad, because it is impossible for a person to consciously do something they know to be wrong and unbeneficial in anyway toward accomplishing “the good.” People who do this under the individualist sense would see hard working people in first world countries producing less product in more expensive working conditions and note the effect that has as direct to their profit margins. This person, whose believes what benefits himself is "the Good" will then see a third world country with little labour laws and no minimum wage, realize the increase in personal profit and will be forced by their definition of "the good" to comply with their justification to move that company. Some would call this taking advantage of this third world nation human nature, I would disagree. I believe that it is derived from their nature, though. There have been known selfless communities, or people who have existed, they acted on their view of a social "good" and it is just as natural for them to share as it is for the individualist to take. Most earlier and modern hunter gather societies emulate this. The bottom line is that if there is on "objective" good, it will either be found via luck or omnipotence, but humans as a species are driven to commit their "good or bad deeds" through their subjective understanding of what is good.

Some might wonder if there is a practicality to this, and I say there might be. In the understanding that a single principal may be the root to the nature of a human being, we may better appreciate the education we perform. For instance, the individualist principal that is found in our media, via movies, music, news, celebrities, may be the cause for the west "naturally" customizing itself to consumerism. Where a person who was born in a farming community, first nations reserve, Brazilian tribe, may find themselves inclined toward a community oriented good, this seeming almost natural to them to take care of other members of their community when down on their luck, to have community festivals dedicated to sharing (potlucks) and other various events. These seemingly opposite views of human nature, I believe can be encompassed in the theory that the very nature of humanity was the attainment of their good.

[hillwalker]

History certainly proves that morality can be objective depending on the situation at the time an 'antisocial' act was committed - one generation's 'terrorists' often become the next generation's 'freedom fighters' (and even end up as 'the government' further down the line).

Personally I believe everyone should be guided by 'do as you would be done by' - it might ruffle some feathers but it is preferable to having some 'Big Brother' (whether political or religious) telling us what to accept as right and what to reject as wrong.

[BienvenuJDC]

morality can be objective depending on the situation at the time

Is this an oxymoron? It seems to be very contradictory.

[hillwalker]

Doh, my error.

Objective/Subjective - please cross out the intended word.

[Dodo25]

@ Rabid Reader, you make excellents points about how ignorance or a 'wrong perspective' causes people to do bad, even though they all think they're doing 'good'.

Also the thought experiment about an omniscient human (which you posted twice btw) is the right way to tackle the question, in my opinion.

Where I disagree is that there is no 'good' in the absolute sense. You can't just 'know what is good'. As you said, then comes the question 'good for what?'

Just like in mathematics, ethics needs certain axioms to start out with. There needs to be a foundation, a system of reference, and only after postulating this (relative) system, an omniscient being can make calculations and 'know what is good' in that particular system.

The most intuitive example would be something along the lines of utilitarianism: 'Good is whatever maximizes happiness and minimizes suffering'. There are certain problems with this, i.e. it would justify feeding people with drugs that make them happy yet take away their 'free will'. So an ammendment that stresses the importance of human liberty and decision making is needed too.

After having established such a 'dogma', then every action's consequences can be judged. In this way, I think there exists an 'objective', but not absolute ethical system.

[Cunninglinguist]

Yep; you've pretty much nailed it.

You've described humanist morality perfectly.



Nope.

As you note, only religions try to suggest that things are inherently "immoral".

To me, it only works if you can explain how a cat is immoral for killing a bird.



Not from where I sit, but others will differ.

I find The Atheist rather expeditious to jump to conclusions in most of his forum posts, and typically I find these presumably well intentioned but inconsiderate and slightly hubris posts are rather forgivable, though I find this one obdurately irksome because, though he may not know it, he probably does not truly believe what he says, and hypocrisy is quite unpardonable when something can be done about it.

I find moral relativism a very ill-thought out viewpoint. For one the term “moral relativism” is an oxymoron. To insinuate that all morals are relative is to insinuate that they all adhere to the same relative nature, thereby not being entirely relative. Of course you can hold this view, I still think it is rather uneducated, but it surely warrants a name other than moral relativism.

Aside from purely semantic arguments which ultimately do not much improve our understanding, I will show why moral relativism is the child of an unsound argument using what I presume to be premises you believe in. I assume, since, as your name implies, you are an atheist, you believe in evolution; and it is clear that evolution has designed our being to possess certain values. E.g. we all intrinsically value water and food, they help us live, we all value shelter (it is probably in accordance with this principle that the child is so fascinated by caves and the like), it protects us, we all value intimate companionship, we are designed to value procreation whether it be of ideas, or children, or both, and most notable we are all designed to want to be happy, etc. So there is no doubt that we’re designed with inherent values, which can be observed without even accepting the idea of evolution; however evolution offers an elegant explanation as to where they came from.

It is quite impossible to refute that what is moral is what actions and states of beings are what are in accord with what we value. In this way morality and values are forever married to each other. The typical consequnetialist view now, and ever since utilitarianism and before is that, as Percy Shelley so eloquently puts it: “It is admitted that a virtuous or moral action, is that action which, when considered in all its accessories and consequences, is fitted to produce the highest pleasure to the greatest number of sensitive beings.” (Essay on Speculations on Morals) However the clever reader will note that this theory only judges a man by his methods and not his intentions thereby allowing wickedly intentioned men to gain the epithet of moral and well intentioned men to never acquire it, but that point is the subject of a different forum.

In light of both these views I think it is quite impossible to contest that evolution did not all design us with “moral values,” as it were, e.g. killing others is bad, working together is good (through evolution we are designed to inherently know teamwork aids in our survival far more than fighting does, and naturally those of us who have the capacity for teamwork are those who turned out to be most fit to survive). In this sense there is at least a base set of moral values that are not relative that do, in fact, make things inherently moral or inherently immoral. We may call these moral maxims “objective” but in this use of the term it would merely mean the “collective subjective.”

[Dodo25]

I assume, since, as your name implies, you are an atheist, you believe in evolution;

And any reasonable non-atheists ACCEPTS (better word for it) evolution as well, because the evidence is overwhelmingly convincing.

and it is clear that evolution has designed our being to possess certain values. E.g. we all intrinsically value water and food, they help us live, we all value shelter (it is probably in accordance with this principle that the child is so fascinated by caves and the like), it protects us, we all value intimate companionship, we are designed to value procreation whether it be of ideas, or children, or both, and most notable we are all designed to want to be happy, etc. So there is no doubt that we’re designed with inherent values, which can be observed without even accepting the idea of evolution; however evolution offers an elegant explanation as to where they came from.

[..]

In light of both these views I think it is quite impossible to contest that evolution did not all design us with “moral values,” as it were, e.g. killing others is bad, working together is good (through evolution we are designed to inherently know teamwork aids in our survival far more than fighting does, and naturally those of us who have the capacity for teamwork are those who turned out to be most fit to survive). In this sense there is at least a base set of moral values that are not relative that do, in fact, make things inherently moral or inherently immoral. We may call these moral maxims “objective” but in this use of the term it would merely mean the “collective subjective.”

What you're saying is right, but you are omitting things. Evolution has indeed equipped us with some form of moral sense, yet that doesn't justify calling it 'moral'. After all, evolution has also wired xenophobia, selfishness and aggression into our brains (to certain extents at least).

Biology provides the foundation of possible experiences, emotions and desires. The goal of any successful ethical system is to reach the best conclusions that take into account the foundations.

I very much like the last sentence about 'collective subjective', this is pretty much the crucial point. It's similar to what I referred to as the axiom (actually even better because it kind of justifies it).

[Cunninglinguist]

And any reasonable non-atheists ACCEPTS (better word for it) evolution as well, because the evidence is overwhelmingly convincing.



What you're saying is right, but you are omitting things. Evolution has indeed equipped us with some form of moral sense, yet that doesn't justify calling it 'moral'. After all, evolution has also wired xenophobia, selfishness and aggression into our brains (to certain extents at least).

Biology provides the foundation of possible experiences, emotions and desires. The goal of any successful ethical system is to reach the best conclusions that take into account the foundations.

I very much like the last sentence about 'collective subjective', this is pretty much the crucial point. It's similar to what I referred to as the axiom (actually even better because it kind of justifies it).

In the interest of time I felt obligated to omit things, leaving suggestiveness at the expense of clarity, like any poet. I just want to make a distinction that I think you have missed, though I may be wrong, through no fault of your own (I didn't clarify this); that is, a value is a moral value when it has in some way to do with the condition of another human being or beings. Since we inherently possess these values I would have to adamantly argue that evolution has equipped us with some moral values.

As for the evolution thing, I have to agree with you that “accept” is a better word than believe, however I had chosen it because it comes off as a more open-minded word to use—a symptom of an overly diplomatic person. However Darwin only supported his theory of evolution using a posteriori knowledge, I am pretty sure it can be proven with a priori knowledge.

[Dodo25]

In the interest of time I felt obligated to omit things, leaving suggestiveness at the expense of clarity, like any poet. I just want to make a distinction that I think you have missed, though I may be wrong, through no fault of your own (I didn't clarify this); that is, a value is a moral value when it has in some way to do with the condition of another human being or beings. Since we inherently possess these values I would have to adamantly argue that evolution has equipped us with some moral values.

It is a very difficult subject and I find it hard to phrase my view in an internally consistent way. I see what you mean. What I'm doubting is just that the moral values evolution has equipped us with are truly ethical. Because evolution doesn't care about anything, it's a non-teleological, mindless process. We can definitely say that we have inbuilt 'morals', but that's not the whole story and these basic feelings should serve as kind of 'direction' indicators. If that makes any sense at all..

The reason I say this is that morality in our ancestors always rested on conditions. Kin selection ('be nice to relatives because they share your genes') and reciprocal altruism ('I scratch your back, you scratch mine') are the forms of cooperation found in the animal kingdom. But things like 'being nice to unrelated strangers unlikely to ever pay you back' have no evolutionary benefits.

As for the evolution thing, I have to agree with you that “accept” is a better word than believe, however I had chosen it because it comes off as a more open-minded word to use—a symptom of an overly diplomatic person. However Darwin only supported his theory of evolution using a posteriori knowledge, I am pretty sure it can be proven with a priori knowledge.

I'm not sure if I am understand it correctly. If I am, then I think you really should do that. Being 'politically correct' to people who reject science doesn't help anyone. I think such believes should be challenged immediately, and certainly they don't deserve any respect when it comes to using them in arguments (about anything). I think it is very strange and irrational, but acceptable if people believe things without evidence. If however they believe agaisnt evidence, then it's too much of it. And actually religious fundamentalism can be pretty dangerous, what makes me mad the most is the indoctrination of children.

Anyway, what exactly do you mean by the last sentence? Do you mean that evolution can be 'proven' by armchair reasoning, without even studying organisms? I think that's actually true, because it really is the only theory that can explain complexity without postulating more complexity.

[IzzaThePush]

hard to to say what is good/right and what is Bad/wrong. easier to say what is harmfull and what is helping. also hard to see what a persone deserve, but there can be made science on what a person needs.

[The Atheist]

I find The Atheist rather expeditious to jump to conclusions in most of his forum posts, and typically I find these presumably well intentioned but inconsiderate and slightly hubris posts are rather forgivable, though I find this one obdurately irksome because, though he may not know it, he probably does not truly believe what he says, and hypocrisy is quite unpardonable when something can be done about it.

I don't jump to conclusions; ever.

What I do is post my thoughts on subjects which have been honed by half a century's contemplation of the evidence.

I do indeed believe every word I say, so I'll be interested in where you're going to cure my ignorance.

I find moral relativism a very ill-thought out viewpoint. For one the term “moral relativism” is an oxymoron. To insinuate that all morals are relative is to insinuate that they all adhere to the same relative nature, thereby not being entirely relative. Of course you can hold this view, I still think it is rather uneducated, but it surely warrants a name other than moral relativism.

I'm not too fussed what it's called, but I'm pretty close to 100% certain that all morals are human constructs, which makes morality relative, so I look forward to being educated, which I must need.

Aside from purely semantic arguments which ultimately do not much improve our understanding, I will show why moral relativism is the child of an unsound argument using what I presume to be premises you believe in. I assume, since, as your name implies, you are an atheist, you believe in evolution; and it is clear that evolution has designed our being to possess certain values.

This is so full of assumptions and errors that I don't know where to start.

"Evolution has designed us"?

I'm not sure where you're getting your assumptions, but that's a leap of faith way too far for me. Evolution didn't "design" anything - it just happened.

I wouldn't say "I believe in evolution" either. I'm happy to admit that I accept the fact of evolution as shown by empirical evidence, but I don't have any beliefs about it.

E.g. we all intrinsically value water and food, they help us live, we all value shelter (it is probably in accordance with this principle that the child is so fascinated by caves and the like), it protects us, we all value intimate companionship, we are designed to value procreation whether it be of ideas, or children, or both, and most notable we are all designed to want to be happy, etc.

Sorry, but this reads as though it were written by a proponent of what I call "IDiocy", but refers to itself by the deceitful name of "intelligent design".

The mistake you're making is that you are adding a human construct to an evolutionary imperative - we don't "value" any of those things you mention any more than we "value" breathing; they are simply reflective of how humans live, as a result of ~2M years of evolution.

Take your companionship as an example. Humans are useless on their own in the wild - we're slow, weak, have no built-in weapons, are too big to climb far enough to be useful and are nice & meaty with crunchy bones. Two humans are better off than one, and ten of them, while still easy food for a lion, would at least make a lion think twice.

I'm just not comfortable with assigning "value" to things which are simply biological imperatives we could no more avoid than those which make us blink, scratch our ear or swallow.

So there is no doubt that we’re designed with inherent values, which can be observed without even accepting the idea of evolution; however evolution offers an elegant explanation as to where they came from.

(bolding mine)

In your post, you describe my thoughts on the subject as "uneducated", "ignorant" (bit tautological, I'd have thought) and "hypocritical".

Then you post that.

From where I sit, the massive weight of evidence of evolution shows no sense of design whatsoever, so I'll leave you to those premises and stick with my ignorance, thanks.

It is quite impossible to refute that what is moral is what actions and states of beings are what are in accord with what we value. In this way morality and values are forever married to each other.

I gotta admit; that's funny.

Above, you deigned to use semantics, yet all you've done is use "value" as a synonym for "morality". You haven't married them; you've made them interchangeable, and on very sloppy premises. Cunning plan, but no go.

The typical consequnetialist view now, and ever since utilitarianism and before is that, as Percy Shelley so eloquently puts it: “It is admitted that a virtuous or moral action, is that action which, when considered in all its accessories and consequences, is fitted to produce the highest pleasure to the greatest number of sensitive beings.” (Essay on Speculations on Morals)

Is that supposed to be some kind of evidence?

Some vegan said something of value to him and his own constructed morality and you're using it to prove a point that morality is not relative?

Oops.

However the clever reader will note that this theory only judges a man by his methods and not his intentions thereby allowing wickedly intentioned men to gain the epithet of moral and well intentioned men to never acquire it, but that point is the subject of a different forum.

You're reading it wrong as well.

"When considered in all its accessories and consequences" is clearly Shelley talking to intent.

In light of both these views I think it is quite impossible to contest that evolution did not all design us with “moral values,” as it were, e.g. killing others is bad, working together is good (through evolution we are designed to inherently know teamwork aids in our survival far more than fighting does, and naturally those of us who have the capacity for teamwork are those who turned out to be most fit to survive). In this sense there is at least a base set of moral values that are not relative that do, in fact, make things inherently moral or inherently immoral. We may call these moral maxims “objective” but in this use of the term it would merely mean the “collective subjective.”

Well, as explained above, I don't accept that we're "designed" in any way at all, so I'd like you to show how that design works before we get to your errors in human morality itself.

I will note those errors for you so you can prepare properly for the response:

Killing is bad. Do I really need to point out the obvious here? Ok, I will. Remember that our evolutionary imperative is survival of our genetic code. If someone is threatening you and those who carry your genes and the only choice is to kill the instigator, then that killing cannot be "bad". (I won't bother getting into the relativity of what constitutes "good" and "bad" in terms of killing; it's just more construct anyway.)

Working together is good....teamwork aids in our survival far more than fighting does

Half right and half wrong. You have heard of wars? Teamwork helps in them too and all of human history has contained warfare and genocide. Fighting is as much an evolutionary imperative as teamwork. On the teamwork angle, even ants work together, so it's no big deal. Whether or not it's "good" is highly debatable; it just is.

Humans could just have easily evolved into solitary hunter/gatherers. That we didn't confers no value on the trait we ended up with. Unless you want to argue that sheep are superior to other animals because of their companionship, non-violence and vegetarianism.

I do like the way you resorted to semantics again by changing "objective" to "collective subjective". Coberst had a thread on that very subject a while back.

...But things like 'being nice to unrelated strangers unlikely to ever pay you back' have no evolutionary benefits....

Aesop did this subject a few hundred years before that Jesus bloke was alleged to have done so. It might just pay you back, so it still carries the smell of self-preferment.

Pure altrusim is hard to find.

[Dodo25]

@The Atheist and Cunninglinguist,

I find this topic so interesting that I'm now writing an essay on it. I hope I can reach a consistent opinion. My stance is somewhere in between of you two, I agree with Cunninglinguist that there is an 'objective morality', altough only under certain important constraints. And I agree that evolution gave us the basics to moral values. However, I also agree with Atheist's comments about evolution being mindless and so on.