What is the appeal of "objective morality"

[Manopolus]

I've spent a decent amount of time over the last few years learning about religious argumentation through debates, lectures, and other formats and there's something on my mind at present which I can't wrap my head around: objective morality.

Now, what's most commonly done (in my experience) is that when someone's religious moral views are challenged, the theist will exclaim that without religion (or some belief system) you can't have Objective Moral Values (OMV). They will then attack moral relativism as if it's the only alternative since they see it as entirely subjective (I'm not sure, tbh).

Ofc, I see their religious views as subjective even if the morals themselves are supposed to be objective (after all, it's based on interpretation or emotion, both of which are considered to be NOT objective at least under WLC's definition)...

I'm fine with all of this but I wonder what the appeal is in the first place for a system of objectivity when it comes to morality. I know we like to have simple answers to complicated questions but I wonder if that's not only unrealistic but is it even desirable outside of convenience?

I honestly don't know and am just rambling a bit. Feel free to share your thoughts.

The funny thing about that argument is that according to Genesis, Adam and Eve and presumably all their descendants got to instinctively know the difference between good and evil when they ate from the tree of knowledge. Therefore, according to their own religion, those who believe have no particular trump card over those who don't in knowing the difference between good and evil, and the Biblical discussions of ethics are thus redundant.

-OR- you could say that all those later commands had a limited amount to do with good and evil per se -- Mr. God just wanted to create a unique culture that cut off their foreskins and other such nonsense to express his sense of impeccable style and taste. The only REAL evil in the world is being naked. after all.

 

[tsig]

The cosmological argument is prominently discussed on his wikipedia page. That argument is a proof of God's existence (it's the "first cause" argument).

"Everything has a cause except this being we will call god, therefore Jesus."

Not very convincing unless you already believe.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

I don't know in what manner the belief in a god guarantees an objective morality. Different beliefs in different gods with different commandements cannot substantiate an objective morality that is unique or it is not objective. This is so because religious beliefs are not objective.

Some religious men claim that the lack of belief in any god (this is to say, agnosticism or atheism) precludes the existence of any morality because the force of a categorical imperative needs an external power to prevent absolute egoism. Here Ayn Rand and her -failed- rational egoism. But this is a different problem than ethical objectivism.

I think Sam Harris is not a solution for the problem of objectivism. Maybe evolutionary theory could establish that some particular behaviour is good to preserve the species, but this is not to say that to preserve the species is the supreme moral good. Furthermore, there are a lot of particular behaviours that are irrelevant to the preservation of the species and we ought nevertheless to evaluate them ethically.

A further problem is that which species are we talking about? An e.g. more alpha-based or more cooperative-based species? A species is not set in stone and is apparently not without evolution going on within the species, hence which direction do you want the species to go in.

With regards

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

"Everything has a cause except this being we will call god, therefore Jesus."

Not very convincing unless you already believe.

But very convincing if you believe.

 

[David Mo]

A further problem is that which species are we talking about? An e.g. more alpha-based or more cooperative-based species? A species is not set in stone and is apparently not without evolution going on within the species, hence which direction do you want the species to go in.

With regards

It depends. In an ethnocentric outlook it will be the human species. In an ecological outlook it will be the species needed to preserve de ecosystem or in an extreme "animalist" position, all the species. This implies the biological position is not unique and so not objective.

Happy to meet you again.

 

[IanS]

^I think what you're referring to boils down to the Euthyphro dilemma. I think no matter the answer that it is not objective, however, unless you define objective like theists usually do by saying "independent of human opinion". . .

How can any human idea such as "objective morality", be "independent of human opinion"?

The only known opinion ever expressed about any such notion as "morality", objective or otherwise, is an opinion voiced only by humans. No other known living things, have ever expressed any such notion.

As a separate point, in the form of a rhetorical question - if WLC thinks that human morality is an innate gift from God, then when and how does he think the objective morality was planted in the earliest Homo sapien?

The point is that if humans evolved from earlier apes, then afaik there was no first single Homo sapien with uniquely human features. Instead what you have is a gradual range of adaptive changes in certain species of ancestral apes, whereby you eventually get a set a characteristics which we can begin to identify as more Homo sapien than their immediate ancestors ... so were the immediate ape ancestors also provided with objective morality? ... or was God's morality suddenly introduced into one specific individual at some precise date/day/hour/second in time?

If it comes to that, how was this objective morality suddenly delivered to the earliest Homo sapiens? How does WLC explain the mechanism of early Homo sapiens or their immediate almost indistinguishable ancestors, going from a state of no such morality one day, to having objective morality given by God on the next day?

 

[catsmate]

What's the appeal? It makes things easy. Someone presents you with a pesky Trolley Problem, you just look up the answer in your book.

Exactly. It eliminates their need to think for themselves and take responsibility.

Where are the Ayn Rand fans?

No-one's paying them to participate.

 

[phiwum]

Most religious people I've spoken to are completely confused by the Euthyphro dilemma.

As in, they are actually confused about why it's considered to be such a dilemma. Morals come from God. End of story. What's the dilemma?

I've taught Euthyphro in introductory classes repeatedly, and have never seen any confusion of the sort you suggest.

To be fair, I'm a bit far from the Bible Belt.

 

[phiwum]

The funny thing about that argument is that according to Genesis, Adam and Eve and presumably all their descendants got to instinctively know the difference between good and evil when they ate from the tree of knowledge. Therefore, according to their own religion, those who believe have no particular trump card over those who don't in knowing the difference between good and evil, and the Biblical discussions of ethics are thus redundant.

-OR- you could say that all those later commands had a limited amount to do with good and evil per se -- Mr. God just wanted to create a unique culture that cut off their foreskins and other such nonsense to express his sense of impeccable style and taste. The only REAL evil in the world is being naked. after all.

Not sure how eating from the tree is supposed to pass down to children. Yeah, yeah, the sin of the eating evidently passed down (at least per Catholic tradition), but I don't know that anyone says that a clear knowledge of good and evil passed down.

 

[phiwum]

"Everything has a cause except this being we will call god, therefore Jesus."

Not very convincing unless you already believe.

No reasonable philosopher of religion claims that the Cosmological Argument entails that everything in the Bible is true. It merely entails that there is a being which created the universe.

I'm not saying whether William Lane Craig is a reasonable philosopher, since I don't know him.

I'm also emphatically not saying that the Cosmological Argument is a good argument. Even if it works, and I don't think it does, we get some self-caused cause. That seems to me to be rather a long way from any of the usual qualities we associate with God.

 

[phiwum]

How can any human idea such as "objective morality", be "independent of human opinion"?

The only known opinion ever expressed about any such notion as "morality", objective or otherwise, is an opinion voiced only by humans. No other known living things, have ever expressed any such notion.

The same could be said about gravity. Humans, and humans alone, have voiced opinions about physical laws.

 

[marplots]

The same could be said about gravity. Humans, and humans alone, have voiced opinions about physical laws.

Yes. And to the extent we all voice substantially the same opinion, those become facts.

 

[tsig]

But very convincing if you believe.

If you believe no proof is needed.

 

[phiwum]

Yes. And to the extent we all voice substantially the same opinion, those become facts.

Er, that's an odd idea about the notion of truth.

 

[phiwum]

If you believe no proof is needed.

If you believe, it may be quite satisfying to also think that you can prove your belief is correct.

That said, proofs like the Cosmological Argument are just proofs about the existence of a deity. They are not proofs that the Bible is a true account. I've never seen anyone say otherwise.

 

[tsig]

"Everything has a cause except this being we will call god, therefore Jesus."

Not very convincing unless you already believe.

No reasonable philosopher of religion claims that the Cosmological Argument entails that everything in the Bible is true. It merely entails that there is a being which created the universe. I'm not saying whether William Lane Craig is a reasonable philosopher, since I don't know him.

I'm also emphatically not saying that the Cosmological Argument is a good argument. Even if it works, and I don't think it does, we get some self-caused cause. That seems to me to be rather a long way from any of the usual qualities we associate with God.

Could you hilite in my post you quoted where I said that "the Cosmological Argument entails that everything in the Bible is true. "?

 

[marplots]

Er, that's an odd idea about the notion of truth.

It doesn't seem odd to me. On what basis, other than our mutual agreement that something is so, are we to establish truth?

 

[Manopolus]

Not sure how eating from the tree is supposed to pass down to children. Yeah, yeah, the sin of the eating evidently passed down (at least per Catholic tradition), but I don't know that anyone says that a clear knowledge of good and evil passed down.

Original sin = being naked when you're born.



Surely if we inherited the penalty, we must have also inherited the perk. I think it's implied fairly clearly, but some may disagree -- dunno.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I've taught Euthyphro in introductory classes repeatedly, and have never seen any confusion of the sort you suggest.

Well, that's the problem right there. It's like saying you've taught Bayes to maths student, and people had no trouble with it. Now try going bayesian on the ass of someone who not only is ignorant enough to believe that homeopathy works, but WANTS to believe that, so whatever argument or counter-argument you present MUST be flawed in some way.

Same thing with going Socrates or Plato on people's ass, really. Sure, whoever was smart enough to take a philosophy class gets it. Try convincing the bible-thumping neighbour with it, though, and may Hermes be with you.

For a start, the original Euthypro dilemma involves more than one god, with different morals. So if two gods are in favour of two different things, can you say one is right and the other wrong? It doesn't work all that well in an exclusive monotheism.

No, really, I actually tried to pull that argument on a couple of believers, and the obvious (and tbh expected) way out was simply, "yeah, but our God is the right one, theirs doesn't even exist." Dilemma resolved right there.

"Ah, but how do you know your God is the right one?" you might go. Turns out most people have no problem closing the logic circle at this point. They know their religion is the right one, because their God condones the things that are moral. E.g., actual answer from a believer, "Our god doesn't tell people to fly into buildings." (Well, neither does the Quran, but hey...)

Well, ok, so instead you decide to take a more modernized version of Euthypro, and go, "But what if god did something immoral? Could you still say morals come from god?" or "How do you know that God is moral?" or some such. Well, they have an answer for that too. Namely, some version that God is by his very nature incapable of being anything but perfectly and infinitely good and moral. You get about as far with that as asking someone "how do you know a square doesn't have three sides?" It's by definition so, duh.

Essentially never underestimate how strong the force cognitive dissonance is in some people. Not only they aren't philosophy students, they don't want to have anything to do with any philosophy that contradicts their TRUTH.

 

[Leumas]

If you believe, it may be quite satisfying to also think that you can prove your belief is correct.

That said, proofs like the Cosmological Argument are just proofs about the existence of a deity. They are not proofs that the Bible is a true account. I've never seen anyone say otherwise.

You mean claptrap and sophistic trickery and linguistic legerdemain... no?