What is the appeal of "objective morality"

IanS said:
That's not a valid comparison though, is it. Gravity is the name we give to a physical effect that we can measure, detect, demonstrate, and explain to astonishing mathematical accuracy inc. via relativity theory. We "know" why gravity exists.
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Quite right, there are differences. But you said morality is obviously subjective, because the only opinion voiced about morality comes from human, and in that respect, the same is true with physical laws. Obviously, your conclusion was not supported by your premises.

That's all I was pointing out.
 
phiwum said:
Quite right, there are differences. But you said morality is obviously subjective, because the only opinion voiced about morality comes from human, and in that respect, the same is true with physical laws. Obviously, your conclusion was not supported by your premises.

That's all I was pointing out.
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I don't think I did actually say that "morality is obviously subjective".

You could quote what I did post. This is the quote -

IanS said:
pharphis said:
^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". . .
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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.
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What I say there is that if as pharphis said (his quote is above) that "objective" morality is defined by theists as being something "independent of human opinion" ... then I think that must be incorrect, because by that definition it is only the "human opinion" of theists (they are "human"!) that is claiming it to be "independent" anyway. IOW, that definition seems to be a self-contradiction, because it's describing the morality as independent of the only known thing which it actually depends upon, ie the "human opinion" of human theists ... the idea of "objective morality" is not known from anything else except that same "human opinion".

Scientific theories and discoveries are not a mere matter of human opinion. Regardless of whether any un-scientific philosophers would like to try erecting semantic smokescreens. E.g. - the thing which we call "gravity" exists entirely independently of any human opinion ... gravity existed since the time of the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, i.e. about 13 billion years before any humans ever existed to give it the name "gravity" or express any "opinions" about it.
 
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IanS said:
I don't think I did actually say that "morality is obviously subjective".

You could quote what I did post. This is the quote -




What I say there is that if as pharphis said (his quote is above) that "objective" morality is defined by theists as being something "independent of human opinion" ... then I think that must be incorrect, because by that definition it is only the "human opinion" of theists (they are "human"!) that is claiming it to be "independent" anyway. IOW, that definition seems to be a self-contradiction, because it's describing the morality as independent of the only known thing which it actually depends upon, ie the "human opinion" of human theists ... the idea of "objective morality" is not known from anything else except that same "human opinion".

Scientific theories and discoveries are not a mere matter of human opinion. Regardless of whether any un-scientific philosophers would like to try erecting semantic smokescreens. E.g. - the thing which we call "gravity" exists entirely independently of any human opinion ... gravity existed since the time of the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, i.e. about 13 billion years before any humans ever existed to give it the name "gravity" or express any "opinions" about it.
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Moreover — despite the nihilism and solipsism these "philosophers" who do not use logic or critical thinking are trying to peddle — gravity still has relevance and applies even if not a single human or living creature ever existed or continued to exist. While the so called objective morality whether created by imaginary friends or not ceases to be relevant when life evaporates... i.e. subjective.

So comparing real objective gravity with imagined "objective" morality is nothing but chicanery in the service of sky daddies.
 
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IanS said:
I don't think I did actually say that "morality is obviously subjective".

You could quote what I did post. This is the quote -
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Quite right, you said that it is obviously dependent on human opinion. I drew the inference that it was thereby subjective -- I still think that's a reasonable conclusion, but no need to dwell on that point.

Sorry if you think I misrepresented you. It was unintentional.

What I say there is that if as pharphis said (his quote is above) that "objective" morality is defined by theists as being something "independent of human opinion" ... then I think that must be incorrect, because by that definition it is only the "human opinion" of theists (they are "human"!) that is claiming it to be "independent" anyway. IOW, that definition seems to be a self-contradiction, because it's describing the morality as independent of the only known thing which it actually depends upon, ie the "human opinion" of human theists ... the idea of "objective morality" is not known from anything else except that same "human opinion".

Scientific theories and discoveries are not a mere matter of human opinion. Regardless of whether any un-scientific philosophers would like to try erecting semantic smokescreens. E.g. - the thing which we call "gravity" exists entirely independently of any human opinion ... gravity existed since the time of the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, i.e. about 13 billion years before any humans ever existed to give it the name "gravity" or express any "opinions" about it.
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Again, I agree there are differences. I was simply pointing out that your particular argument applied to things that we don't regard as depending on human opinion.


(Premise) The only known opinion ever expressed about any such notion as "morality", objective or otherwise, is an opinion voiced only by humans.
(Premise) No other known living things, have ever expressed any such notion.
(Conclusion) [paraphrased] Morality cannot be independent of human opinion.​

As stated, you can replace the word "morality" with more or less anything, and the two premises above are still true.

I don't think we need to dwell any further on this. My criticism was simply over the particular form of the argument originally stated.
 
Leumas said:
Moreover — despite the nihilism and solipsism these "philosophers" who do not use logic or critical thinking are trying to peddle — gravity still has relevance and applies even if not a single human or living creature ever existed or continued to exist. While the so called objective morality whether created by imaginary friends or not ceases to be relevant when life evaporates... i.e. subjective.

So comparing real objective gravity with imagined "objective" morality is nothing but chicanery in the service of sky daddies.
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Again, be explicit. Are you suggesting that I have said or done anything on this forum in order to convince anyone that this or that religious belief is true?

Because if not, then perhaps the final sentence above is just plain ********.
 
Leumas said:
Someone who trips on a stone did not "instinctively" fall down... the fall was caused by a stone which has nothing to do with instinct.

How does a knowledge induced by the consumption of a magical fruit from a magical tree imply "instinctively"?

I think you are misunderstanding what the word "instinctively" means.
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Mainly I'm using it to mean that indoctrination is unnecessary. According to the story, Adam and Eve knew that being naked was somehow evil after eating the fruit without God explicitly telling them. That sort of thing.

I have no idea what the religious view is, but it seems to me to be implied by the story that this is where man got his sense of right and wrong. It's sort of a main point of the story if you look at it like any other ancient myth. They're explaining the genesis of phenomena which they already "know" to exist (morality/ethics) in the form of a story.

Of course, the specific details of this new "morality sense" may not have been "objective" or refined enough or something. I don't claim expertise, that's just my take on that particular piece of mythology.
 
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I don't think Harris's argument hinges just on the preservation of the species. It's more about utilitarianism, namely maximizing the total happiness.

That can actually be at odds with going full tilt presrvation. E.g., using women as baby-mill slaves in some cultures is no doubt more conducive to keeping the species running than letting them decide they don't want a pregnancy, or get an abortion, but it would make a lot of people less happy, and I don't think Harris advocates those. Hell, old timey using war as an excuse to rape everything in sight was quite good at propagating one set of genes, but again, I don't think any advocate of biology-based morality is actually advocating that.
 
phiwum said:
Quite right, you said that it is obviously dependent on human opinion. I drew the inference that it was thereby subjective -- I still think that's a reasonable conclusion, but no need to dwell on that point.

Sorry if you think I misrepresented you. It was unintentional.



Again, I agree there are differences. I was simply pointing out that your particular argument applied to things that we don't regard as depending on human opinion.
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OK, well the above is more-or-less OK (and I was not worried about anyone misrepresenting me).



phiwum said:

(Premise) The only known opinion ever expressed about any such notion as "morality", objective or otherwise, is an opinion voiced only by humans.
(Premise) No other known living things, have ever expressed any such notion.
(Conclusion) [paraphrased] Morality cannot be independent of human opinion.​

As stated, you can replace the word "morality" with more or less anything, and the two premises above are still true.

I don't think we need to dwell any further on this. My criticism was simply over the particular form of the argument originally stated.
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But here (in the above quote) I think the "conclusion" is wrong.

Something called "morality" might be independent of human opinion (as indeed WLC claims it is when claiming specifically"objective" morality in humans), providing there was genuine evidence for it's existence as something quite separate from mere human opinion or human claims (for which, see "2" below).

However, afaik, there is no evidence of something called "objective morality" (the objective part is the part we are specifically concerned with according to WLC), that is anything other than that self-same human opinion that pharphis said was "defined by (human) theists as independent of human opinion".

I think that would be a circular argument if theists such as WLC are actually saying (as pharphis said) that "as human theists, such as WLC, it is our opinion that something called objective morality exists in humans, and we define that as being independent of our own human opinion, that being the same human opinion that we just used to create the concept of "objective human morality" in the first place!".

Just for the sake of additional explanation, two additional comments -

(1) it might be possible to construct a very loose definition, or a generalised description, of what is usually meant by most people by the word "morality", e.g. compassionate behaviour from one animal towards another. But afaik traits like that are also shown by other animals, and not just by homo sapiens. And afaik, those traits can quite easily be explained as adapted behaviour related to evolution. So that is quite different from claiming "objective morality, implanted in humans by God".

(2) also, it might not be a circular argument for theists such as WLC to claim that "objective morality is something defined as independent of human opinion", providing they can show that their definition is not actually "dependent on their own human opinion", i.e. if they can show entirely independent evidence for the existence of "objective morals, placed in humans by God" ... in your analogy with gravity, scientists have shown that what we call "gravity" is indeed entirely independent of human opinion .... whereas WLC has not shown that his notion of "objective morality" is independent of his own subjective human opinion.
 
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phiwum said:
Again, I agree there are differences. I was simply pointing out that your particular argument applied to things that we don't regard as depending on human opinion.


(Premise) The only known opinion ever expressed about any such notion as "morality", objective or otherwise, is an opinion voiced only by humans.
(Premise) No other known living things, have ever expressed any such notion.
(Conclusion) [paraphrased] Morality cannot be independent of human opinion.​

As stated, you can replace the word "morality" with more or less anything, and the two premises above are still true.
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Actually, no. Premise 2 fails utterly for just about any natural phenomenon.

Morality IS a judgment or opinion, or a system thereof. That's how it 'expresses' itself. It's not a judgment about a judgment, nor an opinion about an opinion: that would be, essentially meta-morality.

Natural phenomena on the other hand 'express' themselves by just happening.

To illustrate the difference: someone being killed by a falling roof tile from a roof that wasn't repaired in 50 years is not morality. Judging it as good or evil, and assigning who's to blame, that is morality. That is the difference. The former is a natural phenomenon (a combination of physics and biology, in fact), the latter is morality.

Or the "demon sphere" going slightly above critical and killing another physicist is not morality. It's just physics. Judging whether it's good or bad to be that cavalier with the safety, that is morality. It's an opinion or jugdment on the former.

The natural phenomenon 'expresses' itself by just happening. The roof tile falling or a bunch of radioactive material going critical is the expression. It's not expressed when you have an opinion on it.

And it happened before there were humans to have an opinion on it. E.g., the uranium in the centre of the earth went critical long before there was any life on Earth at all. The Thea impact happened long before there was any life. Etc. The laws of physics "expressed" themselves quite independent of someone being around to judge them.
 
IanS said:
But here (in the above quote) I think the "conclusion" is wrong.

Something called "morality" might be independent of human opinion (as indeed WLC claims it is when claiming specifically"objective" morality in humans), providing there was genuine evidence for it's existence as something quite separate from mere human opinion or human claims (for which, see "2" below).

However, afaik, there is no evidence of something called "objective morality" (the objective part is the part we are specifically concerned with according to WLC), that is anything other than that self-same human opinion that pharphis said was "defined by (human) theists as independent of human opinion".
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I'm not quite sure how you're suggesting the conclusion should be fixed. Is it enough to simply add the word "objective" to it?

I think that would be a circular argument if theists such as WLC are actually saying (as pharphis said) that "as human theists, such as WLC, it is our opinion that something called objective morality exists in humans, and we define that as being independent of our own human opinion, that being the same human opinion that we just used to create the concept of "objective human morality" in the first place!".

Just for the sake of additional explanation, two additional comments -

(1) it might be possible to construct a very loose definition, or a generalised description, of what is usually meant by most people by the word "morality", e.g. compassionate behaviour from one animal towards another. But afaik traits like that are also shown by other animals, and not just by homo sapiens. And afaik, those traits can quite easily be explained as adapted behaviour related to evolution. So that is quite different from claiming "objective morality, implanted in humans by God".

(2) also, it might not be a circular argument for theists such as WLC to claim that "objective morality is something defined as independent of human opinion", providing they can show that their definition is not actually "dependent on their own human opinion", i.e. if they can show entirely independent evidence for the existence of "objective morals, placed in humans by God" ... in your analogy with gravity, scientists have shown that what we call "gravity" is indeed entirely independent of human opinion .... whereas WLC has not shown that his notion of "objective morality" is independent of his own subjective human opinion.
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I don't know that I will be able to convince you otherwise, but I don't think that there is any necessary circularity in the concept of objective morality. Let's drop the theologians for a moment and talk about the approach of philosophers.

Kant, for instance, was interested in the necessary preconditions for one to be rational and he believed that one of these preconditions was that a rational being necessarily values existence as a rational being. Insofar as this is really a feature of all rational beings, it is what Kant called an objective value and serves as the basis for all morality.

Mill, on the other hand, argued that happiness is the sole end of all deliberate action, and hence the sole criterion for judging action. Hence, moral judgments must depend on the degree to which a given action actually produces happiness in the aggregate of those affected.

I'm not saying that either of these attempts worked in the end, but we can see that these attempts, though the product of human thought, aim nonetheless at an objective basis for morality, a foundation that any rational creature would agree provides him with a reason to act accordingly. It may well be that Kant and Mill were on a fool's errand, and that there is no basis for objective morality, but I don't think that it's as simple to show that as you suggest.
 
The idea of objective morality is not necessarily that morality is completely independent of human opinion/judgment. We can relate this to other issues. Some might say that if human opinion is involved, then it's subjective, plain and simple. This is not correct, though. Take the following claim: Jim prefers chocolate ice cream over vanilla. This is either objectively true or objectively false. In other words, if Jim actually does have this preference, and Sally says that he does not, then Sally is objectively wrong.
 
HansMustermann said:
Actually, no. Premise 2 fails utterly for just about any natural phenomenon.

Morality IS a judgment or opinion, or a system thereof. That's how it 'expresses' itself. It's not a judgment about a judgment, nor an opinion about an opinion: that would be, essentially meta-morality.

Natural phenomena on the other hand 'express' themselves by just happening.

To illustrate the difference: someone being killed by a falling roof tile from a roof that wasn't repaired in 50 years is not morality. Judging it as good or evil, and assigning who's to blame, that is morality. That is the difference. The former is a natural phenomenon (a combination of physics and biology, in fact), the latter is morality.

Or the "demon sphere" going slightly above critical and killing another physicist is not morality. It's just physics. Judging whether it's good or bad to be that cavalier with the safety, that is morality. It's an opinion or jugdment on the former.

The natural phenomenon 'expresses' itself by just happening. The roof tile falling or a bunch of radioactive material going critical is the expression. It's not expressed when you have an opinion on it.

And it happened before there were humans to have an opinion on it. E.g., the uranium in the centre of the earth went critical long before there was any life on Earth at all. The Thea impact happened long before there was any life. Etc. The laws of physics "expressed" themselves quite independent of someone being around to judge them.
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It seems to me a rather fanciful use of language to claim that rocks tumbling off a mountain are expressing the notion of gravity, but we needn't debate this point.

Take the argument as before, and replace the word "morality" with any abstract mathematical concept, oh, let's say "categorical limits" (from category theory, which is a beautifully abstract theory). Or the continuum hypothesis. Or the axiom of choice. Something like that.

So long as our choice is suitably abstract, we won't find any bits of nature "expressing" these concepts and even capuchin monkeys seem disinterested in set theory. (I think they're quite taken by category theory, but too shy to say so.) But I also think that mathematics has an undeniably objective component. Theorems that involve categorical limits go beyond mere human opinion -- they are objectively derivable from the axioms of category theory. Similarly, the theorems that the continuum hypothesis and axiom of choice are independent of the axioms of ZFC and ZF, respectively, are objectively true.

Agreed?
 
phiwum said:
Kant, for instance, was interested in the necessary preconditions for one to be rational and he believed that one of these preconditions was that a rational being necessarily values existence as a rational being. Insofar as this is really a feature of all rational beings, it is what Kant called an objective value and serves as the basis for all morality.

Mill, on the other hand, argued that happiness is the sole end of all deliberate action, and hence the sole criterion for judging action. Hence, moral judgments must depend on the degree to which a given action actually produces happiness in the aggregate of those affected.
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Both, however, don't really address the two premises of that argument, since both are dependent on the presence of those rational beings. At most it might illustrate why involving humans isn't necessarily subjective, hence that one of the premises is ambiguous.

Note that I'm actually pretty much wilt Mill on that one, and generally in the camp of some moral systems being objectively better than others.

But I don't think that that two-premises-argument is entirely misguided either. While it may not deny the existence of an objectively best morality, it does however make the point that any such system must be based on the people involved, rather than on some imaginary sky-daddy's wishes.
 
phiwum said:
I'm not quite sure how you're suggesting the conclusion should be fixed. Is it enough to simply add the word "objective" to it?



I don't know that I will be able to convince you otherwise, but I don't think that there is any necessary circularity in the concept of objective morality. Let's drop the theologians for a moment and talk about the approach of philosophers.

Kant, for instance, was interested in the necessary preconditions for one to be rational and he believed that one of these preconditions was that a rational being necessarily values existence as a rational being. Insofar as this is really a feature of all rational beings, it is what Kant called an objective value and serves as the basis for all morality.

Mill, on the other hand, argued that happiness is the sole end of all deliberate action, and hence the sole criterion for judging action. Hence, moral judgments must depend on the degree to which a given action actually produces happiness in the aggregate of those affected.

I'm not saying that either of these attempts worked in the end, but we can see that these attempts, though the product of human thought, aim nonetheless at an objective basis for morality, a foundation that any rational creature would agree provides him with a reason to act accordingly. It may well be that Kant and Mill were on a fool's errand, and that there is no basis for objective morality, but I don't think that it's as simple to show that as you suggest.
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OK, well I have explained it three times now. So I am not going to keep doing that.

But I did not say that there was necessarily any circularity in a concept of "objective morality". I said that it was circular reasoning in the way that pharphis presented the theist definition of it as exemplified by WLC.

Nor was I talking about anything so tenuous as a notion of "how a conclusion should be fixed".

And I'm not any more interested in what so-called "Philosophers" have to say than Stephen Hawking is when he says "philosophy is dead". If you want to know how anything in this universe probably works, then we have something called "science" which has proved itself to be by far the most credible way of understanding and explaining things.
 
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I Am The Scum said:
The idea of objective morality is not necessarily that morality is completely independent of human opinion/judgment. We can relate this to other issues. Some might say that if human opinion is involved, then it's subjective, plain and simple. This is not correct, though. Take the following claim: Jim prefers chocolate ice cream over vanilla. This is either objectively true or objectively false. In other words, if Jim actually does have this preference, and Sally says that he does not, then Sally is objectively wrong.
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What do you mean by "objectively wrong"?
 
IanS said:
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And I'm not any more interested in what so-called "Philosophers" have to say than Stephen Hawking is when he says "philosophy is dead". If you want to know how anything in this universe probably works, then we have something called "science" which has proved itself to be by far the most credible way of understanding and explaining things.
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What does the highlighted part mean?
 
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