If there were objective morality - how would you tell?

Robin

Penultimate Amazing
Robin
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Apr 29, 2004
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Suppose there are two people who both believe in objective morality.

Person A says X is wrong.
Person B says X is right.

What method would you use to determine who was right or wrong?
 
Kill 'em both, strap cameras to their souls, then see which one goes to Heaven, and which one goes to Hell.
 
If there were objective morality, you'd find somebody who knows what that objective morality says about X and ask them who's right. If you don't already know which system of morality among hundreds is the real objective morality then I guess you're screwed.
 
Robin said:
Suppose there are two people who both believe in objective morality.

Person A says X is wrong.
Person B says X is right.

What method would you use to determine who was right or wrong?
Click to expand...

The scientific method.
 
!Kaggen said:
Hmm me thinks you will have problems getting this experiment past the ethics committee :)
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So I'll kill one person who believes it is objectively wrong to kill people for such an experiment; and one person who believes it is objectively right. If the first goes to Heaven, we don't do it again. If the second goes to Heaven...start lining up the victims subjects :D
 
Wolfman said:
So I'll kill one person who believes it is objectively wrong to kill people for such an experiment; and one person who believes it is objectively right. If the first goes to Heaven, we don't do it again. If the second goes to Heaven...start lining up the victims subjects :D
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You do realize that if the first person is right, your not going to heaven even if you don't kill again ;)
 
In the immortal words of Spiro T. Agnew, vice pres to Nixon who got caught doing the Watergate deal: "honesty means different things to different people."
 
Wolfman said:
Kill 'em both, strap cameras to their souls, then see which one goes to Heaven, and which one goes to Hell.
Click to expand...

You know, this actually reminds me of a translation I checked yesterday which mentioned an ancient Japanese method of determining who was telling the truth in a he-said-she-said situation.

The method was called 'yugisho' (湯起請).

First the parties would swear an oath to the gods. Then the parties would both simultaneously put their hands in boiling water, take out a stone, and then place it on a Shinto altar in order to ask the gods for consideration. If one party suffered less severe scalding than the other, he was considered to be the winner. :)

The legal system was somewhat less than ideal in those days.
 
Because I've been rereading a lot of fairy tales and folk tales lately, I have come to realize that the more moral person will always be the prettier of the two.
 
Robin said:
Suppose there are two people who both believe in objective morality.
(...)
What method would you use to determine who was right or wrong?
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Ask them to describe in writing what their beliefs are and on what objective grounds and logical conclusions they are based on. Then see how much of it can be agreed as non-subjective and universally true. Some peer review.
 
First determine a definition of right and wrong where the criteria of "rightness" and "wrongness" are the same for all possible conditions and observers. In other words define what is universally right and universally wrong for all observers.

Then test wether X is right or wrong for all observers and conditions.

I suspect problems will arise during the first part which will delay the second part.
 
Define "right" and "wrong." Please don't use synonyms like "good" and "bad," because that would be uninformative.
 
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