Is morality objective or subjective?

[Belinda]

Thanks Uwot, that was useful and I hope to use that text button in the future.

I copied this bit of Feynman's talk.

Because I'm scientific, I know all about flying saucers. So I said, I don't think there are flying saucers. So my antagonist said, is it impossible that there are flying saucers? Can you prove that it's impossible? I said, no, I can't prove it's impossible, it's just very unlikely.

That, they say, you are very unscientific. If you can't prove it impossible, then how could you say it's likely that it's unlikely? Well, that's the way that it is scientific. It is scientific only to say what's more likely and less likely, and not to be proving all the time, possible and impossible.

To define what I mean, I finally said to him, listen. I mean that from my knowledge of the world that I see around me, I think that it is much more likely that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence, rather than the unknown, rational efforts of extraterrestrial intelligence.

I thought that this bit illustrates how probability is subjective. That's to say the guess stage of the method is subjective common sense informed by weighty theories that preceded the guess, but still a guess. Do you agree that a sliver of subjectivity, like salt in a recipe, flavours the whole method with subjectivity?

[uwot]

Do you agree that a sliver of subjectivity, like salt in a recipe, flavours the whole method with subjectivity?

Short answer: yes. In the case of flying saucers, either there are little green men, messing with our heads by playing peek-a-boo, or there aren't; it is objectively true or false. How compelling one finds the evidence is entirely subjective, but there are factors we can consider that affect how we rank the probability. For instance; the mind boggling number of planetary systems in the universe, which suggest that the probability of us being unique is very small, against the distances aliens would have to travel and the time that would take, according to what we currently know about physics. As Feynman points out though, even if you think the probability is very high, that doesn't mean it is true and conversely, a very low probability doesn't mean it isn't.
With god; either there is a god or there isn't, but there are no measurable facts about the universe that materially inform any judgement; there are only logical arguments which you either find compelling, or you don't.
As far as morality goes, there is no indication that there is any objective thing such as good or evil; how one applies moral terms is simply a matter of taste.

[Belinda]

Uwot wrote:

As far as morality goes, there is no indication that there is any objective thing such as good or evil; how one applies moral terms is simply a matter of taste.

Yes, but I am concerned to persuade Peter Holmes that science too is subjective. The subjective element in the scientific method pervades science and its facts, and that is what Feynman was on about. Not so?

[uwot]

...I am concerned to persuade Peter Holmes that science too is subjective. The subjective element in the scientific method pervades science and its facts, and that is what Feynman was on about. Not so?

Fair enough, but I think Peter Holmes understands.
Look at it this way: if you let go of your cup of tea, does it fall to the ground? Unless you are on the International Space Station, the answer is yes. Is it your subjective opinion that it falls to the ground? I would argue that no it isn't. That is an objectively observable phenomenon.
Can you measure how fast it falls to the ground? Well, given the appropriate equipment, careful repetition and conscientious recording of data, yes you can. So can anyone else; it is objectively measurable.
Can you come up with an explanation for why this happens the way it does? Absolutely. You might follow Einstein and think that there is a substance called 'spacetime', which is warped by matter. You might equally attribute the effect to the exchange of hypothetical quantum particles called gravitons. Or you could choose any one of the dozens of alternative hypotheses that are taken seriously (see section 4 here for a shopping list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity) Or you could make up any story you like to explain it. None of them are going to have the slightest impact on the observable phenomenon, nor the measurements that you make. The explanation you prefer is entirely subjective. That is true also for scientists, but if a theory is contradicted by the phenomenon or the measurement, it is, as Feynman points out, wrong and objectively so.

[Peter Holmes]

...I am concerned to persuade Peter Holmes that science too is subjective. The subjective element in the scientific method pervades science and its facts, and that is what Feynman was on about. Not so?

Fair enough, but I think Peter Holmes understands.
Look at it this way: if you let go of your cup of tea, does it fall to the ground? Unless you are on the International Space Station, the answer is yes. Is it your subjective opinion that it falls to the ground? I would argue that no it isn't. That is an objectively observable phenomenon.
Can you measure how fast it falls to the ground? Well, given the appropriate equipment, careful repetition and conscientious recording of data, yes you can. So can anyone else; it is objectively measurable.
Can you come up with an explanation for why this happens the way it does? Absolutely. You might follow Einstein and think that there is a substance called 'spacetime', which is warped by matter. You might equally attribute the effect to the exchange of hypothetical quantum particles called gravitons. Or you could choose any one of the dozens of alternative hypotheses that are taken seriously (see section 4 here for a shopping list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity) Or you could make up any story you like to explain it. None of them are going to have the slightest impact on the observable phenomenon, nor the measurements that you make. The explanation you prefer is entirely subjective. That is true also for scientists, but if a theory is contradicted by the phenomenon or the measurement, it is, as Feynman points out, wrong and objectively so.

Thanks, uwot. Nicely put.

I'd just summarise by saying: We can choose (subjectively) between different explanations. But that doesn't mean the explanations are subjective. They have objective justification, or they fail.

[RCSaunders]

I have followed this entire thread, and it seems to me the entire discussion is based on a mistaken notion of what moral principles are. (The blame for which lies at the feet of David Hume.)

Right, wrong, good, bad, important, unimportant, necessary, unnecessary are value terms. Since Hume, the nature of value terms has become completely confused and treated as though they are concepts of the intrinsic or inherent.

Nothing is just good, bad, right, or wrong in itself. All value terms are terms of relationship. Every value term assumes some purpose, objective, goal or end relative to which a thing (idea, action, or entity) has a value. If it furthers or completes the end, purpose, or goal it has a positive value, if it hinders or prevents the end, purpose, or goal, it has a negative value. No matter what value is being considered, the ultimate purpose, end, or goal of the thing must be specified, before a value can be assigned to it.

The purpose of moral principles are to be a guide for living successfully as a human being. They are necessary because all human behavior must be chosen and choice is not possible where the consequences of one's choices cannot be known. Moral principles do not tell one what to choose, they only provide the means of knowing, "if I choose this, these will be the consequences."

If one chooses to live happily and successfully in this world, moral principles will provide the means of knowing how to choose to live that way. One does not have to choose to live happily or successfully, in which case no principles are needed. A failed life needs no guidance, it is the default condition (and the most common).

Moral values are objective because which behavior will produce which consequences is determined by the nature of reality itself. There are two aspects of that reality: 1. the nature of physical reality as delineated by the physical science, and 2. human nature, physical, biological, and psychological.

If the objective of moral principles is successful human life, defying the nature of any aspect of reality is, "wrong," or, "bad," because it prevents achieving the objective. Defying the nature of physical reality (jumping off a tall building, lighting oneself on fire, etc.) is bad. Defying the biological nature (failing to consume necessary vitamins and minerals, consuming poison, breathing carbon monoxide) is wrong. Defying the requirements of one's psychological nature (failing to learn, to think, and to make one's choices rationally) is immoral because human success is impossible without them.

Perhaps the biggest mistake in all discussions of moral principles is the failure to identify the specific objective of such principles. No one is required to have a specific objective in life. One may choose to live as something less than a fully successful human being, but for those who choose to be the best they can be as a human being, achieving and being all they can possibly be, enjoying their life to the fullest possible, objective moral principles based on reality are absolutely necessary.

So, "rape is wrong," is objectively true if by wrong one means contrary to how one must live to be a successful human being.

[Peter Holmes]

RCSaunders

Thanks again for a thoughtful and well-expressed argument.

I've replied to your comment on the other post - I hope, addressing the points you make here.

I shouldn't have started two threads - but it seemed a good idea at the time.

[Belinda]

RCSaunders wrote:

Moral principles do not tell one what to choose, they only provide the means of knowing, "if I choose this, these will be the consequences."

So do scientific principles and common sense principles.

Moral principles however tend to be enshrined in law, either religious law or civil law.

Holocaust denial which I understand is illegal straddles the artificial boundary between the historical and the moral.

[Peter Holmes]

RCSaunders wrote:

Perhaps the biggest mistake in all discussions of moral principles is the failure to identify the specific objective of such principles. No one is required to have a specific objective in life. One may choose to live as something less than a fully successful human being, but for those who choose to be the best they can be as a human being, achieving and being all they can possibly be, enjoying their life to the fullest possible, objective moral principles based on reality are absolutely necessary.

So, "rape is wrong," is objectively true if by wrong one means contrary to how one must live to be a successful human being.

The big mistake behind moral objectivism - evident here again - is the failure to understand that any proposed aim for moral principles - such as 'being a successful human being' - is itself a value judgement, and so subjective. It always comes back to begging the question: why is it morally good to be a successful human being? Or: why is it morally good to promote the well-being of sentient creatures? At root there is always a judgement, how ever many facts we cite to justify it. Morality cannot be objective.

[Immanuel Can]

The big mistake behind moral objectivism - evident here again - is the failure to understand that any proposed aim for moral principles - such as 'being a successful human being' - is itself a value judgement, and so subjective. It always comes back to begging the question: why is it morally good to be a successful human being? Or: why is it morally good to promote the well-being of sentient creatures? At root there is always a judgement, how ever many facts we cite to justify it.

I agree with your entirely here. This is the point.

There's no such universally-accepted goal that is "the successful human being," anymore than there is "the consensus good life," or "well-being," or "human flourishing," or "happiness," or even "promotion of the survival of the race." All of these are actually contentious goals, believed in by only a part of the population (and that, often a small percentage of a single culture), which are being fobbed off on us as though we all simply agree that a) we all have exactly the same idea of what they require or entail, and b) that we all can see that they are the right goals of our actions.

In point of fact, there is wide disagreement -- both on what they might mean, and that any particular version of what they mean is actually the right goal.

This is the correct description of the situation, and I commend your acuity in noting it.

However, the conclusion you attempt to draw from these observation is actually a non-sequitur: it does not follow. For you argue,

Morality cannot be objective.

It IS true that a morality grounded in nothing but human subjectivity cannot be objective. Moreover, such a thing cannot even really be a "morality," since it prescribes and proscribes no particular actions for anyone, and does not come bundled with any duty -- no one has any obligation to obey subjective moralities at all.

So what are these "subjective moralities"? They are nothing. They are whims. They are a vapour. The are illusions. They add no description of any real thing to the world.

However, a morality that is not grounded in human subjectivity could be objective. For your objection is really only the observation that people subjectively disagree about the content of morality. Subjective disagreement does not imply the non-existence of the subject-matter being disagreed upon.

To illustrate: there have been many disagreements over the configuration of the planets. This does not even remotely imply that there are no planets, or that they stand in no particular configuration relative to one another. In fact, the disagreement could not have persisted, were it not true that there are objective facts about the disposition of the planets.

So, to conclude, I think we can see that subjective disagreement does not warrant the conclusion that morality does not objectively exist. If morality does objectively exist, it will exist completely independently from the question of how many people know it, or who has the true objective morality.

[Peter Holmes]

Immanuel Can.

Your reasoning is faulty.

1 You agree that the big mistake behind moral objectivism is that at root there is always a judgement, how ever many facts we cite to justify it.

2 You deny the conclusion, that morality can't be objective, which follows directly from point 1.

3 You claim that, since there will always be different moral judgements, we can never know what should be the 'right goal' to pursue - forgetting the fact that what constitutes the right goal is a judgement - as in point 1.

4 You claim that morality need not be subjective, contradicting your agreement with point 1.

5 You claim that moral subjectivism undermines itself, 'since it prescribes and proscribes no particular actions for anyone, and does not come bundled with any duty - no one has any obligation to obey subjective moralities at all.' But this is false. The fact that people may differ in moral judgements doesn't mean they will or must disagree - or that agreement and moral obligation are impossible.

6 Your analogy with factual disagreement about the planets exposes the fallacy of moral objectivism. There are no moral 'objects' that can verify or falsify moral assertions in the way the planets themselves can, as it were, verify or falsify factual assertions about them.

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel Can.

Your reasoning is faulty.

1 You agree that the big mistake behind moral objectivism is that at root there is always a judgement, how ever many facts we cite to justify it.

Not quite. For judgments can be correct or faulty, when they make reference to objective properties. A value judgment can correctly evaluate an objective moral, or it can fail to do so. The mere fact that it is a value judgment does not make it necessarily incorrect.

2 You deny the conclusion, that morality can't be objective, which follows directly from point 1.

As you can now see, it does not follow. If there is an objective morality, then the value judgment may be right or wrong. For then there IS a kind of moral fact -- not one derived from the merely material plane, but one derived from a different ontological level. There is a factual truth about whether something is good or evil, and the value judgment is good or bad, depending on its proximity to that moral fact.

3 You claim that, since there will always be different moral judgements, we can never know what should be the 'right goal' to pursue

I didn't say that. I say that there are different moral judgments, some more right and some more wrong. And there may well be a "right goal" to pursue -- the disagreement between people being no useful piece of data in determining that question.

- forgetting the fact that what constitutes the right goal is a judgement - as in point 1.

A judgment does not "constitute" anything, does it? It makes nothing come into being, or be so; and it is not itself the substance to which it refers. If moral objectivism is true, then a judgment refers to a moral fact, and is better or worse by its relationship to that moral fact.

4 You claim that morality need not be subjective, contradicting your agreement with point 1.

No again. I claim that there IS NO SUCH THING as a "morality" that is "subjective." The very coinage "subjective morality" is nothing but a self-contradiction. This is because "subjective" means, "specifying nothing universal," "perspective based," and "not in any way obligatory." In short, it's not what we call "morality" at all. It's amorality, or moral Nihilism.

5 You claim that moral subjectivism undermines itself, 'since it prescribes and proscribes no particular actions for anyone, and does not come bundled with any duty - no one has any obligation to obey subjective moralities at all.'

I do.

But this is false. The fact that people may differ in moral judgements doesn't mean they will or must disagree - or that agreement and moral obligation are impossible.

It's worse than that. For under subjective morality, we cannot even know that the principle, "agreement is necessary for moral truth," is correct. That's another of those fundamental presumptions people try to sneak by us without justifying them. But under moral subjectivism, we have no reason to think consensus is privileged in any way. As for moral obligation, as Nietzsche said, the only thing that can make it happen under moral subjectivism is the use of arbitrary power to force compliance. But as Nietzsche also saw, there's nothing particularly deserving of the approving epithet "moral" about the use of raw power.

6 Your analogy with factual disagreement about the planets exposes the fallacy of moral objectivism. There are no moral 'objects' that can verify or falsify moral assertions in the way the planets themselves can, as it were, verify or falsify factual assertions about them.

That's only because you're looking to "objects" for information about morality. As Hume showed, that's just impossible. What you'd have to do is to look beyond "objects" to verify or falsify moral assertions.

And the whole field of modern ethics recognizes this. Kant tried to look beyond objects by looking to reason. Mill tried looking to outcomes. MacIntyre tried the idea of character traits. Habermas tried performative consistencies in language. Rawls tried the heuristic device of the "veil of ignorance." Not one of them looked to "objects." Nobody today does.

So it's no wonder if you have observed that morality is not discernible in objects in the material world. You're right; but you've only discovered something that the field of ethics discovered two hundred years ago. Perhaps it's time we stopped flogging that dead horse, and looked beyond the objects.

[Peter Holmes]

Immanuel Can

I have no interest in your evasions and sophistries. As ever, you have to answer two questions.

1 How does a moral assertion expressing a value judgement, such as 'slavery is wrong', make a falsifiable factual claim?

2 How does the source of a supposedly factual assertion have any bearing on its truth or falsehood?

Until you can answer these questions clearly and satisfactorily, your defence of moral objectivism - and its theistic strain - is hopeless.

[Immanuel Can]

...you have to answer two questions.

My dear sir, no one "has to" do anything on this forum, so far as I can tell.

1 How does a moral assertion expressing a value judgement, such as 'slavery is wrong', make a falsifiable factual claim?

"Falsifiability" is not a criterion of truth. There's a lot that's true that is not falsifiable.

For example, you cannot falsify the claim, "My wife loves me." You can know it only probabilistically, one way or the other. You can't falsify the claim, "Peacock is a shade of blue." It could equally be a shade of green. You cannot even falsify the claim, "This man is dead," so long as he is hooked up to life support. And you cannot falsify the claim, "Slavery is okay" -- at least, not without reference to an objective standard of right and wrong. If such exists, things are clear; if not, they cannot be.

You've several times referred to the criterion of falsification, and it seems this is a sticking point. So maybe I need to say something about that. "Falsification" is Karl Popper's idea. If you investigate, you'll find out that he strictly limited it to scientific questions of epistemology. He never even attempted to say it was applicable to questions of value. You'll also find it has been subsequently undermined by such noteworthiness as G.E. Moore, M. Polanyi and P. Feyerabend, among others. So perhaps it's time we applied a more appropriate standard to the question in hand.

However, this much is quite obvious. IF there is an objective moral standard, and IF that moral standard holds that slavery is wrong, THEN it would be false to say that slavery is right. And indeed, there would be no other point of view that mattered to the question, were that the case.

2 How does the source of a supposedly factual assertion have any bearing on its truth or falsehood?

Except in the case of infallible sources, it doesn't. And nobody said it does, so far as I know. But if a source is 100% accurate, and we are looking at the truth of a particular fact, then both the source and the fact will align. We could look at either the source or the fact itself, and we would still have the truth.

To illustrate simply, if I have a completely reliable thermometer outside, I don't have to go outside to find out whether or not it is below zero. Either I go outside and feel the cold, or I look at my thermometer; and in both cases, I'll be right.

[Peter Holmes]

Immanuel Can

More sophistry. Of course you don't have to do the following.

1 Show that there is an objective moral standard by which the assertion 'slavery is right' can be shown to be factually false.

2 Show that there is an infallible source of factual truth.

3 Show that factual assertions are true simply because that authority says that they are.

Speculation is cheap.