Is morality objective or subjective?

[Immanuel Can]

I can't prove my opinion is correct, but you should be able to prove that yours is.

Yes, that seems fair.

No, I think it's a case where we have to go with what turns out to be most rational and plausible. Absolute proof won't be available, because it involves morals, which are evaluations, not merely material facts.

[Immanuel Can]

Well, do meanings belong to the object or the subject, very relevant to whether morality is objective or subjective.

"Meanings" and "morals" are not the same things, so I'm still not clear on the relevance. Maybe you can help me out with that.

Beg to differ, morals are meanings,

No, that's pretty clearly not the case. When somebody says, "What does X mean," they don't mean, "Is X moral?"

Our common biology is the only really sane foundation to morality for that is its topic.

It doesn't work, for two reasons: one, that morality is differently understood by different groups, and two, because biology only describes facts, and morality deals with values. It's the is-ought problem, all over again.

There is only meaning for life forms and those meanings are the subject's experiences, once he experiences it becomes knowledge/meaning, to which he then bestows as it were on a meaningless world.

To "bestow meaning" on that which is inherently "meaningless" is only to create a delusion, then.

[Harbal]

I can't prove my opinion is correct, but you should be able to prove that yours is.

Yes, that seems fair.

No, I think it's a case where we have to go with what turns out to be most rational and plausible. Absolute proof won't be available, because it involves morals, which are evaluations, not merely material facts.

I think we can at least agree that morals are evaluations.

[popeye1945]

"Meanings" and "morals" are not the same things, so I'm still not clear on the relevance. Maybe you can help me out with that.

Beg to differ, morals are meanings,

No, that's pretty clearly not the case. When somebody says, "What does X mean," they don't mean, "Is X moral?"

Our common biology is the only really sane foundation to morality for that is its topic.

It doesn't work, for two reasons: one, that morality is differently understood by different groups, and two, because biology only describes facts, and morality deals with values. It's the is-ought problem, all over again.

There is only meaning for life forms and those meanings are the subject's experiences, once he experiences it becomes knowledge/meaning, to which he then bestows as it were on a meaningless world.

To "bestow meaning" on that which is inherently "meaningless" is only to create a delusion, then.

Ponder it a bit. It may be a delusion but a biologically determined one. Your first disagreement is rather a perversion, X can stand for anything. What you must understand is that all meanings belong to a biological subject, and experience is how the object alters the biology of the subjective consciousness through the subject's body. All meaning is experience which the subject then attributes to the world at large. However, what is experienced is not the source itself, but the source's effects in altering one's biology, this is experience, this is meaning.

[Immanuel Can]

I can't prove my opinion is correct, but you should be able to prove that yours is.

Yes, that seems fair.

No, I think it's a case where we have to go with what turns out to be most rational and plausible. Absolute proof won't be available, because it involves morals, which are evaluations, not merely material facts.

I think we can at least agree that morals are evaluations.

Well, they are. But there's no way that the evaluations themselves cause or explain the origin of morality, because they "evaluate" something that exists already, and does not depend on the evaluation.

To imagine that evaluating causes morals to exist would be like imagining my thermometer causes the weather. Thermometers don't cause anything; they just take a reading on what it already is. They can be accurate or inaccurate, but the weather will be what it is, regardless of how accurate or inaccurate the thermometer's reading is.

Likewise, our moral evaluations do not cause anything. They merely report on what one or another person, or one or another group, takes to be the correct "temperature" of the situation in question. They can be right or wrong about that. But neither the situation nor the moral standing of that situation is changed by the reading. The situation will be what it is. We can get it right, or we can get it wrong. But evaluations themselves do not the morality make.

[Immanuel Can]

Ponder it a bit. It may be a delusion but a biologically determined one.

A "delusion," by definition, is the belief in a thing that does not exist. Biology is a thing that does exist: but it has no information for us about morality. Biology, like evolution, does not care. It is not a thing capable of caring: it's a label we use for a category of human learning, having to do with the animal world. Whether what you do is "right" or "wrong" is of no interest to "biology," anymore than it's of interest to "chemistry" or "physics."

Biology is an "is." A moral evaluation is an "ought." Hume's Guillotine covers that.

[popeye1945]

Ponder it a bit. It may be a delusion but a biologically determined one.

A "delusion," by definition, is the belief in a thing that does not exist. Biology is a thing that does exist: but it has no information for us about morality. Biology, like evolution, does not care. It is not a thing capable of caring: it's a label we use for a category of human learning, having to do with the animal world. Whether what you do is "right" or "wrong" is of no interest to "biology," any more than it's of interest to "chemistry" or "physics."
Biology is an "is." A moral evaluation is an "ought." Hume's Guillotine covers that.

Delusion is indeed belief in something that does not exist, but that just maybe our apparent reality, after all apparent reality is the summation of biological effects of some unknown source, we do not experience the source, we experience its effects upon us. Life forms/consciousness is the only thing that can care. Hume's Guillotine, both is and ought are meanings, so are chemistry and physics. Biology is the measure and the meaning of all things, for in the absence of a conscious subject, the physical world is utterly meaningless.

[Immanuel Can]

Hume's Guillotine, both is and ought are meanings,

Ummm...no, no, they're not. Sorry...that's just not so.

"Is" is an ontological claim. "Ought" is a moral claim. Both "mean" something, but "meaning" is a different type of claim, something we might call a "teleological" claim.

Maybe you can clear this up for me: is it biology or consciousness that you think is the fundamental basis of reality? Are you a Materialist or an Idealist, perhaps? I can't tell: because you say both that "biology" is the basic thing, and that "experience" or "consciousness" is. Which one are you really trying to advocate as the primary thing?

[Atla]

You'd perhaps better look up "ad hominem fallacy." You're mistaking the objection.

Don't know what you mean.

Yes. That's why you should look it up.

You should look it up

[Immanuel Can]

Don't know what you mean.

Yes. That's why you should look it up.

You should look it up

Why? I know what it is. You said you don't know what it means.

[Atla]

Yes. That's why you should look it up.

You should look it up

Why? I know what it is. You said you don't know what it means.

Because it's you who doesn't know what it means.

[popeye1945]

Hume's Guillotine, both is and ought are meanings,

Ummm...no, no, they're not. Sorry...that's just not so.
"Is" is an ontological claim. "Ought" is a moral claim. Both "mean" something, but "meaning" is a different type of claim, something we might call a "teleological" claim.

A claim of any sort is a meaning. Meanings are what we communicate. All words are qualifications and/or limitations in our efforts to communicate meanings.

Maybe you can clear this up for me: is it biology or consciousness that you think is the fundamental basis of reality? Are you a Materialist or an Idealist, perhaps? I can't tell: because you say both that "biology" is the basic thing, and that "experience" or "consciousness" is. Which one are you really trying to advocate as the primary thing?
[/quote]

Life is consciousness, consciousness is life. One can only be an idealist, if apparent reality is as it is a subjective manifestation. Subject and object are mutually dependent. Take the world as object away and there is no consciousness, for there would be nothing to be conscious of. Take away the subject and the object ceases to be. The primary in other words is conscious life, for there is meaning in the world only through conscious life.

[popeye1945]

Hume's Guillotine, both is and ought are meanings,

Ummm...no, no, they're not. Sorry...that's just not so.
"Is" is an ontological claim. "Ought" is a moral claim. Both "mean" something, but "meaning" is a different type of claim, something we might call a "teleological" claim.

A claim of any sort is a meaning. Meanings are what we communicate. All words are qualifications and/or limitations in our efforts to communicate meanings.

Maybe you can clear this up for me: is it biology or consciousness that you think is the fundamental basis of reality? Are you a Materialist or an Idealist, perhaps? I can't tell: because you say both that "biology" is the basic thing, and that "experience" or "consciousness" is. Which one are you really trying to advocate as the primary thing?
[/quote]

Life is consciousness, consciousness is life. One can only be an idealist, if apparent reality is as it is, a subjective manifestation. Subject and object are mutually dependent. Take the world as object away and there is no consciousness, for there would be nothing to be conscious of. Take away the subject and the object ceases to be. The primary in other words is object and conscious life, for there is meaning in the world only through conscious life on a subjective level. You might say the object is the fuel of the brain-producing mind, and it is through the body and the alterations made to it that one comes to know an apparent reality.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Ponder it a bit. It may be a delusion but a biologically determined one.

A "delusion," by definition, is the belief in a thing that does not exist. Biology is a thing that does exist: but it has no information for us about morality. Biology, like evolution, does not care. It is not a thing capable of caring: it's a label we use for a category of human learning, having to do with the animal world. Whether what you do is "right" or "wrong" is of no interest to "biology," anymore than it's of interest to "chemistry" or "physics."

Biology is an "is." A moral evaluation is an "ought." Hume's Guillotine covers that.

• In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology

You are delusional because you insist in believing your God exists as real when your God is a reified illusion.
New: It is Impossible for God to be Real
viewtopic.php?t=40229

Ontologically, your God is an ontology of illusion [Zero reality].

What is real is conditioned upon a specific human-based Framework and System of Reality [FSK] and Knowledge [FSK] of which the human-based scientific-FSK is the most credible, reliable and objective. There is no FSK [mathematics and logic aside] that is more credible and objective.

Biology exists as real when conditioned upon a human-based science-biology FSK.
There is no way anyone can claim biology exists as real without a qualification to the human-based science-biology FSK explicitly or implied.

Theism is based on its human-based theistic FSK which is based on blind-faith [no sound proofs] thus in contrast to the scientific FSK is not credible, reliable and objective, having zero degree of reality.

Morality based on rightness or wrongness is obvious subjective not conditioned upon any thing real [matter of fact] and can never be objective.

There are "oughtness" as biological facts which are represented by physcical neural correlates, thus these are real and objective.
There is no denial within the human biological system there is an 'oughtness to breathe' as human nature. There are many such biological oughtness correlated with its "is" the physical neural correlates.
Morality is an inherent potential within human nature.
As such there are biological oughtness that are related to morality per se.

When these biological-moral oughtness are inputted into a human-based moral FSK; this moral FSK will enable objective moral facts, thus the human-based morality is objective.
Objective in this sense is like that of scientific objectivity;
Scientific Objectivity
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39286 Jan 13, 2023

This human based science-biological-morality moral FSK is already in operation, albeit progressing slowly, thus need expeditions improvements.

[Harbal]

Yes, that seems fair.

No, I think it's a case where we have to go with what turns out to be most rational and plausible. Absolute proof won't be available, because it involves morals, which are evaluations, not merely material facts.

I think we can at least agree that morals are evaluations.

Well, they are. But there's no way that the evaluations themselves cause or explain the origin of morality, because they "evaluate" something that exists already, and does not depend on the evaluation.

To imagine that evaluating causes morals to exist would be like imagining my thermometer causes the weather. Thermometers don't cause anything; they just take a reading on what it already is. They can be accurate or inaccurate, but the weather will be what it is, regardless of how accurate or inaccurate the thermometer's reading is.

That's a bad analogy. What is a moral issue for you, might not be one for me, but when it rains we both get wet.

Likewise, our moral evaluations do not cause anything.

Of course they cause something; they influence our behaviour.

They merely report on what one or another person, or one or another group, takes to be the correct "temperature" of the situation in question.

No, they play an important role in how those people function together as a group. Societies develop their morality over time; it's an evolving thing. Morality is just a set of invented rules, but rules that are based more on emotional sentiment than rational practicality.

They can be right or wrong about that.

They can only be right or wrong in as much as they are in or out of tune with the moral attitudes of the group in general. In my view of morality, I suppose society takes on the role of God.