Is morality objective or subjective?

[Harbal]

Do you know what I mean when I say I am 1.8 meters tall, but I am not using the standard definition for a meter?

Yes, you mean you are 1.8 meters tall, but you are not using the standard definition for a meter?

So what does 1 non-standard meter mean to you?

It means there aren't two of them.

Can you convert it to a standard meter for me.

What have you ever done for me?

[Skepdick]

It means there aren't two of them.

For all you know 1 non-standard meter is two standard ones.

What have you ever done for me?

I tried to have cookies and milk delivered to you, but you are so old you forgot where you live.

[Harbal]

For all you know 1 non-standard meter is two standard ones. I tried to have cookies and milk delivered to you, but you are so old you forgot where you live.

Are you threatening me?

[Skepdick]

For all you know 1 non-standard meter is two standard ones. I tried to have cookies and milk delivered to you, but you are so old you forgot where you live.

Are you threatening me?

Yes. But a non-standard one.

It might mean the opposite. Who knows.

[Harbal]

For all you know 1 non-standard meter is two standard ones. I tried to have cookies and milk delivered to you, but you are so old you forgot where you live.

Are you threatening me?

Yes. But a non-standard one.

It might mean the opposite. Who knows.

Okay, bye then.

[Immanuel Can]

What do human beings do that makes them seem to practice a thing they call "morality" beyond expressing an emotional response to events?

Well, if you're right, then moral language is completely redundant and unnecessary. All we have to say when we want to say that killing is "bad" is say, "killing makes me feel sad," or "boo, killing."

But as you can see from the Frege-Geach case, that results in a very silly kind of "reasoning"...not just one that's circular and incoherent, although it's certainly those, but one that fails even to communicate any basis for the emotions invoked.

[Immanuel Can]

Morality isn't about logic, just like love isn't about logic.

Well, some might say that the thing that keeps love going is that it's fun. But is that enough to keep morality going? It's certainly not enough to justify it in any way.

That's a cheap trick, IC.

It's not a trick. I'm pointing out that the analogy doesn't really work.

You surely can't deny that love can be an incredibly powerful motivator, and I find that so can morality, even though neither depend on logic and rationality.

Yes, but not for a subjectivist. For a subjectivist, something that motivates but gives impressions that are untrue is just a delusion.

Actually, I believe it is true for everybody, whether they acknowledge it or not.

That doesn't solve the problem that it's a delusion. It just means that everybody's having delusions, then.

Let’s imagine you got your way, and society went back to being run on religious morality; what would the implications be for people like homosexuals and pregnant women who don’t want to have children?

Well, for a subjectivist, neither would be right or wrong. And since I don't believe society ought to be run by a "religious morality," I guess you'd have to ask somebody who wants that...depending on which "religious morality" they were advocating.

So what sort of morality do you think society ought to be run on,...

Do you mean, should our civic laws accord with God's laws on those subjects? Of course. At the same time, each of us continues to have the choice to obey or not obey those principles...and each of us will give his/her own account to God, as a result.

Free conscience is sacred...and Divine Judgment is personal. The latter fact justifies the former. That's what John Locke knew.

I think I know what "Divine Judgment is, but what do you mean when you say it is personal?

I mean that God holds each individual personally responsible for what he/she does. As the Bible explains, each of us individually makes our account to God, and there are no lawyers or clergy invited to speak for us, and no excuse to be had by hiding inside the mob. That's a morally sobering realization.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Other than people's emotional response to events, what phenomena relate to morality?

Well, here's what we know: human beings seem to practice a thing they call "morality." That makes it a phenomenon, meaning no more than "a thing that happens."

What do human beings do that makes them seem to practice a thing they call "morality" beyond expressing an emotional response to events?

Your sort of thinking is too shallow, narrow and perhaps dogmatically stuck to one fixed paradigm.

Morality is evidently part of human nature.
ALL humans are programmed with an inherent moral potential which is active in some and inactive in the majority.
This inherent moral potential is activated instinctively.

There is a vast difference between what is generally instinctual and what is emotional.
Since morality is instinctual as primary, any emotional response associated with morality is secondary.

It is instinctual for any normal human being in not torturing and killing babies for pleasure without any emotional responses at all. It is just instinctual, natural and spontaneous. This is morality-proper.

If anyone were to decide whether to torture and kill babies for pleasure and has emotional responses to it, that is not morality-proper.

ALL humans are programmed with the 'oughtnot-ness-to-torture_&_kill_babies_for_pleasure" and this oughnot-ness is represented by its physical neural correlates.
This physical neural correlates is a science-biological fact and when input into a credible moral FSK general objective moral facts. In this sense, morality is physical and objective.

So moral deliberation "happens."

Certainly people rationalise their emotional responses.

When rationalizing emotional responses in relation to morality, that is not primary morality proper but rather that is pseudo-morality.

What we don't know is if that "happening" is legit or not. It could be like the phenomenon of children imagining human faces in the curtains in their windows at night...a thing they do, but not related to any objective realities at all...an assemblage of imaginations. So it could be nothing.

But we don't think it's nothing. Still, that doesn't mean it isn't nothing. And if it's not nothing, then what is this "phenomenon"? Every worldview needs to be able to give some explanation for what it is -- if only to say, "It's a delusion." But if an account is going to say that morality is a something, then it owes us to be able to say what that worldview account holds it to be.

If a worldview is that the something which is morality is an emotional response, what more does it owe you?

Where the worldview that morality is an emotional response and subjective, that is pseudo-morality that cannot facilitate moral progress in an expeditious manner in the future.

When morality is objective and supported by its physical referents [neural correlates], then there are fixed goal posts for moral progress to be improved upon in the future.

[Harbal]

Well, some might say that the thing that keeps love going is that it's fun. But is that enough to keep morality going? It's certainly not enough to justify it in any way.

That's a cheap trick, IC.

It's not a trick. I'm pointing out that the analogy doesn't really work.

It was more a case of your being determined not to let it work.

That doesn't solve the problem that it's a delusion. It just means that everybody's having delusions, then.

It's not a delusion, it's a personal sense that is actually there, and that influences our behaviour. That's how all living creatures work, they respond to their sensations, whether they be emotional or physical. We need to eat, so our body produces the sensation of hunger to motivate us to do it. We need to reproduce, and we experience a sensation that causes us to go about it with much enthusiasm. I'm sure that even you would not claim that the popularity of pornography is due to rationality. Everything we do that enables us to function as living creature, both individually and as a species, is driven by the emotional and physical sensations that we respond to. The fact that we all have a sense of morality but don't all have the same moral values is not unlike how we all have a sex drive but are not all attracted to the same type of partner.

Do you mean, should our civic laws accord with God's laws on those subjects? Of course. At the same time, each of us continues to have the choice to obey or not obey those principles...and each of us will give his/her own account to God, as a result.

But that really is a delusion, and one that we have suffered under before. A delusion that stifled and inhibited moral progress. Persecution and repression are the hallmarks of that system. I keep trying to bring up the subject of homosexuals, but you are stubbonly refusing to be drawn. It's the most glaring example of why we should never, ever operate society according to Gods laws. God's law all too often manifests itself as cruelty dressed up as righteousness. God's law is a deception that enables an elite minority to dominate the rest, and leaves us not daring to question it, for fear of eternal punishment.

I mean that God holds each individual personally responsible for what he/she does. As the Bible explains, each of us individually makes our account to God, and there are no lawyers or clergy invited to speak for us, and no excuse to be had by hiding inside the mob. That's a morally sobering realization.

Or so you say. I rest my case.

[Harbal]

Your sort of thinking is too shallow, narrow and perhaps dogmatically stuck to one fixed paradigm.

Well I don't think there's any doubt about who this month's King of Irony award goes to.

[FlashDangerpants]

Other than people's emotional response to events, what phenomena relate to morality?

Wants, needs, beliefs, desires, expectations, bargains, deals and contracts. All of which are congnisable, and that's why there aren't any actual non-congitivists for IC to argue with. If he understood the Frege part of Frege-Geach, this information would be enough for him to casually drop that line of attack that he's overinvested into.

You'd like me to drop it, because, it seems, it's unanswerable from such a position. No other reason.

The drunk uncle at a wedding who tries to turn the disco into karaoke has much the same sense that you do here that the only problem people have with him is how awesome he is.

[Immanuel Can]

It's not a delusion, it's a personal sense that is actually there, and that influences our behaviour.

If you have a "personal sense" something is "there," but there's objectively nothing "there," that's a "delusion."

Do you mean, should our civic laws accord with God's laws on those subjects? Of course. At the same time, each of us continues to have the choice to obey or not obey those principles...and each of us will give his/her own account to God, as a result.

But that really is a delusion, and one that we have suffered under before. A delusion that stifled and inhibited moral progress. [/quote]
There is no such thing as "moral progress." That's maybe the biggest delusion of all. There's such a thing as "technological development," perhaps, but there's zero evidence that human beings are becoming morally better. In fact, since we're killing people in greater numbers and faster as the centuries pass, and because we are continually inventing new forms of twistedness, there's a fair bit of evidence that the trajectory goes, if anything, the other way. We might be gradually morally decaying, as the scope of our actions are made bigger by our technologies; we're certainly not improving.

I keep trying to bring up the subject of homosexuals, but you are stubbonly refusing to be drawn.

Well, you have a stereotype in mind, perhaps...the "religious" person as "inquisitor," let us call it. And your thought seems to be that sooner or later I will start advocating for the use of force to compel moral rightness. But that's not realistic, for two reasons: one, inquisitional attitudes and techniques only rationalize with political religions such as Catholicism, all of which are errant anyway, since Christianity is inherently non-political; and two, they violate the basic right of a person to make his/her own moral choices, be they good or bad ones, and to answer for that, so they actually operate opposite to divine intention.

[Harbal]

It's not a delusion, it's a personal sense that is actually there, and that influences our behaviour.

If you have a "personal sense" something is "there," but there's objectively nothing "there," that's a "delusion."

Yes, that's true, as we are constantly reminded when you go on about God. But morality is there; my sense of morality exists, and my moral values that it references exist, if only inside my mind. I might not know why I have an emotional response to being lied to, rather than just a rational aversion, but I have it nonetheless.

But that really is a delusion, and one that we have suffered under before. A delusion that stifled and inhibited moral progress.

There is no such thing as "moral progress." That's maybe the biggest delusion of all.

I admit that moral progress is a tricky concept, as my idea of progression towards higher moral standards is quite different to yours, and that of some others.

There's such a thing as "technological development," perhaps, but there's zero evidence that human beings are becoming morally better.

I think there is lots of evidence that we have become morally better, at least in my country, which is the only one I have personal knowledge of. We no longer execute people. We used to put people to death for stealing a loaf of bread, then we restricted that punishment to murder, and now it is altogether abolished. That seems like progress to me. People used to die of hunger and disease with absolutey no social apparatus in place to help them, but now we have the welfare state, and the National Health Service. We used to allow slavery, and official descrimination based on class, gender, race and sexuality. We now have laws that prohibit those things.

In fact, since we're killing people in greater numbers and faster as the centuries pass, and because we are continually inventing new forms of twistedness, there's a fair bit of evidence that the trajectory goes, if anything, the other way. We might be gradually morally decaying, as the scope of our actions are made bigger by our technologies; we're certainly not improving.

If human beings are killing one another at a greater rate than previously, it is probably because we have become much more efficient at it, due to the technology you mentioned. I dread to think of the carnage had the Romans been equiped with machine guns and tanks.

I keep trying to bring up the subject of homosexuals, but you are stubbonly refusing to be drawn.

Well, you have a stereotype in mind, perhaps...the "religious" person as "inquisitor," let us call it. And your thought seems to be that sooner or later I will start advocating for the use of force to compel moral rightness. But that's not realistic, for two reasons: one, inquisitional attitudes and techniques only rationalize with political religions such as Catholicism, all of which are errant anyway, since Christianity is inherently non-political; and two, they violate the basic right of a person to make his/her own moral choices, be they good or bad ones, and to answer for that, so they actually operate opposite to divine intention.

I'm glad to hear you wouldn't advocate the use of force to compel people to behave in accordance with the moral views of a particular set of other people. I hope you wouldn't advocate social condemnation and vilification, either.

[Dontaskme]

I mean that God holds each individual personally responsible for what he/she does. As the Bible explains, each of us individually makes our account to God, and there are no lawyers or clergy invited to speak for us, and no excuse to be had by hiding inside the mob. That's a morally sobering realization.

In our innate direct experience we react with either fear or fearlessness to how we are treated by other people. Humans are responsible for themselves. Humans employ responsible authority in the form of lawyers and clergy and police to hold to account all of societies law breakers and anyone causing another one harm against their will to be dealt with accordingly according to the severity of their treament of other people or their anti-social behavior, in whatever form it manifests.

The moral sense is found to be innate in humans; individuals can naturally respond morally to various dilemmas. As seen among children and young infants, moral sense naturally exists.

The moral sense is largely developed after birth and requires particular kinds of experience which activates a reaction to either fear of be fearless in the immediate direct experience of actual sentient life experience as it is being lived and known in the immediate moment. For example: if someone picks up a baby by it's feet and swings it round like a rag doll, the baby will instantly feel intense fear. It will automatically know something is wrong, no one has taught the baby to feel this fear that something is wrong, the feeling is just there in the baby, it is a moral being from the moment it is exposed to some bad experience. Same goes for good experiences, the baby knows the difference automatically. Babies recoil from danger and negative energy, and are drawn to good and positive energy, and so do WILD AND TAME ANIMALS display the same innate behavior, to either positive or negative energies.

Fear is often expressed by babies if they are being exposed to dangerous situations involving their bodies. When danger is absent, there is no fear present in the baby or child. Same goes for animals. Morality is natures protection against harm as life strives only to be comfortable and at peace.

All this has nothing to do with your silly imaginary friend called God.

[Harbal]

All this has nothing to do with your silly imaginary friend called God.

I don't know which is the bigger mistake: To imagine he exists, or to imagine he is your friend.