Is morality objective or subjective?

[Dontaskme]

I have no time for you.

I know, with the exception of you taking great delight in rubbing my nose in what you strongly misguidedly believe is my incapacity to speak of anything that is not of you're calibre or of any value to you, Oh aye, you are so predictable. You ignore me, and choose only to hear those you mistakenly think need correcting in what you see as incompetent and invalid knowledge of all things Godly, because of course only you're word has significant value and importance here when it comes to the subject of God. We all know by now that only you are entitled to speak of matters that involve God in a rational and authoritive way that makes perfect sense to everyone listening and reading.

All I want to do is challenge you're views and beliefs on the meaning of the word God, but you are simply not interested, I can understand that, since it's much safer to believe that you have God's providence to protect you from ever slipping up, making an absolute idiot of yourself, by saying or doing anything wrong or misleading people in any way shape or form, whatsoever, and so yes indeed, it would be rather a big huge crying shame for me to poke around in your whiter than white, pure as the driven snow knowledge of God. I mean, how awful it would be for you to converse with absolute shit stain like me. I'm simply not worthy of any of you're gracious holy attention, but that's fine, it's you're loss. I'm simply invisible to you now.

You're heart is black in my opinion. Unlike the rapid raging pumping, vibrant vigourous energy that pours efforlessly out of the gorgeous generous veins that is our resident red hot hearty Harbal. . Ba bum, ba bum, ba bum diddly umpcious scrumptious delightful ..smoking!!

[Immanuel Can]

I have no time for you.

I know,

Reread what I said. I don't repeat.

[Dontaskme]

I don't repeat.

Good for you, no one want's to smell your brain farts anyway.

[CIN]

Is it, or is it not, morally acceptable for a sexual relationship to take place between two people who are either not married, or of the same sex?

Yes. Everyone who thinks otherwise is an evil interfering monster.

So you're a moral objectivist, then? Only a moral objectivist could say that anything is "evil," let alone that being an "interferer" made one a "monster."

What's the basis of your moral objectivism? Where did you find the precept written, "Thou shalt not even think to 'interfere with' the sexual pecadillos of others, else thou shalt be dubbed a 'monster'?"

Mind you, disagreeing with somebody else's view is pretty minor "interference," by any account.

I'm an objectivist about values ('you did a bad thing when you kicked the cat') but I'm not an objectivist about morals ('you did a morally bad thing when you kicked the cat') because an action can only be morally good or bad if there's free will, and I don't see how there can be (what's the evidence for it? how would it work?).

By 'evil' I just meant 'bad'.

I don't get my values from written precepts, I get them from empirical observation. I observe that people who try to impose their sexual mores on others are almost invariably motivated by religion, a pernicious social disease which survives only through the indoctrination of the young and impressionable with proven falsehoods and unprovable woo-woo, and is therefore a form of child abuse.

[Lacewing]

Any concept of "God" would come with the same consequences, obviously.

What are the consequences (that you think are obvious) that come with any concept of "God"?

You'll have to go back and read the thread. I don't want to redo what I've already done.

I don't need to read 305 pages of this thread to try to decipher the illusion you are under, and the falseness you speak as a result.

It shouldn't take a lot for you to answer the question. Apparently you think that any concept of God will lead to the consequences YOU believe in... even though Christianity has only been around for a fraction of humankind's conceptualizations of God, and you have only been around for a fraction of Christianity. But somehow, what YOU believe is the BE ALL, END ALL that applies to everybody else.

What is obvious is how much nonsense your claims contain, and you cannot even attempt to support them without resorting to evasiveness and falseness.

[Immanuel Can]

Yes. Everyone who thinks otherwise is an evil interfering monster.

So you're a moral objectivist, then? Only a moral objectivist could say that anything is "evil," let alone that being an "interferer" made one a "monster."

What's the basis of your moral objectivism? Where did you find the precept written, "Thou shalt not even think to 'interfere with' the sexual pecadillos of others, else thou shalt be dubbed a 'monster'?"

Mind you, disagreeing with somebody else's view is pretty minor "interference," by any account.

I'm an objectivist about values ('you did a bad thing when you kicked the cat') but I'm not an objectivist about morals ('you did a morally bad thing when you kicked the cat') because an action can only be morally good or bad if there's free will, and I don't see how there can be (what's the evidence for it? how would it work?).

You've got this precisely backwards.

Ordinarily the terms are set up this way: "values" are plausibly subjective...at least, some are, because people can "value" all kinds of things, good and bad. It's "morals" that people take to be (possibly) objective. "Value" can be a verb; "moral" can't. You can "value" slavery; you can't "moral" slavery.

But you're right that free will and morality are a pair. In a Deterministic universe, neither the term "good" nor the term "evil" have any objective meaning.

By 'evil' I just meant 'bad'.

A person who claims to believe in Determinism has already denied himself any legitimacy to using any value-laden terms, whether "good" or "evil" or "bad" or "desirable" or whatever. There are no such objective meanings to things in his universe, given his worldview.

I don't get my values from written precepts, I get them from empirical observation.

How does that work?

I observe that people who try to impose their sexual mores on others are almost invariably motivated by religion,

But in the world you imagine yourself to be living in, that's not "wrong" or "evil" or "bad." All that you can say is, "Whatever is, is: it was all fated to be what it is, because of iron laws of cause and effect. Nobody's to blame, and nothing's ever wrong."

But you don't say that. Instead, you start using value-terms again, as if your worldview backed them. For you claim,

...a pernicious social disease which survives only through the indoctrination of the young and impressionable with proven falsehoods and unprovable woo-woo, and is therefore a form of child abuse.

None of these things is wrong, given Determinism. Nobody "of their own free will" is religious. Likewise, nobody "of their own free will" indoctrinates. Nobody "of their own free will" lies or is an abuser of children. They were all fated to be what they were, by the iron laws of cause and effect. So none of them are "a pernicious social disease" at all. They're all just inevitable facts of Determinism.

But I've never met a Determinist who could live or even talk as if his alleged Determinism were really true. And evidently, you're no exception to that rule: for you use morally-laden terms to describe things you don't like...but your creed tells you they're all inevitable, and could never have been other than they were, anyway.

[Immanuel Can]

What are the consequences (that you think are obvious) that come with any concept of "God"?

You'll have to go back and read the thread. I don't want to redo what I've already done.

I don't need to read 305 pages of this thread...

No. But when you come into a conversation, you could at least read the last few posts.

Do that. You'll find the answer you need there.

[Harbal]

It doesn't apply to any of my definitions of God.

Well, "definitions," by definition, are linguistic conventions held in common within a particular linguistic group, not merely your or my private choice. Terms mean what conforms to that common stock of concepts. When the term "God" is used, it generally refers to the Supreme Being and Creator. Otherwise we use a different term, like small-g "god" or "demiurge."

You're free, of course, to use the term otherwise, if you want: but you won't be comprehensible to anybody else if you do.

I would rather not use the term at all; talking about God is not really what I wanted to do, but you make avoiding him impossible.

This forum needs a God free zone.

[Immanuel Can]

I would rather not use the term at all; talking about God is not really what I wanted to do, but you make avoiding him impossible.

This forum needs a God free zone.

I'm sure some topics may allow that. Morality will never be one of them, of course. Because the existence or non-existence of God changes everything in morality.

[Harbal]

I would rather not use the term at all; talking about God is not really what I wanted to do, but you make avoiding him impossible.

This forum needs a God free zone.

I'm sure some topics may allow that. Morality will never be one of them, of course. Because the existence or non-existence of God changes everything in morality.

That may be the case for you, but not for the majority who have so far taken part in this thread.

[Harbal]

But I've never met a Determinist who could live or even talk as if his alleged Determinism were really true.

But that isn't his fault; he has no choice but to act that way.

[Will Bouwman]

There where? You don't even have a clue where you are going

Aha, a breakthrough! Indeed Skepdick, you won't understand the last two and a half millennia of western philosophy until Socrates and the Oracle sinks in.

Ahhh, no wonder you are still catching up.

You are still stuck on Western philosophy.

Absolutely. The point of Socrates and the Oracle is that anyone who claims to know The Truth is almost certainly an idiot or a charlatan. That ethos is expressed by 'Nullius in verba' - 'Take nobody's word for it' the motto of the Royal Society and fundamental to the practise of science. If you claim to know better than that, then you are almost certainly an idiot or a charlatan.

[Will Bouwman]

Are you defining "fair-minded" as agreeing with you? Could any fair-minded and rational person come to an alternative conclusion?

I was only saying that if somebody is behaving rationally and has the relevant data set in hand, the conclusion would be obvious.

As I have pointed out before, I look at the same universe as you, I have read the same Bible as you and I have examined the same arguments as you. Unless there is something in "the relevant data set" to which you are party and I am not, you must attribute my failing to agree with to my not being fair minded and rational. So which is it? Do you know something I don't, or am I irrational?

[Peter Holmes]

I would rather not use the term at all; talking about God is not really what I wanted to do, but you make avoiding him impossible.

This forum needs a God free zone.

I'm sure some topics may allow that. Morality will never be one of them, of course. Because the existence or non-existence of God changes everything in morality.

Demonstrably false. 'Agent A says X is morally wrong; therefore (it's a fact that) X is morally wrong' - is a non sequitur for any agent, including any team's god. The only way around it is by means of a special pleading fallacy.

Non-moral premises can't entail moral conclusions.

[Skepdick]

I would rather not use the term at all; talking about God is not really what I wanted to do, but you make avoiding him impossible.

This forum needs a God free zone.

I'm sure some topics may allow that. Morality will never be one of them, of course. Because the existence or non-existence of God changes everything in morality.

Demonstrably false. 'Agent A says X is morally wrong; therefore (it's a fact that) X is morally wrong' - is a non sequitur for any agent, including any team's god. The only way around it is by means of a special pleading fallacy.

Non-moral premises can't entail moral conclusions.

So how did you arrive at the above normative conclusion then?