Is morality objective or subjective?

[Harbal]

I reckon the core of your morality is exactly the same as everyone else's. Culture, time, place: have nuthin' to do with it.

Nobody ever thinks they would've been a Nazi in Nazi Germany,

Or even complicit in what the Nazis did.

[henry quirk]

Which core are you refering to exactly?

Same as always: a person, any person, every person, any where or when, knows his life, liberty, and property are his. He knows it's wrong he should be murdered, slaved, raped, stolen from, defrauded (even murderers, slavers, rapists, and thieves know this as evidenced that none want to be, or believe it right they should be, murdered, slaved, raped, stolen from, or defrauded).

The moral choice: to recognize and respect the other guy's life, liberty, and property belong to the other guy or to treat the other guy (his life, liberty, property) as a commodity. Choosing to recognize and respect is moral. Choosing to commodify is immoral.

[Skepdick]

Which core are you refering to exactly?

Same as always: a person, any person, every person, any where or when, knows his life, liberty, and property are his. He knows it's wrong he should be murdered, slaved, raped, stolen from, defrauded (even murderers, slavers, rapists, and thieves know this as evidenced that none want to be, or believe it right they should be, murdered, slaved, raped, stolen from, or defrauded).

The moral choice: to recognize and respect the other guy's life, liberty, and property belong to the other guy or to treat the other guy (his life, liberty, property) as a commodity. Choosing to recognize and respect is moral. Choosing to commodify is immoral.

OK... so you choose to respect. You choose to be moral.
I choose to commodify. I choose to be immoral.

Where is this "common moral core"?

[henry quirk]

I doubt that my moral principles are vastly different to those of the average person brought up in a similar culture to mine.

I reckon the core of your morality is exactly the same as everyone else's. Culture, time, place: have nuthin' to do with it.

I think they have quite a lot to do with it.

I think culture, time, place can affect how the moral grounding is taken but not the grounding itself.

For example: in a tyranny, citizens are commodified. The moral core remains the same but TPTB choose to ignore it.

[henry quirk]

Where is this "common moral core"?

In man being a libertarian free will (a person).

[Skepdick]

Where is this "common moral core"?

In man being a libertarian free will (a person).

So if you are being moral and I am being immoral the common moral core is that we are both people?

Surely two people who have no shared morals have no common moral core ?!?

[henry quirk]

Surely two people who have no shared morals have no common moral core ?!?

Give me an example of two unshared or conflicting moralities, sumthin' specfic.

[Skepdick]

Surely two people who have no shared morals have no common moral core ?!?

Give me an example of two unshared or conflicting moralities, sumthin' specfic.

Jeff wants to own slaves. Jim doesn't.
Jeff doesn't want women to have voting rights. Jim does.
Jeff doesn't want them coloured children in the same school as his kids. Jim does.

[henry quirk]

Jeff doesn't want to own slaves. Jim does.

Jim, who certainly would never consent to being, and who never agree he ought to be, a slave, chooses to ignore other people's' claim to their own lives, liberties, and properties. Jeff, I assume (since you offer no detail), chooses to recognize and respect other people's claims to their own lives, liberties, and properties.

Both have the same moral grounding: one choose to recognize and respect; the other chooses to commodify.

Jeff doesn't want women to have voting rights. Jim doesn't.

Voting is generally immoral. You and Harbal vote the three of us (you, Harbal, and me) will pool resources to buy a leafblower. I don't want a leafblower, don't want to pay for one, so I vote no (or, better, I abstain). You and Harbal take my money becuz majority rules. If I'd agreed, from the start, I was contractually bound to abide by majority rule, you and Harbal might have just cause to make me abide. But if I didn't (and most voters don't [bein' born in a particular place, at a particular time, is not tantamount to consent]) then you guys are thieves.

More on point: if Jim and Jeff are members of a private organization, both have agreed to abide with the bylaws, which may include voting on issues like the voting rights of new members, or a certain class of members.

If Jim and Jeff are debating sufferage, then, fundamentally, they debate on whether women should be allowed to join in with thieving and murder and slaving.

Jeff doesn't want them coloured folk in the same school as his kids. Jim does.

If it's a private school, each can lobby the owners or operators. Ultimately the owners/operators can do with their property as they choose, including or excluding as they choose.

if it's a public school, it's funded thru theft: fruit of a poison tree.

The moral core remains the same, as does the moral core, thru all three scenarios.

[Skepdick]

Jeff doesn't want to own slaves. Jim does.

Jim, who certainly would never consent to being, and who never agree he ought to be, a slave, chooses to ignore other people's' claim to their own lives, liberties, and properties. Jeff, I assume (since you offer no detail), chooses to recognize and respect other people's claims to their own lives, liberties, and properties.

Both have the same moral grounding: one choose to recognize and respect; the other chooses to commodify.

Yes, it's obvious that they are making different choices. The question is why?

You'll have to explain why people with the "same moral grounding" make morally incompatible moral choices.

What's different about their "same moral core"?

[henry quirk]

You'll have to explain why people with the "same moral grounding" make morally incompatible moral choices.

No, I don't and I can't. You'd have to talk the choosers.

What's different about their "same moral core"?

Nuthin' at all. They, as free wills, choose to, as I say recognize & respect or commodify. Why each chooses one or the other is for them to say. What we can know, upfront, without interrogating either, is Jim is willing to ignore the moral claim of others to their own lives, liberties, and properties and Jeff, apparently, is not.

[Skepdick]

You'll have to explain why people with the "same moral grounding" make morally incompatible moral choices.

No, I don't and I can't. You'd have to talk the choosers.

I am talking to the person who looks at two different people who make different; and incompatible moral choices; and despite the incompatibility of their moral stances - that person claims that those two people have the "same moral core".

What's different about their "same moral core"?

Nuthin' at all. They, as free wills, choose to, as I say recognize & respect or commodify. Why each chooses one or the other is for them to say. What we can know, upfront, without interrogating either, is Jim is willing to ignore the moral claim of others to their own lives, liberties, and properties and Jeff, apparently, is not.

Q.E.D

Their moral core amounts to nothing, because the "exact same moral core" produces morally incompatible behaviour.

[Harbal]

Jeff doesn't want to own slaves. Jim does.

Jim, who certainly would never consent to being, and who never agree he ought to be, a slave, chooses to ignore other people's' claim to their own lives, liberties, and properties.

But perhaps he doesn't see them as people, or at least not people equal to himself as far as status and rights are concerned. It then becomes no more of a moral issue to own a slave and put him to work than it would be to do the same with a horse. Jim would not then be choosing to behave immorally, as he would not consider his actions to be immoral.

[henry quirk]

I am talking to the person who looks at two different people who make different; and incompatible moral choices; and despite the incompatibility of their moral stances - that person claims that those two people have the "same moral core".

They do: each knows his life, liberty, and property is his, full stop. That's the core, the grounding, the claim, they share. Why one chooses to recognize and respect others have that that same core, grounding, claim while the other does not is sumthin' I can't answer.

Their moral core amounts to nothing, because the "exact same moral core" produces morally incompatible behaviour.

The core, the grounding, the claim is the measure. It's the objective standard by which the actions of either Jim or Jeff can be assessed, by themselves, and by us. In context: it's the whole ball of wax.

[Immanuel Can]

Moral principles.

Which moral principles?

I doubt that my moral principles are vastly different to those of the average person brought up in a similar culture to mine.

So you mean you simply absorbed your moral principles from your cultural tradition? Did you ever question them? Do you really know which priniciples are right and which would be merely traditional? How did you go about sorting all that out?

Nobody except me, of course.

It doesn't need to. When it become inconvenient, you can drop it -- and there will be nothing and nobody to tell you whether standing by it would have been right, or dropping it was wrong. All that can really be said is that when it suited H. to do X, he did X; and when it no longer suited him, he could abandon X without compunction, and did. Or that he stood by X, even though he had no objective obligation to do so, and isn't a better or worse person for whatever he did.

That is more or less correct, in principle, although you have done your best to make it sound as trivial and worthless as possible. In practice, there is much more to it than you suggest, but you do actually know that.

I actually don't. All I've done, above, is to strip away the trappings of language that hide how the thing actually works, in down-to-earth terms. And if that makes it look a little naked, I can't be blamed for that.

Not much moral guidance is provided by such a system. None at all, in fact.

I don't find that to be the case.

Well, it would have to be -- if, as you say, I essentially got the description above right (even if a little blunt).

If there were any genuine evidence for God, I am sure everyone would be aware of it.

They are. But a great many refuse the evidence, just as you do.

No, I don't accept that.

That's exactly how it goes. The Theist says, "There's evidence," and the Atheist says, "There's none." And the Theist cannot beat the Atheist's strategy, because how can you argue with somebody who simply refuses the evidence before him?

In fact, the Bible says all men really know there is a God, but choose not to be grateful for anything He's done for them -- like giving them life and a world, at minimum -- and so, as Dr. Craig said, they "become darkened" in their minds, and hardened against God, and God let's them do that; because that's what freedom means. It means you can do the right thing, or the wrong thing, the true thing or the false thing, the fair thing or the unjust thing, the thing that leads to life and the thing that leads to death. And all those choices get to be genuine.

And you think that makes sense, do you? Or that if it were true, there would actually be a point to it?

It's the only thing that makes sense, especially if one believes that people have "will" at all. God could not give people free will, and then prevent them from making bad or evil choices. That would be to give them no actual choice at all, since they could only do good. So what would be the point in giving them volition at all, since they couldn't use it for the purposes they chose? It would be self-contradictory.

No, if men can be free, then men can do both good and evil. (Genesis gets that dead right, of course.) Those who ask, "How could God allow men to do evil?" are really asking, "How could God allow choice?" And with choice come things like identity, personhood, freedom, individuality, consciouosness, will...all things we all recognize as surpassing goods. We wouldn't want to be without them, would we?