Is morality objective or subjective?

Should you think about your duty, or about the consequences of your actions? Or should you concentrate on becoming a good person?

Moderators: AMod, iMod

Skepdick
Posts: 16022
Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:16 am

Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Skepdick »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2023 3:44 pm Circular is bad.
Is that always true?

Justify your moral claim.
User avatar
henry quirk
Posts: 16379
Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 8:07 pm
Location: 🔥AMERICA🔥
Contact:

Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by henry quirk »

Amazing.

I am told...

Your theory requires this reciprocity principle that you are aware of but try not to mention. When asked to explain where it comes from, you clearly cannot.

...and it's staring him in the face.

A person, any person, every person knows his life, liberty, and property are his and no other's. If this is true for him, then it's true for all other persons.
Skepdick
Posts: 16022
Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:16 am

Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Skepdick »

henry quirk wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2023 3:51 pm Amazing.

I am told...

Your theory requires this reciprocity principle that you are aware of but try not to mention. When asked to explain where it comes from, you clearly cannot.

...and it's staring him in the face.

A person, any person, every person knows his life, liberty, and property are his and no other's. If this is true for him, then it's true for all other persons.
He doesn't believe it to be true, That's why he won't reciprocate justification when skepticism is aimed right back at him.

Only he gets to be skeptical.

You don't get to be skeptical of him.

Trolling troll is trolling.

Reciprocity is built into Classical logic.

If you are wrong then I am right.
if I am wrong then you are right.

There's no "lets agree to disagree" nonsense.
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 8815
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

henry quirk wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2023 3:51 pm Amazing.

I am told...

Your theory requires this reciprocity principle that you are aware of but try not to mention. When asked to explain where it comes from, you clearly cannot.

...and it's staring him in the face.

A person, any person, every person knows his life, liberty, and property are his and no other's. If this is true for him, then it's true for all other persons.
That's dependent on the same thing it is supposed to justify...... which is circular.
I'm not asking how to apply the princpiple of reciprocity, I am asking where it comes from?
Skepdick
Posts: 16022
Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:16 am

Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Skepdick »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2023 3:57 pm That's dependent on the same thing it is supposed to justify...... which is circular.
I'm not asking how to apply the princpiple of reciprocity, I am asking where it comes from?
Classical logic. Law of EXCLUDED middle. No fence for skeptics to sit on.

In a functional syntax it is the same as the OR logical operator.

In relativistic setting it corresponds to the idea of mutual information.

The skeptic privilege comes exactly from assuming 0 reciprocity. So we divide by zero.

When you weaken or entirely remove you get https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuitionistic_logic
Veritas Aequitas
Posts: 15722
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:41 am

Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

henry quirk wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2023 3:22 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2023 3:14 pmTo say that John raped Jane, one must *already have judged John's activity wrongful (otherwise he simply had sex with Jane)
A person, any person, every person knows his life, liberty, and property are his and no other's. If this is true for him, then it's true for all other persons. This means it's wrong to slave or be slaved, wrong to rape or be raped, wrong to murder or be murdered, wrong to steal or be stolen from, wrong to defraud or be defrauded.

John was wrong when he treated Jane as a commodity.
Henry, your moral views are that of moral intuitionism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_intuitionism

Instead of trying to justify your claims, just throw them the above link.
Some critical points from the above link;
Some use the term "ethical intuitionism" in moral philosophy to refer to the general position that we have some non-inferential moral knowledge (see Sinnott-Armstrong, 2006a and 2006b)—that is, basic moral knowledge that is not inferred from or based on any proposition. However, it is important to distinguish between empiricist versus rationalist models of this.

The rationalist version of ethical intuitionism models ethical intuitions on a priori, non-empirically-based intuitions of truths, such as basic truths of mathematics.[27] Take for example the belief that two minus one is one. This piece of knowledge is often thought to be non-inferential in that it is not grounded in or justified by some other proposition or claim.
Some rationalist ethical intuitionists characterize moral "intuitions" as a species of belief (for example, Audi, 2005, pp. 33–6) that are self-evident in that they are justified simply by virtue of one's understanding of the proposition believed. Others characterize "intuitions" as a distinct kind of mental state, in which something seems to one to be the case (whether one believes it or not) as a result of intellectual reflection.

Another version—what one might call the empiricist version—of ethical intuitionism models non-inferential ethical knowledge on sense perception. This version involves what is often called a "moral sense". According to moral sense theorists, certain moral truths are known via this moral sense simply on the basis of experience, not inference.
I believe moral intuitionism is more effective than moral relativism but the limitation of the moral intuitionism is limited i.e. it lack solid justifications.

There is a range of moral elements, and moral intuitionism is on target with the more self-evident moral elements, e.g. 'killing of humans' slavery, torture, "rape" terrible violence with potential fatalities, where in my case I believe it is justifiable with support from the scientific-FSK.
Skepdick
Posts: 16022
Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:16 am

Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Skepdick »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Sep 22, 2023 4:44 am I believe moral intuitionism is more effective than moral relativism but the limitation of the moral intuitionism is limited i.e. it lack solid justifications.
Your presuppositions is utterly idiotic.

Why does the totality of the necessary truths for you to be right here right now require "solid justifications"?

You want to justify yourself?!? To whom?

Philosophy is the construction of your origin story. You are done now. You are here.
Atla
Posts: 9936
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2017 8:27 am

Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Atla »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2023 1:19 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2023 12:59 pm Here's a clumsily idiotic point. Lawfulness and moral rightness/wrongness are completely and utterly different issues. For example, the fact that capital punishment may be legal doesn't make it a fact that capital punishment may be morally right. And the Nazi slaughter of the jews was 'legal'. Iow, wtf?
I wrote "wrongful" not "unlawful". When I am using a legalistic definition I will let you know.

The point stands that it is meaningless to judge a sex act as a rape without first judging it to be wrongful. In the same way, if you happened to be one of those nazis doing the killings, you would go to great lengths to call them something other than murder, given that murder presupposes judgment of wrongness. We don't often call the slaughter of cows to make burgers 'murder', why do you suppose that is?

Capital punishment is something that you would seemingly describe as murder (assuming that you are opposed to it on grounds that you consider it wrongful) but Henry would likely go to lengths to avoid calling by that name. In contrast, you I think don't call abortion 'baby-murder', most likely you would contend that a zygote is not a baby and an abortion is not a murder? I have it on good authority that IC holds that it is the murder of a baby though because he is morally opposed to it. The word 'murder' nearly always signifies moral opposition and in those cases where it does not, is typically deployed ironically because of that freighting.

If my reasoning has been erroneous, you can show it to be so by supporting the right of a mother-to-be to become a mother-no-longer-to-be via means of bloody murder.
I admit I'm surprised by the claim that anything can presuppose a judgment of wrongness. Let's take murder for example, I thought murder means killing someone against their will. And then we try to decide whether the murder was wrong or not (with the default being wrong).

Maybe there are two different definitons of "murder" in use? (objectivist one and subjectivist one)
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 8815
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Atla wrote: Sat Sep 23, 2023 8:40 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2023 1:19 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2023 12:59 pm Here's a clumsily idiotic point. Lawfulness and moral rightness/wrongness are completely and utterly different issues. For example, the fact that capital punishment may be legal doesn't make it a fact that capital punishment may be morally right. And the Nazi slaughter of the jews was 'legal'. Iow, wtf?
I wrote "wrongful" not "unlawful". When I am using a legalistic definition I will let you know.

The point stands that it is meaningless to judge a sex act as a rape without first judging it to be wrongful. In the same way, if you happened to be one of those nazis doing the killings, you would go to great lengths to call them something other than murder, given that murder presupposes judgment of wrongness. We don't often call the slaughter of cows to make burgers 'murder', why do you suppose that is?

Capital punishment is something that you would seemingly describe as murder (assuming that you are opposed to it on grounds that you consider it wrongful) but Henry would likely go to lengths to avoid calling by that name. In contrast, you I think don't call abortion 'baby-murder', most likely you would contend that a zygote is not a baby and an abortion is not a murder? I have it on good authority that IC holds that it is the murder of a baby though because he is morally opposed to it. The word 'murder' nearly always signifies moral opposition and in those cases where it does not, is typically deployed ironically because of that freighting.

If my reasoning has been erroneous, you can show it to be so by supporting the right of a mother-to-be to become a mother-no-longer-to-be via means of bloody murder.
I admit I'm surprised by the claim that anything can presuppose a judgment of wrongness. Let's take murder for example, I thought murder means killing someone against their will. And then we try to decide whether the murder was wrong or not (with the default being wrong).

Maybe there are two different definitons of "murder" in use? (objectivist one and subjectivist one)
In modern English at least, if we conclude the killing was not wrong, we no longer are able to call it murder, because we have established that it was not a murder. It was self-defence or some other sort of non murder killing.

It might well, probably does, work differently in other languages. But in this one, we can meaningfully sort killings into right and wrong, but we sort murder into other categories. "If you heard how he talked to her you can see why she ended up putting arsenic in his coffee" being at one end of the scale and sacrificing children on the altar of the Demogorgon at the other. Murder means bad, but some murders are more bad and some are less bad. Not bad ones aren't murders at all though.
Atla
Posts: 9936
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2017 8:27 am

Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Atla »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Sep 23, 2023 10:35 am
Atla wrote: Sat Sep 23, 2023 8:40 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2023 1:19 pm
I wrote "wrongful" not "unlawful". When I am using a legalistic definition I will let you know.

The point stands that it is meaningless to judge a sex act as a rape without first judging it to be wrongful. In the same way, if you happened to be one of those nazis doing the killings, you would go to great lengths to call them something other than murder, given that murder presupposes judgment of wrongness. We don't often call the slaughter of cows to make burgers 'murder', why do you suppose that is?

Capital punishment is something that you would seemingly describe as murder (assuming that you are opposed to it on grounds that you consider it wrongful) but Henry would likely go to lengths to avoid calling by that name. In contrast, you I think don't call abortion 'baby-murder', most likely you would contend that a zygote is not a baby and an abortion is not a murder? I have it on good authority that IC holds that it is the murder of a baby though because he is morally opposed to it. The word 'murder' nearly always signifies moral opposition and in those cases where it does not, is typically deployed ironically because of that freighting.

If my reasoning has been erroneous, you can show it to be so by supporting the right of a mother-to-be to become a mother-no-longer-to-be via means of bloody murder.
I admit I'm surprised by the claim that anything can presuppose a judgment of wrongness. Let's take murder for example, I thought murder means killing someone against their will. And then we try to decide whether the murder was wrong or not (with the default being wrong).

Maybe there are two different definitons of "murder" in use? (objectivist one and subjectivist one)
In modern English at least, if we conclude the killing was not wrong, we no longer are able to call it murder, because we have established that it was not a murder. It was self-defence or some other sort of non murder killing.

It might well, probably does, work differently in other languages. But in this one, we can meaningfully sort killings into right and wrong, but we sort murder into other categories. "If you heard how he talked to her you can see why she ended up putting arsenic in his coffee" being at one end of the scale and sacrificing children on the altar of the Demogorgon at the other. Murder means bad, but some murders are more bad and some are less bad. Not bad ones aren't murders at all though.
That's not the impression I got even in English.. let's ask our new God about it:
In the English language, the word "murder" typically carries a strong moral and legal connotation of something wrong or unlawful. Murder is generally defined as the intentional and unlawful killing of another human being. The term implies that the act is not only a violation of the law but also a grave moral transgression because it involves the deliberate taking of someone's life without justification or legal excuse.

However, it's worth noting that the perception of what is morally wrong can vary among individuals and cultures, and there may be some rare instances where someone might argue that a particular act labeled as murder is morally justified (e.g., self-defense). Nonetheless, the term "murder" itself is strongly associated with the idea of a wrongful and unlawful act.
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 8815
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Atla wrote: Sat Sep 23, 2023 10:42 am That's not the impression I got even in English.. let's ask our new God about it:
In the English language, the word "murder" typically carries a strong moral and legal connotation of something wrong or unlawful. Murder is generally defined as the intentional and unlawful killing of another human being. The term implies that the act is not only a violation of the law but also a grave moral transgression because it involves the deliberate taking of someone's life without justification or legal excuse.

However, it's worth noting that the perception of what is morally wrong can vary among individuals and cultures, and there may be some rare instances where someone might argue that a particular act labeled as murder is morally justified (e.g., self-defense). Nonetheless, the term "murder" itself is strongly associated with the idea of a wrongful and unlawful act.
Murder is so strongly associated with wrongfulness specifically because any act of murder is an unjustified killing. I think chatGPT is close but no cigar on that little analysis.
Atla
Posts: 9936
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2017 8:27 am

Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Atla »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Sep 23, 2023 11:06 am
Atla wrote: Sat Sep 23, 2023 10:42 am That's not the impression I got even in English.. let's ask our new God about it:
In the English language, the word "murder" typically carries a strong moral and legal connotation of something wrong or unlawful. Murder is generally defined as the intentional and unlawful killing of another human being. The term implies that the act is not only a violation of the law but also a grave moral transgression because it involves the deliberate taking of someone's life without justification or legal excuse.

However, it's worth noting that the perception of what is morally wrong can vary among individuals and cultures, and there may be some rare instances where someone might argue that a particular act labeled as murder is morally justified (e.g., self-defense). Nonetheless, the term "murder" itself is strongly associated with the idea of a wrongful and unlawful act.
Murder is so strongly associated with wrongfulness specifically because any act of murder is an unjustified killing. I think chatGPT is close but no cigar on that little analysis.
Guess I'll go with two different meanings in use.
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 8815
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Atla wrote: Sat Sep 23, 2023 11:45 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Sep 23, 2023 11:06 am
Atla wrote: Sat Sep 23, 2023 10:42 am That's not the impression I got even in English.. let's ask our new God about it:

Murder is so strongly associated with wrongfulness specifically because any act of murder is an unjustified killing. I think chatGPT is close but no cigar on that little analysis.
Guess I'll go with two different meanings in use.
I don't suppose it matters much to me either way. Given that the question in this sub is always framed as "PH can't say murder is wrong", if we end up with competing meanings for murder:
  • The one which entails wrongness leaves no opportunity to even doubt that murder is wrong as the wrongness is pre-supposed by the concept. (My origianl and still correct argument)
  • The one that somehow seperates wrongness from murderiness is relative to circumstance and explicitly allows for not wrong murders. It would be equally inane to offer a proof that this one is wrong because it is now analytic that murder itself isn't the wrong thing and some external consideration of justification now determines that aspect.
The adjustment my argument requires to account for this is trivial, even if I do consider it a bit of a nonsense.
Peter Holmes
Posts: 4134
Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2017 3:53 pm

Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Peter Holmes »

Premise: In English, the term 'murder' is strongly associated with moral wrongfulness.
Conclusion: Therefore, (it's a fact that) murder is morally wrong.

Now, for 'murder' substitute 'homosexuality', 'abortion', 'capital punishment', 'eating animals', or any other morally contentious issue. In each case, is legality relevant? And if so, does that redeem the non-sequitur?
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 8815
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Peter Holmes wrote: Sat Sep 23, 2023 1:01 pm Premise: In English, the term 'murder' is strongly associated with moral wrongfulness.
Conclusion: Therefore, (it's a fact that) murder is morally wrong.

Now, for 'murder' substitute 'homosexuality', 'abortion', 'capital punishment', 'eating animals', or any other morally contentious issue. In each case, is legality relevant? And if so, does that redeem the non-sequitur?
I would like to draw your attention to some relevant factoids.

1. I'm talking in Wittgensteinian terms about what can meaningfully be doubted, stop trying to foist legalism onto me. I already made that point when I said that it makes no more sense to prove that murder is bad than it does to prove that what lies below is 'downwards' from that which is up. Any competent user of language knows that the direction to take to get from above to below is down because that shit is built into the concepts. Wrongness is similarly built into the concept of murder.

If you are describing something as murder you cannot assert that it was right in the same way that if you are saying X is below Y then you would not talk of moving "up from Y to X". You've read Wittgenstein, you should know how this works.

2. I didn't offer it as a resolution to a controversy about whether murder is wrong (or rape), it is the explanation for why there is no controversy over whether those things are wrong. In some other society where murder or rape were not wrong, those guys wouldn't have any exact translation for our concepts of murder and rape, the concepts would be alien to them. They would ask you what you meant by this special word that means a "forbidden stabbing" and they would look at you funny when you tried to explain.

3. I only extended my description as far as rape and murder for a reason. You might even note that normally you are accused by IC and Henry of not being able to say three things are wrong: rape, murder, and slavery. The third of those is more interesting in this context because it hasn't always been freighted with the conceptual luggage of wrongness. It has instead become a word of that sort. In a better forum I would work that point a lot harder, but here, I can't see it panning out.

4. Please try to remember from time to time that I am at least as good a moral antirealist as you are. If you are interpreting any argument I present in moral realist terms, you have probably misinterpreted me.
Post Reply