Is morality objective or subjective?

[Skepdick]

Then you are an moral objectivist.

Actually, in regard to something like the morality of homosexuality, objectivism comes in two flavors:

1] there is the hardcore objectivist [re God or His secular equivalent] who does insist that it is objectively -- universally! -- immoral.

[and with the religious fanatics some insist further that, if you don't repent for being one, you will burn for all of eternity in Hell]

2] there is the "here and now" objectivist who believes that while, "here and now", they do believe it is immoral, they also believe that given news experience or new relationships or new information and knowledge they might be persuaded to change their mind.

So, which one is it?

False dichotomy.

What about taking 2]who has now been persuaded to change their mind.

Add more new information and more new knowledge and maybe they will be persuaded to change their mind back?
What is as we keep adding new information/knowledge we just keep changing our minds back and forth?

Do you think we'll ever come to believe again that slavery, murder or rape is morally right; or do you think it was a one-way door?

[Veritas Aequitas]

Nobody has an actual problem with this. Try and find somebody who would want to argue that two situations can demand different ethical responses if all relevant factors were the same. They are going to say that the idiom of circumstances that demand things is misleading.

Nobody?
Those who adopt moral relativism will not meet Blackburn's Challenge.

That's hard to believe. It isn't a challenge for me. All it says is that in our moral language we act and think as if we are using full scale propositions that can be true and false etc. All cognitivists accept that moral language is a full equivalent to any other discourse. That includes for instance Mackie, whose entire Error Theory is predicated on such language being truth-apt.

With that challenge, Blackburn is raising an issue that his quasi-realist non-cognitivism can account for, which other non-cogs such as Ayer cannot. Namely: that we do use our moral language just like any other sort of language with fully loaded meaningful propositions that have the same form as truth-apt statements of fact. I'll leave it to others to work out for themselves whether his approach actually meets that standard, but it is inarguably a sophisticated and important effort.

It's concerning that you don'tunderstand this stuff. You've been claiming technical superiority in the field of ethics over the "gnats" here for much of the last decade, but this is entry level shit you should have known before you started making any such claim.

PH and the like are moral relativists who agree that there are moral elements but different people will have different opinions, beliefs, judgement on the same moral element or issues where all external relevant factors are the same.
The difference is due to their internal psychological states, i.e. moral attitude and feelings.

Thus PH and other moral relativists cannot run away from moral realism [to some degrees].

This is also concerning. It seems you don't yet understand the differences between non-cognitivism and other antirealist arguments. Again,. you've been at this for many years, you should have mastery of the basics.

I have raised this;
Moral Relativism Implied Moral Objectivity
viewtopic.php?t=40993
i.e. there are moral invariants within moral variations.

This is along the same line with Blackburn's Challenge.

But Mackie and the error theorists have no issue and don't need that move. Nor does any moral realist. Nor does any fictionalist. Only non-cogs and actual relativists might need to make it. Which is why Blackburn poses the issue, to show that his brand of non-cognitivism is different from others (arguably) in this respect.

It is obvious a moral realist do not need this because he is already a moral realist.

You do understand that Blackburn isn't a realist don't you?

Yes, is by definition an error-theorists or moral nihilist who reject anything to do with morality will not be relevant to Blackburn's Challenge which is related to morality.
A moral nihilist is likely a psychopath who does not understand his own human nature and human nature in general.

Are you a moral nihilist?

I dread to ask wtf you think error theory actually is? Exaclty how badly educated are you in this field where you claim pre-eminence?

I noted you wrote somewhere, you accept there are moral elements except you claim you are not a moral realist.
If that is a case, you cannot escape Blackburn's Challenge and thus it is implicit in whatever your moral claims, you are unconscious and is ignorant you are with moral realism to some degrees.

You can't seem to decide what anything means. Further up the page, and here, Pete and I and others "cannot escape" something. In the middle though the challenge doesn't apply to error theorists, yet you seem to think error theory is a branch of ... I don't exactly know what.

In this case, you will fall into the quasi-realist category regardless of your denial.

I'm not. One day I will tell you what theory I do favour, but right now that's much too complicated for you.

Your demand here is much like what happened when IC got hold of Frege-Geach and went hog wild demanding moral syllogisms of everyone without understanding why they are problematic only for a very select group of enemies that he doesn't have much access to.

If you can trick Willy B into overcomitting to some emotivist stuff he wrote a few months ago, then you can possibly drop that bomb on him. But it misses Pete, it probably misses Sculptor, it gets nowhere near me. And I would expect Iambiggyboy to have a canned response ready for this involving overuse of the German word Dasein.

I have not been following the above, so, no comments.

You posted your agreement with IC that PH must be a non-cognitivist. Here's a quote of that to remind you. It is jam-packed with mistakes that indicate you don't understand the basic theories involved in this subject matter. You're welcome.

PH is obviously a non-cognitivist;

• Non-cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences do not express propositions (i.e., statements) and thus cannot be true or false (they are not truth-apt).
  A noncognitivist denies the cognitivist claim that "moral judgments are capable of being objectively true, because they describe some feature of the world".[1]
  If moral statements cannot be true, and if one cannot know something that is not true, noncognitivism implies that moral knowledge is impossible.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-cognitivism

PH may not agree with 'proposition' [philosophical] but that is not critical in this case because statement of fact is sufficient.

PH has always claims that moral elements are a matter of opinions, beliefs, judgments which are subjective, thus are not truth-apt.

PH also believe in this;
"A noncognitivist denies the cognitivist claim that moral judgments are capable of being objectively true, because they describe some feature of the world"

PH also insists moral elements are a matter of opinions, beliefs, judgments which are subjective, not a matter of fact, thus moral knowledge is impossible.

To the above extent, PH is a non-cognitivist.

Your thinking [opinion] that I am ignorant of the basic of Morality is only based on YOUR ignorance of the full spectrum of Morality and Ethics.
In a forum like this, there is a limitation to express fully.
If we are to dig into the details, it will reveal I am not ignorant of what your think I am ignorant of.

I had been guessing what your and Peter's moral position is because both of you are cowards in presenting your moral beliefs precisely.
I have even raised a specific thread to understand [not necessary agree with] PH's philosophical [moral] stance.
PH: What is Your Philosophical Foundation?
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=35095 Jun 18, 2022

It is very childish and immature philosophically to hide one's philosophical & moral position and debate therefrom.

[Iwannaplato]

Then you are an moral objectivist.

Actually, in regard to something like the morality of homosexuality, objectivism comes in two flavors:

1] there is the hardcore objectivist [re God or His secular equivalent] who does insist that it is objectively -- universally! -- immoral.

[and with the religious fanatics some insist further that, if you don't repent for being one, you will burn for all of eternity in Hell]

2] there is the "here and now" objectivist who believes that while, "here and now", they do believe it is immoral, they also believe that given news experience or new relationships or new information and knowledge they might be persuaded to change their mind.

So, which one is it?

Wouldn't there be both pro-homosexuality and homosexuality is morally neutral objectivists also?
There would be sub-varieties:
It's morally wrong to judge sexuality X.
All consensual sex between adults is morally neutral - though some things are not for this subgroup. IOW it is part of an objectivism to assign such sex a neutral moral position...and
people should be allowed to do things that are morally neutral.
And my point is that if you have a moral system that says some acts are objectively bad, but you claim that homosexual sex is morally neutral, this is still an objectivist stance on homosexuality.
Then there is a range of objectivisms where heterosexuality is considered bad (while homosexuality is not considered bad and sometimes considered good) Some in here...
https://theoutline.com/post/8607/hetero ... n-date-men
I've even seen carbon footprint-based arguments that homosexuality is morally superior.

And since everything gets interpreted as 'revealing one's team', let me make it clear that I don't think homosexuality is morally wrong. Just pointing out that objectivism is held by pretty much anyone near a mike or computer these days on any side of these issues. The ones you like AND the ones you don't like.

A short tour of any college campus will rapidly find pro-homosexuality objectivisms.

[Iwannaplato]

It is very childish and immature philosophically to hide one's philosophical & moral position and debate therefrom.

Chatgpt [with reservations]

Refraining from expressing one's moral views in a philosophical discussion forum is not necessarily childish. In fact, it can be a thoughtful and considered approach, especially in a context where philosophical discussions often involve complex and sometimes contentious topics.

[Veritas Aequitas]

VA has taken to calling me a moral relativist.

But there are different kinds of moral relativism. And the central claim of one kind - descriptive moral relativism - is true: through time and space, people have had and have different moral opinions. Attitudes towards the subjugation of women, slavery, homosexuality and eating animals are obvious examples.

But to reject moral objectivism is not to embrace deontological moral relativism - or moral nihilism - much as VA and IC want that to be the case. To reject the existence of moral facts is to reject them wholesale - not to accept that moral facts are merely a matter of opinion.

I'm not a moral relativist. For example, I think that slavery was, is and will be morally wrong, anywhere. And I think that homosexuality wasn't, isn't and won't ever be morally wrong, anywhere. But that's just the nature of our moral opinions: we tend to apply them universally, because to do otherwise would be morally inconsistent.

If you are not a moral relativist, then logically via LEM [if you accept it] you're a moral realist, and that is the case in general.

You can't be a quasi-realist [Blackburn] because it is bias towards moral relativism.

• Moral relativism or ethical relativism (often reformulated as relativist ethics or relativist morality) is used to describe several philosophical positions concerned with the differences in moral judgments across different peoples and cultures. An advocate of such ideas is often referred to as a relativist for short.
  WIKI

You are definitely a moral relativist [by definition] because to you there are no objective moral facts but merely your personal subjective moral opinions and that of others. Everyone else is then entitled to their own personal moral opinions.

You are also a moral relativists because you accept there are various different ethical theories & models, each entitled to their moral practices.

Since you agree with the existence of moral elements, you cannot be a moral nihilist.
It is undeniable, you are a moral relativist by definition.

Note your "I think that slavery [homosexuality]] was, is and will be morally wrong, anywhere" presumably 'killing of humans' mass rapes and other evil acts perhaps;
the above are merely your opinions without proofs,
it mean that you can readily think and have the opposite opinions easily.
This make you a very dangerous person who could be easily turned to and act upon any of the above terrible evil acts.

If you insist on your claim [proof of your conviction], where is your proof that it is morally 'wrong'.
If no proof, then you are picking such an opinion from the air.

[Dontaskme]

And since God is eternal, uncreated and the Creator of all things,

Claiming there is an eternal 'Uncreated' that is capable of being the 'Creator' of all created things, is an absurd irrational idea, except as a dream appearing real perhaps.. Reality/existence just is, existence doesn't make any claim to exist, nor does it demand to know it exists.

How can something that is eternal and uncreated know anything of it's capacity to create, when something that is eternal and uncreated couldn't possibly know what it means to be ''created'' because it's only knowledge of itself would be of an uncreated thing.. Unless the concept known as 'uncreated' can actually be split into two things, to include 'created' as meaningful as the concept 'uncreated' is.
Can the concept 'created' possibly exist for something that is 'uncreated' ?

To know such a concept as 'created' requires a 'knower' and a 'knower' implies there is something to know, and to know something requires a duality, an instance of opposition or contrast between two concepts or two aspects of something.

This only proves that KNOWEDGE, or knowing can only point to the illusory nature of reality/existence, in that existence is unknowably known in the exact same instance of knowing as and when the knowledge arises. But where does this knowledge arise from? it has to be from itself, it's uncreated self which is illusory. Not to mistake this illusion with not existing, reality /existence does exist without doubt or error. But it doesn't exist for anyone or anything, which is a false duality appearing as true.

[Harbal]

If I have Kantianism in mind, I have no idea how it got there. I have an open mind, actually, and I'm trying not to anticipate what your answer might be.

Do you mind me asking if you have any formal education in regards to ethical theory? Kantianism is one of the first two or three systems of ethics one is taught in a basic course, so naturally, I assumed you were probably thinking of Kant.

The only formal education I had, after leaving school at 15, was 1 year of a 4 year course in motor vehicle technology, and we never covered Kant.

What I am getting at is, is there any line of reasoning by which we can work out what is morally good, or are the specifics of morality like the gender of German nouns, where we have to learn each one individually?

That's a good question, actually. But I think the answer isn't simple.

There are certainly moral principles, meaning precepts that apply to more than one situation. Let's take the 10 Commandments, just because they're a set of moral precepts everybody thinks they already know. "You shall not steal," for example, applies to many situations, even without specifying what is being "stolen." However, there are some moral injunctions that do need to be explicitly instructed. It isn't evident, for example, what principle would generate the item in the 10 Commandments that says, "Remember the Sabbath Day..." The reason for that one only appears much later in the Bible, and isn't generated from a more universal principle. So somebody trying to obey it would have to take it as a given, and perhaps only learn afterward why it was given.

So the short answer would be that some ethical situations can be deduced from general principles, and some can only be practiced initially by way of command, and the principle behind them follows after.

And what should our attitude be towards moral principles? Should we be indifferent to stealing, itself, and only be concerned with God's disapproval of it? God condemns the thief for stealing, but all we are entitled to condemn him for is going against God. It cannot be an easy thing to stifle one's own moral judgement, and only acknowledge God's.

[Skepdick]

Do you mind me asking if you have any formal education in regards to ethical theory? Kantianism is one of the first two or three systems of ethics one is taught in a basic course, so naturally, I assumed you were probably thinking of Kant.

Given recent drama around the Rugby World Cup...

Wit Kant!

[FlashDangerpants]

It cannot be an easy thing to stifle one's own moral judgement, and only acknowledge God's.

Funnily enough, nobody is holy enough to have that problem any more. These days God just agrees with everyone when they tell you what he thinks.

[Skepdick]

Funnily enough, nobody is holy enough to have that problem any more. These days God just agrees with everyone when they tell you what he thinks.

That's a poor characterization of how it all works.

You can choose your moral authority at random from the discount bin at Walmart and no matter which moral authority you choose - it always agrees with what you think.

Wouldn't it be so much more fun if we just swapped moral authorities?

Yours will disagree with me.
Mine will disagree with you.

None of that confirmation bias nonsense.

[FlashDangerpants]

Nobody?
Those who adopt moral relativism will not meet Blackburn's Challenge.

That's hard to believe. It isn't a challenge for me. All it says is that in our moral language we act and think as if we are using full scale propositions that can be true and false etc. All cognitivists accept that moral language is a full equivalent to any other discourse. That includes for instance Mackie, whose entire Error Theory is predicated on such language being truth-apt.

With that challenge, Blackburn is raising an issue that his quasi-realist non-cognitivism can account for, which other non-cogs such as Ayer cannot. Namely: that we do use our moral language just like any other sort of language with fully loaded meaningful propositions that have the same form as truth-apt statements of fact. I'll leave it to others to work out for themselves whether his approach actually meets that standard, but it is inarguably a sophisticated and important effort.

It's concerning that you don'tunderstand this stuff. You've been claiming technical superiority in the field of ethics over the "gnats" here for much of the last decade, but this is entry level shit you should have known before you started making any such claim.

PH and the like are moral relativists who agree that there are moral elements but different people will have different opinions, beliefs, judgement on the same moral element or issues where all external relevant factors are the same.
The difference is due to their internal psychological states, i.e. moral attitude and feelings.

Thus PH and other moral relativists cannot run away from moral realism [to some degrees].

This is also concerning. It seems you don't yet understand the differences between non-cognitivism and other antirealist arguments. Again,. you've been at this for many years, you should have mastery of the basics.

I have raised this;
Moral Relativism Implied Moral Objectivity
viewtopic.php?t=40993
i.e. there are moral invariants within moral variations.

This is along the same line with Blackburn's Challenge.


It is obvious a moral realist do not need this because he is already a moral realist.

You do understand that Blackburn isn't a realist don't you?

Yes, is by definition an error-theorists or moral nihilist who reject anything to do with morality will not be relevant to Blackburn's Challenge which is related to morality.
A moral nihilist is likely a psychopath who does not understand his own human nature and human nature in general.

Are you a moral nihilist?

I dread to ask wtf you think error theory actually is? Exaclty how badly educated are you in this field where you claim pre-eminence?

I noted you wrote somewhere, you accept there are moral elements except you claim you are not a moral realist.
If that is a case, you cannot escape Blackburn's Challenge and thus it is implicit in whatever your moral claims, you are unconscious and is ignorant you are with moral realism to some degrees.

You can't seem to decide what anything means. Further up the page, and here, Pete and I and others "cannot escape" something. In the middle though the challenge doesn't apply to error theorists, yet you seem to think error theory is a branch of ... I don't exactly know what.

In this case, you will fall into the quasi-realist category regardless of your denial.

I'm not. One day I will tell you what theory I do favour, but right now that's much too complicated for you.

I have not been following the above, so, no comments.

You posted your agreement with IC that PH must be a non-cognitivist. Here's a quote of that to remind you. It is jam-packed with mistakes that indicate you don't understand the basic theories involved in this subject matter. You're welcome.

PH is obviously a non-cognitivist;

• Non-cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences do not express propositions (i.e., statements) and thus cannot be true or false (they are not truth-apt).
  A noncognitivist denies the cognitivist claim that "moral judgments are capable of being objectively true, because they describe some feature of the world".[1]
  If moral statements cannot be true, and if one cannot know something that is not true, noncognitivism implies that moral knowledge is impossible.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-cognitivism

PH may not agree with 'proposition' [philosophical] but that is not critical in this case because statement of fact is sufficient.

PH has always claims that moral elements are a matter of opinions, beliefs, judgments which are subjective, thus are not truth-apt.

PH also believe in this;
"A noncognitivist denies the cognitivist claim that moral judgments are capable of being objectively true, because they describe some feature of the world"

PH also insists moral elements are a matter of opinions, beliefs, judgments which are subjective, not a matter of fact, thus moral knowledge is impossible.

To the above extent, PH is a non-cognitivist.

Your thinking [opinion] that I am ignorant of the basic of Morality is only based on YOUR ignorance of the full spectrum of Morality and Ethics.
In a forum like this, there is a limitation to express fully.
If we are to dig into the details, it will reveal I am not ignorant of what your think I am ignorant of.

I had been guessing what your and Peter's moral position is because both of you are cowards in presenting your moral beliefs precisely.
I have even raised a specific thread to understand [not necessary agree with] PH's philosophical [moral] stance.
PH: What is Your Philosophical Foundation?
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=35095 Jun 18, 2022

It is very childish and immature philosophically to hide one's philosophical & moral position and debate therefrom.

If we dig into the details, all we find is that you haven't actually read any of the books. You convert them to Word for no reason and you store them in too many folders. But you never read and understand them.

You don't get that antirealism isn't non-cognitivism, as I have shown. You don't understand Blackburn (who is a non-cognitivist) nor do you get the point of his challenge, which I have explained for you, yet it still goes over your head.

[Skepdick]

You don't understand X

No philosopher ever seems to think it's their own understanding which is flawed either...

Some of those philosophers will also peddle the idea that there are no objective standards to distinguish understanding from misunderstanding.

[Skepdick]

antirealism isn't non-cognitivism, as I have shown.

Uh! Oh! A double negation! What to do? What to do?

Do we interpret that constructively or classicaly?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_negation

Or do we interpret it as a classical statement embedded in intuitionistic logic?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-ne ... ranslation

[Dontaskme]

But we can "owe it" to God, our Creator and Designer, who alone knows His intention in making us, to fulfill that mission for which we were created, and to act has He has ordained we "ought." Hence, morality gets off the ground only with God.

But that is still your subjective opinion, that only 'you' there is claiming to know. The 'you' aka a subject can only objectify itself as a knower, in order to make any sense of it's existence in it's own imagined conceptual world, aka it's conception of itself, and so to claim this objective 'you' can know it's designer, is like saying an electric 'Toaster' can know it's designer. That's a delusion no one is making, because a subject can only make sense of it's reality by objectifying itself as an object, which can know nothing of it's reality, it only thinks it does as it believes the concept of itself as an object is real.

Delusions can consist of any idea that arises from the void of absolute unknowing. Like for instance: A belief in a God who will fulfill my unknowing life with some sort of useful purpose where there is an actual point to my life that is worth hanging around for, but that's a trick played by the senses. In reality, this sense of self is illusory, it arises and falls like every other sensory experience.


The awareness of sensation is unknowable, and yet known in the experience of sensing. So what is actually happening here, is that the unknowable is apparently sensing itself as known, so the sense of a self sensing itself as real, is actually illusory, convinced by the unshakable belief the illusion is real...which it is, as in any dream is real, where in reality nothing ever happened. That's the dream, and the dream is all there is.

[Dontaskme]

Funnily enough, nobody is holy enough to have that problem any more. These days God just agrees with everyone when they tell you what he thinks.

That's a poor characterization of how it all works.

You can choose your moral authority at random from the discount bin at Walmart and no matter which moral authority you choose - it always agrees with what you think.

Wouldn't it be so much more fun if we just swapped moral authorities?

Yours will disagree with me.
Mine will disagree with you.

None of that confirmation bias nonsense.

Who else is going to agree with you but you?
Thinking must always be identical to the thinker, it's difficult to spot any difference. The thinker is the thought, or, the thought is the thinker.... is the same indifferent 'thinking experience'.

Amorality is an absence of, indifference towards, disregard for, or incapacity for morality. Some simply refer to it as a case of not being moral or immoral. Amoral should not be confused with immoral, which refers to an agent doing or thinking something they know or believe to be wrong.

If morality is created from God, and God is uncreated, then so too is God's creations uncreated.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH2iDbmIM9M
Two possible arguments against the existence of objective morality (and possible responses)