Is morality objective or subjective?

[Harbal]

So why is slavery "self-evidently" wrong? Please share your reasoning, if you will.

I know I don't want to be enslaved, so it would be a good thing for me if there were some rule or law in place to protect me from the possibility. I also know that the vast majority of human beings don't want to be enslaved, so it seems reasonable to assume they, too, would like to be protected against it. Given this, it then seems reasonable to say that most human beings regard slavery as being self-evidently undesirable, from where it is no great leap to arrive at its being self-evidently wrong. There will always be those, of course, who believe what is self-evidently wrong for themselves is not necessarily wrong for others, but most of us do not seem to think like that, with a possible exception when it comes to the more trivial infringements of what we might call moral issues, of course.

I'm still interested: how does one go about "testing" through "subjective phenomena"?

We think about the issue, eg. slavery, and hold it up to our own attitude towards being the victim of it.

What I wanted to know is what your emotional response would be; what feelings you would have about it. We know you would recognise it as a crime against God, that goes without saying, but what would you, as a person, feel?

What I can know for sure is that whatever I might "feel" would be unreliable, if the subjective is all I have.

The Hamas torturer, no doubt, feels some sort of glee, excitement, or maybe even a satsifaction with himself. The Israeli victim might feel horror, humiliation, terror, or even rage. I might feel pity, disgust or anxiety for the victim's welfare...and I doubt that that list exhausts the emotive terms we could possibly supply to that situation, or the range of emotions others might feel. Gaza observers might feel pride, patriotism and admiration -- or shame, disgust and rejection. An Israeli rescue squad might feel wrath and determination, or a desire for revenge...

I was hoping you would just admit to having a strong emotional response to the situation.

And in that assembly of emotions, all in play by some person at the time, which one is the key to our subjectivist account of what's "moral" in that situation?

What seems morally right or wrong depends on your point of view, which you seem to be acknowledging, and my view is that that is what morality is; simply what seems right or wrong. I'm not saying that is good, bad, desirable or undesirable, I am just saying that is the way it is.

[Immanuel Can]

All this is, is an elaborate way of saying, "I can tell you nothing whatsover about the actual moral status of homosexuality. One side could be right, the other side could be right...in fact, everybody's simultaneously right and wrong, and homosexuality has no moral status at all."

Since you have no information about the moral status of anything, then, what is your point about homosexuality?

How can there be 'information about the [actual] moral status of anything'?

That's a good question.

If subjectivism is true, the only "information" there is, is "I feel this way." But there's nothing distinctively deserving of us adding the adjective "moral" to such information; it's just information.

If objectivism is true, then there is moral information. It comes in many forms: divine revelation, natural observations, the deliverances of conscience, and so on...and our job, as ethical agents, becomes to sort and respond to such information in a way that ultimately deserves the adjective "moral."

Of what would that 'information' consist? Would the fact that one team's invented god thinks that X is morally wrong be 'information'?

Supposed "information" from "invented gods" would be misinformation.

P1 Agent A thinks X is morally wrong.
C Therefore, (it's a fact that) X is morally wrong.

This non sequitur would and should be laughed out of court in any moral debate.

Hooo boy.

I don't want to be pedantic, but you don't leave me much choice, I'm afraid. So you're going to have to bear with me coming off as a bit of a snob by telling you what it takes to make this sort of argument.

When you criticize an opponent's alleged reasoning, you have to create a formally valid syllogism, or you're "straw-manning" his argument.

Your proposed syllogism is missing a premise, meaning it is obviously formally incomplete. Hence, it's "straw manning," at best, and cannot be a just representation of anybody's argument -- even an incorrect argument. Thus, it's not reasonable for you to suppose that's the sum-total of the argument you ought to be addressing, if you are genuinely interested in refuting the opposing argument, rather than merely in misrepresenting and mocking.

Can you produce a valid syllogism instead? I'll be happy to address it for you, if it looks like anything any rational agent can even theoretically believe.

[Immanuel Can]

So why is slavery "self-evidently" wrong? Please share your reasoning, if you will.

I know I don't want to be enslaved, so it would be a good thing for me if there were some rule or law in place to protect me from the possibility.

Sure. But what gives you the right to make such a law? Your subjective feeling? If that's all it is, then who is obligated to heed that law?

I also know that the vast majority of human beings don't want to be enslaved, so it seems reasonable to assume they, too, would like to be protected against it.

But historically, and even today, large numbers of people want to OWN slaves. Sure, they don't want it done to themselves, but it's not being: they're the owners, not the slaves.

So what should they care about your unwillingness to be enslaved? For one reason or another, they LIKE having slaves. Why do your subjective preferences get to trump theirs?

I'm still interested: how does one go about "testing" through "subjective phenomena"?

We think about the issue, eg. slavery, and hold it up to our own attitude towards being the victim of it.

Here's a hypothetical case we can consider:

Let's suppose my attitude is that I love owning a sweat shop in China. There, young men and women work away for me, performing minor tasks; and because of their slavery, I am able to sell my goods in America at a much higher profit. I love that system. I benefit hugely from it. And I never see the faces of the workers, and have no reason to care if I did; for I am a sweat shop owner, not a slave.

This is obviously a very real-world situation. It's how the global economy works, these days.

Convince me that I'm wrong to own slaves.

What I wanted to know is what your emotional response would be; what feelings you would have about it. We know you would recognise it as a crime against God, that goes without saying, but what would you, as a person, feel?

What I can know for sure is that whatever I might "feel" would be unreliable, if the subjective is all I have.

The Hamas torturer, no doubt, feels some sort of glee, excitement, or maybe even a satsifaction with himself. The Israeli victim might feel horror, humiliation, terror, or even rage. I might feel pity, disgust or anxiety for the victim's welfare...and I doubt that that list exhausts the emotive terms we could possibly supply to that situation, or the range of emotions others might feel. Gaza observers might feel pride, patriotism and admiration -- or shame, disgust and rejection. An Israeli rescue squad might feel wrath and determination, or a desire for revenge...

I was hoping you would just admit to having a strong emotional response to the situation.

I do. But so do they. As a subjectivist, tell me whose emotions matter, in that situation.

And in that assembly of emotions, all in play by some person at the time, which one is the key to our subjectivist account of what's "moral" in that situation?

What seems morally right or wrong depends on your point of view, which you seem to be acknowledging, and my view is that that is what morality is; simply what seems right or wrong. I'm not saying that is good, bad, desirable or undesirable, I am just saying that is the way it is.

Then your subjectivism has a real problem. It's failing to inform us of anything in that situation. Unless you want to argue that IC's emotional reaction matters more than that of any Israeli, or any Hamas terrorist, or the victims, or the rescuers, or anybody else, we have zero in the way of moral information to help us navigate that situation...but that's an inherent and incurable fault of subjectivism.

[Harbal]

So why is slavery "self-evidently" wrong? Please share your reasoning, if you will.

I know I don't want to be enslaved, so it would be a good thing for me if there were some rule or law in place to protect me from the possibility.

Sure. But what gives you the right to make such a law? Your subjective feeling? If that's all it is, then who is obligated to heed that law?

I don't have the right to make that or any other law. Nevertheless, it is a law, albeit a man made law, and it is a law among men because there were enough of them of the same opinion to make it so.

But what does God have to say about the morality of slavery, and how far out of step is my opinion with his?

I also know that the vast majority of human beings don't want to be enslaved, so it seems reasonable to assume they, too, would like to be protected against it.

But historically, and even today, large numbers of people want to OWN slaves. Sure, they don't want it done to themselves, but it's not being: they're the owners, not the slaves.

So what should they care about your unwillingness to be enslaved? For one reason or another, they LIKE having slaves. Why do your subjective preferences get to trump theirs?

My subjective opinions don't trump those of anyone else; it is basically a numbers game.

We think about the issue, eg. slavery, and hold it up to our own attitude towards being the victim of it.

Here's a hypothetical case we can consider:

Let's suppose my attitude is that I love owning a sweat shop in China. There, young men and women work away for me, performing minor tasks; and because of their slavery, I am able to sell my goods in America at a much higher profit. I love that system. I benefit hugely from it. And I never see the faces of the workers, and have no reason to care if I did; for I am a sweat shop owner, not a slave.

This is obviously a very real-world situation. It's how the global economy works, these days.

Convince me that I'm wrong to own slaves.

Exactly. If your moral outlook is different from mine, I can't convince you, but, as you say, that is how the world works. But would someone who believes in the same God that you do own such a sweat shop, because if he doesn't believe in that God, why would he be influenced by him?

I was hoping you would just admit to having a strong emotional response to the situation.

I do. But so do they. As a subjectivist, tell me whose emotions matter, in that situation.

The emotions of the person who experiences them matter, and that is why we get different, and often conflicting, moral attitudes between different sets of people.

What seems morally right or wrong depends on your point of view, which you seem to be acknowledging, and my view is that that is what morality is; simply what seems right or wrong. I'm not saying that is good, bad, desirable or undesirable, I am just saying that is the way it is.

Then your subjectivism has a real problem. It's failing to inform us of anything in that situation. Unless you want to argue that IC's emotional reaction matters more than that of any Israeli, or any Hamas terrorist, or the victims, or the rescuers, or anybody else, we have zero in the way of moral information to help us navigate that situation...but that's an inherent and incurable fault of subjectivism.

I am saying that moral issues are dealt with in accordance with the subjective moral outlook of the people who are dealing with them. Are you saying that you can look around the world and justifiably deny that?

[Immanuel Can]

I know I don't want to be enslaved, so it would be a good thing for me if there were some rule or law in place to protect me from the possibility.

Sure. But what gives you the right to make such a law? Your subjective feeling? If that's all it is, then who is obligated to heed that law?

I don't have the right to make that or any other law. Nevertheless, it is a law, albeit a man made law, and it is a law among men because there were enough of them of the same opinion to make it so.

That's a great description of "mob rule." It just means that the laws are determined not by right, but by force, and by the force of whoever holds the majority in raw numbers: their reasons, unimportant; their justifications, not asked for; their arguments, not regarded.

Yikes.

But what does God have to say about the morality of slavery, and how far out of step is my opinion with his?

Very far, actually. But that's a big topic, because slavery has been such a universal feature of human existence, and the Bible has mention of different slavery arrangements in it...unpaid labour, chattel slavery, temporary debt slavery, indentured servitude, poverty slaves, voluntary service, incarcerated servitude...these are very different, and the Biblical instructions on each are very different: but all can be summed up as forms of enslavement.

We can go there, but you're going to need some patience and some exegetical skills. So I'll leave it with you what we do with that question.

I also know that the vast majority of human beings don't want to be enslaved, so it seems reasonable to assume they, too, would like to be protected against it.

But historically, and even today, large numbers of people want to OWN slaves. Sure, they don't want it done to themselves, but it's not being: they're the owners, not the slaves.

So what should they care about your unwillingness to be enslaved? For one reason or another, they LIKE having slaves. Why do your subjective preferences get to trump theirs?

My subjective opinions don't trump those of anyone else; it is basically a numbers game.

Then the numbers are ovewhelmingly against you, I'm afraid. Slavery is one of the oldest and most cherished institutions of the human race, practiced by millions for generations, and is now more popular than at any time in history, since things like the internet created a massive explosion of wage slaves and sex slaves.

That's the danger of playing the numbers game: the numbers aren't always on the side of what's moral.

We think about the issue, eg. slavery, and hold it up to our own attitude towards being the victim of it.

Here's a hypothetical case we can consider:

Let's suppose my attitude is that I love owning a sweat shop in China. There, young men and women work away for me, performing minor tasks; and because of their slavery, I am able to sell my goods in America at a much higher profit. I love that system. I benefit hugely from it. And I never see the faces of the workers, and have no reason to care if I did; for I am a sweat shop owner, not a slave.

This is obviously a very real-world situation. It's how the global economy works, these days.

Convince me that I'm wrong to own slaves.

Exactly. If your moral outlook is different from mine, I can't convince you, but, as you say, that is how the world works. [/quote]
Well, then, you've just totally capitulated to mob rule, and to a kind of fatalism: you've accepted that whatever "way the world works" is how things have to be.

But morality is different from sociology. Sociology tells us "the way the world works" right now; morality describes to us the way the world OUGHT TO work, IF it were doing things right.

So you've shrunk morality down until you've made it no more than sociology. All you can do now is describe what is, and accept that it's as good as things need to be.

But would someone who believes in the same God that you do own such a sweat shop, because if he doesn't believe in that God, why would he be influenced by him?

Again, you keep mistaking what morality does: it doesn't MAKE people do things. All it does is tell them what they ought to do, if they are willing to do the right things. If they are not willing, nothing will make people behave morally: because being moral is a choice.

I was hoping you would just admit to having a strong emotional response to the situation.

I do. But so do they. As a subjectivist, tell me whose emotions matter, in that situation.

The emotions of the person who experiences them matter, and that is why we get different, and often conflicting, moral attitudes between different sets of people.

But they're all different. And if they all equally "matter," then you have not the least basis upon which to say that the Hamas terrorist who is drawing his knife across a baby's throat is more right or wrong than the rescuer who runs in and saves the child.

That's how utterly uninformative subjectivism is.

What seems morally right or wrong depends on your point of view, which you seem to be acknowledging, and my view is that that is what morality is; simply what seems right or wrong. I'm not saying that is good, bad, desirable or undesirable, I am just saying that is the way it is.

Then your subjectivism has a real problem. It's failing to inform us of anything in that situation. Unless you want to argue that IC's emotional reaction matters more than that of any Israeli, or any Hamas terrorist, or the victims, or the rescuers, or anybody else, we have zero in the way of moral information to help us navigate that situation...but that's an inherent and incurable fault of subjectivism.

I am saying that moral issues are dealt with in accordance with the subjective moral outlook of the people who are dealing with them. Are you saying that you can look around the world and justifiably deny that?

No: but I am saying that capitulates to sociological fatalism, and thus fails to tell us anything at all about the morality of the situation.

[Peter Holmes]

All this is, is an elaborate way of saying, "I can tell you nothing whatsover about the actual moral status of homosexuality. One side could be right, the other side could be right...in fact, everybody's simultaneously right and wrong, and homosexuality has no moral status at all."

Since you have no information about the moral status of anything, then, what is your point about homosexuality?

How can there be 'information about the [actual] moral status of anything'?

That's a good question.

If subjectivism is true, the only "information" there is, is "I feel this way." But there's nothing distinctively deserving of us adding the adjective "moral" to such information; it's just information.

If objectivism is true, then there is moral information. It comes in many forms: divine revelation, natural observations, the deliverances of conscience, and so on...and our job, as ethical agents, becomes to sort and respond to such information in a way that ultimately deserves the adjective "moral."

Of what would that 'information' consist? Would the fact that one team's invented god thinks that X is morally wrong be 'information'?

Supposed "information" from "invented gods" would be misinformation.

P1 Agent A thinks X is morally wrong.
C Therefore, (it's a fact that) X is morally wrong.

This non sequitur would and should be laughed out of court in any moral debate.

Hooo boy.

I don't want to be pedantic, but you don't leave me much choice, I'm afraid. So you're going to have to bear with me coming off as a bit of a snob by telling you what it takes to make this sort of argument.

When you criticize an opponent's alleged reasoning, you have to create a formally valid syllogism, or you're "straw-manning" his argument.

Your proposed syllogism is missing a premise, meaning it is obviously formally incomplete. Hence, it's "straw manning," at best, and cannot be a just representation of anybody's argument -- even an incorrect argument. Thus, it's not reasonable for you to suppose that's the sum-total of the argument you ought to be addressing, if you are genuinely interested in refuting the opposing argument, rather than merely in misrepresenting and mocking.

Can you produce a valid syllogism instead? I'll be happy to address it for you, if it looks like anything any rational agent can even theoretically believe.

Perhaps you've never come across a compressed syllogism, with a hypothetical P1 and an affirmed antecedent in P2 combined. Never mind. Here's the expansion, which I think is valid.

P1 If agent A thinks X is morally wrong, then (it's a fact that) X is morally wrong.
P2 Agent A thinks that X is morally wrong.
C Therefore, (it's a fact that) X is morally wrong.

Please amend this if it's straw-manning your argument. Clearly, your agent A is the god you call God!

And meanwhile, please can you produce a valid and sound argument demonstrating your conclusion about the consequence of thinking (or there being) no moral facts? I'd like to see it.

[Immanuel Can]

Perhaps you've never come across a compressed syllogism, with a hypothetical P1 and an affirmed antecedent in P2 combined.

It's called an "enthymeme." But it's incomplete, so it always fails to represent the suppressed assumption of the missing premise.

Never mind. Here's the expansion, which I think is valid.

P1 If agent A thinks X is morally wrong, then (it's a fact that) X is morally wrong.
P2 Agent A thinks that X is morally wrong.
C Therefore, (it's a fact that) X is morally wrong.

Please amend this if it's straw-manning your argument. Clearly, your agent A is the god you call God!

It contains a term that is a false collective. "Agent A" combines the terms "human" with the term "God," making both a mere "agent" without recognizing any relevant difference between them.

So no, obviously nobody believes premise 1. But that's only because premise 1 requires us to attribute God-like moral authority to just any old "agent."

So I would fix it this way:

P1 When God knows that something is morally right or wrong, it is.
P2 God knows that X is morally right (or, if you prefer, wrong).
C Therefore, it is morally right (or wrong).

But that's just too darn easy to do, so I can only think we're missing your question somehow...Would you like to revise it somehow?

And meanwhile, please can you produce a valid and sound argument demonstrating your conclusion about the consequence of thinking (or there being) no moral facts? I'd like to see it.

I'm not sure I understand what the request is.

Let me see if I can figure it out: you are asking me to demonstrate that because of subjectivism (i.e. the claim that there are no moral facts)...which consequence? There are several that I can see...

[iambiguous]

What I said was that the "convincing" you would so would only consist in a discussion of the most effective way to get the values you both already agree on. But I added -- and this is the important bit -- that most people do disagree on questions of value. And that's true even within a single society, and most certainly true across different cultures, demographics, age groups and societies.

So moral convincing is necessary, and necessary with people who have very different value-preferences, but (we must hope) share only your valuing of rationality. So if they are rational, and you are rational, then you can provide them the reasons to abandon their value-preferences and adopt better ones (presumably). But since subjectivism insists no such reasons can be produced, a subjectivist has no tools with which to do this task.

This, in my view, is rather typical of the sort of discussions Mr. Cant is partial to. On and on and on he goes arguing "philosophically" about subjective and objective values. Up in the intellectual/spiritual clouds.

He acknowledges all of the many, many different human communities there have been down through the centuries and across the globe culturally -- and even within a single community -- that have precipitated countless disagreements about values.

But then he notes [and I agree with this] the subjectivists are simply not able to convince others that their own value judgments are the real deal. Why? Because all they have are their own subjective/subjunctive moral and political prejudices. The part I derive from dasein.

Then the part he derives from the Christian God. Only he is no less unable to "provide [us with] the reasons to abandon our value-preferences and adopt better ones".

Presumably his.

Now, some here have been after him for pages and pages to steer clear of the subjectivists and to focus in more instead on his own objectivist font...the Christian God.

After all, why yammer on and on about the inherent miscues the subjectivists foist on us when you are convinced your own One True Path -- praise the Lord! -- is the One True Path to moral Commandments and to everlasting life...in Paradise itself!

[Harbal]

Sure. But what gives you the right to make such a law? Your subjective feeling? If that's all it is, then who is obligated to heed that law?

I don't have the right to make that or any other law. Nevertheless, it is a law, albeit a man made law, and it is a law among men because there were enough of them of the same opinion to make it so.

That's a great description of "mob rule." It just means that the laws are determined not by right, but by force, and by the force of whoever holds the majority in raw numbers: their reasons, unimportant; their justifications, not asked for; their arguments, not regarded.

Yikes.

Really? It's more a description of secular democracy, I would say.

My subjective opinions don't trump those of anyone else; it is basically a numbers game.

Then the numbers are ovewhelmingly against you, I'm afraid. Slavery is one of the oldest and most cherished institutions of the human race, practiced by millions for generations, and is now more popular than at any time in history, since things like the internet created a massive explosion of wage slaves and sex slaves.

That's the danger of playing the numbers game: the numbers aren't always on the side of what's moral.

Which neither supports the existence of God, nor objective moral truth.

Exactly. If your moral outlook is different from mine, I can't convince you, but, as you say, that is how the world works.

Well, then, you've just totally capitulated to mob rule, and to a kind of fatalism: you've accepted that whatever "way the world works" is how things have to be.

So where is all this mob rule we should be seeing?

But morality is different from sociology. Sociology tells us "the way the world works" right now; morality describes to us the way the world OUGHT TO work, IF it were doing things right.

Yes, morality describes to us the way the world OUGHT TO work according to some particular point of view. Which would be God's point of view in your case, but not everyone has a God, or your particular God.

So you've shrunk morality down until you've made it no more than sociology.

Morality just is an aspect of sociology, I didn't make it so.

The emotions of the person who experiences them matter, and that is why we get different, and often conflicting, moral attitudes between different sets of people.

But they're all different. And if they all equally "matter," then you have not the least basis upon which to say that the Hamas terrorist who is drawing his knife across a baby's throat is more right or wrong than the rescuer who runs in and saves the child.

That's how utterly uninformative subjectivism is.

What's to stop somebody believing that cutting babies' throats is objectively good? But we cannot avoid having subjective moral feelings, and being moved by them. You keep going on about babies' throats being cut, with the implication that it is an extreme instance of moral wrong doing, but by your account of what our moral reactions should be, you should just regard it as an act against God, and no better or worse than any other.

I am saying that moral issues are dealt with in accordance with the subjective moral outlook of the people who are dealing with them. Are you saying that you can look around the world and justifiably deny that?

No: but I am saying that capitulates to sociological fatalism, and thus fails to tell us anything at all about the morality of the situation.

Well I think it tells us that my description of what morality is is far more realistic than yours.

[iambiguous]

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.

Sure, for each of us as individual subjects, there are clearly any number of complex and convoluted social, political and economic permutations possible...given both dasein and the Benjamin Button Syndrome.

So, it would seem to me, best to point out the objectivisms that are present on all the sides of an issue and not just those of your opponents. Otherwise people will get the impression you mainly notice those objectivisms and not others.

Over and again, I have noted that objectivists exist at both ends of the moral and political divide...liberal and conservative. And all up and down the ideological spectrum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies

I just happened to have derived my own particular prejudices given the life I lived as a left-wing political activist. Nearly 25 years. But I would certainly not argue today that moral nihilism reflects the most rational ethical assessment. Instead, I am far more intrigued with those here who espouse a No God frame of mind but still manage to embrace one of another objective morality themselves. How, given a particular set of circumstances, are they not "fractured and fragmented" in turn?

Thus...

I do know that you do this sometimes. That you point out that people on 'your side' are also objectivists. But that's what I was responding to here. It seemed like, in that previous post, the objectivists were on one team. Again, I know that is not your overriding position, however if you have any tendency to focus on the objectivists with positions you like less while leaving out the objectivists whose positions fit with your preferences, then you are undermining your point.

Does that work for you in, what, exposing me? Fine. You have your grasp of me and I have mine. Now, again, given an issue like abortion or capitalism or animal rights or gun control...how close do you come to believing that morality here is objective?

For example, I was an objectivist for years myself. And even when I abandoned one [Christianity] for another [Unitarianism] for another [Marxism] for another [Democratic Socialism] I was still able to convince myself that morality itself could be grasped objectively...God or No God.

Yes, I am pretty sure you have mentioned this...let's say more than a hundred times.

Hey, you responded to my post here, Chuck.

No, really, if my repetitive points irk you then by all means, move on to others. Just as I've moved on from you here because from my own rooted existentially in dasein frame of mind you are basically just one more "serious philosopher": ever and always exchanging definitions and deductions up in the intellectual clouds. Even in regard to conflicting value judgments.

What's crucial here, in my view, is that, if and when scientists and/or philosophers are able to take points I raise in the OPs here...

https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382

...into account, can they come up with a moral narrative and a political agenda that really does reflect the most rational and virtuous of human interactions?

IOW can they come up with the right objectivist position?

What on Earth is that given all of the One True Paths there are to choose from:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy

Or is yours in a world all its own?

And my point still revolves less around what one's moral system is and more around how one comes to acquire it given the historical, cultural and interpersonal parameters of their uniquely individual lives. Given that human interactions have managed [so far] to produce quite a few One True Paths:

Then it seems to me it is much clearer if in any discussion of a specific moral issue, here whether homosexuality is bad or not, you should point out that objectivist positions can be on any side of an issue. If we look at the post I responded to it doesn't seem to reflect your point, but rather seems like a weighing in on the morality of homosexuality: those bad conservatives who have mean objectivist positions on homosexuals. I know you did not say this, but again if you just present one side's objectivism and seem critical of that and do not mention the positions that are objectivist but which you are more aligned with, it doesn't aid your point. The point you mention here.

Again and again and again...

Based on my own rooted existentially in dasein personal experiences and the political prejudices I have come to accept over the years, "I" think what I do about, say, same sex marriages. I support them. But that doesn't make them objectively moral. There are, after all, intelligent men and women who are able to offer arguments both for and against it: https://www.google.com/search?q=arguemn ... s-wiz-serp

So, if you are yourself a moral objectivist here, peruse the points made by both sides above and come back with what you construe to be the most rational assessment.

Yes, and why is that? How is that not the embodiment of daseins living vast and varied lives interacting in a world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change? Historically, culturally, socially, politically and economically.

Precisely, so if your point as you say above it to reveal these kinds of things and how they lead to all objectivisms, pointing out one side's objectivisms is misleading. It's not a great way to make your point. It comes off as using your ideas of objectivism to hit the people who have positions you don't like, while remaining silent on the ones you do like. And again, I know that you do call out the objectivism of positions you are sympathetic with. But here you did not and this is not rare.

Precisely from your frame of mind...not even close to it from mine.

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.

Again, it's not what you think that fascinates me nearly as much as how existentially [re dasein] you came to think this instead of that.

I'm pretty clear on what you want to know and point out. And of course I have my own desires and goals.

Sure, argue that what you think is clear about me is more reasonable than what I think is clear myself. Only with me, my own "clarity" in and of itself is no less just another subjective manifestation of dasein.

Why, say, a liberal prejudice rather than a conservative prejudice? And since there are many, many others who think many, many very different things about human sexuality, what's a philosopher or an ethicist or a political scientist to do?

I think that's an odd way to word this. But then you seem to be a subjectivist looking for a way to finally find an objectivist position that can be demonstrated to be the right one.

Not only that, but an objectivist truth I can embrace that will also result in immortality and salvation. Look, if IC or any other religionist here is able to convince me that their God does in fact exist and that their God judges homosexuality to be a sin, then, well, what can I say, it's a sin. I'll be against it. At least if the alternative really is oblivion or eternal damnation.

IOW you could be a subjectivist who isn't looking for what a philosopher (some abstract generalized figure or all philosophers political scientists, etc). need to do to find this.

No, I'll always be looking for objective morality if it does in fact exist.

Arguments can be made pro and con in regard to homosexuality: https://www.firstthings.com/article/199 ... osexuality

Did you really think I didn't know this? That arguments could be made pro and con in regard to homosexuality? I mean, even just knowing I've been reading parts of this thread. Even having read my previous post it should be clear, given I talked about it, that there were objectivist position on various sides of the issue.

Come on, my arguments are aimed at the objectivists among us. From either end of the moral and political spectrum. With you it's always in regard to my own "fractured and fragmented" frame of mind in the is/oughtworld. How are you not drawn and quartered yourself in regard to homosexuality. How are your own value judgments here not a manifestation of dasein?

Okay, Mr. Moral Objectivist, sift through them all and come up with the optimal frame of mind.

What?! Man you make weird assumptions.

Huh? Conflicting arguments are made [morally, politically, philosophically, scientifically, etc.] and any number of objectivists assume that in fact there is an optimal frame of mind. There must be. Why? Because they've found it.

[Immanuel Can]

I don't have the right to make that or any other law. Nevertheless, it is a law, albeit a man made law, and it is a law among men because there were enough of them of the same opinion to make it so.

That's a great description of "mob rule." It just means that the laws are determined not by right, but by force, and by the force of whoever holds the majority in raw numbers: their reasons, unimportant; their justifications, not asked for; their arguments, not regarded.

Yikes.

Really? It's more a description of secular democracy, I would say.

In democracy, a person is elected, and held morally accountable for a limited term, and he has to make moral decisions. You're talking about the actual moral decisions not being made by a morally-accountable delegate, but being simply determined by who has the most force of numbers.

My subjective opinions don't trump those of anyone else; it is basically a numbers game.

Then the numbers are ovewhelmingly against you, I'm afraid. Slavery is one of the oldest and most cherished institutions of the human race, practiced by millions for generations, and is now more popular than at any time in history, since things like the internet created a massive explosion of wage slaves and sex slaves.

That's the danger of playing the numbers game: the numbers aren't always on the side of what's moral.

Which neither supports the existence of God, nor objective moral truth.

Well, truth isn't determined by plebescite. But if it were, objective morality would win, and the belief in the existence of God would top 90%. Atheism would get 4%.

But I don't argue in favour of the numbers game. It was somebody else who just wrote, "there were enough of them of the same opinion to make it so."

Exactly. If your moral outlook is different from mine, I can't convince you, but, as you say, that is how the world works.

Well, then, you've just totally capitulated to mob rule, and to a kind of fatalism: you've accepted that whatever "way the world works" is how things have to be.

So where is all this mob rule we should be seeing?

Why would you expect to "be seeing" it, since most people are, even just by instinct, moral objectivists?

But morality is different from sociology. Sociology tells us "the way the world works" right now; morality describes to us the way the world OUGHT TO work, IF it were doing things right.

Yes, morality describes to us the way the world OUGHT TO work according to some particular point of view. Which would be God's point of view in your case, but not everyone has a God, or your particular God.

Well, like morality, the existence of God isn't a question that is answered by numbers of people who think it's so. And it's a good thing for the Atheists that it isn't: see above.

So you've shrunk morality down until you've made it no more than sociology.

Morality just is an aspect of sociology, I didn't make it so.

Morality is quite different from sociology. Morality is, as moral philosophers are fond of saying, "prescriptive," whereas sociology is merely "descriptive." That is, morality tells us what should be, and sociology only tells us what is.

The emotions of the person who experiences them matter, and that is why we get different, and often conflicting, moral attitudes between different sets of people.

But they're all different. And if they all equally "matter," then you have not the least basis upon which to say that the Hamas terrorist who is drawing his knife across a baby's throat is more right or wrong than the rescuer who runs in and saves the child.

That's how utterly uninformative subjectivism is.

What's to stop somebody believing that cutting babies' throats is objectively good?

Absolutely nothing, under subjectivism. But under objectivism, it will be evil whether they are willing to recognize that or not. Equally importantly, under objective morality, we can have objective grounds for stopping them, arresting them, prosecuting them, incarcerating them, and so on, as the case may morally require; under subjectivism, no such justifications at all.

Subjectivism makes justice impossible, in fact. There are no standards left by which justice can be enacted.

[Gary Childress]

So why is slavery "self-evidently" wrong? Please share your reasoning, if you will.

I know I don't want to be enslaved, so it would be a good thing for me if there were some rule or law in place to protect me from the possibility.

Sure. But what gives you the right to make such a law? Your subjective feeling? If that's all it is, then who is obligated to heed that law?

You are beyond pathetic. The lows you'll stoop to in order to defend the unholy terror you call your "creator" is atrocious. You mock victims of this world as "insane" and hold yourself as an adherent of the "holy". Let go of the abomination you call Yhwh. Let him go the way of Anubis and other false deities. Your God has inflicted untold suffering upon life in this universe according to the book you deem most holy of all.

[Gary Childress]

That's a great description of "mob rule." It just means that the laws are determined not by right, but by force, and by the force of whoever holds the majority in raw numbers: their reasons, unimportant; their justifications, not asked for; their arguments, not regarded.

Yikes.

So says an adherent of Yhwh the God of genocide. Go find others to invoke holy terror on.

[Immanuel Can]

I know I don't want to be enslaved, so it would be a good thing for me if there were some rule or law in place to protect me from the possibility.

Sure. But what gives you the right to make such a law? Your subjective feeling? If that's all it is, then who is obligated to heed that law?

You are beyond pathetic...

It's a very reasonable question.

Not anything you say here has a whit to do with the topic.

[Gary Childress]

Sure. But what gives you the right to make such a law? Your subjective feeling? If that's all it is, then who is obligated to heed that law?

You are beyond pathetic...

It's a very reasonable question.

What's "reasonable" about suggesting that someone objecting to slavery has no basis to object to it? Have you lost your marbles? Do you honestly believe that objecting to slavery is not a worthy objection?