Is morality objective or subjective?

[Sculptor]

This topic keeps coming up ad nauseam.

Is morality objective or subjective?
Is like asking is granite, gravel or a rock? It can be either.
Morals are rules that emerge from social norms, taken as irrefutable. Whether or not they are objective or subjective relates to how they are judged, not from the rules in themselves.
Sometimes this judgement attempts to be objective. So whilst people have rock solid personal opinions about a moral rightness, sometimes they try to break it down to delete their personal opinion an attempt a more objective outlook. So they sift through the gravel of ideas and try to take on board mitigation and circumstances.
But humans are limited in their POV. What position are such people trying to appeal to? Where it the ultimate and absolute position from which to unpack the subjectivity of culture, history and social contingencies.

And this is why clowns like VA are so risible. No matter how hard they try they simple cannot fathom the difficulties they face.
Judgements are subjective. You can attempt to assess them objectively but there really is no where you can stand to have a purely objective POV. Because we are all in this more together.

I've recently been criticised for claiming objective facts, as if they cannot exist. Trump tried to overturn the election. Is a fact. It does not matter whether or not you think it was moral or immoral to do so , but the fact remains.
It is NOT a moral question: it is an empirical matter of evidence, of which there is much. Fraudulent documents exist.
You can argue as much as you like, and even claim objectivity, as to whether or not Trump had the right to do that.
I'd love to hear those "objective" arguments. But you cannot deny my right to offer facts.

[Harbal]

This topic keeps coming up ad nauseam.

Is morality objective or subjective?
Is like asking is granite, gravel or a rock? It can be either.
Morals are rules that emerge from social norms, taken as irrefutable. Whether or not they are objective or subjective relates to how they are judged, not from the rules in themselves.
Sometimes this judgement attempts to be objective. So whilst people have rock solid personal opinions about a moral rightness, sometimes they try to break it down to delete their personal opinion an attempt a more objective outlook. So they sift through the gravel of ideas and try to take on board mitigation and circumstances.
But humans are limited in their POV. What position are such people trying to appeal to? Where it the ultimate and absolute position from which to unpack the subjectivity of culture, history and social contingencies.

And this is why clowns like VA are so risible. No matter how hard they try they simple cannot fathom the difficulties they face.
Judgements are subjective. You can attempt to assess them objectively but there really is no where you can stand to have a purely objective POV. Because we are all in this more together.

I've recently been criticised for claiming objective facts, as if they cannot exist. Trump tried to overturn the election. Is a fact. It does not matter whether or not you think it was moral or immoral to do so , but the fact remains.
It is NOT a moral question: it is an empirical matter of evidence, of which there is much. Fraudulent documents exist.
You can argue as much as you like, and even claim objectivity, as to whether or not Trump had the right to do that.
I'd love to hear those "objective" arguments. But you cannot deny my right to offer facts.

I think this is right, and the whole discussion seems to have become very confused. We are getting arguments based on different definitions of "objective", and some of us are claiming that morality is purely subjective when we really mean certain aspects of it are subjective. I think I have probably been guilty of doing that myself.

[Sculptor]

This topic keeps coming up ad nauseam.

Is morality objective or subjective?
Is like asking is granite, gravel or a rock? It can be either.
Morals are rules that emerge from social norms, taken as irrefutable. Whether or not they are objective or subjective relates to how they are judged, not from the rules in themselves.
Sometimes this judgement attempts to be objective. So whilst people have rock solid personal opinions about a moral rightness, sometimes they try to break it down to delete their personal opinion an attempt a more objective outlook. So they sift through the gravel of ideas and try to take on board mitigation and circumstances.
But humans are limited in their POV. What position are such people trying to appeal to? Where it the ultimate and absolute position from which to unpack the subjectivity of culture, history and social contingencies.

And this is why clowns like VA are so risible. No matter how hard they try they simple cannot fathom the difficulties they face.
Judgements are subjective. You can attempt to assess them objectively but there really is no where you can stand to have a purely objective POV. Because we are all in this more together.

I've recently been criticised for claiming objective facts, as if they cannot exist. Trump tried to overturn the election. Is a fact. It does not matter whether or not you think it was moral or immoral to do so , but the fact remains.
It is NOT a moral question: it is an empirical matter of evidence, of which there is much. Fraudulent documents exist.
You can argue as much as you like, and even claim objectivity, as to whether or not Trump had the right to do that.
I'd love to hear those "objective" arguments. But you cannot deny my right to offer facts.

I think this is right, and the whole discussion seems to have become very confused. We are getting arguments based on different definitions of "objective", and some of us are claiming that morality is purely subjective when we really mean certain aspects of it are subjective. I think I have probably been guilty of doing that myself.

Whilst it is a fact that "murder is illegal" that is not the same thing as saying that all killing of people is wrong; eventhough some (including myself) would argue that point.

I do not think it possible to find ANY objective basis to construct any sentence which reads" ...........is morall and therefore objectively wrong".
What ever nastiness you can think of there is no factual basis for ANY claim about wrongness and rightness, since these concepts are not factual.
Killing babies is wrong has to be forever an opinion. There i just no getting over that. But it is not a basis for the claim that were it so, then there could be no morality. Morality is a set of opnions about how best to behave. Moralists would do well the embrace that fact, rather than pretend objectivity so they can impose their will on others.

[Immanuel Can]

...is the God of Islam any different to the Christian God of the Bible...?

Read the Koran, and read the Bible. Then you'll know. There's no other way you will know.

[Immanuel Can]

I am thinking of law that reflects the moral attitudes of the people it serves.

In Gaza, women can be beaten at will, so long as the stick isn't thicker than a man's finger, children can be forced into marriage, and homosexuals can be thrown from a rooftop. These are lawful things, according to that society. It "reflects the moral attitudes of the people it serves."

Not good enough. Many societies advocate things against which you would be rightly set.

Therefore what? None of that suggests that God exists.

I didn't even remotely suggest it did. What it definitely shows, though, that subjectivism will not work.

As I say, if you want, you could opt for moral nihilism...it would at least meet the first hurdle of rationality. It would at least be possibly right. Subjectivism is obviously not.

...we are discussing what is and isn't true, not what would make the world a nicer place if only it were true.

Right. And we've just seen that subjectivism isn't true. It can't even make sense on its own terms.

So we need an alternative.

I daresay that some of our laws do contain elements that are a throwback to more religious times, but I would like to think those elements are gradually being weeded out.

Well, just for fun, and as an heuristic exercise, let's suppose that were true; and let's even suppose, for argument's sake, that it would be a good thing. What principles would we refer to, in order to know which of the old laws needed to be "weeded out," and which ones would be immoral to "weed out"?

If there are no such principles, how do you know you are watching the law make some kind of moral progress, versus watching morality slide into the ditch?

There is nothing to stop us from having principles without having to look to God for them.

I didn't ask if such were possible. I asked what you actually think they are.

Therefore, please give me a list, or at least part of a list, of your principles of discerning when we are progressing, and when we are sliding.

[Gary Childress]

It's a very reasonable question.

What's "reasonable" about suggesting that someone objecting to slavery has no basis to object to it?

Gary, anybody who was an enslaver of others would ask exactly the same question: and if you have no answer to it, you have no defense against them saying, "Well, that's just your subjective opinion." And you would have to say, "Yes, that's all it ever is."

If you want to be that defenseless, you certainly can be. I'm unwilling to be that, and am very interested in us all having the best justifications for saying -- and believing -- that slavery is wrong.

The Bible doesn't admonish the practice of slavery. So you must think slavery is fine. You're a disgusting human being. Use your own judgment and figure out for yourself why slavery is immoral--BECAUSE YOU WOULD CALL IT WRONG IF SOMEONE DID IT TO YOU UNRIGHTEOUS MORON!

[Harbal]

There is nothing to stop us from having principles without having to look to God for them.

I didn't ask if such were possible. I asked what you actually think they are.

Therefore, please give me a list, or at least part of a list, of your principles of discerning when we are progressing, and when we are sliding.

I can only give you principles based on my own judgement of what is morally good, and I can even give you my own arbitrary reasons for adopting those principles. That is easy, but you would not accept any of it as valid, so why make me go to the trouble? Besides, I am out of order; we are now supposed to be examining your account of morality that is grounded on objective moral truth, and I have diverted the conversation back to subjective morality, for which I apologise. So enough about me, let's get back to you.

So far, all you have done is make claims of objective moral truth, but until you can demonstrate it's existence empirically, those claims can only be regarded as nothing more than your opinions, or personal beliefs. So, for those of us who do not believe there is such a thing as objective moral truth, what can you offer that will rationally force us to reconsider? Even if we allow that God exists, and he issues moral imperatives, he is not giving us truths, because imperatives can be neither true nor false. Imperatives are just commands or instructions, not statements of truth.

[Immanuel Can]

What's "reasonable" about suggesting that someone objecting to slavery has no basis to object to it?

Gary, anybody who was an enslaver of others would ask exactly the same question: and if you have no answer to it, you have no defense against them saying, "Well, that's just your subjective opinion." And you would have to say, "Yes, that's all it ever is."

If you want to be that defenseless, you certainly can be. I'm unwilling to be that, and am very interested in us all having the best justifications for saying -- and believing -- that slavery is wrong.

The Bible doesn't admonish the practice of slavery.

"Admonish"? You should look that word up.

Actually, there is lots the Bible says about slavery, and lots, particularly in the New Testament, that you would have to agree with, such as "do not be slaves of men," and "if you can get your freedom, do it." And that's true, no matter much you chew on the ancient instructions to Jews about quite different types of "slavery" than you know anything about. You also don't know that such noteworthies as the man who abolished slavery throughout the British Empire was a passionate Christian, William Wilberforce...as were those who worked for the Abolition side in the US. And John Locke, who invented the only viable explanation for universal human rights was...you guessed it...a Christian, working from an explicitly Christian rationale.

Not a bad record, I would say. Far better than anybody else's actually.

[Immanuel Can]

There is nothing to stop us from having principles without having to look to God for them.

I didn't ask if such were possible. I asked what you actually think they are.

Therefore, please give me a list, or at least part of a list, of your principles of discerning when we are progressing, and when we are sliding.

I can only give you principles based on my own judgement of what is morally good, and I can even give you my own arbitrary reasons for adopting those principles.

Well, that's not a "principle," by definition. Oxford says, it's "a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning." To say, this is what I feel, is not to provide anybody any principle, to give a foundation for belief or behavior, or to ground a chain of reasoning. It's just to describe a feeling.

Subjectivism denies even the possibility of principles. That's why Joseph Margolis's book on postmodern ethics is titled, "Life Without Principles."

So again, how do you know when an innovation, like abortion, or trangenderism, or universal human rights...you pick it...how do you know when one of those is moral progress versus moral decline? Where are your criteria for that judgment?

And if you have no way to detect the difference between moral progress and moral decline, why should anybody believe you know anything about what makes a thing "moral" at all?

[Harbal]

I didn't ask if such were possible. I asked what you actually think they are.

Therefore, please give me a list, or at least part of a list, of your principles of discerning when we are progressing, and when we are sliding.

I can only give you principles based on my own judgement of what is morally good, and I can even give you my own arbitrary reasons for adopting those principles.

Well, that's not a "principle," by definition. Oxford says, it's "a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning." To say, this is what I feel, is not to provide anybody any principle, to give a foundation for belief or behavior, or to ground a chain of reasoning. It's just to describe a feeling.

Subjectivism denies even the possibility of principles. That's why Joseph Margolis's book on postmodern ethics is titled, "Life Without Principles."

So again, how do you know when an innovation, like abortion, or trangenderism, or universal human rights...you pick it...how do you know when one of those is moral progress versus moral decline? Where are your criteria for that judgment?

And if you have no way to detect the difference between moral progress and moral decline, why should anybody believe you know anything about what makes a thing "moral" at all?

Okay, we have established there is nothing I can say that you will accept, so I won't waste my, or your, time, but you forgot to respond to this:

So far, all you have done is make claims of objective moral truth, but until you can demonstrate it's existence empirically, those claims can only be regarded as nothing more than your opinions, or personal beliefs. So, for those of us who do not believe there is such a thing as objective moral truth, what can you offer that will rationally force us to reconsider? Even if we allow that God exists, and he issues moral imperatives, he is not giving us truths, because imperatives can be neither true nor false. Imperatives are just commands or instructions, not statements of truth.

[iambiguous]

In Gaza, women can be beaten at will, so long as the stick isn't thicker than a man's finger, children can be forced into marriage, and homosexuals can be thrown from a rooftop. These are lawful things, according to that society. It "reflects the moral attitudes of the people it serves."

Also, in Gaza, the Muslims there worship the God of Abraham:

"Abraham is also extremely important as a leader of Islam and as a patriarch of the Islamic faith. Muslims recognize Abraham as the ancestor through whom many other prophets and saints (Wali) came, including Moses, Jesus (Isa) and Muhammad." wiki

And, no doubt, others who worship the God of Abraham -- Christians and Jews -- have own ultra-orthodox practices that appall many.

But most importantly, given the war there today, there are those who worship the God of Abraham who are fanatically dedicated to wiping off the face of the Earth those who refuse to worship Him in exactly the same way as God's "chosen people" do.

Even within the Jewish and Muslim and Christian faiths there are squabbles over which denomination reflects the one and the only True faith.

Thus...

"Shias comprise a majority in Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Bahrain, and a plurality in Lebanon, while Sunnis make up the majority of more than forty countries from Morocco to Indonesia." wiki

I still recall at the height of the Iraqi civil war [2006 through 2008]...

"The death squads were often disgruntled Shi'a, including members of the security forces, who killed Sunnis to avenge the consequences of the insurgency against the Shi'a-dominated government." wiki

The same God!

'Most mainstream Muslims would generally agree they worship the same God that Christians — or Jews — worship. Zeki Saritoprak, a professor of Islamic studies at John Carroll University in Cleveland, points out that in the Quran there's the Biblical story of Jacob asking his sons whom they'll worship after his death.

"Jacob's sons replied, 'We will worship the God of your fathers' — Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac. He is the God," Saritoprak says. "So this God that Jacob worshipped, this God that Abraham, Isaac worshipped, is the same God that Muslims worship today."' NPR

[Immanuel Can]

I can only give you principles based on my own judgement of what is morally good, and I can even give you my own arbitrary reasons for adopting those principles.

Well, that's not a "principle," by definition. Oxford says, it's "a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning." To say, this is what I feel, is not to provide anybody any principle, to give a foundation for belief or behavior, or to ground a chain of reasoning. It's just to describe a feeling.

Subjectivism denies even the possibility of principles. That's why Joseph Margolis's book on postmodern ethics is titled, "Life Without Principles."

So again, how do you know when an innovation, like abortion, or trangenderism, or universal human rights...you pick it...how do you know when one of those is moral progress versus moral decline? Where are your criteria for that judgment?

And if you have no way to detect the difference between moral progress and moral decline, why should anybody believe you know anything about what makes a thing "moral" at all?

Okay, we have established there is nothing I can say that you will accept,

I absolutely would accept an actual answer. But I asked for a principle, and you only gave me a feeling.

So how do you know moral progress from moral decline? What's the principle we use to do that? Go ahead.

[Harbal]

The Bible doesn't admonish the practice of slavery.

"Admonish"? You should look that word up.

Actually, there is lots the Bible says about slavery, and lots, particularly in the New Testament, that you would have to agree with, such as "do not be slaves of men,"

If the Bible has lots to say about slavery, one has to wonder how pathetic most of it must be if that is one of the better examples, and I'm sure you wouldn't have deliberately choose one of the worst, so I can only assume that it is. Telling someone not to be a slave is hardly a condemnation of slavery. You haven't given any context, but it sounds like it is referring to some metaphoric form of slavery, rather than the actual slavery Gary was referring to.

You also don't know that such noteworthies as the man who abolished slavery throughout the British Empire was a passionate Christian,

He may also have been an extremely keen collector of birds eggs as well, but so what?

Not a bad record, I would say. Far better than anybody else's actually.

But you haven't remotely addressed Gary's suggestion that the Bible does not give out the clear message that slavery is wrong, or evil, as you would say.

[Harbal]

Well, that's not a "principle," by definition. Oxford says, it's "a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning." To say, this is what I feel, is not to provide anybody any principle, to give a foundation for belief or behavior, or to ground a chain of reasoning. It's just to describe a feeling.

Subjectivism denies even the possibility of principles. That's why Joseph Margolis's book on postmodern ethics is titled, "Life Without Principles."

So again, how do you know when an innovation, like abortion, or trangenderism, or universal human rights...you pick it...how do you know when one of those is moral progress versus moral decline? Where are your criteria for that judgment?

And if you have no way to detect the difference between moral progress and moral decline, why should anybody believe you know anything about what makes a thing "moral" at all?

Okay, we have established there is nothing I can say that you will accept,

I absolutely would accept an actual answer. But I asked for a principle, and you only gave me a feeling.

So how do you know moral progress from moral decline? What's the principle we use to do that? Go ahead.

I am conceding that I am not capable of presenting you with anything you would accept as an argument in favour of my expressed views. I am admitting defeat, I have failed. You haven't managed to convince me of anything either, of course, but you are not a quitter, so I expect you will keep at it. Maybe you could proceed by responding to the comments I keep reminding you about; the ones you keep ignoring:

So far, all you have done is make claims of objective moral truth, but until you can demonstrate it's existence empirically, those claims can only be regarded as nothing more than your opinions, or personal beliefs. So, for those of us who do not believe there is such a thing as objective moral truth, what can you offer that will rationally force us to reconsider? Even if we allow that God exists, and he issues moral imperatives, he is not giving us truths, because imperatives can be neither true nor false. Imperatives are just commands or instructions, not statements of truth.

[Immanuel Can]

I am conceding that I am not capable of presenting you with anything you would accept as an argument in favour of my expressed views.

But not realizing that subjectivism is at fault, not me.

Sooner or later, you're probably going to have to subject subjectivism to some sort of scrutiny. And when you do, it will dissolve faster than tissue paper in water. It cannot ground a society, cannot provide information about right and wrong, and can only throw you at the mercy of whatever momentary feeling or sensation strikes you. It's time to relinquish it.

When you see sense about that, consider nihilism. It's at least a rational possibility. Subjectivism is not.