Is morality objective or subjective?

[Atla]

Okay...you are asleep.

Well, I guess if all the evidence doesn't convince you, then there's no evidence you will accept as convincing.

I'm not asleep, you simply haven't presented any evidence.

Read back. You'll get there, if you have any intention of getting there.

Nothing to read back as there was no evidence presented. Not everyone is 4 mentally so this doesn't work on everyone. But of course it says a lot about you that you would prefer it that way.

[Dontaskme]

"You shall find Me when you seek Me with all your heart."

How about not hiding in the first place.

Then there's no initiative or choice on your side.

Ok, so just to go along with your rather strange presumptive notion that there is a God who exists. Why then does that God feel like he has to hide himself for people to find. Almost like he has to plead with his people to come and find him, and that until they seek him out first, he'll just remain bugged out in his secret little hideaway bunker, totally unavailable.
But why would a God who already exists, need to do that, if God really does exist, surely he'd want his people to know he exists, surely he'd just be right here and now in the exact same place where his people are ''in plain sight'' for everyone to see.

The only reason why that God who hides himself from the people story sounds so ridculous and stupid to anyone with a decent brain cell, is because it is. And those that believe this silly nonsense are stupid too, except they deny their stupidity based on their personal need for a God in the first place. It's a need, it's a longing to know their maker, because without knowing their maker they themselves cannot know nothing, and that's the part of reality that you cannot accept IC

You IC just simply cannot accept that a machine no matter how sophisticated it becomes, can NEVER know it's creator.

In nondual understanding of self, the I that is living life, is being lived, therefore it is not I living life, life is living I
And that is all that can be known, and that's enough, since it's all perfectly here now totally united and present, wholly complete and self-sustaining, one without a second. . . < that's the proper truth.

Not the my side and God is the other side rubbish you talk about IC.

[Harbal]

How about not hiding in the first place.

Then there's no initiative or choice on your side.

Ok, so just to go along with your rather strange presumptive notion that there is a God who exists. Why then does that God feel like he has to hide himself for people to find. Almost like he has to plead with his people to come and find him, and that until they seek him out first, he'll just remain bugged out in his secret little hideaway bunker, totally unavailable.
But why would a God who already exists, need to do that, if God really does exist, surely he'd want his people to know he exists, surely he'd just be right here and now in the exact same place where his people are ''in plain sight'' for everyone to see.

The only reason why that God who hides himself from the people story sounds so ridculous and stupid to anyone with a decent brain cell, is because it is. And those that believe this silly nonsense are stupid too, except they deny their stupidity based on their personal need for a God in the first place. It's a need, it's a longing to know their maker, because without knowing their maker they themselves cannot know nothing, and that's the part of reality that you cannot accept IC

That really is a very good assessment, I think, except that I wouldn't say that those who believe in God are stupid. The capacity to believe implausible things seems to be part of the human condition; it's just that some are more prone to it than others. Those of us lucky enough not to be afflicted with the God delusion should spare a little sympathy for those who are.

[Dontaskme]

Then there's no initiative or choice on your side.

Ok, so just to go along with your rather strange presumptive notion that there is a God who exists. Why then does that God feel like he has to hide himself for people to find. Almost like he has to plead with his people to come and find him, and that until they seek him out first, he'll just remain bugged out in his secret little hideaway bunker, totally unavailable.
But why would a God who already exists, need to do that, if God really does exist, surely he'd want his people to know he exists, surely he'd just be right here and now in the exact same place where his people are ''in plain sight'' for everyone to see.

The only reason why that God who hides himself from the people story sounds so ridculous and stupid to anyone with a decent brain cell, is because it is. And those that believe this silly nonsense are stupid too, except they deny their stupidity based on their personal need for a God in the first place. It's a need, it's a longing to know their maker, because without knowing their maker they themselves cannot know nothing, and that's the part of reality that you cannot accept IC

That really is a very good assessment, I think, except that I wouldn't say that those who believe in God are stupid. The capacity to believe implausible things seems to be part of the human condition; it's just that some are more prone to it than others. Those of us lucky enough not to be afflicted with the God delusion should spare a little sympathy for those who are.

[Immanuel Can]

I'm not asleep, you simply haven't presented any evidence.

Read back. You'll get there, if you have any intention of getting there.

Nothing to read back as there was no evidence presented.

Can't read?

Well, maybe you could...in any case, I'm not going to keep reproducing what I've already posted on that subject. And if you can't see that I've already pegged the incoherences of subjectivism, then you're never going to see it now, I guess.

Okay, have a good day, I guess.

[Atla]

Read back. You'll get there, if you have any intention of getting there.

Nothing to read back as there was no evidence presented.

Can't read?

Well, maybe you could...in any case, I'm not going to keep reproducing what I've already posted on that subject. And if you can't see that I've already pegged the incoherences of subjectivism, then you're never going to see it now, I guess.

Okay, have a good day, I guess.

If you don't understand what an 'incoherency' is, you can look it up in a dictionary.

[Harbal]

Read back. You'll get there, if you have any intention of getting there.

Nothing to read back as there was no evidence presented.

Can't read?

Well, maybe you could...in any case, I'm not going to keep reproducing what I've already posted on that subject. And if you can't see that I've already pegged the incoherences of subjectivism, then you're never going to see it now, I guess.

Okay, have a good day, I guess.

Moral subjectivism exists, IC. You can say it is meaningless and useless if you like, but we all know there is such a thing, and you are going to get absolutely nowhere by stubbornly refusing to acknowledge it. I think we all also know why you are trying to eliminate it as even a possibility before you attempt to sell your "objective" morality. You know you don't stand a chance unless you can first somehow convince everybody it is the only possible option. We are not idiots, IC.

To which you will no doubt answer, "but it is the only possible option", and on, and on, and on we will all trundle.

[Immanuel Can]

Why then does that God feel like he has to hide himself for people to find.

Do you have any idea at all what it would be like if the Supreme Being actually revealed Himself to you?

Do you suppose, after that, you would have any choice at all about what you knew? If you suppose that, you don't have any conception of God at all.

The choice you have, you have now, and because God has not appeared to you in such a way as you cannot doubt -- if you are already obdurately set to deny what everybody ought to know. But the Bible says He has revealed enough of Himself to you that you really ought to know He exists...and that if you don't, it's only because you're choosing not to recognize what you really ought to know...and that's on you, not on God.

[Immanuel Can]

If you don't understand what an 'incoherency' is, you can look it up in a dictionary.

This is not interesting or intellectually stimulating, so I'm going to spend my time on somebody who is being more engaging. Insult wars are not interesting. While they are all too common on forums such as this, I don't find them an adult taste.

[Immanuel Can]

Moral subjectivism exists, IC.

Yes, it does. But it "exists" in the sense that belief in bodily humours or belief in luck exists: that is, in minds that have not properly grasped the situation or (out of either obduracy or incapacity) refuse to process what moral subjectivism would imply. That is, it "exists" in the sense any delusory social phenomenon can be said to "exist," and not as a rational belief.

A bit rough to say, but that's the truth.

[Atla]

If you don't understand what an 'incoherency' is, you can look it up in a dictionary.

This is not interesting or intellectually stimulating, so I'm going to spend my time on somebody who is being more engaging. Insult wars are not interesting. While they are all too common on forums such as this, I don't find them an adult taste.

Again, of course it's not interesting or intellectually stimulating, even smart 12-year-olds know how to dismantle objective morality. So when an adult like you tries to 'argue' for it anyway, and also tries to do away with subjectivism, the best you will be able to come up with will be sophistry and insults.

As we've seen. But I welcome the change that during the course of this little debate, you've grown up and developed an adult taste, and are now repulsed by this whole thing.

[Harbal]

Moral subjectivism exists, IC.

Yes, it does.

Okay then, and you have made it as clear as crystal what you think about it. I am certain that nobody who has been following this thread will be in any doubt about your views on it. Would it be fair to say that you recognise that moral subjectivity exists, but you assert that it is absolutely useless? I somehow know you are not going to let it be as simple as that, but I'm sure I can't be the only one who is wondering when you are actually going to present a case for objective morality.

[Immanuel Can]

Would it be fair to say that you recognise that moral subjectivity exists, but you assert that it is absolutely useless?

Well, let's run the list: useless, self-contradicting, morally uninformative, incoherent...and delusory, since what it represents is not genuinely anything that can reasonably be called "morality." And each one of those can be substantiated with an argument that, as I have already put forth, subjectivism can't deal with.

So I'd say that's a pretty good list...

But to your second question, as for the case for objective morality, I'm fine presenting one. But before I do, we need to do two things: one is to recognize the unavoidable about subjective morality -- so that people who remain doubtful of objectivism don't mentally slide back into that untenable position. So we need to burn that bad house to the ground, first. Secondly, we need to address the possibility that moral nihilism is reasonable; because people who have been deprived of the subjectivist delusion, but who refuse to consider objectivism, are bound to slide into moral nihilism if they can't return to the polyannish belief in moral subjectivism.

I think the problem that really needs to be addressed today is not that too many people are committed objectivists. And it's not even that too many people are thoroughgoing moral nihilists; it's that almost everybody has slid into a brainless moral subjectivism, which is a straw house that's already conceptually "on fire," and will not answer the moral needs the world has.

I'm not the only one to think the problem runs this way, either. Philosopher Allan Bloom famously wrote in his introduction to The Closing of the American Mind this remarkable observation:

There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every
student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is
relative. If this belief is put to the test, one can count on the students'
reaction: they will be uncomprehending. That anyone should regard the
proposition as not self-evident astonishes them, as though he were calling
into question 2 + 2 = 4 . These are things you don't think about. The
students' backgrounds are as various as America can provide. Some are
religious, some atheists; some are to the Left, some to the Right; some
intend to be scientists, some humanists or professionals or businessmen;
some are poor, some rich. They are unified only in their relativism and
in their allegiance to equality. And the two are related in a moral inten-
tion. The relativity of truth is not a theoretical insight but a moral
postulate, the condition of a free society, or so they see it. They have all
been equipped with this framework early on, and it is the modern replace-
ment for the inalienable natural rights that used to be the traditional
American grounds for a free society. That it is a moral issue for students
is revealed by the character of their response when challenged—a combi-
nation of disbelief and indignation: "Are you an absolutist?," the only
alternative they know, uttered in the same tone as "Are you a monar-
chist?" or "Do you really believe in witches?" This latter leads into the
indignation, for someone who believes in witches might well be a witch-
hunter or a Salem judge. The danger they have been taught to fear from
absolutism is not error but intolerance. Relativism is necessary to open-
ness; and this is the virtue, the only virtue, which all primary education
for more than fifty years has dedicated itself to inculcating. Openness—
and the relativism that makes it the only plausible stance in the face of
various claims to truth and various ways of life and kinds of human beings
—is the great insight of our times. The true believer is the real danger.
The study of history and of culture teaches that all the world was mad
in the past; men always thought they were right, and that led to wars,
persecutions, slavery, xenophobia, racism, and chauvinism. The point is
not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think
you are right at all.

The students, of course, cannot defend their opinion. It is something
with which they have been indoctrinated. The best they can do is point
out all the opinions and cultures there are and have been. What right,
they ask, do I or anyone else have to say one is better than the others?
If I pose the routine questions designed to confute them and make them
think, such as, "If you had been a British administrator in India, would
you have let the natives under your governance burn the widow at the
funeral of a man who had died?," they either remain silent or reply that
the British should never have been there in the first place. It is not that
they know very much about other nations, or about their own. The
purpose of their education is not to make them scholars but to provide
them with a moral virtue—openness.


In other words, knee-jerk, unthinking relativism and subjectivism is the ideology into which Western society is being indoctrinated. It's not Christianity, or Logical Positivism, or even mere Consumerism: it's subjectivism. And as the first genuine threat to moral reflection, subjectivism is the first brainless idol that must be torn down before any clear thought can return. I think that; but so does Allan Bloom. And we are quite different men.

What needs to be understood, as a preliminary, is that there is really no rational alternative to some form of objectivism, whether mine or somebody else's (a matter yet to be settled, of course). That has to happen first. Then we can weigh the different accounts of objectivism that are on offer, and arrive at something we might want to believe, something that makes sense, something that is functional for society, something that's not immediately self-contradictory, and something that's at least possibly true.

And why would we, as philosophers, want to do less?

[EuPrattein]

Quite simply: there are opposing moral systems of values, what is good here is often evil there and vice versa. After all the fundamental condition of all life is Perspective.

[Harbal]

..

But to your second question, as for the case for objective morality, I'm fine presenting one. But before I do, we need to do two things: one is to recognize the unavoidable about subjective morality -- so that people who remain doubtful of objectivism don't mentally slide back into that untenable position. So we need to burn that bad house to the ground, first. Secondly, we need to address the possibility that moral nihilism is reasonable; because people who have been deprived of the subjectivist delusion, but who refuse to consider objectivism, are bound to slide into moral nihilism if they can't return to the polyannish belief in moral subjectivism.

As I said:

I somehow know you are not going to let it be as simple as that

And as I also said:

I think we all also know why you are trying to eliminate it as even a possibility before you attempt to sell your "objective" morality. You know you don't stand a chance unless you can first somehow convince everybody it is the only possible option. We are not idiots, IC.

You obviously think we are all idiots.


Can't you just play the game straight, for once?