MikeNovack wrote: ↑Thu Jul 24, 2025 5:19 pm
Immanuel, I am asking for clarity about WHY you are claiming a religion can be the basis for an objective moral code. More precisely, why you consider objective (and not subjective) ---- not so much the moral code itself, but the belief in the authority. To that end, I am going to try to lay out what I think you are saying. Please correct anything I am getting wrong. I think you are saying ….
Good question, Mike.
Well, let’s lay the problem out, and then see what can meet its challenge.
Morality has some tasks to do, if it’s going to amount to anything. It needs to be capable of informing people of what is right to do, and wrong to do. Isn’t that basic? And beyond that, it has to help them to organize behavioral rules and practices. Then beyond that, even, it needs to inform a conception of justice, in which rewards and punishments can justifiably be employed to prevent or respond to criminality, and to affirm pro-social behaviours.
Whether it needs to go beyond all that and correspond to something our Creator requires of us, that’s a question we’re going to set aside for the moment, so you and I can agree on as much as possible, and then tackle the vexed question next. Fair enough?
Now, in particular, morality needs to give us information about what to do or not do
when our impulses tell us the opposite. If it cannot do this, then “moral” simply becomes identical with the concept “instinctive,” and thus ceases to serve any function: “instinctive” is all we need to say. But it’s because our emotions are so often out of joint with what, on moral consideration, we realize we SHOULD do, that we turn to morality at all, in order to regulate and evaluate those emotions. And here we encounter the David Hume problem of the “ought” not being the same as the “is,” as well; morality is supposed to inform us not of things that merely are, but of things that should come about (or not come about) as the result of our actions.
Now, one more feature is hugely important here, especially in view of my earlier discussions with the subjectivists. And that is, morality
always has to do with other people. What do I mean? I mean that if you, or if I, were the only person on earth, and moreover, the only morally-consideration-worthy entity in the universe — say, that the rest was all plants, or rocks, or animals to which we were convinced we had no moral connection at all, and could do with as we liked — then we would never have any need at all to refer to morality. Instead, the axiom “Do what thou wilt” would be our watchword; and since there were no other entities in the universe to whom we could owe the least regard or duty, we would never ever have any need to refer to a concept like morality.
Now, these things are not at all particular to a religious perspective. Any secularist is going to naturally have to draw on morality to guide his behaviour, to inform him of what to do, if necessarily, contrary to some of his feelings. He’s going to want it to regulate the behaviour of others toward him, and to tell him what is “moral” to do to them. He’s going to want it to structure his society, to inform his institutions of their ethical duties, to regulate a common justice system, and so on.
In other words, morality has a ton of work to do. And one doesn’t have to be in the least religious to know that.
Now, my point is simple: a subjective or relativistic “morality” is unable to do any of these tasks. And worse than that, it cannot even do the very smallest thing we should hope to get from a moral perspective: it can’t tell even one person what he “should” do, not even for one decision. For where is it ever written that a man is “morally obligated” to resist his impulses? And if impulses are all he needs to have in order to behave in various ways, what need is there for reference to something as abstract as a “moral prohibition” or a “moral sanction” for his actions? There is none, obviously.
Now, at this point, I know what AJ and others will say. They will fall back on a couple of very thin defenses. One is, “Yeah, but if everybody agrees…” But of course, everybody does not agree. And even if they did agree on something, what makes that thing moral? Where is it written down that what everybody believes is always true? Were not 100% of the people on the planet once convinced it was flat?
Or another might be, “Why can’t I make my own moral rules?” And of course, anybody can make up rules. But what makes them “rules,” i.e. things a person has to follow? And what are we trying to say when we add the adjective “moral” to that? Are we not trying to say either, “My rules are objectively good,” or even “My rules are good, and you should agree with me that they are, because they’re moral”? But no subjectivist has even the least warrant to insist on these things. In his worldview, what he’s asking cannot even be made coherent.
The chief problem of the subjectivist is, then, the complete absence of any warrant for his moralizing. There’s nobody to say his view is right or wrong, and nobody is obligated to share his view. Even he, the subjectivist himself, is not duty-bound to a code he produces for himself; for where is it written, “Thou shalt not change thy mind, subjectivist?” If he can desire one thing one minute, and its opposite the next, absent any objective moral code, how can one desire be more “moral” than the other?
Now, this problem does not occur for a moral objectivist. Let’s even leave aside the question of whether or not he’s religious or Theistic. Let’s just say, a person who believes there is some legitimate authorization, some objective reality to moral assessments. He is able to use his convictions (be they right or wrong) to navigate the world and to achieve the functions to which any person looks to morality. He can regulate his own behaviour, be guided as to his relations with others, structure his society, inform his justice system…Whether he’s right or wrong, at this point is not the point: the point is, he has no trouble doing it. His moralizing works and functions as we need it to, even if it’s an illegitimate moralizing, or even (as I would suggest is possible) his so-called “morality” is actually dysfunctional and evil.
The one advantage the misguided secular objectivist has over his subjectivist secularist fellow is that
his morality can function. It may function well or badly, but it functions. That is not the case for the subjectivist: his moralizing does not function, but is 100% arbitrary, fluid, unstable, and useless for all important moral functions.
But here let me dispatch the obvious objection. It is not obvious that we are much better off with an unjustifiable objectivist morality ruling over us than if we have no morality at all, as subjectivism would cause us to conclude. Bad morals are not better than no morals, in some cases. The arbitrary objective moralist may point to the fact that his morality works and functions for some of the things morality is supposed to do, but it isn’t at all apparent that’s always better than simply saying, “Forget morality; everybody go and do your own thing.” True, his moralizing will structure a society, inform a conception of justice, and so on, permitting social life, and subjectivism will not. But is not freedom better than tyranny — even if that freedom degenerates into chaos and hostile, anti-social living?
Maybe so. Maybe not. It’s very hard to say. They both look quite bad, to me.
So what is missing? What is missing is some transcendent, objective Source that would establish universal terms on which morality could be grounded. If we have a transcendent Source capable of that, then we can have real morality. If we don’t, we can only choose one of the following: either an arbitrary, unjustified morality that insists its objective, but is really not, or to function with no morality at all.
So you ask me why we need an authority in order to have morality. I think now, you can see why we do. There’s no alternative, if we believe in a justifiable morality at all.
My problem is that I can visualize some other person saying...
Don’t worry about other people. Delusions are common, and many of them have even afflicted the majority of the world, at times. It’s not what people are
willing to believe or admit that is decisive; it’s what is
true. Reality always wins.
Please explain to me why I should not then consider subjective.
Gladly.
Because of the above. Because subjective morality only really means “no morality at all.” And now you know my reasoning for saying that.
