Is morality objective or subjective?

[Immanuel Can]

I don't think it is, for the simple reason that resemblance doesn't make an argument for equivalency.

Except for resemblance to God, at least in image. Then it makes an argument.

We're talking about two different kinds of "image." To say that one is made "in the image of God" is not to say, "one looks like God." There's a great deal of discussion among theologians about all it entails, but I think it's to say one is a person, with one's own identity, consciousness and volition.

Anyway, it's the basis of our whole rationale for human rights, which we get from John Locke.

There are powerful ways of telling the story -- like the Social Darwinist narrative, for example, or Randianism, or Nietzscheanism -- where some people are thought to be just plain better than others, and more deserving of the lion's share of resources. And some such views, such as those of the eugenics crowd, even hold that the race is better off if the "inferiors" die.

I wonder what thoughts of human equality the Christians had in their minds when they were going off to the crusades.

Ask the Catholics. They did it. Well, the Muslims did it first, of course, and for much longer, and involving far greater violence: but nobody counts that, it seems. However, you'll not find anything in Christianity to warrant either.

That's assumptive, of course. And were it correct, it would mean that "Do not kill" would be on parallel with, "Killing tastes nice/doesn't taste nice." Too bad that tastes differ, in that regard.

But isn't that the way it is? [/quote] If it were, we would not have any reason to lock up psycho killers and other homicidal types. After all, they were just exercising their taste...with fava beans.

If God created man, and required him to behave within a prescribed set of moral standards, why do you suppose he gave him such a brutish and vicious underlying nature?

He didn't. But when one creates free-will-having creatures, that means that they can choose to do the right thing, or choose not to. That's the minimum such a thing requires, logically.

Yes, that's true. But likewise, the moral convictions of northern Pakistanis that their family honour has been offended, so they must rape your sister in order to restore their honour would feel like an objective truth to them.

I daresay it would, but why would they be convinced otherwise by your argument moreso than mine?

They might not be. But at least you and I would be clear on what was the right side to take our stand on.

But "we" are not the problem. The problem is that not everybody believes what "we" believe, and we need grounds for saying to such, "Even though you believe X, you are simply wrong about that, and we shall not permit it here."

I don't see why we need to persuade them about the grounds, and I'm not sure we even could, so when we say, "we shall not permit it here", we will have to say it all the more forcefully.

This is why were you have to start is with their worldview. Educating people begins by helping them to see what's true and what's not. Ontology always precedes morality.

But giving grounds for things is what democratic people do. They invite rational decision-making. They persuade. They don't leap to the use of force unless they have to; and when they do, they need to know that what they are doing is really right, because they have to know what's reasonable, proportional and just, as well.

Nobody says that's easy. But there's no other way it must be.

Okay. What when society ends up following the new religions? For as demographics shift, that will become inevitable. Will we not still need a way of saying, "Though you are in the majority now, and hold the political power, still, you have no legitimacy in enslaving/raping/oppressing/etc.? Will not the suffering need some grounds for at least knowing what wrongs are being done to them? And should not a clear, political case be made for the enshrinement in law of some very basic rights, like free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of conscience, and freedom of belief?

But on what shall we base such freedoms, if we have convinced ourselves that freedom is just a formality invented by our perishing society, with no more endurance than it has?

I've said this to you before, but that is not an argument for the existence of God and objective morality, it is only an argument for convincing people of it, whether it's true or not.

It's not designed to do either. It's simply designed to point out how woefully inadequate and disastrous reliance on socially-constructed morality is bound to be.

It's the negation of the "social" view, not the affirmation of moral objectivism. It's a first step, not the last step. I would advance other arguments if I were trying to argue for the existence of God or positively in favour of objective morality. I'm not doing that...yet. I'm just showing where the other view goes.

[Harbal]

I've said this to you before, but that is not an argument for the existence of God and objective morality, it is only an argument for convincing people of it, whether it's true or not.

It's not designed to do either. It's simply designed to point out how woefully inadequate and disastrous reliance on socially-constructed morality is bound to be.

It's the negation of the "social" view, not the affirmation of moral objectivism. It's a first step, not the last step. I would advance other arguments if I were trying to argue for the existence of God or positively in favour of objective morality. I'm not doing that...yet. I'm just showing where the other view goes.

What I meant was, your arguments seems to be trying to make the case that objective moral law, where the rules come from God, is more effective and leads to a better outcome than morality based on our subjective view of right and wrong. I don't believe in God, so it cannot be the case for me that we have to look to God as our guide to morality, but that does not stop those who do believe in him from doing it. As long as they believe God is the source, the outcome would be the same as if he did exist. Your argument says it would be a better way, but it doesn't do anything to establish it is the case that there is a God from whence morality comes. All you are really saying is that objective morality is better than subjective, but you have said nothing to support the claim that there actually is such a thing as objective morality.

[Dontaskme]

“What is morality? It is not the following of enjoined rules of conduct. It is not a question of standing above temptations, or of conquering hate, anger, greed, lust and violence.
Questioning your actions before and after creates the moral problem. What is responsible for this situation is the faculty of distinguishing between right and wrong and influencing your actions accordingly.Life is action. Unquestioned action is morality. Questioning your actions is destroying the expression of life. A person who lets life act in its own way without the protective movement of thought has no self to defend. What need will he have to lie or cheat or pretend or to commit any other act which his society considers immoral?”

[Dontaskme]

We're talking about two different kinds of "image." To say that one is made "in the image of God" is not to say, "one looks like God." There's a great deal of discussion among theologians about all it entails, but I think it's to say one is a person, with one's own identity, consciousness and volition.

God implies an image.

Images are not the screen on which they appear, on which they can be known, seen. Images are inseparable from the screen of seeing, this screen must be imageless, just like a mirror cannot be the image it reflects, and yet the mirror is inseparable from what it reflects. In other words, there is no thing reflecting a thing. No image reflecting an image, all images are transparently empty to their core, only appearing as though full. Appearances are deceptive, they are not what they appear to be, this can be shown in the 'powers of ten' video.

A 'moral man' is a 'chicken'. A 'moral man' is a frightened man, a chicken-hearted man -- that is why he practices morality and sits in judgement over others. And his righteous indignation! A moral man (if there is one) will never, never talk of morality or sit in judgement on the morals of others. Never!

'' Only the man who is capable of immorality can talk of morality. There is no such thing as immorality for me''

[Gary Childress]

Indeed so. Very troubling.

Why is it troubling to you that "political correctness" can change the law?

Because "political correctness" is not part of the legitimate political process. It does not invite discussion, debate or reasoning. It does not care about precedent or general human rights, or freedom, or achievement and merit, or the will of the people. In fact, it hates all those things and aims at undermining them in the interest of a single-minded Leftist ideological agenda advanced by bullying.

Here's how it works, simply put. One calls everybody who disagrees with one a "racist-sexist-homophobe-Islamophobe-transphobe-bigot-oppressor" until they cave in, and you run the show. It's a game run by bullies and granted by cowards and conformists. It lacks integrity, truth, wisdom and intelligence, and ends up serving only the interests of the elite manipulators in the media and big business.

So that would be why. Good reasons, I think.

OK. So here's the thing... What you are describing is something that someone calls the "correct" way of viewing things. However, you make some very salient points to counter the claim by those who argue for that way of thinking, demonstrating that they do not have the 'correct' way of viewing things. This is the way 'correctness' works among us. This is the way we humans uncover what is just and what isn't. That process is how justice is determined.

[Immanuel Can]

I've said this to you before, but that is not an argument for the existence of God and objective morality, it is only an argument for convincing people of it, whether it's true or not.

It's not designed to do either. It's simply designed to point out how woefully inadequate and disastrous reliance on socially-constructed morality is bound to be.

It's the negation of the "social" view, not the affirmation of moral objectivism. It's a first step, not the last step. I would advance other arguments if I were trying to argue for the existence of God or positively in favour of objective morality. I'm not doing that...yet. I'm just showing where the other view goes.

What I meant was, your arguments seems to be trying to make the case that objective moral law, where the rules come from God, is more effective and leads to a better outcome than morality based on our subjective view of right and wrong.

There is a good case for that. But I haven't even tried to make it (yet). All I've been pointing to is the fact that the idea that society makes morality doesn't account for very key things we not only need but expect from basic morality, such as effectively condemning things like slavery and rape by providing reaonable grounds for doing so. The social view doesn't even get us to the point where we can know that we, ourselves are right in such prohibitions, let alone have any possibility of convincing rational others to do so. So it's doing a pretty awful job of providing a foundation for moral judgment.

Even intution seems better than the social view. At least with intuition or conscience, we might be intuiting an objective truth about morality that perhaps we cannot quite grasp. The social view gives us nothing at all, except the idea that the reason people are being regarded as right is by dint of their numbers and power, or by dint of their traditional habits only...all of which can vapourize with the next change of wind.

But intuition isn't enough, either. If there's going to be a moral understanding that allows us to oppose, in a rationally consistent way, the worst devils of our nature, such as rape, slavery or genocide, then we're going to need something much more substantial and durable than either intuition or the social view.

Now, it's clear what we need is an objective account of morality. We need to be able to say that slavery actually IS wrong, and rape IS evil, and genocide CANNOT be justified: but once we embrace Materialism, Nihilism, Social Constructivism, or any of the other "-isms" that insist there can be no objective basis for morality, we've lost the battle already; then, there will never be a basis for our moral determinations outside of the raw and immoral use of power to compel obedience -- that same power that can be used against us, to defeat us, and will be used against us as soon as numbers favour the immoral. For power is not a moral persuader; it's simply a case of force and compulsion.

So whatever these other, secular views are describing as "morality," it's clearly not sufficient, fails to represent much that we expect from morality, and has absolutely no durability whatsoever.

...you have said nothing to support the claim that there actually is such a thing as objective morality.

Quite right, so far. All I have pointed out is that these other things, the subjectivist routes, will not give us anything at all that we can recognize as "morality." There are two rational possibilities from here: one is that there might be an objective route that is better, and the other is that there is simply no real thing such as "morality" at all, beyond the curious psychological or social phenomenon we have effectively disemboweled above.

I believe the former, of course. But I'm quite aware that there's a fundamental problem in proposing it: Atheism. Atheism will not ultimately rationalize with any such view. And as you insist, you don't believe in God. So if there the matter ends, then you are forever without a secure basis upon which to prohibit things like rape, slavery or genocide, and without any secure basis to insist on positive values like love, mercy and peace. All values are merely the quirks of a given society, and don't last longer than that.

Can I rationally rescue the world from that position on purely secular terms? No, I cannot. That, I freely confess. But the problem, I suggest, is in the terms dictated beforehand, not in morality itself.

[Dontaskme]

blah de blah de blah on repeat.

Morality does not come from somewhere or from some thing you like to call God.

Morality already exists. Morality is innately present at all times in life. Life already knows to fear what it fears and to recoil away from what it fears in favour of the good.

That's all you need to know. Only the man who is capable of immorality can talk of morality. There is no such thing as immorality for me.

It doesn't get more simplistic than that IC. If you want to waste your energy trying to explain morality to the masses over and over again, then that's your prerogative, but what a waste of your time and energy.

Why are you wasting all your time and energy, justifying through endless attempts at trying to explain something like morality, that already innately exists in the universe, that even a baby is born with it already programmed into it's being by nature herself, nature being the only existence there is, right here and now, that is already fully equipped with everything it needs to deal with itself in order to thrive and live.

[Atla]

The only "objective morality" available that could unify the planet is Islam. Other religions have made it past the stage where they are willing to crush or even kill people of different belief and the atheists.

So, are Christians ready and willing to convert to Islam?

[Harbal]

It's not designed to do either. It's simply designed to point out how woefully inadequate and disastrous reliance on socially-constructed morality is bound to be.

It's the negation of the "social" view, not the affirmation of moral objectivism. It's a first step, not the last step. I would advance other arguments if I were trying to argue for the existence of God or positively in favour of objective morality. I'm not doing that...yet. I'm just showing where the other view goes.

What I meant was, your arguments seems to be trying to make the case that objective moral law, where the rules come from God, is more effective and leads to a better outcome than morality based on our subjective view of right and wrong.

There is a good case for that. But I haven't even tried to make it (yet). All I've been pointing to is the fact that the idea that society makes morality doesn't account for very key things we not only need but expect from basic morality, such as effectively condemning things like slavery and rape by providing reaonable grounds for doing so.

No, morality is not something that appeals to reason, it has to appeal to emotion to be effective. You have to feel something is wrong, rather than rationalise it, otherwise it isn't morality, in my opinion. If you abstain from slavery and rape for the sole reason that you believe God forbids it, you are not practicing morality, you are merely practicing obedience. You might say that would be a more effective way of regulating behaviour, and I couldn't say whether it would be or not, but I wouldn't call it morality. Unless you do what you believe to be right out of a personal conviction that it is right, it just doesn't qualify as morality. So you are right, morality as I see it does not provide reasonable grounds, exept in as much as if you feel something is wrong, it is reasonable not to do it.

The social view doesn't even get us to the point where we can know that we, ourselves are right in such prohibitions,

We can know that we are right in condemning something as wrong when that thing conflicts with our own moral sense. We don't need to believe something is objectively, universally and unconditionally right before we are able to feel certain that it is right. I know that the universe is completely indifferent towards rape and slavery, but that to no extent requires me to be indifferent towards them.

let alone have any possibility of convincing rational others to do so.

The title of the thread asks, is morality objective or subjective? not, can subjective morality convince rational others?

So it's doing a pretty awful job of providing a foundation for moral judgment.

It is actually doing an excellent job of keeping me, and all my personal acquantances, from practicing rape and slavery, and I have reason to think there are a great many others, with whom I am not personally acquainted, who feel morally obliged not to rape or keep slaves. I do freely admit, though, the morality that prevails in my neck of the woods probably has negligible influence on Pakistan.

Even intution seems better than the social view. At least with intuition or conscience, we might be intuiting an objective truth about morality that perhaps we cannot quite grasp.

There are no objective moral truths. Moral truth could only exist in the mind of God, and I and many others don't believe in God, but maybe you know where else it might exist; otherwise, all we are really arguing about here is whether God exists, and that is an argument I have no interest in taking part in.

The social view gives us nothing at all, except the idea that the reason people are being regarded as right is by dint of their numbers and power, or by dint of their traditional habits only...all of which can vapourize with the next change of wind.

Okay, that is your criticism of personal -albeit collective- subjective morality, but your view that it is inadequate is not an argument against it being the only morality we have. There are, I agree, circumstances where moral values can "vapourize with the next change of wind", but we don't live in an ideal world.

But intuition isn't enough, either. If there's going to be a moral understanding that allows us to oppose, in a rationally consistent way, the worst devils of our nature, such as rape, slavery or genocide, then we're going to need something much more substantial and durable than either intuition or the social view.

Your rationally consistent way of opposing these devils would be to frighten them into better behaviour with threats of God, I suppose. Well that wouldn't work on me, were I a determined rapist or genocidal maniac, and I suspect there are a good many others it wouldn't work on.

Now, it's clear what we need is an objective account of morality. We need to be able to say that slavery actually IS wrong, and rape IS evil, and genocide CANNOT be justified: but once we embrace Materialism, Nihilism, Social Constructivism, or any of the other "-isms" that insist there can be no objective basis for morality, we've lost the battle already;

I don't call on any of these isms to be able to say there is no such thing as objective moral law, I call on logic and common sense.

; then, there will never be a basis for our moral determinations outside of the raw and immoral use of power to compel obedience -- that same power that can be used against us, to defeat us,

Yes, that is what I actually think is dangerous about your scheme. The Church once had the people firmly under its thumb, and those pulling the levers within the Church were only interested in controlling us, and their supposed morality from God was just one of the tools that helped them do it. I don't think we want that back. We know how those like fundamental Christians and Muslims can be manipulated by their "spiritual" leaders, so we should be on our guard against letting religious authority and influence get a foothold.

So whatever these other, secular views are describing as "morality," it's clearly not sufficient, fails to represent much that we expect from morality, and has absolutely no durability whatsoever.

Then we need to try to make it better, but not by replacing it with a fiction.

All I have pointed out is that these other things, the subjectivist routes, will not give us anything at all that we can recognize as "morality."

It's the only thing I can recognise as morality, because subjectivity is at the core of morality. If you take that away it is no longer morality, it is just the imposition of someone else's values.

There are two rational possibilities from here: one is that there might be an objective route that is better, and the other is that there is simply no real thing such as "morality" at all, beyond the curious psychological or social phenomenon we have effectively disemboweled above.

What do you mean, we? I had no part in the disemvbowelling, you did it on your own. Fortunately for you, the consequences of disembowelling a straw man are minor compared to those of doing it to a real one.

Atheism will not ultimately rationalize with any such view.

Well of course it won't. How can it when it is not a rational view?

And as you insist, you don't believe in God.

I don't insist, I merely mention it as a matter of fact.

So if there the matter ends, then you are forever without a secure basis upon which to prohibit things like rape, slavery or genocide, and without any secure basis to insist on positive values like love, mercy and peace. All values are merely the quirks of a given society, and don't last longer than that.

It would take a heart of stone not to laugh at that, to quote somone or other.

[Immanuel Can]

No, morality is not something that appeals to reason, it has to appeal to emotion to be effective.

It's not an either-or. A moral claim can be reasonable AND appeal to emotion, or it can be effective and even NOT appeal to emotion.

For example, if emotionally one were to feel that blacks were inferior, that would not justify the equivalent claim as a matter of reason or fact. It would only mean that one had got the case wrong, and needed to be better informed as to what emotions are appropriate to the case.

I'm sure you see that.

If you abstain from slavery and rape for the sole reason that you believe God forbids it, you are not practicing morality, you are merely practicing obedience.

No, that doesn't follow at all.

When you hear that slavery and rape are wrong, you have a choice: you can believe it or not. And you can act on it, or not. So either alternative is the action of choice, not of mere "obedience." It's the fact that a moral claim can be resisted or refused that prevents it from being a matter of mere compliance to some imposed code.

Unless you do what you believe to be right out of a personal conviction that it is right, it just doesn't qualify as morality.

But that's what you ARE doing, when you say, "I accept the claim that slavery and rape are wrong." You've stated a personal conviction. And if your society tells you rape and slavery is wrong, and you "obey" that, then how are you any more "personally convicted" than the person who responds to the instruction of God? You're still responding to a given claim...except you've got a much more dubious authority issuing it. At least God is reputed to be changeless and holy; society is, by all accounts, a shifting and changeable thing.

So why is your socially-dictated "obedience" more "personally convicted" than somebody else's free response to God?

The social view doesn't even get us to the point where we can know that we, ourselves are right in such prohibitions,

We can know that we are right in condemning something as wrong when that thing conflicts with our own moral sense.

But "we" don't have "a" moral sense. What "we" have is many different senses of what is moral and what is not. There are some overlaps, but not nearly enough that we can avoid serious conflicts over very important issues that impinge on things like personal freedom and rights to things like life, liberty, property and body. That much is glaringly obvious, is it not?

let alone have any possibility of convincing rational others to do so.

The title of the thread asks, is morality objective or subjective? not, can subjective morality convince rational others?

I'd love to see how it could. If you think you can make a case that a purely subjective moralizing should obligate another person, I'd love to see how that argument would run.

Even intution seems better than the social view. At least with intuition or conscience, we might be intuiting an objective truth about morality that perhaps we cannot quite grasp.

There are no objective moral truths.

Assumptive, not proven.

Moral truth could only exist in the mind of God, and I and many others don't believe in God, but maybe you know where else it might exist; otherwise, all we are really arguing about here is whether God exists, and that is an argument I have no interest in taking part in.

Unfortunately for you, that's exactly where it goes.

If you follow the argument logically, you realize that without God there's nothing durable in any morality. And Nietzsche, then, was right: that all moralizing is nothing but an illegitimate attempt by one group (of weaker people) to seize power over others (the stronger, the ubermenschen), and that a smart person would simply ignore it all...or use it for his own purposes and discard it without compunction when it fails to serve his turn.

The social view gives us nothing at all, except the idea that the reason people are being regarded as right is by dint of their numbers and power, or by dint of their traditional habits only...all of which can vapourize with the next change of wind.

Okay, that is your criticism of personal -albeit collective- subjective morality, but your view that it is inadequate is not an argument against it being the only morality we have.

Well, that's assumptive again. I don't think it's true. We DO have the objective morality; we just don't like it. But it looks the same to somebody who's already committed to subjectivism, of course.

But intuition isn't enough, either. If there's going to be a moral understanding that allows us to oppose, in a rationally consistent way, the worst devils of our nature, such as rape, slavery or genocide, then we're going to need something much more substantial and durable than either intuition or the social view.

Your rationally consistent way of opposing these devils would be to frighten them into better behaviour with threats of God, I suppose.

No, threats don't work. If the fear of Hell would keep devils at bay, we wouldn't have any, would we? But the truth is that threats -- even of Hell -- do not prevent people from doing quite hellish things. That is because we have free will, with respect to morality: we are quite capable of knowing the good and refusing to do it, or of recognizing the evil and embracing it.

Now, it's clear what we need is an objective account of morality. We need to be able to say that slavery actually IS wrong, and rape IS evil, and genocide CANNOT be justified: but once we embrace Materialism, Nihilism, Social Constructivism, or any of the other "-isms" that insist there can be no objective basis for morality, we've lost the battle already;

I don't call on any of these isms to be able to say there is no such thing as objective moral law, I call on logic and common sense.

Yet the outcome is the same, exactly. You cannot appeal to logic and common sense unless you can prove there's a prior law that says, "We ought to follow Harbal's common sense and logic." But since, as you say, there are no such objective values, that's a thing you can't say.

The Church once had the people firmly under its thumb,

That wasn't the real church. And you can tell, because they did not do what Jesus Christ taught them they should do. It's really that simple.

So whatever these other, secular views are describing as "morality," it's clearly not sufficient, fails to represent much that we expect from morality, and has absolutely no durability whatsoever.

Then we need to try to make it better, but not by replacing it with a fiction.

Okay, we've been trying to. And all that's happened is we've ended up with a series of conflicting systems...deontology, consequentialisms, utiltarianism, virtue ethics of various kinds, emotivism, intuitionism, pragmatism, nihilism...and on, and on, and on. And what we've found is that these systems don't only not agree about important issues, but that all of them lack any basis for us to become duty-bound to any one more than another, or to any of them at all. So the secular ethical project has been tried very vigorously...and so far, is a dismal failure on every score.

All I have pointed out is that these other things, the subjectivist routes, will not give us anything at all that we can recognize as "morality."

It's the only thing I can recognise as morality, because subjectivity is at the core of morality. If you take that away it is no longer morality, it is just the imposition of someone else's values.

Now you've got it! Nietzsche would agree with you. All there is, is the imposition of somebody else's values, he said. So we need to get "beyond good and evil," and just do what we bloody well feel like, so long as we consider it "life affirming."

Atheism will not ultimately rationalize with any such view.

Well of course it won't. How can it when it is not a rational view?

The problem's in the Atheism. Atheism, being both irrational and unrealistic, can't teach us anything about morality. Fortunately for us both, most Atheists do not pay much attention to their Atheism or its consequences, and simply use it as a deflector in order to get away from the idea of God. If they took it more seriously, it would inform them that objective morality is impossible, and subjective morality is a fiction, and social morality is an attempt to control us. So then, there would be no thought of morality left at all.

Good thing Atheist are sufficiently hypocritical not to take their own ontology with any great seriousness.

[Peter Holmes]

There are no objective moral truths. Moral truth could only exist in the mind of God, and I and many others don't believe in God, but maybe you know where else it might exist; otherwise, all we are really arguing about here is whether God exists, and that is an argument I have no interest in taking part in.

I agree with nearly everything you say. My one question is about moral truth existing in the mind of a god. I don't think there's such a thing as a moral truth. There are only moral assertions, such as 'capital punishment is morally right/wrong', which don't have factual truth-value.

So, if a god did think, say, that 'homosexuality is morally wrong' - that wouldn't be a moral truth in the god's mind. It would be merely the (of course invented) god's moral opinion.

Iow, I think the expression 'moral truth' is incoherent.

[Immanuel Can]

There are no objective moral truths. Moral truth could only exist in the mind of God, and I and many others don't believe in God, but maybe you know where else it might exist; otherwise, all we are really arguing about here is whether God exists, and that is an argument I have no interest in taking part in.

I agree with nearly everything you say.

Ah, Peter again.

Have you got a solution to the Frege-Geach "boo" problem? I haven't seen one, or even an answer...

[Harbal]

No, morality is not something that appeals to reason, it has to appeal to emotion to be effective.

It's not an either-or. A moral claim can be reasonable AND appeal to emotion, or it can be effective and even NOT appeal to emotion.

For example, if emotionally one were to feel that blacks were inferior, that would not justify the equivalent claim as a matter of reason or fact. It would only mean that one had got the case wrong, and needed to be better informed as to what emotions are appropriate to the case.

I'm sure you see that.

Yes, a moral claim can be reasonable, but it is its emotional appeal that makes it moral, any rational aspect to it is just incidental, and its persuasive power is based on practicality, not morality. So you would have both a moral and a practical reason for doing a certain thing.

Those who feel blacks, gays etc. to be inferior, tend to find a way of bending rationality to confirm their feeling, rather than revise their feeling in deference to facts.

If you abstain from slavery and rape for the sole reason that you believe God forbids it, you are not practicing morality, you are merely practicing obedience.

No, that doesn't follow at all.

When you hear that slavery and rape are wrong, you have a choice: you can believe it or not. And you can act on it, or not. So either alternative is the action of choice, not of mere "obedience." It's the fact that a moral claim can be resisted or refused that prevents it from being a matter of mere compliance to some imposed code.

If you are in favour of slavery and rape, and you hear that God says it is wrong, you have the choice of carrying on as you are, or changing your ways in order to comply with God's wishes. But what would motivate you to change? It seems to me that you would do it out of fear or respect, but not because it suddenly made you see slavery and rape in a new light. It would still be a good thing for you to change your ways, but your reason for changing would not be morality.

Unless you do what you believe to be right out of a personal conviction that it is right, it just doesn't qualify as morality.

But that's what you ARE doing, when you say, "I accept the claim that slavery and rape are wrong." You've stated a personal conviction. And if your society tells you rape and slavery is wrong, and you "obey" that, then how are you any more "personally convicted" than the person who responds to the instruction of God?

Society's morality is constituted by the collective moral attitude of its members, and I am one of its members, so my moral values are likely to be generally in line with those of my society. It seems to me that the moral environment in which we spend our formative years pretty much sets our moral attitudes. Not in stone, I admit, but that is where our default moral values appear to come from. We just absorb them. How else would you account for the different moral attitudes of different societies, or members of those societies. So I am not saying we are obeying the instructions of our society, I am saying we are a constituent part of the moral nature of our society, and we feel its values to be right. But people's moral opinions do sometimes go against the generally prevailing ones of their society, and if they live in a free society, they will probably express their opinion.

You're still responding to a given claim...except you've got a much more dubious authority issuing it. At least God is reputed to be changeless and holy; society is, by all accounts, a shifting and changeable thing.

Yes, some societies do have what we consider to be dubious moral standards, but I am just saying how I think we acquire our moral values, I am not making any assertions about the quality of those values in any particular case. And God is not changeless, or it seems not if we look at what has been said by those who have claimed to represent him thoughout history.

So why is your socially-dictated "obedience" more "personally convicted" than somebody else's free response to God?

When society's moral attitude is reflected in the law I suppose it is dictated, but in a free democracy the law is broadly in line with what people want. Other than that, I am free to hold whatever moral values I like. The law might say I can't refuse a job to someone because of his race, but it leaves me free to refuse to mix with him socially because of it.

But, again, I am explaining how I think it is, not how I think it should be.

But "we" don't have "a" moral sense. What "we" have is many different senses of what is moral and what is not. There are some overlaps, but not nearly enough that we can avoid serious conflicts over very important issues that impinge on things like personal freedom and rights to things like life, liberty, property and body. That much is glaringly obvious, is it not?

This sounds like henry quirk territory.

The title of the thread asks, is morality objective or subjective? not, can subjective morality convince rational others?

I'd love to see how it could. If you think you can make a case that a purely subjective moralizing should obligate another person, I'd love to see how that argument would run.

I have never claimed it could. I am only talking about what I think morality is and where it comes from, not what it is capable of achieving.

I don't call on any of these isms to be able to say there is no such thing as objective moral law, I call on logic and common sense.

Yet the outcome is the same, exactly. You cannot appeal to logic and common sense unless you can prove there's a prior law that says, "We ought to follow Harbal's common sense and logic." But since, as you say, there are no such objective values, that's a thing you can't say.

I think you have misunderstood me. I mean it is by logic and common sense that I reach the conclusion that there is no such thing as objective morality. I am not saying I can reason anyone into adopting my moral values.

The Church once had the people firmly under its thumb,

That wasn't the real church. And you can tell, because they did not do what Jesus Christ taught them they should do. It's really that simple.

Of course it was the real Church. There was a time when Church and state were more or less the same thing, and it was real enough to have had you executed for that comment.

Now you've got it! Nietzsche would agree with you. All there is, is the imposition of somebody else's values, he said. So we need to get "beyond good and evil," and just do what we bloody well feel like, so long as we consider it "life affirming."

Will you stop going on about Nietzsce; I am arguing with you, not him. All I know about Nietzsche is that he was nuts.

The problem's in the Atheism. Atheism, being both irrational and unrealistic, can't teach us anything about morality. Fortunately for us both, most Atheists do not pay much attention to their Atheism or its consequences, and simply use it as a deflector in order to get away from the idea of God. If they took it more seriously, it would inform them that objective morality is impossible, and subjective morality is a fiction, and social morality is an attempt to control us. So then, there would be no thought of morality left at all.

Assumptive. Not proven.


Whatever else you quote, selectively quote, respond to or don't respond to, will you respond to this question:

Let’s imagine you got your way, and society went back to being run on religious morality; what would the implications be for people like homosexuals and pregnant women who don’t want to have children?

[Harbal]

So, if a god did think, say, that 'homosexuality is morally wrong' - that wouldn't be a moral truth in the god's mind. It would be merely the (of course invented) god's moral opinion.

Yes, I've tried that one on IC myself, and I think you can guess to what extent he agreed with me.

[Immanuel Can]

There are no objective moral truths. Moral truth could only exist in the mind of God, and I and many others don't believe in God, but maybe you know where else it might exist; otherwise, all we are really arguing about here is whether God exists, and that is an argument I have no interest in taking part in.

I agree with nearly everything you say.

Ah, Peter again.

Have you got a solution to the Frege-Geach "boo" problem? I haven't seen one, or even an answer...

Hello, Peter?

From your continued reticence, I can only take it that you've no answer to the Frege-Geach problem. In which case, I think you've got a serious problem for describing morality as "subjective." And that is, that if you go for that, you're unable to describe morality at all...at least, not in any coherent terms that would fit anything that most people associate with morality.

Is that right? Or do you have a syllogism to offer? Just asking, before deciding. If you've got it, I'd sure be interested in seeing it.