Harbal wrote: ↑Mon Oct 16, 2023 12:53 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Oct 15, 2023 3:55 pm
Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Oct 15, 2023 2:21 pm
According to that reasoning you must then have to accept the existence of Zeus and Apollo.
Of course not. You don't have to believe in unicorns just because you believe in horses.
Exactly, and objective morality is certainly a unicorn.
I knew you'd throw that out there.
But if you say "certainly," then how come you can't say what makes you "certain" of it?
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:Everyone knows there is such a thing as subjective morality,
"Everyone knows"?
That's obviously untrue.
No, it obviously is true, because everyone has moral opinions of some sort, and they know they have them.
You're missing the point. Nobody denies that people have "opinions." But nothing about the mere having of an "opinion" makes it "moral." It may be "subjective," alright; but it's not evidence how that's "moral."
So the argument for "moral subjectivism" can't be made that way.
What everybody knows is that people have different opinions about all kinds of things. But nothing makes those opinions especially worthy of being called "moral." That's quite a different question.
I think I see where you are going wrong. When I talk about moral opinions, I mean opinions about moral issues, not morally worthy opinions, although what is morally worthy is also a matter of opinion.
Ah, good...you're starting to see the actual problem.
"People have opinions" is obviously true. "People have opinions about moral matters" is true. But that those opinions
are right is not only not shown by these things, but cannot possibly be true. Because, as Aristotle pointed out, a basic rule of logic is that genuinely mutually-contradictory statements
cannot be simultaneously true.
So all the observation "People have opinions about moral matters" actually tells us is that a lot of the people are wrong. In fact, it's even possible to argue, as per moral nihilism, that ALL such answers are wrong. But by the basic rules of logic, it's utterly impossible to argue that they're all "right."
So the fact that people have opinions is simply not telling of anything, for our purposes.
"Morality" can never be solely private, because it governs relations between the individual and the external world, and most particularly, the relations with other "counters," or people. Whether or not I share your values, your choices affect how you treat me; and likewise, how I make my choices governs how I treat you. So morality is an expression of a kind of agreement as to what is appropriate between people; and whether or not that is superintended by God, or merely idiosyncratic, imaginary and arbitrary, is the remaining question.
I'm more or less with you here until you get to the God bit, and what comes after it.
Well, then, let's set that aside for a minute.
Morality governs relations between us and the external world, especially the social world of other people. Thus, other people not only have a consequence from what we decide with our moral "opinions," but also cannot avoid passing judgment on those "opinions." If you and I are having lunch, and I'm a narcissistic psychopath, there is good reason for you to decide to cut our lunch engagement short and flee. Never mind that my "opinion" is subjective and my own: you're in danger. And if you are wise, you want nothing to do with me.
Moreover, if I sneak arsenic into your sandwich, society also has a say about me, regardless of my "opinion." They have a stake in locking me up for murder. And they cannot safely let me roam, and say, "Well, his morality is subjective, so we have to let him do as he pleases."
Thus, morality is not subjective. It's at least
intersubjective, meaning that it involves other plausibly subjectively-operating people. But if it's merely
intersubjective, then by what right do these people lock me up for murdering you? Where is it written that the moral opinions of other people are higher than my narcissistic, psychopathic opinions? Why should they have jurisdiction over me? Are they just employing power, and not right? If so, then they are merely oppressors, who have no actual right to lock me up for poisoning your sandwich. But if they have justification and right to lock me up, then from where does such justification come?
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:To recognise one's moral opinions as subjective feelings is not a figment, because those feelings do exist.
If I have the feeling that there's a bogeyman in my room, it's certainly subjective: and it's true that "the feelings do exist." But it's an illusion, just a figment of my imagination, nonetheless. So you can't prove subjective morality exists by merely saying, "Well, people have the opinions." Opinions can be good or bad, right or wrong, true or false. And the fact of having an opinion has nothing to do with whether or not one has a justified opinion.
Having a justified opinion has nothing to do with it.
It's absolutely essential.
For there's no way we can call a thing "moral" at all, if it's not justifiable.
A moral opinion (an opinion about a moral issue), simply relates to how you feel about something. If I disapprove of cruelty towards animals, no sensible person would describe it as a figment.
Sure, they would. Have you heard of PETA? They have very strong opinions about cruelty toward animals; but most people do not share their opinions, which is why they keep campaigning.
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:If the thing appeals to them, they are likely to accept it,
But they'll need grounds for it to appeal.
Yes, I suppose so, but I would say that, with moral issues, an emotional appeal stands more chance of success than a pseudo rational one, like most of yours are.
But even what we call an "emotional" appeal, cannot be effective without incentives or grounds. For people are not merely creatures of blind instinct, driven by nothing but emotion. In order to feel the requisite emotions, they find they need facts to back them up.
If I don't believe that the chicken on my plate suffered, and that suffering of that sort is wrong, then PETA can never convince me to give up my chicken parm dinner. So my dismay at finding an animal on my plate is entirely dependent on my acceptance of objective values, such as that the causing of animals to suffer is evil. Otherwise, I will not feel the requisite emotions at all.
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:What I am saying is that the wide range of moral views on any given moral issue suggests that morality is not fixed, but is relative to personal perspective.
That's not logical. There can be a "wide range of views" about anything. It never suggests that the answer is "relative."
There is a "wide range of views" about the universe. That doesn't even remotely suggest there's not an objective universe or an objective truth about the universe. All it tells us is that lots of people are bound to be wrong about the universe...and that will be true of all views but one.
The universe has a physical existence, but morality does not.
We don't know that. You've not showed that's the case...you've just demanded it, and hoped readers will agree.
Moreover, even if you genuinely held that opinion, and even if subjectivism were true, then your own insistence was that it meant no more than "Harbal feels like..."
And now that we know that, why should I feel shame or even moral hesitancy on the basis of it? It's unbacked by objective facts, by your own testimony on the subject.
Just so. I think you are beginning to get it.
Then your allegation makes no sense. You alleged I was "dishonest" and "deceptive." Bu now you say that your own allegation was merely subjective; so you can't have been expecting me, or anybody else, to think it was objectively true, or objectively worthy of an allegation...far less of me feeling shame, or changing my behaviour, or of other people having any reason to discredit me or my views. You were just saying, "Harbal feels..."
And if so, it's not clear you had anything in mind at all.
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:It doesn't matter how objectively true any moral principle or precept seems to be, there is nothing out in the universe to which you can point and say, "here is the fact that shows X is morally wrong".
God. And consequently, objective reality as He created it to be.
When you are able to produce God for inspection, and we have heard from the horse's mouth why we should observe his moral code, I may well reconsider my position, but till then, I am sticking with my above statement.
I can absolutely promise you that if I can produce anything on demand for inspection, then whatever I produce is not God.
But if God has given you evidences of HIs existence, by his own grace rather than my demands, then why don't you consider them?
A subjective view of morality would also automatically make every person in the universe "moral," and morally equivalent to every other one.
If morality were subjective, we would have millions of people all with their own moral opinions, and guess what: that is exactly what we do have.
Non-sequitur again.
It's interesting...you're really stuck on that, aren't you? You are still convinced that the reference to the fact of a multiplicity of opinions represents an argument against truth. But it doesn't. And a little careful thought will reveal to you that it doesn't.
When 100% of the world's population held the opinion that the world is flat, then 100% of the opinions were wrong. When it was only a few who knew the world was round, then only a few were right. And when everybody except flat-earthers believed the earth is round, everybody but flat-earthers were right. But at no point, regardless of opinion, was the earth not flat.
And I know what you'll say: you'll say,
"Yeah, but the earth is a real thing, and morality is not." But that, again, is only to jump to assuming the conclusion you want, not to having proved it. The point holds: a multitude of opinions does not argue against the existence of an objective truth, in any realm at all.
But then, "moral" would mean absolutely nothing at all. If all things are "moral," then "morality" itself fails to describe any distinctive or special phenomenon, and disappears into moral nihilism of the most complete sort. We could not even use the word in a meaningful way: there would be no difference at all between "having a bare opinion" on the one hand, and "having a moral/good/fair/true/functional/etc. opinion," on the other.
So what do you mean when you say, "X is moral/immoral?"
By subjectivism's lights, you can't mean anything at all. You can only be saying, "This is the opinion I happen to have." And you could be Ghandi or Hitler. You'd still be a person with a subjective opinion. But then, so what? All it would show is that the speaker does not even know what "moral" could possibly mean. He/she has nothing specific in mind, except perhaps that old incentive to gratuitious self-approval.
I will leave all this nonsense for someone else with more patience than me to deal with.
I'll be interested to see if they can.
