Philosophy meme
Not sure why this got removed from 196lemmy..blahaj.zone but it would be real nice if moderation on Lemmy gave you some sort of notification of what you did wrong. Like an automatic DM or something
Not sure why this got removed from 196lemmy..blahaj.zone but it would be real nice if moderation on Lemmy gave you some sort of notification of what you did wrong. Like an automatic DM or something
I don't see the contradiction here. Right Person is just asking what Left Person's beliefs on those matters are, not whether they believe those beliefs are objective.
Don't you see? Objective truth is whatever moral absolutsts believe. And no, they don't see the contradiction there.
I couldn't agree more!
Shit meme, so apt for the community, I guess. Patrick represents a guy stating his own morality, which doesn't oppose the final sentence, meaning this meme doesn't follow the expected format nor does it have a point whatsoever.
This doesn't prove anything? I mean... There are people who don't think women should vote, or that slavery was good...
This is no conclusion. You can call it objective. All moral is based on subjectiveness: Different people have different morals. Especially ideology can have different morals. For example Nazism has a morality that the (in the eyes of the ruling party) "weak" kin should be exterminated and the "strong" kin should spread more and survive.
This is a moral standpoint, and because objects like "good" and "bad" are based on moral, the political correctness of the moral is subjective.
In ideology there is no right and wrong if you have no premises and no moral yourself, so to speak, if you're really objective.
Calling something objective is in truth just reactionistic.
But of course I think that in any debate there should be moral premises, like for example a democratic parlament should always have the premise: "for the people".
In reality it's quite different sadly.
Of course different people again have different understandings on what makes everyone in a democratic society happy, but for example right wing parties that praise capitalism or fascism there are definitely people that would gain from that.
Capitalism has the consequence that the rich get richer, and so to not devalue the currency, the poorer have to get poorer, even if they don't get less money, but the amount of money that exists devalues the money of the poor. Inflation. And if political power can be bought through lobbying or corruption, there does not exist a democracy.
Fascism has the consequence that one group of people become absolute and govern the rest which is definitely not democratic.
I have to disagree there, in that I think it's a bit more subtle.
There will always be people who seek power for self-enrichment and at the same time those people who see having power over others as a great responsability (who would probably be the best in terms of fair and honest yielding of that power), often avoid it exactly because they feel the "weight on their shoulders" would the too much to bare.
So you'll always have at least some people holding power who use it for personal upside maximization, including via corruption.
Your really can't have a perfect Democracy totally free of crooks in power, as even if you magically made it so, lots of people seek power for personal upside maximization and sooner of later some would get through.
Instead, what Democracy has is whole concept of the 3 independent Pillars Of Democracy, the Political, the Judicial and the Press, which watch each other and have some for of power over each other (the Press indirectly via influencing voters), and that's what's meant to create a sort of "dynamic" balance as crooks seek power but at the same time crooks in power are getting caught and thrown out (even punished).
Now, if you look at some of the most flawed of Democracies (personally I don't think they're trully democratic because their voting systems are mathematically heavilly rigged to create a power duopoly) - the US and the UK - you will notice that the Press was subverted first (and this has been going on long enough and deep enough that some people genuinelly believe partisanship - i.e. taking sides in Politics, so submission to a Political Party - in the Press is a good thing) and then the Political system became more and more corrupt, with in the US the additional problem that even the Judiciary pillar has been subverted at several levels by the Political pillar (not that in the US there was ever much independence of between them to begin with as lots of top positions in the Judiciary are of political nomination).
Anyways, all this to say that we'll always have pressures making political power "buyable", hence why its so important to understand the function of and protect the other Pillars of Democracy and their independence as they're part of the mechanics which pushes the other way, and whilst the system cannot achieve and remain perfect in a static way, it can achieve a dynamic balance that as the crooks get found out, kicked out and their deeds undone.
This seems to assume reality is only that what can be measured by humans currently. But decisions have consequences even if we can not foresee them. To assume that there is no objective morality assumes that consequences were random or exist independent from causes.
I don't think that's true in an economy where the population is constantly growing. It's like saying in a utopia where everyone has the same wealth, having kids would make everyone poorer.
How is one Patrick agreeing equal to objective truth?
We get it, you want slavery back, therefore viciously beating you to death is morally acceptable because the consensus admits your life has no value.
the logic understander
Honestly it's more disturbing that you don't think something can be "bad" unless it's "objectively bad". are you a christian?
Half of the comments in here are a bunch of equivocations on the words.
“Objective” morality would mean there are good things to do, and bad things to do. What people actually do in some hypothetical or real society is different and wouldn’t undermine the objective status of morality.
Listen to this example:
This is a functional should statement. Maybe Todd does go, or maybe he doesn’t. But if he wants to fulfill his desires, he should travel if he wants to go to the bank. The point is that should statements, often used in morality, can inform us for less controversial topics.
Here’s another take: why should we be rational? We could base our epistemology on breeding, money, or other random ends. If you think I should be rational, you’re leveraging morality to do that.
Most people believe in objective morality, whether they understand it that way or not. Humans have disagreed over many subjects throughout history. Disagreement alone doesn’t undermine objectivity. It’s objectively true that the Earth revolves around the sun. Some nut case with a geocentric mindset isn’t going to convince me otherwise. You can argue it’s objective because we can test it, but how do I test my epistemology?
This is just a philosophy 101 run around. I’m a moral pluralist who believes in utilizing many moral theories to help understand the moral landscape. If we were to study the human body, you’d use biology, physics, chemistry, and so on. When looking at a moral problem, I look at it from the main moral theories and look for consensus around a moral stance.
I’m not interested in debating, but there’s so many posts making basic mistakes about morality. My undergraduate degree was in ethics, and I’ve published on meta ethics. We ain’t solving this in a lemmy thread, but there’s a lot of literature to read for those interested.
I guess I don't really understand. Does moral objectivism argue that there is "one true" framework for assessing the rightness of decision/action, or merely that there are objectively right/wrong answers within any given framework?
Meta ethics focuses on the underlying framework behind morality. Whenever you’re asking, “But why is it moral?” That’s meta ethics.
Meta ethics splits between cognitivism (moral statements can be true or false) and non-cognitivism (moral statements are not true or false). One popular cognitive branch is natural moral realism, the idea there are objective moral facts. One popular non-cognitivism branch is emotivism, the idea that moral statements all all complicated “yays” or “yucks” and express emotions rather than true/false statements.
Cognitivism also has anti-realism, which is there are moral facts, but they are truth/false conditional based on each person or group. My issue is you lose the ability to call out certain behavior as wrong; slavery is wrong; not respecting others is wrong. If you want to believe all morality systems are valid, meaning your morality is no better than some radical thought group’s, then go ahead. On an emotional level, speciesism level, rights level, deontological level, utilitarian level, and many more slavery is wrong. Again, some nut job doesn’t invalidate all other thoughts. That’s my take.
Patrick's last sentence is still consistent with everything that he said above. He expressed HIS opinion and HIS morals above.
No ethical framework can be truly objective. This is because there is no universal constant that backs any ethical framework. We need universal constants to verify an objective statement. For example, the speed of light is the same in all frames of reference. Also it is measureable. How do you measure the permissibility of an action? We do not know.
In conclusion, Patrick was right when he implied that there was no objectivity in ethics.
I'm seeing this point about moral epistemology a lot in this thread. Of course, philosophers have constructed convincing arguments in favor of different theories (classic ones being virtue ethics, deontology, consequentialism). If you were to take a look at those arguments you might be persuaded to one camp or another.
Also, I find this objection makes more sense for the moral skeptic than the moral relativist. If we really can't know the moral value of an action, then why settle for saying its based on what humans think? Why not just go all out and say either 1) there is no such thing as moral value or 2) there is moral value but we have no way of knowing what it is.
I never said that we can't know the moral value of an action. All that I'm saying is that the moral value of an action is dependent on the entity giving the value. Morals cannot exist without beings capable of having morals.
Because saying either of these two statements would not reflect reality. There IS a thing such as moral value. It's just not constant for all beings capable of having morals. For the second option, there is no scientific evidence to suggest that there is indeed a universal moral constant. Hence, "knowing" that value goes out of the window.
Moral judgements are relative, moral truth is not.
Another philosophy “conundrum” solved by your friendly neighborhood Skelator! See you next time!
isn't moral truth determined by people making moral judgements?
No. Truth is not relative. Interpretation and consensus, neither are truth.
i know truth itself is not relative, so what is moral truth? to me it sounds like saying that following X persons subjective view of morality we can objectively say that Y is bad. this just then makes objectively proving a persons subjective morality a relative truth though, and not an objective truth, because we could express any side of morality, good or bad, objectively, and as you said, truth is not relative and only one truth must exist.
if you're talking about things like Sam Harris' definition of morality being a sort of "majority wellbeing", i'm sure that while we can theoretically allow for the redefinition of morality and make some objective truths regaridng that subjecte moral viewpoint, but as it is not being absolute in the universe and moreso being related to subjective wellbeing of the most amount of living things, i feel that this is still just fulfilling the subjective definitions.
interestingly though, Sam Harris will go on all day about how we can't redefine free will as being the ability to make choices which all life evidently has in common. just because these choices aren't ultimately free, he rejects the "compatibilist" redefinition of free will.
What? So just because I happen to agree with your stance, I also have to concede that there's such a thing as objective morality?
Morality is subjective by definition.
People who down vote genuinely believe objective morality is possible, but it's literally impossible and it's incredibly obvious and self evident this is true.
It's only self evident if you accept your own morality is subjective. There are people who think morality is defined by some invisible friend who is right about absolutly everything.
Yea, plus divine commandment theory has so many holes, that it could be a sieve.
"God created this world, hence god defines what is good". Why?
Let's even agree to go with the statement above. How would you even verify that an entity was god while writing your commandments? Is it not possible that an organism with superior tech was trolling you?
In a single line, how do you differentiate between God and an imposter?
Just five minutes of thinking can lead to these questions that destroy divine commandment theory. People just refuse to think...
I'd assume it got removed because the title didn't include rule, but the modlogs just calls you unhinged.
Honestly I think I agree with the modlog.
It got removed because it was posted in 196 lol
All 3 would receive a negative response in the last 100 years in different parts of the world. Hell there are plenty of places currently where women can't vote, slavery is a thing and the government isn't working toward a better society. Those places wouldn't exist if those people thought it was morally wrong. Objective morality is definitely not a thing.
The "truths" picked here are just pretty terrible to make that point. There's for example one kind of slavery that people are usually fine with: children are to some extent the slaves of their parents. They have to do what they say, have no freedom of where they want to live and should they run away, the police will return them to their owners. Oh and kids can't vote either and roughly half of them are female.
That's exactly the point. For example, people used to think chattel slavery in the US was morally acceptable because they viewed black people as inferior. But today we would say that black people are not inferior and that they were mistaken. The moral relativist would say that slavery was okay to do back then because that's what the people agreed on. Do you still agree with the moral relativist?
I agree that morals are relative considering there are a ton of people who still believe black people are inferior and also places with slavery.
Something can be morally objective if every single person in the world believes it but I can't think of a single example of that.
If objective morality existed, we wouldn't be arguing about those things since we would all be in the same agreement.
Even "murder is wrong" isn't objective morally when you ask someone who believes in the death penalty.
This argument makes a fundamental mistake. Objective does not mean everyone agrees. Objective just means it's true.
The earth goes around the sun is objectively true, but give me 5 minutes and I can find you someone to disagree with that statement.
Disagreeing with an objective truth just means you're wrong.
While that works with 'facts', it doesn't work for opinions. A sense of morality is exactly an opinion or set of opinions that define what is and isn't right. It is exactly mired in perspective and again this is very self evident.
Muslims say that music is Haram because it is said so in Hadith, does that make music objectively wrong? They believe when a religious authority states this is true, that the religious authority has made a canonical judgement ( fatwa ) that is basically binding.
Am I a heathen for liking music then?
I can't believe people are so naive as to think objective standards for morality are even remotely possible.
That is the exact opposite of what the above comment said. An objective view of morality would say that the "rightness" or "wrongness" of the act of making music is an objective truth. If music is "right", then music is right, regardless of what Muslims or any other people say, and vice versa.
It means you can't come to a correct moral judgement just by taking a poll of the people around you.
That's literally exactly how all humans work. Our ideas is morality come from our peers, and culture. That's all relative and very mutable.
"Objective just means it's true". No it doesn't. How do you even define "truth"? How do I know that I am not the only real person and that all of u r NPCs? How do I know that I am not in a simulation? Now, discussing about the simulation hypothesis is dumb, as it is unscientific in nature. It is not testable.
What is true can be established only when it goes through the scientific method. Hence, an "objective" statement is that statement that would be agreed upon using the scientific method by a certain consensus.
Morality is not testable. Hence, the scientific method cannot be used here. Hence, it can never be objective.
Look at the upvote/downvote ratio on OP's comment. That you all you need to know lol. Wish there was a !philosophymemes community on Lemmy
It got removed because you're meme is objectively wrong.
no ur a meme
I don't use 196 but aren't images on there supposed to be funny? That's probably why this was removed.
the rule is you have to post when you visit, it doesn't say anything on what you have to post.
Maybe you can tell me what the numbers 196 are supposed to reference/mean. I've seen memes from there but there's no theme that I can detect.
It's the successor to 195, which was named after the creators' apartment number
That's amusing. Thank you.
196 community can have some very strict moderation at times. Mods were/are on the lookout for sus political takes. 🤷♀️
They were banned for this post: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/3769100
Which seems pretty extreme to me, but what can I do?
So is this meant to be a cryptic argument against objective morality and for less ethical actions? Group consensus and moral relativity can apply to... Idk, the Nazi regime?
OR is this an argument saying we need more people to agree about what is "objectively" moral if we want it to become true? Democratically around consensus?
I imagine this argument has been used in bad faith more than it has been used in good faith.
Patrick here is meant to represent most people who lean towards moral relativism but haven't thought it through. In their daily lives they think that certain things are obviously bad (e.g., chattel slavery) and they also think that we should work to better our society. But then they also think that there is no such thing as objective good and bad; morality is just relative to some group consensus.
But if moral relativism is true, then you can't say that slavery is universally bad; slavery was a morally acceptable action for the slave owners because they agreed that black people are inferior. Similarly, there is no motivation to work towards a "better" society, because what we have now is exactly as morally good as anything else we could agree on in the future. The objection is that moral relativism is incompatible with our conception of moral progress as an objective good.
First of all I think this was very helpful and was educational for me. But I can also see that people are always making moral objections. Many people did want to abolish slavery for many years before it happened. Doesn't that standard mean slavery was also morally wrong in a relative way? Or does it only matter what the slaveholder believes about their action?
All versions will agree that morality depends on some group consensus. Different variations of moral relativism could vary by which group consensus matters. To simplify things, let's imagine a world in which there was only one slave in a society of people who thought slavery was a good thing. In this scenario, the moral relativist would say that slavery is good for this community, because these people agree that slavery is a good thing. Even though the one slave strongly disagrees with everyone in their community.
This is an obvious problem with moral relativism, but people in this thread either think that morality is subjective by definition or think epistemological uncertainty about morality entails moral relativism.
An Aztec would not agree to any of that. They took slaves, they didn't allow women to vote because they didn't allow voting and women were second-class and they weren't interested in a fair and equitable society, which is part of the reason their enemies helped the Spanish take them down.
So I'd say that your 'objective truths' didn't apply to a major human civilization.
Here is an adjacent argument to the one you gave:
Therefore, there is no "objective truth" to whether the election was fair or fixed.
Moral of the story, disagreement alone does not entail a lack of objective truth. But the post was not about moral disagreement, it was about moral progress.
Moral relativists have a hard time explaining why we should have moral progress. The moral relativist will argue that any action whatsoever will be a good action if there is a certain group consensus. So why should we fight for a more fair and equitable society if the society we have now is *exactly * as morally good as any other system we could enact? Even worse, if the majority of people in your situation believe that something unjust is the right thing to do, then protesting against them is morally wrong.
What does that have to do with my argument about the Aztecs? I don't see the connection.
Because you seem to misunderstand what objective means, the other user is attempting to help you understand that with an unrelated example.
Objective means something is true. It does not mean consensus.
What would it mean for a moral to be true?
Like we can prove the earth goes around the sun but how would you prove a moral value to be true?
Yes, I know what objective means. What makes their morals untrue and yours true?
That's the next step. Once we agree that someone is right and someone is wrong, then we can start talking about the definition of "moral good". And that is a very difficult and complicated discussion. But just because it's hard to define doesn't necessarily mean it's not real.
We don't agree.
You could for example take an utilitarian approach and then the objectively better decision would be the decision that leads to less suffering in total.
Simply because it is practically impossible for us humans to calculate the "total of suffering", doesn't mean this total does not exist. It objectively does exist for every given decision. Perhaps there are exceptions where there is equal suffering for all decisions. But that still wouldn't make it a subjective observation.
Arguably, the Aztec had an even bigger lack of information. For example by assuming that human sacrifices are a necessity. Or that women don't suffer when they are treated as lesser.
Suffering is an objectively "real" thing in our universe. Unless you also want to debate whether pain or the human existence is real.
This seems like an axiom of ethics: less suffering is good. Because why would more suffering be good?
This seems like it leaves us with the option to either decide actively against what is good, or make decisions randomly. Random would be if you don't consider whether a decision increases or decreases suffering / well-being. I am a total lay person for philosophy but this almost makes it seem like it's a logical fallacy to assume ethics (on a base level) are subjective. We must assume something to make a decision. And your decision always leads to an increase or decrease in suffering. Therefore all decisions are on an objective scale of mortality..?
What is worse, blowing someone up on a battlefield or capturing them and sacrificing them later? I'd say the latter because the death is relatively quick and painless and included a soporific to calm the victim down. The latter was what the Aztecs did. Their wars were for capturing prisoners, not killing enemies. I don't know... that sounds like their sacrifices are more moral than blowing someone's legs off and letting them bleed out. I'd call the latter a lot more moral than the former. Because less suffering is good, right?
This is a very superficial view on the matter. You would have to consider all factors.
Which practices lead to more trauma? To more future victims? What are the long-term consequences for the future? Does one decision lead to more suffering in humans 3000 years in the future for some reason? Etc. Objectively, one way is the better one. We just don't know which one it is.
Wait, now we don't know what is objectively morally true?
I would say we can't in most cases know exactly or even approximately what is the objectively morally better decision. But that doesn't make it less objective. It just makes it hard or perhaps even impossible to know.
How can you know it's objective if it's impossible to know what is morally better?
Because for something to be considered objective the only necessary condition is that how something is lies entirely with the object itself and not with the person(s) looking at it. Whether or not we can measure it in actuality doesn't matter for that definition.
Consider you could wire every existing person up to some kind of device that measures their physical and psychological pain and gives out a number, it doesn't matter who looks at it, it would obviously always be the same number.
Whether or not an election has been fair has criteria that can be objectively evaluated. With "moral goodness", those criteria do not exist.
A moral relativist does not have explain why moral progress is good, because they disagree that you can even really define moral "progress". At best, there is moral change, and society always catching up to whatever that change may have been. Mortality is an inherently subjective concept, and therefore what is considered morally good can change, or rather: the 'moral goodness' of something changes over time. Someone in the past may have fully believed their actions were morally just, despite us viewing them as monsters now. And perhaps things we now consider to be morally just will be considered morally reprehensible in 50 years from now.
Blahaj will remove anything that makes anyone mildly uncomfortable, including having to think too hard
I don't like the way moderation is handled in general. I keep posting things I think will be allowed that get removed and there is little explanation and no notification. You have to dig up your post in the modlog of that instance and the rules are pretty much up to the interpretation of the mods.
For example, if you make a meme about "Eating the rich", that's fine. If you make a meme about abortion, ban hammer incoming.
Hey OP you are allowed to message a community mod and ask them if they are able to give insight about your posts being removed, by the way.
Kinda just as annoying as digging through the modlog tho, yeah? With a coin flip on if they want to respond.
Lemmy could use a consistent mod-to-user interface
Everything regarding moderation is pretty lacking from what I've heard
There’s a segment of the community that makes their delicate sensibilities everyone else’s problem. Unfortunately that segment contains the mods.
That's the nice thing about federation, you don't have to interact. If you don't like how a community is run, don't participate in it, or even defederate.
100% correct! I don’t enjoy the culture and moderation style there so I don’t usually participate. I’ll comment on something if it makes it into my all feed or something, I don’t actively avoid them either.
It's our instance and our communities. The mods represent us, or there would be feedback from our instance's users saying they disagree with moderation.
The mods represent the users that haven’t been banned*
Important distinction
I mean, if you look at the modlogs, most bans have a reason And the reasons are things like xenophobia, transphobia but in more words, general troll vibes, etc. Not just because someone doesn't like the mods
"delicate sensibilities" is just a poorly disguised way of saying you don't care about other people's feelings, though
I mean that the debate right? To what extent do we allow people’s feelings to dictate public behavior?
I agree everyone should be respected, I support and am a part of the LGBT community, but some things just aren’t worth getting that offended over.
Good
So host your own instance 🤷♂️
Lemmy version of "oh you're poor? just learn to code lol"
Holy shit you're so right.
Don't write off our whole instance, damn. Yeah, its a transgender instance and our community has put up with a lot of bullshit arguments both outside (gender critical) and inside (transmedicalism). We generally nip it in the bud.
I think 196 community mods are very strict, though. The rules there are basically skeptical of all political posts, and I would understand if more meme and political meme communities arose with less strict rules.
I still poke my head every now and again and see what’s up but it definitely Isn’t my main instance. More power to yall though, that’s what federation is about
I like Matt Dillyhuntys approach to objective morality: he picks a subjective and kind of arbitrary foundation like wellbeing and objectively measures all actions against this foundation.
If the standard you use is wrong, no matter how well you use it in figuring out what to do, all the moral judgements that follow from it will be wrong.
I mean that what Matt said has "objective" in there but not in the way that matters. It doesnt address the issues with not having a good way of getting at whats right.
(Obv. this isnt to say that I think e.g some utilitarian approach focusing on wellbeing is wrong, its only the other bit I dont agree with)
Every standard is wrong or limited in ways, it doesn't make them useless. Utilitarian views can be useful, but it's also easy to argue that euthanasia for the handicapped is moral from a Utilitarian perspective.
Sure but what Matt is suggesting would mean we can hold something completely wrong, even an absurd one as a moral framework so long as we use it properly.
You can. The absurdity is based on your inherent bias, the concept of absurdity is arbitrary.
Next step is acknowledging that data is also very infallible and not objective.
It's not that data is subjective, it's that the interpretation of that data can be subjective, and the raw data can be misleading.
Fallible
that's the word
Can't something be objectively immoral whilst simultaneously being something that some people like to do? Does the objective morality of any given action need to be linked to a specific groups preference?
Slavers liked to keep slaves but it didn't make them right to do it. Im sure the slaves didn't enjoy it. Objectively, it's morally wrong to gain from somebody elses loss. The fact that people are happy to do it doesn't affect moral objectivity.
Objectively it's morally wrong to gain from someone's loss. So... winning anything? Schadenfreude? A profitable short position? Picking a penny up from the ground?
Anyway, the specifics aside... how do you arrive at the conclusion that it is objectively wrong to gain from someone else's loss?
You're correct on your judgment but your opinion stems from a different social stance on the underlying issue.
(that sounded really pedantic and it was not my intention)
Morality is a human creation. By default, nothing is wrong or right, until a human mind, be it an individual or colective one, analyse it and evaluate it.
This does not mean you can not view something as being immoral while others do or understand it as not a moral concern. This difference of understandingb is what moves any subject into the moral/immoral spectrum.
I think your confusing objective with universal. They aren't the same thing. You can have an objective truth that isn't universal. Let's use Euclidean and non-Euclidian geometry as an example, both have very objective truths, but they aren't the same or interchangeable.
The problem with saying slavery is universally immoral is that you label most everyone that existed prior to the modern era as immoral, because slavery was foundational across the globe in multiple cultures. Morality isn't useful if you can actually compare or contrast because even involved was immoral.
But did you follow the rule?
I once got comments removed and community banned and found some explanations on the mod log on the bottom of the website of the instance
The only way you can be sure that there is one 'true morality is, "If you don't want it done to you then don't do it to others."
if I kill someone's loved one for some reason maybe for me it is not morally wrong because that person "deserved it" but if they kill someone dear to me can I consider it morally acceptable? definitely not
What?!
No.
Think this through; what’s acceptable behaviour to you may be completely abhorrent to another person.
I wanted to apologize, now I think like you, I changed my mind.
No worries your apology is appreciated.
I’m more impressed that you’ve changed your mind though. That’s the best part about being human.
Okay so I will come and kill your family in their sleep and make you a slave because it is morally acceptable to you.
Have a good day.
Edit: Obviously I'm just teasing, but this is to give you a practical example.
Moral relativism is a great evil in our time.
wait until this place hears that killing babies is bad as an objective moral truth
An overwhelming majority of people agree with that, but it doesn't mean it's not subjective
Objective != Better/stronger/more true
Just because something is clearly (to any sane human) true doesn't mean it's objective. It's can still be subjective.
An objective moral truth is basically an oxymoron
You can objectively say that humans think certain things are morally bankrupt but you cannot say that certain things are objectively morally bankrupt without specifying according to whom. Morals don't just float around space. Humans have them because of evolution and society.
I think much confusion here is around the word objective. We seem to be defining it differently. The way I define it, and I think the most idiomatic way to define it, there cannot, by definition, be such a thing as an objective moral truth
Edit: clarification
so do you disagree with the original post?
Yeah, I don't think there could exist such a thing as an objective moral truth - per definition.
This is begging the question in favor of moral relativism. If there are objective facts "floating out there" about math, biology, etcetera, why can't there be objective facts about morality?
If the answer is that it is difficult to know what the moral facts are: some facts are more difficult to find out than others. Physics didn't know about the Higgs Boson for centuries and yet here we are. Perhaps philosophy could do the same thing with moral truths in time.
Because the objectivity of statements about math, biology, etc. can be verified by posing a scientific question. In other words, something like 1+1=2 is a testable claim. We have seen no occurrence of 1+1=2. Hence, we can say that "1+1=2" is a law of nature. "Moral truths" are simply not testable.
And the Higgs Boson became an "objective statement" only after it was verified. Prior to that, it was just a hypothesis. Do you have any scientific evidence to suggest that there are certain universal moral truths that apply to all humans?
We might have two different understanding of what it means for something to be an objective fact. Objective truth/facts/reality exist independently of human understanding. If all the humans got together and decided that the Earth is flat, that wouldn't make the Earth flat. If scientists had never discovered the Higgs Boson, the particle would still exist.
Alternatively, perhaps you already agree with that and your point is more about the objectivity of statements (i.e., our linguistic acts). And while I disagree with your overall stance on morality, I can see the logic in insisting that our statements about the world be verifiable/falsifiable. Historically, some philosophers held that words that cannot be verified are literally meaningless.
So just to be clear, we can make a distinction between the objectivity of facts (e.g., physical facts, moral facts) and the objectivity (here, justifiability) of our statements about the facts. My stance is that there are objective moral facts. I concede the point that the justifiability of our statements about the moral facts is a difficult problem to solve. But finding the Higgs Boson was also difficult and we humans did it!
All of those things are group consensus though. As in there are plenty of examples when group consensus was the other way and those things (slavery, not allowing women to participate in democracy, extreme inequality) were accepted and practiced freely
Slavery wasn't accepted. It was widely practiced but it was abolished (mostly) because people agreed it was wrong. Slaves didnt want to be slaves or see their status as slaves as morally good.
Think about that for a moment.
Not allowing women to participate in democracy is another example. Women fought against that and won.
Extreme inequality is still all around us and we almost all agree that its wrong.
Slavery went away because of technological advancement moreso than morality. Once you didn't need hundreds of people to plant and harvest crops, slavery gets less popular.
Slavery is as old as human history, people only agreed it was wrong relatively recently
Sam Harris doesn't like this idea, lol. "morality is wellbeing!", well then what is wellbeing to a bad person? it's all relative
Professional philosophers don't take Sam Harris seriously. He's a smart guy, but his take on free will is dismissive of established philosophical literature. That is, he could do more to read and then engage with published philosophy; but maybe he doesn't think he has to since his work isn't intended for academics.
Sounds an awful lot like groupthink to me. Having differentiating takes is the point of philosophy.
In a sort of snarky way one might even say that studying it defeats the purpose, because of pollution and all that.
“Subjective morality” is just what people tell themselves so they don’t have to do any actual introspection
Some cultural things may be subjective - take looking someone in the eye when conversing, for example. Some cultures find it disrespectful to do so, while others find it disrespectful not to do so.
But the big things? Actual morality? There is absolutely an objective right and wrong.
This is an honest question; what would you say to someone who says: "Unfaithful women are to be stoned to death. God told me so, everyone I know agrees with me, so it is a moral absolute."
On what basis are you (we) right and they wrong?
God is a fairy tale, and stoning someone to death for any reason is horrible and barbaric.
“Because Santa said so” isn’t a valid justification for anything. Neither is religion.
Always enjoy a good stoning. The screams of a dying woman, wonderful thing.
Above is a bit of sarcasm to make my point. We do know inside what is wrong when we do something.
I don't need religion or a God to know that, it's built in. People call it empathy but that's a weak word. It's a much stronger feeling that screams this is wrong.
This is why people who go to wars have to be brainwashed before they go kill other people.
Nothing is objective, least of all morality. And not everyone "knows inside when they do something wrong". Some people are legit wired differently and don't care, or actually get positive feedback from those screams you sarcastically brought up.
Yes, those are evil people. The world is made up of both kinds. But they are a lot less, and it's not likely that they will get the majority to accept their twisted ideas.
Ok so who's deciding which people are evil and which aren't? There are plenty of wrong things (according to me, today) that have been consensus among some for hundreds or even thousands of years. Adults marrying children. Slavery. Execution of homosexuals.
Or consider that vegan/vegetarians would say that slaughtering animals is wrong, and that they know that in the same "innate" way that you're describing... and yet the majority disagree with them. So who's right? Where can we get this objectivity? If it's just our "gut" then I'm sorry but there is not a single morality, there are 7 billion separate objective moralities.
It is wrong to slaughter animals now that we have technology that makes it unnecessary. The world could stop eating meat tomorrow if there was a virus inside meat that made people sick, so why can't we decide to do it without the virus?
If there was a virus, the world would invest billions in alternative foods. Why can't we do that now, today?
The majority disagreeing is not new. Democracy is not based on the wisest people making decisions. It's mob rule, or majority rule. Today people just watch TV to make decisions, and TV is controlled by corporations. So we don't really have the kind of democracy where people are well informed and feel like they can trust what someone in power is telling them.
I agree with all of that, but I don't see how that deals with the problem that we don't even have consensus on a morality that we are all supposed to "know" by ourselves because it is objective and somehow contained within us. Why is there such disagreement on what is moral if we should all know what's right?
It's a good question... I think social media has made it worse, because people are now convinced that they are correct within their perception bubble. This is why I hate downvotes - because it removes the chance for people to see opinions they disagree with.
It's crucial to see opinions we don't agree with, or we believe that the "others" are just stupid, since clearly everyone on our side agrees.
So, regardless of the reasons behind it, it seems clear that we don't all know what is right - or certainly we don't agree - so where exactly does an objective morality fit into the picture?
Should children be raised by parents that are neglecting them (not educating them, not preparing them for anything other than subsistence living) or is it moral for the state to take the kids away?
I don't think it's moral for the state to take the kids away, unless the kid requests it. Even kids knows when they are being abused and if it's bad enough, they should have the choice to leave. That being said, the state doesn't care at all about them. It's only marginally better than living with parents that don't care about them.
Perhaps there should be some kind of certificate to become a parent, but that will most likely be abused and become too controlling.
Yeah it could, but if we could put that aside how do you think the state should handle children conceived
out of wedlockI mean without permission.Unfaithfulness is not objective. It's subjective. Death is objective, not subjective.
This is a logical fallacy.
A religious person might disagree with both those statements.
Could you point me to how I can meassure or otherwise empirically confirm these objective rights and wrongs?
Just because you cannot empirically measure something (at least at the moment), doesn't mean it can't be true.
Take consciousness, for example. We all know we have it. But we cannot empirically prove it. Does that mean consciousness doesn't exist? No, not at all.
Do we know that? No. We literally, truly, don't know that. We may think it exists - I do, and so do you - but without empirical evidence we can't know for certain.
I agree. However this is a very bad basis to start from if you want to find an actual truth. There is millions of ideas that were dreamed up by people that can't be empirically denied or confirmed, including all the gods.
I think that is a great example. Because if we understood consciousness, we'd probably also understand how we come up with ideas, like morality.
That's really the bigger point. Morality is an idea. It's like countries. We divide up the planet into sections on a map we made up and agree that those now exist. Then we build stuff along the border to make it exist. But there is no "true" or "correct" way to divide the planet into countries and nations. It's just a process that happens as an emergent property of a civilisation.
Just like consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. So ultimatly if you find out anything about how morality comes to exist, studying the brain is a good start.
But I doubt we'll ever find any objective moral truths, because we made up the entire concept.
Well, that’s the tricky part. There isn’t much in the way of empirical measurements for morality, which is why it tends to be so varied. But truth being difficult to find doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. There is still right and wrong.
As another user here put it, “Moral judgement is subjective. Moral truth is not.”
I don't see the tricky part. If it can't be empirically measured, it's not objective.
So to put it correctly:
“Moral judgement is subjective. Moral truth is too.”
Truth isn’t subjective.
But "moral truth" is.
Two contradicting things cannot both be true. That’s literally just not how shit works.
What two contradicting statements?
Any two contradictory moral statements cannot both be true. Implying that morality is subjective would imply that they can.
For example: “being gay is wrong” and “being gay is not wrong”
Both cannot be true. One is right, one is wrong. This is objective. You can extrapolate this to every other moral stance. No two opposing ideas can both be true.
Therefore, if you were to extrapolate this to every moral stance, there would have to be a right and wrong statement for every one.
Morality is objective. Judgement is subjective, but judgement can be wrong.
Ok, you seem to fundamentally misunderstand what "objective" means. Neither of these statements is true.
Objective means, something can be confirmed by observation. For example if we were in a room and there would be a rock on the table and you say "there is a rock on the table" that would be true. And everyone else in the world could look into the room and observe for them themselves that the rock is infact sitting on the table. That's objective truth.
However if you said "this rock is ugly", that is not objective. Differnet people will have different opinion on the prettiness of the rock, because it's an inherently subjective quality. There is not "true" value for the rock's prettiness that can be observed.
The same goes for all moral judgements. You can not observe or meassure a moral quality objetivily because it's a value that is assigned by the judgment of a human brain. It's not an intrinsic quality of nature.
You seem to be fundamentally misunderstanding what “objective” means.
Objective (adj.)
(of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
not dependent on the mind for existence; actual.
In other words: real, true, or factual
There is such a thing as objective morality, or moral truth.
Inability to determine what that is does not make it any less real.
So there exists an asbolute moral truth, but we have no way to determine what it is? I'm sure we can agree that morals don't have a physical form, so in what way does it "exist"?
The problem I see with that definition is that we are asking to judge an opinion without opinions without opinions the opinion doesn't exist so still no objective morality is still hogwash as it's still a oxymoron if you see morals with zero judgements then everything is newtral right and wrong doesn't mean anything how do you measure the morals of slavery without personal feelings you can't say religion is bad that's a opinion you can't say human suffering is bad that's a opinion you can't say human prosperity is good that's a opinion nothing is inherently good or bad as those are opinions without opinions you can only say you are blind as even saying it's newtral is a opinion granted newtral is a debatable point so even if objective morality exist I'd be the most useless consept ever
you've lost the earth under the terminology. you're upset with some truly awful shit in existence, and seem uncomfortable with calling it anything that might minimize the horror of it. "objectively bad".
what if I told you that it can still be awful without being absolute? judgment requires a subject. passing judgment, that is seeing beauty. being subjective is one of the delights of human experience.
the only thing objective is that harming the subject is the ultimate violence. silencing the subject so that nothing can be called good or bad.
the rest is all up for debate.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjectivity_and_objectivity_(philosophy)
Well, let's look at geopolitics. The War in Ukraine. Putin says that the War is important to get rid of Nazis in Ukraine. A lot of ppl in Russia believe him.
I know for myself I don't believe it.
Let's walk through your definition: it's a big thing I think. So either me or they are objectively right. Well depending on if you define this as "actual morality". That concludes in your definition this can be objectively determined.
Well let's walk through Wikipedia's philosophical definition.
Can my opinion be formed independent of mind? That is, without bias, perception, emotions, opinion, imagination or conscious experience? Well I have biases against against Putin because I try to be neutral, but there's a lot of news articles highlighting bad politics from him. I have a certain perception about starting wars on an argumentation without good evidence. My emotions tell me that ppl dying is bad. My opinions tell me that there is no justification for a war if it clearly isn't a very limited defense against an attack. I do have an imagination of what the war looks like and what the consequences will be. And last but not least, ppl talking about how their relatives died or my father talking about his time in the army has left a conscious experience on me in that regard.
As you can see there's a lot going on that wants me to make this "objectively true" for me, but I really can't split all of these influences from my opinion, therefore this is not objectively determined via Wikipedia's definition.
Now I submit to you that you can't find anyone who doesn't have these biases to make the statement that the war is either right or wrong under that definition while being objective, per definition.
Which brings me to the conclusion that on this topic, your definition of it and Wikipedia's definition on it fundamentally differ and bring me to opposite conclusions. This means either your definition is the one we should follow, or Wikipedia's, and I have to say I'm gonna make my choice.
Btw this is in no way a dig at the idea that I wish there was some things that everyone knows are wrong, but I just think ppl are ppl and it doesn't work for most things.
I believe in Objective Morality
If you are harming someone else without proper cause. You are doing evil.
And "proper cause" is objective?
Let me dumb it down for you a little bit. Objective morality exists, and the objective moral is simply to do no harm. You may harm another person, if that person is causing harm and you are trying to stop them. That is the only time causing harm is just.
Ok but that requires some sort of objective way to sort out what's harmful and what isn't. And to what extent "harm" counts. And have an objective way to say who exactly was the one that caused the harm, who's the agent and who's not an agent. And to what exactly can justify harm. And what can even be harmed. That's just an impossible thing to do.
It's definitions all the way down – you can't make anything like that "objective". All the words you use are subjective, all words have loose meanings that differ from person to person. "Doing harm" has no objective meaning.
It's like trying to find objective beauty. There is no objective beauty, there is nothing that applies to everyone that says how beautiful they are. It's majority based on understandings gathered from culture and life experiences, which differ greatly from person to person. Morality is the same.
What you described isn't "objective morality", it's the NAP. That's just a discount conservative philosophy.
Did I harm you? No Then no harm was done
Ok but one can use "harm" to mean whatever they want. It's not as simple as saying "harm = bad". Someone has to decide if something counts as harm, which would be completely subjective and arbitrarily decided.
Okay, what's something one can do to another person that would be considered harm by some, but not by others?
Simplest moral dilemma – trolley problem. Is it immoral to doom 1 person in order to save 4 people? Is it immoral to sacrifice any number of people, animals, etc. for some "greater good"? That's something a lot of people would argue about. And do you do something immoral if you don't take action at all on it?
You can try to pick an answer and call it morally objective, but anyone who tries to do that is a joke.
No it is clear as day, if killing one person saves 10... and doing nothing kills all 11, the choice is obvious.
That's your morality. You can be Thanos all you want but it doesn't make it objectively moral.
Never said anything about being Thanos
People in this thread are so downvote heavy lmao.
Right?
Okay, but can you prove objectively that doing so is a "bad" thing? What even is the definition of "bad" in this context?
Quite simple, if you harm someone who is not harming someone else, then you have done bad. It's that easy
But why though? Why is "harming someone who is not harming someone else" equivalent to "done bad"? What universal constant says that this is the case?
Because typically bad shit is only happened if harm has been done, and harm is only justifiable if it is harm intended to prevent further harm. Or to be more clear, the performance of a lesser evil in order to prevent a greater evil, is just
Fuck it, the right doesn't follow rule or law. If I was her I'd laugh in their face and say "no".
Sam Harris - The Moral Landscape. Didn't actually read it but it's about this exact topic and I kinda agree with him
I too highly suspect most moral relativists are full of shit and don't actually believe in it. Ya'll don't believe in moral progress? A society of chronic rapists is not inherently bad outside of your societies or personal preferences? The overwhelming majority of moral decisions being relative doesn't discount that at least one very important concept can be capable of superceding our preferences.
Moral "progress" only happens because of our collective judgement of what is right changing over time.
I expect this response despite the indication of its issue. Were nazi's morally rigtheous in gassing millions of innocent people to death because they believed so? At that time that was their 'progress.' Independent of other socities or yourself having any issue, it's simply fine to say that because a nazi thinks it's fine, it is fine?
I don't think so, and I don't think that injustice is dependant on my preference to view it that way. It just is wrong.
Of course the Nazis weren't right by our standards, and of course they were/are by their own. But by what universal standard can we judge their morality against ours? How can we know that what we think is right is the objective morality?
Saying "it just is" really just means "I think so", and it there's as much reasonable backing for you to say it "just is" wrong to be a nazi as there is for someone to say it "just is" wrong to be gay.
There is a distinction to be made between epistemology and ethics. Just because it is unclear how to judge an action as good or bad doesn't mean that there isn't a fact of the matter.
So if there is an objective truth of morality that exists beyond our judgements, in what form does it exist? Is it a fundamental part of the universe? Did it exist before humans? Or is it a part of us?
Saying that something isn't objectively quantifiable (like morality)
isn't a value judgement on it
Subjectively the morality of your example is abhorrent, but objectively you cannot, cannot , cannot! quantity it! Morality only exists in our minds! That doesn't make it any less meaningful, but it makes it
not
objective
So you also say that mathematics is subjective?
You can quantity maths. It's the prime example of something objective and quantifiable. No I'm clearly not saying that.
What I mean with "exists only in our minds" is that it isn't some externally measurable thing. There is no moralometer which can measure the morality of an action. It only exists to us, humans. That makes it subjective.
If you're wondering about the meaning of the previous comment it is to clarify that saying there are no objective moral truths doesn't mean I am dismissing morality. It just means that objectivity isn't applicable to it.