EPTMorals can only exist if there is a thinking involved. Morals are a form of thought. Therefore if thought can't exist w.o a thinker, it can't be objective.
Objective morality suggests that morals exist beyond the idea of thought.
Is Morality Subjective or Objective? - Page 36
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wei2coolman
United States60033 Posts
Morals can only exist if there is a thinking involved. Morals are a form of thought. Therefore if thought can't exist w.o a thinker, it can't be objective. Objective morality suggests that morals exist beyond the idea of thought. | ||
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Rammblin Man
Canada19 Posts
However, just because you can't prove morals to be objective doesn't mean that they are by default subjective. I think that the initial definitions are rather confused. Suppose there are universal "rights" and "wrongs," it would still be entirely possible to make up your own morals anyways. Our best knowledge tells us that the sky is blue, but I am perfectly entitled to believe that it's purple instead. The statement "there is no set moral code which we all live by" is also pretty confused. This has nothing to do with morals being objective or subjective. There is obviously some sort of universal moral code - murder, rape are wrong, sharing is good, ect. - but this code exists in the same way as our laws exist. You are perfectly entitled to be existential and believe that murder is moral in the same way that you can believe that you can drive twice the speed limit. Create your own meaning in life all you want, you're still going to get sent to jail for killing somebody. To ask whether morals are objective or subjective is to me a completely meaningless question. You might as well ask if traffic laws are objective or subjective. I'll bet if you asked this question in a poll, most people would answer objective instead of subjective, even though it would be in essence the exact same question. There is simply no way to actually answer this question, and the world wouldn't care even if you could come up with an answer. | ||
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Suisen
256 Posts
On May 14 2011 16:58 Rammblin Man wrote: If you want to prove that a specific moral is objective, how on earth would you do that? If you want to test whether a statement like "killing is wrong" is an objective truth, how on earth would you ever gather any empirical evidence? Instead, you can ask questions like "which morals are more likely to help an individual/society survive?" That is something you can actually test, but has absolutely nothing to do with morals being objective/subjective. Why not? If you ask me that is exactly what morality is and exactly why it is objective, though hard to figure out and possibly unknowable. Now you didn't define it very elegantly, but if morals are not what you hint at, what are they? Why do people still have a religious concept about morality when they already abandoned religion? I think it is just silly to saw it's a silly question. It's like before people tried to figure out what pi is saying that it is silly to try to figure it out. It's not silly and morality is of extreme important. As for traffic laws, they have clear goals that are hard to challenge. Some rules are objectively and measurable better than others. It's all just the same. In economy there are good policies, bad policies and grey policies. When we have perfect knowledge the grey will probably be gone. Why is morality different from everything else? All you people who say you believe morality is subjective define morality in a way that can only be subjective while on the side you still believe in something else that you do recognize as objective but just don't call it that way when you really ought to. | ||
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LoLAdriankat
United States4307 Posts
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drwiggles
Canada19 Posts
The idea that objectivity means your not thinking is completely wrong. The whole idea of subjective thought, of subjective morality, is that you are looking through the veil of your own eyes and that what you measure as wrong or moral depends on your own views and experiences. The problem with that is you are looking through a veil, and depending on how that veil distorts your view, some people can come to some pretty unrealistic or shitty conclusions all the while believing that they're correct. Thinking objectively means you can look at something, a choice, an idea, an action, and determine whether or not that action exists as moral or immoral, right or wrong. This is usually done by analyzing an actions effect on a person, society, ect. It is the idea that moral and wrong are standalone concepts that exist independently of the person viewing them. Whether you act on these views of right and wrong are up to you, but the fact you can see them clearly means you are at least able to think objectively. (In other words, being objective means you can see right and wrong, but not necessarily that you will always act accordingly). Being objective, however, doesn't mean that you are always right in your views. It just means you tried to make an accurate judgement on the reality in front of you, using your senses to the best of their abilities, and your tool of thought to come up with your view point. (read: Objectivism) Being subjective, in this aspect, means that you did/thought what you 'felt' was right, or what seemed right at the time; without actually looking at the consequences and trying to predict the results of that action. All in all, thinking objectively is important, and despite what the poll says, I think most of the people in this thread think objectively (definitely most of the time at least) and are just confused with what subjectivity really is. | ||
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flowSthead
1065 Posts
On May 14 2011 18:21 drwiggles wrote: "Morals can only exist if there is a thinking involved. Morals are a form of thought. Therefore if thought can't exist w.o a thinker, it can't be objective." The idea that objectivity means your not thinking is completely wrong. The whole idea of subjective thought, of subjective morality, is that you are looking through the veil of your own eyes and that what you measure as wrong or moral depends on your own views and experiences. The problem with that is you are looking through a veil, and depending on how that veil distorts your view, some people can come to some pretty unrealistic or shitty conclusions all the while believing that they're correct. Thinking objectively means you can look at something, a choice, an idea, an action, and determine whether or not that action exists as moral or immoral, right or wrong. This is usually done by analyzing an actions effect on a person, society, ect. It is the idea that moral and wrong are standalone concepts that exist independently of the person viewing them. Whether you act on these views of right and wrong are up to you, but the fact you can see them clearly means you are at least able to think objectively. (In other words, being objective means you can see right and wrong, but not necessarily that you will always act accordingly). Being objective, however, doesn't mean that you are always right in your views. It just means you tried to make an accurate judgement on the reality in front of you, using your senses to the best of their abilities, and your tool of thought to come up with your view point. (read: Objectivism) Being subjective, in this aspect, means that you did/thought what you 'felt' was right, or what seemed right at the time; without actually looking at the consequences and trying to predict the results of that action. All in all, thinking objectively is important, and despite what the poll says, I think most of the people in this thread think objectively (definitely most of the time at least) and are just confused with what subjectivity really is. You are conflating two different definitions of objective. Thinking objectively is when you try to think rationally, as in without emotion or prejudice. Objective morality has to do with morals that exist regardless of time or circumstance. "In other words, being objective means you can see right and wrong, but not necessarily that you will always act accordingly" What it really means is that you can make a rational judgement. Seeing "right and wrong" assumes that a right and wrong exists. When people like myself say that they believe in subjective morality, it is because we do not believe that right and wrong exist, just that they are human made concepts. I think this is something that is also confusing to many people. Just because a concept has been active for most of human history, does not mean that it relates to objective morality. All it means is that it is a possibility. It is also a possibility that human beings have certain genetic and biological tendencies that make it so that incest is less likely to be accepted, for example. In philosophy (and this is a philosophical argument), a genetic predisposition is not really an argument for objective morality. It is an argument for a state of being. Speaking of which, that is another thing that I think people are confusing in this thread. Moral philosophy deals with the difference between "ought/should" and "is" statements, or "normative" and "positive" statements. "Is" statements are factual, how things are, so for example "murder has been illegal in many countries and is illegal today in many countries" is a positive, "is" statement because it is a fact. "Murder ought to be illegal because it is wrong" is a normative, or "ought" statement since it gives a value judgement. This is important to note because even if everyone in the world followed one moral code, no one lied or killed, and everyone in the world agreed in every argument, that would not be a philosophical basis for a moral philosophy since it would just describe a positive situation rather than a normative argument. | ||
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Stroggoz
New Zealand79 Posts
morality is an invention by nature, and Men have come to argue what morality is because of their own small differences. female preying mantis have an objective morality, its ok to kill eat your husband after fucking him. rocks have an objective morality: its nothing. i really dont get why so much thought needs to be put into this subject. I really don't. maybe someone can explain to me why. it is obvious though, that everyone has their own set of morals, which is similar but different to everyone elses because we are all humans. a code of right and wrong is obviously different to each person but they are similar, or quite similar when you compare us to strange creatures and inanimate objects. And the fact that i can tell that humans have similar morals does bring objectivity to the argument. | ||
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flowSthead
1065 Posts
On May 14 2011 18:41 Stroggoz wrote: morality is an invention by nature, and Men have come to argue what morality is because of their own small differences. female preying mantis have an objective morality, its ok to kill eat your husband after fucking him. rocks have an objective morality: its nothing. I hope I do not sound condescending when I say this, but an introductory philosophy class would really help here. A preying mantis killing its husband after intercourse is not morality, subjective or objective. It is a biological action. In the same way, my need to eat food and breathe air is not any part of objective morality. Rocks do not have an morality, and until we figure out the capacity of the preying mantis, they as well do not have morality. Morality implies a value judgement. To use your example "killing my husband after sex is good/bad" would be part of a moral statement. Just killing him is not a moral statement. a code of right and wrong is obviously different to each person but they are similar, or quite similar when you compare us to strange creatures and inanimate objects. And the fact that i can tell that humans have similar morals does bring objectivity to the argument. No it does not. As I mentioned in the post literally above you, even if everyone had the exact same morals, it still would not be a good argument for objective morality. I can use an easier example for you. If you objectively believe that slavery is wrong, then you cannot base that on the fact that most people today believe that slavery is wrong. You have to make a different argument since thousands of years ago the majority of the human population thought slavery was not wrong. This is a fallacy called argumentum ad populum, or I generally know it as argument by consensus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum | ||
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Denia1
148 Posts
On May 14 2011 16:58 Rammblin Man wrote: This is the danger of talking in metaphysics. QFT. On a skeptical metaphysical level, it can be even argued that a continuous self doesn't exist, let alone morality attached to the actions or thoughts of that self. Wittgensteing would facepalm at this thread, but the question posed remains, and as such it better to dissolve it, if it cannot be solved. | ||
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drwiggles
Canada19 Posts
On May 14 2011 18:34 flowSthead wrote: You are conflating two different definitions of objective. Thinking objectively is when you try to think rationally, as in without emotion or prejudice. Objective morality has to do with morals that exist regardless of time or circumstance. "In other words, being objective means you can see right and wrong, but not necessarily that you will always act accordingly" What it really means is that you can make a rational judgement. Seeing "right and wrong" assumes that a right and wrong exists. When people like myself say that they believe in subjective morality, it is because we do not believe that right and wrong exist, just that they are human made concepts. I think you quoted me for being wrong.. and than said some of what I said. Anyway.. Rationality =/= objectivity. Rationality is a subjective view point. eg. "Spraying battery acid on those girls seemed like the rational thing to do because I don't believe girls should go to school here in Afghanistan." That is what a Al-Qaeda soldier would say to himself and he would be 'right' in terms of his subjective view point. But the rest of the world can look at that (even subjectively) and determine that his actions were obviously immoral. Except the other Al-Qaeda soldiers who will look at his action behind their subjective view points and see what he did as right. So as you can see, people thinking subjectively (in terms of their feelings, personal views towards girls studying) can be either right or wrong when it comes to spraying school girls with battery acid. But objectively, you can say: "You shouldn't hurt other people", and therefore spraying girls with battery acid will be called definitely an immoral action. You can even measure that soldiers actions effect on society and find that yes, indeed that society would be better off if girls were free to go to school without fear. This idea of a measurement and an accurate one at that, is objectivity. The idea that right and wrong exist, and just have to be found.. I do agree that you believe that right and wrong are human made concepts. If aliens looked at two people spraying battery acid on each other they wouldn't know whether it was an act of evil, or just our culture. But despite this, I know that right and wrong exist, independently of what we all think, and that even though an outside observer doesn't know right or wrong for us humans, these ideas can be determined and measured by seeing the effects on the girls, and the effects on society because of those actions. So that even aliens can determine the morality of an action by being objective and viewing that action's results and consequences. Anyway it's late. The topic asked "Is morality subjective or objective". I say its objective because although it exists subjectively to everyone, these subjective thinkers can be either right or wrong. By looking at an action objectively and finding out whether it was good or bad, moral or immoral, by seeing its consequences over time, or by trying to accurately predict them in the first place, we can find a true answer for right or wrong that is independent of what we thought, felt, believed at that time. | ||
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Stroggoz
New Zealand79 Posts
On May 14 2011 18:58 flowSthead wrote: I hope I do not sound condescending when I say this, but an introductory philosophy class would really help here. A preying mantis killing its husband after intercourse is not morality, subjective or objective. It is a biological action. In the same way, my need to eat food and breathe air is not any part of objective morality. Rocks do not have an morality, and until we figure out the capacity of the preying mantis, they as well do not have morality. Morality implies a value judgement. To use your example "killing my husband after sex is good/bad" would be part of a moral statement. Just killing him is not a moral statement. No it does not. As I mentioned in the post literally above you, even if everyone had the exact same morals, it still would not be a good argument for objective morality. I can use an easier example for you. If you objectively believe that slavery is wrong, then you cannot base that on the fact that most people today believe that slavery is wrong. You have to make a different argument since thousands of years ago the majority of the human population thought slavery was not wrong. This is a fallacy called argumentum ad populum, or I generally know it as argument by consensus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum there is no difference with morality in the entire world believing slavery is right and and no one believing it right though, because morality isn't actually real it's just an invention by nature to keep people from doing stupid shit. | ||
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flowSthead
1065 Posts
On May 14 2011 19:24 drwiggles wrote: + Show Spoiler + I think you quoted me for being wrong.. and than said some of what I said. Anyway.. Rationality =/= objectivity. Rationality is a subjective view point. eg. "Spraying battery acid on those girls seemed like the rational thing to do because I don't believe girls should go to school here in Afghanistan." That is what a Al-Qaeda soldier would say to himself and he would be 'right' in terms of his subjective view point. But the rest of the world can look at that (even subjectively) and determine that his actions were obviously immoral. Except the other Al-Qaeda soldiers who will look at his action behind their subjective view points and see what he did as right. So as you can see, people thinking subjectively (in terms of their feelings, personal views towards girls studying) can be either right or wrong when it comes to spraying school girls with battery acid. But objectively, you can say: "You shouldn't hurt other people", and therefore spraying girls with battery acid will be called definitely an immoral action. You can even measure that soldiers actions effect on society and find that yes, indeed that society would be better off if girls were free to go to school without fear. This idea of a measurement and an accurate one at that, is objectivity. The idea that right and wrong exist, and just have to be found.. I do agree that you believe that right and wrong are human made concepts. If aliens looked at two people spraying battery acid on each other they wouldn't know whether it was an act of evil, or just our culture. But despite this, I know that right and wrong exist, independently of what we all think, and that even though an outside observer doesn't know right or wrong for us humans, these ideas can be determined and measured by seeing the effects on the girls, and the effects on society because of those actions. So that even aliens can determine the morality of an action by being objective and viewing that action's results and consequences. Anyway it's late. The topic asked "Is morality subjective or objective". I say its objective because although it exists subjectively to everyone, these subjective thinkers can be either right or wrong. By looking at an action objectively and finding out whether it was good or bad, moral or immoral, by seeing its consequences over time, or by trying to accurately predict them in the first place, we can find a true answer for right or wrong that is independent of what we thought, felt, believed at that time. No, see again you are using words differently from what their definitions are within the context of a philosophical discussion. You cannot objectively say "You shouldn't hurt other people" unless you have already decided that that is an objective moral standpoint. I am saying that that statement is not self evident. Even the sentence "people thinking subjectively...can either be right or wrong" already assumes an objective morality. I can understand your viewpoint, but you are not understanding mine. I can approach this topic from an objective viewpoint, the way you are, and discuss what that objective morality might entail. But to approach the topic from a subjective viewpoint you cannot say statements like "can be right or wrong" because they do not make sense subjectively. Measuring as well has nothing to do with right and wrong, because measurements are imperfect. If I were to cut off your arm while cutting off my own finger, you would assume that one of us has more pain than the other. I make no assumptions. Perhaps our pain is equal. Pain between two people is not something is measurable both because the sensory experience is not easily communicable, and because language is an imperfect communication tool. Even figuring out how much nerve damage was done would not answer the questions since different brains interpret nerve damage in different ways. Do you see why the physical world is a poor measurement for even something as simple as the amount of harm on a persons body? It would be even more difficult to extrapolate on a society, or on the whole human race. For that matter, the entire idea of objectively measuring morality is a little silly to me. It is the reason I cannot take anything Sam Harris says seriously. Morality is not a science. It is a philosophy. It involves making logical, rational arguments, not experiments with theses. You cannot prove that murder is wrong, you have to establish it. As an example, you can make an argument from God, which is a fairly easy and solid argument for objective morality. You could make a Kantian argument that we should not use people as means because it is logically inconsistent. That argument is more difficult and I and others have problems with it, but it is at least an argument. Just to point out that you yourself are not exempt from this, if you read your own words back: But despite this, I know that right and wrong exist, independently of what we all think How can you know something independently of yourself? | ||
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Fyodor
Canada971 Posts
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Cyba
Romania221 Posts
Even though the essence of it will most likely turn out to be something very primitive around the lines if you do damage to something/some1 you'll pay for it one way or another. Objective. | ||
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Acritter
Syria7637 Posts
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Probe1
United States17920 Posts
The idea that we humans, in an intelligent civilization for a mere 100 centuries, grasped a notion that always has been and always will be? That is the only objective state I accept. I'm sorry I'm very tired and realized I'm making an argument for the silliness behind the infinite shades of subjectivity while holding only pure objective reasoning to one level. At this rate only voids will be objective and even then most will be posers with a few stray quarks hanging out in them. Morality is just a word. Morals are just the feel good views of the times. Picking your nose is okay when you're 4 but not 40. Murdering your neighbor for eating your food was alright in 400 bce but now its rather frowned upon. | ||
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Cyba
Romania221 Posts
Get a set of input situations/actions, a set of outputs which is the result of those situations/actions. Depending on the results of certain actions you gage if their good or bad. Let's take revenge killings, asume we wouldn't know the result, after it happens you see that the revenge keeps going from both sides forever, clearly it's a bad thing and should not be allowed. This way after everything happens once, you start being able to tell what can or can't be done by looking at the past and seeing the repercusions that result. The function changes while society changes but it will always keep improving asuming you don't forget what you learned before. Some backwards societies will have a less powerfull function, that doesn't mean their morality is different in their culture, it just means their behind in the evolution process of it. | ||
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Akta
447 Posts
Is baby powder subjective or objective? Tall or short? Good or evil? Our brains generally have a strong preference for black or white thinking. Formulating questions like these to give the impression that there are two possible answers stimulates this weakness. If that is what you want to achieve that's fine but I don't think that was the purpose of the thread. Skimming through 20-40 posts I only see people discussing what objectivity, subjectivity and morality is. So perhaps the topic should be about what morality is and the meaning of subjective and objective - because that is what people appear to be discussing. | ||
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Cyba
Romania221 Posts
Am I the only one that questioned the question? Is baby powder subjective or objective? Tall or short? Good or evil? Our brains generally have a strong preference for black or white thinking. Formulating questions like these to give the impression that there are two possible answers stimulates this weakness. If that is what you want to achieve that's fine but I don't think that was the purpose of the thread. Skimming through 20-40 posts I only see people discussing what objectivity, subjectivity and morality is. So perhaps the topic should be about what morality is and the meaning of subjective and objective - because that is what people appear to be discussing. A fair point, personally i asumed it was crappy wording for is morality the same everywhere or not. | ||
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Fighter
Korea (South)1531 Posts
I mean, just look at this wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaethics The question of subjective/objective morals is still something that's very much OPEN, even among the leading thinkers, so how productive do you think a forum debate will be, especially when, like I said, probably no one here has familiarize themselves with contemporary philosophical discussion. I mean, not to discourage you guys from asking these questions... most people don't even know where to go to LOOK for answers. But if you REALLY want to look into these questions, you have to read the literature. For an especially well developed view of morality as being "objective" you might look to Cornell Realism ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_realism ). The most "subjective" argument I can think of is Mackie's Error theory ( http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism/moral-error-theory.html ) though it's not taken very seriously in contemporary metaethics. Then on the other hand you have theories like Blackburn's Quasi-realism, which holds that ethical statements CAN be appropriately described as true or false, despite the fact that such claims actually fail to correspond to objectively existing moral facts ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-realism ). Is that an "objective" account or a "subjective" account? | ||
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