On May 15 2011 04:33 Fighter wrote: It kind of drives me crazy to even participate in conversations like this because the depth of philosophical literature is SO deep, and most people aren't even slightly familiar with it.
Welcome to TL? so are there many supporters of the "objective" view? i see they got votes but i don't see them much in the thread
On May 14 2011 06:51 Euclid wrote: "My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?"
- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Wait... something I don't understand.... it has to be GOD!
A. C. S. Lewis' argument is not committing the logical fallacy of argument from ignorance (did you read the link you posted? It doesn't apply at all) because he doesn't say "well I can't disprove it so it must be so," he posits that God represents a normative concept of perfection because he observes his own normative judgments as a presupposition to his type of thinking (whether or not that specific line of thinking is valid can be questioned, but not by asserting that it is an argument from ignorance).
B. Also, the argument from ignorance isn't "I don't understand, therefore X" that's just a warrantless claim or a non sequitur. There's probably a more specific term for a logical fallacy that addresses this, but it isn't the one you mentinoed lol.
That's semantics.
"These arguments fail to appreciate that the limits of one's understanding or certainty do not change what is true. They do not inform upon reality."
It is argument from ignorance one way or another. It's accurately what Lewis is doing. He realized he didn't understand what is it that we compare what is right to (which is economics and politic needs btw). Then he concludes that it must be god. He only concludes it was god when he realized he didn't understand it. That's argument from ignorance.
Semantics are relevant when you are mislabeling his argument.
Note the mentioned sentence DIRECTLY BEFORE the line you quoted: "Arguments that appeal to ignorance rely merely on the fact that the veracity of the proposition is not known, or is undetected, to arrive at a definite conclusion."
That is a clear distinction. In other words, you are misconstruing his argument by labeling it as something that uses no justification, whereas Lewis DOES NOT merely claim "oh I can't know therefore X," there are the above mentioned premises that he used [that you simply sidestep as "semantics" even though they are the only actual bits of substance mentioned between our posts] that do not commit this fallacy.
A case for objective morality: a talk by Sam Harris, atheist philosopher/scientist
Watch the whole video before you post your question/objection, he answers a fair amount of questions in the video. Also I think his book will answer more conclusively about: happiness drug, issue of sacrificing a few for the well-being of many, etc.
On May 15 2011 14:37 stepover12 wrote: A case for objective morality: a talk by Sam Harris, atheist philosopher/scientist http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm2Jrr0tRXk Watch the whole video before you post your question/objection, he answers a fair amount of questions in the video. Also I think his book will answer more conclusively about: happiness drug, issue of sacrificing a few for the well-being of many, etc.
Was posted like 20 pages ago, about half the argument in this thread is over that video...
This is an incredibly complex issue but: I believe that there is a definite moral framework that is objective and indisputable. For example: Is it wrong to kill another human being? Yes. <-- Objective Is it wrong to kill someone who has murdered other humans? Yes <--Subjective This is just a rough example but I believe there must be an existing moral framework. If there was no moral framework there would be chaos. I do not believe that right and wrong are determined socially (ie. murder has consequences like jail that's why most people would say it's wrong) because it begs the question "Who decided it was wrong to kill?" and "Why did they decide it was wrong to kill?" "Where did they get the idea of wrong in the first place?" It scares me that so many people think morality is subjective to be quite honest.
On May 15 2011 15:03 Canadium wrote: This is an incredibly complex issue but: I believe that there is a definite moral framework that is objective and indisputable. For example: Is it wrong to kill another human being? Yes. <-- Objective Is it wrong to kill someone who has murdered other humans? Yes <--Subjective This is just a rough example but I believe there must be an existing moral framework. If there was no moral framework there would be chaos. I do not believe that right and wrong are determined socially (ie. murder has consequences like jail that's why most people would say it's wrong) because it begs the question "Who decided it was wrong to kill?" and "Why did they decide it was wrong to kill?" "Where did they get the idea of wrong in the first place?" It scares me that so many people think morality is subjective to be quite honest.
Why is it wrong to kill another human being? There are many reasons to kill a human being that would be satisfactory to some people. Two people trapped in a room with only one can of tuna to eat for example. That said, the law would say differently.
It scares me that you think morality is objective, and thereby think you can impose your supposedly "objective" view of morality on the rest of the world.
Hehe, people should watch more Woody Allen's films .
From Love and Death:
Sonja: Boris, Let me show you how absurd your position is. Let's say there is no God, and each man is free to do exactly as he chooses. What prevents you from murdering somebody? Boris: Murder's immoral. Sonja: Immorality is subjective. Boris: Yes, but subjectivity is objective. Sonja: Not in a rational scheme of perception. Boris: Perception is irrational. It implies immanence. Sonja: But judgment of any system or a priori relation of phenomena exists in any rational or metaphysical or at least epistemological contradiction to an abstracted empirical concept such as being or to be or to occur in the thing itself or of the thing itself. Boris: Yeah, I've said that many times.
I'd say that for something to be objective it has to be a result of omniscient entity. If you simplify society as the next best thing, the resulting opinion will be objective as long as every member of society is subjective in his own opinion, disregarding the known "opinion of the society".
In relation to another quote from Love and Death:
Him: Come to my quarters tomorrow at three. Sonja: I can't. Him: Please! Sonja: It's immoral. What time? Him: Who is to say what is moral? Sonja: Morality is subjective. Him: Subjectivity is objective. Sonja: Moral notions imply attributes to substances which exist only in relational duality. Him: Not as an essential extension of ontological existence. Sonja: Can we not talk about sex so much?
If morality was universal it would lose its duality. So as long as every participant of society is subjective, the consensus will be objective. But participants aren't absolutely subjective; they are influenced by the previous "objectivity". For me, the core of morality is that it's ambiguous, in our society it cannot be strictly defined as subjective or objective.
On May 15 2011 04:33 Fighter wrote: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.
The question at issue, is morality subjective or objective been a loaded question historically for religious reasons. Which does not change the fact that objectivity/subjectivity and morale are not necessarily related in a meaningful way. The relationship between the two is not as controversial as it used to be in philosophy, where it historically mostly been(and still is) about the semantic perspective anyway.
I think that a purist subjective view cannot be supported. Simply put - if everything about morality is subjective, arguments like "It scares me that you think morality is objective, and thereby think you can impose your supposedly "objective" view of morality on the rest of the world." are meaningless. This is because the argument itself is premised on an objective, normative moral view ie: individual autonomy to choose one's morals. If one truly believes in a purely subjective set of morals, then all argument is essentially worthless since if everything is indeed subjective, there is no objective measure to decide what really is the "correct answer" of whether morals are objective or subjective.
Similarly, a pure objective is also unsustainable. History is full of examples like slavery and sexual discrimination - moral world views that have later changed. One could say that these past societies had it wrong - the objective answer was that slavery/sexual discrimination is wrong and that we just did not know the right answer at that time. I suppose that in a very abstract sense, this can be true, but it is not particularly meaningful since it effectively makes the distinction between what is objective and what is subjective very small. At best this approach will not so much answer whether morality IS subjective/objective, but rather whether it SHOULD be subjective/objective, and will then guide how we develop our morals in the future (should we aspire to an objective truth? Or is everything subjective so we just let things be). For what it is worth, the preset reality seems to aspire to discovering some degree of objective truths (human rights being an example).
The real answer is probably somewhere in the middle. Morality is shaped by and at the same time influences the circumstances of society. An interesting scenario to consider is what if one day we have the technology that makes death a non-significant event (ie: by uploading our selves into a computer), or that ends the problem of scarcity? In such future societies, crimes like theft and murder might still exist, but then the moral blame that these crimes attract will be much less than they are now. This would simply be because the moral repugnance of killing or having things stolen is no longer present. This might sound like science fiction, but consider how the morals surrounding privacy have changed thanks to social networking.
On May 15 2011 15:03 Canadium wrote: This is an incredibly complex issue but: I believe that there is a definite moral framework that is objective and indisputable. For example: Is it wrong to kill another human being? Yes. <-- Objective Is it wrong to kill someone who has murdered other humans? Yes <--Subjective This is just a rough example but I believe there must be an existing moral framework. If there was no moral framework there would be chaos. I do not believe that right and wrong are determined socially (ie. murder has consequences like jail that's why most people would say it's wrong) because it begs the question "Who decided it was wrong to kill?" and "Why did they decide it was wrong to kill?" "Where did they get the idea of wrong in the first place?" It scares me that so many people think morality is subjective to be quite honest.
Why is it wrong to kill another human being? There are many reasons to kill a human being that would be satisfactory to some people. Two people trapped in a room with only one can of tuna to eat for example. That said, the law would say differently.
It scares me that you think morality is objective, and thereby think you can impose your supposedly "objective" view of morality on the rest of the world.
I see what you're getting at.... But I may have not explained myself clearly enough. There is a basic and objective moral framework. There are things that can be clearly defined as right and wrong. When you start thinking up real life scenarios and situations it gets messy and subjective because there are more variables to consider. That's why I was saying it's such a complicated issue. I'm not trying to impose anything I'm just saying a world with 100% subjective morality sounds like a scary one. Like I was saying before: When the first "laws" were made how did the person who made them decide what was right and what was wrong? Good/bad?
On May 15 2011 15:03 Canadium wrote: This is an incredibly complex issue but: I believe that there is a definite moral framework that is objective and indisputable. For example: Is it wrong to kill another human being? Yes. <-- Objective Is it wrong to kill someone who has murdered other humans? Yes <--Subjective This is just a rough example but I believe there must be an existing moral framework. If there was no moral framework there would be chaos. I do not believe that right and wrong are determined socially (ie. murder has consequences like jail that's why most people would say it's wrong) because it begs the question "Who decided it was wrong to kill?" and "Why did they decide it was wrong to kill?" "Where did they get the idea of wrong in the first place?" It scares me that so many people think morality is subjective to be quite honest.
Why is it wrong to kill another human being? There are many reasons to kill a human being that would be satisfactory to some people. Two people trapped in a room with only one can of tuna to eat for example. That said, the law would say differently.
It scares me that you think morality is objective, and thereby think you can impose your supposedly "objective" view of morality on the rest of the world.
The irony of your post is making my head explode.
Look, the basic problem of subjective morals is that you can't say killing someone is wrong so long as the actor is acting according to his/her personal morals.
A logical corollary is that you can't say that having objective morals and trying to spread them across the world is wrong for the same reason.
This is why subjective morality has no teeth. You can kill me for whatever reason you personally want, but you can't scream "it's not right! it's not moral" at me if I kill you, let alone if I choose to spread my particular brand of morals to the rest of the world.
the idea of subjective morals seems mostly worthless if your morals are self-defined, then they are your opinion; thus, you can rationalize anything you do
objective morals make up the universal code of ethics and anything beyond that is worthless relative to the rest of society
On May 16 2011 04:54 H.k[D] wrote: the idea of subjective morals seems mostly worthless if your morals are self-defined, then they are your opinion; thus, you can rationalize anything you do
objective morals make up the universal code of ethics and anything beyond that is worthless relative to the rest of society
different societies in history had different morals. What does that say about objective "absolute"morals? Some Nietzsche is really appropriate for this discussion,I suggest "the genealogy of morals" book
You can claim it's subjective all you want, but if every person has his own view on it everybody will think they're doing the right thing when they do some ludicrous shit, and we should just let it happen because it's subjective ! We're not wrong he ein't wrong all's good.
Exept it isn't, you may see differences in the perception of morality in different cultures but one thing is certain morality can't exist if the vast majority of people living to some degree together don't percieve it the same way. Religion is just a convenient answer since it was an enforcer of morality utill modern days. If that was the only source all it's teaches would have vanished with the current since people loose their faith more and more nowadays.
You will perhaps get different results for morality in different places isolated culturarily from eachother, however in that place the vast majority of ppl will adhere to a certain standard for it, thus it is not subjective.
It is an objective notion, of a fuction in human behaviour that adapts itself to current times based on knowledge from the past, be it science or religion and gives you an output of not so much what you should or shouldn't do. Rather it will tell you if you do certain things you will have to pay for them with different punishments. It's a concept that evolves with time and when everybody knows everything about everything it will be the same in every place in the world.
On May 16 2011 06:27 Cyba wrote: You can claim it's subjective all you want, but if every person has his own view on it everybody will think they're doing the right thing when they do some ludicrous shit, and we should just let it happen because it's subjective !
No, we stop them from doing it because there's social, economic and political reasons for it. As has always happened. As you'd know if you study some history.
On May 16 2011 06:55 VIB wrote: No, we stop them from doing it because there's social, economic and political reasons for it. As has always happened. As you'd know if you study some history.
And those aren't objective?
Morality isn't something magical or something mysterious. Morality isn't some law given by a divine being. Morality is just that.
Why can't morality be morality if it has a basis in naturalism? You just define the word bad. You define the word in such a way it can't have a definition by definition. Such a word is has no purpose.
If you are going to have a world 'morality' you better have one that can function as a word and can have a meaning.
The question is about what morality is. People give a definition you don't prefer. Some here believe morality by definition is god-given and anything that works similar but isn't should be called by a different word. We have no such a different word in use. So we stick with 'morality'.
Few people here have actually supported subjective morality. So all those who rejected objective morality don't actually reject it. They just reject using a certain word to describe it.
It's the same as the fallacy used by Craig. He argues morality isn't morality if you talk about well being of people. Any person who doesn't see morality in such a way but sees it in a moral code has a broken moral compass which leads to absurdities like religious people supporting the most cruel violence of certain (primitive) cultures as 'ethical' because they are godless people and their culture is retarded and reasonable things cannot be said about morality because magical thinking ought to have a monopoly over morality.
On May 16 2011 07:46 Suisen wrote: The question is about what morality is.
So you FINALLY understand you're only arguing semantics? I talk about the "morality" that I think is what how most people define the word. If you come and say "yea that would be subjective, but I think morality is something else". Then there's nothing to talk about. We're comparing apples to oranges and I'm not gonna argue which definition of the word is "right" or which is "wrong".
Words are just words, no definition is wrong. But I'm not gonna waste time discussing each individual's personal different definition of each word. If you like your own meaning of what "morals" is. Then it's fine. But please do understand that you're not arguing morality. In 90% of your posts you're arguing semantics, Suisen.
EPT
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