Poll: Is morality objectively real?

[CRoone]

Right and Wrong are typically subjective, but there are always some things that are just inherently right and wrong. What matters most is the reasons behind one's actions.

This is also part of why Morality Systems in Video Games have a long way to go before they ever begin to 'get it right'. The nature of Morality Systems in general is just so hopelessly complicated all by itself already, never mind translating it into Binary or some such...

 

[Mr Wednesday]

I'm not a nihilist. You don't win an argument, an argument is good or bad. Your arguments were bad.

I'm most certainly not a nihilist. I believe in morality. When you get rid of objective morality, something doesn't have to be objectively wrong in order to be immoral. That's sort of the point of moral subjectivism.

While your current argument is valid, I find premise B has problems. Identical is an absolute term, you can't be "sort of identical" or even "mostly identical". You are special, discrete, unique even.

Well, now I feel bad.

Still, I meant my first post as a fire and forget ponderance, and when you shot it down for not having a full on explanation, with terms I'm quite handy with myself, I was irked.

And you are right, you don't "win" an argument. Poor choice of words. Consider my post a counter to some imaginary nihilist, rather than yourself.

 

[Dags90]

One thing that seems to be rampant is the belief that things which are not objective don't matter, or have no usefulness. This line of reasoning forfeits many subjective concepts like family, camaraderie, brotherhood, etc.

Kair seems to be arguing for Kantian ethics, which may be argued to be either objective or subjective.

 

[Loonerinoes]

If it was in psychological terms, then it would be objectively real (since psychology actually deals with human beings as human beings, whose structure of the brain does conform to certain patterns whose sum makes us human in the end).

If it was in ethical terms, then it is an illusion (since ethics do not deal with human beings, but rather with the different types of agreements human beings make with each other. And different agreements work out differently for different human beings).

 

[Kair]

Citizen Snips

I am not saying subjective morality does not exist. I am saying that the objective morality is the right morality, one which we must work towards. A morality that will not change with new information is simply bias, and biased morality is our enemy.

 

[kurupt87]

"Nothing is true, everything is permitted."

Sorry, had to. Ironically enough, it's true (in what it is talking about, human actions and beliefs).

OT: They aren't real in a normal sense, they are real only because we choose to make them so.

 

[Robyrt]

Yes, objective morality exists. Yes, it is necessarily filtered through our subjective lenses. That doesn't make it a useless or irrelevant concept, any more than language is useless because it is filtered through the subjective meanings we attach to words.

This accords with common sense - everyone can agree that murder is wrong and compassion is right, for instance - and gives a rational basis for judging the actions and motives of others.

We disagree about the proper moral valence of various actions - slavery, rape and genocide have been considered moral by many in the past - but these don't disprove the rule. The argument is always that the moral rule does not apply to a certain group who is not human, or to a group who has committed a greater crime, or that this "wrong" act is the lesser of two evils.

 

[Sewblon]

The idea that it is an illusion is an illusion itself. Today you see thoughtless morality being flung around like monkey shit. It is easy to look at it and say that morality is just BS.

It is not. Morality is ethics. Ethics is simple. You are the person next to you or the other side of the world. What you are doing to another person you are doing to yourself.


If we disregard morality as thoughtless reactionaries, this planet will never have a chance of sustaining sentient life.

Why should this planet, in a prescriptive sense, sustain sentient life?

Citizen Snips

I am saying that the objective morality is the right morality, one which we must work towards. A morality that will not change with new information is simply bias, and biased morality is our enemy.

What do you base this thesis on?

 

[the rye]

i also find your model of ethics to be ambiguous, i gather you belive ethics should be about intention not about action. can you expalin why morality is objective and why your model of that objective morlaity is best?

 

[Dags90]

Yes, objective morality exists. Yes, it is necessarily filtered through our subjective lenses. That doesn't make it a useless or irrelevant concept, any more than language is useless because it is filtered through the subjective meanings we attach to words.

This accords with common sense - everyone can agree that murder is wrong and compassion is right, for instance - and gives a rational basis for judging the actions and motives of others.

Except language isn't objectively real. Everyone can agree that murder is wrong because murder is by definition a "wrong" form of homicide. People disagree widely on the idea that killing other people is wrong.

I think people have a distorted idea of what objective is.

 

[DerpyDerpyDerp]

ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_show_what_s_right.html

 

[Haukur Isleifsson]

ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_show_what_s_right.html

Sam starts of with an unprovable assumption. That happiness is in some objective way "better" than pain and sorrow. Not that I don't agree with him on that but I don't go around saying my moral views are scientific. And if you assume some moral values as given than sure you can deduct scientifically and logically an answer to all moral questions.

But what values should we base our morals on? And won't such "ultimate values" become kind of arbitrary anyway?

 

[Kortney]

Our basis of morality ultimately stems back towards religion

No, it doesn't. If you are talking about morals such as "abortion is wrong" or "don't have sex outside of marriage" or "homosexuality is wrong", then yes I agree. But if you are talking about morals such as "don't kill" and "don't steal" then I say you're wrong.

The majority of the populace knew killing and stealing was wrong before organisaed religion appeared. Trying to convince anyone otherwise is ludicrous. Religion didn't create a world were killing for no reason was wrong. Since the beginning of human civilization, killing for no justifiable reason was viewed by the majority to be wrong simply because it is beneficial for the community to think that way.

If I am a member of one of the first human civilizations, I don't want fellow members killing each other because then our community can not prosper. It's simple logic. If the number of members in my tribe being killed is larger than the number of babies in my tribe being born then my community is completely and utterly doomed.

If you combine this with human emotion such as empathy and sympathy then I think it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that most of our fundamental morals simply come from our nature; they are intrinsically human. They aren't a product of religion.

However, before someone intervenes here, do note that I do think morals are ultimately subjective. I once was walking home through a park in the middle of summer and I had a serious bout of heatstroke and fell to the ground and passed out. When I came to, my wallet and phone was missing. If morals were objective and ultimate, stuff like this wouldn't happen.

 

[Mariakitten]

This reminds me of a quote from Albert Einstein "good? bad? its all relative!"

 

[Virgilthepagan]

I think I'm with a lot of people here in that I think morality is subjective, a quick mental list of what I value is sharply it odds with most of society, so go figure. That said, I think it's very possible for each person to perceive the world in right and wrong, I know some, though when they meet each other it is always hilarious.

 

[Fbuh]

It's simple logic

Just a quick point for you to think on (since I really don't want to get back into this full scale). Do you really think that early humans thought with logic? Modern humans barley do, let alone ones generally ignorant of what we call the sciences and medicine that lived thousands of years ago.

 

[DerpyDerpyDerp]

ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_show_what_s_right.html

Sam starts of with an unprovable assumption. That happiness is in some objective way "better" than pain and sorrow. Not that I don't agree with him on that but I don't go around saying my moral views are scientific. And if you assume some moral values as given than sure you can deduct scientifically and logically an answer to all moral questions.

But what values should we base our morals on? And won't such "ultimate values" become kind of arbitrary anyway?

I wouldn't really say that I completely agree with him either, I just thought it might be a healthy contribution to the conversation. You have to buy his premise, as you said, that happiness is indeed objectively better than pain. I haven't actually sat down and really thought about everything that entails, but I found it very brave that he would lay down those kinds of ideas. It is something to seriously consider if you ask me. However, I'm a mathematician not a philosopher so I'll leave it to others .