Yes, it is suggestive of it. I will point out however that the real world is peopled by those who believe that God exists and who therefore believe in objective moral truths.** The beliefs of people in the universe-where-God-exists are not necessarily relevant in the universe-where-God-does-not-exist…**
So? We are not talking about that possible world. In the actual world, universal consensus is still suggestive of the existence of objective moral truths.
True, it is not evidence … it is merely suggestive. Actually, even more suggestive than your example, is the lived history of the world where most tribes believed that murdering someone of a different tribe was not immoral.
Some of you (mainly Anti) continue to confuse the contents expressed by basic moral principles which all (or most) cultures agree on, and their different applications in each culture. Also, murdering someone in a different tribe is not a counterexample to the claim that murder is immoral. There exists much more consensus of its truth than falsehood among various people’s. It is very rare for a tribe to violate what most cultures perceive as its truth.
The idea that we can determine what objective morality is by knowing what a majority of people believe it to be seems a bit weak.
I am not suggesting
which objective moral claims are true is to be determined by what people believe. I am suggesting that the phenomenon of widespread consensus on what people
take to be moral claims suggests objective morality exists. The following set of moral claims are possible candidates which most culture say qualify as objective moral
oughts that apply to all individuals in all circumstances.
- Do not murder innocent people
- Do not cause unnecessary gratuitous pain and suffering.
- Do not cheat or steal.
- Keep your promises and honor your contracts.
- Do justice, treating equals equally and unequals unequally.
- Tell the truth.
- Help other people, at least when the cost to oneself is minimal.
- Show gratitude by returning kindness for goods and services rendered.
- Obey just laws.
None of these principles are absolute, but can be overrided by another principle in the list depending on the context. Epistemically, when we find ourselves in contexts where two moral principles seem to conflict (and we can give plenty of examples) it is difficult to determine which moral principle should hold supreme. But this epistemic difficulty doesn’t invalidate either moral principle. That’s why personal experience and wisdom are so important. Wisdom is one of those abilities that we develop through experience that assists in our applications of these moral principles to a wide array of circumstances helping us to accurately judge what a person ought to do in a given context.
Unlike Anti, I don’t take differences in values, or difficulty in applications of these moral principles in different contexts, as evidence that objective morality doesn’t exist. He continues to cite differences in values or opinion as evidence for the non-existence of objective morality, but then suppresses the greater number of instances where people are in unanimous agreement about what they take to be an objectively veridical moral judgment. I find exceedingly much more agreement than disagreement even among various individuals in my day-to-day life.
Moreover, since value judgments are not moral judgments, Anti’s constant appeal to differences in values as counterevidence to objective moral principles is a dead approach from the start because Anti is making category mistake. For instance, if you value education more than marriage, and someone else values marriage more than education–neither value judgment contradicts any moral principle–both are perfectly consistent with all moral principles. Further, if someone values torturing innocent babies for fun–this doesn’t contradict any moral principle either because this statement is just a statement of fact about what this person does, in fact, value. But if this person thinks torturing babies for fun is
morally permissible, then his belief is wildly false. So Anti’s examples don’t hold any water. In fact, I’ve never seen a bigger mockery of the careful distinctions and critical thinking employed in the study of ethics than Anti’s own approach. It’s sloppy and irresponsible.
