If objective morality is true, what's the point of moral teachers like Jesus and Confucius?

[Pieman333272]

I was discussing objective morality with some friends today, and one asked an interesting question. He said that if morals are objective, then there’s no point in exalting someone as a moral teacher because we would already know the morals, or a stripped-down version of them, which he teaches. Specifically, he named Jesus and Confucius. What are your thoughts on this? How would you answer? I have an answer but I want to see what others think.

 

[Betterave]

I was discussing objective morality with some friends today, and one asked an interesting question. He said that if morals are objective, then there’s no point in exalting someone as a moral teacher because we would already know the morals, or a stripped-down version of them, which he teaches. Specifically, he named Jesus and Confucius. What are your thoughts on this? How would you answer? I have an answer but I want to see what others think.

That’s a strange argument. How is it different from this: if physics is objective, then why do we have physics teachers, since we would already know about the laws of physics which he teaches, just stripped-down versions of them?

 

[jwright82]

I was discussing objective morality with some friends today, and one asked an interesting question. He said that if morals are objective, then there’s no point in exalting someone as a moral teacher because we would already know the morals, or a stripped-down version of them, which he teaches. Specifically, he named Jesus and Confucius. What are your thoughts on this? How would you answer? I have an answer but I want to see what others think.

Well one thing is this. There is according to Christianity an objective moral law in nature but people do not agree on what this moral law is. So the whole notion of objective morality in one sense is kind of shaky but even Jesus and Confucius didn’t agree on everything, so who is right? Where do we go to find this objective moral law? You see we need someone divine to show us the way to objective morality. That is why we elevate Jesus’ moral teachings, because he was divine.

 

[LilyM]

My response would be similar.

Einstein’s theory of relativity is true, but just because it’s true doesn’t mean it’s self-evident or necessarily something people would know intuitively.

The fact that the theory of relativity is true doesn’t mean it doesn’t also require someone with unique skills and knowledge like an Einstein, to express it in a form that is understandable to others.

 

[Rascalking]

Jesus was alot more than just a “Moral teacher”. He was the Son of God.

 

[Garyjohn2]

People need reminders.

 

[ronnie_bonigli]

I was discussing objective morality with some friends today, and one asked an interesting question. He said that if morals are objective, then there’s no point in exalting someone as a moral teacher because we would already know the morals, or a stripped-down version of them, which he teaches. Specifically, he named Jesus and Confucius. What are your thoughts on this? How would you answer? I have an answer but I want to see what others think.

I tend to think of an objective moral order or objective moral values as being analogous to the Platonic realm of idealzed forms. In Platonism, the “world” of numbers and geometry and other abstract concepts lays in a nonmaterial and absract realm of perfect forms. For instance, the number π (that’s Pi) is real, it isn’t an invention of man, and it doesn’t simply exist as a material thing, it belongs to the Platonic world. I think of the true moral order as not being an invention of man, and it doesn’t simply exist as a material thing. It has a real existence, but it’s prime existence is from a world beyond the material world.

 

[PRmerger]

Jesus was not a moral teacher.

(Note to the wags: I’m going to pre-empt you and say that, “Nope, he wasn’t an immoral teacher either.” )

I mean Jesus was a teacher, but he was a teacher in the same way that I, as a mom, am a toenail clipper. Now, while I do clip some toenails,* I certainly would not identify myself as a toenail clipper. * I am a mom, and in that my essence as a mom it involves toenail clipping, then that’s what I am.

Jesus was the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world. He did not come to be a moral teacher. For every morally sane person in Jesus’ time already knew it was the right thing to do to turn the other cheek.

 

[John21652]

People need reminders.

They do indeed.

I read a while ago that one of the resons God gave Moses the Ten Commandments was because they had forgotten what was “written on their hearts”. That is another way of saying they had either forgotten, or were ignoring, the Natural Law, which is an objective morality discoverable by reason. Obviously, like anything in life, people need teaching and so Christ was a teacher.Natural Law is discernable, but not obvious and so man’s reason needs to be honed accordingly. That process requires a teacher.

 

[JackQ]

I was discussing objective morality with some friends today, and one asked an interesting question. He said that if morals are objective, then there’s no point in exalting someone as a moral teacher because we would already know the morals, or a stripped-down version of them, which he teaches. Specifically, he named Jesus and Confucius. What are your thoughts on this? How would you answer? I have an answer but I want to see what others think.

So if bridge outages are objectively true, are there no need for warning signs?

 

[John21652]

So if bridge outages are objectively true, are there no need for warning signs?

And sometimes you have to put the warning signs where people will actually bump into them.Some people travel along staring at the ground never seeing what’s in front of them and others are going so fast they never really see what is in front of them, until they bump into something.

 

[StTommyMore]

I am just going to reiterate what so many others have already said: “objective” and “self-evident” are not analogous terms. Your friend is really grasping at straws to maintain moral relativism.

 

[fhansen]

According to Catholic teaching on original sin, man lost his “moral bearings” at the fall. Prior to that he remained aligned with his own God-created moral nature out of his innocence. Once the consideration entered his mind that he’d be better off determining morality for himself then his morality became subjective and all bets were off-pretty much anything goes in terms of morality and Scripture reports that sin flourished. God began to rectify this situation with the Law given to Moses and much later with the full revelation of righteousness in the person of Jesus Christ, whom we’re wise to follow once we get fed up with the results of the worlds “non-objective morality”.