Is there such a thing as objective morality?

[Wesrock]

repentant2:

Morality is subjective, and everything is right and nothing is wrong.

Is it ever acceptable to harm a child? Depending on the circumstances - an injection or torture, it is either right or wrong.

If harming a child was objectively wrong, then she’d never get the life saving injection.

I don’t agree with your use of objective here, as for me it connotes whether something is real or just in your head. As for “harming a child,” where we draw the line on specificity of circumstances is arbitrary. Conditions do matter, of course. Do you have an issue with the objective morality of stabbing a child repeatedly with a stake until they’re dead and beyond that for no reason or benefit other than some type of self-satisfaction in the act?

 

[Neithan]

If you can class everything as objective if the conditions are included then there are no such things as relative acts and there is nothing for you to decide. Hence no subjective moral acts.

I’m not sure this (“Hence no subjective moral acts”) necessarily follows. Objective morality is what is always wrong for any human being to do; subjective morality is acting according to what you personally believe to be right or wrong. If we can situate a given set of circumstances, for example, as you stated above, there are some situations where a decision is “indisputably right” — then that seems to have an objective moral truth about it. The subjective decision is to do that or not depending on what you believe.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

Is it ever acceptable to harm a child? Depending on the circumstances - an injection or torture, it is either right or wrong.

If harming a child was objectively wrong, then she’d never get the life saving injection.

Implies that torturing a child is objectively wrong.

If there is no objective morality you can’t say that.

Harming a child is neither right or wrong without knowing the conditions. If you know the conditions and make a decision based on them then it is not an objective act.

 

[o_mlly]

Harming a child is neither right or wrong without knowing the conditions. If you know the conditions and make a decision based on them then it is not an objective act.

Harming a child is always an evil act. Causing a child to suffer may not be so. The difference is not nuance but substantial if one is to understand Catholic morality.

 

[Wesrock]

If you know the conditions and make a decision based on them then it is not an objective act.

Again, I just don’t agree with how you’re framing this.

Instead of “objectively wrong,” I think it’d be less vague if you used “intrinsically wrong”.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

Harming a child is neither right or wrong without knowing the conditions. If you know the conditions and make a decision based on them then it is not an objective act.

Harming a child is always an evil act. Causing a child to suffer may not be so.

Harming a child for the sake of harming a child - if that’s what you mean by harming, is an act relative to the conditions. I am doing it because…I get pleasure from it. But if I stick a needle into a child and make it suffer it MAY not be wrong.

I guess we need to know the conditions there as well.

 

[Wesrock]

I’ll just add, objectivity and subjectivity is in regards to the same exact circumstances. Subjectivity is in regards to having differing opinions about the same exact thing. Whether something is intrinsically wrong at different levels of specificity/circumstances seems to be what this topic is about.

 

[Wozza]

I’ll just add, objectivity and subjectivity is in regards to the same exact circumstances. Subjectivity is in regards to having differing opinions about the same exact thing. Whether something is intrinsically wrong at different levels of specificity/circumstances seems to be what this topic is about.

How can you make a personal decision about any matter without knowing the circumstances?

 

[Nyx]

Culpability is only decided once a judgement on someone’s action is made. But in my example, you’d first have to say whatever the “judgement” should be let to that community (so, you’d give them the power to judge by their own standards which might be very different from the standards of a different community- which would be pretty much moral relativism) or you believe there is an universal code by which you decide if cheering for an invading army is good or bad. Or makes you guilty or innocent.
This would be indeed an example of objective morality- but you’d have to decide 1) who decides it and how can you be sure this is not just the justice norms of a particular culture- a long history of cultures/groups imposing their own views as the ones who should be universally acceptable and 2) how could specific factors coexist with the idea of only one form of objective morality- the action itself was good or wrong? If you consider specific factors like “how was the society itself?” “who were the people who were invading?”, “what was that person’s reasons to cheer for them?” you are not using an universal objective moral code

 

[Wozza]

This would be indeed an example of objective morality- but you’d have to decide 1) who decides it…

One of the major problems. If not THE major problem.

 

[Wozza]

There’s obviously going to be nuance when it comes to exactly what is right and what is wrong. Pain is not in itself immoral nor is inflicting it. Pain is moral or immoral based on the circumstances. Pain inflicted to help i.e. an injection, surgery, corrective discipline of a child, is not immoral. Pain inflicted to harm is.

Killing is neither a moral or immoral act. Killing someone in cold blood is immoral, killing someone in self defense is moral.

My view exactly.

 

[po18guy]

Classic over-thinking. There is little point in re-hashing discussions that were settled long ago by those far more enlightened than us.

 

[Wozza]

So then you’re agreeing that morality is objective?

Uh? You just described it as being relative. Hence one needs to make a subjective determination based on the circumstances.

Killing is neither a moral or immoral act. Killing someone in cold blood is immoral, killing someone in self defense is moral.

 

[Wozza]

Classic over-thinking. There is little point in re-hashing discussions that were settled long ago by those far more enlightened than us.

Gee, I didn’t know that we had universal agreement on these matters. Perhaps you mean settled by those with whom you agree?

 

[o_mlly]

Harming a child for the sake of harming a child - if that’s what you mean by harming, is an act relative to the conditions. I am doing it because…I get pleasure from it. But if I stick a needle into a child and make it suffer it MAY not be wrong.

I guess we need to know the conditions there as well.

Yes. Human acts are always moral acts in the concrete. However, acts evil in their object are never made good by any circumstances.

The act of sticking a needle in a person to harm them is evil. The act of sticking a needle in a person to heal or prevent disease is good. The object of the act, the intent of the actor and circumstances must all be good to judge an act as good.

 

[o_mlly]

how could specific factors coexist with the idea of only one form of objective morality- the action itself was good or wrong? I

One judges their culpability for an immoral act subjectively (and honestly). Three determinations are necessary: 1) their knowledge, 2) their intent or end in view, and 3) their freedom to act. The community may judge the legality of the act but only God and the actor can judge culpability.

Regardless of one’s judgement on their subjective culpability, the act itself remains objectively evil or not.

 

[Ender]

I say that it is impossible to state an objectively immoral act without explicity or implicity implying the conditions. As I said above regarding murder.

It seems you are conflating not knowing whether a particular killing is a murder with not knowing whether murder is immoral. Yes, there are conditions to be evaluated in determining whether a particular killing constitutes murder, but once it is determined that a murder has been committed there is nothing that can justify it.

The fact that conditions can determine what type of action has been committed does not in any way alter the objectively evil nature of some acts. We can know that murder is always evil even if we cannot know whether a particular killing is a murder.

 

[meltzerboy2]

Even here, however, we may have one of those moral dilemmas, such as the lifeboat event in which one innocent person’s life has to be sacrificed to save the lives of all the other people. Surely some psychologically healthy people would argue that it is morally acceptable for one person to be sacrificed to save all the others, especially, let’s say, if the one to be killed is very old and very ill, whereas all the others are young and physically healthy. Or, better yet, let’s take the real-life example of murdering so many innocent Japanese civilians during World War II by dropping the atomic bomb, for the purpose of ending the war sooner and saving countless more lives. Many psychologically healthy people consider this behavior moral, not immoral.

With regard to the color blindness example, I often refer in my psychology classes to the case of a tribe (sorry, I don’t remember their name at the moment) that has no separate words in their language for the colors green and blue. In other words, the same word means both colors. These people grow up not being able to differentiate between the colors green and blue due to their cultural upbringing, in particular their language. However, there is nothing physically wrong with their visual cortex or eyes even though they cannot see the difference in these colors. For them, therefore, there is no difference; that is the reality of their world based on their culture.

 

[Wozza]

No, that’s not relativity. That’s objectivity. Relativity would be saying something like, while killing an innocent person is generally wrong, here are instances in which I think it’s ok for the right justification.

So relativity would be killing an innocent person in cold blood as opposed to killing them in self defense. Someone suggested that earlier:

‘Killing someone in cold blood is immoral, killing someone in self defense is moral.’

So that would be…relative?

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

Harming a child for the sake of harming a child - if that’s what you mean by harming, is an act relative to the conditions. I am doing it because…I get pleasure from it. But if I stick a needle into a child and make it suffer it MAY not be wrong.

I guess we need to know the conditions there as well.

Yes. Human acts are always moral acts in the concrete. However, acts evil in their object are never made good by any circumstances.

So it depends on what someone’s objective is to be able to make a decision as to whether it’s evil.

So I am going to hurt this child. Do you need to ned to know why to determine if it’s evil?