Moral Objectivism versus Moral Subjectivism

[inocente]

The moral objectivist affirms an objective standard by which acts can be judged. These standards are found in the natural law, in conscience, in reason and common sense, and in the authority of revelation.

There’s a problem with this business of objective v. subjective.

Look at these color illusions. They prove that color is subjective. Colors don’t exist objectively in the real world, light only comes in frequencies, and the brain uses context when identifying colors. Even knowing that it’s an illusion can’t override the subjectivity. (I loaded the images into Photoshop and did point samples to verify the stated colors).

The Berinmo tribe has a different conception of color, where our blue and “noi” green are one color, while other shades of our green are the separate color “wor”. The Hopi do not have words equivalent to our concept of time, the Tououpinambos only have words to count up to five (after that they go logarithmic), and the Spanish have two concepts of being, one temporary and the other permanent, instead of the one in English.

Our concepts of what is objective, natural, reasonable and common sense may be colored by our culture and beliefs. These issues have given rise to the idea of collective subjectivity – "Culture is linked to socially structured communities. These communities, viewed as separate from other groups, are defined by routine and specific ways of seeing the world.”

Realistically, moral objectivism can only be argued on faith in our own cultural norms and beliefs, which comes close to might is right.

 

[Rocinante]

Certainly objective morality can be achieved by the natural light of reason and common sense, and you can be an atheist to do that. However, the moral relativists** tend to be in the atheist camp**. This is because they want to judge right and wrong from their own personal point of view, and they don’t want any higher power to get in their way.

how could higher powers get in the way of “the natural light of reason”?

how could anyone judge right and wrong from anything other than their own point of view? but from our own points of view, people nevertheless try to be objective in determining what is right and wrong as something that is distinct from personal preferences and prejudices. in my subjective experience, everyone tries to be objective in saying what is right and wrong.

That is why you see so many atheists in these different threads promoting points of view that are not only contrary to reason and common sense, but also to religious laws.

religious laws are contrary to religious laws when you start comparing religions.

As Dostoevsky argued, If God does not exist, everything is permitted. That is moral relativism, or subjective morality.

it would be moral nihilism if anyone actually had that view. dostoevsky put those words in the mouth of ivan karamozov who found by the end of the novel that he didn’t think that everything was permitted even though he didn’t believe in god.

This is not to say there are not moral subjectivist who claim to be religious. There are, for example, Catholics who are for abortion and gay marriage. These people are simple minded. They are not the least bit consistent in their moral values. They rely neither on reason nor on their Church or their God to guide them. They are lost, wandering through a fog of silliness and easily led by the doctrines of political correctness promoted in the media and academia.

simple-minded? this is mean-spirited and confused. a catholic who is pro gay marriage and pro life is likely to take those views only because he thinks that is what is objectively right about morality.

 

[Rocinante]

Sometimes when asked whether paradigm A or B is correct, the answer can be found by asking whether A or B accomplishes what it sets out to do.

okay, so what does morality set out to do? it seems to me that something is morally incorrect if it is bad for human beings and morally correct if it is good for people. we ought to be able to find some objective ways of measuring whether something is moral or immoral.

 

[Moontown_Rabbit]

we ought to be able to find some objective ways of measuring whether something is moral or immoral.

The measuring rod is Christ.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

inocente
*
Realistically, moral objectivism can only be argued on faith in our own cultural norms and beliefs, which comes close to might is right. *

Not really. What the Nazis did in Germany followed the policy of might is right. But that was subjective thinking, not objective. Doing the right thing requires, among other things, using reason and common sense. Even atheists can agree with Catholics that Hitler was a subjectivist nut case.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Rocinante

*okay, so what does morality set out to do? it seems to me that something is morally incorrect if it is bad for human beings and morally correct if it is good for people. we ought to be able to find some objective ways of measuring whether something is moral or immoral. *

Ayn Rand, who was an atheist, believed that the only way to be objective about morality is to use reason and common sense. That’s fine as far as it goes. However, human reason can be deceptive. We not only can lie to others, we can lie to ourselves. The remedy is to find a higher law that confirms what reason tells us. That higher law is God’s law, more specifically the law of Christ. Other religions may use other laws, but they don’t claim the authority that Christ claimed to teach the truth. I would be wary of any religion that teaches any two central truths other than what Christ taught: Love God and love one another. Christ comes back to those truths over and over in the Gospels. No other religion is so emphatic on that score. So I believe Christianity is rooted in objective truth more so than any other religion, though certainly other religions may have some elements of objective truth in them.

 

[AntiTheist]

Even atheists can agree with Catholics that Hitler was a subjectivist nut case.

This is (one of the many areas) where your arguments fall apart because Hitler clearly thought that he was doing objective good. He considered himself a moral objectivist.

 

[Rocinante]

inocente
*
Realistically, moral objectivism can only be argued on faith in our own cultural norms and beliefs, which comes close to might is right. *

Not really. What the Nazis did in Germany followed the policy of might is right. But that was subjective thinking, not objective. Doing the right thing requires, among other things, using reason and common sense. Even atheists can agree with Catholics that Hitler was a subjectivist nut case.

you are very confused about what the terms objective and subjective mean when applied to morals. if we accept for the sake of argument that hitler’s moral basis was “might makes right” then that is certainly an objective notion of morality–a horribly misguided one, but an objective one nevertheless. one can doubt that that is a good way or the correct way of defining the term, but if one defines it in that way morality as “might makes right” is certainly objective since what is conceived as moral here is determined objectively and beyond all doubt through violent trial.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Rocinante

how could higher powers get in the way of “the natural light of reason”?

By contradicting reason, which is imperfect and self-deceptive from time to time. You well know that some people use reason to justify immoral acts that are condemned by religion. When the natural light of reason is eclipsed by our passions, religion is the court of last resort. Some people don’t even use the natural light of reason or common sense. They just give in to illicit passions, such as the passion for making money regardless of the means to do so (drug abuse, prostitution, thievery, etc.). Any person who is religious will not traffic in that kind of behavior. Any person who has repudiated God has no interior brake on his conduct other than the fear of being caught, and most of the time that is not even a brake because he thinks he will never be caught.

religious laws are contrary to religious laws when you start comparing religions.

That is true, but some religions are more objective than others. For example, cult religions that preach and even enact mass suicide are hardly in the objective (rational, common sense camp), and they certainly don’t qualify as Christian.

it would be moral nihilism if anyone actually had that view. dostoevsky put those words in the mouth of ivan karamozov who found by the end of the novel that he didn’t think that everything was permitted even though he didn’t believe in god.

Ivan was a fictional character. Look at Joe Stalin, an atheist through and through; he certainly believed every horror was permitted to him.

*simple-minded? this is mean-spirited and confused. a catholic who is pro gay marriage and pro life is likely to take those views only because he thinks that is what is objectively right about morality. *

Did you mean to say pro-choice?

What you have just said is ridiculous. If you are Catholic, you don’t believe exactly the opposite of what the Catholic Church teaches. That is simple minded. And it’s not mean-spirited. It’s just telling it like it is.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Rocinante

*you are very confused about what the terms objective and subjective mean when applied to morals. if we accept for the sake of argument that hitler’s moral basis was “might makes right” then that is certainly an objective notion of morality–a horribly misguided one, but an objective one nevertheless. one can doubt that that is a good way or the correct way of defining the term, but if one defines it in that way morality as “might makes right” is certainly objective since what is conceived as moral here is determined objectively and beyond all doubt through violent trial. *

I’m not confused. You are the one who is confused. And you have just proven it in this paragraph. If you keep up with this nonsense, I may have to ignore your posts. Please get a reliable dictionary of philosophy and get your head cleared of this confusion.

 

[Rocinante]

Rocinante

you are very confused about what the terms objective and subjective mean when applied to morals. if we accept for the sake of argument that hitler’s moral basis was “might makes right” then that is certainly an objective notion of morality–a horribly misguided one, but an objective one nevertheless. one can doubt that that is a good way or the correct way of defining the term, but if one defines it in that way morality as “might makes right” is certainly objective since what is conceived as moral here is determined objectively and beyond all doubt through violent trial.

I’m not confused. You are the one who is confused. And you have just proven it in this paragraph. If you keep up with this nonsense, I may have to ignore your posts. Please get a reliable dictionary of philosophy and get your head cleared of this confusion.

you clearly are using the word “objective” to mean “in agreement with Catholic teaching on morality.” my dictionary doesn’t say that at all. what does yours say?

 

[Touchstone]

I’m not confused. You are the one who is confused. And you have just proven it in this paragraph. If you keep up with this nonsense, I may have to ignore your posts. Please get a reliable dictionary of philosophy and get your head cleared of this confusion.

I don’t think this is a matter of being confused, but just parochial, insular. On Catholicism, “objective” gets mixed up with “authority”, by necessity. God’s subjective declarations are “objective” on this view because they are authoritative, in their view, and a conflation occurs between “independent of mind/will” and “determined by God”. God’s will, after all, is not thought to be the same as humans, not hardly, so, the thinking goes, it’s “objective with reference to humans”. God can subjectively will something to be true (homosexuals should be stoned to death), and mirabile dictu, that declaration becomes non-declarative, but objective somehow. Or, really, it’s just a matter of conflating the two, God’s subjectivity and objectivity.

It’s special pleading, of course. And parochial. God’s will is not subjective, because, well, it’s just not. And this rests not on philosophical principles, but on an appeal to authority. God’s will is objective because, d@mmit, God tells us it is!

Which is a nice bit of irony to chew on, I note.

Anyway, it’s not a matter of confusion. It’s just awkward for Catholics to have to own up to their definitions as naked appeals to authority. “Objective morality” trades on the good equity of science and reason, and resonates much more successfully than “divine might makes right”. That worked better in pre-modern eras, but is a struggle to promote today.

-TS

 

[Rocinante]

I don’t think this is a matter of being confused, but just parochial, insular. On Catholicism, “objective” gets mixed up with “authority”, by necessity. God’s subjective declarations are “objective” on this view because they are authoritative, in their view, and a conflation occurs between “independent of mind/will” and “determined by God”. God’s will, after all, is not thought to be the same as humans, not hardly, so, the thinking goes, it’s “objective with reference to humans”. God can subjectively will something to be true (homosexuals should be stoned to death), and mirabile dictu, that declaration becomes non-declarative, but objective somehow. Or, really, it’s just a matter of conflating the two, God’s subjectivity and objectivity.

It’s special pleading, of course. And parochial. God’s will is not subjective, because, well, it’s just not. And this rests not on philosophical principles, but on an appeal to authority. God’s will is objective because, d@mmit, God tells us it is!

Which is a nice bit of irony to chew on, I note.

Anyway, it’s not a matter of confusion. It’s just awkward for Catholics to have to own up to their definitions as naked appeals to authority. “Objective morality” trades on the good equity of science and reason, and resonates much more successfully than “divine might makes right”. That worked better in pre-modern eras, but is a struggle to promote today.

-TS

i guess that clarifies the situation a little for me. the same sort of issue arises with the term “relativism” which as far as i can tell is used to mean “disagreeing with what the church teaches about morality.” i could say, i think it is wrong always and everywhere regardless of historical era or culture for anyone to teach that masturbation is sinful, and someone here would probably shout, “relativist!”

rocinante

 

[The_Exodus]

It’s special pleading, of course. And parochial. God’s will is not subjective, because, well, it’s just not. And this rests not on philosophical principles, but on an appeal to authority. God’s will is objective because, d@mmit, God tells us it is!

I suppose it is expected that you will continue to speak dogmatically on things you obviously have no grasp on. God’s will is his being, which is convertible with the good. I know you will probably misunderstand or misrepresent this, but it is still the actual teaching of the Church and needs to be said.

If you are interested in actually engaging in the teaching of the Church, instead of attacking straw men, you could begin here: dhspriory.org/thomas/QDdePotentia.htm particularly question 7.

touchstone:

Which is a nice bit of irony to chew on, I note.

What is ironic is your constant reference to metaphysical claims (this is subjective, this is objective, etc.) on the one hand, and your apparent dismissal of metaphysics as “intellectual fluff” on the other. Just another example of you using what you want, when you want, to substantiate whatever you want.

 

[4Horsemen]

4Horsemen

*Our legal system is a code of laws mainly developed from absolute or objective morality, but also on subjective reasoning, such as the idea that the majority rules and decides truth. (Evidenced by cultural opinion on abortion, “gay rights,” and end-of-life decisions). *

Certainly an amount of subjectivism prevails in the courts, at some times more than others. We are shocked when judges hand out very light sentences for serious felonies, while at other times they hand out overly heavy sentences for misdemeanors. There seems to be at these times a lack of objective grasp of the issues, and an unwillingness to be reasonable and just. You might say the judge has a personal preference that is not consistent with the objective facts of the case.

Yes, the little demi-god, relativist judge is a god unto himself. And we can observe how so many of their verdicts, decisions wield havoc for our country. Those who use their reasoning power, and common sense, know too well about the adverse effects of pornography, abortion, addictions, same-sex marriage (oxymoron) and the like. You don’t have to be a Christian to experience the change in the culture even within the last twenty years. Just take a look at the so-called entertainment offered and what’s going on in our schools. I could go on a rant about that.

 

[4Horsemen]

There’s a problem with this business of objective v. subjective.

Look at these color illusions. They prove that color is subjective. Colors don’t exist objectively in the real world, light only comes in frequencies, and the brain uses context when identifying colors. Even knowing that it’s an illusion can’t override the subjectivity. (I loaded the images into Photoshop and did point samples to verify the stated colors).

I connected with the link that shows the hearts which, objectively, are the same color, They seem to change color to our naked eye in backgrounds of different hues. So they merely appear to be different colors, a subjective experience. But the fact is, the hearts are the same color. So, we can perceive something that is truly objective in a subjective manner. Maybe you are familiar with the “Magic Eye” books which were popular in the early nineties. They are the 3-D pictures with the hidden picture inside. Some people can’t see that hidden “dimension.” That can be an analogy for those who can’t see objective truth even when it’s in front of their nose.

Here’s a link for interesting “Magic Eye” interactions:

magiceye.com/3dfun/stwkdisp.shtml

The Berinmo tribe has a different conception of color, where our blue and “noi” green are one color, while other shades of our green are the separate color “wor”. The Hopi do not have words equivalent to our concept of time, the Tououpinambos only have words to count up to five (after that they go logarithmic), and the Spanish have two concepts of being, one temporary and the other permanent, instead of the one in English.

In a class of Cultural Anthropology, I had to study various tribes with their superstitions and differing religious beliefs (the same thing for most). We had to read Margaret Mead’s book, Coming of Age in Samoa on sexual ethics (or lack thereof) in the South Pacific tribe. She asserted that incest was common and unproblematic as young children would sleep with older relatives and often initiate sexual intimacy. (That’s what I remember from the class). You can find more information on Wikipedia and other sites. On the latter, someone by the name Derek Freeman debunked her story and said the Samoans felt coerced to give a “right” answer.

[SIGN]

In 1983, five years after Mead had died, New Zealand anthropologist Derek Freeman published Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth, in which he challenged Mead’s major findings about sexuality in Samoan society, citing statements of her surviving informants’ claiming that she had coaxed them into giving her the answers she wanted. After years of discussion, many anthropologists concluded that the truth would probably never be known, although most published accounts of the debate have also raised serious questions about Freeman’s critique.[17]

[/SIGN]

The question is, although various cultures have their rules and religious beliefs, are they truly objective? Do they have an idea of what objective truth is? I would say not. Many cultures in the past and still today have various “gods” like the moon god and other deities. However, as a gift from Heaven, Our Lady of Guadelupe appeared to an Aztec named Juan Diego to end human sacrifice and polytheism

Our concepts of what is objective, natural, reasonable and common sense may be colored by our culture and beliefs. These issues have given rise to the idea of collective subjectivity – "Culture is linked to socially structured communities. These communities, viewed as separate from other groups, are defined by routine and specific ways of seeing the world.”

Realistically, moral objectivism can only be argued on faith in our own cultural norms and beliefs, which comes close to might is right.

Might is never right. Although cultural norms and religious beliefs are embedded in each culture and are, therefore, subjective, yet the Supreme Being who understands this sheds light to whomever He will such that the moral law is "written in our hearts, you might say as so often quoted. IOW, human beings from the time of Adam and Eve know that murder is evil from the first murder committed (Cain killing Abel). Other sins sear the conscience like idolotry, immorality, theft, lying, covetousness, etc . . .

 

[Touchstone]

I suppose it is expected that you will continue to speak dogmatically on things you obviously have no grasp on. God’s will is his being, which is convertible with the good. I know you will probably misunderstand or misrepresent this, but it is still the actual teaching of the Church and needs to be said.

I neither misunderstand nor dispute that as the teaching of the Church. This is not Divine Command Theory, as one might find in Protestant circles. But this:

“God’s will is his being, which is convertible with the good.”

Is dogma, and a tautology to boot, Euthyphro’s question. To say “God’s being is convertible to the good” is to beg the question: what is good? If “good” is “whatever God is”, by definition, than you have an open and shut case; “good” obtains subjectively, as the *result of our own peculiar definitions.*And on this answer, the difference between Catholic grounding for moral value and, say the Protestant Divine Command Theorists, are more expressive than conceptual; Catholics look to conflate “being” with “good”, and the Protestant’s point to God’s “being” as the basis for saying “this is good”, but in the end, neither rendition of “good” obtains outside of the believer’s (subjective) definitions.

Euthyphro remains a problem, then. Aquinas never actually addresses this question directly, so far as I’m aware, but IIRC he made statements suggesting that God himself could not change the Ten Commandments, suggesting that Aquinas came down on the “first horn” of the dilemma. This has a paradoxical effect for Catholics who take this position: one the one hand, it does provide grounds for truly objective values in principle. But on the other, now the Catholic God is distinct from them, subordinate to them, which is a major problem. We don’t need God for morality on such a view, as morality obtains prior to God.

The Catholic teaching seems to fail to recognization the operative distinction in the dilemma. God is good because he must be by nature, but that “must be” is not a “must be”, because God is not contingent or dependent upon anything else. It accepts and denies the Euthyphro’s “first horn” at the same time.

But that’s as much as will fit in here in this thread. Simply asserting “God is good” just provides a tautology. If one asks, “what is ‘good’”, one gets pointed back to God. A tight circle. And that’s the Catholic’s prerogative to just assert such a circular argument. But it’s not beholden to anything in the real world, it’s the very picture of the most purely subjective claim one can make.

If it’s not clear why that’s a problem, conider an analogous claim:

Potassium has supreme economic value, objectively and intrinsically.

Now, what is the nature of this claim? The proposition offered explicitly states an objective reality about the world. Potassium is the stuff! It’s innate to potassium, it is just inherently valuable. No doubt about the scope of the proposition itself (just like ‘God’s laws are objectively just’!). But what is the provenance of the claim itself, not the proposition the claim presents?

Why it’s as subjective as can be. As it stands, I’ve offered nothing but my naked assertion. “God’s will is his being, which is convertible with the good.” is simlarly skyhooked, a purely dogmatic staring point. I can lay just as much claim to the ultimate, objective economic value of potassium as the Catholic can to the goodness of God as intrinsic to his being.

If you are interested in actually engaging in the teaching of the Church, instead of attacking straw men, you could begin here: dhspriory.org/thomas/QDdePotentia.htm particularly question 7.

OK, thanks for the link. That’s a section I’ve been through before, previously, more than once.

What is ironic is your constant reference to metaphysical claims (this is subjective, this is objective, etc.) on the one hand, and your apparent dismissal of metaphysics as “intellectual fluff” on the other. Just another example of you using what you want, when you want, to substantiate whatever you want.

The “objectively” in “X obtains objectively” is not a metaphysical modifier. Neither is “subjective” in “X obtains subjectively”. These are descriptive adjectives, locating attributes and qualities. If I take away all the minds in the universe, “value” for the $20 bill lying on the ground becomes meaningless, incoherent. We descriptively locate value by observing its origins, its assignment, by minds. If I take away all the minds in the universe, the $20 bill on the ground still has “mass”. Mass obtains apart from minds, it obtains objectively (setting aside Catholic subjectivization of even mass for the time being).

These are descriptive terms that are useful in philosophy, and often crucial in discussions about aesthetics and ethics. But it doesn’t depend on anything more metaphysical than any natural description – we can look at a proposition and see how it applies with assigning minds involved, or without. That’s why saying that God’s goodness is subjective from our offering of the proposition as well as God’s willing of the good is not dependent on any state of being. It’s descriptive of the basis for the distinction itself, from mind/will or not from mind/will.

-TS

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Touchstone

Anyway, it’s not a matter of confusion. It’s just awkward for Catholics to have to own up to their definitions as naked appeals to authority. “Objective morality” trades on the good equity of science and reason, and resonates much more successfully than “divine might makes right”. That worked better in pre-modern eras, but is a struggle to promote today.

It’s no more of an awkward thing for Catholics to appeal to the authority of their God than it is for judges to appeal to the authority of the Constitution or the Supreme Court, or for atheists like yourself to engage in a naked appeal to the authority of your God … yourself.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Touchstone

Are you a moral subjectivist or a moral objectivist? Please try not to be long winded and obscure as you were in your last post. Thank you.

 

[Touchstone]

Touchstone

Are you a moral subjectivist or a moral objectivist? Please try not to be long winded and obscure as you were in your last post. Thank you.

Humans have a natural physiology which obtains objectively, and provides a basic “moral grammar”, as the primitive, rudimentary hardware a mind inherits (we are hard wired for empathy, for example, physiologically). But the mind asserts itself on top of that physiological base, subjectively (this is the definition of “subjective”), which makes man’s moral commitments and beliefs subjective. Morality is subjective, but is informed by an objective biology that obtains in humans, irrespective of what the human mind chooses, wills, or believes.

-TS