Morality and Subjectivity

[wanstronian]

What about the Ten Commandments as objective morality?
Surely, the ten commandments are the standard.

They say nothing about slavery. Are you saying that slavery’s okay, because the Ten Commandments don’t forbid it? What about torture?

Are you also forgetting that the Ten Commandments are written in a book, by men? That makes them subjective, not absolute. Not to mention that there are a lot more than ten commandments scattered around the OT, and the partitioning and collation of them is arbitrary and subjective depending on which religion you have.

Subjective morality is a slippery slope of self justification for whatever standards of behaviour suit you at any given time.

Yet there is demonstrably no other kind of morality. However, you seem to be talking about individual, arbitrary morality, which is something different.

 

[Sair]

I stumbled across an interesting article today, which has a certain resonance with the subject of this thread:

edge.org/3rd_culture/hauser09/hauser09_index.html

It would seem that morality, in the sense that humans have an innate moral sense, is an objective feature of the human species. Hauser’s thesis in this article, that humans have a “universal moral grammar” hardwired into our brains, essentially goes back to the idea that we ourselves are the source of morality, not just in an emotive, subjective sense, but in an objective, biological sense. To me this seems to ring true with what is currently thought about the evolution of the human brain - that the higher cognitive abilities developed (were favoured by natural selection) in response to the need to understand and build relationships with other humans; or as Dawkins has put it, swim in a sea of people. It’s also interesting to note Hauser’s comments at the end of the article, that our moral sense, having evolved at a time when humans were living in small tribal communities, hunting and gathering and utterly at the mercy of natural forces, has not really equipped us to deal confidently with new moral dilemmas that are presented by the advance of technology.

 

[Leela]

What about the Ten Commandments as objective morality?
Surely, the ten commandments are the standard.

As for Utilitarianism, well it is such a flawed set of ethics I am flabbergasted that Catholics would entertain it for a second. It is anti-Christian in so many ways and it has so many sub-branches it is almost an incoherent set of principles.

Subjective morality is a slippery slope of self justification for whatever standards of behaviour suit you at any given time.

Well I haven’t boiled any goats in their mother’s milk or mix sacrificial blood with anything leavened, so I think I’m okay either way, but how do you justify the Ten Comandments as objective morality?

 

[Sair]

Another thing I’ve noticed from scanning the posts on this thread is that some people tend to confuse the concepts of ‘subjectivity’ and ‘arbitrariness’.

An arbitrary moral rule is one that has no particular basis in real experience. It gives weight to criteria that don’t actually matter in a moral sense, such as gender or skin colour - or even species, if you want to take it to its logical extreme. It tends to make moral judgements based upon trivial details.

Subjective morality can be arbitrary, of course, but it is not necessarily so. Going back to the issue of slavery, an arbitrary moral code might - and in fact did - support slavery based on the notion that the enslaved are less important, less human, even, than the masters because their skin is a different colour. The moral code that led to the abolition of slavery recognised the common humanity between the enslaved and the masters, and this recognition enabled empathy, which is a subjective experience. Hence, from the combination of observed fact and emotional experience, we arrive at a moral decision that is far from arbitrary.

 

[John21652]

…but how do you justify the Ten Comandments as objective morality?

Objective in the sense that they were given to Moses by God, directly. God is the objective being responsible for this set of moral edicts.

 

[stenlis]

Objective in the sense that they were given to Moses by God, directly. God is the objective being responsible for this set of moral edicts.

That means they are authoritative but not that they are objective
How do you know that god is moral?

 

[Sair]

We need to be clear about what we’re talking about here. There’s “morality” as in “the behaviors that humans exhibit that get labeled as ‘moral’ and that might serve a sociological/biological function” (empathy, kindness, cooperation, etc), and then there’s “morality” as in “absolute rules of conduct that do not depend on what humans think about them.”

“Morality” in the first sense obviously exists. “Morality” in the second sense does not. We don’t need some kind of “objective grounding” for treating each other nicely. Most people act nicely to others not out of obedience to some abstract rule, but out of their own values.

We also don’t need an “objective grounding” to morality to say that we don’t like some jerk who goes around making trouble for society.

That’s a good point, and it has long been my belief that there is no such thing as morality in the universe - it is, as you say, a label we give to behaviours that we observe, and about which we make value judgements. I have - understandably - little patience for the idea presented by many who argue for an ‘objective’ morality, that morality must have some kind of existence independent of human minds in order to be important or binding.

 

[Leela]

Objective in the sense that they were given to Moses by God, directly. God is the objective being responsible for this set of moral edicts.

Are these commandments objectively good (good independent of the opinion of God) or are they good according to God’s subjective opinion?

 

[John21652]

They say nothing about slavery. Are you saying that slavery’s okay, because the Ten Commandments don’t forbid it? What about torture?

Are you also forgetting that the Ten Commandments are written in a book, by men? That makes them subjective, not absolute. Not to mention that there are a lot more than ten commandments scattered around the OT, and the partitioning and collation of them is arbitrary and subjective depending on which religion you have.Yet there is demonstrably no other kind of morality. However, you seem to be talking about individual, arbitrary morality, which is something different.

wanstronian you are driving me nuts with your quantum leaps of logic.

I asked a simple question and you jump straight in with a diatribe on slavery. Slavery was not my topic. Objective morality was my topic. How in God’s name can you ask if I think slavery is Ok when all I asked is how about the Ten Commandments as objective morality.

you seem to have forgotten that the Ten Commandments were given to Moses by God directly. Now surely, as a Christian at least, you can see that as the ultimate objectivity, in other words, the absolute word of God.

 

[hatsoff]

What about the Ten Commandments as objective morality?
Surely, the ten commandments are the standard.

In what sense are the ten commandments “the standard”? I don’t see anything particularly special about them, except of course their place in Judeo-Christian history.

As for Utilitarianism, well it is such a flawed set of ethics I am flabbergasted that Catholics would entertain it for a second. It is anti-Christian in so many ways and it has so many sub-branches it is almost an incoherent set of principles.

Not that I’m a utilitarian, but even if it were flawed, it may still be attractive if the alternatives are even more deeply flawed!

Subjective morality is a slippery slope of self justification for whatever standards of behaviour suit you at any given time.

Perhaps so, but that’s what we’re stuck with.

 

[tonyrey]

Are these commandments objectively good (good independent of the opinion of God) or are they good according to God’s subjective opinion?

They are objectively good because God is objectively good!

 

[AntiTheist]

That’s a good point, and it has long been my belief that there is no such thing as morality in the universe - it is, as you say, a label we give to behaviours that we observe, and about which we make value judgements.

Yes. Believing that morality is “objective” is an act of faith. The fellow on this thread who said he believes in objective morality because god gave the ten commandments to Moses was the most honest one of these believers – he believes it because he wants to believe it and that’s that. The forwardness and the shamelessness with which someone can advance such a childish position is in one sense breathtaking, but also a fresh breath of air on a forum where the faithful try to make believe that their ideas make sense.

The fact of the matter is that either you take it on faith that morality exists, or you acknowledge that there’s no such thing as morality (I’m talking about morality in the second sense, the “absolute rules” sense, obviously),

People act from their values; people judge actions from their values. That’s it.

 

[tonyrey]

The moral code that led to the abolition of slavery recognised the common humanity between the enslaved and the masters, and this recognition enabled empathy, which is a subjective experience.

So the common humanity between the enslaved and the masters is the factual basis for the injustice of slavery. Whether it is recognised or not is beside the point.

Hence, from the combination of observed fact and emotional experience, we arrive at a moral decision that is far from arbitrary.

Where does emotional experience come into the moral decision?

 

[tonyrey]

To me this seems to ring true with what is currently thought about the evolution of the human brain - that the higher cognitive abilities developed (were favoured by natural selection) in response to the need to understand and build relationships with other humans; or as Dawkins has put it, swim in a sea of people.

If the higher cognitive abilities developed solely as the result of natural selection all thoughts, theories, principles and explanations are determined by biological processes and have no more significance than instincts and conditioned reflexes. In other words reasoning is simply a rigid, mechanistic computation in which there is no place for creativity, originality, insight or intuition.

 

[Aboveallbereal]

Morality cannot by definition be subjective. The etymology of the word places it as an accepted belief reflecting “moeurs” or accepted positions. Subjective morality is oxymoronic.

 

[Leela]

They are objectively good because God is objectively good!

I assume you mean that since God’s nature is objectively good, he either cannot or will not command anything that is not also objectively good.

When you say that God is objectively good, what objective standard for goodness are you applying?

 

[hatsoff]

Morality cannot by definition be subjective. The etymology of the word places it as an accepted belief reflecting “moeurs” or accepted positions. Subjective morality is oxymoronic.

If the grammar of a moral claim does not meet with its ontology, then so much the worse for its grammar.

 

[wanstronian]

wanstronian you are driving me nuts with your quantum leaps of logic.

I asked a simple question and you jump straight in with a diatribe on slavery. Slavery was not my topic. Objective morality was my topic. How in God’s name can you ask if I think slavery is Ok when all I asked is how about the Ten Commandments as objective morality.

Er… you said that the Ten Commandments were the ‘objective morality.’ If that’s true, and they don’t mention slavery, then presumably God has nothing to say on the subject, so it’s okay to enslave people. It’s far from a ‘quantum leap of logic.’ Sorry for driving you nuts, maybe you should be more careful what you post.

you seem to have forgotten that the Ten Commandments were given to Moses by God directly. Now surely, as a Christian at least, you can see that as the ultimate objectivity, in other words, the absolute word of God.

I’m not a Christian, I’m an atheist. So I don’t believe that these ten commandments were ever the word of God.

 

[wanstronian]

I assume you mean that since God’s nature is objectively good, he either cannot or will not command anything that is not also objectively good.

When you say that God is objectively good, what objective standard for goodness are you applying?

Reel him in slowly now…

 

[Aboveallbereal]

If the grammar of a moral claim does not meet with its ontology, then so much the worse for its grammar.

If morality exists, which is what I assume you mean by its having an ontology, it can only exist as a shared code of thinking and behaving.