The Existence of Objective Morality

[meltzerboy]

But doesn’t it seem just as odd that people can have widely varying moral beliefs, whether or not religion is involved? I mean, if any particular moral stance is right, then why wouldn’t everyone be on the same page?

That’s the whole point. Humanists do NOT believe that ANY particular moral stance is right. Humanists ARE moralists; they’re just not religious moralists. For the most part, they are secular moralists (but not all are secular). The term “moralist” historically has a much broader meaning than believer. Just as some non-believers think that all believers are universal in their thinking, so too some believers think that all non-believers are universal. Neither group is universal. However, at the same time, neither group is laissez-faire in their thinking. Humanists have morals; the morals, however, are not based on a subjective interpretation of a (supposedly) objective morality. Secular morality is not the equivalent of the work of the devil, just as religious morality is not the equivalent of irrational fanaticism.

 

[fhansen]

That’s the whole point. Humanists do NOT believe that ANY particular moral stance is right. Humanists ARE moralists; they’re just not religious moralists. For the most part, they are secular moralists (but not all are secular). The term “moralist” historically has a much broader meaning than believer. Just as some non-believers think that all believers are universal in their thinking, so too some believers think that all non-believers are universal. Neither group is universal. However, at the same time, neither group is laissez-faire in their thinking. Humanists have morals; the morals, however, are not based on a subjective interpretation of a (supposedly) objective morality.

I don’t think “a subjective interpretation of a (supposedly) objective morality” is an apt description of the relationship of faith to morality, at least not the way I’ve experienced it. I know that humanists don’t believe that just any particular moral stance is right. But that’s the point. If it’s even possible for a particular stance to be right, how is it yet possible for anyone else to be wrong? How/why are some right and some wrong? And how do we know which is right? And if a humanist believes their particular stance to be right, do they believe it to be right in an absolute, objective sense? And if not, why would they bother to defend it? Why would they ever experience moral outrage/righteous indignation over some “injustice”?

 

[levinas12]

I don’t think there is textual evidence for anxiety on Plato’s … part.

Plato got entangled in disastrous and tyranical Syracusan politics, all of which ended in a murderous assassination of the one good man (Dion), who was Plato’s only hope for a better government. See, for example, Plato’s lament in his Seventh Letter, 336 b-c: “As it was, though, some divinity or some evil spirit broke loose with lawlessness, with ungodliness, and, worst of all, with the boldness of folly - the soil in which all manner of evil to all men takes root and flourishes and later produces a fruit most bitter for those who sow it. So folly, a second time brought complete failure and disaster …” This sounds almost Homeric. Or Thucycidean. It gives us pause: was the dialogue, The Republic, really a reductio ad absurdum?

The Apology is also a poignant testimony to the moral failure of the polis.

Plato had a lot of anxiety about human affairs. Why else did he turn to theoria?

 

[levinas12]

I don’t think there is textual evidence for anxiety on … Aristotle’s part.

I don’t think that’s a good interpretation of Aristotle’s account of vice. Evil is not inexplicable – it happens when people aim at something outside of the virtuous mean. Some people are educated or habituated to pursue a vicious goal, but they are doing so because they are mistakenly pursuing something they believe to be good.

I think Aristotle was anxious about Alexander the Great and the failure of political life. Remember that Alexander may have suspected that Aristotle was plotting against him and had Aristotle’s grandnephew Callisthenes killed. When Alexander declared himself a god, Aristotle was not reassured.

Also, Aristotle had to flee Athens after Alexander died (there was an anti-Macedonian reaction). He said he did not want Athens responsible for the death of two philosophers. So Socrates’ execution was not forgotten.

Aristotle in other words had grounds for anxiety over human affairs.

Arisotle did not think that phronesis (prudence) could be taught. Therefore, was not subject to social controls. The polis was lucky if it had one person with phronesis. Goodness itself was rare. See Nicomachean Ethics, 1109a 25-29: " … but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness is both rare and laudable and noble."

And with respect to cleverness (deinos) without virtue, 1144a, 25, to quote Gadamer, Truth and Method, pp. 288-289: “Aristotle, finally, makes the special nature of moral knowledge and the virtue of possessing it particularly clear by describing a naturally debased variety of this moral knowledge. He says that the deinos is a man who has all the natural prerequisites and gifts … who is able to seize his advantage everywhere and finds a way out of every situation. But this natural counterpart to phronesis is characterised by the fact that he exercises his gifts without being led in any way by moral being and hence without inhibitions and without any orientation towards moral ends. And it is probably more than accidental that such a person is given a name that also means ‘terrible’. Nothing is so terrible, so uncanny, so appalling as the exercise of brilliant talents for evil.” I see this as radical evil.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

meltzerboy
**
And how do we interpret those teachings? You see it still comes down to individual subjectivity, at least in the details, but those are often also important. **

Well, I don’t see it that way. That way lies moral anarchy. The laws of the land, as well as the laws of god, tend to mirror a recognition that there are indeed objectively evil acts that need to be addressed one way or another. The details may vary from one crime to another, or from one judge to another, but that has no bearing on the objective evil that laws address.

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

Well, I don’t see it that way. That way lies moral anarchy. The laws of the land, as well as the laws of god,** tend to mirror a recognition** that there are indeed objectively evil acts that need to be addressed one way or another. The details may vary from one crime to another, or from one judge to another, but that has no bearing on the objective evil that laws address.

That “tend to mirror” is a subjective evaluation. Deriving the laws of morality from such a statement requires inductive reasoning. Therefore, it may be possible to come up with more than one system of morality that would adequately explain our “gut feelings” about the morality of various activities.

I propose the validity of a morality system can be gauged by the following question: can you convince others that your system encompasses their “gut feelings” about morality? By this measure, the christian moral system has a high probability of being valid due simply to the large number of people who accept it. However, there are plenty of other very successful moral systems as well. So either the competing systems are consistent with each other, the flaws in differing systems are so rarely encountered that people don’t realize the flaws exist, or different people truly do have different “gut feelings” about right and wrong.

 

[meltzerboy]

meltzerboy
**
And how do we interpret those teachings? You see it still comes down to individual subjectivity, at least in the details, but those are often also important. **

Well, I don’t see it that way. That way lies moral anarchy. The laws of the land, as well as the laws of god, tend to mirror a recognition that there are indeed objectively evil acts that need to be addressed one way or another. The details may vary from one crime to another, or from one judge to another, but that has no bearing on the objective evil that laws address.

And is your contention, implicitly, that the “laws of the land” could not exist without the “laws of G-d”? In other words, if we lived in a society of all atheists, there would be no “laws of the land”? If your answer is no, then I ask you where did the “laws of the land” come from in an atheist society if not from a humanistic morality? Or would they be inferior laws in your view? Subjectivity perhaps; but moral anarchy, no. Rather, I would call it moral responsibility, in the style of Rousseau’s social contract. Notice I haven’t brought up (why don’t you?) the “strawman” issue by asking: what if those laws themselves are evil, as in the case of slavery or abortion?

 

[tonyrey]

Whatever we believe or disbelieve we all have to have faith in something - unless we are illogical nihilists. Presumably humanists have faith in humanity but their concepts of morality are not all identical. Religious people have faith in God and

It is ironic that all empirical knowledge is based on subjective experience! If you reject the evidence of your thoughts, feelings, decisions and perceptions you are left with precisely nothing. Your faith in the existence of material objects is the result of inference…

Certainly you can argue your faith is reasonable, but it is also possible to argue that “morality = minimization of suffering” is reasonable.

It is possible but is not a cogent argument. Why should the minimization of suffering be of any consequence if life itself is of no consequence? A spark in the dark is hardly valuable or significant - unless value and significance are wishful thinking…

 

[tonyrey]

And is your contention, implicitly, that the “laws of the land” could not exist without the “laws of G-d”?

Laws could exist in a Godless universe but they would be merely arbitrary rules that sceptics can - and do - reject when it suits them…

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

Laws could exist in a Godless universe but they would be merely arbitrary rules that sceptics can - and do - reject when it suits them…

Are the laws in a God-full universe any different? People reject Gods laws when it suits them. If we can’t derive or understand Gods laws on our own, then they are, as far as we know, arbitrarily decided by God.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

meltzerboy

And is your contention, implicitly, that the “laws of the land” could not exist without the “laws of G-d”?

No. The laws of the land can be objectively good or bad laws without the specified laws of God taken into consideration. That does not upset the notion that they **should be **objectively good rather than objectively bad laws.

Yes, societies differ as to their laws. That does not alter the fact that the laws in some societies are objectively good and in other societies are objectively bad.

You can’t get around that fact that we are all pursuing the objectively right thing to do, unless we are dedicated to doing objective evil. Mother Teresa versus Hitler.

All the world cries out for justice for Hitler, and mercy for Mother Teresa. Why?

Is that no more than the subjective preference for chocolate ice cream over vanilla?

Ice creams are subjective preferences, and nobody gives a darn whether you like one or the other. Everybody give a darn whether you prefer Hitler over Mother Teresa.

 

[atheistgirl]

Sarah, disagreement does not imply that everyone is mistaken on everything! It merely shows that the truth is elusive. We are not expected to be infallible but reasonable…

There is one objective, absolute principle to which everyone should conform - that we should obey our conscience and do what we are convinced is right.

I quite agree - but that unfortunately is not the stance many faiths and churches take. They proudly declare they have the fullness of truth, and damn you to hell if you do not believe them.

Sarah x

 

[meltzerboy]

I quite agree - but that unfortunately is not the stance many faiths and churches take. They proudly declare they have the fullness of truth, and damn you to hell if you do not believe them.

Sarah x

Sarah, I don’t know about the “damn you to hell” part, but many religions do claim to have the “fullness of truth,” though not all. I can hardly believe though that “tonyrey” said we should all obey our conscience, because this is close to humanist philosophy. However, some people do not have much of a conscience–psychopaths and such–and that’s why we need at least a humanist morality, if not a religious morality.

 

[fhansen]

Sarah, I don’t know about the “damn you to hell” part, but many religions do claim to have the “fullness of truth,” though not all. I can hardly believe though that “tonyrey” said we should all obey our conscience, because this is close to humanist philosophy. However, some people do not have much of a conscience–psychopaths and such–and that’s why we need at least a humanist morality, if not a religious morality.

The CC claims both that she has the fullness of truth and that humans must be true to their consciences-even when the two apparently conflict.

 

[ServiceKid]

Please excuse my ignorance here but I don’t know exactly how to phrase my question, so I will simply ask it as such;

How can objective morality exist if ourselves and the physical world came into being through mere, unguided chance?

In other words, if God does not exist, then can there be such a thing as objective morality? If so, please explain how.

Thank you.

Tim

There was a time that feelings, perception and reality matched closely. This allowed for a fairly common cognitive model, which translates to a relatively uniform morality. With the advance of science, and the interaction of diverse cultures, the cognitive model is more diverse and subtle. An example (from science), is that most of us have a cognitive model which includes a concept of bacterial disease, while most people have not directly observed bacteria. The number of areas for which many of us have a cognitive model are diverse, ranging from religious belief, to social justice and “natural law”, and science. In addition, cognitive biases have been introduced based on the diversity of culture and technology and varied experience. All of this can lead to cognitive dissonance, in some cases, unless the moral basis changes with time to match the current perception of reality based on what is actually perceived and the cognitive model. Also, with the advent of modern media, the sense of what is perceived has changed. I evolutionary terms we are well adapted for information on a small scale, but not for information on a vast scale. For example, the odds of “one in a billion” doesn’t make a lot of sense to most of us, because we evolved to live and survive in our local environment. Our sense of reality has expanded beyond what we can easily understand and assimilate. Recently, the Church has rejected moral relativism, but for the past 2,000 years it has embraced it. This is a radical change in the direction of the Church, which may be a reaction to the increasing rate of change which it struggles to adapt to as an institution. Given that the rate of change in technology and society is increasing, the strategy might not be the most predictive of future success. There is no doubt that there is some set of moral values which exist in all human society. This is part of the fabric of being human, and endowed by God. Difficulties arise when humans confuse those basic moral values with traditional values which were perceived as a result of societal bias at the time. This is particularly problematic when one considers theological “natural law” which is based on concepts derived at a time when there was no difference between theology, philosophy and science, and compares that to the modern understanding of nature which is more grounded in science. There is a lot of confusion about the difference between the two, which has resulted in conflict between various religious sects, and between secular and religious influences. One of the challenges facing the Church today is to reconcile its body of teaching the the rapidly growing body of scientific knowledge. One test of a moral system is its relevancy to perceived reality, This is one area where the Church has been successful in adapting the application of its doctrine to real life. It has been a living body or moral guidance for many centuries. There appear to be those who would like to change that. Time will tell as to how that effort plays out.

 

[fhansen]

There was a time that feelings, perception and reality matched closely. This allowed for a fairly common cognitive model, which translates to a relatively uniform morality. With the advance of science, and the interaction of diverse cultures, the cognitive model is more diverse and subtle. An example (from science), is that most of us have a cognitive model which includes a concept of bacterial disease. In addition, cognitive biases have been introduced based on the diversity of culture and technology. All of this can lead to cognitive dissonance, in some cases, unless the moral basis changes with time. Recently, the Church has rejected moral relativism, but for the past 2,000 years it has embraced it. This is a radical change, which is probably a reaction to the increasing rate of change which it struggles to adapt to as an institution.

not sure where the Church has embraced moral relativism

 

[ServiceKid]

not sure where the Church has embraced moral relativism

There are a number of examples. Slavery has been mentioned in this thread as an immutable standard. But if you look at Church teaching, it was once that slavery is just fine and dandy as long as you treat a slave with justice and dignity. This was a radical notion in early Christian times. Today, the Church teaches that slavery is immoral I would identify this change as moral relativism with respect to time and changing social convention. Others may disagree with me.

It is a controversial topic at the moment, because John Paul II and now Benedict XVI have identified “moral relativism” as evil. I use the term to mean a moral standard which changes over time, or due to cultural or personal biases. Any student of history can point to examples of where the Church has revised it moral teachings as understanding has grown or society and scientific knowledge have changed.

 

[meltzerboy]

There are a number of examples. Slavery has been mentioned in this thread as an immutable standard. But if you look at Church teaching, it was once that slavery is just fine and dandy as long as you treat a slave with justice and dignity. This was a radical notion in early Christian times. Today, the Church teaches that slavery is immoral I would identify this change as moral relativism with respect to time and changing social convention. Others may disagree with me.

It is a controversial topic at the moment, because John Paul II and now Benedict XVI have identified “moral relativism” as evil. I use the term to mean a moral standard which changes over time, or due to cultural or personal biases. Any student of history can point to examples of where the Church has revised it moral teachings as understanding has grown or society and scientific knowledge have changed.

The Church’s earlier stance on slavery was no doubt inherited from Judaism, to the shame of both religions.

 

[ServiceKid]

The Church’s earlier stance on slavery was no doubt inherited from Judaism, to the shame of both religions.

I guess you had to be there. My position in this discussion is that there are some immutable moral standards which we may all agree on, but there are others which change. I would go so far as to say that the failure to adapt in the face of new knowledge is an immoral act. I don’t know as much as I would like to about Judaism, but I can state with confidence that the Roman empire saw no problem with slavery. Slaves were property, who need not even be provided the dignity of clothing or decent food or shelter. They could be worked to death. Early Christianity condemned such practices, but did not condemn slavery itself.

 

[atheistgirl]

The CC claims both that she has the fullness of truth and that humans must be true to their consciences-even when the two apparently conflict.

That’s interesting. So what do you follow in that case - the church or your conscience? And what is the consequences for say, following your conscience, if it directly conflicts with the church?

Sarah x