Were does morality come from?

[Betterave]

Your confusion comes from not using words carefully yourself and assuming that I don’t either.

You seriously think “complete lack of comprehension” to describe what I said is a careful use of words? I have to disagree, but on to real issues…

I hadn’t so much advanced a position as raised an issue.

You raised an issue **and **advanced a position on that issue, as you continue to do.

Here is how I started that forum - from which it should be quite clear that I was trying to exclude God from the discussion:

*There are two questions I would like to address based on the assumption that God does not exist:

1. Can morality objectively exist or is all morality subjective?
2. What are the implications if morality is purely subjective?*

Talking about the way things are **based on a certain assumption regarding God **does *not *exclude ‘God’ from the discussion. The whole point of the discussion was obviously about the relation of the concept of ‘God’ to that of ‘morality.’ Do you really want to deny that?

This comment is subtly but significantly different than the one I commented on. What you said earlier was: “Ender thinks you must believe in God before you can believe in morality.” This claim is not just false but demonstrably false - as any number of contributors to these forums who don’t believe in God but do believe in morality have shown. Nor did I come with presuppositions. I came with a challenge for someone to explain the origin of morality other than God. That I was unimpressed by the attempts - and could explain why - does not constitute a presupposition.

Okay, but you could have just noted the minor imprecision - it wasn’t a complete misunderstanding! As for presuppositions, you sure did have 'em, and still do (we all do - we couldn’t think without them)! That’s not the point though: the point is that your presuppositions are false and are based on conceptual confusion (see below)…

As for your comment in post 65 (boxed above), I would agree with it (except that it was not a presupposition; it was a conclusion) but the key word in that statement is “coherently”. If one cannot rationally explain the origin of morality then there is no coherent reason to believe it exists.
Explain how you know that morality exists. Where does it originate? Since StrawberryJam is an atheist he cannot say it comes from God so he is left to answer the question I tried raising in the other thread: does morality objectively exist or is it entirely a subjective construct of the human mind?

The origin of morality was coherently explained without mention of God many times and you apparently failed to understand any of it. You provided no coherent rationale for your position.

Morality objectively exists as a human institution. Do you think Islam objectively exists? Obviously it does. Do you think universities objectively exist? Of course they do. Do you think manners objectively exist? You might not, but they do! Do you think morality objectively exists? Of course. All of these things can be explained as objective human institutions. Your concept of ‘entirely subjective construct’ doesn’t mean anything when we are talking about objective human institutions. (You are not at all careful with your use of words like ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ and you demonstrated that repeatedly in the previous thread, as well as again here.)

 

[Ender]

Talking about the way things are **based on a certain assumption regarding God **

does *not *exclude ‘God’ from the discussion. The whole point of the discussion was obviously about the relation of the concept of ‘God’ to that of ‘morality.’ Do you really want to deny that?
[/quote]

I started by saying “assume God does not exist”; how then can you insist this doesn’t remove God from the debate? How else could it be done? What else could that statement mean other than “don’t bring God into the debate”? Of course I deny your conclusion; if I had wanted to debate the relation between God and morality I wouldn’t have based the discussion on the assumption that God didn’t exist.

The origin of morality was coherently explained without mention of God many times and you apparently failed to understand any of it. … Morality objectively exists as a human institution.

This is your argument for the objective existence of morality? That people behave as if it really exists? That it is an observable truth that people believe in morality is an observation about people, not about morality; it says nothing about whether what they believe in actually exists. I really thought you understood how “objective” was being used, that it meant a standard of right and wrong that is independent of what individuals believe it to be. The OP asked where morality comes from - which was what I was trying to get at - and you have not answered that question.

Here’s another approach. If morality objectively exists then one would surely expect that murder would be one of those acts that would be immoral. If you can show that murder actually is immoral and not merely a commonly held belief, then I will concede that morality objectively exists.

Ender

 

[Betterave]

I started by saying “assume God does not exist”; how then can you insist this doesn’t remove God from the debate? How else could it be done? What else could that statement mean other than “don’t bring God into the debate”? Of course I deny your conclusion; if I had wanted to debate the relation between God and morality I wouldn’t have based the discussion on the assumption that God didn’t exist.

It could be done by actually never mentioning God! Once you introduce an assumption regarding God, that assumption (about God!) becomes the explicit subtext for the whole debate. I think that’s obvious.

This is your argument for the objective existence of morality? That people behave as if it really exists? That it is an observable truth that people believe in morality is an observation about people, not about morality; it says nothing about whether what they believe in actually exists. I really thought you understood how “objective” was being used, that it meant a standard of right and wrong that is independent of what individuals believe it to be. The OP asked where morality comes from - which was what I was trying to get at - and you have not answered that question.

This has already been explained to you, but I’ll try again:

1. ‘Morality’ is a concept.
2. We determine whether a concept refers ‘objectively’ by seeing how it is applied.
3. People ‘objectively’ apply the concept ‘morality’ all the time to real situations.
4. That fact alone tells us: morality is real or ‘objective.’

Now you want to say: “No, by ‘objective’ I mean guaranteed as being beyond all real application of concepts that we can empirically confirm.” In other words, by ‘objective’ you mean directly guaranteed by God. But this is not the standard meaning of ‘objective’ and so when you ask your pseudo-question: “Can objective morality exist without God?”, you already have your answer (“No”), because you have begged the question with your silly way of defining ‘objective.’ But by your standard, **nothing **is ‘objective.’ However, no one is actually interested in that sense of ‘objectivity.’ You are mistaken in thinking that it is relevant or interesting.

 

[Ender]

It could be done by actually never mentioning God! Once you introduce an assumption regarding God, that assumption (about God!) becomes the explicit subtext for the whole debate. I think that’s obvious.

I find this notion so preposterous I hardly know how to respond. If I say “let’s not discuss X” you actually believe that X becomes the explicit subtext for the discussion? How would it ever be possible to exclude something from debate if the mere fact of setting out the parameters automatically includes all the things one is trying to exclude?

1. ‘Morality’ is a concept.
2. We determine whether a concept refers ‘objectively’ by seeing how it is applied.
3. People ‘objectively’ apply the concept ‘morality’ all the time to real situations.
4. That fact alone tells us: morality is real or ‘objective.’

If this is all you mean by objective then in this context the term is useless - although it does provide an answer to the OP’s question: morality is whatever people believe it is.

Now you want to say: “No, by ‘objective’ I mean guaranteed as being beyond all real application of concepts that we can empirically confirm.” In other words, by ‘objective’ you mean directly guaranteed by God.

It is not I who wants to include God in every discussion of morality; it is you. I keep trying to exclude God from the discussion and you keep bringing him in, all the while insisting that my attempt to exclude him from the debate actually meant that the debate was really all about him.

But by your standard, **nothing **is ‘objective.’

Step off the roof of your house and let me know whether you find the law of gravity a subjective concept or an objective fact.

However, no one is actually interested in that sense of ‘objectivity.’ You are mistaken in thinking that it is relevant or interesting.

That sense is the only one in which the discussion is either useful or interesting, and it is surely relevant to the question the OP was asking. The reason is obvious: if morality is nothing more than the collective agreement of a particular society then it is mere custom, and that person is a fool who subjugates his sense of right and wrong to what others believe.

Ender

 

[Betterave]

I find this notion so preposterous I hardly know how to respond. If I say “let’s not discuss X” you actually believe that X becomes the explicit subtext for the discussion? How would it ever be possible to exclude something from debate if the mere fact of setting out the parameters automatically includes all the things one is trying to exclude?

It’s not possible! Why should it be? It’s stupid to think that you should have the right to exclude some concept from a debate just because you want to. You don’t have that right and it’s not possible - debate doesn’t work that way!

If this is all you mean by objective then in this context the term is useless - although it does provide an answer to the OP’s question: morality is whatever people believe it is.

No, Ender. If you asked (intelligent) ‘people,’ they would tell you that your little summary of the situation is far too simplistic. It’s no more true than saying that Islam is whatever people believe it is, or physics is whatever people believe it is. Such statements aren’t entirely wrong, but they’re definitely not stated in an intelligent way that shows you know what ought to be meant by ‘people’ and by justification. ‘People’ can be wrong about stuff that is objective - that’s what makes it objective! Please try to grasp this point.

It is not I who wants to include God in every discussion of morality; it is you. I keep trying to exclude God from the discussion and you keep bringing him in, all the while insisting that my attempt to exclude him from the debate actually meant that the debate was really all about him.

Now you’re being silly. You know very well that I know what you believe about morality and that your ‘exclusion’ of God is a completely artificial stipulation from the perspective of your actual viewpoint.

Step off the roof of your house and let me know whether you find the law of gravity a subjective concept or an objective fact.

What point do you take yourself to making here? This is so irrelevant! I know that stepping off the roof of my house will send me plummeting to the ground and that I will probably hurt myself doing so. I know just as well that doing so (intentionally harming myself) is immoral. I don’t need to refer to my belief in God to ground my knowledge in either case. Can’t you see that?

That sense is the only one in which the discussion is either useful or interesting, and it is surely relevant to the question the OP was asking. The reason is obvious: if morality is nothing more than the collective agreement of a particular society then it is mere custom, and that person is a fool who subjugates his sense of right and wrong to what others believe.

But I didn’t say that morality was nothing more than the collective agreement of a particular society, did I? That is again a ridiculously simplistic and inaccurate formulation of how morality works. And a person is certainly not a fool, just because he subjugates his sense of right and wrong to what others believe. Why would you make such a silly claim? Normal half-way humble human beings know very well that their own judgment is not perfect and that other human beings often have better judgments than their own, and that they should therefore listen to the other human beings, especially in cases where those others obviously know more than themselves about the subject at hand.

 

[Syntax]

Betterave;6362700:

This has already been explained to you, but I’ll try again:

1. ‘Morality’ is a concept.
2. We determine whether a concept refers ‘objectively’ by seeing how it is applied.
3. People ‘objectively’ apply the concept ‘morality’ all the time to real situations.
4. That fact alone tells us: morality is real or ‘objective.’

If this is all you mean by objective then in this context the term is useless - although it does provide an answer to the OP’s question: morality is whatever people believe it is.

Ender, just a simple question for you that hopefully clarifies some of what Betterave and myself have been saying for a while now:

When someone really believes and utters the statement,

“Torturing innocent babies is wrong,”

what do you think this person is saying, or **takes himself to be saying **when he makes that judgment? Is he saying something different than what he actually utters? Or is he saying exactly what he utters?

 

[Ender]

what do you think this person is saying, or **takes himself to be saying **when he makes that judgment? Is he saying something different than what he actually utters? Or is he saying exactly what he utters?

It is a statement about what he believes. He believes that what he is saying is true and my question has always been: is it in fact true (e.g. not dependent on whether he believes it or not) or is it only his personal opinion. I don’t question that he knows what he means and means exactly what he says; the question goes to the validity of his belief. It is really no different than a Catholic saying he believes in God. Even atheists accept that he means what he says, what they question is whether his belief is valid.

The reason I excluded God from the discussion in the other thread is that debates about morality were always degenerating into arguments about the validity of Christianity and I wanted to preemptively eliminate that possibility. I wanted to discuss morality from the atheist point of view. This is why I agreed with AntiTheist’s position: if God does not exist then neither does morality as there is no source from which morality can arise. That people (atheists included) all have personal moral beliefs is not relevant to the validity of their beliefs. My belief in God has no bearing on whether God exists. My belief in morality has no bearing on whether morality exists.

Ender

 

[Betterave]

It is a statement about what he believes. He believes that what he is saying is true and my question has always been: is it in fact true (e.g. not dependent on whether he believes it or not) or is it only his personal opinion.

Do you know what a false dichotomy is? A moral judgment may or may not be true, but it is *never *“only a personal opinion.” Can’t you see that?

I don’t question that he knows what he means and means exactly what he says; the question goes to the **validity **of his belief. It is really no different than a Catholic saying he believes in God. Even atheists accept that he means what he says, what they question is whether his belief is valid.

“Validity”, “valid”? What’s that supposed to mean? Truth, true?

The reason I excluded God from the discussion in the other thread is that debates about morality were always degenerating into arguments about the validity of Christianity and I wanted to preemptively eliminate that possibility. I wanted to discuss morality from the atheist point of view. This is why I agreed with AntiTheist’s position: if God does not exist then neither does morality as there is no source from which morality can arise. That people (atheists included) all have personal moral beliefs is not relevant to the validity of their beliefs. My belief in God has no bearing on whether God exists. My belief in morality has no bearing on whether morality exists.

My belief in God has bearing on whether *God exists *- it expresses my affirmation of the proposition “God exists.” And I’m not interested in discussing a different proposition “God exists” which no one knows the real meaning of and no one believes in, and neither are you - we’re interested in discussing God’s existence precisely insofar as we understand it and do or do not believe in it. Same goes for morality. It’s pointless to propose that we talk about ‘the real morality,’ the one that only God knows about and that is different from the one we all believe in. But that’s what your false dichotomies invite us to try to do! No wonder the atheist gets turned off by your approach, unless he happens to be an exceptionally… not-so-smart atheist, who is just happy to have someone agree with him that morality is an illusion.

 

[Ender]

A moral judgment may or may not be true, but it is *never *“only a personal opinion.”

If moral truths exist then someone’s judgment can be either correct or incorrect but if moral truths don’t exist then his judgment isn’t based on anything real beyond his own opinions.

My belief in God has bearing on whether *God exists *- it expresses my affirmation of the proposition “God exists.”

Your statement of belief expresses your opinion that God exists. That belief is either correct or incorrect but your belief that it is correct has no influence over whether it is in fact correct. God exists or he doesn’t and the truth of the matter has nothing to do with what you believe.

No wonder the atheist gets turned off by your approach, unless he happens to be an exceptionally… not-so-smart atheist, who is just happy to have someone agree with him that morality is an illusion.

If the atheist is correct about God then morality really is an illusion, either that or it is just another word for customs (habits, manners…). You believe that morality exists; OK, tell me what it is. Define it.

Ender

 

[Syntax]

If moral truths exist then someone’s judgment can be either correct or incorrect but if moral truths don’t exist then his judgment isn’t based on anything real beyond his own opinions.

Ok, but it comes down to both the realist and anti-realist sharing the burden of supporting their claims with evidence and reasoned arguments. So which hypothesis is more likely, and hence more reasonable to believe given the lack of evidence, that:

Objective moral truths exist

or

Objective moral truths do not exist?

The burden of providing support is no more on the moral realist than the anti-realist.

Can’t you see that?

 

[Syntax]

But I didn’t say that morality was nothing more than the collective agreement of a particular society, did I? That is again a ridiculously simplistic and inaccurate formulation of how morality works. And a person is certainly not a fool, just because he subjugates his sense of right and wrong to what others believe. Why would you make such a silly claim? Normal half-way humble human beings know very well that their own judgment is not perfect and that other human beings often have better judgments than their own, and that they should therefore listen to the other human beings, especially in cases where those others obviously know more than themselves about the subject at hand.

I find it interesting to note that when Socrates asked his interlocutors to provide a satisfactory answer to the definiton of Justice, each of them gave him a different result. But Socrates (and Plato after) drew the exact opposite conclusion that moral relativists draw. He counted these widespread differences as evidence for Justice existing independently of people’s actual beliefs, and hence not dependent on them, even if we couldn’t find an appropriate definition. The moral relativist, on the other hand, draws the opposite conclusion.

So since it is obvious that neither uninamous agreement nor widespread disagreement can be counted as evidence for support in thinking what is, in fact, really the fact of the matter about morality, strategically then, we ought to be shifting the burden of proof on the moral relativist to provide evidence and reasoned-arguments for *his *claims. So far, he has very little reason for thinking moral relativism is true. And so long as we continue to bolster our own arguments for objective morality, the relativist will be left in the lurch for lack of providing reasons for thinking his beliefs are even warranted at all.

We must recognize this predicament because so many debates in philosophy come down to evaluating one hypothesis over another, providing reasons pro and con for this and that, not merely on whether one hypothesis has sufficient evidence by itself independent of other competing hypotheses. Why is the burden always on the moral realist in these forums? It doesn’t make any sense to me. Moral relativism is a positive claim needing positive evidence, otherwise it is epistemically irrational to believe it.

 

[Betterave]

If moral truths exist then someone’s judgment can be either correct or incorrect but if moral truths don’t exist then his judgment isn’t based on anything real beyond his own opinions.

But what does that even mean to you: “If moral truths exist…”? Just because you can put a string of words together that make you feel like you’ve said something meaningful doesn’t mean that’s what you’ve done. It’s like saying, “If I have hands, then I can judge correctly or incorrectly whether this is my hand - but do I have hands?” Why would you seriously ask such a question?

Your statement of belief expresses your opinion that God exists. That belief is either correct or incorrect but your belief that it is correct has no influence over whether it is in fact correct. God exists or he doesn’t and the truth of the matter has nothing to do with what you believe.

I don’t know what you mean by opinion, but apparently you mean it in the sense that my having an opinion does not constitute prima facie evidence for it’s truth. Some opinions might be like that. But my belief in God (or morality) is not like that - it is an informed justified conviction and the informed justified convictions shared among reflective mature persons like myself can be taken as indirect evidence of the truth of those convictions. Do you want to deny this?? Your claim amounts to saying that “the truth of the matter” and “what intelligent informed people believe” are unrelated - that’s just dumb. If you really want to think about truth as “what God believes and what people are wholly ignorant of unless God reveals it to them directly” please say so. Then we’ll have some questions for you about the cogency of your theory of truth.

If the atheist is correct about God then morality really is an illusion, either that or it is just another word for customs (habits, manners…). [Another false dichotomy.] You believe that morality exists; OK, tell me what it is. Define it.

Morality is (though it’s not just) another word for customs, habit, manners, insofar as these are understood with regard to their positive function in promoting the natural good of man.

Do you really not know what morality is, or are you just interested in capturing it in some neat narrow definition so that you can explain it to psychopaths?

Do you have a definition for morality? If you do, what is it and what is it good for?

 

[Syntax]

Sorry if this might be a little off topic, but I if had to begin somewhere by making a strong case for moral objectivism, I would start first by shifting the burden of proof onto the moral relativist himself–after all, he is the one making a positive claim that morality is subjective, yes?

The most central piece of alleged evidence moral relativists will cite for support of the thesis that morality is subjective is the phenomenon of disagreement among various cultures and individuals. Or, they will cite disagreement as **lack of evidence **for thinking objective moral values **do **exist and try to shift the burden of proof onto the moral objectivist. But I refuse to get caught in this trap anymore. How?

I would press relativist on why the phenomenon of disagreement is supposed to even count as evidence at all that objective moral facts don’t exist, or, why disagreement is even supposed to **count **as *lack of evidence *for thinking objective moral facts do exist.

For instance, if Bob falsely believes John Kerry is the president of the United States, and Bill falsely believes John McCain is the president of the United States, is their disagreement any guide or justification for our concluding that, therefore, there is **no fact **of the matter about **who is really **president of the United States after all? No. This is absurd. Even if people disagree on X, this disagreement does not entail there is no fact of the matter about X at all. Therefore, the phenomenon of disagreement is **not a very good reason **for thinking objective moral values might be non-objective. By doing this, you’ve just *defeated *their alleged “evidence” so that they consequently have no firm ground to stand on for even empirically defending their position at all.

This dumb illustration is designed to show that the phenomenon of mere disagreement is not evidence for thinking there is no objective fact of the matter. Nor is the *lack *of evidence about who is right or wrong *even a good reason *for thinking there is no objective fact of the matter either. So it simply doesn’t matter how we go about empirically determining who is right and who is wrong. All that matters is that lack of evidence about which moral principle is the correct one, is not evidence for thinking there are no objective moral principles at all, just as **lack **of evidence about whether Bill’s or Bob’s belief is the actual correct statement of fact does **not **logically entail that **no one **is the president of the United States at all.

After all, all of us could be wrong about the correct moral principles. But that doesn’t imply that they don’t exist, or that lack of evidence for them is justification for thinking they don’t exist at all. Therefore, the argument of the relativist so far amounts to nothing but an appeal to ignorance. So the burden of proof is still on them. The implicit epistemic principle it seems to which a moral relativist needs to defend, and on which it seems he is relying without reason is,

(P) If two individuals A and B disagree on moral principle X, then we have little or no reason for thinking a moral principle X exists at all.

But truly, I do not see any reason for thinking this epistemic principle is true. So it is desperately in need of support. It is not intuitively obvious to me, and I don’t know why anyone would think so either.

 

[Betterave]

Ender,
I’m wondering what kind of moral philosophy you’ve read? If you happen to be motivated to learn, I think a book that would help you with the issues we’ve been discussing would be Moral Knowledge and Ethical Character by Robert Audi, who teaches ethics at Notre Dame.

 

[Syntax]

If the atheist is correct about God then morality really is an illusion, either that or it is just another word for customs (habits, manners…)

Ender, where on earth are you going with this? You give the conditional here as a truth, namely that,

(C) If God does not exist, then objective morality does not exist.

Then you want everyone to suppose that God does not exist. But if God does not exist as you are supposing he doesn’t, then our very project here of finding objective moral truths would be doomed from the start because your own conditional above has just necessitated that objective moral truths don’t exist! So the realist can’t do a darn thing for you–even the atheist moral realist is out of luck. Therefore, the discussion is totally pointless for everyone on board!

I can, for the sake of argument, suppose that God does not exist. But if our goal is to arrive at some truth about the matter concerning whether or not objective morality exists, then we also have to reject (C) above for the sake of argument as well, otherwise our task is hopeless. Do you understand at least this much?

 

[Ender]

Ok, but it comes down to both the realist and anti-realist sharing the burden of supporting their claims with evidence and reasoned arguments.

Not exactly. The OP asked a specific question: what is the source of morality? Once the sides have been laid out we can start the argument. I’m still waiting for the question to be answered. Let’s start there.

Objective moral truths exist

or

Objective moral truths do not exist?

Yes. This statement is basic for the discussion to have any meaning.

Ender

 

[Ender]

Moral relativism is a positive claim needing positive evidence, otherwise it is epistemically irrational to believe it.

If the claim “God does not exist” is a positive claim, what is a negative claim?

Ender

 

[Ender]

But what does that even mean to you: “If moral truths exist…”?

Syntax stated that objective moral truths either do or do not exist and I agreed with him. You need to take this question up with him.

I don’t know what you mean by opinion, but apparently you mean it in the sense that my having an opinion does not constitute prima facie evidence for it’s truth.

That’s what I mean. Your belief that morality exists is no more proof of your theory than Ptolemy’s belief that the sun went around the Earth was proof of his.

Your claim amounts to saying that “the truth of the matter” and “what intelligent informed people believe” are unrelated - that’s just dumb. If you really want to think about truth as “what God believes and what people are wholly ignorant of unless God reveals it to them directly” please say so.

My posts mean only what they say. Your assumptions about what they might imply are unwarranted. I think you’re having trouble with my comments because you read way too much into them; they usually mean a whole lot less than you imagine. Address what I have said and don’t try to guess where I’m going.

Morality is (though it’s not just) another word for customs, habit, manners, insofar as these are understood with regard to their positive function in promoting the natural good of man.

Explain what you mean by not *just *another word for habits.

Do you really not know what morality is…

Of course I do. Do you know what the OP’s question was? I have answered it, why won’t you?

Ender

 

[Ender]

f I had to begin somewhere by making a strong case for moral objectivism, I would start first by shifting the burden of proof onto the moral relativist himself–after all, he is the one making a positive claim that morality is subjective, yes?In order to begin a discussion the two sides have to first state their positions and I am still waiting for you to state yours. Answer the OP’s question: where does morality come from (and add whether you think morality does or does not objectively exist.)

Ender

 

[Ender]

Ender, where on earth are you going with this? You give the conditional here as a truth, namely that,

(C) If God does not exist, then objective morality does not exist.

Then you want everyone to suppose that God does not exist. But if God does not exist as you are supposing he doesn’t, then our very project here of finding objective moral truths would be doomed from the start because your own conditional above has just necessitated that objective moral truths don’t exist!

Geez this is frustrating. Can’t you just reply to what I say without all the “supposes”? Stop making assumptions about what I mean; the meaning is completely contained in what I write - it’s as uncomplicated as that. It seems that the simpler I make things the less comprehension there is; you are reading things in my words that I never put there.

Q (OP) - Where does morality come from?
A (Ender) - If God exists then morality objectively exists; if God does not exist then morality does not objectively exist.
A (Everyone else) - (crickets) … but Ender this and Ender that …

Are you going to give your answer to the &^%$# question or not?

Ender