What are the “objective moralities/truths”? Is there a list?

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

It’s not a firm resolve if you keep ignoring the church’s teaching.

That’s correct.

It’s like an alcoholic going to AA straight from the bar.

If the alcoholic has a firm resolve to amend then he’s good to go (to AA or the confessional).

I can tell you I am an Atheist but if I do believe in God, am I an atheist? Same applies to those who tell you they are Catholic but do not believe in what Catholicism teaches.

I agree. By their words or their actions.

I just don’t think that there that many of you around.

 

[Dan123]

Ah but then, how many Catholics are there really? Obviously rhetorical but if one really discounted everyone who didn’t believe in all the teachings (obviously those who believe but don’t perfectly follow them should still count) how many would be left?

 

[o_mlly]

I agree. By their words or their actions.

I just don’t think that there that many of you around.

“From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge — a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning.” (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger 1969)

 

[HarryStotle]

Except we are talking about morality. Not simply objective truths, which obviously exist.

If there are objective moral truths then you are saying that an act can be ojectively wrong. I am saying that in that case you need to show why something is so.

This surely can’t be hard. X is wrong because…

It is simply not credible that whatever X is, one cannot fill in the rest of the sentence. And as I said, ‘because it is written’ cuts no ice with me.

A couple of points.

1. Your suggestion that X is wrong because it causes harm runs into pretty much the same problem because you would then need to lay down a very precise definition of “harm,” i.e., of harm in the morally relevant sense of detailing who qualifies and what positive good for them has been impacted or removed. So, X is harmful because… runs into the same difficulty as X is wrong because…
2. If your definition of “wrong” still depends upon a positive depiction of the good(s) at stake, then why rely on a negative term such as “harm” to characterize the nature of “wrong?” Why not merely state X is wrong when goods X, Y, or Z have been unjustly taken from moral agent A?

Why state the moral principle in negative terms such as ‘harm,’ especially if harm is ultimately reducible to the deprivation of some positive good or other, in order to justifiably be called ‘harm?’

 

[HarryStotle]

That’s too hard to get my head around.

Going to confession if you actively reject the church’s teachings is hypochritical. And you need them to go to confession to confess about…being hypochritical. Which would make them…hypochrites?

Your use of the the term ‘hypocrite’ is as incorrect as your spelling of the word.

Going to confession if someone actively rejects Church teaching isn’t hypocritical, it is being conflicted or confused, but not necessarily hypocritical.

A hypocrite is someone who pretends (for some ulterior purpose or for gain) to be something or someone they are not or purports to believe something they do not actually believe in order to deceive others.

Someone who is honest about their rejection of Church teaching isn’t necessarily a hypocrite when they confess their dissent, they may simply be trying to work out the truth of the matter but are aware that their current views do not match the teaching of the Church. A hypocrite would be someone who pretends to believe what the Church teaches in order to deceive others, knowing full well they don’t accept Church teaching. Such a person wouldn’t go to confession because they would believe their own views are correct but are intentionally trying to deceive others by purporting to believe what the Church teaches. The intention to deceive is essential to hypocrisy. Why would such a person “confess” their wrongdoing when their intention is to deceive others to begin with?

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

Try arguing that before a judge as a defense on behalf of a murderer:

The courts, as with any individual or group, are free to set a value on human life as they so choose. That doesn’t make that valuation any less subjective.

The only thing that sets an “objective” valuation, is what I refer to as, valuation by implication. For example, I like to play golf, but to do that someone needs to maintain the golf course. That places a value on the groundskeepers whether I realize that or not.

So by placing a subjective value on something you put an implied value on everything else. The question then becomes…if I put a value on anything, do I by necessity, put a value on everything?

You can take your time and think about that, because I have to go for now.

The only way that your view of moral values can hold is if materialism happens to be true and values are nothing except as conditioned by the subjective psychological states of human beings.

The problem, however, is that if existence itself – the ground of Being Itself (aka God) – is living, intentional and purposeful then inbuilt into the very ground of existence are values. That implies values would not merely be grounded in the subjective whims of human beings, but in the fabric of being or existence itself.

That becomes a problem for you because you cannot just dismiss that possibility outright, you have to show, objectively and beyond all reasonable doubt, that such a scenario isn’t true in order to seriously promote your “values are purely subjective” perspective. Otherwise, we have no good reason for thinking you are correct. And merely insisting that you are, just 'cuz, isn’t a very persuasive argument.

It may be the one in vogue at this time in our culture, and you might find a strong contingent of likeminded thinkers, but that doesn’t make it true. Consider that you might just be held morally accountable for thoughtlessly promoting an errant moral view because you haven’t done your due diligence as a responsible moral agent.

I wouldn’t be so willing to conclude the “subjectivity” of values based upon your own subjective predilection to do so – comes perilously close to begging your own question.

 

[Bradskii]

1 and 2 are simply two sides of the same coin. And yes, I agree thT we need common ground on the definition of harm. I think I gave one earlier in this thread.

Please feel free to expand, expound and extend.

And don’t be so chritical of my spelling…

 

[HarryStotle]

And don’t be so chritical of my spelling…

And I’ll try to not be hypochritical of it, either.

 

[Dan123]

Your suggestion that X is wrong because it causes harm runs into pretty much the same problem because you would then need to lay down a very precise definition of “harm,” i.e., of harm in the morally relevant sense of detailing who qualifies and what positive good for them has been impacted or removed. So, X is harmful because… runs into the same difficulty as X is wrong because…

At the risk of speaking for @Bradski, I think the key difference is I don’t believe he’s saying “we don’t have objective morality with religion so lets get objective morality from harm”. It’s “we don’t have objective morality from religion so lets agree to use ‘harm’ as our reference point and continue the discussion from there”. There are things which are clearly harmful and there are things which are debatable and everywhere on the spectrum. I think you’d find most non-believers would point to history as a slow but steady progression of our understanding of harm, punctuated by social revolutions regarding things such as slavery, women’s suffrage, etc.

That becomes a problem for you because you cannot just dismiss that possibility outright, you have to show, objectively and beyond all reasonable doubt, that such a scenario isn’t true in order to seriously promote your “values are purely subjective” perspective.

Does @lisaandlena need to prove every religious view of morality is wrong before she (they?) can believe in subjective morality, or just your religious view? If you believe morality is woven into the fabric of existence that’s great but it’s not on @lisaandlena to disprove it it’s on you to demonstrate it. I suspect you didn’t come to that belief by proving every other religion’s claims on the nature of morality as incorrect.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

That becomes a problem for you because you cannot just dismiss that possibility outright, you have to show, objectively and beyond all reasonable doubt, that such a scenario isn’t true in order to seriously promote your “values are purely subjective” perspective.

Does @lisaandlena need to prove every religious view of morality is wrong before she (they?) can believe in subjective morality, or just your religious view? If you believe morality is woven into the fabric of existence that’s great but it’s not on @lisaandlena to disprove it it’s on you to demonstrate it. I suspect you didn’t come to that belief by proving every other religion’s claims on the nature of morality as incorrect.

I wasn’t speaking of ‘religious’ views of morality. The problem is that @lisaandlena treats all valuing as merely subjective. The assumption is that ‘subjective’ means ‘with no objective grounds.’

However, if the ground of all being, and everything that exists, is a Subject, then ‘subjective,’ properly conceived, becomes tied to the ground of all being – there would be nothing more objectively well-grounded than that because all reality would depend entirely upon that eternal Subject.

You and @lisaandlena both seem to be trafficking in the alleged “fact” that because human subjects disagree on values, there can be no truly objective ones. That is a non sequitur. You would have prove that the God of classical theism does not exist to make that case.

 

[Bradskii]

You and @lisaandlena both seem to be trafficking in the alleged “fact” that because human subjects disagree on values, there can be no truly objective ones.

Of course we can disagree on values (the mug my daughter made for me in school is more valuable to me than it is to you). But we can agree that beating children for the fun of it is objectively wrong.

And we can do that by evaluating the harm. We cannot do it by reference to scripture because which scripture people might reference is relative to any number of scenarios.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

You and @lisaandlena both seem to be trafficking in the alleged “fact” that because human subjects disagree on values, there can be no truly objective ones.

Of course we can disagree on values (the mug my daughter made for me in school is more valuable to me than it is to you). But we can agree that beating children for the fun of it is objectively wrong.

And we can do that by evaluating the harm. We cannot do it by reference to scripture because which scripture people might reference is relative to any number of scenarios.

So moral values are a distinct class of values which require some kind of objective grounds for being referred to as ‘moral’ values? I would agree with you on that, given that moral values are those which justify impositions and sanctions on the behaviours of all persons.

From the posts of @lisaandlena I’ve read, It appears that they do not agree with you.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

HarryStotle:

You and @lisaandlena both seem to be trafficking in the alleged “fact” that because human subjects disagree on values, there can be no truly objective ones.

Of course we can disagree on values (the mug my daughter made for me in school is more valuable to me than it is to you). But we can agree that beating children for the fun of it is objectively wrong.

And we can do that by evaluating the harm. We cannot do it by reference to scripture because which scripture people might reference is relative to any number of scenarios.

So moral values are a distinct class of values which require some kind of objective grounds for being referred to as ‘moral’ values? I would agree with you on that, given that moral values are those which justify impositions and sanctions on the behaviours of all persons.

From the posts of @lisaandlena I’ve read, It appears that they do not agree with you.

Just realised that he/she could be Lisa and Lena. In which case they may well not agree with me. I’ve only skimmed the posts on this thread to catch up. I’ll check back to see what her/their views are.

 

[Dan123]

So moral values are a distinct class of values which require some kind of objective grounds for being referred to as ‘moral’ values?

It might be better to say ‘common ground’ than ‘objective ground’. If common ground is found then moral proclamations can be made. Common ground can also lead to certain objective facts being known which can inform those proclamations.

 

[Lucretius]

I think this debate about “who is Catholic” is off topic, and honestly a pretty sterile discussion.

I’d be careful with some of this discussion about miscarriages: miscarriage isn’t natural to proper reproductive activity. It happens “in the wild,” in the same way clubfoot happens, and in that sense it is natural, but this is not the sense of natural that doctors and ethicists have in mind.

A thought: asking which moral list one should follow tacitly assumes that morality doesn’t have a basis in reality.

A major idea in ancient, Medieval, and early modern ethics is the idea that ethics is a kind of propagation, to use the description by C. S. Lewis. In this approach, ethics is about bringing out and cultivating some principle within a person towards its proper end which it inherently is tended towards. So, the image here is an adult robin teaching a fetchling to fly. This is “objective morality,” and it is usually what Catholics have in mind when they talk about natural law.

This is the approach that I alluded to above when I wrote about miscarriage being unnatural or improper to reproducive activity.

In many modern approaches to ethics, ethics is merely propaganda (again, C. S. Lewis). Whatever is within us has no proper end, and the will, society, or religion extristically define an goal for these tendencies. This is “subjective” morality.

C. S. Lewis explains both views, and points out how the modern “subjective” approach leads to the powerful oppressing the weak, and/or everyone collapse into sentimentality in his short book, The Abolition of Man, which I highly recommend for anyone interested in an excellent and easy to understand introduction to ethics in general, or “subjective vs objective,” or “ancient vs modern” ethics specifically. It is actually available in PDF online for free (I just pulled these from Google search):

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjABegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw033TfFsfdOK_8JZ7mNcykg

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjAAegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw3s1JFjrev7tijs2dmWHqq1

Christi pax.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

So moral values are a distinct class of values which require some kind of objective grounds for being referred to as ‘moral’ values?

It might be better to say ‘common ground’ than ‘objective ground’. If common ground is found then moral proclamations can be made. Common ground can also lead to certain objective facts being known which can inform those proclamations.

No, actually, “common ground” carries with it the presumption that human beings are the ultimate arbiters of moral values. If there is no standard above human beings for moral values then there is no way of arbitrating between humans who have differing views of what constitutes morally good or bad. Morality then collapses to moral relativism.

“Common ground” is merely an appeal to humans to agree with regard to what they consider to be morally good or bad. But if there is no objective grounds independent of the differing human views, achieving common ground will be arbitrary, capricious or, at best, merely pragmatic.

You may as well concede that morality is purely subjective and resolvable only by implementing persuasion, of some kind, at best by appeal to pragmatic interests.

The point I am making is that if the ground of being itself is intentional and purposeful, then morality becomes grounded in the nature of being itself, not in mere human prudence or pragmatism.

In order for morality to be demonstrably grounded in human determinations alone, you would need to prove, beyond reasonable doubt that atheistic materialism is true.

If not, morality will continue to potentially be grounded in objective reality, not merely in “common ground.”

 

[Dan123]

You may as well concede that morality is purely subjective and resolvable only by implementing persuasion, of some kind, at best by appeal to pragmatic interests.
…
In order for morality to be demonstrably grounded in human determinations alone, you would need to prove, beyond reasonable doubt that atheistic materialism is true.

If not, morality will continue to potentially be grounded in objective reality, not merely in “common ground.”

So by common ground I’m essentially referring to the basis on which we agree to evaluate morality. There has to be subjectivity here because not everyone agrees on the existence of a God, even among those who do not everyone agrees on which God, even those who agree that God exists and agree on the same God don’t all agree on what that means for morality.

So the objective reality you claim morality is grounded in simply doesn’t exist. All you’ve done is kicked the argument from morality having a subjective component to morality being from an objective higher power but then leaving it subjective as to which higher power, and how to interpret revelation of that morality.

Your final point is just shifting the burden of proof. You claim there’s an objective external source of morality, it’s up to you to support that claim. And ideally to demonstrate, objectively, how to access that information and test if our understanding is correct.

 

[HarryStotle]

So the objective reality you claim morality is grounded in simply doesn’t exist. All you’ve done is kicked the argument from morality having a subjective component to morality being from an objective higher power …

Well, no actually. Your argument is that because individuals disagree on moral values, these must, therefore, be subjective.

Scientists disagree on lots of things, from global warming to quantum mechanics, that doesn’t imply that the observable world is purely subjective. It does imply that human beings do not have complete access to information about it and that we lack to some degree the capacity to use the information we do have to completely explain the observable world. Mere lack of agreement doesn’t prove subjectivity.

If you want to begin by asserting subjectivity, you undermine completely the possibility of establishing, determining, or discovering whether objective and real grounds for morality exist in the first place.

The most reasonable course of inquiry would be to not assume either position but continue to seek possible objective and subjective components of morality until the role of both become clear. To rule one of those out before completely understanding the nature of the moral landscape is putting the cart before the horse.

It is entirely possible, for example, that there are both objective and subjective components to morality – that some actions are universally proscribed or prescribed while some actions are only individually or relatively problematic because of how they negatively impact a specific moral agent within a specified context.

To merely assert that morality just is subjective is a morally defective position primarily because you are assuming that universally obligatory moral acts do not exist. By merely asserting moral relativism you are de facto making morality itself a matter of individual veto. In other words, you are simply asserting that the individual has the superseding moral right to decide whether they will or will not be moral at all and the extent to which they will be. Morality cannot, then, be a matter of obligation or responsibility but of pure personal choice.

Humans would not be moral agents, but moral authors with the field wide open to all moral determinations because there would be no higher moral authority than the individual human will.

As soon as you go there, how do you morally sanction murder, rape or child abuse? The murderer, rapist or child abuser has just as legitimate a personal veto regarding all of his behaviours than you do in declaring morality purely a subjective matter to begin with. You may as well throw out all moral determinations because these then become matters purely of force by imposition. You can’t, then, appeal to any principled ethical discussion, morality reduces to whatever rules the party wielding power decides. You further jettison all recourse to any discussion about what is good or bad, morally speaking. These terms become mere placeholders for whatever those with most power decide to impose upon everyone else. Fun times.

 

[Lucretius]

Aren’t you confusing morality itself with people’s agreements about what morality is?

If this or that ideal is what we should cultivate our lives and selves towards, it doesn’t matter what is “agreed upon.”

I expect that HarryStotle (and I) are looking for morality to answer the question “what is the ideal human life,” while I think you want morality to answer the question “what can we all agree to live like in a pluralistic society?”

Harry’s approach involves trying to discern real values in the world, things, actions, and goals inherently desirable, and in this way is “objective,” while your approach involves attempting to find what is agreed upon by all in a given society, and thus is “subjective.” He’s interested in how people can live to their highest potential, you are interested in how to make a society “work.”

Do you think this is correct?

Christi pax.

 

[Bradskii]

Aren’t you confusing morality itself with people’s agreements about what morality is?

If this or that ideal is what we should cultivate our lives and selves towards, it doesn’t matter what is “agreed upon.”

I expect that HarryStotle (and I) are looking for morality to answer the question “what is the ideal human life,” while I think you want morality to answer the question “what can we all agree to live like in a pluralistic society?”

Harry’s approach involves trying to discern real values in the world, things, actions, and goals inherently desirable, and in this way is “objective,” while your approach involves attempting to find what is agreed upon by all in a given society, and thus is “subjective.” He’s interested in how people can live to their highest potential, you are interested in how to make a society “work.”

Do you think this is correct?

Christi pax.

Surely it’s a mixture of what you describe as objective AND subjective.

I’m always bemused by people using God as confirmation that objectice morality exists. It seems that just saying so makes it so. Because if you ask ten people what God desires in any given situation, then you’ll get a dozen different views. You might as well say that God has decreed the answers to all moral problems and they are written on some scrolls on a small rock circling a sun in a galaxy far far away. Even if they exist we are not going to know, objectively, what they are.

So what do we do when confronted with a moral problem? Well, pointing to that distant star and saying ‘The answer is up there’ doesn’t get us very far. We need an answer in the here and now. So we need to determine ourselves what the answer is. And that answer will be part objective (if we do X then Y is the result) and part relative (I value this result more that you do).

As far as the objective portion goes, there should be no argument (if I throw you off the roof then you’ll die). And as to the relative portion, we have to agree on definitions of terms such as harm, comparative value, well-being, fairness etc. And that is difficult. And there will be disagreements. And not everyone will be satisfied with the answers. But that is the nature of the the situation.

And in passing, if everyone agrees on a moral matter it does not make it objective. It just means there is a consensus.