Outpour

Moral subjectivism is the belief that moral values are subjective (as opposed to objective). Since moral laws refer to the actions of sentient beings, it is difficult to conceive how they could originate by unconscious natural mechanisms. I believe the existence of objective moral values is implausible (not impossible) on a purely naturalistic account of the world. Given that moral subjectivism is just as logically viable as moral objectivism and that moral objectivism is implausible if a scientific naturalism is true, I think that there is a good case for the nonexistence of objective moral values.

MageB420666

Your entire post flew right over my head, could you please explain it in english?

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Outpour

Take the first sentence:
"Moral subjectivism is the belief that moral values are subjective (as opposed to objective). " This is basically what I would like to hear some input on. It means (in english) that our (humans) sense of right and wrong is man-made. Some believe that ethics and morals exist throughout all human kind regardless.. kind of like some sort of DNA.

Take the value that killing a human is wrong. Why is it wrong? Is it wrong because the majority of us humans have come to together and concluded it is wrong? Or is it ABSOLUTELY (in the sense of being true regardless of what mankind thinks) wrong?

I would rather this not turn into a discussion over whether killing is moral or not.

MageB420666

Ok, now I get it. And because I understand the question I shall now respond to it.

Morals were developed by mankind, they do not just exist, otherwise people wouldn't do things that are considered immoral. Morals were developed as a way to define what is socially acceptable. Morals are seperate from laws though. Many people think that laws against murder and rape are there because murder and rape are immoral and wrong, this is not true, the laws are there because murder and rape violate a persons rights as laid down in the Constitution(I'm talking from an American point of view here).
So in summation of my opinion, morals are man-made, not universal.

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Outpour

But why would the the authors of the constitution feel obligated to include something basic like the law against murder if it holds no moral position?

Granted some laws are devoid of any moral purpose, but not all.

Dbass

Could it not be said though, that as humans discover science as a pre-existing entity (i.e. Kant's A Priori), they also discover morality and the rights and wrongs of society as a pre-existing entity as well? Because we have not yet uncovered empirical evidence of the rightness or wrongness of fetal stem-cell research, is there not already an answer waiting to be discovered. The ignorance of humans is part of moral relativism (subjectivism), because perhaps they do not yet know for sure what is right or wrong. This is not meant to allude to any religious, transcendental truth, for that is a man-made system of morality as well. Rather, could the shared experience of all people be the only basis for these conjectures. Knowing what we know does not imply that we will not learn further. We simply have yet to understand the true ethics of murder, rape, etc.

As far as the Constitution is concerned, the matter of murder is not necessarily concerned with morality, it was simply a law created to preserve the greatest interests of the greatest number of people.

Outpour

It could be said that humans do not "uncover" or discover truths about ethics, rather they have to agree collectively, not necessarily unanimously. So the reason stem-cell research remains an area of unknown value is because we cannot agree if it is right or wrong.

The rest I agree with.

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Halx

I maintain that morals are merely in place because of religion. Since I am atheist and have made this observation, I therefore do not believe in morals.

There is only hurt and help. Do enough of either and you will leave your mark on the world for all to remember.

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Outpour

Hurt and help relative to the doer I suppose?

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MageB420666

Well, with Halx's statement I don't really think it matters who the hurt/help is relative too. If you help/hurt yourself enough you will leave your mark, if you hurt/help others then you will leave your mark also.

I do agree with Halx in that I believe morals began with religion, but that does not mean that they have to be associated with religion, you can have your own set of moral values without believing in a divine power(s). Morals are merely what you believe to be right and wrong, not what an organization says is right and wrong. What is moral is not always legal, and what is legal is not always moral.

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Mantus

Outpour,

I agree morals are subjective.

Further,

A moral is just a socially accepted response to a situation. It has nothing to do with religion. Social groups want everyone to behave certain ways. They come up with things like: "stealing is wrong". They do this because it’s in everyone’s best interest that nothing of theirs will be stolen. Morality was around long before religion. Of course religion adopts many of the morals within a society and adds it’s on as well. The Ten Commandments for example are the most basic form of social contract. I can guarantee you that murder, theft and infidelity were socially unacceptable long before the Old Testament was written all the Hebrews did was add further social rules about the worship of God. The Koran came to be in a different culture and thus we see discrepancies in the morals it promotes compared to the Bible.

Halx

If morals are to be written into public guidelines as they are today (read: FCC, decency) then a personal interpretation of morality is null and void.

I argue that if you truely lack belief in a higher power, then your "morals" should logically fall along these lines: Since there is no higher authority to judge your behavior, then no behavior is off-limits, lest it cause harm to someone else. This is the very stripped-down skeleton framework of human interaction and comes without saying; thus not needing a title such as 'morality.' It's simply *being.*

Furthermore, if the rules of 'decency' that you impose on yourself are in place only to avoid stepping on the toes of others, then I would consider this "ethics."

If you lack belief in a higher power and still hold yourself to trite rules of personal conduct, I would consider it one of the following: masochism, silliness, ultra-neurotic.

To put it all together, while I do not believe that using swear words or walking around naked or masturbating frequently and kicking people in the shins will make a spot of difference where I end up when I'm dead, I still refrain from doing this around others (though, it would be MOST pleasing) because I intend to be a functioning member of society. These are not morals that I possess, these are ethics.

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OpieCunningham

I don't think morals began with religion. Religion most likely began from agriculture. Before we conceived of agriculture, we still had cooperation. Cooperation created morals out of necessity. It is good for a clan to maintain cooperation, therefore it is bad to do something which threatens the clan. In essence, society begets morals

There's really only one moral absolute I've been able to think of - every other scenario I can imagine has a "yeah, but what if" clause which can throw some amount of justification onto the action. All except: it is immoral to experience joy from torturing children.

And laws are morals, every single one of them. Even the deathly boring tax laws.

Halx

you're describing ethics

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Kalnaur

Morals: is it morally right to do something? Is it within the beliefs I have of what is right or wrong?

Ethics: is it ethically right to do something? Is it within the scope of understanding attained of something that is helpful to myself and at the very least harmless to others?

In the two question-type definitions posed above, morals are existant based on beliefs in what we are doing as right or wrong. Ethics are what we know will hurt or help others and our chosen place on that spectrum.

At least, that's how I understand it.

If that's how it goes, morals must be a man made creation, because beliefs are made by each person as to what they believe is good or bad. Ethics is a more scientific tone, using the measurements of helping or harming others or ones self, and the usefulness of ones actions in attaining what you desire with maximum efficency and least amount of harm.

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asaris

It's always seemed to me that morality can't be entirely subjective. People like to make moral judgements, not just about their own actions, but also about the actions of others. To some extent, this can be explained away by saying that this is self-interested -- that morality is a tool of the weak to keep down the strong. But this doesn't quite explain everything. Even in cases where we can keep the harm to oneself the same, we can see different reactions. Consider the cases of 1) a man who intentionally trips you on the subway and 2) a man who accidentally trips you on the subway. Our reactions differ greatly depending on which of these two cases is actual, but the harm to us is the same.

Now, if morality is subjective, it's dependant entirely on our own judgements for its validity, right? But if we use it to judge, not only our own actions, but also the actions of others, we must be presupposing that, somehow, morality has universal validity. Intersubjective accounts might seem more plausible, but either they fall into the same problems as the subjective accounts (we cannot judge the actions of anyone outside of our own intersubjective circle) or, if the circle is drawn large enough, they are indistinguishable from objective accounts.

Why do we want to be able to judge other peoples actions? Well, for me, its the good old liberal humanist reason. I hate evil in the world, and believe we need to work to stop it. But how can we be acting justly when we try to stop evil if what is good is only good because of our own agreement on it? For an example: if good is subjective, how can we say that Saddam was wrong in gassing his own people?

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"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Mantus

Asaris,

Morality is not universally valid. Something such as the distain for murder might seem that way but in truth it is just our instinctive urge for self-preservation.

Subjectivity is in our perception; objectivity is in the world around us. So yes, it is true, morals do have some objective base because we are instinctive and habitual creatures. Our need for self-preservation is instinctive, yet what we perceive as a risk to ourselves is subjective.

Finally, just because something is subjective doesn’t make it invalid. If we have a moral/ethic code that applies to worldview of most individuals then it will work.

Take your subway example. If we are tripped we feel threatened. At this moment it is important to determine whether this threat is intentional and therefore might be followed up by further attacks. If it is an attack then we must respond, for the sake of ourselves and our society. If the trip was accidental, yet the person who is responsible doesn’t acknowledge his actions as dangerous and doesn’t apologize then once again we must take action. Because the individual holds contempt for the safety of others and is a risk to ourselves and our society.

We are not acting justly; we are acting for the best interests of society and ourselves. We do not want to be gassed and murdered by our own government therefore any government which commits such acts is judged as immoral/un-ethical.

pig

I'm bringing this back because I've been meaning to start a thread on absolute morality and relative morality, and I think that these are synomomous terms for objective and subjective morality.

From what I can tell at www.m-w.com : ethics is a codified set of morals. While I can understand claiming some distinction between the two, I think much of the previous discussion can justifiably be considered to pertain to either of them. I personally believe that what we commonly mean when we talk about morals and ethics is a derived system of the interplay between individual liberty and social stability. In my understanding, ethics are the roadmap, morals are the destinations - but they mutually imply one another.

As such, it seems to me that there is some objective nature to morality / ethics : in that there will be certain ways to maximize your freedom while respecting your surrounding society, given a particular situation. I should also say that in my belief system, the interplay between these two expressions of reality (individual and society) with other expressions (ie. spirituality, intellectual, biological, etc) are also important, but morals and ethics are most clearly distinguished and observed at the individual/social boundary.

As for absolute good vs. absolute evil - I believe, akin to what I typed previously, these are derivitive terms we extract to mean those things which either maximize our liberty and social stability, or mininimize them - respectively. I think that it goes beyond the objective/subjective split in our interpretations of our perceptions of reality - these are areas of reality beyond the limitations of our perceptions, and yet we derive their existence from these very same perceptions.

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alansmithee

Why is causing harm to others off-limits? It seems to me that separating any behavior as being off-limits implies some absolute morality. I think it would be more accurate to say that no behavior is off-limits unless it causes harm to yourself (which from a secular standpoint is how I see morals to have evolved). Promoting a society where causing harm to others is considered bad helps yourself (by reducing the chance that you would be the person who someone else chooses to wrong). But outside of being a means for self-protection by entering into social contracts to not cause others undue harm, there is no innate reason to not cause harm to others, and hence shouldn't be separated out as off-limit behavior.

asaris

There's a difference between what is best for us, as a society, to allow, and what constitutes the best form of life. It seems to me to be pretty clear that, as far as we know, the best form of society is the one that allows for maximal choice as to forms of life. The value of most forms of life derives in part from our own endorsement of that form of life, and allowing maximal choice strengthens our own endorsement of the form of life we have chosen. The more we know about alternate options, the more our choice of form of life is our choice, and not merely something forced upon us.

The reason I say "maximal choice" rather than "unfettered choice" is because some forms of life are in fact incompatible with other forms of life. This is why we say that "my right to swing my arm ends at your nose". I'm allowed to choose my own form of life, but only to the extent that my choice of a form of life does not interfere with yours. Obviously, it's a lot more complicated than this, but I trust you get the idea.

The difference between this and personal morality is this. The statement that society ought to allow for maximal choice regarding forms of life does not entail that one of these forms of life is not in fact the best. Even given the standpoint I outlined above, one can still say that there are better and worse forms of life, or even that there is a best form of life. I happen to believe that there is a best form of life. I also happen to believe that most people believe that there is a best form of life. Every time someone says something along the lines of "You need to be more tolerant" or "Science has disproved God" or "You need to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour", they're endorsing one form of life over another. And there nothing wrong with that, as long as we merely seek to encourage people to join our form of life, rather than seeking to impose it on people.

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"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Suave

Some people think that way. I'm not entirely sure how they go about it, but they do.

If we did not know how wings worked, birds would still fly. If we did not know how combustion worked, we would still be able to light fires. Following this line of logic, if morals truly are an objective, natural entity unto themselves, then they must be adhered to by us, for they would act as laws like the law of gravity. Hence there would be no need for discovery of these ethics and morals because everyone is already following them. We just don't know it.

I have a sneaking suspicion that there may be a flaw in my logic, but I've yet to find it.

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xepherys

Is the empirical evidence that murder is wrong? Abortion? Theft? Abuse? Polygamy? Hate? Blashpemy? What that is considered morally wrong is there empirical evidence to support?

pig

Playing a little bit Devil's Advocate, but is there empirical evidence that gravity (for example) actually works the way we write the equation?

My belief is that gravity is an approximation, and includes some manner of the truth. Within certain limitations, gravity is a good fit for our interpretations of our perceptions of external stimuli with a priori theoretical assumptions. We say it works "close enough." Gravity itself does not exist, in my understanding. We create gravity out of our interpretations. This does not make gravity, or more precisely the phenomena we think we perceive and attribute to gravity, "false" or "unreal," but it does make it a dynamic concept that we use to orient our knowledge. I would argue that we do the same with morality and ethics.

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xepherys

pigglet-

They are not the same. You are trying to enumerate something that is generally construed as black and white. There is, in fact, empirical evidence that gravity does exist, as we do not float off into space. The mathematics behind it are moot in this argument.

pig

Disagree: I would state that what I said above. We observe something, it seems reproducible. We create a phenomena to explain it and give it a name. This phenomena is usually based on a similar phenomena in another field, or an agglomeration of similar phenemena from other fields. I would say that the phenomenon which we have classified as gravity undeniably exists, separate from mathematical expression or text description, etc. As soon as you name it with a static form (gravity) you put limitations on it. These limitations can be played with for a while, after which time the phenomenon will either continue to function as a guiding principle for our knowledge, or else it will be subsumed or reversed, depending on our interpretations of perceptions in the future.

I am claming that phenoma occur in reality, and from these phenomena we seem to derive recurring themes, that seem to be somewhat reproducible. If mankind can be thought of as an experiment, the same basic social behavior seems to repeat itself over and over. We group these behaviors and interactions around principles, and the classify them into various morals and ethics. At least, this is how it seems to me. I think the idea, or the the concept or theory or what have you, of gravity, has much in common with the idea/concept/theory of different morals, at minimum because they share the properties of all ideas, and they do seem to be somewhat reproducible.

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xepherys

Words are just words. If you find murder reprehensible, and I kill someone but call it "molamolamola", does it make it less ofensive to you? What we call gravity has no bearing on what it provides. What we call murder changes nothing about what is involved. I still find your argument moot... or I just don't understand your point. Assume no enumeration, no value, no language, no formulas. There is something that keeps our feet planted on the ground. Done deal. Everyone experiences. I've not ever heard of a human being that just floats off into space. Maybe it's happened, but the likelihood is relatively low. People are killed by other people in a variety of ways. Remember no language... do not distinguish between war, suicide, murder, abortion, genocide, lethal injection. When a person is killed by a person (possibly including ones own self) is that ALWAYS reprehensible? Is there never a reason for death caused upon one human being by another where you are not offended? Even if the answer for you is "no... it's morally wrong and always offensive" there is someone who will surely say "yes, there are exceptions". Both could be telling the truth. If someone tells you they once floated to the moon without the aid of rockets, machinery or other manmade devices, I'd have to say they are lying. Gravity then, as we perceive it, is black and white. Morality is grey upon grey.

pig

I agree with this. However, what I'm saying is that whether we call it "gravity" or "molamolamola", that terminology has to have some fixed properties in order for it to be useful as a term. As such, I contend it will always fall short of actually describing reality. I believe that we "created" the static, unchanging concept of gravity/murder/molamolamola, but not the phenomena that it is intended to describe.

True. I think this gets back to the age old question of "what is the good." I would say that we derive such terms based on their usefulness in ordering our societies, at least as a primary source, for the area of morals/ethics.

Back to gravity. Let's say that we're talking about cannon balls being shot at angles, and I'm a Newtonian physics person. You're more into modern physics. I believe it is possible to simultaneously describe the same phenomena with different sets of equations, and both have the same answer...such that both systems are "correct." Or if not equations, then verbal definitions similar to what I would presume to be descriptions of murder or molamolamola.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think that a lot of the differences of opinion over basic morality is because we are using inherently subjective terminology, usually, to try to describe phenomena that is beyond subjective/objective metaphysical splits, inherently. As I understand it, subjective descriptions are automatically defined as being relative to something - and I think we don't refer back to our standards when we use terms like "right" or "wrong."


I agree with the notion that gravity is, or what I think you and I both mean by gravity, would appear to be mostly black and white, within the limits of our normal experience. I think that's because we inherently have some really well defined standards we are judging by. Standards we have forgotten about, because they are so common. When it comes to morality, I don't think we all use the same standards.

Maybe we're not defining our terms well for each other. When I talk about morals and eithics, I am essentially describing the codification and apparent priniciples of behavior that I perceive to most fundamentally occur at the interface between human individuals and societies, while accepting that this behavior is affected by other entities. It seems to me that certain types of moral/ethics would seem to produce more stability, and others less stability. It seems easier to realize this stability in small groups, rather than large. I think we have some phenomena on which to base these observations, but nearly enough - particularly in comparision to our ability to observe the behavior of millions / billions of particles in scientific experiments that would involve theories like gravity, for example.

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xepherys

Hmmm, I have to say that I do now see the majority of your points and can't say I disagree, per se. On a note of specifics, however, I'd have to say it's easier to observe cultural interactions (between people and/or a person and society) in larger groups than in smaller. In small groups, as with any statistically oriented data, you do not have a large enough sample group. It's easier to see the down side of canabalism in NYC than it is to see it in a tribe of 60. If you lose 10% from it, 6 is not nearly as terrifying as 6,000 (or whatever 10% of the population of NYC would work out to be... I'm sure it's probably more than that).

Otherwise, yeah... I suppose... ;-)

pig

Honestly, I'm not really sure either. The issue you bring up about the physical "concreteness" that gravity (or other things like that) seem to have versus the abstract qualities of morality is something I've been struggling to get my head fully around for a while. Sometimes I feel like I've got it, usually I don't. I've come to the present state of thinking all things have a certain level of objective reality, and subjective reality.

As for the cannabalism - I agree. The larger population would give a better sample. What I meant to say is that I think it's easier to come to a uniform moral understanding in smaller groups. Incidentally, I think this is where Marx lost touch with reality. I think you and I can talk long enough and eventually agree on some basic morals, and if you live down the street and we see each other and know each other, it's more likely we'll stick to what we agree on. So maybe it's easier to observe the effects of morals / ethics in larger populations, but easier to agree on them in smaller?

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Phage

What makes this discussion difficult is that if morality is subjective then it would still tend toward a single constant view. This is due to the tendancy of vasty different moral codes to annihilate one another. At this point how can we tell if the different moral codes we have now are the result of deviations from a natural constant, or simply dissimilar codes which are similar through natural selection?

pig

Interesting. I'm not sure I fully understand your point. Could you elaborate?

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Phage

Ok, lets look way back into antiquity where we have Village A, B, and C. Villages A and B hold moral views that are pretty close together, but have enough differences that they might give each other funny looks sometimes. Unfortunately Village C is also quite similar to A and B except with the distinction that it is considered perfectly OK to steal and eat someone's baby. In fact there is a festival every year devoted to the sport.

Obviously Village A and B are going to get rid of C as soon as they can. My point is that the societies we have today are subject to the societies around them, and there is a certain level of difference that will result in them either changing or being eradicated. It would be expected that such basic moral values would equalize over time and exposure to others.

Suave

Phage: Were it the case that everyone adhered to the tenets of society, then you might be correct. However, there is significant intra-societal deviation within society by its citizens, and inter-societal deviation between societies in the real world. Besides, even with globalisation, we must realise that there are certain levels of isolation, within and between societies. In order for a full integration to be possible (though I doubt one would be), complete teaching of all individuals and consistent contact between them would be required.

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Phage

First, if the inter-societal deviation was strong enough (like with other tribes) to merit conflict then I am sure that such actions would be delt with when discovered. While there might be individuals that behaved differently anything "over the line" would have consequences.

Of course not every society will have regular contact with each other. However, unless we are to assume that humans sprung up fully formed from the ground every society had contact with at least one other before they broke away. I am just saying that foundational beliefs tend to preserve themselves even in an isolated society over time. After all a society is made up of individuals which tend to police themselves.

I don't mean to prove anything here, just to point out that it is likely that clothing, social rankings, and other things are probably much easier to change than certain major moral foundations. Don't be too quick to infer universal constants from something that is probably simply preserved from earlier contact.

chelsea_9

i agree that objective morals are impossible.

i think morals are concieved by the person from many different influences; surroundings, experiences, beliefs, etc.

but i do see how some would think they are influenced by DNA from a paternal viewpoint. it's not uncommon for children to have the same values as their parents... but it doesn't always happen.

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pig

I'm not sure I see any conflict. For instance, the seemingly universal moral code that prohibits murder in almost all societies, within certain limitations. However, that basic idea that willynilly murder of citizens will lead to social instability seems to constantly come up. This could be attributed to "earlier contact," from what I understand of your definition...but I don't see that this would negate the fact that crazy-go-nuts murder is "wrong," or not in the best interests of a stable society.

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Phage

Oh, by all means the foundations of what makes a stable society (such as no murder) would overlap with the concept of earlier contact. I am not saying that there is necessarily a conflict, simply that the mere observation that many societies have a similar moral basis is not a firm basis to infer that it is required for a stable society.

pig

Yeah, I think at some point we'll start playing Plato here. I mean, we'd have to define stable society, and then we'd have to find a really long term stable society, etc. From I can see in our longest lived (that I'm aware of at least) stable societies, there's always been certain moral provisions that keep popping up...at least in theory. In practice? Hmmm....

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Suave

Ohhh you're supporting moral relativism. Then I salute you.

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"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Plato

Francisco

If anything, morality has a biological basis. Ask yourself why animals (other than humans) can successfully live in complex social groups without there being some sort of instinctive "moral" laws of behavior involved. Chimps, dolphins, wolves, crows, etc.
These groups also learn to change these rules depending on the environment, situation, etc. The young are often taught the consequences of "immoral" acts by their parents, as well as through "play."

Of course, if you believe in some sort of deity, you might say these rules were placed there from some universal knowledge bank, but otherwise it seems fairly clear the rules are dependant on the "experience" of each species - rules for predators are going to be different from those for foragers, for example. We humans are of course both.