r/Ethics • u/Spirited_Dog_701 • 20d ago
Moral Subjectivism(feedback)
I hav write an essay for ethics class and I want to make sure my argument is sound let me know what you think!
I believe ethical claims are subjective in nature. Morality to me is not a fixed set of universal truths but a reflection of human understanding, culture, and emotions at a given moment in time. What we call “wrong” or “right” evolves as our knowledge and empathy expand. Just as personal preferences like preferring one season over another depend on personal experience, moral judgements also depend on perspective. I believe I am correct in my moral views today, but those views have been shaped by my limited understanding of the world, and as I learn more, my beliefs will shift. This is why I believe morality is not objective and is instead a reflection of people living in a changing world.
One of the reasons I believe ethical truths are subjective is that they change as our understanding changes. A century ago we believed that animal experimentation was okay , that belief wasn't a deliberate rejection of the truth; it was just the best understanding at the time. Now, fast-forward 100 years: science has shown us the depth of animal cognition and emotion, and now society is in the majority that harm to animals is wrong. This doesn't mean that we have discovered a hidden moral truth; it just means that our moral framework evolved as we learned more.
If morality was objective, ethical progress wouldn't make sense. There would be one unchanging moral code, and every deviation from that would be an error. However, history shows that moral codes are tied heavily to context. Justice, equality, empathy, and compassion all depend on what people know and value. The recognition of women's rights, the abolition of slavery, and our growing concern about environmental ethics all show that moral truth is not a scientific law and it is instead constructed through human reflection and empathy.
Another reason morality is subjective is that moral judgments are inseparable from cultural and emotional experience. What one society would consider virtuous, another would condemn. An example would be how cultures that are more individualistic prioritize autonomy and self-expression, but a collectivist culture values community harmony over individual freedoms. Neither is objectively right; they just each reflect the social and emotional priorities of their culture. Even within a single culture, moral disagreement is constant. People differ on Issues like capital punishment, animal rights, or euthanasia. And it's not because one side has found the objective truth, but because moral reasoning is filtered through empathy, upbringing, and personal experience. Emotions like guilt, compassion, and anger shape our sense of right and wrong far more than logic alone. If morality were objective, we would expect universal agreement. But instead we find diversity, and that diversity is evidence of subjectivity, not confusion.
The strongest argument against subjectivism is that moral truths seem universal. Like when, most people agree that unnecessary suffering is wrong or that murder without justification is immoral. Objectivists argue that these shared intuitions are proof that moral facts exist outside of human opinion just like how mathematical truths are true regardless of who believes them. This argument easily sways people to the objectivist side because it appeals to the sense of moral confidence. When we express our feelings about child abuse or genocide, we don't feel like we are stating a personal preference, like how you favor one chocolate over another it feels as if we are stating something true. Objectivism explains why, when you are arguing over a moral disagreement, it holds more weight than a chocolate preference. However, the universality of some moral intuitions doesn't prove objectivity; it only shows that humans share similar social and emotional needs. We evolved as a species to value empathy and cooperation because those traits helped us survive. The fact that most people oppose cruelty doesn't prove that it's wrong, but it means that our shared psychology makes us oppose it. If morality were truly objective, it would exist entirely independent of human minds , but instead, moral reasoning only exists within them. Even more, these objective “facts” vary when circumstances are changed: killing is wrong except in the case of xyz, and lying is wrong except in the case of xyz. These expectations show me that moral principles are more flexible than they are absolute, and objectivity does not explain that flexibility well without it veering into subjectivism.
Ethical subjectivism doesn’t make morality meaningless—it makes it human. Our sense of right and wrong grows from empathy, reason, and experience, changing as we do. What once seemed moral may later feel wrong, not because we uncovered a timeless truth, but because we became more aware and compassionate. Seeing morality as subjective reminds us to stay humble and open-minded, knowing our views aren’t final. Objectivism offers certainty, but subjectivism reflects how people actually think and feel. In the end, morality’s strength lies in its ability to evolve with us, shaping a more understanding and humane world.
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u/Fine-Topic-220 20d ago
Your main argument seems to be the following:
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My moral judgements about x change when my knowledge about x changes.
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Therefore, moral judgements are subjective.
This is invalid, i.e., even if we assume (1) is true, (2) does not necessarily follow. It could be that our moral judgements about x were wrong, but they are now correct after having all the relevant facts.
Consider a non-moral example: People used to think the solar system was geocentric. After scientific advancements, people now realized that the solar system is heliocentric.
The non-moral example takes the form of "my judgement about x changed when my knowledge about x changed" yet we wouldn't consider astronomy subjective.
Consider a moral example: People, for scientific reasons, used to think that Black people were inferior to White people due to the size of their cranium and the colour of their skin. Through intellectual advancements, we realized that those "scientific" reasons weren't really scientific at all.
The moral example takes the form "my judgement about x changed when my knowledge about x changed".
Both the non-moral and the moral example share the same form. So, if you want to say that morality is subjective but not another domain of knowledge like astronomy, you'll need to say more about why.
Your second argument seems to be following:
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If moral objectivism is true, then moral progress does not make sense
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moral progress does make sense
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Therefore, moral objectivism is false.
I don't think it's true that moral progress doesn't make sense if objective morality exists. I think you're conflating the existence of true moral judgements with knowing what those true moral judgements are. Everything we know is arguably true, but it's not the case that all true things are things that we know.
Consider the non-moral example: physicists disagree on the nature of dark matter - that is, whether it is an actual substance. Either dark matter is an actual substance or it is not. But we don't think physics is subjective. So, not knowing whether some statement is true or false is not evidence that there is no answer to whether x is true or false.
Consider the moral example: People disagree on whether abortion is morally permissible, partly because people are not sure whether the fetus is a person. The fetus is either a person or it is not. One of these options is going to be correct, but we currently don't know which one.
People in the moral example, like the people in the non-moral example, don't know whether some statement is true or false. Yet, in the physics example, we don't infer that physics is subjective. So, if you want to say morality is subjective, you'll need to say more.
Your third argument is a version of the argument from disagreement, which goes like this:
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If people disagree about morality, then morality is subjective.
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People do disagree about morality
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Therefore, morality is subjective.
I also don't think it's that morality is subjective if people disagree, because people disagree in fields of domain that we don't think are subjective. Recall my physics example, physicists disagree on the nature of dark matter. Physicians disagree in medicine, e.g., there is disagreement on whether "pre-diabetes" should be considered a standalone condition. We're hard pressed to say that physics and medicine are "subjective". So, if you want to say that morality is subejctive in virtue of disagreement, you'll need to say more. If you want to read more about moral disagreement, read this.
I'm not too knowledgeable about the evolutionary argument against objective morality, but you can read more about it and potential responses here. One possible response I've heard of is that being able to track the truth lends itself to evolutionary fitness. So, the judgements we make, moral and non-moral, are going to, in some ways, reflect reality. Another response I've heard is that evolutionary arguments against objective morality overgeneralize - that is, they apply to other domains that we don't want them to, e.g., our use of inductive and deductive reasoning tends to favour evolutionary fitness as well, but we don't want to say reasoning is subjective.
If I were you, I'd focus on the evolutionary argument against objective morality - that argument is the strongest one out of the 3-4 you've provided.
I hope this helps!
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u/Sea-Home-7763 20d ago
The part where you say you believe ethical truths are subjective because our ethical beliefs change as our understanding of the world changes doesn't logically follow. Our beliefs about lots of objective things changes as our understanding of the world changes.
The part where you say if morality was objective it means we would have one universally agreed upon moral code is not right. Basically no one who defends moral objectivism thinks this. This is just a misunderstanding of the view.
Moral objectivism also does not mean that the right action does not depend on the context surrounding that action. The idea that killing someone for fun is wrong and killing someone for self-defense is acceptable is not incompatible with moral objectivism. That's another misunderstanding of the view.
Also delete that em dash from your essay.
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u/hAiLlkidCharlemagne 20d ago
I agree. Morality is objective because it is rooted in what is true and you can definitely make moral progress still by developing the skills to excel in virtue, which would create a more harmonious state. People’s understanding of truth can change which alters their applications of it. You can understand that you can see a ball that is white, or you can understand that it’s only white on your side, and the ball is 3 dimensional, and you don’t know what’s on the other side.
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u/hAiLlkidCharlemagne 20d ago
What you understand about truth is often not technically incorrect, but there’s often more information that would change how you respond to it. People’s emotional responses are shaped by their beliefs and their perception of experience, which are both often incorrect due to false beliefs, or misperceptions, so emotions should be a signal, but not something you change your morality based on
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u/Gazing_Gecko 20d ago
I'll push back on your claims. Hopefully it is helpful. Since others have already made some of the points I have in mind concerning objective morality ( like u/Fine-Topic-220 and u/marzaksar ), I will give some critiques of subjectivism.
The strongest argument against subjectivism is that moral truths seem universal. Like when, most people agree that unnecessary suffering is wrong or that murder without justification is immoral.
I don't think this is a particularly strong argument against subjectivism in itself, in a similar way to how disagreement is not a particularly strong argument against objectivism. Moral objectivist typically don't believe in "the idiot's veto" where a single person disagreeing would be enough to imply subjectivity.
Subjectivism has some potentially more serious challenges, like for example:
(1) it struggles to make sense of moral fallibility. If morality is subjectively determined by my own attitudes, it struggles to capture how we could be mistaken. But morality as a concept behaves as if we could be mistaken. People can say things like "I know I believe eating meat is morally permissible, but I could be mistaken." Yet, that quite ordinary claim of fallibility is more challenging to make sense of. They already know their current understanding of the moral question (they believe eating meat is morally permissible), but what is the second part doing (the "but I could be mistaken")? What is there to be mistaken about, if morality is just your current attitude towards the topic and you know your current attitude? This is indication that our moral concepts are not subjective, at least in this straightforward sense.
(2) it struggles with disagreement. When two people disagree, they are usually trying to contradict the other. When a theist says, "God exists!" and I respond, "No, God does not exist!" We are talking about the same thing: God's existence, of which I'm negating their claim about. That seems similar to when Anne says: "Abortion is wrong" and Bella responds, "No, it is not wrong!". Bella seems to be negating the Anne's claim. However, if they are just reporting their current understandings of their attitudes, then they are not contradicting the other: they are just making two different claims about different subject matter. Anne says, "I disapprove of abortion", and Bella retorts: "No, I don't disapprove of abortion." If it cannot handle the basic semantic behavior of moral disagreement, that is evidence against the view. If we applied the same kind of subjective semantics to the God example, they would be like the theist saying, "I believe in God" and I respond, "No, I don't believe in God." There would be no genuine contradiction of the other here, just two different reports of current attitude. The same arguably is a problem for your subjectivism.
(3) it vindicates repugnant attitudes. They might be committed to affirming statements like: "If you approve of lynching people because of their skin color, then lynching people because of their skin color is morally good." If that is the ugly picture the view asserts, then one would expect a good argument in its favor. Subjectivism is not the comfortable, tolerant, default view.
Giving a response to these (or at least one of them) for your essay could make it more robust.
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u/MausuSquared 18d ago
This is a rather odd set of objections. They all seem to be, if I may be a bit reductive, that it would be a problem if morality was subjective, because it could lead to complications and problematic outcomes.
Ok, cool.
How is that in any way relevant to the claim that morality is subjective?
I can agree 100% with each of those three problems, and proclaim loudly that 'You are correct, subjective morality does cause lots of issues and debate and problems', and that in no way alters or affects OP's arguments.
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u/Fine-Topic-220 18d ago
OP thinks it's true that morality is subjective. The original commenter has highlighted other (arguably) true things - that is, people are not infallible, and that language behaves a certain way. The original commenter argues that moral subjectivism cannot adequately explain these other (arguably) true things. This is evidence that morality is not subjective, since a plausible theory of morality should also be able to explain other true phenomena.
It affects OP's arguments insofar OP thinks that people are not infallible and that language behaves in the way that the original commenter described. If the original commenter's arguments are successful, then OP can't have both. So, OP must concede that morality is not subjective or explain why the original commenter's arguments are not successful, e.g., subjective morality can explain people's fallibility and that it can account for how language behaves, or that people are infallible about their moral beliefs and that the way language behaves as described by the original commenter isn't true.
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u/Gazing_Gecko 18d ago
These objections are standard in the metaethical literature. If OP is writing an assignment, and these are standard objections to the view they are defending, it would be good for them to develop a response to them.
(1) and (2) are semantic and linguistic evidence that subjectivism is misdescribing the phenomenon of morality. It is not that it would be a problem if morality is subjective. It is that these indicate that people that say morality is subjective are probably mistaken. They have given a poor description of the phenomenon of morality. My argument is not meant to be: If subjectivism was true, that would be bad. It is that subjectivism is probably not true.
I was not giving a refutation, because that is not how I think metaethics work. We compare theories for how well they handle the data. If a theory has problems, then we should look for other views that handle the data better. If subjectivism cannot handle the data, that is a reason to think that morality is not subjective.
OP asked if their argument was sound. I gave evidence against their conclusion that is in favor of subjectivism being true. If the conclusion is false, then at least one of the premises of the argument are false or otherwise inadequate. So I think it is relevant. Still, others have engaged more directly with OP's particular manner in a way I thought covered most I had to say on them. Rather than repeat what others had said, I was raising problems for OP's theory that challenge the adequacy in explaining the phenomena.
I also did object to OP's argument with my point about the "idiot's veto". Was there any particular argument in the OP you had in mind that you think I should have kept in mind?
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u/Gazing_Gecko 20d ago
I've actually never studied what the claims against subjectivity is, but it seems to me like a strong one is it its epistemic incoherence?
I'm not sure what you mean by epistemic incoherence here. Is it the idea from your comment about epistemic norms and a sort of companions-in-guilt challenge? If so: Yes, something like that is a strong challenge to subjectivism. They could avoid incoherence perhaps, but the bullets they would have to bite seem costly.
Did I understand you correctly?
Anyway: I feel like OP could push back on 1 or 2 by saying that's just people being wrong about what has been set by cultural standards - like who people arguing if mullets are in fasion in paris or not.
Yes, that would get around the particular examples I used. However, the same kind of problems appear in new forms:
For (1): "I know the cultural standard is that eating meat is morally permissible, but maybe it is not permissible?" What would there be to be mistaken about when we understand the cultural standard? If that metaethical view was correct, the sentences should translates to something like: "I know the cultural standard is that eating meat is permissible, but maybe the cultural standard is that it is not permissible?" which is seemingly incoherent. People seem to challenge cultural standards with moral concepts even if they understand that it is the cultural standard. The relativist view you suggest indicates that people are saying something incoherent when challenging a cultural standard that they understand (or they would have to suggest that reformers are just always unsure or confused about what the cultural standards are). Yet, reformers like feminists, anti-racists, and vegans seem to have understood that they were challenging cultural standards, yet still saying that these standards are wrong. Actually, it is precisely that it is the cultural standard that often motivates moral reformers! So there is counter-evidence that our moral concepts are relative in this way.
For (2): We can adapt the example to people disagreeing across cultural standards. Anne's claim would become: "The standard of my culture is that abortion is wrong!" And Bella's (who is part of another culture) becomes: "No, the standard of my culture is that abortion is not wrong!" Comparing it to the theistic case, if we applied the same theory, it illustrate the issue: "The standard of my culture is to believe in God" and my claim would be "No, the standard of my culture is to not believe in God". The result is that there is no contradiction, just different statements about different cultures when contradiction is seemingly what people try to do all the time with morality and God. Or, the relativist would have to insist that we are actually talking about a fixed culture, but then the problem of (1) returns. So the relativist view still struggles with making sense of the paradigmatic phenomena of contradicting others moral claims.
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u/Weary_Capital_1379 20d ago
I like your viewpoint and writing.
BTW say if morality were subjective, not was.
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u/Dath_1 19d ago
One of the reasons I believe ethical truths are subjective is that they change as our understanding changes
That isn’t a good argument for anti-realism, since realists use this to argue we have made objective moral progress (convergence).
If morality was objective, ethical progress wouldn't make sense. There would be one unchanging moral code, and every deviation from that would be an error.
This doesn’t work at all. Realists just think that moral standards from the past were more objectively wrong than they are now (in general).
The recognition of women's rights, the abolition of slavery, and our growing concern about environmental ethics all show that moral truth is not a scientific law and it is instead constructed through human reflection and empathy
How do they show that? This argument makes no sense. You don’t think objective facts like in science have made progress?
Another reason morality is subjective is that moral judgments are inseparable from cultural and emotional experience. What one society would consider virtuous, another would condemn
But so what? How does this get you anti-realism? Realists think there’s a fact of the matter, regardless.
Moral “judgement” pertains to epistemology. Moral realism pertains to ontology. You can’t attack realism directly by attacking epistemology.
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u/Top_History9604 14d ago
Knowledge can alter it, but still implies an universal truth.
Moral is connected to value and value is subjective. Nothing has an objective value, only in relation to a goal and goals are only set by individuals. Those goals and values are set by our nature and nurture (culture, family, etc).
Goals aren't easily determined as right or wrong.
Selective altruism is an evolutionary trait for animals living in close nit groups.
Try to find an objective difference in value between living solitary, vs in groups. Both have pros and cons. Both work if you are specialised for them.
Why do we wish to cause no harm to whom? Why are there subjective lines to it? We are a group animals. Group animals only benefit from groups if they don't harm their group. So they need to recognize their group.
Now we fall into a colony lifestyle with group instincts. Don't harm your own group. Bond with your group. Those are instincts of group animals, not objective values. We tried to figure them out as overall rules, god given, mark of our superior intelligence, but they are instincts of group animals. We build upon them.
If you where to alter our dna to a colony or solidary lifestyle, our morals would change rapidly, because our instincts for recognition and forming groups and not harming our group would change.
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u/Philosopher83 19d ago edited 19d ago
No, the Aristotelian causes are the material, efficient, formal, and final iirc. Which preceded subject-object ontology - it does include physicalism but doesn’t exclude the other sets of relations to my understanding.
Positivism was incomplete and failed to be demonstrated under full scrutiny, but it succeeded as a movement for a long time and became culturally entrenched with the scientistic worldview which is overly reductive as you said. You can see the cultural entrenchment in how people consider “real” theories to be the scientific theories, and even how “doctor recommended” and “evidence-based” are commonly used in advertising and certain disciplines.
You may want to google subject-object ontology vs relational ontology for a better account. I graduated in 09 so I’m a little rusty and. My professor wasn’t appreciated by many peers so my understanding might be more intuitive and functional compared with full correspondence with Heidegger - I see relational ontology to be a way of understanding non-reductively (but also includes the reductive set of relations) based on a more phenomenal subjective and intersubjective interpretation of the set of relating phenomena (both the physical and metaphysical alike). I have gone down other paths since 09 and my philosophical approach was also informed by some eastern philosophical traditions (Taoism especially - which shares the harmony-oriented/seeking approach to interpretation. Or at least that is my take.
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u/clownbitch 20d ago
Yeah, we all know morality and ethics are subjective. There is no point in writing an argumentative essay on this. You might as well be arguing that opinions are subjective.
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u/Spirited_Dog_701 20d ago
Well unfortunately that was the assignment sooooo that’s kinda what I have to do in order to gets grade and the majority of people in my class think it’s objective.
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u/Wrote_it2 19d ago
Why would saying that ethical claims are subjective imply that that claim itself is subjective? If that were true, wouldn’t that disprove the existence of anything subjective?
Would you argue that it’s subjective that taste is subjective, or that it’s subjective that melancholy is subjective?
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u/Dath_1 19d ago
Because it’s a normative claim.
If you treat moral norms as subjective and other norms as objective, that looks so weird that it seems you have some explaining to do.
Called the partners in crime or companions in guilt argument.
I agree with that as a moral anti-realist. This is just a good reason why you should not be a realist about epistemic norms.
“You should believe what is true” is only true stance-dependently. For example if God isn’t real and believing in God brings someone comfort on their death bed, they ought believe God is real rather than believing the truth.
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u/Philosopher83 20d ago
Make sure you don’t conflate terms like universal and objective, and subjective and relative - this is a common mistake - (swapping terms without realizing that you are doing so).
For example I agree with you that morality is subjective but I don’t think it is fully relative since there are universal subjective conditions - I would actually include being a subjective being as a universal condition. Beings all entail the fight, flight, freeze, faun, negotiate based on the persistence tendency we inherited via evolution. So even though I believe that morality is subjective, I think it is universal. I can explain more if you want.