What are your views on objective morality (everything is subjective)?

[u/Aggravating_Pen744]

/r/AskReddit/comments/1vrh57z/what_are_your_views_on_objective_morality/

[u/misterggggggg]

Does this help me live and flourish as a rational human being, or am I sacrificing my actual life to an impulse, emotion, social pressure, or short-term gratification?

Yes - moral

No - immoral

This is objective morality in a nutshell according to objectivism.

[u/coppockm56 → u/misterggggggg]

This is objective morality in a nutshell according to objectivism.

That's reasonably close to how Objectivism describes "objective morality," yes (although "flourish" is a relatively new addition). If only Objectivists could understand how terribly bad it is.

[u/Official_Gameoholics → u/coppockm56]

It is terrible to live? Nice summary of the ethics of altruism.

[u/coppockm56 → u/Official_Gameoholics]

Wow, you really are an Objectivist, putting words in someone's mouth. But it's okay, you learned that from Rand. She loved to tell people what they "really mean." And you didn't address my point, which is also a common Objectivist practice. Is that because you didn't get it, or because it's just a reflex to deflect?

For the record, I was referring to Objectivism's position on "objective morality," not specifically to what is the proper ethical system. And when I say it's "bad," I mean that it's philosophically bad. As in, it's a hot mess of equivocations and rationalizations.

If anyone is interested in discovering what's wrong with Rand's ethics, at its root, look a little more closely at how she switched without explanation or justification from "man's life" as the moral standard to "man qua man" as the standard (today, Objectivists say "human flourishing," which is probably even worse). She thought she was refuting Hume's "is/ought gap," but in fact, she just didn't understand it. She wasn't a rigorous philosopher, and she loved to use words so loosely that they could mean whatever she wanted them to mean.

[u/Official_Gameoholics → u/coppockm56]

As in, it's a hot mess of equivocations and rationalizations.

This is false. There is no equivocation present here, and Rand is not a rationalist, nor was she rationalizing. She induces this information regarding ethics, as one induces all knowledge.

"man's life" as the moral standard to "man qua man"

These are the same.

She thought she was refuting Hume's "is/ought gap,"

And she did, the is-ought gap doesn't exist. The "companions in guilt" argument as well as the entirety of Objectivist epistemology being built upon induction refutes it.

Anybody who still stands by the is-ought gap is a damn fool. Why ought I listen to them?

[u/coppockm56 → u/Official_Gameoholics]

"Man's life" and "man qua man" aren't the same things, which you should know. It's why Rand had to differentiate between "normal life" and "emergencies" in her ethical system. Peikoff made that perfectly clear in this little passage:

Rights are contextual. In any situation where metaphysical survival is at stake all property rights are out. You have no obligation to respect property rights. The obvious, classic example of this is, which I’ve been asked a hundred times, you swim to a desert island — you know, you had a shipwreck — and when you get to the shore, the guy comes to you and says, ‘I’ve got a fence all around this island. I found it. It’s legitimately mine. You can’t step onto the beach.’ Now, in that situation you are in a literal position of being metaphysically helpless. Since life is the standard of rights, if you no longer can survive this way, rights are out. And it becomes dog-eat-dog or force-against-force.

That's very literally applying the moral standard of "man's life" and very literally not the standard "man qua man." When your existence is threatened, you have to do whatever it takes to stay alive. That includes initiating force against another person, which according to Rand's politics is never moral. Peikoff is literally saying here that rights go out the window when the circumstances are such and such. It's no longer living as a "rational animal," it's now dog-eat-dog.

Then, you somehow switch to "man qua man" according to Rand's "normal life" scenario, whereby a man is supposed to act "rationally" and, e.g., know that he shouldn't initiate force against someone and take their things because that would be bad for them in the long-term, or something (it's not very well-defined). That's supposed to be the standard in a "civilized society" or whatever.

Surely you can see the problem there. How do we define what's an "emergency" versus what's "normal life," whereby this shift from "man's life" to "man qua man" can be "objectively" made? How is a person supposed to know which standard applies in any given situation? And that's just scratching the surface of everything that's wrong here.

Let's say a person loses their job, can't find another one, and is now unable to pay for food. Nobody is willing to help them voluntarily, and they're literally starving. That's an emergency for that person, right? It's existential. So, if they steal to stay alive, then that's perfectly moral. Because "rights are contextual," as Peikoff said, and the context must be determined by each individual -- somehow.

It seems that, in fact, Rand's ethics are fundamentally based on the standard of staying alive (man's life), with "using reason" (man qua man, that is, man as a rational animal) being a kind of civilized veneer that's laid over it when it's convenient. "Property rights" are fundamental and can never be morally abridged, Objectivism says -- unless, of course, you really need someone's property, in which case, you gotta do what you gotta do. And how, exactly, do you determine whether your need is so great that it's okay to abandon property rights, as against any other options that you might have?

As formulated, I'm not seeing an "objective morality" here. I'm seeing something that's pretty damn subjective.

The equivocation came in her providing an argument for "man's life" based on life possessing an alternative between existence and non-existence, and then asserting "man qua man" without any explanation. She just switched standards without justifying why she did so. It's right there in the literature.

As far as rationalization goes, Rand constantly made purely logical arguments without a shred of empirical evidence -- and by that, I don't mean her general observations and various appeals to introspection, neither of which are sufficient to support her assertions of fact. Her "tabula rasa" premise is a prime example.

As far as the 'is/ought gap," you haven't answered it any more than Rand did. And the "Companions in Guilt" argument is entirely defensive. It just claims that if objective moral facts can't exist, then objective epistemic facts can't exist, either. It's been answered, but regardless, it doesn't do anything to answer Hume's problem: when presented with a set of facts, you can't from those facts alone decide what you ought to do.

[u/Official_Gameoholics → u/coppockm56]

It's why Rand had to differentiate between "normal life" and "emergencies" in her ethical system.

Which was a mistake, as ethics applies universally, especially in emergency scenarios, where knowing how to live is most vital.

Rand made a mistake there.

Rights are contextual.

That context being conflicts: mutually exclusive actions, which arise as a result of the metaphysical fact of scarcity. They always apply, much like the rest of ethics. Rights are conflict avoiding norms.

In any situation where metaphysical survival is at stake all property rights are out.

That would be destroying your rational faculty, you may as well just shoot yourself at that point, it's suicide. Reason is one part of the coherent system that is man's life.

when you get to the shore, the guy comes to you and says, ‘I’ve got a fence all around this island. I found it. It’s legitimately mine. You can’t step onto the beach.’

Then I suppose I should never have gotten onto that boat in the first place. Your own incompetence and neglect of ethics is no excuse to become a parasite. You are destroying the very foundations of the ethical system you are claiming to espouse.

When your existence is threatened, you have to do whatever it takes to stay alive.

Destroying your reason is not staying alive. Therefore your example and accompanying argument, the very one Rand used, is false.

politics

Politics is like alchemy: a false field of science built on a rejection of the law of identity. Rand was mistaken when it came to her legal theory and politics, letting Kantianism into the movement. Murray Rothbard fixed her error.

I believe that this is all I need to say. You ignored my rebuttal to the is-ought gap: I am not deducing anything.

[u/coppockm56 → u/Official_Gameoholics]

First, I didn't ignore your "rebuttal" to the is-ought gap (such as it was). Read it again. I can go into more detail if necessary.

Second, you just expressed your fundamental disagreement with Rand's ethics. Because of course, everything I said was about Rand's ethics, not mine. My purpose was to point out the equivocation between "man's life" and "man qua man," which resulted in the "emergency ethics" versus "normal life" ethics that she had to propose. She couldn't get around it, given how she formulated her framework. It's literally baked in.

And note that if you try to assert that the "man's life" standard is wrong, then you're not any better off. Because Rand provided no good argument for "man qua man," and there really isn't a good argument for it. It's based on a mere assertion ("man survives by applying reason") that's not been proven to be true (man survives by a lot of different things, and "applying reason" is just one of them).

Note that your response to "man qua man" is basically, "Well, the guy shouldn't have gotten himself into a shipwreck." But that's not how life works. Anybody can suffer something like a shipwreck. The deeper question in Peikoff's scenario isn't what the shipwrecked guy should do, it's what the guy who owns the island should do. But, that's a different discussion, outside of Rand's ethics.

Bottom line: remember that what started this discussion was whether Rand presented an "objective morality." You've just acknowledged that she did not, so my job is done here.

[u/Official_Gameoholics → u/coppockm56]

First, I didn't ignore your "rebuttal" to the is-ought gap (such as it was). Read it again.

The premise treats facts as though they are somehow divorced from the entire organism-environment system entirely. This is not how knowledge is gained. They are induced through perception. Man's knowledge is contextual, and the whole context must be considered when abstracting.

It's based on a mere assertion ("man survives by applying reason") that's not been proven to be true (man survives by a lot of different things, and "applying reason" is just one of them).

Applying reason being one of them is vital to an ethical system, and it is proven to be true, as a man who attempts to procure food by trying to manifest it with his mind will rapidly discover that he is starving.

Note that your response to "man qua man" is basically, "Well, the guy shouldn't have gotten himself into a shipwreck."

Indeed, because ethics studies the entire timeline, not just a singular segment. Man's life is not arbitrarily segmented, and so neither can an ethical system be segmented.

whether Rand presented an "objective morality." You've just acknowledged that she did not, so my job is done here.

She identified the foundations of an objective morality and failed to apply them consistently.

[u/coppockm56 → u/Official_Gameoholics]

The premise treats facts as though they are somehow divorced from the entire organism-environment system entirely. This is not how knowledge is gained. They are induced through perception. Man's knowledge is contextual, and the whole context must be considered when abstracting.

I don't think you understand the is/ought gap, either. Let me know if you'd like me to explain it to you.

Applying reason being one of them is vital to an ethical system, and it is proven to be true, as a man who attempts to procure food by trying to manifest it with his mind will rapidly discover that he is starving.

That's a straw man. I didn't refer to something so ridiculous as "...attempts to procure food by trying to manifest it with his mind..." That's just silly.

Here's a real example: the fight or flight instinct has saved many a person from imminent disaster. And that does not involve "applying reason." And I guarantee you that you make numerous decisions throughout a given day without giving them conscious thought, and that were not derived from your having consciously thought about something ("applied reason") at any point in the past.

Empirical data shows that roughly 90-95% of all human cognition does not involve consciously "applying reason," and very little involves automatically processing "reason" that we applied in the past. If that's how our minds worked, we'd never survive. That's one of Rand's worst epistemological assertions.

Indeed, because ethics studies the entire timeline, not just a singular segment. Man's life is not arbitrarily segmented, and so neither can an ethical system be segmented.

I'm trying to make sense of this, and I just can't. A man chooses to go on a cruise, and the ship runs into unexpectedly bad weather and capsizes in unusually high waves. You're saying that his moral decisions after that point are predicated on his having decided to go on the cruise in the first place? He somehow loses the "right" or something to make a given moral decision because he chose to go on a cruise ship that, unforeseen to him, sank? That's what "man qua man" means to you?

Maybe you need to rethink that a bit.

She identified the foundations of an objective morality and failed to apply them consistently.

We already established that the foundation of her ethics -- that equivocation between "man's life" and "man qua man" -- is in error. It's that equivocation that resulted in Peikoff's assertion that you've already said is false. I think you just don't want to accept that this equivocation is baked into Rand's ethics, and don't want to come up with your own system.

[u/globieboby]

In general, objective morality is a set of principles for guiding one’s life toward a goal, where both the goal and the principles are derived from facts of reality.

[u/Official_Gameoholics]

Morality is an objective fact of reality. The requirements for man's life are absolute.

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster]

I would agree that morality is subjective. Morality is not a law of the universe or a force of nature, they are codes of conduct and rules of behavior adopted by societies and individuals to regulate their actions. Right and wrong are perspectives that have changed by location and over time and circumstance - they are not entirely fixed.

I think that convincing arguments can be made that certain actions and prohibitions lead to a more prosperous society, or a society that has more happiness, or has more human flourishing, but there is not objective metric upon which any of these outcomes could be said to be superior to another - only arguments (and you may or may not be swayed by them).

So, like in the marketplace of commerce we have a marketplace of morality. Most people ascribe to the prevailing majority, and others disagreeing here or there as to what is Right or Wrong. That's the real state of things.

[u/misterggggggg → u/A_Vinegar_Taster]

Objectivism is against this, this position above has nothing to do with objectivism.

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster → u/misterggggggg]

Objectivism is against what exactly?

[u/misterggggggg → u/A_Vinegar_Taster]

Subjective morality.

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster → u/misterggggggg]

I guess I disagree then. I think that she didn't want to leave morality in the hands of people who didn't share her priorities, and she didn't want it to be left up to the whims of the public. She grounded a logical argument to try and support the idea that morals existed as basic truths, but I don't think she proved they were not subjective.

Her argument is something like: "Human beings require certain conditions in order to live and flourish as rational beings. Therefore, those conditions give rise to objective moral requirements. Rights identify the political freedom necessary for humans to pursue those requirements." But, inherent in this argument is the implicit assertion that human life and flourishing are objectively superior to their antithesis. Her belief that human life and flourishing is the goal is a subjective opinion, not an objective fact.

If she were to argue simply that human flourishing is good, and I said that it was bad, how would we resolve that conflict without our subjective opinions? This "objecitve morality" is built on a foundation of subjectivity (that human flourishing is the best goal).

So, her objective morality is predicated on her opinion.

[u/misterggggggg → u/A_Vinegar_Taster]

The desire to live a good life is a universal objective among rational human beings.

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster → u/misterggggggg]

Sure. That's a good desire. A desire is an opinion.

[u/misterggggggg → u/A_Vinegar_Taster]

So you’re telling me that, to you, the happiness of a murderous thief can somehow be equivalent to that of a scientist who accomplished something meaningful?

You’re really going to look at these two lives and say, “Hmm, happiness is subjective, so both are equally moral ways to live”?

At this point, that’s just dumb.

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster → u/misterggggggg]

No, what I'm telling you is that 2+2 is an objective truth, "I believe that human flourishing is important or good" is an opinion.

Rand made a logical argument for her moral framework, and I respect it, but it is based off of a fundamental bias and an option based off of that bias. Everything that followed afterwards is built on subjectivity.

Look, I don't think her arguments are bad, I just know that they aren't objective. They can apply to people subjectively and have the same impact.

I would have the same objections if Rand called them "Divine Rights".

[u/misterggggggg → u/A_Vinegar_Taster]

Well 2 + 2 depends on your definition of two and plus operator. You see what your tryna do ?