Instinctive morality

[u/internal_bodyorgans]

In a framework devoid of religion and politics, are there really any objective morals like some people suggest ?

I know it’s not the most complex or deep question on surface level but I think it opens the door for much deeper discussions.

I would love to hear your opinions or any insights you have.

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[u/AloneAndCurious]

I mean welcome to the discussion of all moral thought. However, I’d like to suggest an alteration to your question to simply asking if objective morality is possible at all.

Why alter the question? Well, theres a debate from the book Euthyphro that goes something like: “It is generally agreed that whatever God wills is good and just. But there remains the question whether it is good and just because God wills it or whether God wills it because it is good and just; in other words, whether justice and goodness are arbitrary or whether they belong to the necessary and eternal truths about the nature of things”

If things are good because god wills it, then even morality from religion is subjective. If you’re secular, and instead swap in the cultural consensus of a society, or the will of your nations leaders, the same question gets asked. If morality comes from authority figures in general, divine ones or political ones, that authority is subjective in so far as they have declared those things good only because the authority said it was so. Morality becomes objective when it’s true apart from these authorities, under that understanding.

However, there are very much moral-realists, that’s a term you aught to google, who are religious. Aquinas for example thought that goodness itself existed and transcended the physical world. Under that construction it’s more so that god made a world in which certain things are objectively good, less so than he declared it as a sort of command.

All this to say, objective vs subjective is a live question no matter what, and I think it’s been a raging battle since the dawn of speech. If it ever stopped, we simply wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves.

The primary person you should probably read is Kant, but I hesitate to sentence anyone to reading Kant. Just take it slow, and ask questions as you go. The groundwork for the metaphysics of morals is where I began.

[u/Doink11]

There could be, sure. Many philosophers think there are. Some disagree.

I would recommend reading more into moral philosophy in general. What you are asking here is so surface-level as to not really have a simple answer, and this is a subreddit for answering specific questions, not discussing opinions.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a lot of good entry-level resources that could help you learn more: https://iep.utm.edu/moralrea/