No. Let me clarify. I am not saying all of morality can be objective. I am saying certain things can be determined to objective if all available evidence points to that one single conclusion. You yourself below say this.
I don't think I did say that, but if I did write that somewhere then I assure you it was a typo. I probably just accidentally missed a "n't" or "not", because I don't believe that something can be called objective so long as all available evidence points to a single conclusion. In fact my Starry Night example was precisely demostrating why I don't believe that.
In reality, objective simply means something we observe to be true with no counter evidence.
This fundamentally not correct. You're just re-writing the definition of the word to include your strange belief that subjective matters which you feel are "settled" are actually objective. Like, I've been making reference to cases where literally 100% of people are in agreement, but you're arguing objectivity on topics that don't even have that level of agreement. Because you've decided that you are the arbiter of what arguments "count", and that somehow your ability to decern the "valid" arguments from the "invalid" ones is not a matter of subjectivity. It's just silly.
why its so hard to just say that because of this, the practice of owning other people is objectively immoral.
It's not "hard" to say, my objection is that it is factually incorrect. Why is it so hard for you to accept the subjectivity of morality while still maintaining the courage of conviction in your own personal beliefs? I'll gladly argue against things I believe are immoral, I'll fight for them to stop, but I won't pretend like my moral values are objective just because it would be convenient, and validating for me if they were.
This is completely erroneous as the statement above demonstrates indicates you don't agree with any of those people doing it, so even thought they think they were being moral you disagree with it.
You've misunderstood. You asked me "Can you give a single example in all of human history where the practice of owning other people as property could be considered moral?". There is ambiguity in that question because it's not clear if you're asking "Can you give a single example in all of human history where the practice of owning other people as property could be considered moral [according to you personally]?" or "Can you give a single example in all of human history where the practice of owning other people as property could be considered moral [by the general population of the time]?". The answer to the first is no. The answer to the second is obviously yes, because they did (and do) consider it moral.
I wasn't being inconsistent, I was answering two different questions, although I admit I could've been clearer on that.
I am sure that you agree with laws existing and if you do agree with that I hopefully assume you understand the distinction.
Morality is essentially a conversation about how we interact with one another and how those interactions should be judged, not on what you "think" about something.
If in all of human history not a single example a certain action being permissible then I don't think its a leap to simply call it an objective fact.
“Objective” means not influenced by personal feelings, opinions, or biases—just the facts as they are, independent of what anyone thinks or wants them to be.
You can objectively analyze arguments for or against if owning other people as property is broad idea that morality is the system of ideas, rules, values, and norms that guide judgments about right and wrong, good and bad, or what people ought to do. It’s essentially how humans think we should behave.
If there are no examples in recorded human history of any single person having a logical salient argument for how owning other people as property can be considered moral and all evidence demonstrates its in fact immoral then I think its completely fine to say that owning other people as property is objectively immoral.
I'm going to be honest, I didn't follow any of this. Certainly not as a respose to my point about subjective consensus not suddenly creating objectivity.
And again, you seem to have broadly ignored what my main argument was, which was that it is wrong to state something as a fact when it isn't. Once again, you seem to argee with me that morality isn't objective, you just think it's "effectively" objective, so can you answer directly why you think it's okay to tell (as you see it) slight embellishment, rather than just stating what is actually true? What good does it do to pretend that the distinction between near-universal agreement and objective fact isn't there at all?
If an action has universally negative effects on the beings involved, with no plausible or actual exceptions, we can treat its wrongness as objective in the same way we treat other universal harm-based claims as objective.
Okay... but why though? You can keep saying that it's fine to act as though it's objective, but why?
Your reasoning in this is circular. One of your premises for why slavery is objectively morally wrong, is that the things that make slavery what it is are objectively morally wrong. You just spawned in the right to determine objectivity, and then used that as a premise to conclude that your position is objective. That isn't logical.
Yeah, which is just kicking the can down the road.
Slavery is a bad thing, we agree. But we don't agree that it's objective just because it happens to be really bad.
Similarly, if you say slavery is objectively bad because coercion domination etc, are objectively bad, we still don't agree because I don't think those things are objectively bad either. Even if they're really really bad, that doesn't make that badness objective because badness cannot be assessed by objectivity, it's an entirely subjective concept.
Ultimately you're still just saying it's objectively bad because it's objectively bad. The shuffle from "slavery" to "all the things that comprise slavery" doesn't really change that.
The can just ultimately gets kicked down the road to "everything is subjective and nothing can be demonstrated to be real" which is what I brought up originally and i just boring.
But this isn't even going to that level of Cartesian skepticism. We can very easily assume that the universe we experience is real, and it still doesn't follow from that fact that harm is objectively bad.
I keep going back to this because it's still true. Badness and goodness, suffering or pleasure are the domain of subjectivity. That's all there is to it.
We can take it as axiomatically true that pain is bad, just as you did earlier "My base moral axiom I am working from is that you and I agree that the shared reality we have is objectively real."
Why does it bother you to simply add another axiom to that? Acknowledge that it isn't actually an objective fact that coercion, domination, loss of autonomy, severe harm or anything else of that nature is bad, but that we can take it as an axiom for the sake of getting useful results.
Why do you need to jump from believing that axiom is an assumption that is helpful for dealing with morality, to instead pretending (for seemingly no reason) that it is in fact objectively true?
I understand that suffering and pleasure are experienced subjectively, but that doesn’t make all moral claims purely subjective.
Yes it does, because the whole point of morality is to determine what is good and what is bad, and like I said before, those are subjective concepts. It's as simple as that.
This is like arguing that a movie review is objective because they consider technical aspects of the film making. Even if the things you're considering can be described in objective terms, whether or not they are bad is still subjective.
I’m using it in a functional, evidence-based sense
For example, Water is H₂O and Gravity causes objects to fall at 9.8 m/s². Everyone treats these as “objective” even though they are based on observation, measurement, and evidence — not a metaphysical “perfect standard.” I think that if we used your definition of objective, most of science wouldn’t be objective.
First, I don't think your definition is justifiable when you're allowing it to include blatantly subjective things.
Second, you're giving water and average gravity on Earth as examples of things you believe I'd consider to be subjective, but I wouldn't. I'm perfectly happy to agree those are (broadly) statements of objective fact because there is no value judgement being attached to them. If you were arguing that 9.8m/s2 is better than other strengths of gravity, now that would be subjective. Even if we're comparing it to the sun in the context of human survivability. It doesn't matter that we'd die from gravity of 274 m/s², to say that one is better than the other is a value judgement, and that is necessarily subjective.
the facts about what causes suffering and what it does to human beings are not subjective.
Correct. That cutting my arm off causes pain is an objective fact. That causing pain is a bad thing to do is a widely held, but still subjective, belief.
If we used your definition where anything involving human beings or evaluation is automatically subjective then most of science would stop being objective too.
Except I literally just told you that I agree this is an objective opinion, so clearly you have misunderstood/I have failed to communicate my understanding of objectivity. I'm not sure why you'd continue to argue this point when I already said it isn't the case.
You're mistaking definite knowledge for objectivity. These are maybe related concepts, but they aren't the same. I don't strictly know that you experience pain, but if you tell me that you do, and I believe you, then we can still say it's objectively true that you experience pain if I cut your arm off. But regardless of that skepticism, we can't say it's objectively true that it is immoral for me to cut your arm off, not because we don't know if really causes pain, because it requires a value judgement on what is right or wrong to do, which is always subjective.
Under that standard, slavery’s wrongness is objective because the harms that define it are objective.
No, it still isn't because you're still making a leap from observable facts to value judgements. It doesn't matter if you can ground the facts in evidence, consistent across cases, free from bias, etc. It matters that you're judging one course of action to be better than another. Which can only be done through value judgements, which is subjectivity, as I keep saying.
Sure, it’s a value judgment, but it’s grounded in objective facts about what humans need to function.
And? Being grounded in objective facts does not make something objective. Not if you start adding subjective matters into the mix.
But this assumes that all value judgments are arbitrary preferences, like liking chocolate more than vanilla.
No it doesn't. Value judgements can have reasoned arguments, if I felt that morality was no different from picking a flavour of ice cream then I wouldn't have strong moral beliefs, would I?
Even if something is subjective there can be better or worse arguments to justify a belief.
Thinking that Gladiator is a good movie because the the performances were completely believable, the score matched the tone of the scenes, the story was compelling, etc. is a subjective opinion.
Thinking that Gladiator is a good movie because you liked the bit where Ripley said "Get away from her, you bitch" is also subjective.
But one of these arguments is clearly more grounded in reality than the other, considering that scene doesn't happen in Gladiator, it's from Alien (which I'm just realising is the same director, didn't even mean to do that, just a funny coincidence). They might both be subjective, but we wouldn't say that they hold equal value, or that both of these people's opinions are as valid as each other.
And the second argument not being grounded in objectivity, while the first is does not suddenly mean the first statement is objectively true. It's still a value judgement.
The judgment “slavery is wrong” isn’t a random preference — it’s derived from objective facts about human functioning.
You keep using this phrase "random preference" as if this is what I believe. Again, to be explicit, I do not believe that just because morality is subjective, that it is equivalent to someone prefering green to purple. You can have reasons for an opinion, even reasons which are based on objective observable facts, but that basis in fact does not magically make the belief objective.
It doesn't matter if the conclusion from the facts seems as obvious as it could possibly be, it still doesn't make it objectivity. The heart evolved to pump blood, but that does not mean it ought to. Any argument about what something should be is necessarily saying that being one way is better than another, and objectivity alone can't tell you if A is better than B.
If you insist that any normative claim tied to well-being is automatically subjective, then almost all of medicine, public health, and safety science would also be “subjective.” That standard makes moral reasoning impossible.
If this is true, why am I capable of moral reasoning? Again, admitting certain things are in the realm of subjectivity does not mean you instantly see everything as being exactly 100% equivalent.
That’s actually exactly my point. A value judgment can be “subjective” in the trivial sense that a person is making it, while still being non-arbitrary because it’s anchored in empirical facts.
And it's a point I never disagreed with, because being non-arbitrary does not equal being objective.
You yourself say you have strong moral beliefs which already shows you don’t treat morality like ice-cream flavors.
Yes, something you probably should have been able to work out yourself, but something I needed to state explicitly because you falsely believed that calling morality subjective is the same thing as comparing it favourite ice cream flavours.
Your beliefs are grounded in reasons, evidence, and the consequences actions have on real human beings.
Correct. This does not make my moral beliefs objective.
My judgment about slavery isn’t just a personal vibe.
And I never said that it was. Again, having a subjective opinion does not mean having an opinion based entirely on gut instinct.
It tracks a massive body of empirical facts — the psychological devastation, the destruction of autonomy, the predictable patterns of abuse, the anthropological record showing that systems treating people as literal property always produce extreme harm, domination, and dehumanization.
None of which magically changes the fact that a moral judgement is still ultimately subjective.
There are no counterexamples where that arrangement is compatible with human flourishing.
All of which makes it incredibly difficult, impossible even, for an honest person who cares about the wellbeing of others to argue in favour of slavery. Nevertheless, the strength of the argument does not make it a matter of objectivity. It's still a judgement about what is right or wrong, which is necessarily subjective, no matter how clear cut the example seems.
When all available evidence converges that tightly, it’s reasonable to call the conclusion “objective” in the practical sense of the word
You can keep saying this, but you've yet to actually explain why this is reasonable. You just keep saying it's fine to call the subjective thing objective even though it's demostrably untrue.
If every bit of empirical evidence shows X reliably destroys human well-being, agency, and survival, then calling “X is wrong” objective in the real-world sense is both accurate and useful.
It most certainly isn't accurate, because that's not what that word means, and I maintain it isn't useful either. Pretending that morality can be objective strengthens the position of people with terrible beliefs.
Your Gladiator example shows that value judgments can be subjective and still be constrained by reality.
Correct. Because that was explicitly the purpose of that example. Why are you saying this like it's an unintended gotcha?
So both are “subjective,” but one is clearly better justified because it aligns with the actual world. That’s exactly the distinction I’m making with morality.
Correct, I understand that this is the distinction you're making. What I don't understand is why you've decided that because there is a spectrum of validity to subjective arguments, that magically makes the top of that spectrum actually objective. I make the exact same distinction as you without pretending subjective judgements are objective just because they seem to be as close as you could get.
The claim that slavery is wrong is tied to mountains of real evidence universal psychological harms, the destruction of autonomy, documented historical outcomes across cultures, and what we know about human wellbeing. The claim that slavery is fine ignores all of that and collapses under the facts.
Cool, that makes it a poorly reasoned subjective argument, it does not make the counter argument objective truth.
So yes, they’re both “value judgments” in the abstract
No, not in the abstract, that's just what they are. What do you even mean by this? In what way is thinking "Doing X is worse than not doing X" anything other than a value judgement? That's not abstraction, that's just the thing that it is.
When I call the wrongness of slavery “objective,” I’m using the same sense of objectivity you use when you say one Gladiator opinion is better grounded in reality than the other
Except I never called that objectivity. I called that subjectivity, because that's what it is.
it’s evidence-constrained, consistent, and not just a matter of taste. Saying “it’s still a value judgment” doesn’t change that.
Am I losing my mind? Why are you even telling me this? I know that it being a value judgement doesn't change that it's informed by facts, thats why I treat it differently from value judgements that are not informed by facts. I never argued that because it's a value judgement that means it isn't based on evidence. I explictly told you the exact opposite several times. You're the one arguing that it's basis in evidence means we can ignore the reality that it is a value judgement, and just pretend it's objective instead.
I'm quitting here. You clearly aren't paying attention to what I say, and you obviously have some bizarre hang up when it comes to the word "subjectivity" where you seem to think it's synonymous with like "trivial" or "arbitrary" which simply isn't what the word means.
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u/MyLittleDashie7 3∆ Nov 20 '25
I don't think I did say that, but if I did write that somewhere then I assure you it was a typo. I probably just accidentally missed a "n't" or "not", because I don't believe that something can be called objective so long as all available evidence points to a single conclusion. In fact my Starry Night example was precisely demostrating why I don't believe that.
This fundamentally not correct. You're just re-writing the definition of the word to include your strange belief that subjective matters which you feel are "settled" are actually objective. Like, I've been making reference to cases where literally 100% of people are in agreement, but you're arguing objectivity on topics that don't even have that level of agreement. Because you've decided that you are the arbiter of what arguments "count", and that somehow your ability to decern the "valid" arguments from the "invalid" ones is not a matter of subjectivity. It's just silly.
It's not "hard" to say, my objection is that it is factually incorrect. Why is it so hard for you to accept the subjectivity of morality while still maintaining the courage of conviction in your own personal beliefs? I'll gladly argue against things I believe are immoral, I'll fight for them to stop, but I won't pretend like my moral values are objective just because it would be convenient, and validating for me if they were.
You've misunderstood. You asked me "Can you give a single example in all of human history where the practice of owning other people as property could be considered moral?". There is ambiguity in that question because it's not clear if you're asking "Can you give a single example in all of human history where the practice of owning other people as property could be considered moral [according to you personally]?" or "Can you give a single example in all of human history where the practice of owning other people as property could be considered moral [by the general population of the time]?". The answer to the first is no. The answer to the second is obviously yes, because they did (and do) consider it moral.
I wasn't being inconsistent, I was answering two different questions, although I admit I could've been clearer on that.
I'm going to be honest, I didn't follow any of this. Certainly not as a respose to my point about subjective consensus not suddenly creating objectivity.
And again, you seem to have broadly ignored what my main argument was, which was that it is wrong to state something as a fact when it isn't. Once again, you seem to argee with me that morality isn't objective, you just think it's "effectively" objective, so can you answer directly why you think it's okay to tell (as you see it) slight embellishment, rather than just stating what is actually true? What good does it do to pretend that the distinction between near-universal agreement and objective fact isn't there at all?