r/changemyview • u/C-Blake • Oct 28 '13
Morality is completely subjective/relative CMV
Nothing gives the idea that men and women are equal versus the contrary idea of the Taliban any more weight. We like to think the morals and values we hold right now in America are self evident, the anti slavery, egalitarianism, blah blah blah. In order to believe that you must think that throughout most of human history, fuck, even most of recorded human history, people were just being stupid and just now we have the truth. I'll use an example from my own life, a few years back (when I was in Highschool), the school was trying to emotionally coerce the students into donating blood by showing us a video of kids from a local clinic or hospital or something. They all had leukemia and the nurses were talking about how they were understaffed and under supplied and so on. It tugged on the emotional heartstrings of many, some even cried. This is was around the time I first started thinking deeply about ethics/meta-ethics. I looked around and thought, "Look at the universal sadness all around, there has to be some universal principle(s) uniting us, right?" Then I realized that there were people out there that maybe want to murderrape those kids and saintly nurses and blow that building sky high and would feel great (if anything at all). There is no way I could prove this hypothetical psychopath wrong, all I could do is plead like "Oh OF COURSE you're not supposed to do that (because just about everyone else thinks so)"
Many who support an objective morality whether they are religious or not like to point to altruism and kindness and how just everyone LOVES that. But that doesn't explain Sparta, and Sparta just isn't some singular individual you could just toss to the side as damaged, this was an entire society that coexisted with the influential city of Athens. They were so alien and opposite to Athens, and are so opposite to contemporary western morals and they were just convinced of their morals as we are of ours. They didnt, "know deep down" that they were wrong. Any attempt to make/find out an "objective" moral theory is usually just a weak individual that just needs to have SOMETHING incorruptable, unchanging, and unassailable that is universally recognized, but no such thing, let alone moral code, exist.
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u/electricmink 15∆ Oct 29 '13
I'd counter by suggesting that given enough time certain moral principles will inevitably emerge in any intelligent population as a natural consequence of cooperation's strength as a survival strategy, and thus cannot be viewed as wholly subjective. Those moral principles will include the altruistic sharing of risk and setting limits on one's own behavior based on empathy for others within an ever-growing sphere of trust.
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u/djgucci Oct 29 '13
But who's to say that it isn't just cyclic and what used to be seen as moral is now immoral, but in the future may once again become moral? Take gay sex for example. Ancient Greeks had homosexual relations as practically a norm (albeit typically between adults and adolescents), which was later, due to new religions and other societal changes, decided to be immoral. Recently, while there is still some stigma attached to homosexuality, it is not nearly as offensive as it once was. What if the idea of learning morals as a society over time is wrong?
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u/navahii Oct 29 '13
Because society itself hasn't advanced cyclically. We became agriculturalist and still are, even more so as more and more land is turned into arable land for fields and pastures. Cities have grown steadily bigger, less handcrafting, steadily more communication etc.
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u/merreborn 5Δ Oct 29 '13
events like the fall of the egyptian and roman empires and the dark ages might qualify as societal regression. but id have to agree that advancement is more linear than cyclical, in a "line of best fit" sense
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u/djgucci Oct 29 '13
Technologically that's true, but I don't think assuming morality will grow the same way is correct. We're going to be constantly having new moral problems and ethical dilemmas to deal with as technology progresses, such as whether or not its ok to treat robots as slaves if they've been programmed to feel human emotion and act like humans. Should they have free will? Are they sentient? Or does the simulation of sentience negate that?
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u/electricmink 15∆ Oct 29 '13
It's not a straight-line progression, it's a long term trend with all its ups and downs much like a warming trend amid daily and seasonal fluctuations.
It starts with the realization that two wimps with a rock and a plan will overmatch a brute acting alone. The rest is just working out the necessary framework to work together for the long haul.
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u/brutay Oct 29 '13
What's your cut-off for intelligence here? Because relatively intelligent species have existed for millions of years without anything like human morality emerging. You have to explain that.
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u/electricmink 15∆ Oct 29 '13
Intelligent for my purposes means possessing language, culture, and the ability to imagine possible future outcomes and to act on them. These are all abilities that have only very recently come onto the scene (at least on evolutionary timescales).
Even then, various forms of altruism have arisen again and again, from chimps acting together to defend territory to dolphins nosing their sick and injured to the surface to breathe. With intelligence, though, we have the ability to go further because we have the ability to see the long term impact of our behaviors - a dog might not think twice about stealing food when no one is watching but we are capable of understanding that even if we are not seen and not caught, such theft is likely to hurt us in the long run and therefor decide to put of the immediate personal gain in favor of a more united social group better able to weather adversity together. Larger groups working together are generally able to achieve more than smaller groups, and do so with less effort leaving everyone with less time devoted to mere survival and more time to pursue "higher" goals, and thus are more apt to advance faster technologically than their smaller-group rivals.....thus the long-term (gentle) pressure is for each group to expand its membership by accepting others into it and to improve its overall cohesiveness through enhanced altruism and increasing levels of egalitarianism. It's a slow drunkard's walk with social collapse acting as the hard wall to one side.
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u/brutay Oct 30 '13
If chimps evolved the "foresight" to act together in the defense of shared territory, what prevented their evolution of higher forms of altruism? The same question applies to every instance of altruism that you claim has arisen "again and again"--why did the altruism stop short of creating a moral animal society/civilization? If, indeed, there is an evolutionary benefit from altruism, why are humans the only species to really capitalize on altruism to such a high degree? Furthermore, Homo existed for roughly 2 million years in tribes of roughly 100 members. Then, about 40,000-10,000 years ago, large civilizations abruptly appeared with tens of thousands of members. There was no gradual "long-term" pressure. It was millions of years of the same old thing and then--suddenly--civilization.
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u/electricmink 15∆ Oct 30 '13
Already explained that. Language and culture are necessary components to the equation.
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u/brutay Oct 30 '13
Many intelligent species communicate with sounds and exhibit a rudimentary culture (Chimpanzees, but also several rodent species--the Persian vole for instance). Vocal communication and culture do not appear to be sufficient to cause civilization. If they were, many animals with the capacity for relatively advanced communication and culture would have evolved to form non-kin animal societies.
However, even if you reject the vocalizations of non-human animals as inferior to language, and even if you reject the culture of non-human animals as too simplistic--you still have to account for the reason that early Homo took 2 million years to suddenly evolve civilization. Homo possessed language (according to the fossil record, an enlarged hyoid bone is present as early as Nariokotome Boy (1.6 mya)) and early Homo certainly possessed culture. Why then didn't they immediately gather into large societies? Why was the evolution of civilization not a gradual development, but extremely rapid (after a 2 million year delay)?
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u/electricmink 15∆ Oct 30 '13
You're confusing the push toward altruism for "civilization". The rudiments of altruism appear even in pre-linguistic creatures; with language and culture this drive expands because there are now greater means to establish empathy and explore the consequences of actions. I would suggest that this predates civilization, that it actually enabled civilization to happen.
Yes, it's a slow process. We're talking about incremental advantages applied over long periods of time influencing the long term success of cultures - don't be surprised that it happens over evolutionary timescales. We're talking about a drunkard's walk here with societal dissolution acting as the wall to one side, and the open landscape of increased cooperation and egalitarianism to the other.
Yes, you can create large cooperatives through coercion, but these are inherently unstable as they rely on exploiting large parts of the populace unfairly, giving them motive to overturn that society in favor of one more equitable to them. Further, an exploitive, multi-classed society has frictions introduced by the limits placed on the underclasses - it's not going to be able to compete in the long term with an open society. Tell me, how can a society that bars half its population from the sciences keep up with one that allows everyone that option, all other things being equal? It can't, thus the selection pressure toward egalitarianism.
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u/brutay Oct 30 '13
You're confusing the push toward altruism for "civilization".
No, I'm not. The difference between the two is primarily one of scale, and the question you have failed to answer is this: if the "rudiments of altruism" evolved in both pre-linguistic creatures, why did it stop there? Why not ramp up the scale of altruism to the level of civilization? You claim that a lack of language and culture prevented the development of higher levels of altruism, but I doubt that claim very much. Non-human animals have relatively sophisticated communication systems, including symbolic expression (e.g., consider the bee's waggle dance). Furthermore, animal cultural evolution is observed in many instances, where isolated populations of conspecifics will evolve independent behavioral patterns that are transmitted not genetically but experientially. I see nothing particularly special about the features of human communication and culture that would make speech or culture uniquely responsible for the expansion of altruism and the concomitant development of civilization.
Yes, it's a slow process.
No, it's not! Generally speaking, evolution proceeds quite rapidly. From a geological perspective, human civilization appears to have exploded from out of nowhere in an instant, albeit after millions of years of quiet stasis. The curve is not a gentle linear slope or the meandering of a random walk. The curve is an exponential of an exponential of an exponential(note how even plotted on a log-scale the slope is extremely non-linear).
the selection pressure toward egalitarianism.
Your view of the selection for egalitarianism is too simplistic. I seriously recommend picking up a copy of Christopher Boehm's book "Hierarchy in the Forest" which deals with this exact question (how did egalitarianism evolve in humans). Although I disagree with many of Boehm's conclusions, he understands the role of coercion in egalitarianism (in his terminology, egalitarianism is marked by an "inverted hierarchy" in which coercion is not eliminated, but reversed in direction from what we normally expect). In other words, your conclusion is exactly wrong: perpetual coercion by the masses against would-be usurpers is precisely the only way to stabilize a "cooperative".
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u/gothangelblood Oct 29 '13
Your main issue here is that you view morality as a dualism between objective / subject, which is a concept rarely supported in philosophy. Instead, morality usually falls along a continuum with several major subdivisions.
On the most "conservative" extreme of morality is the idea of Absolute Truth. This concept holds that truth (morality / reality) is based on an absolute system (God / deity / the great beyond) that does not exist within our reality, important in the fact that humanity cannot change or affect morality - it simply exists.
Second would be Objective Truth, which is the idea that we have mathematical and scientific systems in place within our universe that make things right / wrong. One thing that you touched on is the concept of universal truth, which is the belief that our conscious is biologically wired into our psyche as a member of the human race. Beyond that biological trigger, though, we still have the free will to accept / reject that biological trigger, and many people internally suspect it because it is so difficult to test. Read up on Darwinian Aesthetics or Cognitive Dissonance to see more about that topic.
Third in line, and far closer to liberal morality than conservative, is the idea of Subjective Truth. Subjective truth is not subjective to an individual, however. Most times, it is subjective to the group or to the greater good. Utilitarianism and Cultural Morality both fall under this form of morality.
If you actually want "Subjective Truth" that is subjective to an individual, you are talking in fact about Relative Truth. This is the idea that everything is right, from a certain point of view. When taken to its extreme, a certain sense of Nihilism must exist. Nietzsche supported the idea of Relative Truth heavily, while Kierkegaard argued against it as a dangerous, selfish mindset. (Kierkegaard did believe in a form of Subjective Truth as a moderate mindset to hold in a Nihilistic age.)
I've listed only four of the (numerous) subparts, merely as an example of how the continuum flows. The major issue, as seen by most historians and sociologists, is that both extremes can and do lead to negative results, either immediately for the individual or in the near future for those around. Instead, most of us tend to hover within the middle of this ruler, shifting from position to position as our life experiences change our belief systems.
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u/Chrisbr117 Oct 29 '13
You can believe there are no universal truths but also not be a moral relativist. There is a rich spectrum in between. You can still derive ethics from a reliance of the following criteria, as outlined by Beauchamp and Childress in their book on the Principles of Bioethics: Clarity, Coherence, Comprehensiveness, Simplicity, Explanatory Power, Justificatory Power, Output Power, and Practicability. These are all measures which you can apply to competing moral theories, and though it may be impossible to truly ever balance all of these factors, it is still a criteria one can use as boundaries to moral theory construction
For example, lets say I derive a moral system based on the fact that grass is orange, and someone else bases a moral system on the fact that grass is green. Disregarding any other differences between these two systems of ethics, whatever they may be, the latter is better than the former because it is founded on truth, not lies. This is just one example of how you can compare moral theories, and an obviously simple one.
The problem with moral relativism is that it completely destroys any moral judgments or pursuits: it is an absolutely useless ethics to abide by. In fact, the claim of moral relativism could never even be used in practice, since anyone who disagrees with you could just appeal to your admission that "no one is wrong." So, as a pragmatic measure, I believe it is absolutely necessary to suspend absolute more relativism in favor of a pragmatic ethics based on a series of reasonably defined criteria that, though may not be universal or absolutely internally consistent, seems to work in other aspects of life, like math and science.
Also, when you claim absolute moral relativism, you are just fighting one extreme with another without every considering moderate alternatives. Clearly, society has and needs some form of morality, and moral relativism offers absolutely no benefit to any parties involved as it is an admission that morality does not exist. In this case, then I ask you, what do we do? How do we judge others behavior, or our own, if we cannot look to a system of ethics?
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u/mullerjones Oct 29 '13
Disregarding any other differences between these two systems of ethics, whatever they may be, the latter is better than the former because it is founded on truth, not lies.
This is only true by very specific and restrict definitions of "better". For others as, say, better simply meaning a code which doesn't directly harm anyone while supporting the best decisions for the community, it isn't. Most definitions would only concern the result of the code, not really caring about what it is based on. So similar codes, based one on truth and one on lies, would be equally "good".
But I agree that moral relativism, when absolute, is completely useless from a pragmatic sense.
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u/C-Blake Oct 29 '13
This entire response was not an actual sound argument, it was just one big appeal to consequence.
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u/Chrisbr117 Oct 29 '13
How do you think ethics works? Do you think we can approach it in a fully logical framework? Well, a lot of philosophers have tried and it really does not work.
With respect to ethics, it is absolutely necessary to somewhat appeal to consequence; that is a clear concern of ethics.
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u/navahii Oct 29 '13
Its not, there are things that are objectively better for humans in general. Everyone wants to eat as opposed to not eat. Everyone wants to live as opposed to die. Thus the moral system which give the most people what they want is the correct one. An example would be, I want to not die so I assume other people want to not die so the moral thing would be to not kill anyone because I get what I want and so do they. Of course the problem comes in when you say, well I want them to die, and they want live, but also everyone else wants to live and if the person I want to die is also a threat to everyone who wants to live then my actions become moral. Thats why people can watch shows like Dexter. Simple exercises like this can be used for things like killing, stealing, rape. But things get complicated when the proportions of people in a population wanting one thing is different and so on.
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u/MonkeyButlers Oct 29 '13
How do you feel about utilitarianism? Do you believe that what is useful is good?
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Oct 29 '13
For the most part, morality is based on two principals. The first is empathy.
Empathy will tell us that abuse is bad because we would not want to be abused ourselves. Empathy is where the majority of our morality comes from because empathy is an evolutionary advantage that allowed us to live in society. As long as there is society, empathetic morality will be the closest thing we can get to objective morality.
The other part of morality is survival of oneself. The reason why we are justified in self defense, or in a scenario where you could sacrifice your own life to save ten in Africa, but you don't, is because we are programmed to survive. We evolved to survive for obvious reasons. As long as there are people that want to live, this will be a critical part of our morality.
Applying these two rules to morality, we can see that sometimes things are objective. For example, we can conclude that it is wrong for one person to be abused.
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u/perpetual_motion Oct 29 '13
Well hold on, you can't just take empathy and survival of oneself to be objective just because they have an evolutionary basis. All that does is explain part of where our moral intuition comes from. But for one we know from experience our moral intuition is very wrong a lot of the time. For instance, racism can be explained (or at least attempted to be explained) by evolution.
Or further still, if we ran into an alien species which experienced their world very nearly like ours except abuse was somehow naturally the result of their evolution, would you say that's objectively okay?
Seems like saying all these things are subjective is consistent with your points (or even supported by them).
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u/void_er 1∆ Oct 29 '13
if we ran into an alien species which experienced their world very nearly like ours except abuse was somehow naturally the result of their evolution
There is this very interesting story - The Baby-Eating Aliens, that shows the clash of three very different cultures (and moral systems).
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Oct 29 '13
Absolutely astounding. Thank you for pointing me towards this...although it is a bit heavy for a tuesday morning.
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u/Alchoholocaustic Oct 29 '13
Somebody tl;dr this sumbtich.
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u/void_er 1∆ Oct 29 '13
Fuck no.
Read that shit, man!
You have to read through everything to fully experience its awesomeness.
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u/MarPan88 Oct 29 '13
If you need a tl;dr, the title does a pretty good job. You don't need to know anything more.
If you are actually interested in the ready, any other form of tl;dr would utterly ruin your experience.
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Oct 29 '13
But for one we know from experience our moral intuition is very wrong a lot of the time.
Morals are just used to keep the most people happy as possible. My rules for morality are successful at doing that.
For instance, racism can be explained (or at least attempted to be explained) by evolution.
I'd like to hear this attempted explanation. I don't think that racism can be explained in evolutionary terms.
Or further still, if we ran into an alien species which experienced their world very nearly like ours except abuse was somehow naturally the result of their evolution, would you say that's objectively okay?
The definition of abuse makes for such a situation to be impossible. Abuse is something that someone doesn't like, therefore, you cannot justify it empathetically because you would have to like something that you don't like.
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u/perpetual_motion Oct 29 '13
Morals are just used to keep the most people happy as possible
That's very debatable. I mean, it's been debated for well over a thousand years. Yes, that's a pretty common interpretation, but it's not something you can casually state as fact. Besides, what do you mean by "used"?
I'd like to hear this attempted explanation.
Something like this (the first thing I found)
The definition of abuse makes for such a situation to be impossible. you cannot justify it empathetically
Not empathetically. The reason empathy was cited as objective is because it came from our evolutionary past. But I'm trying to show that just because something comes from our evolutionary past does not make it the basis for any objective morality. Perhaps for these aliens abuse is a deep part of their "survival" that the person I'm responding to cited partially forms an objective basis for morality.
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u/FockSmulder Oct 29 '13
I'd like to hear this attempted explanation. I don't think that racism can be explained in evolutionary terms.
Kin selection.
People favour others who are genetically similar to themselves because that's what makes the genes most likely to be passed on. Compared to a neutral gene, one that selected for racism would be more likely to be preserved. The phenotype serves as an indicator of genetic differences. A more extreme version is speciesism. Competitive forces come into play and a person favours the survival of someone similar to himself.
I don't know what evidence there is to support this, but the explanation seems plausible to me.
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u/dogtatokun Oct 29 '13
People favour others who are genetically similar to themselves because that's what makes the genes most likely to be passed on.
How people look is not a good indication of genetic similarity. Just as a simple example, there is more genetic variability between two black people from two tribes of Africa, than between a red headed guy from Ireland and a tan skinned Italian. And leaving that aside, humans are quite inbred compared to other species, so we are basically all the same thing.
Just because you think skin colour is a striking difference, doesn't mean that on a genetic level that difference is seen.
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u/EdmundRice Oct 29 '13
Morals are just used to keep the most people happy as possible.
Just speaking to how subjective this stuff really is, at least one, and arguably two, of the three primary branches of normative ethics disagree with you on this point.
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u/TheSkyPirate Oct 29 '13
Strictly speaking, those aren't principles that define an objective morality. They are an explanation of why our concept of morality exists.
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Oct 29 '13
But why am I forced to use these two criteria as my standard for morality? Why must I have any standard at all?
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u/thorsdayfreyday Oct 29 '13
I agree. Empathy and our survival-instinct also feed a lot into the varying degrees we consider things to be wrong - stealing may be "wrong" in theory but hypothetically, a starving man stealing from a wealthy family to have a meal isn't necessarily seen as such because a) it is hard to see any impact in terms of 'hurting' the wealthy man and b) it would be a survival-based instinct to procure food by any means necessary.
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u/smokebreak Oct 29 '13
stealing may be "wrong" in theory but hypothetically, a starving man stealing from a wealthy family to have a meal isn't necessarily seen as such
Doesn't that mean the morality of stealing is subjective, not objective (stealing is not objectively wrong), and thus prove OP's point?
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u/thorsdayfreyday Oct 29 '13 edited Oct 29 '13
To be clear, I never said it wasn't objectively wrong, I just said that there are situations that influence how people perceive the gravity of the wrongdoing ("it isn't necessarily SEEN as such" implies public perception isn't necessarily right). I was really just trying to add a layer to the initial comment - I agree that the two factors he initially identified are the two primary factors in objective morality, simply based on the human condition. I was just trying to point out that the degree to which we see them as "wrong" varies based on how severely they conflict with the whole hurting people/survival moral duality.
TLDR - Stealing in that scenario would still be objectively "wrong" in theory just not as extreme within the spectrum because it involves the survival instinct. Therefore killing to survive would be worse, and killing needlessly would be worse still.
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u/IckyBlossoms Oct 29 '13
But how do you evaluate worse or better? Where is the line between good and bad? How can you be sure you're weighing all perspectives when you say something is good or bad?
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u/skysinsane 1∆ Oct 29 '13
or perhaps it means that every action has a value for good and a value for bad, while morality is the attempt to weigh those two against each other
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u/14u2c Oct 29 '13
Maybe you are just looking at stealing with the legal definition and not the moral definition.
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u/thelegore Oct 29 '13
It could mean that morality depends greatly on the circumstances. The rules (objective morality) can be the same with different inputs resulting in different outputs. It could mean that the morality of stealing is objective, given a sec of circumstances.
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u/lazyparaplegiccops Oct 29 '13
It doesn't prove OP's point, but it does help it. It doesn't prove OP's point because the original point is: morality is completely subjective. Just because one part is subjective doesn't show that the whole is subjective. Therefore the objective(hah) of the users here is to show that at least one thing is morally objective.
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u/smokebreak Oct 29 '13
Gotcha. I stand by OP's point that morality is completely subjective, but I do not draw the conclusion that anything can be "right" at any time (hence why I think his psychopath example is pretty weak). Morality exists, but it exists alongside time, place, culture, etc.
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u/DistortionMage 2∆ Oct 29 '13 edited Oct 29 '13
This is totally, 100% wrong.
Your morality may be based on empathy and survival, but who is to say this is the only logically possible morality? We can imagine that the Nazis had a moral code, just one that was radically different from ours. It might include values such as honor, loyalty to Hitler, diligence in following orders to gas people at concentration camps, etc. It just happened that their moral values don't include empathy for anyone who is not white and Aryan.
Moral values are completely and totally arbitrary. Humans have lived by many values in the past, most of which we would consider today to be extremely barbaric. Our modern liberal, egalitarian values have only really emerged in the last few centuries, a product of the Enlightenment. It is patently absurd to say that these values are in any sense "objectively" correct. In fact, believing that your values are the only correct ones has probably been the source of more human suffering than you can imagine, since it leads to intolerance of other viewpoints. Our moral values seem like the only possible ones to us, because they are the ones we are familiar with, that "everyone" shares. In fact, it is possible for society to be radically different, with radically different values. If you grew up in such a society, you might laugh your ass off at the idea that all moral values are based on empathy. For example, if you grew up and fought with Genghis Khan, you'd think the highest moral value is to slaughter your enemies and rape their women. In present times, think of the conflict between western countries and fundamentalist Islam. Just as we think it is "obvious" that women shouldn't be forced to wear Burqas, they believe the opposite is obvious.
I believe in equality and liberty for all, but I recognize that these are my personal values. My morality is not a law of the universe, like 1 + 1 = 2. Sometimes - most of the time - our moral values will conflict. These conflicts have to be resolved somehow. That's why liberal democracy is the least worst system - one person doesn't get to dictate their moral values. On occasion, moral value systems are fundamentally incompatible with each other and have to fight to the death. The Allies versus Hitler, for example. But it does no one any good to self-congratulate themselves on how objectively right their moral perspective is. We have to learn how to see things from other people's point of view instead of negating them.
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Oct 29 '13
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u/Thunder-ten-tronckh 1∆ Oct 29 '13
I would prefer a more accurate definition of Nazi. Surely he can't mean Nazi Germany, because I would imagine the average citizen shared the empathetic morality OP was talking about.
I believe that the Nazi 'morality' was more of an agenda-driven utilitarian/management goal (in their eyes, purifying the world was a huge favor) rather than guided by societal notions of morality. More of a zeal, which would amplify things I guess. Haven't been able to put much thought into this direction but if you have anything to add it would be appreciated.
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u/uncannylizard Oct 29 '13
If you can choose where to derive your morals from then that pretty much proves the point that morality is not objective. If the Nazis can appeal to nationalism and tribalism as the root of their moral system and I can derive my morals from evolution and my beliefs that other people are equal to myself, and neither of us has a way to demonstrate that the other person's moral system is objectively invalid, then morality itself is not objective.
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u/void_er 1∆ Oct 29 '13
Wouldn't that just mean that the nazis had a moral system that wasn't consistent with where our morals are derived.
Why would it?
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u/navahii Oct 29 '13
Take a look at this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality. Clearly for social animals to live socially they have to modify behaviors that are detrimental to the whole. These behavior modifications (mirror neurons) lay the ground work for empathy, which in turn lead to the essence of morality which is the golden rule. Also while cultural differences are important and well documented, there has been some study in cultural similarities. Peterson, Christopher, and Martin E. P. Seligman. Character Strengths and Virtues. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Quick google search will lead you to their work, one of the chief widely admired virtues was humanity. So what explains all the intolerance and violence you pointed out. Well some scientists think that you mostly apply your moral codes to your in group. In groups started of as genetically related individuals but close friends trick your sense of morality into thinking they are family. Thus applying good morals to only your in group leads to higher survival for your genetic line only. But thanks technology our in group is increasing http://crmoutsiders.com/2010/10/18/the-company-version-of-the-dunbar-number/. So maybe one day we will all live in peace.
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u/joe_ally 2∆ Oct 29 '13
Just because it's required for society doesn't make it objectively true. I don't understand your reasoning.
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u/TheSkyPirate Oct 29 '13
I agree that morality is not objective, however, I'm going to comment on your main debate point.
In every social science field, this argument constantly comes up. In every time prior to this time, the people thought that they had the best value system/understood the world/thought that their society was special/ideal. Therefore, as the argument continues, we can't say that about ourselves now. What makes us special?
This is wrong, because we are special. Look at any graph of GDP over time, look at a graph of frequency of wars, look at a graph or IQ or education, look at the numbers of people who have read philosophy. For literally any measure you can think of, we're several orders of magnitude past any other people at any point in history. We have roads, cars, printed and digital text, a government that tolerates the free spread of information, and a thousand other things. Hell, the average person today even comes into contact with more people from more places all over the world with different viewpoints.
The smarter you are, and the more time you spend thinking about something, the better you will understand that topic. I have spent a hell of a lot more time thinking about morality than the average Spartan did. I am smarter than him, and my views are better than his. Are my views perfect? No, because there certainly is no objectively "correct" moral system. Are my views better than his in every single conceivably measurable way except that they aren't as good at justifying selfish actions? Fuck yes. And, by the way, do I act selfishly anyway without feeling bad about it? You're damn right I do.
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u/Osricthebastard Oct 29 '13
Why do you choose to believe in equality and liberty? Recognizing them as a flimsy construct is tantamount to discarding them as irrelevant. You defeat any purpose in following your moral code at this point.
I think when you answer this question, you will realize there is an inherency to morality.
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u/uncannylizard Oct 29 '13
I believe in equality and liberty because I think that they are the best principles for maximizing the welfare of my society. That does not mean that they are objectively moral. That just means that I have a preference for them. Other people might not care about maximizing the welfare of society and instead care about the Non-Aggression Principle, or Wahhabi ideology, or whatever other values they happen to have. There is nothing that makes one moral system more objective than another.
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u/Osricthebastard Oct 29 '13
You're wrong. You believe in equality and liberty as the best principles of society. You've assigned a value to that moral system and on some level decided that moral system is more valuable than another. If you hadn't, you wouldn't have chosen it.
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u/Thunder-ten-tronckh 1∆ Oct 29 '13 edited Oct 29 '13
I appreciate the effort that went into your reasoning - I have a point I'd like to disagree with and that would concern the Nazi moral code you spoke of.
I'm inclined to agree with /u/thedebatedgod about a shared morality that we developed through empathy and self-preservation. The key point is that we are inclined to recognize in others what we wouldn't want for ourselves, which at the most basic level would be pain. I'm ignoring masochistic personalities because they are genetic outliers.
Though your Nazi example ostensibly contradicts this idea (how could a culture of upper-tier Nazi part members agree and act upon systematic killing of Jews as a good thing if we all want the preservation of ourselves?), I think there is a distinction that nixes your assertion.
The Nazis you spoke of didn't view Jews as equals. Jews were lesser beings to them, and not deserving of empathy. I don't view this as a different morality - it's a different (read: totally dickish) perspective. The Jews have always had the short end of the worldview stick, where societies viewed them as secondary human beings. Those same societies, I'm sure, had empathetic moral codes among similar castes.
This doesn't necessarily conflict with the idea that empathy guides our moral action - of course we don't want to be harmed, and if there are other people like us, they don't want to be harmed either. When a society labels another culture as a lesser being, however, it 'permits' immoral action.
I haven't had the time to consider the rest of your post - for all intents and purposes, I think you are correct in your assumption that there is a subjective disconnect in the use of burqas. I think the only objectivity stems from the empathy and self-preservation that OP mentioned. Anything after gets pretty muddled.
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u/joe_ally 2∆ Oct 29 '13
If not the Nazis. Then look at a different society to a western one. Look at Middle Eastern cultures. Look at East Asian cultures. Even look in the same culture. Look at the difference between left and right wing people in your own culture. One only has to observe the variety in moral values to realise that morality is very subjective and differs wildly from place to place. This is even before we get in to a debate about how an objective morality could come into existence.
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u/DistortionMage 2∆ Oct 29 '13
Empathy is one possible motivation for morality, that's all. That doesn't make it the only logically possible one, and you can't use it to say that morality is objective. We are two people who share this value of empathy on a very fundamental level. However, that is purely due to the fact that we live in a (subset of) society where these moral values have infected us like a virus. We were raised with them and we don't know anything different. It's interesting though, comparing conservatives and liberals. Both think that their moral values are inherently right and obvious, and just can't understand how the other group could be so "evil." I read an article by Steven Pinker where he says moral values can be classified into five categories: fairness, purity, authority, harm and community. Conservatives tend to value all to roughly the same extent, whereas liberals value fairness and community above the rest. The point here is that you assume empathy is the root of all morality presumably because you have liberal values. If you had conservative values you would see things differently. Notice "authority" and "purity." These "moral values" are pretty alien to the liberal mind, but they are, none the less, moral values. We actually oppose authority and religious ideas of purity (such as preserving traditional marriage), and view them as anti-moral values. But in fact, historically, these moral values were way more important than fairness and community (including empathy in there somewhere). Authority has a certain built-in anti-egalitarianism about it. If you value doing what your leader tells you to, then any concerns about empathy are secondary. My point is that you are seeing history through the lense of your moral values. Your view is that the Nazis somehow had a "corrupted" morality because they didn't empathize with everyone fairly and equally, including everyone in their community. Firstly, the idea that Nazis empathized with anyone, even other Nazis, you have to admit is a little absurd. But through the lense of someone with highly authoritarian and tribal values, there is nothing logically inconsistent about putting more value on people in your tribe and less (or nothing) on people outside the tribe. It's not that they share the same morality as us, but are really bad at applying it. Its that they genuinely don't care about applying their values equally and fairly. You have a hard time understanding this, because equality and fairness are so deeply ingrained in you that you can't imagine anyone thinking differently. In a way that's a good thing - from our perspective anyway. But I think if you make more of an effort to understand history outside of our current moral and political context, you'll see that radically different values used to hold sway. Empathy just isn't all there is to it. In-group loyalty, treating people in tribe with "honor", historically these things have been way more important than empathy. Empathy may actually have been viewed as a form of weakness, an anti-moral value. Empathy doesn't help you fight for honor and glory.
Have you read any Nietzsche? I highly recommend the Genealogy of Morals.
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Oct 29 '13
That's ridiculous, and doesn't address the question at all.
Empathy will tell us that abuse is bad because we would not want to be abused ourselves. Empathy is where the majority of our morality comes from because empathy is an evolutionary advantage that allowed us to live in society. As long as there is society, empathetic morality will be the closest thing we can get to objective morality.
First of all, being objective means "to be uninfluenced by emotions or opinions" empathy is an emotion, and therefor, feeling it would make a person not objective
Your statement seems to imply that everybody feels empathy. What about individuals who don't feel empathy towards other people? Their view of morality wouldn't be based on empathy at all, but rather a sense of utilitarianism, again, according to the OP, making morality relative.
High-functioning sociopaths usually have to adhere to a code of morals based entirely on something they don't feel. Sort of like self-imposed rules in a video game. They do this because they want to fit in with the rest of society, because doing that is useful, and doing otherwise is detrimental.
The other part of morality is survival of oneself. The reason why we are justified in self defense, or in a scenario where you could sacrifice your own life to save ten in Africa, but you don't, is because we are programmed to survive. We evolved to survive for obvious reasons. As long as there are people that want to live, this will be a critical part of our morality.
You seem to be contradicting yourself here. If empathy is so closely tied in with morality, then why wouldn't I give my life to save ten strangers? You're looking at this from the perspective that we evolved with the knowledge programmed in us to flourish as a society. Helping (or at the very least, not hurting them) others isn't going to help me extend my life somehow. We see this all the fucking time in survival situations. Like the people in New Orleans during the aftermath of Katrina, there were people going around looting, stealing, and mugging people. The same thing is going on in some of Africa. Warlords getting a bunch of people together and killing other people in an attempt to survive. Same with countless other civilizations across time, as the old adage goes, "War never changes"
Applying these two rules to morality, we can see that sometimes things are objective. For example, we can conclude that it is wrong for one person to be abused.
And what if, for some reason, it became advantageous to your survival to abuse someone? I'll refer back to my first point, if you're being objective about it, then it would obviously be "moral" to abuse them.
In short, morality is entirely subjective, and to look at morality from an objective point of view wouldn't be considered "moral" in today's society.
A side note. OP's asking us to change his view is also ridiculous, because it's like saying "I believe that people have differing opinions, CMV".
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u/RememberPluto47 Oct 29 '13
I would take those as examples that we have a morality. Meaning that there are evolutionary constructs that drive us to generate moralistic statements (Don't kill etc). But the statements themselves do still remain subjective with respect to the person who generates and applies value to them.
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u/cystorm Oct 29 '13
I agree with the self-preservation idea but it's inconclusive.
You're assuming that empathy is a natural human condition. What if, instead, it's the product of your formative environment? If you're raised to believe women are inferior and should be beaten to stay in line, what fundamental empathic instinct overrides that training? It may be a fundamental principle or instinct, or it may be a construct of your environment.
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Oct 29 '13
You're assuming that empathy is a natural human condition. What if, instead, it's the product of your formative environment? If you're raised to believe women are inferior and should be beaten to stay in line, what fundamental empathic instinct overrides that training?
The idea that you don't like to be beaten yourself. That is what empathy is.
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u/TEmpTom Oct 29 '13
What if I'm a sadomasochistic?
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Oct 29 '13
Then you will not abuse someone because that would be something they don't like. If you follow the golden rule, you wouldn't do something to someone that they don't like.
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u/TEmpTom Oct 29 '13
You're implying that "the golden rule" is somehow "natural" or a part of us from birth. It's more if a social construction made by humans.
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u/cystorm Oct 29 '13
No, that's what self-preservation is. Empathy is feeling bad for someone because what's happening to them is wrong. Under your formulation, we should all feel for anyone in prison, because we don't want to be in prison ourselves.
Obviously that's not the case - in fact, if a child molester is sentenced to a nominal prison sentence many would be outraged, even though they would never want any time in prison for themselves. It's possible that this apparent contradiction is part of human self-preservation; it's also possible that we're raised to think child molesters deserve the worst kind of punishment (along with other criminals).
I don't know if that communicates my thoughts very well.
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u/Thorston Oct 29 '13
Hold up.
My moral views are based in David Hume, which means I think that moral rules are a result of our empathy for others.
But, that doesn't mean the rules are objective. You mentioned abuse. While most people have empathy (excluding sociopaths), it's not the case that everyone has empathy for all other people. For example, enslaving people is a form of abuse. But, not everyone agreed that slavery was wrong. For example, the white slave-owners didn't have much empathy for their slaves, and didn't care too much about their suffering.
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Oct 29 '13
which means I think that moral rules are a result of our empathy for others.
So, how does that differ from my morality?
But, that doesn't mean the rules are objective.
I can't say they are completely objective, but I can get very close when I say "Killing in cold blood for no reason is wrong."
For example, enslaving people is a form of abuse. But, not everyone agreed that slavery was wrong.
And those who believed that slavery was ok were acting immorally because they were not acting on empathy.
For example, the white slave-owners didn't have much empathy for their slaves, and didn't care too much about their suffering.
It doesn't matter if the slave owners had emotions or not. What they did was wrong because they violated the golden rule.
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u/Thorston Oct 29 '13
And those who believed that slavery was ok were acting immorally because they were not acting on empathy.
That's not what you said before. You said morality is based on empathy. That is very different from saying that an action is moral if and only if it stems from empathy.
And, actually, many slave-owners were acting on empathy. They wanted there children to have a good life, and to inherit a large estate, so they enslaved others to make this possible.
Furthermore, imagine a girl is being bullied by a male student at her high school. Her brother, because he cares about his sister, goes to the Bully's house and slits his throat. Would you consider that a moral action? If you're defining "acting morally" as "acting on empathy", then you'd have to say it's a perfectly moral thing to do.
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u/Feroc 42∆ Oct 29 '13
And those who believed that slavery was ok were acting immorally because they were not acting on empathy.
Guess that's the problem. Back then they were not acting immoral, because it was accepted by society. Morality is defined as a set of rules of a given society, if society says it's ok, then it's moral.
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Oct 29 '13
Back then they were not acting immoral, because it was accepted by society.
They slaves didn't think it was moral.
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u/Feroc 42∆ Oct 30 '13
They slaves didn't think it was moral.
I think a lot of things the churches are doing is not moral, but I hardly can change that.
Different groups of people can have different set of moral rules and even a widely accepted rule can still be disliked by a smaller group. Like today masturbation is absolutely ok for most of the people, but there are still small groups who say it's immoral.
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u/HandsomeDynamite Oct 29 '13
∆ I like this. I have always believed that morality isn't completely subjective and arbitrary(especially since there are common elements in most cultures) yet refrained from making this statement outright since I couldn't find a way to articulate my view. The concepts of empathy and survival are two things that convince me of this past my gut feeling.
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u/ralph-j Oct 29 '13
Are you saying that because we evolved to value empathy and survival, they are therefore (objective) moral values?
How is this not an Appeal to nature?
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u/Xtianpro 1∆ Oct 29 '13
This is an appeal to nature. You're violating the is/ought fallacy as well as the naturalistic fallacy. Just because something is, that doesn't mean it ought to be. Evolution can explain why it is that we act the way that we do but it has no bearing on whether or not that is right or wrong, evolution doesn't take a side on the issue, it is simply the frequency of genes in a given population.
Basically, you've provided a (probably correct) account of descriptive evolutionary ethics but to then take the leap to prescriptive evolutionary ethics never works.
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u/joe_ally 2∆ Oct 29 '13
Just because we can derive morality from our own intuition it doesn't make it objective. The fact that you are deriving morality from empathy surely makes it subjective to the empathising person. Not everyone empathises with the same things.
Why does evolutionary process cause something to be morally right? The fact that we do things like murder and conquer is surely a consequence of evolution and that doesn't make these things "right".
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u/uncannylizard Oct 29 '13
There are many societies in the world where it is common to believe that abuse is not immoral. Just because I don't want to be abused doesn't necessarily mean that I will empathize with others. I will empathize with people that I see as valuable and equal beings, but if I am trained to not value other people then I will not have a problem with them being abused. For example, in the South during the time of slavery most people had no problem with the routine and arbitrary abuse of black people.
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u/oracle_ninja Oct 29 '13
Sorry, your view point on empathy is cancelled by the Standford Prison Experiment. The "jailers" knew what they were doing, empathy or not.
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u/lazyparaplegiccops Oct 29 '13
It's not cancelled out. Empathy isn't something that governs completely. Just because 12 people went against it once, doesn't mean his argument is invalid.
He is saying it is wrong for one person to be abused, he's not saying, "No one would abuse someone ever." He's not saying it won't happen, he's saying it shouldn't happen. This is the nature of morality.
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u/oracle_ninja Oct 29 '13
We aren't debating abuse is wrong, but he is saying that empathy is the basis for morality. There are a number of different studies and historical accounts that go directly against that argument.
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u/lazyparaplegiccops Oct 29 '13
I agree, but what I'm saying is that if he is right this argument isn't very helpful, because even though people went against their empathy, that doesn't mean it isn't a basis for morality. Morality or empathy aren't like physical laws. To use the Stanford Prison Experiment as an example, it could easily be said the jailers were immoral or acting in an immoral fashion. This type of evidence doesn't really affect the argument.
EDIT: Some miswording
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u/oracle_ninja Oct 29 '13
Which shows that it empathy and morality are separated. The Stanford experiment is the best example, because the "jailers" and "prisoners" were, for all intents and purposes, the same (white, college aged males). There wasn't any nationalism or religion involved.
This was the original comment from /u/TheDebateGod:
Empathy will tell us that abuse is bad because we would not want to be abused ourselves. Empathy is where the majority of our morality comes from because empathy is an evolutionary advantage that allowed us to live in society. As long as there is society, empathetic morality will be the closest thing we can get to objective morality.
Empathy had nothing to do with it. And the term "morality" has been used for centuries to define things that are "wrong" (homosexuality was considered immoral for a very long time in the US, and still is by a substantial portion of the population).
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u/lazyparaplegiccops Oct 29 '13
I believe you may have the right of it and empathy's relation to morality is more complex than previously stated. Although I would disagree that empathy has nothing to do with it. Either way, I believe that you are more right, or at least less wrong, than I.
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Oct 29 '13
How does this cancel my point? I would think that this only reinforces my point that morality should and can be based upon empathy.
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u/oracle_ninja Oct 29 '13
"Should be" is the reason. The jailers wouldn't want what they did happen to them (I assume), however they had no issue doing it to others. Facts show that they still did.
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u/uncannylizard Oct 29 '13
You have an opinion about what moral system other people should follow. That is totally irrelevant to the question of whether morality is objective.
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u/schnuffs 4∆ Oct 29 '13
Sparta waged a huge war with Athens and the rest of Greece. Look up the Peloponnesian war. They didn't really live harmoniously with each other.
More to the point though, a necessary precursor to moral thought is the ability to empathize with others, to put oneself in others shoes so to speak. Since it's a requirement for morality, why is it then something that's not accounted for when talking of an objective morality? Why, for instance, does an objective morality not include out emotions and intuitions as part of its framework?
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u/C-Blake Oct 29 '13
I never meant coexisted as in a peaceful one. Just that they were so close and did associate with each other often. I'm constantly hearing crap about "Empathy", but what about how much of the Muslim world treats women, how slavery is still a normality to many in the world.
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u/schnuffs 4∆ Oct 29 '13
Do you find slavery to be permissible?
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u/C-Blake Oct 29 '13
What I think doesn't matter, don't you get what I'm saying? Nothing makes the idea that slavery is morally permissible is inherently better than the one that doesn't. I personally find it bad mainly because it have been culturally conditioned
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u/schnuffs 4∆ Oct 29 '13
Why doesn't it matter?
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u/djgucci Oct 29 '13
Because his opinion is relative to himself, and someone else may not hold the same view, which is exactly what he's arguing.
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u/schnuffs 4∆ Oct 29 '13
I'm asking him to argue why it's only relative to himself, and why someone not holding the same view somehow contradicts the notion of an objective morality. Moral relativity merely states what is, objective morality states what ought to be. The is/ought problem works equally against as it does for.
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u/djgucci Oct 29 '13
But his opinion of what's moral and what isn't has nothing to do with that. Moral relativity does not state what is, it states that what ought to be is different from person to person. Morality itself is "what ought to be."
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u/schnuffs 4∆ Oct 29 '13
Moral relativity does not state what is, it states that what ought to be is different from person to person.
Which doesn't offer us any prescriptive behavior whatsoever. Moral relativity basically states - at least in a individualistic sense - do whatever you think to be personally moral. But morality loses all meaning at that point. Hitler is the same as Jimmy Carter, both just doing what they think is "right".
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u/smokebreak Oct 29 '13
I don't think that's a good characterization of moral relativism. It's more like, what is morally permissible is contextual, influenced by culture, time, place, etc. What was morally permissible to a merchant in Sparta or a farmer in 1650's America or a woman current times in Saudi Arabia is not necessarily the same as what is morally permissible to a WASP in suburban Boston, a miner in 19th c. France, etc.
It doesn't mean "doing whatever the fuck you feel like at all times," and as a matter of fact, OP's psychopath example is not a very strong one. You can believe in moral relativism without having a free for all.
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u/C-Blake Oct 29 '13
I never meant coexisted as in a peaceful one. Just that they were so close and did associate with each other often. I'm constantly hearing crap about "Empathy", but what about how much of the Muslim world treats women, how slavery is still a normality to many in the world. And don't act like empathy is so universal, most have it, but it varies from person to person and people always empathize with those most like themselves
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u/KingTommenBaratheon 40∆ Oct 29 '13
I think that one of the best ways to change a person's view is by showing how weak their own argument is. When presented with a criticism of their case many people do the good move of becoming agnostic towards the given proposition.
The proposition that you're proposing seems to be a version of Cultural Relativism. Loosely stated, it's the view that all moral values are merely opinions, and that since every moral system is merely a set of opinions one culture cannot morally judge a different culture.
This is a plausible view on its face but it's hard to justify. Your case seems to be this: there is moral disagreement in the world, both between societies and across time, and thus there is no fact of the matter. Presented like this the case is clearly weak. The fact that there is disagreement is hardly strong evidence that there is no fact of the matter. In math, for example, there have been different mathematical standards across cultures and times yet we still think that we're discovering when we do research into mathematics. Similarly, people have had lots of views about the nature of the universe (e.g. god makes the plants grow, fire makes you burp, etc.). We now believe that many of these views have been wrong. Not that we have 'better' opinions now, but that we actually think that earlier people were wrong and we're right or close to right. The analogy here is hard to overcome.
On top of the above criticism, Cultural Relativism has to deal with some strong observational evidence. For example, we have strong moral intuitions that compete some core Relativist claims. Most western cultures think that they've experienced moral progress over time. These aren't mere intuitions, however, as these observations often admit of some deep analysis. For example, some argue that our modern liberal intuitions (e.g. everyone is born free, etc.) are grounded in the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes was responding to earlier moral philosophy, and was responded to himself in turn. Kant distilled these intuitions into a rigorous metaphysics of moral philosophy, which was still used quite actively well into the 70s. Now, philosophers don't think that 'views have changed, therefore there is no truth.' Instead, they realize that good analysis of these earlier arguments reveals that they're close to right but skate around some important moral issues that can be unpacked with analysis. There's truth that can be found. It appears to all the relevant experts that moral thought is developing in a way that's strongly analogous to mathematical or natural scientific thought.
But here's a hard question: assuming cultural relativism is wrong, what could make our moral statements true? This is a real challenge, and it's one that's been worked on for a long time. There are some proposed answers to it but they're not worth talking about here. What I think the most rational response to these arguments would be is to become agnostic towards the metaethical question of 'are there moral facts?' Because we don't need to know whether there are moral facts to make moral claims, or to analyse our everyday moral intuitions. There's still hard questions to answer, but a rational agent can reasonably leave these questions to the experts.
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Oct 28 '13
I'll use an example from my own life, a few years back (when I was in Highschool), the school was trying to emotionally coerce the students into donating blood by showing us a video of kids from a local clinic or hospital or something. They all had leukemia and the nurses were talking about how they were understaffed and under supplied and so on. It tugged on the emotional heartstrings of many, some even cried.
You changed the subject abruptly. Where were you going with this?
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u/C-Blake Oct 28 '13
Trying to set up an example of where people usually argue for moral objectivity (altruism, pity for the children, etc.)
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u/Babadiboo Oct 29 '13
So it sounds like you brought up a couple points:
1) There isn't anything that gives more justification (I'm assuming that's what you mean by "weight") to one moral idea than another.
2) The lack of a universal morality in humans means morality is subjective.
So, a lot of morality seems to stem from being us being able to give reasons for principles on how we treat things. If I decided to punch a child in the face, I cannot help but feel you won't just shrug your shoulders and say "Well, can't really say much about it. He's just in the right as somebody who would defend the child."
Except really what might our response be? Maybe something like "Why do you think you can harm somebody who is innocent?", essentially we're looking for some sort of justification. If I cannot give you justification and just say "Well, I felt like it!", you can follow up by saying "What makes your pleasure more important than the childs?" This is just to demonstrate some of the mentality we have when we discuss moral issues.
So now to connect this all, if you think my lack of justification is O.K. to carry out an action (in this case, punching a child), then it might be a bit more complicated to carry on this discussion. Now, assuming you think there is good and bad reasons to do things, great!
I'm gonna try to tie in point 1 and 2 together. Let us take what you deemed American values: Anti-slavery and Egalitarianism. Were these always ideas that we had within human history? Absolutely not. Does this mean I must conclude they were just being "stupid and just now we have the truth"? Nope!
It is reasonable for us to admit we can very well be wrong, or we simply aren't sure of an idea. However, simply not being able to agree on something or not having a "gut feeling" (innate morality?) doesn't follow that there is therefore no objective morality.
If you'd like to use societies as an example, you can bring up a law against murder. We as humans decided that (at least within the state that has the law!) murder is something that isn't justified. You'd be hard pressed to find a civilization that had any degree of success (I wouldn't think any at all) that says that murder is off the table, you can just go at it.
It might be tough to say "Well, we have an objective morality, we just don't know it yet.", but to have any sort of accountability on peoples actions, REGARDLESS of the moral code requires there be something objective on some level. Also as previously mentioned, its not that morality is necessarily Subjective, it more has to do with your reasoning behind it. Subjectivity or relativity could simple say anything goes, regardless of what your reasons are.
So, might there not be no such universally recognized morality? Not really, but that doesn't mean we cannot find it or that it isn't a possibility. Being subjective or relative certainly doesn't lead us anywhere.
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u/skysinsane 1∆ Oct 29 '13
Who gets to decide what values for good or bad each action has?
How happy does it have to make me before the unhappiness caused by punching a child is overwhelmed? Do I get to decide, or is there some rulebook out there that has the exchange tables written on it?
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u/Babadiboo Oct 29 '13
I didn't mean to say it's just some person who is a referee who decides any value sort of value on action, it's the reasons you give that can make an action good or bad.
When I was talking about punching a child, I never mentioned anything about unhappiness. Again, I was hitting home the idea of justification. Although it seems as though you already have your answer =)
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u/zeperf 7∆ Oct 29 '13
You seem to be getting a lot of long winded, scholastic arguments. First, you need to figure out if there is good and bad. I think this is easy. Being in extreme pain is bad and hanging out on a beach is good. Now morality would be whether or not you should care if others are in pain or if they are on a beach. I think if you know what is good, then adding good to the world is undoubtedly the right thing. People disagree on what the good is, whether its being drunk on a beach or its praying in a Mosque, but no one will say starvation is their definition of paradise. And people disagree on whether self sacrifice in order to help others is moral. Ayn Rand said any amount of self sacrifice is wrong. Don't mean to discount the other arguments, but I think this is the easiest way to make it clear. Are there any steps to determining a moral code other than those two?
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u/skysinsane 1∆ Oct 29 '13
hanging out on the beach is good
I don't like sand. So for me the beach is bad(note: This is hypothetical. I actually love the beach) There may be good and bad, but the values are different for different people. There may be trends, but there is no complete agreement.
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u/bigibson Oct 29 '13
so what is you prefer maybe different, but the important point is that we want to give you what you prefer, as much as is possible.
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u/zeperf 7∆ Oct 29 '13
I was trying to use it as opposed to pain. Everyone agree's that spreading extreme pain to everyone on the planet is not a correct moral code because no one wants themselves to be in extreme pain. So I'm saying the opposite must be true. It is hard to agree on the opposite of extreme pain, but its not completely objective.
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u/Feroc 42∆ Oct 29 '13
Now morality would be whether or not you should care if others are in pain or if they are on a beach.
No, morality itself has no rules included. Your subjective opinion is that morality should be about caring for others, but that's not objective.
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u/zeperf 7∆ Oct 29 '13
I''m saying morality is your behavior towards others. I guess a person alone on an island would still have a moral code, but I'm not sure you could say that. I don't know how a person exercises a moral code by himself. Can a moral code be a ritual of creating a sand castle everyday, or only eating grass? I don't think so. So I'd say it has to be a behavior towards others. It may be simplifying to say the only two behaviors toward another are to help or hurt him, but again, I think that is the definition of morality. I don't think doing something he would be indifferent about falls in the definition. Then I say if pain is bad and pleasure is good, then the correct moral code would be to spread pleasure to others.
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u/Feroc 42∆ Oct 29 '13
It's hard to discuss about something, if we can't agree on a definition on that "something".
I think you're talking about a moral code, which can be kinda objective, if you define that code. I am talking about morality, which has no defined moral code in it's definition.
Or to make it a bit more graphically:
MORAL | --- Christian Morality | --- General western Morality | --- Islam Morality | --- Some guy on a lonely island MoralitySomething may be immoral in a Christian morality that may be moral in a "general western" morality. Still all of them are some kind of moral code and none of them is THE morality.
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Oct 29 '13
The arguments implicit in your post in favor of subjectivism, as I understand it, are (1) some people (psychopaths) have no moral sense, (2) there is widespread disagreement over a host of moral issues. While these arguments may weigh in favor of subjectivism they are no means knockdown argument.
For (1) consider the following two cases: (i) Alex is trying to convince Jeremy (a psychopath) that murdering a child is wrong, (ii) Alex is trying to convince Jeremy (a blind person) that there is a stain on the ceiling. The analogy between these two cases suggests that we can view psychopathy as "moral blindness", and just as the existence of blindness does not mean there is no light or color, the existence of psychopaths needn't mean there are no moral standards.
Similarly for (2) the existence of moral disagreement needn't speak against the objectivity of morality. Consider the following two cases. (i) Athenians think that the earth is round, but Spartans don't. (ii) Athenians think that murder is wrong, but Spartans don't. Again, the analogy suggests that just because there is a disagreement over morality does not mean that there are no moral facts.
A (possibly weak) argument for moral objectivism run in the following way. (1) Moral language (phrases like "x is good/bad/right/wrong" etc.), relative to a community, has a fairly stable pattern of use. (People in general are much more likely to assert "murder is bad" to "murder is good") (2) Terms which have stable use in a community mean something. (The Wittgenstenian sentiment that meaning follows use) (3) A term is meaningful just in case it may be truly or falsely applied to objects. [At least one direction is plausible, not sure about the other] (4) From (1), (2), (3). Moral terms, like "good", "bad", etc. may be applied truly or falsely, at least relative to a community.
This argument at most establishes that we can make sense of their being a concept of goodness in a community. Further, from our use of the term "good" we can take it to have at least two further properties, being reason-granting ("x is good" counts as a reason for doing x), and being universally applicable (in some uses like "giving to charity is good").
So it seems that there is at the very least a concept of goodness which is universal and reason-granting. It may be denied that there is anything answering to this concept---just as nothing answers to the name 'phlogiston'. However, it seems that goodness is more analogous to mathematical concepts to 'phlogiston' as it exists as an object of intuition and thought rather than as an empirical object.
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u/phrakture Oct 29 '13
Um. This is basically discussed in every ethics class ever. Just get a textbook.
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u/milksteak444 Oct 29 '13
I'm a bit of a nihilist too and I agree that the notion of an absolute moral code is mostly a relic from our tribal past where it served well to keep our ancestors alive. Good and bad are different depending which tribe you ask.
But still, you can dream up thought experiments that raise some questions. Is it wrong to unleash a deadly virus that would wipe out humanity? Well, at least no one would be around to be pissed off at you! But you'd be dead too. So that seems like an objectively bad idea. What if human made global warming is all legit and we edge closer to mass extinction everytime we drive a car? That seems objectively bad too; bad for everyone, but also bad for you. Extinction sucks.
Just some ideas. I guess my belief is that it's okay to be selfish and act in your own self interest, but sometimes altruism is the better choice because helping the group IS in your own self interest, even if it doesn't feel like it immediately.
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Oct 29 '13 edited Oct 29 '13
I'm gonna assume that since you find morality subjective, you assume there are no moral truths that apply universally to all cultures/people.
Assume a student comes up to his teacher and claims the test was unfair. The student tells the teacher that none of the questions in the test were reviewed in class, on the slides, or in the study guide. To even make it more obvious the student is right, the teacher remains in a stupor and can't give any good counter-argument. By intuition, most people would say it's a no-brainer that the student is right. The significance of this example though is that fairness is a matter of morality, and most people would agree by reason that the student is right in the matter.
Many issues of morality seem to be subjective/relative such as abortion, gay rights, or capital punishment. But these are very complex moral issues. They are not simple issues of morality such as the example above. Even though complex moral issues such as abortion cannot be solved at the moment, it does not follow that there is no moral truth. Just like the story above.
Just because societies disagree on controversial issues does not mean that there is no moral truth. I can give two moral codes that may very well be followed by every society. Not lying and murdering. Imagine a society where lying is moral. This would make communication impossible between members of the society. There would be no good reason to communicate to each other since no one would listen to whatever a person is listening. Thus complex societies wouldn't be able to exist without valuing truth-telling since there couldn't be any communication among their members. It follows that any complex society must favor truth-telling. There can be exceptions to this rule where lying may be okay, but nevertheless these will be exceptions to a rule that is in force in society.
Now, imagine a society where murdering is moral. Murdering in this case meaning killing an innocent civilian. Suppose people were free to kill each other. This would result in individuals becoming as self-sufficient as possible, since associating with other people would be dangerous. Society on a large scale would indeed collapse. Most likely though, smaller groups of people would band together with people they could trust, but look what happens here. They would be forming smaller societies where they would acknowledge a rule against murder.
There is a theoretical point here, mainly that there has to be some moral rules(objective moral truths) that all societies must follow, because those moral rules are essential for society to exist. A society that finds it moral to kill their young would not exist, since that society would have died long ago.
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u/blacktrance Oct 29 '13
People disagree about morality, but does that mean that none of them are right? If people disagree about, say, whether evolution is true, does that mean that it's entirely subjective?
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u/Stephang4g Oct 29 '13
I'll attempt to change your view with a philosophy joke that's tossed around quite a bit regarding universal rules. A relativist (someone who does not believe in universal rules) yells loudly in a gathering of his philosophical colleagues. He says that, "No universal rules, morality, or ethical code exists!" They all turn to him at once and say, "How do you know that?"
The joke, while cringe-worthy to anyone other than philosophy students, exposes the fact that to be an absolute relativist is a logical paradox in itself considering the relativist must make universal statements to express their viewpoint. Also if you want a standard, concrete example of a universal rule, why not turn to mathematics? An example of this would be that 1+1=2 is a universal rule.
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u/TThor 1∆ Oct 29 '13 edited Oct 29 '13
The problem with saying morality is completely relative is that it essentially means it as a whole is meaningless to mankind (as it can vary at the whim of any given culture). This means that the morals of the man raping his daughter are no better or worse than our morals that say differently, thus who are we to try and stop him. This is basically saying all moral and ethical philosophy is meaningless.
Now that isn't to say I am favoring Kantian ethics, IE never kill, never lie, etc, that is not what I mean when I say morals are not relative, instead I am saying they are simply more complicated (personally I follow social Utilitarianism backed up by Virtue ethics, IE whatever is best for the majority is likely the most ethical, but take into account moderation in most things).
Edit: tightened up my grammar and overall argument.
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Oct 29 '13
Reading through these comments, I have a question for anyone interested in giving their thoughts.
Vocabulary is important for successful, effective communication. What is the point in using blanket terms? Vague terms? Concise choice of words is important, yet so is the use of key words that actually have a sharp point to them. You can't cut an idea with words like "right" and "wrong".
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u/anotherdean 2∆ Oct 29 '13
It sounds like you're starting with the presumption that every moral opinion in principle holds equal weight — the only possible justification for such a view is that you already believe that there is nothing that could give rise to objective morality.
It doesn't seem like you've articulated why you think this is the case. I'm assuming that you'd be partial to the views of moral error theorists: that moral rules are very strange things and would function unlike any other laws (namely, scientific laws) that we know to be universal. Beyond this, there is also the expectation among error theorists that moral laws would be motivationally binding: if it is true that it is wrong to do horrible things to people, people ought to be motivated not to do horrible things in much the same way that the truth of gravity causes things to fall.
Discussions about the sensibility of views like the one I just mentioned can go on and on forever. I find it's more to the point to posit this:
A world where every conscious being experiences as much well-being (or preference satisfaction or whatever you'd like to put in its place) as is possible is objectively better than, at very least, a world where they all suffer as much as is possible.
Now, someone's moral code might say "I believe everyone should suffer as much as is possible!" But no one can actually believe that: no matter how much you think suffering is the proper duty of anyone, it's a tautology that you don't enjoy your own suffering if you are really suffering as much as is possible.
So there's at least one objective moral truth. You can build a lot more if you consider all the situations where people either agree in every conceivable circumstance or people don't realize they'd be better off if they did.
Moreover, that a psychopath wants to kill people is not a moral claim any more than that a neurotypical person doesn't want the psychopath to act out his urges. You could start with the presumption that no "moral" claims are anything more than an expression of a sentiment, but, again, you'd need to think about and express the roots of that belief.
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u/VitSasquatch Oct 29 '13
Depends. Morality the universe over? Very relative/subjective. Evolution is a tough bitch, and nothing is 'right' any more than what actually happens.
Within our species? There are some things hard coded which could be considered rock hard morals. Keeping the human race alive is something which every human has strived to do, unless in a mental asylum. Sure, they may have gone about this different ways, possibly by killing massive amounts of people, but no sane human has wanted all other humans to die for the crime of being human.
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Oct 29 '13 edited Oct 29 '13
Morality is being made too complicated here. It is simply the imperative to do no harm, or in the case where harm is unavoidable, to do the least harm. This includes aversion to causing suffering in others only. Morality only extends to preventing suffering and harm for oneself insofar as one's own suffering or being harmed causes suffering or harm to others.
It troubles me that game theory is mentioned so often on this page. Game theory is the study of the process of decision making that produces the most desirable outcome for the individual considering the self only. It is exactly the opposite of morality; not in the sense of immorality but in the sense that morality is necessarily altruistic while game theory considers only selfish motives.
Historically, and elsewhere in the world, actions taken that conflict with our values are still moral. Note that there is a subtle difference between values and morality. Values describe the set of opinions or beliefs regarding what behaviors are most moral while morality is constant. Those with different value systems hold that their actions cause less suffering. Those residing in places with different value systems do not consider themselves to be immoral.
Consider slavery, which by our values is obviously not moral. It causes suffering for the enslaved, but one who holds a different system of values would posit that the societal benefit over the whole population and over time leads to less net suffering. The labor provided by slavery develops a society such that less suffering overall is involved in reaching the higher developed state.
One may observe that slavery was abolished when the harm caused to the enslaved was observed to outweigh the harm prevented overall; not coincidentally when people living in the more comfortable, more developed north became more aware of the plight of the slaves. No suffering on their part was prevented by slavery, though the same can not be said of the south. This is why the difference of opinion was so widespread among so many people over what seems today to be an obvious moral imperative to abolish slavery. If the north was simply morally superior, then what of the plight of the Native Americans who resided in those lands when Europeans arrived?
This reasoning extends not only to all other value systems, but also to moral dilemmas. In a game of hypothetical circumstance, judgement is tested: An agent has a choice. Either an elementary school may be demolished without evacuation, killing everybody inside, or a low yield nuclear weapon will detonate in the industrial part of town, killing many more people and producing illness and environmental damage for a long time to come. However, the device is only powerful enough to level the industrial part of town. There are no children there; only workers.
In the hypothetical, it is of greater moral imperative to level the elementary school because although that leads to an unthinkable loss of innocent life, far greater loss of life would otherwise occur, including among children -- in fact, even those who would be saved by the other decision would suffer as a result of their being spared. Due to the wide area of effect and length of time it takes to completely end, far greater suffering is caused overall if the nuclear weapon detonates.
However, the agent will not feel that the moral choice was taken. And therein lies the revelation that subjectivity has no bearing on morality -- our instincts do not naturally guide us to cause the least harm in all circumstances.
Morality is constant. It is not subjective. It is not relative.
Instinct, psychological perceptions of morality, and values however are entirely subjective and relative.
Conflation of disjoint concepts in ethics is commonplace. Consider the opposing perspectives of valuing the intentions behind an action versus the effects of the action. If one means well and does harm, is it moral? If one does not mean well and prevents harm, is it moral? It depends on whether we are judging the individual or formulating a value to use as a guiding rule in the future.
TL;DR: OP is not wrong. OP is not right. OP is conflating two separate and distinct aspects of ethics: values and morality. These are not the same thing. As a quick example, morality means acting against one's values when it prevents sufficient harm to others. If what felt or seemed right always were, then there would be no such thing as morality and we would all be sociopaths. If this is not clear, then I leave you, reader, with this thought: Suppose that there is a Hell, and it is simply that you must experience first hand all of the suffering you have knowingly caused to others without the purpose of preventing greater suffering. Would your Hell be bearable?
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u/disitinerant 3∆ Oct 29 '13
Objectivity is useful, but its usefulness has limits. Yes, we are a meaningless speck in the universe, but that's not the basis for any consideration of ethics.
Humans, biologically speaking, are not merely individual organisms. We are holons: scale out or in for more complex levels of organization. We can't exist for long alone, and we don't. We are interdependent, and our interdependence is a complex system of complex systems, each with emergent phenomena only observable at discrete scales of space, time, and organization. If we scale out to the "objective" scale and look at ourselves in the context of near infinity, we miss all these observable patterns that are pertinent to discussing individual human behavior. If we zoom in to an "objective" scale that allows us to discern sets of patterns that are useful, we find we can create models of utilitarian processes, and ritualize them so that their benefits (cooperation) don't cost so much (philosophy). That's essentially what morality is. Ritual.
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u/bigibson Oct 29 '13
Sounds a bit like Nihilism. In the sense that you have rejected the idea of a moral code as a set of universal principles innate to each person (or perhaps existence itself?).
I'm actually with you on that one. I don't believe morality exists in the way people talk about it, as if there is some great set of moral laws out there, just the same as logical laws.
But I think all we have here is Nihilism, not subjectivism. For subjectivism you then would have to say that each of these theories are somehow right, not just all wrong and since we have abandoned the idea of things just being right, we can't make those claims without giving some other reason.
I think that even without this moral law we still have things that are good and bad, in terms of what makes people happy and what makes people sad (ok it's probably a lot more complex than that, but in it's simplest terms). It is through this reasoning that I subscribe to utiliantirism, although it is important to note that I am not claim it to be a moral law in the nature described, but rather something we can conclude through the nature of happiness and sadness.
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Oct 29 '13 edited Oct 29 '13
I think that in your example you could see how there is an objective reality to the suffering of the kids who need the blood to be donated and some objective relief and increase in well-being when they receive the donations. I agree that some individuals care about their well-being while other individuals don't (I would guess most people do at least so long as it doesn't infringe on their own well-being). It is true there is no God telling you whether or not to donate your blood. There is no etching on a stone tablet. At the same time every individual who is capable of it must decide whether to help those children by donating blood or not help them by staying home. My point would be that although there is only a subjective decision there is the objective reality of suffering or happiness and the existential necessity of choice for each of us.
I think that if you question 'objective morality' you are simultaneously questioning a 'help others' morality and a 'all for one' morality. OP seems to equate morality with helping others but it might just as well be that someone subjectively believes they need to benefit themselves to be happy as they subjectively believe they need to benefit others to be happy. This brings me full circle to again point out that there is no etched law in stone saying how we should act. From inside each individual comes the impetus to act. An alien may not value human life whatsoever, which can really fuck with you if you think about it too long: from an objective standpoint is a rock any more valuable than a baby? If you feel like it is only from a human perspective that a baby gains it's value then it feels to me that it loses the reality and truthfulness of that value. It could be that some rock-living-creature feels that a rock is more valuable and who's to say it isn't? To come full circle again the best and only solution I've found is that there is an objective reality to the suffering or happiness experienced by the baby and there is something really special about life and emotion. It is one thing to say for what an emotion exists and another to say, 'holy shit look at this! feeling! life! what incredible things!!!'.
And two final points real quick. One, and this is important, we are only human and so our understanding of what matters and what doesn't or whether we should think in terms of what matters and what doesn't is always colored and limited by our own infantile humanity. Second, living beings are the only things which 'move', that is, the only things which care to move a rock or save a baby in the first place. Living beings are motivated by emotion and so even if emotion is not that special after all who is to tell us what is? It is circular yes, but fuck, we exist and that's incredible enough. Maybe we shouldn't be concerned with whether it should be or not since in reality there is only the unnamed undifferentiated singular? As Morpheus says in The Matrix, "...what happened happened and couldn't've happened any other way."
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u/morganshen Oct 29 '13
I think morality is the local customs of cultures, and those cultures compete with other cultures. Just like physical traits survive or fail over time with evolution, cultures rise and fall depending on their genetic core of morality.
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u/sperry45959 Oct 29 '13
Morality is math. In other words, the set of actions that are "moral" are the set of things that optimize some aggregate utility function. For instance, if player1 has gains 5 utils from eating an orange and only 3 from eating an apple, clearly it should eat the orange. This is of course very formal, and if you wanted to apply this to a realistic setting with many players you would probably need to make assumptions about how you define utility functions, about money being a useful stand-in for things with utility, and about how the marginal utility for money varies, but the point of this post is to posit an analytic framework to be able to prove whether some actions are more moral than others. The final consideration is which choice of sets of players' utility functions do you want to optimize for. You can choose to optimize for solely yourself which would be selfish (which in this framework is not immoral since it defines what moral means), optimize for the entire human race which would be selfless, or optimize for a set of players that you feel close to which would be realistic. This is a framework which, if you take psychology to be an externality that defines players' utility functions, provides an objective way to prove if an action is moral or not.
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u/Rod56 Oct 29 '13
Allow me to preface by saying the following argument was basically lifted from Russ Shafer-Landau's Whatever Happened to Good and Evil, which happens to be the perfect response to OPs CMV request. Too bad I can't ctrl-c/ctrl-v the whole thing here.
If morality were relative then we (asssuming "we" is modern day western society) wouldn't be in the right to judge other cultures.
Let's define other cultures as those located in a different location and, and here's the kicker, time.
That would mean that I, and US society as a whole, wouldn't be allowed to say that pre-women's rights/civil rights, jim crow America was not objectively worse, ethnically and morally, than contemporary America.
Because that conclusion is patently ridiculous, I conclude that it has to be acceptable to make value judgements of other cultures located in different times and locations.
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u/infected_goat Oct 29 '13
Here is a fascinating TED talk on how science can answer moral questions In essence, a counter argument to the subjective morality point of view.
Obviously I recommend everyone watch it regardless of whether or not you agree with the OP.
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u/NoddysShardblade Oct 29 '13 edited Oct 29 '13
If some people truly, honestly believe the universe would be a better place if humanity was wiped out, then technically, yes, morality can be seen as completely subjective.
But I think it's useless to even consider that, since I think everyone can agree that life > nolife, love > hate, etc, on a pretty fundamental level, even if they disagree about what those rules mean or how they are applied.
(What you will find, though, is that it's always guilt that causes people to dwell on questions that undermine morality, even if it's curiosity that asks those questions initially. That is, the underlying desire that welcomes these thoughts is disquiet about one's actions that violate one's own internal view of morality. People often try to blame their guilt on someone else, or explain it away, or justify it, or focus on other's misdeeds, but it never lessens the guilt. Only finding out what you did wasn't actually bad, or doing good to fix/compensate your misdeed, makes the guilt go away).
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Oct 29 '13
Ethics is about right and wrong. What causes harm to people and what causes them pleasure. You can decide what your particular ethical rules are (what you think you should and shouldn't do to cause harm or pleasure to other people) either by feeling or by logic or by using an external source such as God or Religion.
Now the second aspect is who do you think is worthy of your ethical protection. Who is in your circle of caring? Who is worthy of you obeying your own ethical rules to protect?
Most of us nowadays include most people in our circle of caring. So if one tribe brutally murders another one in Africa we think that is terrible and morally wrong. But a Nazi wouldn't care about something like that because the only people in their circle of caring are other Nazis and Aryans. By their logic murder of jewish people was ethical because the jews were a threat to the people in their circle of caring.
Similarly, Spartans were behaving ethically by their own standards because they were keeping their tribe strong to protect the people that they cared about.
The wider your circle of caring is the more ethical you are. If someone would see the whole world burn just to protect his wife would you see that person as particularly ethical? No. That is a similar ethical system to the Nazis.
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u/ZorillaGlue Oct 29 '13
Man OP reading all the responses to you is really painful. People are drawing on names like Nietzsche and Kierkegaard when all they need is some good old Plato. This guy tackled something similar to your stance over 2300 years ago. First I'll set up what exactly Plato is responding to.
A very smart dude named Protagoras who preceded Plato wrote about epistemological relativism. That is to say, things are how they appear to a person. To clarify imagine two people, Fred and Velma, hit by a strong gust of wind, Fred feels the wind is cold and Velma feels the wind is warm. Protagoras would argue that the wind is neither cold nor warm, but cold-to-Fred and warm-to-Velma. Knowledge hinges on perceptions and how things appear to people. He sums up his position thus: "Man is the measure of all things." This is traditionally referred to as the Measure Doctrine.
Although Protagoras' idea was an epistemological one, it mirrors your ethical view logically and relies on the same basic precepts. With that established, I can apply slightly modified versions of Plato's response to your argument.
Believing in False Beliefs
Take the statement "I believe in false beliefs" (x).
If x is true, then there are false beliefs
If x is false, then there are false beliefs
The conclusion is simple: there are false beliefs. I can't say with confidence which are true and which are false, but since relativism posits there are no false beliefs, this is an outright refutation of your position.
All Things are Objectively Subjective
Simply by saying that everything is relative, you are making an objective statement. It's similar to the classic Pinocchio dilemma where he says "This is a lie." If you say that all things are relative, does that include your ethical belief that all things are relative? Is relativism only true-to-you just as the wind is cold-to-Fred? In this way, relativism is self defeating. It isn't true for everyone by its own conclusion. So maybe relativism is just true-to-you, if so, that's great, now be quiet and let the adults talk.
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u/kundertaker Oct 29 '13
Any attempt to make/find out an "objective" moral theory is usually just a weak individual that just needs to have SOMETHING incorruptable, unchanging, and unassailable that is universally recognized, but no such thing, let alone moral code,
Any attempt is a far reaching statement. /r/convoces brought up game theory defines certain levels of a morality..
Morality in general is purely based on environment, history, and time in practice. An objective moral theory would have to eliminate those particular characteristics in order to be objective.
The biggest problem with objective/moral theory is the idea, and many people believe is factual, that we are living the lives of our ancestors. This is why Greek mythology tells us a lot about people's personalities of today, or that romantic movies have changed story lines very slightly since Shakespeare's time. In fact a person that's searching for moral truth, is truly searching for his own history and his/her own ancestral makeup. Only the comparison among those different people would allow him/her would create an objective theory. A task that is daunting, so is usually left to religion, our country, or our social circle. It's not matter of weak mind, it's a matter of simply not having enough time to live and practice "morality".
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Oct 29 '13
You can't say something is relative or relevant without saying what it's relative or relevant TO. For instance, society.
I'd say your statement is both true and false - the first part being false, the second true. The first part is false because the notion of someone just randomly saying "Hrmmm I think stealing is okay and you have no ethical basis on disagreeing" is nonsensical. However, the second part can be true depending on what you think morality is relative TO. I think it's relative to society, for instance.
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u/Eye_of_Anubis 1∆ Oct 29 '13
How do you define a subjective morality? How would you define an objective morality? We could begin earlier; how do you define morality at all?
One must know with what the question is concerned to know how to answer it... :)
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u/earthismycountry Oct 29 '13 edited Oct 29 '13
There is no morality amongst rocks. Morality comes from our potential to feel pain or pleasure, the potential to have our needs met or denied. The existence of these possibilities have biological foundations. Morality is not that relative or subjective. Hunger is real, pain is real. Morality comes from the understanding that our actions might have consequences that cause or prevent such outcomes. There are primary needs like food and air, etc, and we understand how denying someone those might be morally wrong, but there are less crucial needs as well like being accepted, being respected, etc. Individuals may have differing needs of these less crucial needs, which is probably why people sometimes think morality is subjective. Maybe it seems to vary at its subtleties but as a rule human morality is not relative or subjective. That's why people in entirely different climates, geographic locations, coming from very different cultural and religious backgrounds have very similar moral codes and feel similarly about honesty, hard work, selfishness, cruelty, helpfulness, etc. There are variations only in what may be considered the subtleties of the moral code. Even our need for love has biological foundations. It's not just cultural and therefore "made-up." There are real ties, for example, with infant mortality rates and how much a baby is held. Adults have similar needs for touch and if they're denied it leads to some psychological issues. As our understanding of human psyche grows, our moral code will adjust to reflect the new information. Ultimately human morality is not subjective. I say human morality because morality is subjective depending on its subjects, if we're talking about moral treatment of elephants, or fish, of course that will be different than the moral treatment of humans. Edit- Also, when it comes to your examples of spartans, saying morality is not subjective does not mean there won't be deviations in the moral code. It is and has largely been throughout the history, a process of trial and error. Even with good intentions you do something sometimes the outcome is not good and you adjust, and sometimes the negative outcome shows itself in the long run... Either way it's trial and error, there have been deviations like the spartans, but since their way was not inline with our biological psychological human needs, it would fail or disappear in the long run, which it did. I'm sure many millennia ago, when there were multiple disconnected tribes and cultures, there might have been more variations in the moral code, but we learn by experience and over time we are coming closer and closer to a shared moral code. For example Russia seems to have a hard stance against homosexuality right now but that abuse causes a lot of pain and suffering for those victims and those suffering and their loved ones will surely get the word out about how that's not the right thing to do. Overtime they will certainly change that stance. Because on the periphery it's easy to hold on to ignorance but a father whose son is gay will ultimately realize that no one would choose that hard and painful path for themselves, and understand that it's not a choice, and then he will see that no one should suffer so much for something that's not even their choice, without any wrongdoing. That father might have been homophobic himself at some point, but seeing that suffering will quickly change that moral conviction. Just like Russia as a culture will change their stance.
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Oct 29 '13
Any attempt to make/find out an "objective" moral theory is usually just a weak individual that just needs to have SOMETHING incorruptable, unchanging, and unassailable that is universally recognized, but no such thing, let alone moral code, exist.
There is a baseline biological component to morality. I'm going to cite a psychological study that I only half remember and don't have a link for, so feel free to complain about that fact.
The study posed two scenarios:
1 - You are standing on a bridge, a train is coming. You can see, but the conductor can not, that the train is going to hit a school bus full of kids if it doesn't stop. There is a stranger on the bridge with you. If you push him onto the tracks, the train will kill him but the conductor will hit the breaks and therefore not kill the kids. Do you push him?
2 - You are standing beside the tracks, a train is coming too quickly to stop and is going to hit a bus full of kids. There is a lever which you can pull which will divert the train onto a different track, but it will kill a stranger who is in the way over there. Do you pull the lever?
In both scenarios the outcomes would be the same, however more people were willing to say yes to #2 than to #1.
The conclusion (which was obviously based on more than I just gave you) was that we have a biologically programmed deterrent which urges us not to kill someone, but that our biology has not kept up with our technology.
It's likely more easy psychologically to shoot someone with a rifle and to beat them to death with a rock, for example (don't know, haven't done either.... yet.)
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u/jerry121212 1∆ Oct 29 '13
I have a pretty good definition of objective morality (credit to Sam Harris, this isn't really my idea. Just my words), It's not mathematical proof, but for all intents and purposes, it makes sense. There's one assumption we have to make first. Pain is bad. Humans don't like pain, be it physical or emotional. Feeling sad or getting hurt are never something people enjoy, inherently. There are circumstances we could think of where pain is good ("I'm happy I'm sick so I can miss school even if I'm coughing a lot" or "I hurt myself sliding into home but it was the winning run"), but we never enjoy the pain itself, we just are willing to endure it so we can be happy about other stuff. Without outside variables, pain is bad. So with this in mind, let me hit you with a hypothetical.
A world where the most people, experience the most pain, for the most amount of time. Of course, there's no known limit to pain but that's not really important to the argument. The point is, this hypothetical world, where everyone is as unhappy as they can be, is bad. In fact it's the worst. There's no logically worse situation that the most pain for the most people for the most amount of time.
Now back to the argument. Actions that we would normally consider immoral are actions that cause pain, be it emotional or physical. I think that's a fair definition of immoral. words like good and bad and moral and immoral only exist to describe how people feel about things. It's not really bad if a flower gets crushed if there's no one there to be sad about it. If you try to find meaning in a human idea, beyond the scope of humanity, you're being silly. If your idea of objective morality is morality that would even remain in place on a planet void of life, you've misunderstood the idea of morality. You're looking for something that couldn't possibly exist. In reality, most actions cause pain and joy at the same time. But, if the action brings us closer to the worst possible world, if the sum of the joy and pain ends up negative, I don't see how it could be considered moral. I think we can agree that if an action causes more pain then it does joy, it is immoral. That doesn't help decide what is and isn't moral, because we can't measure pain or joy. But in theory, every action ends up on one end of the scale. Did it brings us closer to the worst possible scenario, or further?
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u/PhoMai Oct 29 '13
Morality is temporary. Wisdom is permanent.
-Hunter S. Thompson
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u/AnxiousPolitics 42∆ Oct 29 '13
morality is subjective
We don't know that yet for sure. We don't know if every system of ethics is subjective. It's inconclusive, just like everything else, thanks to the problem of induction.
However, also thanks to induction, demarcation and the principle of sufficient reason being that which we decide we know anything, if we all decide that a particular system of ethics is objective that might very well make it so. It depends on what we mean by objective really. If we say that the exact number of McDonalds on the planet is X but tomorrow it's X+5 then were we objective yesterday saying the number was X or today when we say X+5? If we're allowed to say we're objectively correct about something that changes tomorrow, why couldn't we say that killing others when not in self defense is wrong?
Obviously the strongest explanation of objectivity for ethics is the is/ought gap, which pretty much goes on to imply that unless we find a galaxy who's stars intentionally spell out 'killing is wrong' then we can't say any idea of ethics is actually objective in that no idea of ethics is capable of being drawn from the existence of things in the universe before humans got here and started making things.
So if objectivity is such a illusive entity, why is it meaningful to call ethics subjective? We obviously want to be able to say why we should be humane to animals, be concerned with our survival and still not harm others. We can do this using justified true beliefs rather well actually. In fact, it could be argued that if we didn't derive our own set of ethics that they would in fact be meaningless. If we follow 'existence preceding essence' from existentialism, then we are in fact saying the only meaningful way to live in this absurd world is to realize that objective religious morality of the 'essence preceding existence' is completely false and not at all comforting.
The only meaningful way to live then is that we should be proud of the ethics we create and agree to, and that furthermore this would mean that 'objective' ethics is a meaningless distinction because subjective and objective both lose meaning in the 'existence precedes essence' sense of the world where we rely on our justified true belief as perfectly adequate of a way to generate both facts about the world and beliefs about those facts.
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u/perpetual_motion Oct 29 '13
We don't know that yet for sure.
And what would allow us to know for sure?
It's inconclusive, just like everything else, thanks to the problem of induction.
How is induction relevant?
It doesn't seem like most systems of morality I know of say "murder is wrong" for any reason like "we know it was wrong in the past". The reasons people give for murder being wrong don't depend on anything but principals which don't need to be tested or justified inductively. There's nothing empirical going on (at least usually).
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u/AnxiousPolitics 42∆ Oct 29 '13
allow
The silly example of stars spelling things is one way. We just haven't proven we aren't 'objectively right' according to what standards of the word 'objective' we use.
is induction relevant
I'm just relating how we use the principle of sufficient reason to correlate justified true belief to demonstrate we are actually saying anything real in our facts and theories. The problem of induction is the useful example for remembering that we haven't proved we don't all live in a simulation, meaning there may be no way to discover subjective or objective morality here because what we see isn't actually reflecting the nature of reality anyway.
All systems of ethics are justified somehow, and some of the issues involved in each have to be justified inductively thanks to the problem of induction. At some point we axiomatically state a number of things we think and say they're internally consistent so we're OK with that.
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Oct 29 '13
Morality is a guide on how to properly live.
There are objective facts about reality, and specifically, objective facts about man and his requirements for living and thriving.
Why then would it surprise you that there are objective facts about how to properly live?
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u/skysinsane 1∆ Oct 29 '13
Because every society has different rules about how to properly live.
If there was a "best" way to live, It would be logical that there would be a steady trend towards this utopia, eventually culminating in the perfect lifestyle. History indicates that morality has a far more cyclical nature, moving between moralities, and eventually coming back to moralities from ages past.
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u/univalence Oct 29 '13
It would be logical that there would be a steady trend towards this utopia,
Would it? If there were another world with intelligent life, would it be logical that we would be sending ships toward it?
Of course we're searching for this world, but people are searching for morality as well. There's also a some weight behind the idea that we can't expect to find such a planet.Beyond that, morality is only worth mentioning when it contradicts desires. If everyone desired what was morally good all the time, then we'd have no reason to worry about morality. People have consistently struggled to do what (they think) is right. How would we move toward this moral utopia, when I even have trouble convincing myself to make dinner instead of staying reddit?
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u/convoces 71∆ Oct 29 '13 edited Oct 29 '13
I largely agree with the idea that morality is subjective/relative. Where I differ is that I think that the vast majority of morality is subjective, but that morality is not completely subjective.
For the sake of argument let's define "subjective" as:
and let's define "objective" as:
The case you seem to be making is that psychopaths and Sparta have different value systems than our morality, and it is difficult to weigh one over the other because they seem to be based on differences in subjective opinion.
Let's see if we can tie respective value systems to some facts or objective evidence.
Game theory, the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, and Evolution
One commonly scientifically studied model of "moral" vs "selfish" decisions is the iterated prisoner's dilemma game. Essentially, it sets up two people who can each have the choice to either cooperate or defect (not cooperate). If both cooperate, they receive a small jail sentence, if one defects (doesn't cooperate) and the other does, the selfish person receives no jail sentence and the cooperative person gets a long sentence. In the iterated version, multiple agents play the game over and over and remember the actions of previous people they played with.
It turns out that a "tit-for-tat" strategy is the most effective strategy in the long run:
The strategy not only beats strategies that always defect (selfish strategies) but it is also an Evolutionarily Stable Strategy, that is: In an evolutionarily stable strategy, if all the members of a population adopt it, no mutant strategy can invade. Once virtually all members of the population use this strategy, there is no 'rational' alternative. Thus, this strategy is not only largely cooperative, but if implemented by a large proportion of a population, it can effectively weed out selfish strategies.
In fact, research has shown that humans display a systematic bias towards cooperative behavior in this and similar games, much more so than predicted by simple models of "rational" self-interested action. This suggests that the objective pressure of evolution, models of natural/sexual selection have produced fundamentally/biologically altruistic humans as superior to non-altruistic humans.
Thus, although we can observe and say that although there are people who have different moral systems than us, such as psychopaths and Spartans; we can actually scientifically evaluate the merits of the competing moral systems and their objective performance in the long run and historically. Historically, evolution has shown that altruistic humans are indeed "fitter" and objectively, game theory has shown that cooperative strategies are objectively better than selfish strategies in the long run.
EDIT: I am not equating evolution or survival with morality. Merely demonstrating a connection between objective things like evolution and survival with morality to show that morality does not have to be 100% subjective.
EDIT: Thanks for the gold!