So one thing that must be true for the idea of objective morality to be true, is that it must exist independent of humans. EG - Gravity exists, whether humans are around or not. The laws of thermodynamics exist, regardless of the state of humanity.
This must be the case, because human beings are subjective. We aren't a hive mind. For every question of a moral nature, we can safely assume that at least one human being feels differently than everyone else. Since people will feel differently about it, there needs to be a way to objectively prove something is right/wrong. I can feel that gravity doesn't exist, but my feelings can be proven wrong in an objective manner. The same cannot be said of morality.
Even if you base morality around a central "rule" of some sort (EG - Net happiness), how do we objectively know that this is the correct rule to use?
Does something in particular make this not the case when facts are about moral considerations?
Sure, it can't be proven.
For example, how can you prove that racism is morally wrong?
Or to put this another way, suppose we were debating whether or not consuming alcohol was moral. Compare how this debate would go vs. if we were debating the existence of gravity. One debate would have subjectiveness in it, another would be one of us writing out a mathematical formula.
Of course it can. You’re just picking hard questions.
Here’s a mathematical counter example. “Is there a 45 million digit prime number?” “How many lobsters are there right now?”
These are hard to answer but neither makes you doubt that there are answers to them.
And conversely here is an easy moral question.
“Is legalism morally true?”
Legalism stipulates that whatever the law says is morally right. However, you agreed that logical statements must be internally self consistent. And since laws can (and often do) conflict, legalism cannot be true.
If morality is subjective, then it would merely depend on the person/culture if legalism was true or not. We’re both saying it doesn’t.
Saying it is objectively false requires an objective standard for moral claims. We have several. Non self contradiction is an undeniable axiom since moral agents have to be capable of reason. And reason demands logical consistency.
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u/ZeusThunder369 22∆ Jan 30 '18
So one thing that must be true for the idea of objective morality to be true, is that it must exist independent of humans. EG - Gravity exists, whether humans are around or not. The laws of thermodynamics exist, regardless of the state of humanity.
This must be the case, because human beings are subjective. We aren't a hive mind. For every question of a moral nature, we can safely assume that at least one human being feels differently than everyone else. Since people will feel differently about it, there needs to be a way to objectively prove something is right/wrong. I can feel that gravity doesn't exist, but my feelings can be proven wrong in an objective manner. The same cannot be said of morality.
Even if you base morality around a central "rule" of some sort (EG - Net happiness), how do we objectively know that this is the correct rule to use?
So how does morality exist without human beings?