Is morality objective or subjective?

[Immanuel Can]

You accused me of not understanding Hume's is-ought dichotomy.

I noted it as evident. I didn't have to "accuse," because it wasn't personal. It was just a fact to be noted.

Note my full post

Not worth my time. No interesting or challenging ideas in it.

[Atla]

That's a shame. Because that's what morality is.

But it also explains why you suppose it cannot possibly be objective, because we can both then see that without God, it cannot. And if I disbelieved in God, maybe I would believe something closer to what you do...but I think I'd be even more consistent than you're being, and I'd realize that subjectivism means there's no real morality at all...it's all a delusion. And I can't help but wonder if that realization wouldn't make me act rather differently than I do now.

I wonder if any of us would have the courage to live as if we really believed that. I can see right now that even hardcore subjectivists are afraid to live the logic of their creed. If we did, I'm pretty certain it would make for one ugly world, though.

I'll repeat again: all these gods are probably just fantasies / psychological illusions,

If you are confident of that, you must have a reason. So what is that reason?

...we need a new morality.

Everybody agrees on that. But just because we want one and know we need one doesn't mean we're going to be able to get one. Even you have recognized that it won't be had on subjectivist terms, because nobody can be made to agree on subjectivist terms. So you're even willing to resort to a pseudo-objective one...

In other words, you're now so determined to get a new morality that you're prepared to allow or encourage something inherently immoral...pseudo-morality, indoctrinated or installed in people though techonology. But I think many people would see the undermining of individual free choice and personhood as the ultimate immoral act. It's programming, not morality. And it's arbitrary and totalitarian.

And I'd have to agree. Whatever the need is, that can't be our strategy, because it undermines the very thing we're looking for...morality.

Pseudo-objective morality is a form of subjective morality, and may be one of the most moral possible moralities, if it gets established by worldwide consensus.

I didn't say programming morality at all. I said increasing the natural intelligence and empathy of humans through gene engineering, which would benefit everyone even if people remained objective moralists. I guess we could even establish a new worldwide religion with a new God after humans have been enhanced, a really good religion, if enough people would still require that, in addition to establishing the atheist version, but they should share the same consensus morality.

[Will Bouwman]

Second, there's nothing in the description of flight that justifies the word 'faith' being used.

Then you don't know what "faith" is. You think, perhaps, it's some uniquely-religious operation, like lighting taper candles or sacrificing virgins. It's not. It's a very ordinary thing that everybody does every day...but which most non-religious people are oblivious to even having done.

Biblically, "faith" simply means "trust" of the kind in which one invests oneself in a belief. If you think it means anything else, then I'm sorry...you're just wrong.

Whether you call it trust, or faith, it is by your own admission a different sort of faith. I personally wouldn't call my attitude to aeroplanes or gravity faith. If I were to, and if ever I had a crisis of faith, I could pick up a brick and drop it. You can't ask the same of God because:

...you have to really want to know Him. He does not come and perform tricks to satisfy cynics.

You don't have to want to know gravity, it will reveal itself even to cynics.

[Iwannaplato]

...you have to really want to know Him. He does not come and perform tricks to satisfy cynics.

You don't have to want to know gravity, it will reveal itself even to cynics.

Yes, and further he's contradicting himself. He has said a few times that all atheists know there is a God, and cited Romans 1 as 'proof' of this. So, even cynics already know. Unless the cynics aren't atheists and have managed to overcome God's presumably all-powerful obviousness.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Second, there's nothing in the description of flight that justifies the word 'faith' being used.

Then you don't know what "faith" is. You think, perhaps, it's some uniquely-religious operation, like lighting taper candles or sacrificing virgins. It's not. It's a very ordinary thing that everybody does every day...but which most non-religious people are oblivious to even having done.

Biblically, "faith" simply means "trust" of the kind in which one invests oneself in a belief. If you think it means anything else, then I'm sorry...you're just wrong.

Whether you call it trust, or faith, it is by your own admission a different sort of faith. I personally wouldn't call my attitude to aeroplanes or gravity faith. If I were to, and if ever I had a crisis of faith, I could pick up a brick and drop it. You can't ask the same of God because:

...you have to really want to know Him. He does not come and perform tricks to satisfy cynics.

You don't have to want to know gravity, it will reveal itself even to cynics.

As usual IC will give all sorts of flimsy arguments, excuses and handwave valid counters.
Why waste your time waiting for the cows to come home?

If you banked on this;
It is Impossible for God to be Real
viewtopic.php?t=40229
and demonstrating God is merely an illusion,

then theists and IC will have no legs to stand on to argue whatever sort of theological morality is grounded on truth and realness.

[Peter Holmes]

Just an observation.

Arguments about the existence of supernatural things - such as souls, spirits, ghosts, fairies, goblins, devils, angels and gods - are completely separate from arguments about the nature of morality.

Supernaturalists have to address the problem of how non-physical causes can have physical effects - and how physical effects can be evidence for non-physical causes - the question of causal mechanism. (An appeal to magic is a childish superstition, in my opinion.)

But I disagree with VA that the existence of supernatural things - specifically gods - is an impossibility, because that claim incurs a burden of proof which, as I see it, can't be met. So I think the rational position is disbelief, pending evidence.

So arguments for theistic 'anything', including moral objectivism, don't even make it to the starting post - or haven't so far. They don't, as it were, 'have standing' in moral discourse. Until a god is shown to exist, an argument from its existence to moral objectivity is useless.

So we're left with the claim that there are moral facts, so that morality is, therefore, objective. And the absence of evidence and sound argument to support that claim seems to me undeniable.

[Veritas Aequitas]

But I disagree with VA that the existence of supernatural things - specifically gods - is an impossibility, because that claim incurs a burden of proof which, as I see it, can't be met. So I think the rational position is disbelief, pending evidence.

Do you have a counter for my argument?

It is Impossible for God to be Real
viewtopic.php?t=40229

[Peter Holmes]

But I disagree with VA that the existence of supernatural things - specifically gods - is an impossibility, because that claim incurs a burden of proof which, as I see it, can't be met. So I think the rational position is disbelief, pending evidence.

Do you have a counter for my argument?

It is Impossible for God to be Real
viewtopic.php?t=40229

Here's your argument:

P1. For all theists, God must be absolutely perfect and existing as real.
P2. But, Absolute perfection is impossible to exists as real. [sic]
C1. Therefore it is impossible for God to exists real. [sic]

This mistakes the abstract nouns absoluteness and perfection for things of some kind that, therefore, may or may not exist, or whose existence may be impossible. And that's an ancient philosophical delusion.

In descriptive contexts, we can use them and their cognates perfectly rationally. For example:

The meal was perfect.
Her testimony was absolutely truthful.

[Harbal]

Just an observation.

Arguments about the existence of supernatural things - such as souls, spirits, ghosts, fairies, goblins, devils, angels and gods - are completely separate from arguments about the nature of morality.

And arguments about morality between those who believe in God and those who don't are completely pointless, because they rely on totally different frames of reference.

So arguments for theistic 'anything', including moral objectivism, don't even make it to the starting post - or haven't so far. They don't, as it were, 'have standing' in moral discourse. Until a god is shown to exist, an argument from its existence to moral objectivity is useless.

So we're left with the claim that there are moral facts, so that morality is, therefore, objective. And the absence of evidence and sound argument to support that claim seems to me undeniable.

In my understanding, subjectivity is an intrinsic part of the definition of morality; it is the subjectivity that makes it morality. A set of edicts from an all powerful authority would be a form of law, not a system of morality. Despite IC's refusal to admit or aknowledge it, he know as well as everyone else that we act on our own moral judgement all the time. Personal morality exists; we know because we all experience it every day. When IC says it's just an illusion, it is the same as telling me that I don't experience blue when I look at a cloudless sky. That would be too ridiculous to even argue about, yet I and others have somehow let him draw us into such arguments.

[Atla]

Personal morality exists; we know because we all experience it

It's estimated that only about 96% of us experience personal morality.

[FlashDangerpants]

Just an observation.

Arguments about the existence of supernatural things - such as souls, spirits, ghosts, fairies, goblins, devils, angels and gods - are completely separate from arguments about the nature of morality.

And arguments about morality between those who believe in God and those who don't are completely pointless, because they rely on totally different frames of reference.

In most cases that would be an overstatement. What makes it impossible to discuss these things usefully with IC isn't that he has a special frame of reference, it's that he specialises in never telling you his argument. I've seen him tell people off for putting words into his mouth, I've no idea what his actual argument is though.

He sort of seems to insist that there's something about both the nature and the will of god involved, but does anybody have any idea what IC thinks it is that makes some action, outcome, judgment or rule actually a good one or a bad one? Is it in his interests for you to actually be able to answer that question?

If the discussion must always fall away at the point where something is for God to know and for you to accept on faith, then the real problem is that fanatic doesn't know what his own explanation is and cannot do his end of any debate.

[Harbal]

Personal morality exists; we know because we all experience it

It's estimated that only about 96% of us experience personal morality.

I can accept that, but I think I know a man who can't.

[Immanuel Can]

Pseudo-objective morality is a form of subjective morality,

Yes...subjective, and arbitrary, and authoritarian and indoctrinatory. It's all of that, not just subjective.

...if it gets established by worldwide consensus.

Nothing ever does.

I didn't say programming morality at all. I said increasing the natural intelligence and empathy of humans through gene engineering...

Think about it: it's exactly the same thing. the "gene engineers" or their bosses, have to know already what "increased empathy" would look like...what things and values they want their subjects to move toward. If they don't know, they can't "engineer" it at all.

So they already know. They've decided. That means that either they are already the "good" people, or that they are merely authoritarian meddlers. But without a code to judge which they are beforehand, we don't know if we're handing ourselves or our children over to therapists or despots. We can't tell, because we lack the objective morality that would let us estimate that. And subjectivists tell us we can't have any certain standards by which to judge, at all. So we're handing ourselves over to technocratic manipulators, who may or may not be good people who will do the right thing, and we have no way of knowing whether that's good or not.

And judging by history, the chances that a set of technocrats are universally good people is practically zero.

So no, that's a terrible idea.

[Immanuel Can]

Second, there's nothing in the description of flight that justifies the word 'faith' being used.

Then you don't know what "faith" is. You think, perhaps, it's some uniquely-religious operation, like lighting taper candles or sacrificing virgins. It's not. It's a very ordinary thing that everybody does every day...but which most non-religious people are oblivious to even having done.

Biblically, "faith" simply means "trust" of the kind in which one invests oneself in a belief. If you think it means anything else, then I'm sorry...you're just wrong.

Whether you call it trust, or faith, it is by your own admission a different sort of faith.

I'm sorry, you're wrong: and looking back, I don't see any admission to that effect at all. In fact, I've said the dead opposite: that faith is nothing unusual at all. And you know that's what I said, because you go straight to my normal examples of airplanes and gravity. Why that, if I was trying to tell you that faith was "different" from the kinds you show in airplanes and gravity?

I personally wouldn't call my attitude to aeroplanes or gravity faith.

That's maybe because you've hitherto had the mistaken idea that what detractors of religion want to call "faith" was an honest representation of the truth about what Biblical faith is. But they lied to you, and you can see that for yourself if you were to read the Bible. What they said it says is not what it says.

If I were to, and if ever I had a crisis of faith, I could pick up a brick and drop it. You can't ask the same of God because:

...you have to really want to know Him. He does not come and perform tricks to satisfy cynics.

You don't have to want to know gravity, it will reveal itself even to cynics.

That's because gravity isn't a person. It has no will, no intelligence. It's just a theory about what we call a "force." (We're not exactly sure that's the right way to characterize it, but that's what we tend to say.) Gravity does not have the intention that you should come into a personal relationship with it. It doesn't want your trust and your commitment. It doesn't want your faith. You volunteer your faith in it, but gravity does not care, because gravity isn't the kind of thing that can care.

But consider your spouse. If one says to a wife, "Do tricks for me, until I believe you are genuine," you have a very strange sort of relationship with her. You're depersonalizing and manipulating her, and she's dancing to your tune. Can you imagine, if a woman would rightly refuse such an offer, that the God of the universe should go along with it? Do you think that would signal a healthy, rightly-ordered relationship?

But what does a woman say to a man? She says, "Prove to me you love me, and I'll trust you." That's the exchange. God's already done His side of that equation, and now he waits for your response. But there will be no further proofs, far less tricks, until you keep your end of that bargain. That's why the Bible says, "...without faith it is impossible to please Him, for the one who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He proves to be One who rewards those who seek Him." (Hebrews 11:6)

In other words, it's not His turn; it's yours.

[Immanuel Can]

He has said a few times that all atheists know there is a God, and cited Romans 1 as 'proof' of this.

Yes, I have. But as I have pointed out, there are two types of "knowing": certain and probablistic. Probabilistic knowledge applies to all empirical matters. I've said this at least two times so far...

And therefore, Atheists know probabilistically that there is a God. But they claim to know certainly that there isn't, which is absurd even from a secular, epistemological perspective.

This isn't hard. You must be genuinely at pains to misrepresent this.