Is morality objective or subjective?

Should you think about your duty, or about the consequences of your actions? Or should you concentrate on becoming a good person?

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Will Bouwman
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Will Bouwman »

Skepdick wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 9:33 pmYou don't think there's tacit know-how for distinguishing science from non-science, even if the distinction process can't be made explicit?!?
Meh. The edges are fuzzy. Immanuel Can, in case you can't keep up, thinks the scientific method was invented in 1620.
Skepdick
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Skepdick »

Will Bouwman wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 9:54 pm
Skepdick wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 9:33 pmYou don't think there's tacit know-how for distinguishing science from non-science, even if the distinction process can't be made explicit?!?
Meh. The edges are fuzzy. Immanuel Can, in case you can't keep up, thinks the scientific method was invented in 1620.
Well yeah. The new one was. That's how iterative improvement works...

If you want to go back to who invented what then the Orthodox Christians codified an early version of theorising.
Only back then it was wee bit different. Acquiring knowledge/insight was dressed up in religious language.

theoria - observation, contemplation. Illumination with or direct experience of the Triune God.

Back then they were all flying on intuition and any and all insight that came to them was so surprising it was deemed to be Divine.
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iambiguous
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by iambiguous »

Skepdick wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 7:19 am Minds like me have plethora of examples of how NOT to be like while navigating the world...

Really? Okay, given a moral conflagration of note, cite some examples of behaviors all rational and virtuous men and women ought to avoid in order to sustain actual moral obligations. If you do believe that morality is within the reach of the deontologically minded.

Let's see if I'm wrong about you when this all comes down out of the theoretical clouds.
Skepdick
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Skepdick »

iambiguous wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 10:49 pm Really? Okay, given a moral conflagration of note, cite some examples of behaviors all rational and virtuous men and women ought to avoid in order to sustain actual moral obligations.
You don't think sparing your progeny from congenital disabilities and genetic disorders fits the bill?
iambiguous wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 10:49 pm If you do believe that morality is within the reach of the deontologically minded.

Let's see if I'm wrong about you when this all comes down out of the theoretical clouds.
Which part of our interaction has been theoretical in your clouded mind?
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iambiguous
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by iambiguous »

Skepdick wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 10:58 pm
iambiguous wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 10:49 pm Really? Okay, given a moral conflagration of note, cite some examples of behaviors all rational and virtuous men and women ought to avoid in order to sustain actual moral obligations.
You don't think sparing your progeny from congenital disabilities and genetic disorders fits the bill?
Again, as I noted above to VA:
Well, let's just say that the relationship between genes and memes in the human species is such that we can go far, far beyond biological imperatives. Once recognizing that inbreeding poses any number of problematic consequences, actual copulation can be avoided. Or one can have a vasectomy or a hysterectomy and then even pregnancy itself is out of the question.

So, is sex between, say, two sisters or two brothers inherently/necessarily immoral? Unless, of course, one does posit a God, the God, their God, and it becomes a "mortal sin"?
iambiguous wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 10:49 pm If you do believe that morality is within the reach of the deontologically minded.

Let's see if I'm wrong about you when this all comes down out of the theoretical clouds.
Skepdick wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 10:58 pmWhich part of our interaction has been theoretical in your clouded mind?
My point is that when we bring incest or abortion or gun control or gender roles etc., down out of the theoretical clouds, things can get very, very cloudy indeed.

At least until the moral objectivists among us can provide us with something analogous to a deontological resolution?

Now, let's commence new discussions regarding moral conflagrations that are of particular interest to you.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Immanuel Can »

Will Bouwman wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 9:26 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 3:56 pm
Will Bouwman wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 3:47 pm So in your view Tycho Brahe, for instance, a very methodical astronomer, can't be called a scientist because he died in 1601.
To the extent that the methods they used conformed to the scientific method, they were. To the extent they wandered from it, they were not.
What scientific method?
Did you read my earlier messages on that? Maybe not. Here you go. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Immanuel Can »

nemos wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 9:29 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 3:20 pm So...you don't really know. It's just that, so far as you can remember, "everyone I know" says there's a Hell, and Satan lives in it? And you think that they came to that by "thinking about it"?

I just want to get your explanation straight here, before I comment.
Yes, somesing like that.
Then you're operating on pure mythology and incorrect reporting. This is not at all the situation described by the Bible. But that's a topic you can find out about yourself. https://www.gotquestions.org/Satan-in-hell.html
Skepdick
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Skepdick »

iambiguous wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 11:18 pm At least until the moral objectivists among us can provide us with something analogous to a deontological resolution?
Does anyone have a duty to furnish you with a deontological resolution?

The irony of pretending to be something more than a theoretical navel-gazing philosopher and then dragging the debate right back into theoretical navelgazing.
nemos
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by nemos »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 11:55 pm Then you're operating on pure mythology and incorrect reporting. This is not at all the situation described by the Bible. But that's a topic you can find out about yourself. https://www.gotquestions.org/Satan-in-hell.html
Do you think mythologies can be correct? Although our actions are determined not by what is right, but by what we consider to be right.
I'm just interested in people's thoughts and opinions and it seems you don't have one. The Bible (or how you interpret it, subjectively of course(I assume you consider yourself a subject)) replaces everything for you, so that thinking is not only unnecessary, but can even be harmful, because it can lead you off the "right" path (mythology) -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_fanaticism
Dubious
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Dubious »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 3:16 pmAnd you can't even frame a question that's grammatically correct, let alone one premised on any facts, it would seem.
As someone who has never deviated from correct grammar, please point out the errors in mine.

You wrote:
If my brain is nothing but a random accident in a place that is produced by random forces, why should I believe what my brain tells me?
To which I replied:
If your brain tells you to believe in the bible, why do you believe that without any encountered skepticism?
So, how is my counter question which relates to yours, grammatically incorrect? I’d be interested in knowing! As the saying goes, put up or shut up!
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 3:16 pmBut I'm curious: it's also interesting that you think that attempting to shame is a useful tactic, especially against somebody you really don't know at all.
How is it possible not to know you in terms of how you think after nearly 22,000 posts? You always claim that as some kind of defense as if you were posting for the first time. Most here have long known you for what you are, as described many times.
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 3:16 pmAre you female? I have to wonder: for I have noted that that strategy is mostly associated with women, and with only very low-testosterone males...
I see! So if I were female would I be forgiven for my total lack of strategy?

There is no mystery in what to expect from you most of the time, but this is surprising! I never expected you to repeat an old Henry Quirk routine who had the unusual habit of using women as a form of insult. Enough to say, if I were a reasonably intelligent female, I’d be very much prone to attempt an escape from the biblical dungeon you're in...meaning, mentally immured in an old script which tells you almost everything you need to know without further inquiries as to what there is to know.

The state of your intellect reminds of what happened to Fortunato – an ironic name based on what happened to him - in Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado.

Your posts are a denigration of anything normally meant or implied by reason, intelligence, logic, and history itself. When Nietzsche’s brain permanently retired itself into silence, that alone made him vastly superior to the public editions of pure bullshit you and your ilk never cease to come up with.
Will Bouwman
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Will Bouwman »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 11:53 pm
Will Bouwman wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 9:26 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 3:56 pm
To the extent that the methods they used conformed to the scientific method, they were. To the extent they wandered from it, they were not.
What scientific method?
Did you read my earlier messages on that? Maybe not. Here you go. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
The opening paragraph to that article says this:
The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century. (For notable practitioners in previous centuries, see history of scientific method. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_o ... fic_method)
Those notable practitioners go back to ancient Babylonia and Egypt, through classical antiquity, onto the middle ages and the golden age of Islam, next stop the 12th century renaissance featuring Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon (no relation), segueing into the later renaissance and the likes of Tycho Brahe (remember him?) and finally we get to Francis Bacon, who was indeed influential, before moving swiftly on to Descartes, Galileo and Isaac Newton, followed by 18th and 19th century practitioners and theorists, notably Charles Sanders Peirce, bringing us up to the 20th and the familiar Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend et al.
Your idea that there was no scientific method before Francis Bacon is simply false, and your assertion that it took Christianity to come up with one is demonstrably untrue.
Again:
Will Bouwman wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 3:47 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Jan 31, 2024 3:11 pmBut science is rather a special thing, with its own methodology.
No it isn't. It is a sprawling jumble of different practices, loosely held together by observation, measurement and experiment. Once that sinks in, I look forward to you repeating it to me as if it were an original thought of yours. Should take about two weeks.
Will Bouwman
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Will Bouwman »

Skepdick wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 10:23 pmBack then they were all flying on intuition and any and all insight that came to them was so surprising it was deemed to be Divine.
And you don't know what you are talking about either.
Skepdick
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Skepdick »

Will Bouwman wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2024 10:41 am And you don't know what you are talking about either.
That's quite a catchy phrase in sophistry, but it literally amounts to an argument from ignorance.

I know what I am talking about. That's why I am talking about it.

Your inability to understand isn't evidence for lacking knowledge about the subject matter I'm talking about.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Immanuel Can »

nemos wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2024 6:50 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 11:55 pm Then you're operating on pure mythology and incorrect reporting. This is not at all the situation described by the Bible. But that's a topic you can find out about yourself. https://www.gotquestions.org/Satan-in-hell.html
Do you think mythologies can be correct?
"Correct" in what sort of way? Factually? Metaphorically? In terms of their message? How?

They "can" be correct in some of these ways. But I'm not sure what the real question there is asking.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Immanuel Can »

Dubious wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2024 10:11 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2024 3:16 pmAnd you can't even frame a question that's grammatically correct, let alone one premised on any facts, it would seem.
As someone who has never deviated from correct grammar, please point out the errors in mine.
No, thank you. Go back to your own earlier question, and you'll figure it out.
Last edited by Immanuel Can on Fri Feb 02, 2024 3:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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