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Is objective morality/justice imaginary?
Posted: Sat May 12, 2018 1:32 pm
by Atheer
Hi all,
hope can find some answers to my questions here. I will try to abbreviate.
If there is objective morality, then equal interests per life time for each sentient being should be the aim to achieve. Therefore:
1. Utilitarianism can not be objective because it ignores the distribution of well-being and separateness of persons.
2. Theories considering the separateness of persons on the other hand, can have one of the following results:
2.1 Libertarianism:
This can not be objective because it ignores the distribution of well-being.
2.2 Egalitarianism/Equality
Even if we assume that some version of it aims at providing equal interests per life time for each sentient being, it can not achieve that.
People are not going to end up having equal well-being. You can not prevent that some individuals will end up worse off than others. You can not control how each individual lives and dies.
If you think this is not an argument against separateness of persons, think about this:
If separateness of persons is true in the egalitarian sense, then the world is equally bad or good whether one person/sentient being or all persons but one person in the world is worse off.
If separatness of persons and equality are requirements for objective morality, then as long as there is one human or sentient animal suffering or going to suffer, it makes no moral difference to help others.
The problem is that it does seem these two are requirements of objective morality.
As long as illness and natural disasters happen to humans, carnivorous animals have to eat other animals or suffer and die themselves, we can not provide equal wellbeing to each sentient being. And if we can not that, then separateness of persons and equal distribution of well-being will be both required for objective morality to exist and impossible to achieve, which only leaves us with the option that it is imaginary!
Is objective morality imaginary?
Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?
Posted: Mon May 14, 2018 11:42 pm
by A_Seagull
Atheer wrote: ↑Sat May 12, 2018 1:32 pm
Is objective morality imaginary?
Yes.
Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?
Posted: Tue May 22, 2018 1:07 am
by tassieguy
Yes, objectivity in morality imaginary.
The illusion that our moral values are objective is a product of evolution. Evolution came up with strategies that worked, not strategies that were morally right. Evolution is blind to moral truth for the same reason that our preferred behaviours don’t track moral truth: There’s no such thing.
I find it interesting how people (scientists, philosophers and lay people alike) continue to tie themselves in knots trying to invent objective value and force it onto a world that cannot contain it. They are still in thrall of the illusion of objectivity that evolution foisted on us to make us pursue strategies that got us through the Pleistocene.
Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?
Posted: Tue May 22, 2018 1:19 am
by Greta
I find that justice, when it occurs, is largely a happy accident.
Posted: Tue May 22, 2018 2:37 am
by henry quirk
Justice is subjective.
A serial child rapist/murderer is caught, tried, convicted, and sentenced to The Chair.
Sure as shit, a significant number of nimrods will protest the upcoming execution as unjust.
Now, it's possible there 'is' an objective or universal or absolute justice, but none of us ('us' being humans) is qualified to say for sure.
No, goin' only by what we know and can know, I have to say justice (morality) is subjective, shifty and shifting.
So: suss out your wrongs and rights, defend your sussings the best you can, take it up with *Crom after you croak.
*like Crom gives two shits...
Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?
Posted: Tue May 22, 2018 10:23 pm
by Impenitent
Greta wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 1:19 am
I find that justice, when it occurs, is largely a happy accident.
flavorless snowcones
-Imp
Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?
Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 12:10 am
by Greta
Impenitent wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 10:23 pm
Greta wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 1:19 am
I find that justice, when it occurs, is largely a happy accident.
flavorless snowcones
Haven't you noticed justice's arbitrariness?
You write like a Trump voter.
Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?
Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 1:08 am
by Impenitent
Greta wrote: ↑Wed May 23, 2018 12:10 am
Impenitent wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 10:23 pm
Greta wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 1:19 am
I find that justice, when it occurs, is largely a happy accident.
flavorless snowcones
Haven't you noticed justice's arbitrariness?
You write like a Trump voter.
nothing arbitrary about frozen water
-Imp
Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?
Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 3:07 am
by Greta
Impenitent wrote: ↑Wed May 23, 2018 1:08 am
Greta wrote: ↑Wed May 23, 2018 12:10 am
Impenitent wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 10:23 pm
flavorless snowcones
Haven't you noticed justice's arbitrariness?
You write like a Trump voter.
nothing arbitrary about frozen water
yet the penguins of truth shall bring order
Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?
Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 3:00 pm
by bahman
Atheer wrote: ↑Sat May 12, 2018 1:32 pm
Hi all,
hope can find some answers to my questions here. I will try to abbreviate.
If there is objective morality, then equal interests per life time for each sentient being should be the aim to achieve. Therefore:
1. Utilitarianism can not be objective because it ignores the distribution of well-being and separateness of persons.
2. Theories considering the separateness of persons on the other hand, can have one of the following results:
2.1 Libertarianism:
This can not be objective because it ignores the distribution of well-being.
2.2 Egalitarianism/Equality
Even if we assume that some version of it aims at providing equal interests per life time for each sentient being, it can not achieve that.
People are not going to end up having equal well-being. You can not prevent that some individuals will end up worse off than others. You can not control how each individual lives and dies.
If you think this is not an argument against separateness of persons, think about this:
If separateness of persons is true in the egalitarian sense, then the world is equally bad or good whether one person/sentient being or all persons but one person in the world is worse off.
If separatness of persons and equality are requirements for objective morality, then as long as there is one human or sentient animal suffering or going to suffer, it makes no moral difference to help others.
The problem is that it does seem these two are requirements of objective morality.
As long as illness and natural disasters happen to humans, carnivorous animals have to eat other animals or suffer and die themselves, we can not provide equal wellbeing to each sentient being. And if we can not that, then separateness of persons and equal distribution of well-being will be both required for objective morality to exist and impossible to achieve, which only leaves us with the option that it is imaginary!
Is objective morality imaginary?
It is a property of experience.
Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?
Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2018 5:51 am
by Kayla
I find wine - even the supposedly good stuff - to taste excessively bitter. Don't like the stuff. (Canadian ice wine is not unpleasant but to me it basically tastes like expensive sugar water)
this is a subjective matter of taste, and it is clear what is meant by saying that it is subjective. wine is not, in any universal sense, bitter
i think that torturing kittens for fun is wrong
in what sense is that subjective?
If someone says 'torturing kittens for fun is not wrong' - what meanings could you attribute to the words being uttered that would make taht statement true ? i cannot think of any
Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?
Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2018 6:41 am
by -1-
Kayla wrote: ↑Sat Jun 16, 2018 5:51 am
I find wine - even the supposedly good stuff - to taste excessively bitter. Don't like the stuff. (Canadian ice wine is not unpleasant but to me it basically tastes like expensive sugar water)
this is a subjective matter of taste, and it is clear what is meant by saying that it is subjective. wine is not, in any universal sense, bitter
i think that torturing kittens for fun is wrong
in what sense is that subjective?
If someone says 'torturing kittens for fun is not wrong' - what meanings could you attribute to the words being uttered that would make taht statement true ? i cannot think of any
You are right, torturing kittens for fun is wrong.
But the problem of subjectivity is that "wrong" is a completely human construct. To a Komodo Dragon torturing kittens is not wrong, because the Komodo Dragon has no concept of what makes something wrong.
The subjectiveness of quality is not restricted to difference or no difference between human and human; the subjectiveness of quality can be expanded, and ought to be expanded, to inter-species and inter-vivality units.
Biting a live kitten's head off is wrong for a human to do; but not for a, let's say, hippopotamus.
Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?
Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2018 6:44 am
by -1-
Greta wrote: ↑Wed May 23, 2018 12:10 am
Impenitent wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 10:23 pm
flavorless snowcones
Haven't you noticed justice's arbitrariness?
You write like a Trump voter.
Imp is saying "just ice".
Greta, please get with the program. Puns are of supreme importance on this website.
Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?
Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2018 7:03 am
by Necromancer
To go the other way, not enforcing justice can destroy a society!
Maybe people think (Atheistic) North Korea is some kind of fun. The actions of injustice are all objective ("enough"). Immorality in people can be investigated (by fMRI, for instance, and other). To grant people the right to self-defence in light of police corruption is a moral act.
It seems to me to say that hard won rights like the right to vote, abolition of slavery and human rights (UDHR) are supposed to be "subjective" is the typical armchair philosophy, completely detached from the real World.
2000 years of progress, eliminating clan wars and the state of war among common people and some idiot, after picking up the well-tasting groceries at the supermarket is supposed to cancel the whole thing by declaring justice and Kantian ethics and morality subjective...
Get real!
Re: Is objective morality/justice imaginary?
Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2018 12:37 pm
by Walker
-1- wrote: ↑Sat Jun 16, 2018 6:41 am
Kayla wrote: ↑Sat Jun 16, 2018 5:51 am
I find wine - even the supposedly good stuff - to taste excessively bitter. Don't like the stuff. (Canadian ice wine is not unpleasant but to me it basically tastes like expensive sugar water)
this is a subjective matter of taste, and it is clear what is meant by saying that it is subjective. wine is not, in any universal sense, bitter
i think that torturing kittens for fun is wrong
in what sense is that subjective?
If someone says 'torturing kittens for fun is not wrong' - what meanings could you attribute to the words being uttered that would make taht statement true ? i cannot think of any
You are right, torturing kittens for fun is wrong.
But the problem of subjectivity is that "wrong" is a completely human construct. To a Komodo Dragon torturing kittens is not wrong, because the Komodo Dragon has no concept of what makes something wrong.
The subjectiveness of quality is not restricted to difference or no difference between human and human; the subjectiveness of quality can be expanded, and ought to be expanded, to inter-species and inter-vivality units.
Biting a live kitten's head off is wrong for a human to do; but not for a, let's say, hippopotamus.
"But the problem of subjectivity is that "wrong" is a completely human construct. To a Komodo Dragon torturing kittens is not wrong, because the Komodo Dragon has no concept of what makes something wrong."
Ignorance of wrong doing is not a justifiable defense for a Komodo Dragon torturing babies, and such action will be punished with the reality of death to the dragon, which means that for Komodo Dragons, completely human constructs ultimately define reality with the power of irrevocable change, which is an objective situation.