Is morality just glorified opinion?
It sounds to me that arguments about what constitutes "right" and "wrong" are mere opinions and the only thing that really matters is the cost for going against them. Looking across history what is considered good or bad changes depending on where you are, yet in modernity we set some sort of arbitrary goal post that is considered "progress" from what was before (but really in the big picture nothing is better or worse).
I don't believe in right and wrong, well not anymore. There are actions and consequences and it really only boils down to whether you can live with the results of your actions. Sure I enjoy peace and safety but I wouldn't really call such things "good" in any objective sense any more than I would label murder "bad". Doesn't mean I want things to happen to me but I don't see them as bad or immoral.
It's just hard to take seriously anyone arguing for objective morality when it's pretty easily to prove that false, considering we made up morality (among other things).
I don't believe in right and wrong, well not anymore. There are actions and consequences and it really only boils down to whether you can live with the results of your actions. Sure I enjoy peace and safety but I wouldn't really call such things "good" in any objective sense any more than I would label murder "bad". Doesn't mean I want things to happen to me but I don't see them as bad or immoral.
It's just hard to take seriously anyone arguing for objective morality when it's pretty easily to prove that false, considering we made up morality (among other things).
Comments (87)
Quoting Darkneos
Quoting Darkneos
Would be the sort of things moral realists would disagree with you on. I’m not one, so I don’t know how one would disagree. And I don’t think there are many moral realists on the forum either.
You seem to be a moral anti-realist. Someone who thinks questions of morality make no sense in the first place. That nothing is right or wrong. Not many like you around either.
Then there are moral relativists who define what’s “right” or “wrong” relative to something or other (the individual, the society, etc). Something can be wrong now and right later. This seems to be what applies to the majority of posters here from what I’ve seen.
And what of the cases where someone has intuitions that don’t match the majority? I think all of us have a few of those. What do we do about them?
You maybe right but then how does one distinguish intuitions from knowledge? Also, no smoke without fire; that the intuitions of disparate cultures converge to a set of moral codes is a big hint that there are objective moral truths that our gut-feelings zero in on, no?
It really depends on what you mean by objective. If objective just means everyone agrees on it, then yes your statement above would apply.
However if you want to divorce "objective" from "inter-subjective" (as in everyone agrees on it) then your statement doesn't apply. We would just have a hint that there is an "inter-subjective" morality but no reason to think it matches whatever the "objective" morality is. Now, having divorced them, I have no clue how you would ascertain what the "objective" morality is but that's a problem for moral realists.
Quoting TheMadFool
Knowledge implies a much higher degree of certainty.
Less than 200 years ago, my elders believed it was honorable to eat another man's heart. Maori warriors would fight and kill their opponents, and eat his heart to honor his death, and absorb his strength.
My Grandfather was in his early 20s when he got my Grandmother pregnant at 11 years old. I remember my Great Aunts talking about it as if it was normal back then, as long as they were married.
It seems obvious that morals are a social construct. Actions are morally measured by how they make you and your peers feel, and also the neighborhood.
It's all trial and error, which is complicated if your too short sighted to look back in history.
If, as I argue, harm isn't merely subjective, and if, furthermore, moral good isn't merely a matter of opinion, show me what I'm missing or where my thinking goes wrong (re: posts linked).
Quoting khaled
By the way, those moral rules that we agree on - thou shalt not kill for example - are justifiable i.e. in your universe it counts as an objective moral truth and can't be an intersubjective phenomenon. What say you?
Is it possible for everyone to simultaneously think that something is wrong and it be right anyways and vice versa? If so, then what is the method you use for determining what is moral?
Quoting TheMadFool
Definitely not coincidence. But it IS evolutionary. It's just that the ones that didn't see eye to eye with us were killed, jailed, or died out.
You are reducing a significant question to a matter of mere personal whim.
Morality is the distilled product of humans trying to settle on common rules of right and wrong. There are some major exceptions, but most people have agreed over time that arbitrarily killing people is wrong. Rape, theft, arson, and like acts are likewise considered wrong. We recognize that IF we are going to live together peaceably then some acts have to be condemned and punished. We also recognize actions which contribute to peaceable life together--love, loyalty, generosity, flexibility, and so forth are considered right.
No manageable moral system will cover everything. About many issues, like whether you should paint your house white or yellow, are areas where mere opinion rules. Do you prefer labrador retrievers or collies? Mere opinion. Gray cats or yellow cats? Apples or oranges? Rayon, nylon, or polyester? Pastrami or peanut butter? All mere opinion.
Quoting Darkneos
"We" did make it up; that doesn't mean it is merely arbitrary and capricious opinion. It's is also true, especially in your case, that your mere opinion will not outweigh everybody else's.
I'll give you an empirical example to get my point across. If 1 person sees a boat on the horizon, you would be more doubtful than if 10 people had made the same claim. In essence, the rule of thumb for objectivity seems to be more the merrier. Thus my belief that the overlap in moral codes among various culitures and religion points to some objective moral facts that people seem to have intuited.
On the matter of intersubjectivity, I suspect the first order of business is to establish that what we have on our hands is actually, unequivocally, subjective. No intercollege without college. To say moral convergence could be intersubjective would mean we already know that morality is subjective. Begging the question situation, no?
Which definition of objective though? Why aren't you answering?
Quoting TheMadFool
But that doesn't apply in this case.
Propose that the "Objective moral code" was "Kill whenever you can and steal whenever you can". If tribe A believes this and tribe B believes that you should not kill and you should not steal, tribe A would all perish. And tribe B would survive. We are tribe B as we have survived. See? A situation where everyone thinks morality is one way but it is actually another way. And the tribe that perished were right all along!
Point is, if you want to divorce morality from agreement, and propose that there is some "Objective moral code" that is set in stone and unchanged by whether or not people believe it then you cannot assume that the smoke is pointing to a fire in this case. Or rather, the fire it is pointing to is the "Evolutionarily advantageous morality" not the "Objective morality" you want.
The difference with empirical sciences is, if tribe A wishes to believe that there is no flood incoming, but tribe B rightly believes that there is a flood coming and so they move, tribe A will perish, as they were wrong. In other words, being wrong about the "objective morality" has no practical consequences but being wrong about empirical observations does have practical consequences. And since we are all alive, we can assume that our empirical observations are correct. Because, if like tribe A we were not able to see floods, we would have perished.
Quoting TheMadFool
No. Something can be intersubjective and also objective. Nothing wrong there. It can happen that everyone agrees on something and that something is the case.
It should also be theoretically possible for something to be objective and NOT intersubjective. As in, something is the case but not everyone agrees it is the case. Which is why I asked:
Quoting khaled
Then why are we arguing. We're on the same side.
No because I think morality is ONLY intersubjective. It is only based on agreement. It is not "out in the world" like a rock is. It's not written in stone (metaphorically) somewhere. Do you also think so?
Then you're misusing the term "intersubjective".
How so? I find that unlikely since I'm the one that introduced it.
Intersubjective just means everyone agrees on it. Morality is something (almost) everyone agrees on. But no more than that.
You're claiming morality is only intersubjective i.e. it isn't objective. That means it has to be subjective; in other words, what you're really saying or should be saying is that morality is subjective but then you're relying on intersubjectivity to bolster this claim which is wrong because you, yourself said "...Something can be intersubjective and also objective..."
Something CAN be intersubjective and also objective.
Not in this case, I don't think.
You think morality is objective. I don't know if you think it is intersubjective or not.
In other words: Do you think we have "figured out" morality? That what we agree on right now is, in fact, the "true moral code for all time"?
If yes then you think it is objective and intersubjective. If no then you think it is only objective, but we haven't figured it out yet.
Ok!
So... we done or are we gonna go back to argue?
I'm done. Thank you for teaching me about intersubjectivity. I have nothing more to add to the discussion.
By objective I denote subjectivity [perspective, consensus (intersubjective), language, gauge]–invariance e.g. arithmetic, gravity, boiling point of water, species functional defects of humans, etc.
Yea that's what I call "intersubjective"
Because the term "Objective" seems to have been booked by religions to denote something that is right to do regardless of what us mere mortals think is right to do. Which often instruct one to do things that everyone would agree subjectively suck. Like killing heretics occasionally. Or not eating certain foods even though they are harmless. Which is a case where the "Objectively right thing to do" (what God commands) is at direct odds with the "Intersubjectively right thing to do" (what seems right).
And why you mention "what God commands" with respective to objectivity is a complete non sequitur ... if there was ever a non-objective anti-realist social construct, it's (a) "God" (Cupitt).
It seems that you are saying that morality is purely subjective. I think that your emphasis on the way in which being able to live with consequences is an important one, and one that a lot of people don't really stop and think about. Personally, when I make personal decisions I think about whether I can live with the consequences, even though we cannot always see the long term consequences. But, nevertheless, I do see the validity of your argument in the way it is not the typical utilitarian, more generalised emphasis on the greater good. It gives focus to the intention of living with actions, which seems to combine intention of the act and the consequences, and I think that this is a workable way for thinking about ethics.
Of course, some would see it as relativist, especially as it does not have any sense of there being anything that is absolutely wrong. The only problem we end up with is what do we make of the person who has no conscience and can live with the consequences of anything: murder, rape or genocide. That is where things become a bit tricky with what I will call the subjective utilitarian approach. Do we say that there is no objective criteria and that there are no objective moral principles at all? This is where we begin to get into the rough waters and possible moral nihilism. Okay, most of us have consciences but, unfortunately, not everyone does.
That's the more useful definition. To avoid confusion I just spell out "Inter subjective" though. Don't want people assuming I'm referring to "objective" in the useless religious sense.
Dealing with naive nihilism is like playing Wack-a-mole. I predict the op will drop this thread and start another one making the same assumptions. They have already told you the likely effect of your contributions:-
Quoting Darkneos
The necessary moral conditions for communicative debate are not in place. Language is made up, therefore it's all bullshit! :vomit:
The google definition simply says that it's just a consensus on thoughts, ideas, beliefs, whathaveyou. If that's all there is to it then the choice of words is misleading to say the least because subjectivity has nothing to do with it. Why cause confusion by choosing words that could, like inter"subjectivity"?
Because “objectivity” is booked by religions to refer to things that are the case regardless of what anyone perceives or thinks.
A consensus relies on what people perceive and think.
Quoting unenlightened
It’s more like nihilism knows we made all this stuff up. It is similar to language and one could argue it’s all BS because we made it up but considering language is what we need to communicate I’m not putting it on par with morality. You sound like the rest trying to desperately create some objective standard to live by when it’s foundations are just opinion.
Quoting Jack Cummins
That’s not a problem at all, again you are attaching aspects that don’t exist on to actions, in this case murder and death as bad. If they can live with that then I have nothing to say, same with someone who is intent on killing me. I can tell them no but in the end it’s only my opinion against their own.
Moral nihilism is pretty much what morality is from what I see. Anything else seems like lying to yourself.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I mean...when you get down to it the whole thing IS arbitrary and capricious opinion. That’s not my opinion that’s a fact. Morality being a value judgment can’t be anything other than opinion.
Also I would like to reply to the beginning comments that I don’t believe that everyone agreeing to something makes it objective, just means that everyone agrees. But how many times have people done that and it led to ruin? Plus isn’t that a fallacy or appealing to popularity?
To answer your question directly (and of course in my opinion), yes. To explain further, morality is simply the consensus subjective opinion of the group in question. It helps explain why morality differs with time, location, theological underpinnings, etc.
The scientific method is based on people agreeing on observations and coming up with theories based on the agreement. Does that make Einstein’s laws an appeal to popularity?
Quoting Darkneos
Brought about by the way you choose to define your words.
Quoting Darkneos
Newton was wrong. So should we give up on physics?
Regardless though, if you agree that:
1- People generally have the same moral compass.
2- There are and will continue to be punishments for immoral acts
3- You have no basis on which to say those should stop.
Then really your view is practically the same as meta ethical realism or relativism. You will continue to try to be moral and avoid being immoral to avoid punishment. And you will not have a basis to argue something like “Murderers should not be punished”. And you will probably also continue to feel like murderers and such “deserved it”.
Which is why I think meta ethical questions are usually a waste of time.
If morality is a matter of opinion, then if I have the opinion that Xing is right, it is right, yes? I mean, unless that follows I don't know what you mean by 'a matter of opinion'.
Well, that's clearly false. If I have the opinion that X is right, that doesn't entail that it actually is right. I will believe it is right. But it won't necessarily actually be right.
That's as foolish as thinking that if I have the opinion that I have a partner, then I do. No, whether I have a partner or not is not a matter of opinion, even though I have opinions about it. Likewise, morality is not a matter of opinion, but is rather a matter about which we have opinions.
This fallacy - the fallacy of confusing a means of awareness with an object of awareness - is what's principally responsible for the widespread belief in individual and collective moral subjectivism among the public.
Yet it is just poor reasoning.
Here's some more poor reasoning (I have never been able to comprehend how anyone can think this a good argument - it's just so obviously stupid - yet whenever I ask anyone to defend their individual or collective subjectivist views, this is the argument I am invariably given).
1. Different people and groups have different moral beliefs
2. Therefore, morality is individually or collectively subjective
Obviously as stated the conclusion doesn't follow. It needs the following premise added to it
1. Different people and groups have different moral beliefs
2. If different people and groups have different moral beliefs, then morality is individually or collectively subjective
3. Therefore, morality is collectively subjective
But 2 is obviously false. I believe it's raining. You believe it is sunny. Therefore whether it is raining or sunny is just a matter of opinion. That's the same logic, yes? The same logic by which many reach the conclusion that morality is individually or collectively subjective, would imply that weather is too. Yet it isn't.
(Reply on behalf of the ignorant - 'oh, but, dur, weather is objective'.....er, yes, that's the point!)
Note: the fact that different people at different times and places have had different moral beliefs is, at best, evidence for 'relativism'. But relativism isn't subjectivism. If morality is individually or collectively subjective, then it is also relative. But it does not follow that it morality is relative it is individually or collectively subjective.
The fact is there is no good evidence that morality is individually or collectively subjective. Which is why you find that it is almost exclusively non-experts who hold that view about morality, whereas the experts- though they disagree among themselves about exactly what morality is - nevertheless agree that it is not individually or collectively subjective.
I'm interested in why you think so.
I don't understand the question.
But morality speaks in terms of should and should not, which is what they mean by right and wrong. In this sense they are value judgments and as such morality can never not be an opinion. If by Xing you mean some act then sure.
Quoting Bartricks
Incorrect. Premise two is redundant and unnecessary. Premise 3 logically follows from premise 1. Though judging by your post I find you to be an idiot.
Because what you have listed are still just value judgments and I already said that everyone sharing a value doesn't really make it objective fact. Not everyone sees pain as bad or crippled as bad either.
Quoting khaled
1 is false. People I come across have quite the different moral compass when it comes to a variety of issues. I'm still reminded of abortion debates or welfare or government assistance. Folks don't have a moral compass.
2 isn't entirely true and some "immoral" acts are quite legal and people can and do perform and get away with them. Repeatedly.
3 is on you to say why they should even start to begin with.
I'm not trying to be moral or immoral, I just avoid conflict if possible. Sometimes that involves "immoral" acts and not as much. I have a value and act in ways to facilitate that. I do in fact have a basis that murderers should not be punished, mainly that there isn't a basis to begin with when punishing them. I don't feel they deserve it either, but I don't feel they don't either.
You keep trying to foot the whole thing on me but the reality is that it's on YOU and anyone espousing morality as to why such things are right or wrong to begin with. But YOU can't because it's just opinion.
Quoting tim wood
Yes they are capricious and arbitrary. I wouldn't like them doing that, but that's still opinion as me wanting them to stop. I cannot make a claim on them to get them to stop that wouldn't be personal opinion. Only force would do so. In fact that's the only way moral claims carry weight, the threat of not doing them. Essentially morality is about forcing your views on other people.
Er, no. 3 does not follow from 1. As for your judgement that I am an idiot - well, that's the Dunning Kruger effect for you. Experts seem like idiots to idiots.
And idiots also call themselves "experts" even though they aren't.
Quoting Darkneos
Strawman. I never claimed or implied that 'mere consensus' denotes objectivity.
Yeah, and not everyone accepts that the earth is round either. :roll:
The fact is that harm (e.g. hunger, pain, bereavement, isolation, etc) always causes dysfunction, or worse, especially when it is ignored and not alleviated adequately somehow. This is objective because it obtains whether or not "everyone sees it as bad".
There's a difference between mere preference and obligation. A preference is what I want; an obligation is what everyone ought want. So I prefer vanilla ice cream, but being just about me, that's not a moral obligation. To be a moral obligation it has to be about what everyone ought want - as if I were to insist that everyone ought prefer vanilla ice cream.
You are still making moral decisions. You have just decided not to call them good or bad.
Quoting Darkneos
Notice “generally”. I don’t think anyone thinks murder and theft are ok. And we have been consolidating ethical views in general throughout time.
Quoting Darkneos
Fair enough, but a good chunk aren’t.
Quoting Darkneos
No. Since it’s all a matter of opinion I don’t have to provide a reason. It’s my opinion (and the majority of people’s opinions) that they should be punished so that’s that.
Quoting Darkneos
But why would you require a basis? It’s all a matter of opinion right? Your opinion vs theirs.
When they kill on no basis, why should they not be killed on no basis?
Watch out! It’s almost as if you’re suggesting that it’s not all baseless opinion and that we require valid reasons to hurt others and the lack of such reasons makes it wrong to do so!
Quoting Darkneos
I’m not trying to “foot” anything on you. I’m trying to show that your belief has no practical consequences. You cannot say “Morality doesn’t exist therefore criminals shouldn’t be punished” or anything to that effect. Nothing follows from the belief. And it changes nothing about the way we act outside of online forums.
I am curious because I share your viewpoints to some extent: what do you think of ideal observer theory as it relates to the possibility of an unbiased, realistic way of figuring out right from wrong in a factual, pragmatic, non-subjective sense, in the way that we can prove 2+2=4? Sure, many people disagree on what is right and wrong, but often this is on account of factual misunderstandings. That, perhaps, if we were on the same page, factually, we would come to more of a consensus. With that in mind: is an unbiased approach to ethics impossible, even to a theoretical yet omniscient observer? If so, explain why you think so? I think your post is very insightful, and I kind of want to talk about this more.
Well, what are the differences between objectivity and intersubjectivity?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/10249/intersubjectivity
As pointed out above, the difference is that the latter is socially constructed and the former ineluctably precedes as well as exceeds (though doesn't necessarily exclude) social construction.
re: 'objective' ...
Quoting 180 Proof
re: 'intersubjective' ...
Quoting 180 Proof
I suppose you're not bothered by the fact, what seems to me to be so, that in both cases (intersubjectivity and objectivity), one of the defining features is consensus. Well, I am because, true or not, I'm of the view that consensus defines objectivity - more observers, the more objective that which is observed - and here we are defining intersubjectivity in identical fashion but, here's the catch, providing enough room for the concept to be applicable to subjectivity. What gives?
Quoting Darkneos
And why isn't this an acceptable description of where we are in a moral moment? There are such things as actions: a slight, or betrayal, lies, recrimination; and also reactions: an excuse, qualification, etc. And if we look at what they tell us about moral action, we might see that there is the act, then there is the reckoning for it; that there is a responsibility after the consideration of ought and the founding of morals. Most times we know what to do and what to expect, but then there are times when we don't know exactly what to do; nonetheless we act (or fail to). The moral realm is where we stand for what we say (or not), act beyond what is good and right, or against it. But we are held to it, we are separated by it. Where our knowledge of morality ends, we begin; into our future, our self--can you live with the results?
Quoting Darkneos
And "what really matters" will be what counts for us (how we will account for ourselves), what we will take as our culture, our words, that we will be heard in, be bound to, answerable for (or flee from).
Quoting Darkneos
But here, right and wrong does not need your belief. You may apologize correctly, or make a mess of it. You can say whatever you'd like, but only some things will be a threat, or an accusation (or both). An excuse has a certain form, or it simply becomes a plea. You can call these "objective", but you'd be using a 300-yr-old framework that wants to ensure something before it happens, enclose an act before we bring our partiality to it (Emerson will say). Must we agree universally or there can be nothing we call a rational discussion of a moral moment? that without agreement or the surety of that outcome, we can never begin?
I believe you're mistaken, Fool. There is no "consensus" – outside of a negligible fraction of human beings alive today – acknowledgement that e.g. relativistic time-dilation happens, and yet it's an objective fact impacting the lives of every person using GPS and/or a cellphone that bounces synchonized signals off of satellites over the horizon. A state-of-affairs which is "consensus"-INVARIANT is neither established by, nor subject to, the assent/dissent of anyone or any group and this is what is meant by objective (e.g. Gödel's first incompleteness theorem, heliocentricity, DNA, the bottom of the Mariana Trench, date time & location of your birth, etc).
Would you like me to agree with you or does it not matter?
Quoting Antony Nickles
No.
Quoting 180 Proof
Again, no. That is still mere opinion. Dysfunction is implying a state of deviation from normalcy which itself is a value judgments. So no it doesn't cause dysfunction. It isn't objective. You're still wrong.
Quoting Antony Nickles
No, again. Because when it comes to morality people want to dress it up with words that in sense avoids responsibility. Saying something is right means you are doing it simply because society deems it such or that you need to validate your choice. That is what people do in moral moments, well technically there are no moral moments.
I said there is no right or wrong but actions and results and it comes down to if you can live with the results. It's not about what is right or wrong. It's responsibility in it's truest form to me rather than hiding behind labels.
Under your criteria, what sort of statement wouldn't qualify as opinion?
Quoting khaled
It seems to me most on this forum who call themselves moral relativists are only relativist up to a point. I’ve. found very few full fledged postmodern relativists. Most here dilute their Foucault or Deleuze with Cavell and Putnam, and sign on to the usefulness of moralistic terms like racism and homophobia.
Their moral relativism is no more radical than their epistemological relativism, wherein Scientific truth is subject to falsification but rival paradigms are not incommensurate all the way down: it is still
possible to talk of scientific truth as progressing.
:up:
I would furthermore add that most disagreements about morality aren't about opinions but are factual. We have similar, if not the same moral intuitions, the question becomes which ones to apply to the situation at hand. Is having children a benign or innocent act, or is it an unfair imposition as the ANs would have it? This is not a question of opinion. Everybody, including ANs would say there is nothing wrong with doing benign or innocent acts. And everybody would say that unfair impositions are wrong. The question then is, which is happening here?
I rarely see anyone have genuinely different moral intuitions. Most morality debates are about arguing about which moral intuition applies to the situation at hand, not about the intuitions themselves.
Quoting khaled
I agree, that people's moral intuitions are remarkably similar. But do we ever exercise those moral intuitions with regard to perfect knowledge? No! So we run into something of a chicken and the egg scenario - when asking about whether the facts provoke the moral intuition, or the moral intuition adduces selected facts in support of a moral opinion. I don't think there's a final answer. It's both. That's what human beings do. We are the bridge between the ought and the is, and it's where we "should be" - striving to know what's true and do what's right in terms of what's true!
I’d like to agree with this, but I’m not so sure. For example, right now about half of the US sees things like discriminating against particular groups of people as tolerable, if not outright justified. This is illustrated in the amount of people who voted for Trump in the recent election, despite his obvious immoral (at least according to the other half of Americans) treatment of women, Muslims, immigrants, blacks, etc. Treating others with respect and decency regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, gender, etc. does not seem to be an overwhelmingly common moral intuition.
Quoting Pinprick
I'm not about to weigh in on this. It too loaded to be used as an example of how moral intuitions work; so clearly, that's not your real intent. If you want to signal your virtue elsewhere, I'm sure there are plenty of threads where it would be der rigueur and more than welcome.
I actually prefer not to get into politics, and I’m not trying to virtue signal, I didn’t even say which side I agreed with. That isn’t the point. It’s just a good example of how large groups of people can seemingly have very different moral intuitions. Maybe that can be explained by other factors, but even if it can it shows how easily our moral intuitions can be influenced by things like tribalism, or herd mentality in general.
Quoting Pinprick
How do you know what half the people in the US think?
Do you really imagine:
Quoting Pinprick
Quoting Pinprick
No, it's not - because you cannot possibly know why people voted the way they did. You are imposing your moral judgement on their choice.
Quoting Pinprick
You are a clear demonstration of tribalism and herd mentality; if that's what you were seeking to show, job done!
Because of their actions.
Quoting counterpunch
Not in any specific way, no. But I can deduce that had they found Trump’s actions intolerable, they wouldn’t have voted for him. It could be that they found his actions justified, it could be that they disagreed, but were willing to tolerate it, it could be that they were unaware of his actions or didn’t believe them. But, the fact remains that they were willing to overlook these issues, provided they were aware of them of course.
Quoting counterpunch
I’m in no way trying to show one group as being morally superior to the other. That’s irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that they have different moral intuitions about what is moral.
Quoting counterpunch
You seem to be assuming a lot regarding my motives, but yes, I believe we all have been influenced morally by social norms, upbringing, etc., and therefore have different moral intuitions.
But we do. War is sanctioned killing, all property is theft (according to some) and many countries still sanction rape if it is within marriage, other places treat all sex without affirmative verbal consent to be rape (again with disagreements abound)
We don't even agree that we shouldn't kill, steal and rape. All are allowed in certain context which vary depending on who you talk to.
Once you reach the level of handing over pocket change to a homeless person, you already watered down your claim to "most of us" - which it is abundantly clear is false otherwise there would not be any more homeless people.
Either we do not share any common moral intuitions, or we do, but they are easily swamped by other more important concerns.
Either way, appeal to such commonalities is rendered pointless in resolving moral dilemmas.
Quoting Isaac
But that's not true, is it? The basic laws of the land are much the same the world over. Assuming that religion, law, politics and economics are expressions of an innate moral sense - and that devolves in turn to matters of psychology, evolutionary biology, and ultimately causality - it's unsurprising that there's such great commonality of moral intuition, and that there are cultural differences, and differences due to circumstances.
Quoting Isaac
Right, but my argument isn't about resolving moral dilemmas. For me, this is about the is and the ought. The observation that we have a significant commonality of moral intuition was made in support of the evolutionary argument, but is not really the focus of my argument. I assume that you will have different values to me - and so will prioritise a list of facts differently, but still, you will not but be able to see moral implication in a list of facts. We may disagree as to what they imply given our different values - but it's not illegitimate, as Hume suggests, to continue in the ordinary was of reasoning, making copulations of is and is not, then switch to ought mode. That's what we do. That's who we are - because morality is fundamentally a sense.
This has implications to Popper's 1947 argument in The Open Society and its Enemies, in which he argues that recognising science as truth would require we "make our representations conform" to science as truth, and because scientific truth is effectively indisputable, that it would be dictatorial. That's wrong, because morality is a sense, and while there is a significant commonality of moral intuition, we do have different values based, one presumes on the facts we were exposed to - within our limited apprehensions, and the values we were encouraged to by early experiences, when the human organism is, by dint of evolution, trusting of authority figures. (In that they copy adults because figuring everything out for themselves, they'd die.) So, to sum up - morality is an evolutionary sense. There's remarkable similarity of moral intuition, but values are complex - and inform our understanding of facts. That so, we can accept science is true without it becoming a dictatorial dogma. Hume was wrong, and Popper was wrong, and this in turn, is all a consequence of science rendered a heresy by the Church with the trial of Galileo. But let's put that aside for now.
Now you're just begging the question. "Killing is considered morally wrong because when we do sanction killing we're not being moral... because killing is considered morally wrong", "Theft is considered morally wrong because the people who don't consider it that way are themselves morally wrong because they don't consider theft morally wrong".
Oh, and according the WHO report on domestic violence ""Often, men who coerce a spouse into a sexual act believe their actions are legitimate because they are married to the woman."
So yes, we do kill steal and rape and we sometimes consider all three to be morally acceptable, even morally advisable. The factors which make them so vary from culture to culture.
Quoting counterpunch
What do you see as the similarities then -the world over. Give me a few examples of laws that are universal.
Quoting counterpunch
...is given without any evidential support (again). So it does not show...
Quoting counterpunch
Where do you get this stuff from?
Doesn't all morality beg the question? Why is it wrong? Because it's wrong! I can give you a slightly deeper reason than that. It's morally wrong because the moral sense objects to it; classifies it as wrong instinctively. And there is considerable commonality between people, and between people's - as to the broad dynamics of right and wrong.
It's not that I don't accept that there are cultural and circumstantial differences in how the moral sense is expressed. I do. The moral sense isn't dictatorial of human behaviour. It's a consequence of evolution, and so the degree to which morality influences behaviour is a matter of how advantageous it was. Being too moral would get you killed quicker than being entirely amoral! So morality is a sense we can disregard at will.
Only quite recently did we form civilisations - and here there's a Nietzschean transvaluation of values, of sorts - not the strong fooled by the weak, but implicit tribal morality made explicit for political purposes. Because any dispute would naturally split a fledgling society along tribal lines, it was necessary to have an objective expression of the moral sense, ostensibly justified by God, as authority for moral laws that applied equally to everyone. This is the origin of religion.
Quoting Isaac
Does it matter? I'm saying it. This is my philosophy. I'll gladly explain it to you, but I honestly cannot understand your interest in something you apparently have such disdain for.
@Bartricks
No, your approach is all wrong here. If I believe it's raining and you believe it's sunny, it is, therefore, true that you hold a belief that it is sunny and also true that I hold a belief that it is raining. It is not an objective opinion, but rather a subjective one. This is more accurately illustrated with an abstraction concept (eg, a value judgment) rather than a concrete concept (eg, rain or sunshine).
If I say a "x is immoral", I am making a statement analogous to saying "vanilla is my favorite flavor." Notice that the analogous statement is not an objective one, such as "vanilla is the best flavor" but rather as a subjective one "to me, vanilla is the best flavor." It is the same with moral statements or other normative statements. If I make the statement "stealing is wrong" what I actually mean to say is "to me, stealing is wrong."
If morality is subjective, then it would not make sense to interpret moral statements objectively, as in some inherent moral property of the thing in question. If morality is subjective, then we are not able to make moral statements outside from the subjective confines of our own minds. I mean, we technically can, however, there is no objective standard available for us to test such statements upon.
We can only know our own values that guide our own principles. We are a social species that developed a proclivity for social cohesion and our sociological environments naturally produce pressures within peer groups, societal boundaries, cultures and other social constructs that heavily influence from a top-down perspective (societal influence upon an individual) and mostly lightly influence from a bottom-up perspective (individuals influence upon society).
This is why we share many values - because we adapt to our social environment which is segregated into groups with disproportionate levels of power. The most powerful groups often dictate which values are allowed to be proliferated through influence and the strength that each influence is allowed to have.
Highly unlikely.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
Yes. From which it would be fallacious to infer that therefore weather itself is subjective. Which is the same fallacy that those who appeal to variation in moral belief across space and time commit when they blithely conclude that morality is individually or collectively subjective.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
Now you're just abusing language and/or confusing a belief with its contents. There is no such thing as an 'objective' opinion or belief. All beliefs are subjective, because beliefs are subjective states. But some beliefs are about objective matters - such as the belief that it is raining - and some beliefs are about subjective matters - such as my belief that I am believing something, or my belief that Jane is enjoying the donut.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
No, you're very confused. If you believe stealing is wrong, what exactly do you believe about stealing? That is, provide a translation for that word 'wrong'.
I am not saying that weather itself is subjective. Im saying that we can talk about weather in an objective way - as some fact of the world - and that to talk in such an objective way about morality doesn't make sense if we are supposing morality is subjective.
@Bartricks
This is what I'm trying to say, that moral statements are really an expression of a personal belief and that some beliefs are about objective matters - such as the belief that it is raining - and some beliefs are about subjective matters - such as my belief that stealing is wrong. I cannot make a statement that stealing is objectively wrong, as if the action itself contains some inherent immoral property. I can only say that I hold the belief that stealing is wrong as a personal axiom.
@Bartricks
I cannot provide you a meta-ethical translation for the word 'wrong'. All that I can say is that I have a preference against the act. I don't think that I can make meaningful statements about an act being inherently wrong, or objectively wrong. I believe I can provide descriptive statement that explains some of the consequences of stealing, but not a prescriptive statement stating why we ought not steal. Just as your example of conflicting beliefs regarding rain or sunshine, I don't think there's a way to bridge the is-ought divide. I don't think that you can make moral statements as if our value judgments represent something that just is, as in, a fact of the world.
Ok, that’s fair.
But if...
Quoting counterpunch
Then this...
Quoting counterpunch
Can’t be used as evidence for having similar moral intuitions. IOW’s just because we don’t rape, rob, or kill doesn’t mean that’s due to having similar moral intuitions.
I'm just going to refer you to 's comment above which makes the case far more eruditely that I was doing.
Quoting counterpunch
You do know there's a difference between 'Philosophy' and 'Making shit up' don't you?
I do, but it's a subtle distinction, and one is not wholly exclusive of the other.
Quoting Pinprick
One can, for example, use an illustrative example of a phenomenon that requires explanation. Why don't we just rob, kill and rape each other? I hope it's moral intuition, and not just because we're scared to. I'd like to think there's some prohibition from empathy, and it's not just a lazy way to save ourselves the hassle! Should I be worried that you don't think so?
For me, I begin with the evolutionary reality of the hunter gatherer tribe, because that's where the enormous majority of human development occurred, and because in my view, Nietzsche was wrong. Man in a state of nature could not have been some savage, amoral brute - or he could not have survived. He defended the tribe, shared food and raised the young; and this is where his moral sense originates. It's remarkably similar to all peoples because the relationship of the human organism to the reality of the environment is remarkably similar for all peoples. Just as all human cultures invented art, music, pottery, agriculture, architecture, jewellery - albeit in culturally specific ways, they all have a moral sense expressed in culturally specific ways; because otherwise, the human organism could not have survived.
Morality isn't just an opinion. Any particular expression of the moral sense is an opinion. But the moral sense predates intellectual intelligence - if chimpanzees are anything to go by, and so is a behaviourally intelligent adaptation, advantageous to the individual within the tribe, and to the tribe made up of moral individuals.
Ok, but then you have to allow, and account for, questions like why do we rape, rob, and kill each other in certain circumstances. The fact that we do act in this way illustrates that we may not have similar moral intuitions.
Quoting counterpunch
There may be, but there may also be emotional drives to kill, etc. Impulses, as their commonly called. So why do you cherry pick things like empathy and use it to justify universal moral intuition, but exclude things like anger, lust, revenge, self-preservation, etc.?
Quoting counterpunch
I don’t see hunter-gatherer tribes’ culture as being very similar to modern culture. Are you meaning in the more general sense that all people try to adapt to their environment to ensure survival?
Quoting counterpunch
Ah. Ok, but I would argue that the moral sense itself is determined by environment, a la natural selection. This sense has to be broad enough to encompass all expressions of it, which renders the idea essentially powerless. Everyone has the capacity to have a multitude of different moral intuitions. It seems like you’re just saying we all have a will to live, which causes us to behave and think differently depending on the obstacles encountered in our environment.
Quoting counterpunch
I see what you’re saying, I think, but it seems tautological. A moral fact for you would be whatever particular moral sense is evolutionarily advantageous for a particular group in a particular environment. In this way, there is no possible wrong morality, since any disadvantageous morality that would happen to develop wouldn’t last very long. This, of course, leads to the conclusion that there is no one correct morality either. Your idea is so general that it excludes nothing, and thereby says nothing of importance.
I have no particular insight into abnormal or criminal psychology. I haven't given it any thought. My point was that people don't generally behave this way - so please don't ask me why they do. My point is that overwhelmingly people don't. That I can explain. If you say people do, and therefore don't have similar moral intuitions, okay then. That's your opinion. It was something of a throwaway line anyway - Illustrative of a point made by someone else, and I'm sick of you banging at this same point over and over and over again. So I concede the argument. You can chalk that up as a win. People are rapists, murderers and thieves! Well done!
Not everyone agrees on these moral rules, and therefore apply a nearly instant exception to them. "Thou shalt not kill..." is qualified by adding exceptions "...except in defense of your life, or the life of another, or..." so really, it comes down to "Thou should not kill without reason", as do most other moral rules. Make a rule, create the exception. Only if the rule is universally accepted as 'Wrong", then would it really be rule? No one would do it anyway so no one would have to confirm its wrongness.
My only response is to remind you that morality is, at its heart, a plea, a desire, a hope in re how the world should be and not the way it is. That being so, moral injunctions and the codes that are built of them are not meant for the world as it is but rather for a world as it should be.
Consider the all-time favorite criticism of Kantian ethics - the lying to the murderer thought experiment. In the world as it is, there are murderers and there'll be dilemmas like these but in a world in which everyone practices Kant's ethics there will be no murderers and the lying to the murderer scenario is meaningless. In other words, exceptions to moral codes like the one you mentioned are a part of our experience precisely because some moral theory is being applied to a world that doesn't fully support it. It's like trying to play Diablo III (a video game) on Windows 1995.