Another discussion of objective morality has broken out, so I thought I would provide a home for it.
579 thoughts on “objective morality, for the umpteenth time”
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The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
To get the discussion rolling, some comments from the other thread:
sean samis:
keiths:
sean:
KN:
KN,
We’ve been over this again and again. The choice of human flourishing as the basis of morality is itself a subjective choice.
Others choose different bases, such as “utter obedience to God is the ultimate standard of morality.”
Oh crap. Anyway, I’m throwing this out there:
1. By their own standards, Christians do not have such a thing as objective morality. Except that they don’t realize that because they fail to follow their own logic on themselves.
2. Discussing morality with Christians has a deep problem: we don’t understand morality in the same way.
3. There’s several versions of Christians, but most of their definitions for morality do not make any sense. They’re meaningless.
4. These discussions often show that Christianity is morally bankrupt.
4. Ahem.
Now let the circus acts begin!
An old comment on the topic:
Human flourishing is generally thought of (by Aristotelians) as a standard of well-being, not of morality, isn’t it?
Keiths point is correct. Flourishing is intractibly subjective; an objective system (moral or otherwise) cannot be predicated on a subjective standard.
In a genuine moral system (is that vague enough for everyone?) human flourishing is an important consideration, but it cannot serve as the basis of an objective moral system.
Due to time constraints, this is about as much as I can do on this topic today.
sean s.
** intractably**
My spell checker’s not worth a shirt.
sean s.
I don’t think keiths actually said that human flourishing is subjective. As I understood his post, he was saying that the choice of that standard, whether it’s objective or not, is subjective.
But again, I don’t think flourishing is generally used these days as a standard for morality, anyhow. It’s used as a standard for well-being. You’d have to then take that into the morality world somehow–maybe via some sort of consequentialism.
sean samis:
Don’t worry. With fifthmonarchyman in the house, our mental autocorrect is permanently engaged.
walto, to sean:
I said both, actually.
The former:
The latter:
Is it “subjective” if reasons can be given in support of it?
I mean, “subjective” is one of those words that can be given a very wide range of meanings. Some people use it to mean “arbitrary”, and other people use it to mean “not absolute”. Last semester I had a student argue that morality had to be subjective because it changes over time. (Granted, he was not the brightest knife in the drawer, but he tried.)
KN, I think what matters is the nature of the reasons given. Are they observable facts, rigorous logic, measurable and observable? Those are objective.
Or are they reasons personal views, interpretations, emotions or judgements? Value commitments? Tastes or opinions? Communal biases? Those are subjective.
Words CAN be given a wide range of meanings; this is how disagreements are born. One could call a pig a horse and argue from there. To accomplish anything here, we need some agreement on what words mean.
For my purposes, objectivity refers to claims, methods and results which are based on observable phenomena, facts, and or rigorous logic. They are not or should not be influenced by peculiar perspectives, value commitments, community bias, personal interests.
For my purposes, if some claim, method or result is not clearly objective, it’s suspiciously likely to be subjective.
If that’s objectionable, then we’ll need to nail that down. Otherwise this is a genuine waste of time.
sean s.
sean samis,
Why can’t there be objective values? Why is it the case that only empirically verifiable claims can be objective?
Think about colors for a moment. Are colors “subjective” or “objective”? Both? Neither?
Kantian Naturalist,
A value could be objective, if it was based on objective reasons. That caveat makes it tricky.
Colors have a physical basis: measurable frequencies of light. In that sense, they are objective. They have subjective aspects too, so I’m going with “both”.
sean s.
KN,
Sure. “Subjective” hardly means “reasonless”.
I think Hendrix was a better guitarist than Clapton, and I can give reasons for my view, but it doesn’t thereby become an objective truth!
Ok, but I take it one can mean objective stuff only by ‘flourishing’. I believe Aristotelians (I’m thinking of Kraut and Arneson) define ‘flourishing’ in such a way that it’s a batch of natural qualities.
But then the question remains as to why/whether one ought to take flourishing as the basis of well-being, rather than, say, happiness or pleasure or virtue. Huge amount of lit on that, of course.
walto:
The choice of definition is itself subjective. One person might give more weight to freedom, while another prioritizes social stability, for instance.
Once a sufficiently precise definition is in place, you can discuss whether one action or another is objectively a better fit. But since the definition itself is subjective, so is the morality,
I don’t think something objective (whatever) can be made subjective just because someone decides to use a word in a non-standard way. An objective (whatever) would need to set as precisely as possible what its words mean, non-standard usage would merely render the alternative (whatever) subjective.
Take any objective fact you want; can someone make it truly subjective by merely selecting a different meaning of a crucial word? I think not.
sean s.
I don’t see why choosing a definition of ‘flourishing’ makes determining whether something is flourishing necessarily subjective. We might have to settle on a definition of ‘fast’ before we can determine whether some car is fast, but that doesn’t make that determination subjective. Flourishing will be an objective characteristic, just in case it’s entirely definable into objective characteristics.
sean:
I’m not talking about non-standard usage. Two people can use “flourishing” in the standard way, yet disagree on what counts as “flourishing” and how to weight the various factors.
walto,
It doesn’t. As I said,
OK, good.
What I’ve been urging here is that there are empirical facts about the conditions under which humans flourish best, or conditions under which their capabilities are best realized. These are ecological-sociological facts that turn on the kind of being a human being is.
I think that I’m trying to get at here is that we can think about moral conflicts in terms of some further set of facts that contextualize the conflict.
If there’s a disagreement about whether it’s good for politicians to lie, that can be adjudicated in light of some background claims about democratic legitimacy.
If there’s a disagreement about whether it’s good for powerful corporations to exploit poor and relatively powerless people, that can be adjudicated in light of some background claims about human rights based on the capabilities approach.
If there’s a disagreement about whether we should allow wolf populations to climb at the expense of human commercial interests, that can be adjudicated in light of some background claims about the value of robust and well-functioning ecosystems.
When I say that morality is objective, what I mean is that the resolution of moral conflicts is not arbitrary and does not come down to “might makes right”. There’s a place for reasoning about what is best to do, informed by empirical facts of the social sciences (what makes for healthy functioning societies) and natural sciences (what makes for health functioning organisms and ecosystems).
If one were to agree with me about moral reasoning and the possibility of resolving moral conflict, but doesn’t want to use the word “objective” in doing so, then we’re talking about the proper use of the word “objective.” That’s different from talking about morality per se.
First of all, it’s generally well-being rather than morality that flourishing is used for. Secondly, you’re now down to one, rather than two encroachments of subjectivity–as I said above. Choosing constraints for flourishing doesn’t make its attribution subjective; however, one could argue that choosing flourishing as the standard for well-being is a ‘subjective choice.’
KN,
We all agree, as far as I can tell, that morality exists. The question is whether objective morality exists.
What does ‘morality exists’ mean?
walto,
There are still two “encroachments of subjectivity”. The first is the choice of flourishing as the standard for morality, and the second is the choice of the precise definition of flourishing, including the weighting of its components.
walto,
It means that people have standards of morality and make moral judgments based on them.
If choosing a definition of ‘flourishing’ makes determinations that something is flourishing subjective, then every attribution of every predicate is subjective.
Good point.
You’d have to define ‘morality’ to assert that people make moral judgments, no? So I take it your claim that morality exists is a subjective claim?
To see that morality is subjective, just imagine trying to adjudicate a dispute between two people: one, like Kant, thinks it’s always immoral to lie; the other thinks it can be moral to lie depending on the circumstances and the expected outcome.
Which of the two is objectively right? The answer is neither. Any attempt to show that one or the other is right will ultimately rest on a subjective moral premise.
Is that an objective or subjective claim?
walto,
It doesn’t. For the third time:
Hence, only one encroachment, as I said. Unless you want to make EVERY predication subjective.
walto,
You’re confusing the definition of the word ‘morality’ with a specification of what is and isn’t moral.
Nope.
walto:
No. Slow down, walto. There are three steps:
1. The choice of flourishing as the basis of morality.
2. The choice of a sufficiently precise definition of “flourishing”, with appropriate weights.
3. The application of that definition to moral questions.
Steps one and two are subjective. Step three can be objective, but that does not make morality objective. It still depends on steps 1 and 2, which are subjective.
Morality is inescapably subjective.
Claim: planets have ice caps. The Earth and Mars do; Venus and Mercury do not. Therefore the claim is “subjective”? No. It’s erroneous because it’s too general and the facts depend on the totality of the situation.
Likewise, saying it is ALWAYS wrong to lie is too general. If immorality is nothing more than a list of do’s and don’t’s then it’s not likely to be objective, and not coherent. One needs to look deeper: WHY might lying be “immoral”? There’s where the real basis of morality lies.
sean s.
… unless one finds a different basis for morality. I agree flourishing cannot work barring some bizarre redefinition of the term.
sean s.
2. Isn’t subjective–unless you want to call every predication a subjective matter. That would include ostensibly scientific attributions. Dunno about 3, because, as indicated flourishing is generally used as a standard for well-being, not morality.
(Actually, 3 doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, if it’s not saying the same thing as 1. )
Anyhow, this is largely off the track of whether morality (assuming it exists) is objective, because, presumably, only one of those three things needs to be subjective to drag the whole biz down. As both kn and I have said before, it’s hard to know what to do with this topic if nobody will define ‘objective.’
sean:
Not if one of your moral premises is that lying is always immoral, as it is for Kant. Try to prove that he’s objectively wrong about that. It can’t be done.
Objectivity:
Claims, methods, or results not influenced by particular perspectives, community bias, personal interests, personal views, interpretations, emotions or judgements; tastes or opinions.
Claims, methods, or results based on facts, measurable phenomena, or rigorous logic.
sean s.
Is that an objective or subjective claim? I mean, doesn’t it depend on one’s standards for a successful proof? Those are chosen, no?
So ‘I am seeing what looks like a pink cube now’ is subjective? What about ‘I’m standing on the corner of Fifth and Main’? That’s perspectival, isn’t it? Or ‘she likes vanilla? All subjective?
keiths:
sean:
It’s not enough to “find” a different basis. You need to establish objectively that it is the one true basis for morality, and you won’t be able to do that.
Fwiw, I have attempted my own def of ‘subjective’ in a paper I have circulating. I would send this def, but my computer is currently fried and is in a shop having its files transferred. Hope to pick up a new one Saturday. (I’m using my phone now). Anyhow, if anybody’s still interested in a couple days, I can post my attempt (which is no doubt also problematic).
keiths:
walto:
(2) is subjective because people don’t agree on a sufficiently precise definition, or on the appropriate weights.
It isn’t. (1) is the choice of the criterion, and (3) is its application to specific moral questions. (1) is subjective, while (3) can be done objectively, given a sufficiently precise definition.
And as I’ve said, both (1) and (2) are subjective, while (3) can be done objectively.
walto,
Please do. I’d be interested.
I don’t think that’s actually a requirement.
One need only show they have an objective basis of a coherent moral system. It is not possible or necessary to exclude the possibility of alternatives, certainly no ABSOLUTE exclusion is necessary. If no other objective alternatives are found, then we’re good until something changes.
Just like with explanations for the origin and development of species: it is sufficient to come up with an objective explanation and accept it as objectively true barring discovery of an objective alternative.
sean s.
keiths,
I as well.
sean s.