A propos my banning from UD, Dr.Jammer (aka Jammer at UD) wrote at AtBC:
As for the discussion of morality, kairosfocus was right on the mark. Liz put up a valiant fight, but her argument for morality ultimately boiled down to argumentum ad populum.
If the members of NAMBLA (I suspect a few of you are card-carrying members) decided to start their own nation, with their own set of laws, and they all determined pedophilia to be not only legal, but moral, would that make it so? According to Liz’s reasoning it would.
With no ultimate source of objective morality, morality becomes nothing more than a popularity contest. It’s might-makes-right. That majority opinion becomes the might, and they decide what is right.
Even worse are the non-democracies, where might isn’t represented by the majority, but by a small section of the elite. This is what we witnessed in the early 20th century with the eugenics movement, where the elite decided that it was moral to decide who could and could not reproduce. That’s one of the more tame examples.
kairosfocus’ point isn’t that we can’t reason to right and wrong. We can, in large part because morality (seems to be) an attribute inherent to most human beings, which acts as our guiding light, so to speak.
His point is that the might-makes-right mentality that arises when one denies an objective, ultimate source of morality, is often a very dangerous thing. A look through any history book will confirm that he is correct.
I’ll post my response in the thread.
Well said.
Not everything can be described with a logical model and morality is one of those things, along with art, music, literature, religion, etc.
The ID crowd seems to make the same mistake in regards to choosing their tools when arguing against evolution.
Elizabeth,
Pardon the OT intrusion, but apparently UD readers/posters who are reading this thread are wondering if I actually did post a reply to Mr. Arrington on the “LNC” thread at UD. I posted at UD last night noting that I had responded to Barry, but did not link to the text of my reply (which I put up at AtBC, just under the wild suspicion that perhaps Barry might get tricksy with my reply), on the understanding that links to AtBC are cause for post deletion.
Anyway, for any interested, Barry’s not being honest in his claims, and I did post a reply last night on the LNC thread, and posted a copy of my reply at AtBC:
http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=14;t=7305;st=2760#entry200960
I’m not one to run away. I do sometimes get banned, and the banners claim that I’ve run away, as apparently happened in this case.
Anyway, if you want to read what I had to say in reply to Barry, follow the link.
If you think this is somehow problematic by being put here (this blog is not involved in this dispute), feel free to remove this.
Back to your regularly scheduled programming….
eigenstate,
No problem, Eigenstate. It’s an interesting topic. But I’ll move it to a new OP, and we can discuss it there.
Either you’re equivocating the meaning of the term “subjective”, or are yourself confusing subjects. If I accept that my belief about what is right and wrong refers only to my personal subjective good, then I know that other people will have other subjective goods, and other morals, that are by principle no more or less valid than mine. I can say that it is wrong for me to torture children for pleasure, but I would have no valid principle that trumps any other principle except by might by which to say that other people should not torture children. Therefore, I can’t say that torturing children for pleasure is always wrong in every case, only that for as long as I think it is, it is wrong for me.
While beliefs about what is good are subjective, we either believe the nature of “good” is objective or subjective. Our beliefs about the sun are subjectively held, but they assume the sun is an objectively existent commodity. If we hold that the sun is objectively existent, then we have a presumed objective standard by which we in principle judge all proposed true statements about the sun.
If we believe the sun to be an entirely subjective commodity, then there is nothing but might (as more fully described in a previous post) to establish and enforce our preference because we assume there is no objective standard to mediate disagreements.
BTW, in an earlier post I said that one of the characteristics of an objective morality is that the consequences of moral or immoral behavior are necessary, not arbitrary. This means that there is no need to enforce moral consequences or to try and coerce moral behavior any more than there is a need to try to force people to obey the law of gravity.
Under subjective morality, the only reason to try to get people to behave morally is because you want them to behave more like you want them to behave (which is really all that morality is, in the subjective sense). Under objective morality, the reason to try and get people to behave morally is out of concern for them, like advising someone not to jump off of a cliff or attempt to climb a very shaky ladder.
William J Murray,
You have it completely backwards.
An objective morality can serve as a “moral grounding” while a subjective one, by definition, can’t fulfill that function.
Therefore, only an objective morality is useful for a “might-is-right” social order.
Enforcing the “Ten Commandments” as a morale code would be an impossible sell if the Bible authors claimed it was subjective.
An “objective” morale code however, can and has been used as a social hammer.
Let me put it this way: if moral good is subjective, then I must look at it as if I am talking about the taste of pie. Which pie is the best is a matter of personal preference. I can try to make an “objective” argument about why my pie is better, by referring to popularity or some scientific criteria concerning sweetness or flakiness, but then I’m just subjectively choosing which criteria to use to make my case. No one else, though is necessarily bound to use those same criteria – or any criteria other than their personal taste.
If I agree that moral good is subjective, then I must recognize that there is no ultimately non-subjective evaluation criteria; I must accept that other people prefer different pies (or else there’s no reason to say my taste in pie is subjective in the first place). Thus, though I think apple pie is the best, someone else can think cherry pie is the best, and if I am logically consistent, I will admit that for that person, cherry pie is the best tasting. Thus, I cannot say that apple pie is the best tasting pie for everyone in all situations.
I can only be internally consistent (if I insist that taste in pie is a subjective commodity) if I agree that if someone else prefers cherry pie, then that pie is the best tasting pie to him. If I later change my mind and start preferring chocolate pie, that then is my new preferred pie. That is the nature of a commodity assumed to be subjective in nature.
Thus, if I insist that the moral good is subjective, I am bound by logical consistency to accept that if someone believes it is good to torture children for personal pleasure, that it is in fact good for them at that time; meaning it is moral for them at that time to do what they believe is good.
If I hold a moral belief that it is not good for them even though they think it is, I have stepped outside of the rational confines of the assumed subjective nature of the commodity in question, and have, whether knowing it or not, necessarily implicated an objective standard required to assert that whether they believe it or think it or not, what they are doing is wrong for them (and for anyone).
Which is why those beliefs (as I outlined) are irreconcilable. One cannot hold that it is always wrong, in any circumstances (including the circumstance of being someone who thinks it is good) to torture children for personal pleasure without reference to an objective commodity or principle (whether knowingly or not) that ultimately trumps personal preference of what is good, or personal preference of any arbitrarily-chosen principle of what is good.
That would be like believing that cherry is not Joe’s favorite pie, when it is. Under subjective morality, whatever joe believes is good, is good for him in that circumstance, whether we like it or no, and we have no assumed binding standard to say otherwise.
William J Murray,
Under a subjective interpretation of morality, one is spared much of the effort of coercion by the recognition that its source is a shared innate moral sense. If most people tend to agree that X is wrong anyway, whatever fears they may harbour for their immortal souls, there is no requirement to persuade them that being moral is in some sense ‘good for them’. And most people are ‘good’ anyway, which is why this societal fear of atheism is I think completely unfounded.
The only way you can sustain the objective stance is by persuading them that is in their own interests to be moral – because if they don’t hold up to some frequently rather arbitrary set of standards (no homosexuality? no premarital sex? no masturbation? no fancying the neighbour’s missus?), they will be brutally punished. That itself I find somewhat immoral – the only reason to do ‘good’ (whatever that ultimately means) is to save YOURSELF? Surely we can do better?
If objective morality doesn’t exist (as you and others here insist), how could it have been used for anything?
William J Murray,
You have not stepped out of your subjectivity at all.
It is you who still thinks it’s “wrong” and it is he who still thinks it’s “right”.
If I take my moral code, strike out the word subjective and then replace it with the word objective, it is still my subjective moral code I am promoting.
Someone’s subjective moral code can become objective only when enforced.
Religions have done that very successfully.
Better? By what standard of better? Even as you argue about morality, you necessarily imply an objective standard you expect others to recognize as valid.
Not by the terms of “objective” I dilineated in my first post in this thread.
The ..assertion.. of the existence an objective moral code is what is being promoted to justify moral hammers for correct social behaviour.
You are one of the promoters of the existence of such a code, not those here who disagree with you.
Consider a specific example then.
When John Calvin arrested Michael Servetus and condemned him to death, was that a moral thing to do. If you were there with John Calvin, what would you have recommended?
Even more explicitly, when it was decided the Michael Servetus was to be burned at the stake, someone decided that slow-burning green wood should be used to extend the torture Was that the moral thing to do? Again, what would you have advised?
Of course – because my argument is that what we recognise as ‘objective morality’ comes from the fact that most people agree with our individual subjective morality. I don’t think I am the only person in the world who thinks as I do, and therefore I feel free to appeal to what I hope is a shared recognition in others that selfishness is a less ‘worthy’ reason to do good than common aspiration.
This does not acknowledge the existence of objective morality outside human heads.
I think your ‘pie’ example is misleading – I don’t think anyone thinks that abusing children is ‘good’, in any sense other than ‘gratifying’. There is a group of people who, due to sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies, does not share the common view that hurting others is wrong. They tend to lack empathetic abilities, though they may be highly intelligent. They lack a moral sense of any kind – it is not that they think abusing kids is morally desirable. But it remains the common experience that hurting children is particularly repellent – for some reasonably justifiable biological reasons. We don’t need no bible to tell us that. In fact, does it tell us that? But I think you are simply seeking to replace “might makes right” (even though that is not the conclusion to which I am forced by atheism) by “Almighty makes righty”!
William J Murray,
Any moral code originated by humans would be subjective, since the author is not everyone else, and therefore, subjective.
Any moral code that started out as an objective one, one that did not have a subjective source, did not therefore originate with a human.
1) Who decides, objectively, how to determine what this code contains ?
2) Where did this non-human code come from?
This is just flat out prejudice….there are no facts here. Let’s, again, ask some very simple questions.
Here’s an obviously man-made, subjective moral rule….
According to you the ultimate rationale for this rule being there is to get everyone to stop running red lights. This is nonsense! The real reason for its existence is that running red lights is very, very dangerous.
But let’s now turn to objective morality. According to you, the rationale for objectivity in morality is “out of concern” for people’s well being. Okay, let’s examine a genuine , bona fide piece of objective morality…..ahh, we can’t.
You can make all the claims you want about how great, how superior, how rationally necessary an objective moral standard is for human kind but when it comes down to the most cursory examination it falls at the first hurdle.
For until the time you (or anyone) are able to bring to the table even a single objective moral fact then all the claims about them are pure speculation.
I’m unfamiliar with this story.
Even though I’m unfamiliar with this story, I’d say that anything done for no reason other than to extend one’s pain and suffering would be immoral.
Nobody decides anything objectively. All decisions are subjectively made whether or not one believes their evaluatory criteria refers to objective commodities. The individual discerns as best they are able what is moral and what is not whether they believe morality is based on an objective or subjective good.
There are no non-human moral codes that I’m aware of. Moral codes are human -generated descriptions of something presumed to be either subjective or objective, just like gravitational theory is a description of something presumed to be an objective or subjective commodity.
Here is a link to Michael Servetus.
Well, this gets at the point of evolving morality and the rationale for moral acts. If it was okay to torture and purge a person of sin by burning him/her at the stake back in the sixteenth century, why isn’t it okay with you or with our secular laws today?
William J Murray,
Gravitational theory is our purely subjective description of the attraction between masses. Gravity doesn’t objectively exist any more than a sense of humour does.
That’s the problem, that we, being subjective, have no way of thinking objectively.
The closest we can get is voluntary consensus or “might makes right”.
Any truly objective moral code cannot have a subjective source, meaning us.
If it is “outside” us, it had to come from “outside” us.
If it does exist, who can correctly identify it, “Toronto” or “William J Murray”?
So, in your argument, “better morality” means “more popular morality”; if it is the common aspiration of enough people who have a shared recognition of the need to, say, wipe out the Jews or torture all heretics into submission or own slaves or start up an eugenics program or obliterate homosexuals, then it is by principle a “better morality”.
You see, in a morality based on an objective good, what is right is right regardless of what is popular or what most people “recognize” as being right, which gives one the axiomatic authority to challenge any supposed moral truth regardless of who makes it or where they claim it came from, and regardless of how many people think it’s a good idea to beat their children or kill everyone in the neighboring tribe.
But, under your maxim of “appeal to a shared recognition in others” about what is a lesser or greater “worthy” reason to do something, there is no means by which to dissent from what is popularly considered to be moral behavior.
Subjective morality always boils down to might makes right.
I’m not sure what you are asking. From my perspective, it wasn’t okay then, and it’s not okay now, regardless of what anyone else thinks, or what anyone at the time thought.
You actually believe that is a moral rule?
Even god cannot change what is good or, as you say, it is still a case of might-makes-right.
Here is a link to Death by burning.
Heresy was a capital crime.
Why is it not now? Or is it?
It seems to me that there is a meaning of “objective” that is missing here, and as a result we have an excluded middle.
William is using “objective morality” to mean that:
And the term “subjective morality” is being used to mean something like: an intentional behaviour that is right if someone thinks it is right, and that the consequences of behaviour depend on who is arbitrating those consequences.
Which I find slightly odd, because in science, “objective” usually means something like: “can be agreed on on by independent observers”.
Clearly, your “objective morality” cannot be “agreed on by independent observers” – so I’m not sure in what sense it objectively exists, if we can’t verify that it does.
And so we lack a adjective to describe the morality that is “agreed on by independent observers” who can, I would argue, agree that “morality exists”, simply by observing that we all use the auxilliary verb “ought” to contrast, typically with the auxiliary word “want”. In other words, we weigh up what we would rather do against what we must do.
Although it seems to me that “ought” is used in two distinguishable ways:
One is when we balance immediate gratification to ourselves against delayed gratification to ourselves, which people do not refer to as “moral” considerations but rather “self-discipline” or “will-power”.
The other is when we balance gratification to ourselves (immediate or delayed) against benefit to others.
Independent observers appear to agree to refer to that as “morality”.
Independent observers however do not tend to agree on what benefits others, nor who counts as an “other”. So there’s still plenty of room for disagreement.
But it seems to me that in the scientific sense, we have a fairly clear “objective” definition of morality – its the imperative that requires us to balance the needs of others against our own. AKA “altruism”.
And that seems to me to address Jammer’s NAMBLA point. Nobody argues that doing what we fancy doing, whatever the consequences are, is exercising “morality”. They might say that morality doesn’t matter, all that matters is enjoying yourself, but we simply do not use the word “morality” to refer to such a view.
That’s why it is, as you say “self-evident” that torturing babies for pleasure is immoral – it’s immoral by definition. Even if I enjoyed torturing babies, I wouldn’t say “I really ought to go and torture some babies, but I’m having such a nice time here changing my great-aunt’s incontinence pads”.
The whole concept of morality refers to the drive we have as human animals to put aside what gratifies ourselves in order to benefit someone else. It’s an odd drive, but we clearly have it, even if we sometimes ignore it, and argue about who should benefit how. I could attribute it to evolution (genetic or cultural), or I could attribute it to grace, but what is perfectly clear, to independent observers, is that we have it.
Now we could argue about whether it’s something we might as well dispense with as a useless bit of evolutionary junk, but that wouldn’t be redefining it to mean “what suits me personally”. It would simply be declaring morality unnecessary
And some people do. Why don’t we all? Because if most people respond reasonably reliably to the moral imperative, we have a more harmonious society, which benefits us all. Indeed this is so clearly the case, that we set up justice systems to deal with those who try to free-load.
So we build in negative consequences for those who cheat. However, there’s something more profound going on: it turns out that the happiest people are those who spend time doing things for other people. So it’s one of the odd things about our inbuilt moral imperative that while it causes us to trade our own direct pleasure for the benefit of others, we often end up as the ultimate beneficiaries.
I do.
Why, doesn’t it qualify as one?
This indeed appears to be something that has a very deep history in the evolution of complex organisms that share a common gene pool.
It became part of the “innate wiring” of individuals because it facilitated the survival of large enough populations to prevent extinction.
Then sufficiently complex organisms such as humans came to reflect on such behaviors – with the more observant among them beginning to catalog historically successful behaviors – and formalized them into group rules.
Layered on top of that is the growing awareness of the physical universe mixed with ancient superstitions, religions, past rules for behavior, and the collective agreements for the enforcement of those rules.
What emerges is the complex history of evolving morality. It doesn’t mean, and has never meant, everybody for himself. Such selfish behavior is “anti-social” precisely because it disrupts (or is believed to disrupt) the collective survival of the population.
Humans make up all sorts of laws. I don’t understand what you’re asking me. Humans have all sorts of conflicting moral codes.
I’m not arguing that any description of a thing is objectively true, but only that the thing we are attempting to describe (good, human purpose) objectively exists and that we are doing our best to individually, subjectively describe it.
People that witness a crime give widely varying descriptions of the events. Because they give widely conflicting descriptions of the suspect doesn’t mean the suspect only exists in their minds, nor does it mean that the suspect doesn’t have objectively existent features.
Says who?
Why’s that?
Does this mean that you think morality comes only from some authority figure rather than from an innate ability of individuals to collectively figure it out for themselves?
Well, I’m really not sure what you mean by “objective morality” in that sense. I mean I’ve read your definition, but I don’t grok it (sorry can’t think of a better word).
I mean, I accept that the sun “objectively exists”, even though we do not have direct access to its reality, only to highly predictive models we make based on evidence.
But what equivalent is there for morality? What predictive models can we make to test the hypothesis that it exists?
What regularities in the universe suggest a fundamental moral law?
And what use is it to us if we can’t find out what it prescribes and proscribes?
Well, I guess if you get to make up the definition, then you can support your argument by referring to the definition you just made up.
Merriam Webster:
Note that these definitions do not presume to tell us what is right or wrong, nor do they offer the principle that Elizabeth has sneaked into the definition – the principle of putting the well being of others ahead of your own:
That’s called a stolen concept, Elizabeth. You don’t get to just insert your particular principle of moral behavior into the definition of morality by fiat.
And how convenient; you invent a definition of morality that includes the very prohibition that I’m challenging (the challenge being whether or not that prohibition can be arrived at logically from the premise of subjectivity), and then simply wave your definitional wand to make any substantially contradictory view of “what is moral” go away.
No, it means that she has provided no reason to accept her particular definition of what morality “is”, other than “some observers agree” or her “say so” definition.
Some observers agree that morality is collection of arbitrary edicts from god. So? Who says?
Some observers agree that morality is the genetic imperative to weed out the unfit and promote the reproduction of only the best. So? Who says?
Some observers agree that morality is whatever the most observers agree upon – whether it includes slavery, gassing the jews, or torturing children for personal pleasure. So? Who says?
If we just get to include our particular preference of principle into the very definition of morality based on what “some observers agree”, then all we have is a form of might (popularity of observers) makes right, even if we use that might of willful preference to assert that putting the welfare of others ahead of your own interests “is” what morality “is”.
Why should I care “what some observers agree” in the first place? Some observers disagree. So?
but yet:
Can you reconcile those two statements of yours?
I don’t think I have seen this mentioned yet. Perhaps it should be a separate topic. To me, it seems clear that morality is adaptive. So when other things in society change, then moral considerations also change, so as to adapt. Morality for an agrarian society will be different from morality for a hunter-gatherer society. Morality for an industrial society will be different from morality for an agrarian society.
At this very time, we see changing moral views about privacy, as part of social adaptation to the Internet era.
The problem for fundamentalist religion, is that they want to take moral positions that were adapted to a very different society, and forcibly apply them to the modern technological society where they are maladapted.
Don’t get the impression that Elizabeth is stating “her definition” of morality. She isn’t just pulling things out of the air.
Much of what Elizabeth is saying comes from many, many lines of research and study. We not only look across myriads of human societies from hunter/gatherer societies to large industrial societies, we look at them over history as well.
But we don’t stop there; we look at the social behaviors of many other species. And not just other species as a whole, we study subgroups of them. We discover that different tribes – or pods, or whatever characterizes a cooperative group – have different norms of behavior in addition to overall species behaviors.
There’s nothing preventing you from saying X is wrong in every case, without qualification. The fact that such is an subjective belief (which, again, is redundant, but for clarity…) doesn’t constrain the scope of the prohibition at all. It just makes it a (subjective belief) about a universal principle. Objective universal. Objective denotes independence from mind or will.
I see there’s whole lot of other mini-conversations going on at the moment, some overlapping the angle I’m pursuing. I’ll step aside for the moment and let others pursue this further, and if you’re still around when the busy-factor has subsided, perhaps revisit this.
There’s nothing prevent me from saying all sorts of nonsensical things. The question is if the belief that the wrongness of X is subjective can be logically reconciled with the concurrently held belief that X is wrong in every case and circumstance.
It cannot be, because to claim the wrongness of X is subjective is to necessarily imply that X is not wrong in every case and circumstance. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Are you suggesting that context and circumstances are irrelevant to the morality of a particular behavior?
Let’s look at a particular example.
Is it wrong for some teenagers to smash a store window and take food without paying for it?
If you found out that the reason they did it was because they were stranded for over a week in a flood ravaged city (New Orleans), and they were getting the food for a grandmother stranded in the attic of their flooded house, is it still wrong?
William J Murray,
If you’ll answer Mike’s question below, I’ll answer yours about torturing children for fun.
Even Jesus thought objective morality was pants!
🙂
Only if you agree to the second! But I thought you were rejecting that definition of “objective”.
Are you saying that morality can be agreed on by indepenent observers?
If so, I definitely have not understood your earlier definition!
Says we all.
Do you know of anyone who says otherwise?
I don’t know of anyone who has ever said that morality is this. I do know some people have said that this is what morality dictates – that this is what is “ethical”.
But morality remains what it always is: the imperative to do what benefits others rather than what benefits ourselves. In this case, what is deemed to benefit future human beings. The fact that we are moral beings – that we think it matters what we do – is what causes us to pose the question: ought we do now what will benefit
future human beingsothers?We will disagree on the answer [ETA: to the question “what will benefit others?]. But we agree that it is a valid question – that there is something we “ought” to do that is not necessarily something that will either gratify our immediate desires or benefit us personally in the future.
No. That is what I am referring to as ethics – the decisions we make based on the fundamental moral principle that, I argue, we all share, namely that there are things we “ought” to do even when they conflict with our own interests. What those things are – who the beneficiaries should be and how they should benefit, is what I am referring to “ethics”.
However, if what I am calling “ethics”, you are calling morality, then that opens a whole other set of issues, because presumably, if so, you are saying that somewhere, “out there” is a set of absolute rules of human behaviour. Are you?
Again, this is to confuse morality (the principle that we have a duty to others) with ethics (what that duty consists of). Or at least to fail to distinguish between those two things. What morality (in the sense I am using the term) consist of is not decided by popular opinion of fashion. It’s the very phenomenon of being driven to do things that benefit others even if that compromises our own comfort. Doing things for our own direct benefit is not what anyone calls “morality”, even though torturing others for some misguided idea of what may benefit some other set of others may well be.
Because that’s how we get a well-fitting model of reality. If you see a pink elephant, and no-one else does, then you can conclude you’ve had too much gin. If you see a pink elephant and everybody independently agrees that there is a pink elephant right there, then you can conclude that “pink elephant right there” is a reasonably model of reality.
And so independent observers can note that when people say they “ought” to do something, and are not merely referring to an action that will serve their own future benefit, but rather that of some set of others, they call that imperative “morality”. Also “altruism”.
What is not so is that independent moral agents will come to the same conclusion as to what they ought to do. The big divisive issues are: who the relevant set of “others” are (“who is my neighbour?”); and what is in their interest (their earthly comfort or that of their eternal soul?)
Edited because I’d manage to elide two thoughts that occurred either side of a cup of coffee, with confusing results….
No, I’m saying that you cannot have your cake and eat it too; if X (torturing children for personal pleasure) is held as wrong in every case and circumstance, then it cannot rationally be regarded as a subjective wrong.
Which is why I always put in the motivation in my moral statements; such as, “torturing infants for pleasure”. Moral judgements cannot be made without knowing the intent or reasons.
Well, as I said, beliefs don’t have to be rationally reconcilable, and if one willing to double down on logical fallacies (inventing their own convenient definition & employing a stolen concept), it is obvious they have no intention of making such a case.
Agreed. And that I think makes my point for me: the domain of morality is the domain in which intentions matter. If the intention is purely self-interest, we do not call the decision a moral one. We may call it amoral, or even immoral (or, as I prefer, “unethical”), if it is done at the expense of someone else’s interest, but we do not call it moral.
If the intender however considers not only her own self-interest but weighs that up against the interests of others, then she has entered the domain of morality.
Often self-interest and other-interest coincide, of course, which is great. Morality, I am arguing, is the domain in which they do not, and “I ought” conflicts with “I want”.