Is there such a thing as objective morality?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I once heard a young man state "Well, there's not such thing as good or bad anyway." My immediate reply was "Three days ago somebody dropped a dozen mortar rounds on kids lined up to receive their school books, killing or injuring nearly a hundred of them. Now, is that good or bad."

[Trolldor]

I once heard a young man state "Well, there's not such thing as good or bad anyway." My immediate reply was "Three days ago somebody dropped a dozen mortar rounds on kids lined up to receive their school books, killing or injuring nearly a hundred of them. Now, is that good or bad."

Objectively, bombs and ice-creams are the same.

[gooseboy]

This genetic/physical component however would not include any specific moral values or rules. It would merely be a framework within which moral values and rules could develop/imprint/transfer etc.

Is that just an assertion? Do have you any studies that support it?

The bit I highlighted in green in this post? Do you have any studies that support the genetic inheritance of any specific moral values or rules? If so what are the specific moral values or rules you are talking about that are genetically transferred?

Sorry I didn't get back to this earlier, I intended to but was sidetracked.

Thanks for the link. I agree with the author that some rules aren't simply inherited, which explains why different cultures have some different morals. However I'm with RD in believing that the basis of our morals is empathy and that this evolved (and is therefore inherited). I also believe that our moral aversion to incest is inherited, as I explained above.

Richard Dawkins talks about the transfer of moral or cultural information in terms of his theory of memetics. I don't know a lot about memetics, but I do know it's considered controversial. It certainly does not have the same standing in the scientific community as the theory of evolution. Memetics is an analogous theory that Dawkins has come up with to explain the transfer of cultural and societal information including morals. He does not propose that this information is transferred genetically.

http://www.rationalia.com/forum/posting ... 8&p=254102#

He doesn't propose that this information is transferred genetically? Please look here.

[Richard Dawkins] then turns to the subject of morality, maintaining that we do not need religion to be good. Instead, our morality has a Darwinian explanation: altruistic genes, selected through the process of evolution, give people natural empathy.

Note - I'll say again that I don't doubt that many or maybe most morals are learnt, but I don't believe that all of them are.

I think it might help if you provide a bit more information about the morals that you believe are not learnt?
Perhaps we are not working from the same understanding of what morals are?

Again, using your #1 definition of moral below, most people would class incest as immoral. I don't believe that we are taught this - and IMO for most people the very thought of shagging a sibling is far too icky to contemplate. I'd be very interested if you disagree and have any experience to suggest that anyone (at least anyone sane or who didnt't grow up separated from their siblings (in which case the "don't shag your sibling" mechanism mightn't work)) needs to be taught not to shag their siblings.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/morals

mor·al (môrl, mr-)
adj.
1. Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character: moral scrutiny; a moral quandary.
2. Teaching or exhibiting goodness or correctness of character and behavior: a moral lesson.
3. Conforming to standards of what is right or just in behavior; virtuous: a moral life.
4. Arising from conscience or the sense of right and wrong: a moral obligation.
5. Having psychological rather than physical or tangible effects: a moral victory; moral support.
6. Based on strong likelihood or firm conviction, rather than on the actual evidence: a moral certainty.
n.
1. The lesson or principle contained in or taught by a fable, a story, or an event.
2. A concisely expressed precept or general truth; a maxim.
3. morals Rules or habits of conduct, especially of sexual conduct, with reference to standards of right and wrong: a person of loose morals; a decline in the public morals.

I found this article in the Stanford Encyclopedia that defines biological altruism (my highlighting).

In evolutionary biology, an organism is said to behave altruistically when its behaviour benefits other organisms, at a cost to itself. The costs and benefits are measured in terms of reproductive fitness, or expected number of offspring. So by behaving altruistically, an organism reduces the number of offspring it is likely to produce itself, but boosts the number that other organisms are likely to produce. This biological notion of altruism is not identical to the everyday concept. In everyday parlance, an action would only be called ‘altruistic’ if it was done with the conscious intention of helping another. But in the biological sense there is no such requirement. Indeed, some of the most interesting examples of biological altruism are found among creatures that are (presumably) not capable of conscious thought at all, e.g. insects. For the biologist, it is the consequences of an action for reproductive fitness that determine whether the action counts as altruistic, not the intentions, if any, with which the action is performed.

There is more information in the article if you are interested.

This article I found entitled Misunderstanding Richard Dawkins may also be useful.

I don't believe that I am misunderstanding Dawkins. I don't recall even using the terms selfish or altruistic.

[gooseboy]

I once heard a young man state "Well, there's not such thing as good or bad anyway." My immediate reply was "Three days ago somebody dropped a dozen mortar rounds on kids lined up to receive their school books, killing or injuring nearly a hundred of them. Now, is that good or bad."

EDIT: I'm changing this example to make it clearer.

This is IMO perceived as bad because most of us have empathy with the kids. And the more empathy we have probably the more bad we would see this as being. For example children are killed as a result of Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan:- people in the US / Australia probably think this is bad but I don't see much moral outrage about it. If Taliban terrorists bombed the school down the road from you or me killing the children I imagine this would be seen as very very very bad and there would be considerable moral outrage.

[starr]

I think it might help if you provide a bit more information about the morals that you believe are not learnt?
Perhaps we are not working from the same understanding of what morals are?

Again, using your #1 definition of moral below, most people would class incest as immoral. I don't believe that we are taught this - and IMO for most people the very thought of shagging a sibling is far too icky to contemplate. I'd be very interested if you disagree and have any experience to suggest that anyone (at least anyone sane or who didnt't grow up separated from their siblings (in which case the "don't shag your sibling" mechanism mightn't work)) needs to be taught not to shag their siblings.

The following wiki article is interesting. I think you'll find the third paragraph particularly relevant to your argument gooseboy.
Wikipedia - Incest - Between Childhood Siblings

Between childhood siblings

Childhood sibling–sibling incest is considered to be widespread but rarely reported.[14] Many types of sexual contact between children (e.g., "playing doctor") are not considered harmful or abnormal, but become child-on-child sexual abuse when there is overt and deliberate actions directed at sexual stimulation. The most commonly reported form of abusive sibling incest is abuse of a younger brother or sister, committed by an older brother.[14] A 2006 study showed a large portion of adults who experienced sibling incest have distorted or disturbed beliefs both about their own experience and the subject of sexual abuse in general.[28] An observational study in 1993 found that 16% of the 930 adult women interviewed reported that they had been sexually abused by a sibling before they were 18 years old.[29]

Sibling incest is most prevalent in families where one or both parents are often absent or emotionally unavailable, with the abusive siblings using incest as a way to assert their power over a weaker sibling and thereby express their feelings of hurt and rage.[29] Absence of the father in particular has been found to be a significant element of most cases of sexual abuse of female children by a brother.[30] The damaging effects on both childhood development and adult symptoms resulting from brother–sister sexual abuse are similar to the effects of father–daughter, including substance abuse, depression, suicidality, and eating disorders.[30][31]

However, according to studies of psychological theories of imprinting, siblings are protected against falling in love. Reverse sexual imprinting means that when two people live in close domestic proximity during the first few years in the life of either one, both are desensitized to later close sexual attraction. This phenomenon, known as the Westermarck effect, was first formally described by Finnish anthropologist Edvard Westermarck. The Westermarck effect has since been observed in many places and cultures, including in the Israeli kibbutz system, and the Chinese Shim-pua marriage customs, as well as in biological-related families. When close proximity during this critical period does not occur—for example, where a brother and sister are brought up separately, never meeting one another—they may find one another highly sexually attractive when they meet as adults. This phenomenon is known as genetic sexual attraction. This observation is consistent with the hypothesis that the Westermarck effect evolved because it suppressed inbreeding.

I've never heard of these imprinting theories before but they sound plausible. However, even if evolution has developed a mechanism (allbeit imperfect) to attempt to supress inbreeding, it does not make incest objectively morally wrong. I agree with you that most people probably do think incest is morally wrong. Neither majority rule nor the existence of a genetic determinent can make something morally right or wrong. As XC said earlier in the thread, the genetic issue is a red herring to whether or not morality is objective.

I don't believe that I am misunderstanding Dawkins. I don't recall even using the terms selfish or altruistic.

The term altruistic was in one of the Dawkins quotes you put in the post I was replying to (I've highlighted it in your quote below).

He doesn't propose that this information is transferred genetically? Please look here.

[Richard Dawkins] then turns to the subject of morality, maintaining that we do not need religion to be good. Instead, our morality has a Darwinian explanation: altruistic genes, selected through the process of evolution, give people natural empathy.

Note - I'll say again that I don't doubt that many or maybe most morals are learnt, but I don't believe that all of them are.

[gooseboy]

I've never heard of these imprinting theories before but they sound plausible. However, even if evolution has developed a mechanism (allbeit imperfect) to attempt to supress inbreeding, it does not make incest objectively morally wrong. I agree with you that most people probably do think incest is morally wrong. Neither majority rule nor the existence of a genetic determinent can make something morally right or wrong. As XC said earlier in the thread, the genetic issue is a red herring to whether or not morality is objective.

I don't believe that incest is objectively immoral. As I said above what I do believe that the moral of "incest is bad" is an objectively better moral than "incest is the preferred method of reproduction" but only from the point of view that it is better at surviving (in the genes as it happens, but I'm not sure if that is relevant). Thus I do not believe that the reason most of us view incest as bad is purely subjective - I believe it is a survival instinct.

The term altruistic was in one of the Dawkins quotes you put in the post I was replying to (I've highlighted it in your quote below).

OK, you got me. Could you point out why you believe I may have been misunderstanding Dawkins?

[gooseboy]

Take incest as an example. There is an objective reason for brothers and sisters not to mate (their offspring are more likely to have birth defects). Thus I would consider the "moral" of "incest is wrong" (which I imagine that most people subscribe to) is objectively better from a natural selection viewpoint than the "moral" of "incest is the preferred method of reproduction". Thus I do not believe that one's morals are purely subjective, but rather are (at least to some degree) subject to natural selection.

You don't believe morals are purely subjective, while believing they're (at least to some degree) subject to natural selection? That seems contradictory.

You haven't given me your definition of subjective yet, so I'll go with mine. Your quote now becomes:

You don't believe morals are purely taking place within the mind and modified by individual bias, while believing they're (at least to some degree) subject to natural selection?

This sentence doesn't seem the least bit contradictory to me.

Why continue to consider incest immoral when we have many options available to us to deal with the relatively low possibility of undesirable consequences of incestuous procreation? Contraception to prevent procreation, abortion to deal with unwanted pregnancy, and a social and medical environment which cares for disabled humans. An absolute moral stance against incest, with claims that it is an objectively correct moral stance because it has an evolutionary basis is absurd.

I agree that it isn't objectively correct to have an absolute moral stance against incest. All I was trying to get at is the reason that most people don't practice incest has evolutionary roots because people who thought that incest was wrong were more likely pass on their genes than people who thought that incest was the way to go. I would expect that most people today would have moral objections to their sprogs having a full on incestuous relationship. I don't think that you can reason your way to why this should be, it's just something that's encoded in most individual's genes precisely because it was a useful survival instinct for our ancestors. Thus being morally against incest isn't purely subjective - there is an evolutionary reason for it.

Also, at which point in human evolution did these behaviours become 'morals' and not just natural evolutionary imperatives? Why are they considered 'morals' now?

Don't know. I think it may just be semantics.

it's because we apply our reason to them. Subjective reason.

This I do not follow. How does one arrive at incest being bad (which the vast majority of people believe as far as I can tell) using reason?

[Trolldor]

There is no doubt a morality is naturally caused, but you also seem to forget that the principles of that morality change according to environment and culture. If morality is 'objective' rather than 'objectively caused' then any and all morality is 'objective'. It means that murder is objectively wrong, and at the same time objectively right to the murderer who does it because he enjoys it. You set yourself up to contradiction.
Without an objective arbiter, there is no objective system by which to determine what is 'right' and 'wrong'.

What seems to be more likely is that evolutionarily, groups which adhered to the same morality survived longer. Not killing your family members wasn't moral, it was because you needed people slower than you when running away from predators, and you needed more people to hunt for food. When food and water were scarce, infanticide was practiced. If you weren't healthy, you were sometimes discarded as an infant because you were too much of a burden. I can't forget who said it, but it was something along the lines of 'morality is a luxury of the modern world'.

[gooseboy]

Is the "you" you are referring to me? If so, my reply is below.

There is no doubt a morality is naturally caused, but you also seem to forget that the principles of that morality change according to environment and culture. If morality is 'objective' rather than 'objectively caused' then any and all morality is 'objective'. It means that murder is objectively wrong, and at the same time objectively right to the murderer who does it because he enjoys it. You set yourself up to contradiction.
Without an objective arbiter, there is no objective system by which to determine what is 'right' and 'wrong'.

Do you mean that I implied that morality doesn't change according to the environment? If so where did I imply this?

I agree with you final sentence. What I think is that what's considered right and wrong is what is useful for the procreation an individual to think of as right and wrong. Thus, as I have hopefully shown, incest is considered wrong but only because there's an evolutionary reason to think that it's wrong. Empathy is considered good, again because there's an evolutionary reason for this, although the reason is more subtle than the one for incest. (Richard Dawkins covers it the the reference I gave earlier.)

What seems to be more likely is that evolutionarily, groups which adhered to the same morality survived longer. Not killing your family members wasn't moral, it was because you needed people slower than you when running away from predators, and you needed more people to hunt for food. When food and water were scarce, infanticide was practiced. If you weren't healthy, you were sometimes discarded as an infant because you were too much of a burden. I can't forget who said it, but it was something along the lines of 'morality is a luxury of the modern world'.

"Group evolution" is a discredited concept, except for close family groups. For something to survive in a human who isn't in a close family group it has to be useful to the individual. (RD talks about this in the God Delusion, IIRC.) I posit that the reason that killing, say, your own healthy children is usually considered bad (and maybe there are exceptions where it's not considered bad) is that people who consider killing their own healthy children to be good (or moral) don't replicate as well as those who consider it bad.

[starr]

I've never heard of these imprinting theories before but they sound plausible. However, even if evolution has developed a mechanism (allbeit imperfect) to attempt to supress inbreeding, it does not make incest objectively morally wrong. I agree with you that most people probably do think incest is morally wrong. Neither majority rule nor the existence of a genetic determinent can make something morally right or wrong. As XC said earlier in the thread, the genetic issue is a red herring to whether or not morality is objective.

I don't believe that incest is objectively immoral. As I said above what I do believe that the moral of "incest is bad" is an objectively better moral than "incest is the preferred method of reproduction" but only from the point of view that it is better at surviving (in the genes as it happens, but I'm not sure if that is relevant). Thus I do not believe that the reason most of us view incest as bad is purely subjective - I believe it is a survival instinct.

I'm not sure whether we are talking at cross-purposes or not. Perhaps we are defining 'morals' and/or 'objective' differently from one another?

When you say 'an objectively better moral' I'm not exactly sure what you are getting at. Are you saying that moral values (some or all?) can be objectively compared based on how well they survive? One problem with that argument is that you are making a judgement. I'm not saying it is a bad or a good judgement, just that it is a judgement. You are using your thoughts to conclude that if a moral value is inherited and aids survival then that makes it a better moral. You have effectively made a subjective judgement to determine what you are calling your 'objective' method of comparison. It is not actually an objective method of comparison, in an absolute sense. That's where the logic falls down as I see it.

The term altruistic was in one of the Dawkins quotes you put in the post I was replying to (I've highlighted it in your quote below).

OK, you got me. Could you point out why you believe I may have been misunderstanding Dawkins?

I'm wasn't sure whether you were misunderstanding Dawkins or not (that was just the title of the article I linked to). I may even have been misunderstanding what you were saying. I'm still not completely sure I am understanding the crux of your argument.

[gooseboy]

When you say 'an objectively better moral' I'm not exactly sure what you are getting at.

I'm saying that it's objectively better from an evolutionary view point.

Are you saying that moral values (some or all?) can be objectively compared based on how well they survive?

From an evolutionary viewpoint (and I'd probably say only from an evolutionary viewpoint) yes. (Note that the encoding could be in genes or memes, it doesn't really matter.)

One problem with that argument is that you are making a judgement. I'm not saying it is a bad or a good judgement, just that it is a judgement. You are using your thoughts to conclude that if a moral value is inherited and aids survival then that makes it a better moral.

Am I making a judgement? I don't see this at all. All I'm saying is that if you wish you can objectively compare morals from an evolutionary point of view.

You have effectively made a subjective judgement to determine what you are calling your 'objective' method of comparison. It is not actually an objective method of comparison, in an absolute sense. That's where the logic falls down as I see it.

I have given one way by which morals can be objectively compared. Because there is at least one way to objectively compare morals I don't believe that morals are purely subjective.

[gooseboy]

Just to clarify a little - some morals may be purely subjective. However I believe that some morals can be objectively compared from an evolutionary viewpoint, thus not all morals are purely subjective.

[Trolldor]

Just to clarify a little - some morals may be purely subjective. However I believe that some morals can be objectively compared from an evolutionary viewpoint, thus not all morals are purely subjective.

All morals are subjective. All morals MUST BE objectively caused, because there's no other way for them to come around. Everything in this universe has an objective cause, but nothing in the universe has objective value, and morals are included. No moral action is 'good' or 'bad', unless you refer to a standard, and without an objective standard no moral action is objectively better than any immoral action.

[Drewish]

Good job gooseboy. I intentionally stepped out of this argument for a while because I was clearly pissing people off, but you've shown fairly clearly that there is an objective standard (ie survival) by which to compare moralities. But I think that it's important to note whether we are discussing the survival of the morality itself, or the survival of individual(s) who have the morality. Clearly moralities will continue to spread and vary just like any organism might, but if we are to say that a morality is 'good' or 'evil' then it must be in relation to either morality itself or something (the bearer or the morality for example.)

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Good to see you back in the argument Andrew.

I don't think you were pissing anyone off. If anything, you seemed to be the one getting pissed off. I think you were just a little too attached to your POV and got a little heated at those that weren't prepared to accept it. The purpose of a discussion like this is not to convince the 'other side' that you are right but simply to share many different viewpoints and to try and understand them - whether that changes anyone's mind or not is another matter entirely.

Now, time to argue with you!

I don't agree that Gooseboy has "shown fairly clearly that there is an objective standard (ie survival) by which to compare moralities." I have stated several times that the genetic argument for objective morality is fatally flawed owing to the fluid, evolving nature of genetics - if morals can evolve, they are not fixed and objective. Further to that, there is no hard evidence that any specific morals have a genetic rather than memetic basis - that is mere supposition.

Personally, as an aside, I would propose that a couple of behaviours that are more than normally likely to be passed to the next generation (assuming that they are genetic in origin) are those of of promiscuity and sexual aggression. Neither of these tends to feature highly in most lists of virtues!