Is there such a thing as objective morality?

[Drewish]

I encourage you to look to see if there's any statistically significant link between say, one's religious views and how likely one is to be a terrorist.

[Trolldor]

I encourage you to look to see if there's any statistically significant link between say, one's religious views and how likely one is to be a terrorist.

That is in no way a reflection on the role faith plays on morality, only on the role that belief plays on morality. Correlation is not causation. Why not, if you're going to invoke imaginary statistics, weigh up how many are religious and not terrorists.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Now, the question is whether that's an advantageous adaptation. If realizing that Sky Man doesn't exist is objectively better for one's survival and /or procreation then one would be able to say that an aspect of objective morality may be not believing in crazy bullshit.

Advantageous in what way?

Memetics differs from genetics in several fundamental ways.

Firstly, genetics is an accurate depiction of a real, biological process. Memetics is a convenient fiction that proposes that ideas can be transmitted down through the generations in a similar manner to genes. As an analogy it works quite well but only up to a point.

For a gene to be advantageous means that it ups its chances of being passed on to the next generation. Fortunately for us biological beings, that happens because it ups our chance of surviving long enough to get laid - woot!
For a meme to be advantageous means the same thing - that it ups its chance of being passed on to the next generation. However, that doesn't necessarily confer any other advantage to the person that holds that meme. The question is, are you more likely to pass on your atheism meme than others are to pass on their woo memes? Who shouts loudest and who is believed?

[FBM]

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"Go forth and multiply" is what these people live by.

[gooseboy]

So if moral A is better at reproducing itself than moral B in a particular environment then this would be an objective fact. It would remain true everywhere, and it would be independent of human thought or feelings. I don't see your point.

Put simply, no.

Firstly, you say "in a particular environment" and then extend this to imply objective truth for all humans. The morals of Amish don't hold for all humans but they are prevalent in their environment.

(My bold). No I don't. What I said was that if a moral is better at reproducing , say in the Amish, then a moral is better at reproducing in the Amish. This would remain true everywhere, but would obviously require an Amish environment to be tested. I was not extending this to say that the moral would be good at reproducing across all cultures (or indeed all species). To give an analogy, if I say that it's an objective fact that 2 hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom can combine to produce water then this is an objective fact even in places devoid of both hydrogen and oxygen.

Secondly, you say "it would be independent of human thought or feelings" when talking about a prevalent case. Moral A is better at passing itself on than moral B but that does not mean that moral B is necessarily absent from the population. For any given human, either moral A or moral B could be present (or even some other moral not considered in your example.) Thus, it is NOT independent of human experience but holds true only for some humans - even if that is an overwhelming majority.

(My bold) I don't follow. I'm just trying to say that one can objectively measure how well a moral survives. Whether or not one has the moral in question is irrelevant to being able to measure how well it survives.

What we are trying to establish (or at least discuss the arguments for and against) is whether there is a morality that exists beyond individual, human experience. Your argument merely asserts that there are some moral choices upon which the majority are agreed - this is a long way from objective morality.

I have never advocated "moral objectivism" (thanks LBoN for defining that term). All that I am trying to get at is that there is an objective reason why we have (at least some of) our morals, which is that they survive. Thus I do not believe that all of our morals are purely subjective.

But as for do morals exist beyond individual, human experience... I need to think a bit more about that one.

[charlou]

gooseboy, how do you get from a moral being 'better at reproducing' to it therefore being an 'objective moral'?



I've been wanting to get back to responding to an earlier post of yours, gooseboy ... apologies for the delay ... will try to get to it today.

[gooseboy]

gooseboy, how do you get from a moral being 'better at reproducing' to it therefore being an 'objective moral'?

I haven't got to that. I'm just trying to say that there are objective reasons that we have the morals that we have. To give the analogy I gave before - taste may be subjective but there are objective reasons that cake tastes better than shit (at least to the vast majority of humans).

[Trolldor]

gooseboy, how do you get from a moral being 'better at reproducing' to it therefore being an 'objective moral'?

I haven't got to that. I'm just trying to say that there are objective reasons that we have the morals that we have. To give the analogy I gave before - taste may be subjective but there are objective reasons that cake tastes better than shit (at least to the vast majority of humans).

No-one has said that morality has anything but objective origins. But objective origins do not an objective system make.

[gooseboy]

gooseboy, how do you get from a moral being 'better at reproducing' to it therefore being an 'objective moral'?

I haven't got to that. I'm just trying to say that there are objective reasons that we have the morals that we have. To give the analogy I gave before - taste may be subjective but there are objective reasons that cake tastes better than shit (at least to the vast majority of humans).

No-one has said that morality has anything but objective origins. But objective origins do not an objective system make.

I beg to differ. People have said that morals are purely subjective. If there are objective reasons for us having (at least some of) the morals we have then I can't see that they are purely subjective.

[Trolldor]

gooseboy, how do you get from a moral being 'better at reproducing' to it therefore being an 'objective moral'?

I haven't got to that. I'm just trying to say that there are objective reasons that we have the morals that we have. To give the analogy I gave before - taste may be subjective but there are objective reasons that cake tastes better than shit (at least to the vast majority of humans).

No-one has said that morality has anything but objective origins. But objective origins do not an objective system make.

I beg to differ. People have said that morals are purely subjective. If there are objective reasons for us having (at least some of) the morals we have then I can't see that they are purely subjective.

Yes, they can. The objective cause for morality is one thing, but the simple fact is that there is not a single moral system which is objectively the natural result of human progression. Morals change from situation to situation, from culture to culture, from indivdual to individual. Rather, it seems, that having a similar set of beliefs and values is effective at fostering co-operation and survival.

[gooseboy]

Yes, they can. The objective cause for morality is one thing, but the simple fact is that there is not a single moral system which is objectively the natural result of human progression. Morals change from situation to situation, from culture to culture, from indivdual to individual. Rather, it seems, that having a similar set of beliefs and values is effective at fostering co-operation and survival.

Right. Having a similar set of beliefs and values may be effective at fostering co-operation and survival. Such morals may be called subjective. But some morals don't work that way, such as incest which I keep going on about. An aversion to incest directly helps the individual regardless of whether the society they are in thinks incest is good or bad.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Yes, they can. The objective cause for morality is one thing, but the simple fact is that there is not a single moral system which is objectively the natural result of human progression. Morals change from situation to situation, from culture to culture, from indivdual to individual. Rather, it seems, that having a similar set of beliefs and values is effective at fostering co-operation and survival.

Right. Having a similar set of beliefs and values may be effective at fostering co-operation and survival. Such morals may be called subjective. But some morals don't work that way, such as incest which I keep going on about. An aversion to incest directly helps the individual regardless of whether the society they are in thinks incest is good or bad.

Would Josef Fritzl have this objective moral aversion to incest? The fact is that incest goes on a lot. Most child abusers are members of the immediate family. An aversion to incest is as subjective as any other part of the moral code.

[Drewish]

The point is not whether it is objectively followed but whether it is objectively good for the individual. People make stupid mistakes all the time and do things that harm them, the fact that people do not follow rules which it would be to their benefit to follow, does not mean that the rules are suddenly less worthy.

[gooseboy]

Yes, they can. The objective cause for morality is one thing, but the simple fact is that there is not a single moral system which is objectively the natural result of human progression. Morals change from situation to situation, from culture to culture, from indivdual to individual. Rather, it seems, that having a similar set of beliefs and values is effective at fostering co-operation and survival.

Right. Having a similar set of beliefs and values may be effective at fostering co-operation and survival. Such morals may be called subjective. But some morals don't work that way, such as incest which I keep going on about. An aversion to incest directly helps the individual regardless of whether the society they are in thinks incest is good or bad.

Would Josef Fritzl have this objective moral aversion to incest? The fact is that incest goes on a lot. Most child abusers are members of the immediate family. An aversion to incest is as subjective as any other part of the moral code.

In the discussion so far I have only been talking about inter-sibling incest. Father - daughter incest is more complex and I don't want to go into it.

BTW, I don't doubt that some (although very few) people would think that inter-sibling incest is perfectly acceptable. But such people would be less likely to survive than those who don't. Thus there is an objective reason that the vast majority of us think that inter-sibling incest is bad.

[Trolldor]

Yes, they can. The objective cause for morality is one thing, but the simple fact is that there is not a single moral system which is objectively the natural result of human progression. Morals change from situation to situation, from culture to culture, from indivdual to individual. Rather, it seems, that having a similar set of beliefs and values is effective at fostering co-operation and survival.

Right. Having a similar set of beliefs and values may be effective at fostering co-operation and survival. Such morals may be called subjective. But some morals don't work that way, such as incest which I keep going on about. An aversion to incest directly helps the individual regardless of whether the society they are in thinks incest is good or bad.

Would Josef Fritzl have this objective moral aversion to incest? The fact is that incest goes on a lot. Most child abusers are members of the immediate family. An aversion to incest is as subjective as any other part of the moral code.

In the discussion so far I have only been talking about inter-sibling incest. Father - daughter incest is more complex and I don't want to go into it.

BTW, I don't doubt that some (although very few) people would think that inter-sibling incest is perfectly acceptable. But such people would be less likely to survive than those who don't. Thus there is an objective reason that the vast majority of us think that inter-sibling incest is bad.

Really? Popular opinion seems to be "don't give a shit".