Is there such a thing as objective morality?

[PsychoSerenity]

All morality is within a society, unless a person lives on their own in the wilderness. I'm not sure what you mean.

http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... 50#p560918 Plugging my own post.

[Feral_Punctuation]

Except that what makes one person suffer and one person happy can be the same thing. Some people are made happy by murder and rape, others aren't. Some people suffer, others don't. Suffering and happiness are just judgments or reactions to what exists or happens. Saying that things that increase happiness are moral doesn't really tell us anything for certain. It only tells us that based on the assumption that X is good, then it's moral. Well, that's basically just saying that if it's moral it's moral.

It tells you that things that increase happiness are moral, meaning there is an objective source to morality, which is what we're talking about. I'm not advocating a value or act based moral system, so I don't think the first part of your post applies to me.

Many people have derived great pleasure from harming other people. Someone may rape and murder a guy's wife, and that guy might derive immense pleasure from vengeance against he perpetrator, enjoying watching the perpetrator die a slow and painful punishment. Is it moral?

Pain and pleasure as a source of morality is limited and not objective.

A utilitarian would say it may well be moral. How is it not objective? How is it limited?

[Trolldor]

Things that increase happines aren't moral. Things that increase happiness are things that increase happiness.
In fact, I can already list off the top of my head a number of things which increase happiness that are considered immoral.

Secondly, you can't redefine suffering to suit your aim. Suffering is specifically acute physical pain or extreme psychological discomfort and some people enjoy experiencing these extreme states.


Thirdly, an objective cause doesn't make it an objective fact. It's a naturalistic universe, everything has an objective cause, but if morality were objective we would expect to see it uniformly applied across our species - and we do not.

[Parrot Face]

by ‪Seraph‬ »
Accusations of 'closed minds' are a thinly disguised and passive-aggressive way of special pleading: "You are disagreeing with me because you have a closed mind." I'm not buying that.

Nice try, Parrot Face, but I bet not even you can outdo this in the "utter nonsense and new-age-type wankery" department:

by Seraph »

Accusations of 'closed minds' are a thinly disguised and passive-aggressive way of special pleading: "You are disagreeing with me because you have a closed mind." I'm not buying that.

And are you disagreeing with the 'gold ring' video,?
as you appear to departmental it into an "utter nonsense and new-age-type wankery" ? category

Look, I'm not here to ''sell'' ''out do'' or ''plead'' anything, how strange of you to think that?

I'm merely implying that a 'closed mind' cannot learn anything new.

I'm not asking you to agree or disagree with anything i write, i'm inviting you to listen to your own voice, to pay attention.
One cannot pay attention if one is not listening, however, the choice is entirely Y(ours) to listen or not, agree or not.

Isn't that the whole point of a discussion forum ? to play out all the things i have mentioned here.

Anyway my job is done here. i've said all that i needed to say.

Goodbye from me? and all the others that passed this way.

[Feral_Punctuation]

Things that increase happines aren't moral. Things that increase happiness are things that increase happiness.
In fact, I can already list off the top of my head a number of things which increase happiness that are considered immoral.

Secondly, you can't redefine suffering to suit your aim. Suffering is specifically acute physical pain or extreme psychological discomfort and some people enjoy experiencing these extreme states.


Thirdly, an objective cause doesn't make it an objective fact. It's a naturalistic universe, everything has an objective cause, but if morality were objective we would expect to see it uniformly applied across our species - and we do not.

I was working off of the assumption (which I asked you to criticize) that negative emotion is morally bad and happiness good. Is there a problem with the assumption?

OK, point taken, replace suffering in my posts with negative emotion. I don't really understand your third point.

Why would we expect to have morality uniformly applied across our species; wouldn't we have just evolved the most 'useful' idea of morality rather than the 'real' one?

[Trolldor]

No. If morality had an objective form we would expect it to be applied uniformly across our species, and we don't. Environment has a lot to do with how one is raised, genetics make an individual more likely predisposed to behaviour.

[Feral_Punctuation]

I don't understand exactly what you think would happen or why. You think, if there was an objective morality, that more humans would have similar ideas about what it is? Why?

[Trolldor]

Because it would be objective. No room for interpretation, subjective differences, individual emphasis or variation. Anything that is objective operates the same way in the same conditions, morality does not.
You can give two people the same conditions and the end result will be different in both cases. That is not the same for any objective phenomena - barring theoretical quantum which nobody fucking understands anyway.

[Feral_Punctuation]

I'm arguing for essentially utilitarian morality. Assuming my assumption(s) are correct, this would be a form of objective morality. You could work out what is moral, what is not and how (im)moral it is. I'm not saying it's inbuilt in people and I'm definitely not saying the inbuilt form of morality is correct.

[Trolldor]

But you can't.

Causing happiness is not a moral act and causing unhappiness is not an immoral act, or we would expect that in every instance that happiness is caused we would see a moral act and were unhappiness is caused we would see an immoral one. We do not.

[Feral_Punctuation]

Are you saying I can't make the assumptions I assumed (...)? I was never sure I could, tbh. That's why I asked you all about it.
As for the second part of your post, you seem to be saying that morality is only morality if we see it as such. If I were allowed to assume my assumptions, then I would disagree with this.

So what's wrong with my assumptions? Negative emotions certainly seem bad to me

[Coito ergo sum]

All morality is within a society, unless a person lives on their own in the wilderness. I'm not sure what you mean.

http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... 50#p560918 Plugging my own post.

I don't know what this means: "To make this clear - NOT the reasoning the mind goes through that makes it think it knows why it holds that judgement, - but the actual reason, that is probably best described through evolution, or as causality in the complex system of the universe, as a result of the laws of physics. Surely that has an objective answer?"

I don't know what the difference is between the actual reason and the reasoning the mind goes through.

[Coito ergo sum]

All morality is within a society, unless a person lives on their own in the wilderness. I'm not sure what you mean.

http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... 50#p560918 Plugging my own post.

I don't think this statement is true: "there are absolute limits on what can be held as morally right or wrong."

And, society doesn't hold murder to be immoral because the death rate might approach the birth rate. People hold murder to be immoral because they place themselves in the shoes of the victim and find it fair that all humans similarly situated should be protected from deprivation of life (with various and sundry exceptions that differ from culture to culture).

[Trolldor]

Let's explain this slowly.

Any level of objectiviely applicable morality needs a uniform conditioning. 'Negative feelings' aren't tied to immoral actions, and 'positive feelings' aren't tied to moral actions. There is no level upon which there can be reasoned 'objectively moral' acts and 'objectively immoral' acts based on 'positive or negative' feelings unless you can establish a uniform link between the two.

[Feral_Punctuation]

Let's explain this slowly.

Any level of objectiviely applicable morality needs a uniform conditioning. 'Negative feelings' aren't tied to immoral actions, and 'positive feelings' aren't tied to moral actions. There is no level upon which there can be reasoned 'objectively moral' acts and 'objectively immoral' acts based on 'positive or negative' feelings unless you can establish a uniform link between the two.

Agreed. I am absolutely wrong if my assumptions aren't correct. Which is why I posted this:

The one thing stopping me agreeing with the relativists is that suffering/happiness seem intrinsically morally bad and good respectively. It seems almost axiomatic (is that a word?). I'm sure there's something wrong with this idea, but I can't put my finger on it. Would you kindly put your finger on it?

So what is wrong with my assumption?
EDIT: Replace suffering with negative emotions.