non-existence of objective morality

[Angra Mainyu]

How many times do I have to say this?
You don't need a bible. Noah didn't have a bible. Job didn't. Abraham didnt.

It's not a matter of your claiming that. I'm pointing that out in order to rule out a source that you believe contains special revelation, and asking how you think they access it.

The bible certainly does include such claims.

You misunderstand. I said:

2. a. How did the Aztecs access special revelation? They had no Bible (not that the Bible is revealed, but leaving that aside), and no connection to it. In fact, there was not even a claim that there was special revelation from God. Moreover, they did not even have the concept of God (i.e., omniscient, omnipotent, morally perfect) in the first place. How would you suggest Acamapichtli go about finding special revelation?

Clearly, my point is that in Aztec society, there was not even a claim that there was special revelation from God. Now, you say the Bible include such claims. As I pointed out, they did not have the Bible. The fact is that the Aztecs did not even have access to a claim of special revelation.

Moreover, they did not even have the concept of God (i.e., omniscient, omnipotent, morally perfect) in the first place. How would you suggest Acamapichtli go about finding special revelation?

They might not even have to search. God can reveal stuff unilaterally.

But how would Acamapichtli who does not even have a concept of God or of special revelation from him, goes about finding moral truth? What steps does he take? How does God revelation come to him, if you like?

The same way we always have. Test it against other claims and if it is incongruous then we can be more skeptical than if it harmonises with other claims.

First, there are no other claims in my example.
Second, how do they know whether any of the claims if there are several, is true?

For the purpose of this example, we may assume the person assessing the claim is Omar, a man who lives in rural Afghanistan in 1920, and has never had any contact with any Christians or Christian writings.

You do realise Judeo-Christianity is a/the forerunner of Islam. Muslims revere Jesus more than Moses

Of course I do realize that. The man in my example had contact only with the Quran and the Hadith, not with any Christian writings. The fact that the Quran and the Hadith are partially based on those writings is not the point. Rather, the point of setting up the scenario in that matter was to exclude the method you just proposed, namely to compare the texts.
How does he go about finding out whether the Hadith contains God's revelation?
If you're going to say "inconsistency", sure, the Bible is inconsistent too. Of course, you can interpret it creatively and say it's not inconsistent. But then, the same can be done with the Quran, Hadith, etc.

Now we are getting somewhere. You concede that a common, objective epistemology would be to appeal to the Umpire.

No, I don't concede that, because it is not at all a concession.

Well, for example, using his own sense of right and wrong and reason, Acamapichtli has a way of realizing that sacrificing people to the gods is immoral.

Sure, but then Apamachupichu meets someone who says if they don't make sacrifices then millions will die of starvation and begins to think that the moral good is to save lives thru sacrifice. And you're back to opinion-based morality.

No, what you have is a moral disagreement, resulting at least in part from a non-moral disagreement about the consequences of not making the sacrifices. But moral disagreement is the reality we see. Now how could Apamachupichu get out of that with your method? You haven't even explained what your method is. You have mentioned "special revelation", but have not explained how Apamachupichu goes about finding it. You say he might not need to look. But how does he come to realize there is special revelation in the first place? God communicates with him? How, and how would he recognize God's claim?

I never said that alone was necessary or sufficient.
But you agree it is one way to differentiate subjective opinion from objective reality?

I'm not sure what you mean by "subjective opinion". Is there such a thing as non-subjective opinion? The same for "objective reality". I do think that whether humans generally engage in punishment of a certain behavior provides some evidence as to whether the behavior is immoral, but it's a much weaker means of gathering evidence than our sense of right and wrong + reason. Now an alien from another planet might need to use it more often.

Are we debating human morality or the Ten Commandments applicable to squids?

No, just how much (or how little) evidential weight the fact that humans punish a behavior has, in this context.

Of course it's a moral 'should'.
What else are we discussing here???

Actually, you introduced other factors in your reply to Bomb#20, like other reasons for acting. So, it is a moral "should". Great, then as I said, that's equivalent to asking why the behavior is immoral. Well, the behavior of raping people for fun is immoral because of, say, it makes people suffer people for fun, it is an infrigement on their freedom over their bodies, etc. That's why you should not rape people for fun. Still, this is my speculation about what makes the behavior immoral. It's not as strong as the immediate assessment (via my own sense of right and wrong) that it is immoral.
As for the behavior of sacrificing people to the gods, also that clearly hurts people for no good reason, first because there is no good reason to believe in the gods and those who kill people over that are being epistemically irrational, second because there is no good reason that worse things will happen if it's not done, and third because it's not done as a necessary evil but a means of preventing something worse (which might justify it depending on what is to be prevented), but is done while not being considered an evil at all. There may well be other reasons why it's wrong, but those seem to be some - still, that's secondary: I don't need to know why it's wrong (though I can speculate) to know it is.

As to who says you have to, well that depends. In the case of Acamapichtli, no one says that he has to refrain from sacrificing people to the gods. In fact, perhaps some people claim he should do it (depending on his position in Aztec society). But regardless, it is immoral on his part, and he has tools to figure that out (else, he's hopeless to find moral truth; at any rate, he has no access to any revelation. I'm curious: how do you think he can access special revelation?).

Of course I think it's possible that people who think OMV's exist might have an alternative way to validate them.
Do you know how long I've been waiting for them to come up with something?

So, you know of no other way. Great, so how do you Acampichtli could have known that sacrificing people to the gods was punishable? How did he go about finding out?

Show me objective moral values that don't rely on the equivalent of Bugs or Daffy making unenforceable brute claims which are indistinguishable from opinions.

What do you mean by "objective moral values"?
I'm saying that moral claims are objective, in the sense that generally there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether something is immoral, obligatory, etc. For example, there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether it's immoral for a human to rape people for fun. It is.

Then there was no need to try and justify it with a... I think this because
You were using the single belief to justify itself. Which is circular.

There was no "because" in the post where you accused me. That is a misquote. Let me quote the exchange:

How about folks just state for the record whether or not they think objective true moral laws exist independently of fads and opinions. I tried to use the rabbit season / duck season analogy and whether or not we have reason to think there is such a thing as a hunting season - a hunting licence, enforceable penalties for hunting out of season, an all-seeing Law Maker who wisely decides that feral rabbits are in plague proportions and so the end justifies the means etc etc

But if you don't think there even IS such a thing as an objectively true, definitive "hunting season" - let alone a justifiably moral hunting season, which is enforced by the Higher Power that arbitrates such things, then just say so.

Here, you ask people to report their beliefs.

I don't know what you mean by "objectively true moral laws". But there are true moral claims, beliefs, statements, etc., and moral statements are objective. So, to go with Bomb#20's example, there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether it's always immoral for a person to torture another person for fun, and the fact of the matter is that it is so.

So, I responded reporting my belief.

"...there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether it's always immoral for a person to torture another person for fun, and the fact of the matter is that it is so."

Circular reasoning is no use because it is circular.

Here you accused me of circular reasoning in a post in which I merely reported my beliefs, without any reasoning.

So, I pointed that out:

I did not engage in any circular reasoning. In fact, in that post of mine, I did not even posted any reasoning.

And you replied with out of place sarcasm:

I agree circular reasoning isn't reasoning.

And now you keep up the accusation of circular reasoning against me. The post that prompted your accusation is one in which I was reporting my beliefs, and not adding any reasoning, but now you misquote me allegedly saying "because" and trying to justify my beliefs with the belief itself. Please withdraw your charge. It's offensive to misrepresent my words like that.

 

[steve_bank]

Sure.
If you don't think a law-giver exists and you think "objective" is a weasel word and enforceability is overrated, then you're free to coast along and selectively define your moral preferences as you wish. ("I'm happy to believe in it." as you say.)

"It depends" is a very post-modern way of thinking.

And on the flip side Christianity is based on an ancient disjoint set of texts god is presumed to speak through. Evangelicals and others liberally presume to know what god wants and make strange moral deductions from the bible. More often than not scripture is found to support a personal view. There are a number of workarounds on selective biblical morality. It was written in different times, Jesus ends the Mosaic Covenant.

Biblically god is not objective, he, she, or it is quite emotional and vengeful.

The 613 biblical commandments I presume inspired by god as an objective morality.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_commandments

 

[steve_bank]

"...there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether it's always immoral for a person to torture another person for fun, and the fact of the matter is that it is so."

Circular reasoning is no use because it is circular.

Interesting. If you are a biblical literalist god tortures Job on a bet with satan to see if Job can be broken.

 

[PyramidHead]

1. They carry the imprimatur of an unbiased law maker/umpire. (God isn't biased against ducks or rabbits)
2. They are laws given by an all knowing law maker who can legitimately claim to know that the end justifies the means.
3. They are both enforceable AND inevitably enforced. A law which isn't enforced or enforced selectively can hardly be called a Law - let alone a fair/moral law.

These criteria are all highly problematic.

For one thing, you need to have an existing moral compass in order to evaluate whether a set of laws is unbiased or not. If God were biased against ducks, it would seem unfair because your existing moral compass tells you ducks and rabbits shouldn't be judged differently. But surely, by any reading of his laws, God is biased against liars, murderers, and thieves. How do you determine that this bias is not actually a bias, and is in fact an example of even-handed treatment?

The second criterion implies that knowing that the ends justify the means is what makes God an objective moral authority. In other words, acts are right or wrong independently of God; they are right or wrong because of their consequences and whether the route to achieving them is justified by it. A route being justified is a fact about reality that God knows, like all other facts, but in principle this fact could have been otherwise had he willed it. Now, the door to Euthyphro swings open: had God willed it so that ducks were fair game, it would just be a fact of about reality that certain ends (eating freshly caught dinner) are justified by certain means (hunting ducks but not rabbits). As there is nothing contradictory or incoherent about this being the state of affairs, and the only factor preventing it is the preference of God, then this cannot be a sufficient or necessary aspect of an objective moral law.

The third criterion fails for the same reason. It is not difficult to imagine a powerful entity with the ability and desire to enforce any set of laws it comes up with, but its laws are subjective extensions of its individual nature and not aspects of reality. Conversely, we can imagine a powerful entity who KNOWS the True, Objective Moral Law in its entirety, inside and out, but for reasons we cannot comprehend elects not to enforce them in certain circumstances. Neither of these eventualities help us to determine whether moral laws are absolute or contingent.

 

[Lion IRC]

1. We wouldn't use our moral compass to evaluate if God was biased. If we needed to do that we wouldn't even bother asking God's opinion. Bugs Bunny and Daffy already think each other's contrary opinion is biased and unfair and wrong. That's precisely why they appeal to an impartial umpire who objectively knows which season it is. If you're accusing the Umpire of bias and a lack of objectivity that's just another way of saying OMV are illusory - non-existent.
If you think that just say so.

2. If an all-seeing Umpire, who knows that the end justifies the means, can't arbitrate the dispute over wabbit season versus duck season then when else can? What does Euthyphro have to do with acting wisely to achieve a wise outcome?
If Euthyphro asks God...do you act wisely because you are wise or because it is wise for you to act wisely? God would answer "WUT?"

3. Here you are presuming that God makes and enforces moral laws for His own (selfish) benefit. But why would an all-powerful Being who, by fiat, can have whatever He wants whenever He wants, write commandments on stone tablets?
Is God simply pleading for us to obey His subjective preferential demands? Or is He giving us laws that benefit us - not Him? I say the latter. And when we find ourselves arguing about the strict definition of thou shalt not steal we have an objective Higher Umpire to whom we can refer in just the same way as litigants might appeal to a higher court.

 

[Lion IRC]

AFAICT you either believe OMV don't really exist and therefore can't be (or don't need to be) objectively defined, or you stump up the epistemic method (criteria) you believe would enable us to recognise objective moral values.

Action "X" can't be objectively immoral simply on the basis of popular opinion for or against. And it can't be immoral independently of whether or not there is a means of enforceability. (It can't be wrong just because we say so. A wrong that isn't punished or a law that isn't enforced can be subjectively disputed/ignored)

 

[Angra Mainyu]

AFAICT you either believe OMV don't really exist and therefore can't be (or don't need to be) objectively defined, or you stump up the epistemic method (criteria) you believe would enable us to recognise objective moral values.

First, whatever "objective moral values" means, moral statements are objective, and some of them are true, others false.
Second, one need not be able to tell what criteria one is using in order to use it.
Third, I already explained the method I proposed. If you have more questions about it, ask away.
Now, you have not explained yours. For example, I asked you what rational procedure could Acamapichtli the Aztec use in order to figure out whether, say, sacrificing people to the gods - or, for that matter, raping people for fun - is immoral. You did not give an answer. You insisted that the Bible was not required, and also that "special revelation" and logic could be used. But you did not explain how Acamapichtli might rationally go about finding special revelation. You said that they might not have to search because God can reveal stuff unilaterally. But that does not resolve the problem of how Acamapichtli might rationally go about making moral assessments. Surely, God has the power to reveal himself. But how would Acamapichtli realize that God has revealed himself? Moreover, Acamapichtli, like all humans, had to make moral assessments every day. How would he rationally go about it?

- - - Updated - - -

And it can't be immoral independently of whether or not there is a means of enforceability.

You keep claiming so, but provide no good reason to even suspect that, and fail to address decisive counterarguments by Bomb#20 and by me.

(It can't be wrong just because we say so. A wrong that isn't punished or a law that isn't enforced can be subjectively disputed/ignored)

Again, that's a repetition with no argument to back it up. Here's one of my previous rebuttals:

Here's an analogy: Suppose Putin orders the assassination of a Russian defector in the UK. Russian assassin Ivanov follows Putin's orders, and goes ahead with the assassination. Then, Ivanov goes back to Russia, where he is protected by the government. The UK government knows Putin gave the order, though they don't know who carried it out, and in any case, they can't punish either of them. Now, there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether Putin broke UK law, and as to whether Ivanov did. They both did - they behaved illegally.
Now this is so even if neither of them can be punished - and also, that is regardless of sanctions. In fact, we might as well stipulate that Russia can make an agreement with China and other countries and just ignore Western sanctions. Moreover, even if we don't stipulate that and the Russian economy suffers as a result of the sanctions, it's even realistic and probable that Ivanov suffers no negative consequences from any actions the UK government might (also realistically) take. And he still behaved illegally.

Now, positive law changes from country to country. But that is not the point - the point is that whether the action is illegal is an objective matter (and it is, in the example), regardless of enforceability.

Do you realize that there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether Ivanov broke UK law, that his actions were illegal, etc., regardless of whether there is a means of punishment. Why would then not be possible for an action to be immoral if there is no means of enforcement? (of course, the fact that positive law varies from country to country but morality does not is not relevant to the matter of whether something can be immoral without a means of enforcement.

 

[bilby]

This misuse by LIRC of the word 'enforcement' needs to stop, if we are to have any hope of understanding each other, and thereby any hope of a rational debate.

Enforcement implies some degree of prevention. But LIRC is using the word as a synonym for 'punishment', which is a VERY different thing.

Of course, lawfulness has three-eighths of fuck all to do with either enforcement or punishment. And it is clear that all three - lawfulness, enforcement, and punishment, have fuck all to do with morality.

If the local council puts up a sign that says 'No Parking', then parking in the designated area is unlawful. However if ALL they do is put up a sign, then the law is neither enforced, nor breaches of it punished. The absence of either punishment or enforcement does not change the fact of the law.

If, as well as putting up a sign, they send a Parking Inspector to see if the law is being obeyed, and the inspector writes tickets for the drivers of cars parked in contravention of the law, then the transgressors are punished. But the law is not being enforced - it's unlawful to park there, but it is perfectly possible to do so (albeit potentially expensive).

Now, if they give the Parking Inspectors a tow truck, and physically remove illegally parked vehicles, then THAT's enforcement. Drivers are physically prevented from leaving their vehicles parked in the area; To enforce the law completely, they would need to either tow away vehicles as soon as they are illegally parked; Or put up barriers to exclude vehicles from the area, so that they cannot park there. Laws that are enforced are (at least some of the time) prevented from being broken. The police don't wait for a person to finish beating the shit out of someone, and then punish them for GBH; They step in to restrain the perpetrator. The absence of any enforcement action by any gods neatly leads us to the Problem of Evil - the gods are clearly less moral than human policemen, as they fail to act to prevent someone from being beaten to a pulp - and the only explanation for the inaction of the gods is that either they are impotent to act, ignorant of the assault, or uncaring (or any two, or all three - a non existent god or gods is or are, of course, impotent, unaware and uncaring by definition).

The question of whether parking in that location is or is not moral is orthogonal to the questions of lawfulness, punishment, or enforcement.

If we accept the rules as set out in the Bible, then transgressions of those rules (for example by coveting your neighbour's ox) is unlawful. However for this act of covetousness to be punishable, Hell would need to exist and be imposed on those who break that law. And the existence of Hell, and the certainty (or even possibility) of being punished with it, does not constitute enforcement. Enforcement would require that something was done to stop your coveting as soon as it began - perhaps a stern word of rebuke from a burning bush, or the miraculous provision of an even nicer ox than your neighbour's.

Not one iota of that helps us in any way with the question of whether covetousness (or parking on a double yellow line) is or is not moral. Indeed, parking in a particular place could be morally wrong, morally right, or morally neutral, depending on the other circumstances. And it is hard to see how mere covetousness, not acted upon, could be immoral. Thinking 'that's a nice ox, I wish I had one of those' does not appear to me to be immoral at all - and certainly not on an equal moral footing with murder.

Parking unlawfully outside a maternity department so that you can rush your wife inside to save the lives of her and her child might be highly moral behaviour. Parking unlawfully in a place which is out of the way and causes no harm to others might be morally neutral. Parking unlawfully across the exit from a fire station might be highly immoral. Morality and law are under no obligation to coincide. Law cannot, in and of itself, determine what is moral; Morality does not, in and of itself, define what becomes law.

Punishment is not enforcement; And neither is any kind of guide to morality. And nor is lawfulness. It was unlawful to protest against the Nazi party in Germany in 1944. It was lawful to arrest people for complaining about Stalin in the Soviet Union in 1952.

Good laws follow morality; the idea that good morals follow the law is putting the cart before the horse. As usual, religion has everything backwards.

 

[Lion IRC]

LOL this is child's play
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcement
"Law enforcement is any system by which some members of society act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society."

 

[fromderinside]

WTF.

What has morality to do with rules and norms governing society?  Morality  Social order

Seems to me any overlap between good and bad and what sustains social order are purely coincidental. Morality and enforcement are differently sourced, morality being sourced from within and enforcement being externally designed and implemented.

Gotta go with bilby here.

 

[Lion IRC]

WTF.

What has morality to do with rules and norms governing society?  Morality  Social order

Seems to me any overlap between good and bad and what sustains social order are purely coincidental. Morality and enforcement are differently sourced, morality being sourced from within and enforcement being externally designed and implemented.

Gotta go with bilby here.

So if I check that morality Wiki I won't find the word "norms"?
LOL This is just too easy.

"...tribal morality is prescriptive, imposing the norms of the collective on the individual."

 

[Lion IRC]

"Moral norms are the rules of morality that people ought to follow. An evolutionary explanation of the emergence of moral norms proceeds in stages. Firstly, one must give an account of how behavior according to the norms can arise."

Evolution of Moral Norms - Oxford Handbooks
www.oxfordhandbooks.com

 

[PyramidHead]

We should be clear about what is meant by "objective" in this discussion, and what, specifically, that actually entails.

From what I gather, Lion IRC is tacitly making the claim that:

X is morally forbidden

Is actually an empirical proposition about some state of affairs, such as:

Doing X will lead to consequences Y and Z

And:

Y and Z are negative consequences for your well-being in the long run

With the stipulation that we can be confident in the truth of these statements only when they are issued by somebody who knows everything and is perfect.

I grant that some actions lead to some consequences, and that those consequences can be negative or positive relative to one's preferences. I even grant that one can have faulty preferences based on incomplete or bad information, such that somebody else with all the facts could justifiably prevent me from doing something I mistakenly thought was in my best interests, but actually was harmful to me.

Yet, all of that can be true, or false, regardless of whether or not there is a sovereign lawgiver. In the same way that the chemical composition of a faraway, undiscovered galaxy either includes a certain element or it doesn't, regardless of whether anybody knows it, the outcome of our actions being favorable or not relative to the preferences we would have with sufficient information is empirically fixed. God has no say in the matter except in the epistemological sense, which is maybe what Lion IRC has been saying all along; but it sounds more like he is saying without God morality CAN NOT be objective, which is just absurd. Obviously, without having anything close to infinite knowledge or infinite power, one can gain the requisite information to form educated preferences and evaluate actions relative to them. Even if that never happens in practice, the fact that it can happen in principle shows that God is dispensable for objective morality.

What is being disputed, then, is the insertion of God into the discussion about whether morality is objective in a metaphysical sense, as God would only provide epistemic assurance.

 

[steve_bank]

"Moral norms are the rules of morality that people ought to follow. An evolutionary explanation of the emergence of moral norms proceeds in stages. Firstly, one must give an account of how behavior according to the norms can arise."

Evolution of Moral Norms - Oxford Handbooks
www.oxfordhandbooks.com

Exactly. The 10 Commandments were about minimizing conflict as Jews moved from nomadic to agrarian society. Leave your neighbor's wife alone. Monogamy reduces conflict. And so on. Practical evolution, no god involved. Invoking a god as an enforcer too is an evolution in culture.

 

[fromderinside]

WTF.

What has morality to do with rules and norms governing society?  Morality  Social order

Seems to me any overlap between good and bad and what sustains social order are purely coincidental. Morality and enforcement are differently sourced, morality being sourced from within and enforcement being externally designed and implemented.

Gotta go with bilby here.

So if I check that morality Wiki I won't find the word "norms"?
LOL This is just too easy.

"...tribal morality is prescriptive, imposing the norms of the collective on the individual."

Please connect tribal morality with Social order, for it's here one would expect enforcement to take meaning.

 tribal morality

Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person

 Social order

The term social order can be used in two senses. In the first sense, it refers to a particular set or system of linked social structures, institutions, ​relations, customs, values and practices, which conserve, maintain and enforce certain patterns of relating and behaving. Examples are the ancient, the feudal, and the capitalist social order. In the second sense, social order is contrasted to social chaos or disorder and refers to a stable state of society in which the existing social order is accepted and maintained by its members. The problem of order or Hobbesian problem, which is central to much of sociology, political science and political philosophy, is the question how and why it is that social orders exist at all.

ooh. So all we have to do is explain why social orders exist at all to justify any conversation about enforcement. All rightie then. Seems we have a dead end on that enforcement thingie.

So if there is a philosophical, religious, or cultural system overriding what morality is being discussed that system provides mechanisms for enforcement. Otherwise it's Katie bar the door. Since we are discussing morality we don't need to consider systems in which any one may exist to be discussing morality so enforcement isn't germain to the conversation.

Like I said bilby got it right.

 

[Lion IRC]

We should be clear about what is meant by "objective" in this discussion, and what, specifically, that actually entails.

Yes, we should. The question is CAN we? Does it exist and how can we recognize it when we see it.

From what I gather, Lion IRC is tacitly making the claim that:

X is morally forbidden

Is actually an empirical proposition about some state of affairs, such as:

Doing X will lead to consequences Y and Z

That is my position, yes.
I think that bad thing "x" is in fact bad irrespective of subjective opinions to the contrary, in just the same way as the answer to 2+2 = ? isnt a matter of personal opinion.

And:
Y and Z are negative consequences for your well-being in the long run
With the stipulation that we can be confident in the truth of these statements only when they are issued by somebody who knows everything and is perfect.

Yes, that is another part of my epistemic criteria.
If we are arguing (subjectively) whether the end justifies the means, it would be handy to have an omniscient Oracle of Delphi who could tell us that bad thing "x" will inevitably result in a certain consequence.
This is surely an essential consideration. If the moral Law Giver doesn't know any more than us then we are reasonably entitled to our competing subjective opinions. (Who needs an objective umpire if the umpire is as ignorant as us?)

I grant that some actions lead to some consequences, and that those consequences can be negative or positive relative to one's preferences. I even grant that one can have faulty preferences based on incomplete or bad information, such that somebody else with all the facts could justifiably prevent me from doing something I mistakenly thought was in my best interests, but actually was harmful to me.

Great. Agreement.
I would add that the consequences (enforcement) need to be universally certain.
Bad thing "x" is wrong and one of the ways we can know this is because bad consequences result irrespective of ones opinion that "x" is good.

Yet, all of that can be true, or false, regardless of whether or not there is a sovereign lawgiver.

You would have to otherwise account for the existence of OMV and their enforcement.
But yes, theoretically there could be other objective 'sovereigns' that need not be called God.

In the same way that the chemical composition of a faraway, undiscovered galaxy either includes a certain element or it doesn't, regardless of whether anybody knows it, the outcome of our actions being favorable or not relative to the preferences we would have with sufficient information is empirically fixed. God has no say in the matter except in the epistemological sense, which is maybe what Lion IRC has been saying all along;

God is in control of all universes, chemicals and moral laws.

...but it sounds more like he is saying without God morality CAN NOT be objective,

No. I'm saying I can't think of a better explanation for OMV

 

[bilby]

WTF.

What has morality to do with rules and norms governing society?  Morality  Social order

Seems to me any overlap between good and bad and what sustains social order are purely coincidental. Morality and enforcement are differently sourced, morality being sourced from within and enforcement being externally designed and implemented.

Gotta go with bilby here.

So if I check that morality Wiki I won't find the word "norms"?
LOL This is just too easy.

"...tribal morality is prescriptive, imposing the norms of the collective on the individual."

Argument by dictionary is just fucking lazy.

If you re-read my post, you will find that I explicitly define the words I am using, in some detail, in the hope that we can all use them the same way. Your equivocation between meanings being the reason I think that such a set of definitions is needed in this debate.

You are absolutely right that it is too easy - your sophomoric insistence that a word means whatever someone else has used it to mean, if that meaning helps obscure the underlying philosophical questions to the advantage of your anti-intellectual position is a clear indication that you prefer easy dismissal of the words, over serious consideration of the concepts and philosophy that underlie them. Which is rather sad.

Regardless of your infantile wordplay, it remains true that laws and morality need not be in any way related to each other; And that even an all knowing and all powerful authority cannot define what is moral by fiat. Punishment (or enforcement) notwithstanding.

 

[PyramidHead]

Yes, we should. The question is CAN we? Does it exist and how can we recognize it when we see it.



That is my position, yes.
I think that bad thing "x" is in fact bad irrespective of subjective opinions to the contrary, in just the same way as the answer to 2+2 = ? isnt a matter of personal opinion.

And:
Y and Z are negative consequences for your well-being in the long run
With the stipulation that we can be confident in the truth of these statements only when they are issued by somebody who knows everything and is perfect.

Yes, that is another part of my epistemic criteria.
If we are arguing (subjectively) whether the end justifies the means, it would be handy to have an omniscient Oracle of Delphi who could tell us that bad thing "x" will inevitably result in a certain consequence.
This is surely an essential consideration. If the moral Law Giver doesn't know any more than us then we are reasonably entitled to our competing subjective opinions. (Who needs an objective umpire if the umpire is as ignorant as us?)

I grant that some actions lead to some consequences, and that those consequences can be negative or positive relative to one's preferences. I even grant that one can have faulty preferences based on incomplete or bad information, such that somebody else with all the facts could justifiably prevent me from doing something I mistakenly thought was in my best interests, but actually was harmful to me.

Great. Agreement.
I would add that the consequences (enforcement) need to be universally certain.
Bad thing "x" is wrong and one of the ways we can know this is because bad consequences result irrespective of ones opinion that "x" is good.

Yet, all of that can be true, or false, regardless of whether or not there is a sovereign lawgiver.

You would have to otherwise account for the existence of OMV and their enforcement.
But yes, theoretically there could be other objective 'sovereigns' that need not be called God.

In the same way that the chemical composition of a faraway, undiscovered galaxy either includes a certain element or it doesn't, regardless of whether anybody knows it, the outcome of our actions being favorable or not relative to the preferences we would have with sufficient information is empirically fixed. God has no say in the matter except in the epistemological sense, which is maybe what Lion IRC has been saying all along;

God is in control of all universes, chemicals and moral laws.

...but it sounds more like he is saying without God morality CAN NOT be objective,

No. I'm saying I can't think of a better explanation for OMV

This response of yours is kind of non-responsive in the parts that could have used more of your input. I'm happy that I accurately characterized your view, but I think you are missing the serious problems it has. I'll reiterate below.

But yes, theoretically there could be other objective 'sovereigns' that need not be called God.

What I meant to emphasize is that facts do not need to be given by anyone, known by anyone, or enforced by anyone to remain facts. A fact is just a reflection, neutral and fixed, of the way reality is. The presence or absence of a sovereign anything does not matter one way or another. This is why your insertion of God into the discussion is superfluous except as a hypothetical epistemic assurance, which is trivially true about any fact (if we could consult someone who knew everything about history, we would obviously be more confident in our grasp of history, but this is not an interesting point and has nothing to do with whether or not history is objectively true). What you later say, however, indicates to me that you still maintain that God has something to do with the objectivity of morality:

No. I'm saying I can't think of a better explanation for OMV

If moral facts are the same kind of thing as mathematical and historical facts, then this statement is not specifically about moral facts, is it? All the things about moral facts you say depend on God are just as applicable to other facts. Your contribution, then, is not anything substantive about moral values and norms per se, but can be reduced to "I'm saying I can't think of a better explanation for facts." We all could have saved a lot of time and energy if you had just said that up-front, instead of bothering with the examples and criteria. In any conversation, about sports for instance, you could pop in and tell everybody you can't explain why there is anything true about sports without God. I guess you're entitled to that, but it sort of deflates the importance of your supposed link between morality and God if it's just another example of exasperated apologetics that are unilaterally applied to anything you don't understand.

The last salvo I will lob at you has to do with your conception of morality itself, which I more or less accurately depicted in my last post (and I thank you for verifying that). It is often said that the "oughtness" or "normativity" of morality cannot be derived solely from facts. You know the Humean version of this objection, I'm sure. But on a more general level, there is something about your definition of moral law that seems to miss a central tenet of all moral philosophies, ironically perhaps especially the one embodied by Christ. This is just me speaking personally, but what fundamentally makes something a moral concern is whether the interests of others are placed before oneself, regardless of the consequences. I'll cloak this point in an earlier reply of yours (bolding mine):

I grant that some actions lead to some consequences, and that those consequences can be negative or positive relative to one's preferences. I even grant that one can have faulty preferences based on incomplete or bad information, such that somebody else with all the facts could justifiably prevent me from doing something I mistakenly thought was in my best interests, but actually was harmful to me.

Great. Agreement.
I would add that the consequences (enforcement) need to be universally certain.
Bad thing "x" is wrong and one of the ways we can know this is because bad consequences result irrespective of ones opinion that "x" is good.

In the same way that the chemical composition of a faraway, undiscovered galaxy either includes a certain element or it doesn't, regardless of whether anybody knows it, the outcome of our actions being favorable or not relative to the preferences we would have with sufficient information is empirically fixed. God has no say in the matter except in the epistemological sense, which is maybe what Lion IRC has been saying all along;

God is in control of all universes, chemicals and moral laws.

What you are assenting to in these comments is a self-serving conception of morality, where "self" may be expanded to include "the future prospects of humans generally". There is a more encompassing, authentic articulation of morality that says: do what is in the interests of others in defiance of the consequences. You said God controls the moral laws just as he controls the chemical laws. If God changed the chemical composition of a certain molecule, it would just have that new composition. But to say the same thing about moral laws makes them arbitrary, as if a different universe with different inputs and outputs could have different moral laws, by virtue of the different interplay of consequences relative to the preferences of its inhabitants. In this way, what you are proposing may be an objective morality, but it is nonetheless also a contingent morality, conditioned upon the empirical state of affairs regarding outcomes and enforcement.

It seems to me that moral concerns are not contingent, but categorical. What is your view on an act, easily imaginable, that most people would call moral in spite of (actually, perhaps by virtue of) it being performed not because it contributes to a desirable endgame, but purely out of radical compassion, a total abandonment of self-interest for the sake of another? Christ taught this, and it's embarrassing to have to explain it. We are morally bound to put others first not because God has arranged the building blocks of reality in such a way that the best results are gained by doing so--furthermore, we should be prepared to always put the interests of others first, even if things had been arranged in a different way. Bluntly, to take morality seriously means committing to it irrespective of what the effects are for humanity, irrespective of what laws are enforced, and irrespective of my own well-being. The most moral thing that a Christian could do is to perform an act that would damn her immortal soul to hell for all eternity so that another person could go to heaven. If a situation arose in which one person could be saved from hell only if everybody else in the world voluntarily gave up their place in heaven, what could be more tragically, genuinely moral than their doing so? Understanding the message of Christ entails regarding this obligation as a permanent structural possibility, which I must be ready at any time to enact.

The version of morality you are putting forward leaves no room for that. To you, morality is a set of contingent facts about causes and effects with no connection to the foundational self-sacrifice of radical ethics, beyond the arbitrary fact that, as it turns out, self-sacrifice is what happens to enable good fortune for everybody according to God. That's a situated, provincial, small idea of morality that totally misses its transcendent significance.

 

[Lion IRC]

Do you realize that there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether Ivanov broke UK law, that his actions were illegal, etc., regardless of whether there is a means of punishment.

Sure. He did something illegal in one country but not illegal in another. He would be punished if caught in England yet not punished if he stays in Russia. How does that support the idea of objective moral values?
If England sent assassins to Germany to kill Hitler I wouldn't think they would be hanged for murder upon their return to London.

Why would then not be possible for an action to be immoral if there is no means of enforcement?

*Sigh* this is getting monotonous. Ontology - some people DO think it's possible that objective moral values exist irrespective of (terrestrial) subjective opinions/enforcement/zeitgeist. I think they exist too.
Now. Cue epistemology. How would we know/recognise them when we see them? How would we tell the difference between OMV and random opinion?

(of course, the fact that positive law varies from country to country but morality does not is not relevant to the matter of whether something can be immoral without a means of enforcement

Did you not look at the Bugs/Daffy wabbit season image? It's an analogy for this exact point. Daffy says it's OK for a Russian spy to assasinate enemies of the State. Bugs says it's OK for English spies to assasinate enemies of the State.
Bugs holds pro-life poster. Daffy holds pro-choice poster.
Bugs says marriage is heterosexual. Daffy says love is love.
Bugs says his moral framework is objectively true. Daffy says his opposite morals are truer.
They each say they other is wrong.
It's a futile contest of opinions. A nil-all-draw.

...Unless objective moral truths really do exist and there is a means of showing that Daffy is wrong. If there's no Higher Umpire, if there's no inescapable enforceability and if there's no imprimatur of omniscient wisdom to justify the moral law, then both Bugs and Daffy are justified in sticking with their subjective claims.

 

[bilby]

Sure. He did something illegal in one country but not illegal in another. He would be punished if caught in England yet not punished if he stays in Russia. How does that support the idea of objective moral values?
If England sent assassins to Germany to kill Hitler I wouldn't think they would be hanged for murder upon their return to London.

*Sigh* this is getting monotonous. Ontology - some people DO think it's possible that objective moral values exist irrespective of (terrestrial) subjective opinions/enforcement/zeitgeist. I think they exist too.
Now. Cue epistemology. How would we know/recognise them when we see them? How would we tell the difference between OMV and random opinion?

(of course, the fact that positive law varies from country to country but morality does not is not relevant to the matter of whether something can be immoral without a means of enforcement

Did you not look at the Bugs/Daffy wabbit season image? It's an analogy for this exact point. Daffy says it's OK for a Russian spy to assasinate enemies of the State. Bugs says it's OK for English spies to assasinate enemies of the State.
Bugs holds pro-life poster. Daffy holds pro-choice poster.
Bugs says marriage is heterosexual. Daffy says love is love.
Bugs says his moral framework is objectively true. Daffy says his opposite morals are truer.
They each say they other is wrong.
It's a futile contest of opinions. A nil-all-draw.

...Unless objective moral truths really do exist and there is a means of showing that Daffy is wrong. If there's no Higher Umpire, if there's no inescapable enforceability and if there's no imprimatur of omniscient wisdom to justify the moral law, then both Bugs and Daffy are justified in sticking with their subjective claims.

What reasoning did you use to make the leap from "...Unless objective moral truths really do exist and there is a means of showing that Daffy is wrong." to "If there's no Higher Umpire, if there's no inescapable enforceability and if there's no imprimatur of omniscient wisdom to justify the moral law, then both Bugs and Daffy are justified..."?

It seems to me that the major question here is the one you just glossed over:

Does the existence of objective moral truths require a Higher Umpire, inescapable enforceability and/or an imprimatur of omniscient wisdom?

I don't see how they would or could; Indeed, the existence of a 'Higher Umpire' whose edicts are unknown to the wrongdoer, whose "enforcement" (actually punishment) is unknown in scope and is in the distant future, and who has not revealed his wisdom to the wrongdoer, should - if your hypothesis were correct - imply that a person who has never encountered your Higher Umpire cannot know that his actions are immoral. Yet we know from history of peoples who have a clear and obvious grasp of right and wrong, but do NOT have access to, nor the concept of, these things.

In fact, as far as I can see, all that is needed for objective moral truths to exist is empathy, sympathy, and the ability to recognize cause and effect. All the 'rules' fall out of that, even in the absence of a third-party rule-maker, any form of externally applied punishment, or any all-knowing entities at all.

If someone would feel bad, I would feel bad that they feel bad, and it would be my fault, because I did X, then X is immoral. Equally, if someone would feel bad, I would feel bad that they feel bad, and it would be my fault, because I did NOT do X, then NOT doing X is immoral.

No need for Umpires, enforcement, punishment, omniscience, or even a great deal of wisdom.

By applying my standard, we see that both Bugs and Daffy are wrong - they are seeking to encourage harm to the other, for their own selfish ends, and they are both rational moral agents, and are aware that the other is a rational moral agent.

In the non-cartoon world, the question of whether ducks and rabbits are rational moral agents, for whom we should exhibit empathy and sympathy, is debatable. The consensus is that they are not, but many vegetarians and vegans would disagree. The question of whether shooting either would be moral IF they are rational moral agents, however, is not disputed - if it can be settled that they are, then it becomes clear and obvious that shooting and eating them is immoral*.

This is why people who seek to justify immoral behaviour typically start by defining their victims as sub-human; or by declaring someone else to be the responsible party. It's not immoral to gas Jews, if Jews are not rational moral agents; or if the act of gassing them is not your fault - hence the Nuremburg defence. The point being that, when justifying immoral acts, people do NOT claim that morality is subjective, and that therefore anything goes - they clearly know that morality is objective, and try to redefine their actions as falling outside the scope of moral considerations.

Note that the Nuremberg defence is an example of a claim that morality is whatever a sufficiently powerful law maker declares it to be - and that we all know that that is in fact false. Power does not define morality, whether that power is the Fuhrer or the gods.











* The question of when it is appropriate to hunt ducks and rabbits (ie when it is hunting season), is dependent on an assessment of the long term harm that might accrue to people from unrestricted hunting. When the number of hunters becomes sufficiently large, they need to refrain from hunting during the breeding season, so as to ensure that future hunters will have prey to pursue. The LAW on when hunting season is open or closed is arbitrary; But the immorality of hunting at a time of year when your actions will disproportionately disadvantage future hunters is an objective fact, whether or not there is a law about it.