modest

With a moment's more time on my hands I would say that reality would be markedly different if "murder for fun" were moral. You keep introducing the example. If it were the case then we wouldn't have culture, or society, or probably even language... we couldn't have any kind of math or anything else on which agreement rests. What, then, really, is morality worth? Is it worth nothing to you? ~modest

Yeah, yeah. Time necessitates that my response will be brief. Every sentence counts... The idea that 4-dimensional theories prove the existence of time is called spacetime substantivalism and it is an open question that has been debated for dozes, if not hundreds, of hours on this forum. You are addressing someone who can use spacetime to solve real world relativity problems and who has done so a number of occasions by request, again, on this forum. Time permitted I would heavily insult the arrogance your lack of knowledge takes. As it is, I just suggest you do some reading. Again, you're not paying any kind of attention. I said "I would be stupid to assume math doesn't work" and your answer "if math didn't work... blah.. blah..."? Of course it works. It doesn't prove it's universal. Look up "the problem of induction". I have to explain arithmetic in a few short words... uh... Arithmetic starts when someone says "every number has one unique successor" and everyone agrees. It is a convention. It is a way of defining a number line. The convention is defined by the Peano axioms. The axioms are true by definition. You asked earlier where morality is fundamentally, universally, set out as true. Where are the stone tablets that dictate them (allegorically speaking). The answer is that morality isn't so dictated to us by the universe, or god, or any other force. It is a convention that starts when we agree that causing suffering is bad and alleviating suffering is good. Number theory is no different. It is true by definition and no more than that. You won't find a number line in nature on which it is easy to show that one, and only one, number follows every other number. If that doesn't do it you could look up Godel's incompleteness theorem, and, probably more applicable, Tarski's undefinability theorem. As it is, arithmetic, like geometry, like first order logic, like morality, has this quality that they are human concepts. They are "attempts to make sense" (as someone I won't mention put it). They are true in the sense that they help us make sense of the world, but we can't prove they are true aspects of the world, because, as they say, "the map isn't the territory".... and so on... insert insults ad nauseum... ~modest

No. *You* didn't realize. I've had this discussion many times before. I know the pitfalls. I've read 'The Moral Landscape' which says what most works on the subject say, "Many people are also confused about what it means to speak with scientific “objectivity” about the human condition. As the philosopher John Searle once pointed out, there are two very different senses of the terms “objective” and “subjective.” The first sense relates to how we know (i.e., epistemology), the second to what there is to know (i.e., ontology). When we say that we are reasoning or speaking “objectively,” we generally mean that we are free of obvious bias, open to counterarguments, cognizant of the relevant facts, and so on. This is to make a claim about how we are thinking. In this sense, there is no impediment to our studying subjective (i.e., first-person) facts “objectively.” which is why I defined the term objectivity twice. You think I was telling you that your use of the term is confusing because I didn't notice it was different from how I was using the term? Honestly, you're just not paying attention. I say, "You can't describe morality as "true", and that doesn't imply subjectivity" and you say, "HA! You just admitted morality is totally subjective" What can a person say to that? I explained already that math can't be described as "true" any more than morality can. But, you give the example "2 + 2 = 4" as a universal truth. It is only true if the Peano axioms are true, and you can't prove the axioms are true any more than I can prove Kant's categorical imperative is universally correct. You didn't notice any of that. You dismissed it without understanding it. I refuted your point before you made it, but you're so busy repeating a mantra that you've worked out for yourself that you haven't noticed. I can't prove that math is universally true. I can't prove that time exists. But, I would be incredibly stupid to proceed as if math doesn't work and time doesn't exist. You can't prove that morality is true, but you would have to be extremely dysfunctional to try and proceed in life without it. I'm sorry if you're uncomfortable with the way of things, but that is the way of things. ~modest

Ok. Read what you say yourself I guess, You can't point out where I said it because I didn't and it should be clear that you're talking about "this objective ****". The problem is not difficult to follow. When I say 'morality can't be described as true' you hear 'morality is totally subjective'. The one quite simply doesn't imply the other. You started the thread by asking "what is there in morality that you can say is totally objective?". You didn't mention truth or universality at all. The problem came later when you assumed that a person would have to find a universal truth to answer, "What's objective about morality?". I will never tire of pointing out the problem there: *objective things about morality don't need to be universal*. Now you're looking for "truths within Objective Morality" (where the capital letters are apparently very important). Objective/subjective is different from absolute/relative. Truth statements in morality are objective if they don't depend on personal emotional bias. Truth statements in morality are absolute if they don't depend on bias or culture, or anything situational. It sounds like you're looking for the latter and trying to put it into the language of the former. That can be a little confused and confusing. ~modest

Wutlol. You are basically arguing my side now. This is not what I wanted modest, I wanted you to keep fighting me and win because this is bad ju-ju here. If it's cool for people to have conflicting moralities, especially if it's practical and highly applicable, then it would be cool for me to murder for fun. You just disemboweled all the stuff we have built up, but you say it was already established that morality is totally subjective, the very thing you have been at teeth with me since we started. Please don't do this! I'm probably going to kill three people if ethics is this loosey-goosey... I'm failing to communicate our inability to communicate. Do you remember me quoting Pirsig? One geometry cannot be more true than another; it can only be more convenient. Geometry is not true, it is advantageous. -R. Pirsig Morality, like geometry, is not "true" or "correct" (they can't be described in those terms). This implies nothing about their objectivity or subjectivity. You failed to get that point the first couple times so I said "I'm going to break this down and drive it home as much as possible" and I did that... The inability to describe morality as "true" says nothing about objectivity or subjectivity. Long posts exist entirely dedicated to making that one point. Morality is not universal, but it can be objective. I repeated it several more times, compared it to Newtonian mechanics, repeated it, Please, put that thought in your mind... it is a mistake to think morality lacks objectivity just because it can't be described as "true". That is my position. Tether it to your thoughts... Morality can't be described as true, but that doesn't mean it lacks objectivity... Then explain your last post, Wutlol. You are basically arguing my side now. This is not what I wanted modest, I wanted you to keep fighting me and win because this is bad ju-ju here. If it's cool for people to have conflicting moralities, especially if it's practical and highly applicable, then it would be cool for me to murder for fun. You just disemboweled all the stuff we have built up, but you say it was already established that morality is totally subjective, the very thing you have been at teeth with me since we started. Please don't do this! I'm probably going to kill three people if ethics is this loosey-goosey... ~modest

Four billion years of life and death have fought over the issue of what you and I can and can't agree upon. Nothing that you or I know has been longer fought or harder won. If it were easily disregarded then neither of us would be here, and if it were not greatly cherished in our friends and family then there would be no morality about which to discuss. We don't sing songs because we "simply agree upon" the lyrics. This is beyond explanation. ~modest I feel, actually, a need for contrition or confession on this point... on the last couple posts really. I mean, I was sure after reading your last post that we just weren't getting each other, and I proceeded on talking to myself in endless references that only I would get as if to make the point that we wouldn't get each other. That's not helpful. It's a bit ironic, but looking back on it, the irony isn't worth the helplessness of it at all. But... I did mean this last bit seriously and not ironically at all. I do see, believe me as much as it may seem like I don't see where you're coming from... I do see exactly where you're coming from. I do understand it and it's nothing to be dismissed lightly. The thing on which my conscious rests is, as I said so flippantly, the struggle that has brought us here. There was, you can imagine, a first instance of life that somehow replicated itself. However that came about, it happened. And, the offspring no doubt looked about themselves (metaphorically and allegorically speaking) and they were immediately faced with a problem. They could either look at their siblings as competition and food or they could look at them as a cooperative force in surviving this dreadful disaster that we would call their life. The struggle must surely have been ever continued from there and the line ever more defined. How much does something have to be similar to yourself before you're completely ok with killing it and considering it food? It's a question evolution has been working out for billions of years. How much, also, is it worth throwing down today's rations in an instant to extend a hand to a drowning man? That's what a person does, and without thinking about it and weighing the personal consequences of the thing as well. Evolution slowly worked that out for us over several billion years. What I mean to say is that it's nothing easy to throw off this thing evolution did for us, nor should it be. Every ancestor of yours, for longer than a person can imagine, died trying to work out this question for you. They passed it along to you. It is something special to be able to look at mount Vesuvius and say "well, this thing is dangerous and it's spouting things and shaking the earth and it's very nearly going to burry everyone in ash". That kind of knowledge is, of course, useful to life. That kind of truth is well won to life. But, just as useful evolution has first and foremost worked out is to say.. . "hey, Tim (or John or whoever cohort's name you might imagine), I've got your back if you've got mine". That isn't something we "simply agree upon", it's something we are! If we weren't then we'd be trees unable to get out of the way so that some sunlight could shine on our sproutlings... too dimwitted to help our offspring in the slightest, That isn't us and I honestly mean to say in the most helpful way possible... it isn't worth the "core of your worries" to balance your life on the truth of that prospect. It's well worth embracing. Four billion years of everything that conspired to make you has worked out that you can't throw that **** by the gutter. So... I just mean that as a slight postscript to what I was saying and so on... as it were and all... ~modest

Uh, oh. I've suddenly become positive we're failing to communicate. I swear to the old gods and the seven new... every time I compare something to geometry I get a flash of break lights in the fog. I'm positive I need to stop, but I can't see for the life of me where or why. Probably someone clipped a deer... let's see... Oh, I'm surprised! It was a deer! Better yet, as long as I'm drawing out the game of thrones analogy, it was a wolf! Yes, your morality is different from that of a wolf. I hate to break so long fought a struggle so easily, but, yes. Morality is not "true". Your morality is not the wolf's morality. You are not a wolf, and what is right for the wolf might, just perhaps, be wrong for you. Morality is not "true", it is "applicable". I honestly thought many posts back we were well beyond this, but here we are. You are not a dire wolf. I'm not sure if you meant to, but you just seriously pissed off Schopenhauer... and Hegel... HA! Philosopher's song :lol: Sorry, nobody's gonna get that :) I honestly don't know where to begin. If you've ever found yourself saying "relativism is true" you need to look back at where the record skipped a few tracks. For example, "if relativism is true then morality is true and "true" isn't relative" is most likely true. Go figure. Nonetheless, I think morality is objective. I'm positive we'll get no closer on that point. Four billion years of life and death have fought over the issue of what you and I can and can't agree upon. Nothing that you or I know has been longer fought or harder won. If it were easily disregarded then neither of us would be here, and if it were not greatly cherished in our friends and family then there would be no morality about which to discuss. We don't sing songs because we "simply agree upon" the lyrics. This is beyond explanation. ~modest

Matthew, there's a lot you're not getting from what I'm saying, and a lot of that is probably my fault for failing to articulate it. Geometry is the perfect analogy for morality, so I'm going to break this down and drive it home as much as I can then explain why it matters. Euclid wants to make a geometry around 300 BC and Immanuel Kant wants to make a morality some time in the mid 1700's. The first unavoidable step is that "geometry" and "morality" have to be defined. The first step: Euclid defines his geometry through the use of 5 postulates. Kant defines his morality through the use of something he called a categorical imperative The second step: Euclid deductively constructs a geometric system that logically follow from his 5 postulates. Kant deductively constructs a moral system that logically follow his 'categorical imperative'. The third step: Euclid's geometry works in so far as it can be used to give the geometric volume of a sphere or something like that. Kant's morality works in so far as it can be used to give the moral virtue of an act or something like that. The problem I see is that you're starting on this third and final step and saying that we must prove that the act is truly morally virtuous in order for morality to be objective. You said as much in your last post, so let me quote it... The truth or correctness of the formula for the volume of a sphere isn't what makes a geometry objective, and the truth or correctness of a moral virtue isn't what makes morality objective. What makes them objective is that we can move from the first step to the third step using deduction and logic without personal and emotional bias. There are non-Euclidean geometries in which 4/3pir^3 is the wrong formula for the volume of a sphere, and there are non-Kantian moralities in which fulfilling one's cultural duty is the wrong formula for achieving moral conduct. The problem goes back to the postulates of the geometric and the moral systems. There are other postulates from which perfectly consistent, perfectly logical, and perfectly objective geometries and moral philosophies can be derived. As such it is a mistake to think that any geometry or any moral philosophy is "true" or "correct". They can't be described in those terms. But, it is equally mistaken to think they lack objectivity because they can't be described in those terms. What I told Lawcat is that most people generally do agree on the definition of morality. Once that agreement is made it is easy to objectively show someone that they've made some deductive logical mistake about what is moral and what isn't moral (under that definition). As far as my definition resembling some kind of ethics of care—I don't know to what you're referring and I wouldn't mind if it resembled it. Good for them coming up with something similar. ~modest

I see where you're coming from. To be perfectly honest, I'm sort of looking for a way around it. I don't like the idea that you could poll a culture (Somalia would be a fine example) where far more than half of the respondents would say that the subjugation of women, the murder of apostates, and other things like that are not just moral, but moral necessities. I would rather there be some objective way for the minority of that culture to demonstrate just how wrong the majority is. I generally don't think the problem is that people in different cultures define morality all that differently. You defined it as a means to security and comfort, and I defined it in terms of empathy and solidarity encouraging prosocial behavior. A Faqih in Somalia probably wouldn't argue to any great extent with either of those definitions of morality. I strongly suspect they would argue that murdering apostates and subjugating women is prosocial behavior and is a means of providing security and comfort for their culture and as such they are moral behavior. Against that reasoning an objective argument can be made even if moral precepts like those are held by the vast majority of a culture. An objective study of sociology or anthropology would definitely show that treating women like property and killing people who question the majority are sure ways of degrading a culture to the point of insecurity and social unrest. In that sense I think there is an objective way to consider these acts immoral even if the majority of the people doing them would consider them moral. ~modest

I'm quite certain that doesn't work. Sticking with with physics for a second... the idea of defining physics would be called the "demarcation problem". There are many logically consistent answers to the demarcation problem, but none of them could be considered "true". In other words, you can define "physics" more than one internally consistent way, while none of the definitions are any more true than another. The clearest and best known example would be the inductive method versus the hypothetico-deductive method. String theory would be a good theory of physics under the first method of demarcation, but it would not yet be considered a working theory under the second method. We could argue about which method is more useful or advantageous to human advancement, but they are in essence definitions, and definitions are neither true nor false. I gave the example of "mammal" earlier in the thread. How could you prove true the definition of the word "mammal"? I honestly don't know what you mean when you say you can do that. ~modest

When I say that you are implicitly defining morality as good and evil I mean that you're defining it like you just defined it. You are defining it in terms of the validity of its principles. Is murder for fun morally good or morally bad? You keep asking... as if to say that morality is subjective unless certain moral principles can be proven true or valid or correct. This is categorically mistaken, but first I should say something abut the difference between universal and objective because you introduced the term universal into your definition and elsewhere in your post for the first time. Newtonian mechanics works in certain situations, but it doesn't work in others. You can use Newtonian mechanics to land a probe on mars, but you can't use it to predict the perihelion precession of mercury. It gives the wrong answer in that situation. In other words, it isn't universal. It has a limited domain of validity. Despite the fact that Newtonian mechanics is not universal, it is nonetheless 100% objective. This should be enough to show that objectivity doesn't imply universality. The problem with defining objective morality the way you've just defined it... let me think of how to best put this... We can agree, I hope, that geometry is objective. Imagine if I defined "objective geometry" the way you just defined "objective morality"... Objective Geometry - The concept that there are objective universal geometric principles, valid for all situations and all environments. So, consider a principle of geometry. Euclid's fifth postulate says that parallel lines don't intersect. Is it true or false? Well, it's true in Euclidean geometry, but it is false in non-Euclidean geometry. So... which geometry is true? Which is correct? The famous quote says, One geometry cannot be more true than another; it can only be more convenient. Geometry is not true, it is advantageous. R. Pirsing Do you see what I mean? By your reasoning geometry fails to be objective. This is what happens when you define something in terms of the validity of its principles. A system of morality can be like a system of geometry... it can be convenient, advantageous, useful, and objective, even if "correct" and "valid" and "true" they are not. ~modest

There is either something particular to morality that makes this a reasonable statement, or something about it doesn't make sense. Because, I can say the same thing in terms of physics, "Physics seeks to provide answers about modeling and predicting of the natural or physical world--whether something advances the interest of modeling it. To the extent that each of us has an opinion or a feeling on what that is, physics is subjective." I would reject the notion that physics is subjective even to the extent that different people have different opinions about what constitutes physics, and I don't understand why morality should be different as far as that argument goes. ~modest

I responded to this in my last post. You don't need to prove that certain acts are good or evil to establish objective qualities of morality. There are many propositions in math that some mathematicians think are correct while others think are wrong. No proofs have been found either way. It doesn't mean that math lacks objective qualities. That argument doesn't work. Not sure where you're coming from... maybe you heard oxytocin called the "love hormone" and assumed anything that wasn't the sensation of love wasn't related to oxytocin. It's just a nickname. It's also called the "moral molecule". The truth is too complicated for those generalizations. If we take the example of empathy—there exits neurocircuitry that only functions when a person imagines the plight of another as if they themselves were in that situation. The golden rule, in other words, is written into our neurocircuitry from birth. If that is not understood as an objective aspect of morality then I don't understand how you're using the terms objective or morality. It's an assertion, not an admission. Behavior doesn't prove subjectivism. It looked like you were angry, but without a brain scan and blood test I guess we established there's no way to be sure :) In the same post that you ask for the chemical composition of good and evil you recognize that things can be defined without assigning a chemical makeup so it's hard to see where you're coming from. Definitions aren't really objective or subjective. If we define "mammal" one way then certain animals will qualify and if we define it a little differently then different animals will qualify. Definitions are somewhat arbitrary and tautological in that sense. The quality of a good definition is its usefulness. A good definition is useful and a bad definition is not useful. I'm not sure I could "objectively define morality" because I'm not sure what objectively defining something entails, but I can usefully define it. Morality is prosocial behavior motivated by empathy and solidarity. The problem is that you implicitly define morality as "good and evil". I've frequently seen that as a source of many problems on this topic. Good and evil are qualities of moral actions, but they don't define it. For example, trees could be tall or short. Tall and short are qualities of trees. Some people might say that a certain tree is tall and other people might say it is short, but that doesn't mean that trees are entirely subjective concepts because "tall and short" isn't the full definition of a tree. Being cruel to another person is objectively immoral under pretty much any useful definition of the word. People are very capable of convincing themselves that slavery is not inherently cruel even if they should know better, and that has frequently been the moral cover. In other words, "be good to your slaves" is the diluted moral precept that fails to acknowledge the factual point that treating a slave well amounts to freeing the slave. Bondage is its own form of cruelty. It's a point of fact that people fail to get. Again, you're implicitly defining morality as "good and evil". "Correct" is a funny word for it. Morality is a fact of nature. Green is the correct color for the leaf of a tree the same way that morality is correct for humanity. It is an objective quality of humanity, but it sounds like you want it to be something more than that. Argumentum ad populum? ;) You come off very well. I, on the other hand, am genuinely condescending and pretentious. I was just speaking latin for crying out loud :lol: ~modest

Perfect. A biological basis—that's exactly where I was coming from. The foundations of morality (e.g. empathy, altruism, solidarity) can be seen on an fMRI. A brain scan shows them. There are neurotransmitters and hormones that induce moral behavior (oxytocin for example) as well as literature showing that a deficiency of those neurotransmitters and hormones induces psychopathy. Morality is behavioral so of course it has a biological basis. No need to shout. The same chemical cocktail that produces anger in one person may produce agitation alone in another. This doesn't prevent you from defining anger. It's possible to define things without assigning them a chemical makeup. My previous example... we teach our kids that the short sleeve shirt is wrong on a cold day. The long sleeve shirt is right. We aren't teaching them morality with that. "Right and wrong" clearly isn't the correct definition of morality. "Right" describes "eight" as the answer of "four plus four". "Right" can also describe a moral action. You can define "math" without proving every right and wrong answer to every (or any particular) math problem just like you can define morality without proving every right and wrong answer to every (or any particular) moral dilemma. It says nothing about the objectivity of math or the objectivity of morality. We could not have gotten this far as a species without a sense of morality. Intelligent group animals that work together for the common good have it because it is an evolutionary benefit. In that sense, it is something to be discovered, described, and refined, rather than something to be invented. It isn't as if there was once a tribe of humans who had no sense of morality (they didn't think in moral terms) until someone said, "I have an idea. Let's have empathy and compassion motivate prosocial behavior so that we can work well together." Evolution did that long before humanity was a species. That is one objective aspect. A study of history and sociology is another, along with psychology and neuroscience... there are objective aspects so I still, I'm sorry, don't know what you mean "totally subjective". ~modest

I still don't know what you mean by "totally subjective". Let's try this... Anger is subjective. It is highly influenced by a person's emotional character just like morality. The things, in other words, that make you angry may not make me angry. Do you take from this that it is impossible to recognize anger? Impossible to define it? Impossible to objectively determine the evolutionary need for it?