Objective morality?

[wellwisher]

Objective morality is not designed for the individual; ego. If there was only you, you could get away with subjective morality. You could set all the rules to suit your own subjective whims. If you are dealing with a group, morality has to become more objective, since too much individual subjectivity would never allow the group to integrate properly.

If you were one person on an island, you could set up a subjective set of rules, for yourself, that can make you happy no matter how cruel or perverted. If there are two people, and both do the similar things, the egos will clash if you are not both on the same subjective page. If one wants to be a bully and the other does not want to be bullied, what happens?

If you have a team that needs to work together, you cannot have all the individuals playing by the beat of their own subjective drums. That would never allow a good team to form. Sacrifices will need to be made in terms of whims and personal subjectivity, so the players can objectively find their optimize positions on the team.

A team of one person comes down to optimizing the ego, both objectively and subjectively. A team of many has to limit individual subjectivity, since this will clash with others.

As an analogy, say you had a box of building blocks of all shapes. The goal is to make a certain structure with all the blocks and shown on the box cover. If we place any first block down, whether this is right or wrong; subjective, this will not be immediately apparent, until we start adding more and more blocks. Then we notice the structure of blocks is not forming the right way.

Based on how it is drifting, we take all the blocks down, and start again. This time being more careful to place a specific first block, in a different spot; more objective to the previous drift from the subjective random first block. Objective morality has a much harder goal, which is to assemble a large number of different and subjective people and get them to cooperate and then thrive. A random or subjective approach based on the whims of all, will not get you there. It needs to be more objective and rational.

If you look the 10 Commandments each one will requires individuals sacrifice subjective impulses in favor of the team. The first commandment is, there is one God and not to have strange gods before you. If we allowed everyone to have their own favorite god or no god at all, the team will be going in too many directions. The Atheists and the Religious in this forum have two teams instead of one. A house divided against itself cannot stand. This is fine for discussion forums but in the harsh reality of ancient times, this could mean the end for all. One had to be objective to various types of subjective division and make the needed objective sacrifices for the whole team's success.

Those who believe and practice subjective morality have the spirit of division. The political Left breaks down into umpteen different victim groups, since relative morality cannot be used to integrate them all. Inclusion and equity, with subjective morality are conflicting terms. It just creates more division. Equity and inclusion is not based on objective standards like talent but subjective standards like shoe size. Only the subjective fringe need apply or ar included. But only objectivity can make a whole team.

 

[blü 2]

If you look the 10 Commandments each one will requires individuals sacrifice subjective impulses in favor of the team. The first commandment is, there is one God and not to have strange gods before you. If we allowed everyone to have their own god or not god at all, the team will be going in too many directions. The Atheists and the Religious in this forum have two teams instead of one. A housed divided against itself cannot stand. This is fine for discussion forums but in the harsh reality of ancients times this could mean the end for all. One had to be objective to various types of subjective division and make the needed objective sacrifices for the team's success.

The Decalogue is vastly overrated as a moral guide. Four of the first five rules are about protecting the status and income of the priesthood, for example.

Thou shalt not kill is meaningless ─ thou shalt kill animals for your food, thou shalt kill your tribe's enemies (eg the slaughter of the surrendered population at Jericho with many more such examples), thou shalt kill the people the rules tell you to kill (the Torah has many death penalties, and I trust you as a person of faith never suffer a witch to live). The commandment says nothing about a defense of self-defense, accident, degrees of negligence, insanity, coercion, crime passionnel, honor killings and so on.

As a human you've evolved to have certain moral tendencies ─ child nurture and protection, dislike of the one who harms, like of fairness and reciprocity, respect for authority, loyalty to the group, a sense of self-worth through self-denial, and evolved capacities such as conscience and empathy. That's why the Golden Rule is found in history long before biblical times.

But human morality is about surviving and breeding as a gregarious creature, and enjoying the benefits of cooperation. There's no objective morality, just behavioral functionality. Other gregarious creatures ─ chimps, dolphins &c ─ have their own versions along similar lines eg the meerkat who stands watch and signals danger(snakes, birds of prey) while the others get food, go to water, and so on.

 

[Zwing]

That's exactly what it means. In order to make the moral statement, slavery is wrong or rape or murdering is wrong, there has to be a subject (not an object) that wishes not to be murdered, raped or enslaved.

Yes, exactly right. All moral judgments are value judgments by a given subject; in other words, they are subjective.

Objective morality, if such a thing were to exist would at best amoral and at worst immoral

Perhaps it would be better to say unjust here, rather than amoral or immoral, since notions of justice might be thought of as having a bit more of an objective character than notions of morality. Your point is well taken, though. It would, indeed, be unjust to force externally conceived notions of morality upon a person.

 

[Brian2]

That's exactly what it means. In order to make the moral statement, slavery is wrong or rape or murdering is wrong, there has to be a subject (not an object) that wishes not to be murdered, raped or enslaved. Objective morality, if such a thing were to exist would at best amoral and at worst immoral, as that would mean that moral statements would have nothing to do with subjects and their experiences. If they are objective they could quite literally be anything and no one could claim that any one is better than any other as good and bad, right and wrong have nothing to do with human experience.

Of course a person might not care about the experiences of fellow humans, that's possible too, but then, that's not moral.

Are you saying that an enslaver, rapist, murderer etc would need to ask the person who will experience these acts upon their being, whether they mind being the experiencer of those things being enacted against them, and only then would they be able to say whether the act is moral or immoral ??

 

[EconGuy]

Are you saying that an enslaver, rapist, murderer etc would need to ask the person who will experience these acts upon their being, whether they mind being the experiencer of those things being enacted against them, and only then would they be able to say whether the act is moral or immoral ??

No, that's not what I'm saying

Morality is a social system, sort of like systems of measurement. I don't care that the guy pumping gas at my gas station believes that his V-8 pickup only holds one gallon of gas from empty to full by his own definition of what a gallon is. He pays the price on the pump or he gets arrested. Further, even if I agreed that his huge V-8 pickup held just one gallon of gas, then we'd both be wrong. What an individual thinks about it, doesn't change the very well defined and socially understood standards of what 1 gallon is.

 

[Zwing]

Are you saying that an enslaver, rapist, murderer etc would need to ask the person who will experience these acts upon their being, whether they mind being the experiencer of those things being enacted against them

I think not. Mores…moral values…are preconceptive by nature; they are conceived at times and in contexts before and different from those in which they are applied. A man who thinks to kill another doesn’t include a morally evaluative procedure involving the one to be killed, as a part of the process of murder. He has his mores, and he acts upon them. Any reevaluation of individual mores must be a deliberate and voluntary process.

 

[EconGuy]

I think not. Mores…moral values…are preconceptive by nature; they are conceived at times and in contexts before they are applied. A man who thinks to kill another doesn’t include an evaluator procedure involving the one to be killed, as a part of the process of murder.

Quite right, and well said, but there may be contexts in which a person might ask if an action is ok. If I visit an Indian reservation I might ask if certain actions are frowned upon out of my own ignorance of social norms, but this only goes to bolster the points we both made. We know there is a social convention in every society, even if we're unaware of it. But it's not the individual that defines i, thus if I find myself asking an individual, I'm not asking their opinion, but rather the well established social norm.

That said, it's not a leap to imagine that the things named, that being rape, murder or enslavement are three things you really don't need to ask anyone if they are ok.