Lobstrosity

DRFseven, I know that what each of us views as right and wrong is subjective. I know that these are value judgments that come about through our upbringing. What I'm arguing is that it is possible to construct an objective philosophy about what humans should view as right and wrong based upon the physical function such value judgments serve. Clearly our subjective notions of right and wrong aren't wholly random. There is a thread of commonality to be found. I think this thread can be objectively explored and expounded upon. You believe it's wrong to put the kitty in the toilet because your parents told you so. Ok, fine. But now let's think about it...why did your parents tell you it was wrong? If you take the stance of an outside viewer, can you understand the rationale behind it? Can it make sense to an arbitrary outside observer looking in? This is an attempt to objectify a personal, subjective thing. This is the process by which I maintain it is possible to objectify morality.

Majestyk

Actually Valorium, I see selfishness as an innate behavior also. There is no need to separate those, which do not exhibit altruistic tendencies, from humankind to conclude that altruism is an innate behavior. The human brain constantly exhibits conflicting responses. Evolution doesn't guarantee that its product will be sane, just proliferating.

dk

Let me offer an analogy. I understand gases (volume and pressure) with Boyles Laws. I understand Mechanics with Newton's Laws. I understand electricity and magnetism with Maxwell’s Laws. Likewise, I understand people with Moral Laws that govern them. When people don't understand one another, then they don't trust, rely, or cooperate for good reasons. Here's the rub, people need one another to live a good life, because life is full of unexpected problems. Moral law doesn't solve problems. To solve problems people need to understand one another so they can select the “right” initiative to direct their efforts with purpose, and this requires trust, reliability and cooperation. Liberty teaches a person to take direction and initiative, and Moral Law teaches people to understand one another.

DRFseven

I agree with you that we DO attempt to construct "objective" moral philosophies the world over. However, they are all based on our own subjective opinions; that is what we would like (i.e., survival, happiness, etc.). Some of them work toward what we would like and some of them work against, some seem to work sometimes and not other times. Even if we should turn out to be correct about the rightness and wrongness of certain behaviors as to how they relate to the attainment of a subjectively-derived goal, we have no way of converting this knowledge into a moral imperative. Morality is characterized by a feeling of right or wrong, which we are innately prepared to take on according to our particular circumstances. Can you see how that has been more adaptive than a system by which individuals would be compelled by some force to an objective standard in a "break-instead-of-bend" scenario? Not us; we're the champion benders!

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Clearly our subjective notions of right and wrong aren't wholly random. There is a thread of commonality to be found.

A survival instinct, which we have in common with with all animals, does not imply a moral system, much less an innate one. It does lead to massive agreement on the answer to the question, "Do we want to survive?", but doesn't help when getting down to the nitty-gritty of referendums, laws, customs, and tactics concerning moral behavior. People feel things are right or wrong at any given time and if something seems right to them, it simply seems right, logical considerations regarding survival be damned. People don't return lost items to owners due to their concern for the survival of the species or the planet or the universe; they feel that NOT to do so would be wrong of them. They get that little visceral "bad" jolt when they contemplate "not doing the right thing" and the little dopaminergic pleasure biscuit when they imagine DOING the right thing. But if nothing in their circumstances has provided them with those particular visceral cues, they have no way to feel those things.

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I think this thread can be objectively explored and expounded upon. You believe it's wrong to put the kitty in the toilet because your parents told you so. Ok, fine. But now let's think about it...why did your parents tell you it was wrong? If you take the stance of an outside viewer, can you understand the rationale behind it? Can it make sense to an arbitrary outside observer looking in? This is an attempt to objectify a personal, subjective thing. This is the process by which I maintain it is possible to objectify morality.

Yes, of course we can objectify subjective morality; that's what we do all the time. Subjectivists are just as moral as anyone else, we give our children just as many moral injunctives, we feel right and wrong just as strongly. We have moral opinions on war, abortion, death penalty, etc., based on personal conclusions we have drawn about how these issues relate to what we want to happen. Just like those who perceive that morality is objective!

DRFseven

Parents tell children not to put kitties in toilets when they see a struggling kitty in a toilet (or one about to put there). They tell the child in no uncertain terms that it is WRONG to do that. They are emotional and unequivicable. The child has already learned that it is wrong to put blocks in the toilet, but can tell that this is different. Mommy is upset and speaks loudly and maybe lunges to grab the kitty. When the kitty has been rescued, Mommy reiterates sternly that under no circumstances is the kitty ever to be put there again.

Two things are happening here: Mommy is reacting to her own horrified sensibilities (she reacts emotionally) acquired through her own experiences, and the child is experiencing an emotional response as a fact is learned (the fact learned is that putting kitties in toilets is wrong). Mommy is not, at the moment, thinking of long-term consequences; she is avoiding the negative (with yet more learned behavior). Later, she might sit the child down and explain why the behavior is wrong (if she does, the child is even more likely in future to think cruelty to animals is wrong). As for the child, there is no inkling, yet, that Mommy could be wrong about some things; that will come later as the child's social world expands and as the child attains the cognitive development necessary to be able to reason. But even after attaining adulthood, the former child will probably always feel that cruelty to animals is an inherently wrong act.

In discussions of subjective/objective morality, people tend to ignore that we now know that children acquire moral opinions and behavior through a process of internalization that requires life-lessons and involves emotions. In most discussions people act as if we could, as adults, conduct surveys and consider which actions best accomplished some end and vote on a workable set of morals. Morality doesn't work that way; without feelings you don't have morality. You might have laws, customs, social convention, rules, and these might help in the inculcation of morality into a society, but you won't have morality.

Alonzo Fyfe

And yet this applies as much to concern over the suffering of a kitten as it does to viewing members of another race or religion as inferior and, in some historical cases, worthy only of death. Through this same method they learn hatred and prejudice -- they learn the virtue of blowing up buildings full of innocent people and to win in sports or business at all costs, no matter who gets hurt.

That is to say, this methodology is a part of the EXPLANATION for how individuals acquire different moral beliefs and attitudes, but falls far short of providing a reasonable JUSTIFICATION for those beliefs and attitudes.

Alonzo Fyfe

The trouble is, subjectivists can never be immoral.

Perhaps in some small private crimes we can say that a person has violated his or her own moral code. But, in all of the great evils of history -- holocosts, jihads, crusades, slavery, terrorism -- the person who commits such a moral crime is completely confident that their action is demanded by right and justice.

So, of course subjectivists are just as moral as anyone else. Even more so, since they virtually never do anything wrong (in their own mind). Whereas somebody who holds an objective view holds that their attitudes may be in error -- that wanting to blow up a building full of innocent people and thinking it right is not sufficient for it to actually BE right.

The AntiChris

Alonzo Fyfe

This looks very much like the old subjectivist=amoralist argument.

And an objectivist who committed the same crimes would be less than "confident"?
What makes you so sure that subjectivists in their own minds don't observe broadly the same moral principles as (non-theistic) objectivists? I'd always understood the subjectivist/objectivist debate to be about the source of morality rather than the content.

As a (provisional) subjectivist I have no problem whatsoever judging the actions of others "right" or "wrong". I just take it as implicitly understood that all pronouncements of "right" or "wrong" are tacitly preceded by "in my personal opinion".

Chris

Alonzo Fyfe

A subjectivist-amoralist argument would either be a tautology or redundant.

A subjectivist is certainly a(objective-moralist), while at the same time it makes no sense to call him an a(subjective-moralist).


Well, since I hold that the propsoition subjectivists in their own minds don't observe broadly the same moral principles as (non-theistic) objectivists to be false, your question of how I can be so certain it is true somewhat misses the point.

Indeed, most of the crimes that I listed were actually carried out by objectivists (who happened to be objectively wrong). However, a subjectivist holds that they cannot be said to be objectively wrong.

[Which is not an objection -- or, if it were offered as an objection would be begging the question, because the subjectivist can legitimately answer this by saying, "Yes. And?"]

Yet, though it raises no problems for subjectivism, it does raise problems with the statement that "subjectivists are just as moral as objectivists." Of all the things that can be said in defense of subjectivism, this particular defense makes no sense.


At which point we must introduce the distinction that philosophers draw between agent-subjectivism (the rightness or wrongness of an act depends on the subjective state of the agent), and assessor-subjectivism (the rightness or wrongness of an act depends on the subjective state of the assessor).

However, whether we look at the piloting of a passenger jet into a sky scraper from the point of view of the pilot, from my point of view, both opinions have nothing behind it. The subjectivist still holds the apparently contradictory opinion that, "Even though this view that I accept has nothing to recommend it over the view that I reject, I still refuse to treat the two views as equal, and I still accept one and reject the other."

Why? If the true views are truly equal, then why not treat them as equal?

Primal

Well I think a big crux in this argument is whether morals are matters of emotion or matters of pure cognition. We can all agree that emotions are for example, agent dependent or aspects of an agent. But whether they then stem mainly from emotions or purely from cognition makes a big difference then. As does whether or not they stem from biology(in whole or part) or purely from enviroment.

One school, relativists, seems to think morals are matters of cognition, stemming from enviroment. Hence since there really is no basis for such cognition besides question begging: then morals do seem just made up.

However if one believes morals are matters of emotion, and realizes biology plays a big role in determing how our emotions are set up, then morality is no longer just as relative, since obviously not all actions or systems satisfy our emotional desires equally well.

The difference is then as matters of cognition morals are "just made up" but as matters of emotion they are based on biology and enviroment.

In the latter case certain statements can be evaluated as true or false, when a person says "Action X is moral" they are saying in essence "Action X satisfies emotional desires of me and you". This claim can be evaluated as true or false depending on whether the action does what the person says it does.

Usually the matter becomes more complicated, as people usually give reasons why their action is moral even if immoral at face value.

When Hitler for example said "Killing Jews is moral" he did not really mean killing jews is moral, because "it just is". Most people consider taking a life for the heck of it immoral and if Hitler made such a statement, almost nobody would have agreed with him.

Hitler invented an excuse: "killing jews is moral, because their innate features make them harmful to society and protecting society is moral." i.e. saying that his proposed action satisfies our emotional desires more then restraint but apealing to other values which he said would be placed in jeopardy by Jews.

Hence Hitler presented an argument, apealed to certain values. And Hitler was wrong in his apeal. Mainly because Jews are "not a threat via innate characteristics" and thus people are not saving anything by killing Jews. Hitler's argument thus promises more then it actually delivers.