excreationist

Well I think a good framework for looking at moral systems is <a href="http://www.ccp.uchicago.edu/grad/Joseph_Craig/kohlberg.htm" target="_blank">Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development</a>. The later stages involve a person seeking connectedness with humanity. I think "connectedness" (or belonging) is a fundamental human desire, like newness and relief. So people want to find connectedness with something. Depending on their upbringing, they would probably find this with fellow human beings. Sociopaths on the other hand don't have a normal human connectedness desire.
Anyway, our brains are forced to do whatever is the most pleasurable and/or the least painful course of action. If the person was raised fairly well then this would translate to a "healthy" socially responsible morality. Another thing about connectedness is that we have a desire to imitate (at least as an infant) - it's about "monkey see, monkey do".
If they were raised in a dungeon by cruel parents they mightn't be very caring at all. But that would be a normal morality for them.

So basically people develop morality depending on their upbringing, and also their brain chemistry. There is nothing in physics that says that it is impossible for people to kill their own parents or eat their children, etc, even though these kinds of people are rare.

jlowder

(Note: in accordance with standard moral philosophy, I shall refer to "moral facts" and not "objective moral facts." Part of the definition of "moral facts" is that they are objective.)

An interesting question is whether the concept of "coming into existence" is even compatible with moral facts. I'm not sure what it would mean for a moral fact to "come into existence." What would the scenario be? How would it come into existence? Would the moral fact have a cause? If so, what?

Indeed, it seems to me that if there are moral facts at all, they no more "come into existence" than the law of noncontradiction. Moral facts should be understood as necessary truths.

Let me illustrate by an example. To say that morality is objective is to make a metaethical claim. To say that some particular action, say, rape, is wrong is to make a normative claim. Since most people who accept moral objectivism accept that normative claim, this seems like a legitimate example. Here's the problem for the person who says both that moral facts "came into existence" and that morality is objective. In the case of rape, that person must say that there was a time when rape was wrong and then a later time (after the fact of the wrongness of rape "came into existence") when rape became wrong. But the relevant properties of the act of rape were identical in both instances. Thus, either both acts of rape are objectively wrong, or neither is.

jlowder

While I agree with your definition of objective, I don't think any of your examples (traffic laws, monopoly rules, etc.) fit that definition. The point of objectivism is not just such rules exist independently of anyone's opinion, but that the validity of such rules holds independently of anyone's opinion. This is not the case with traffic laws and monopoly rules. The 'validity' of traffic laws and monopoly rules is derived from human opinion: the opinions of the legislators who made the traffic laws and the people who invented the game of Monopoly. So those examples aren't the examples you want. In fact, subjectivists would argue that your examples are perfect examples of how they think about morality: a set of rules invented by humans.

jlowder

This is very well said. I have just one nitpick with your last sentence. Saying that there are objectively true moral propositions but there is no way in principle to identify them, even with a reasonable degree of confidence, is NOT "indistinguishable from saying that there are no objectively true moral propositions." The difference is that objectivists don't believe that human opinion is what makes true moral propositions true. I would agree with you, though, that for practical purposes, the two are effectively the same.

I don't think the laws of logic and especially Occam's Razor are principles of action.

(snip)

Exactly.

jlowder

Who said that human consciousness is the basis for objective morality? Why should we believe that?

Only moral agents can be praised as moral or condemned as immoral. While I see no reason in principle why a nonhuman animal cannot be a moral agent, it seems to me that humans are the only known animals that are moral agents.

Again, if the thing in question meets the definition of a moral agent, then it would need to follow the standard to be considered moral. The issue is whether the artificial intelligence has free will. It doesn't seem to make much sense to (morally) judge the 'actions' of a thing that lacks free will.

(snip)

jlowder

This is an important question. But note that this question has absolutely nothing to do with the question of whether moral facts exist, since moral realism does not entail internalism. It could be the case that there are moral facts, but that the mere existence of such facts is insufficient to motivate moral behavior. There's a rich tradition in moral theory of externalist moral realism.

Tom Piper

jlowder,

Two points:

1. When I offered my explanation of objective facts,I said, among other things, '...real independent of any particularindividual mind'(my emphasis). All I meant was that the traffic laws, for example, are the laws, even if I don't believe that they are, even if you don't believe they are. The laws are not whatever any individual happens to think they are-- thus distinguishing them from a vulgar, but nevertheless popular-among-undergrads notion of moral subjectivism. In this respect, my examples are relevant. The laws are the laws, even if Ithink they are not, even though they derive from humans. I have not offered any view about the origin of the moral laws.

2. Your point about 'coming into existence' and the rightness/wrongness of rape (I think you left out a 'not' in setting up the problem)holds only if the rightness/wrongness depends upon the 'properties of the act of rape'. If this isn't so, then there is no problem.

Tom

[ February 19, 2002: Message edited by: Tom Piper ]</p>

jlowder

Fair enough. But in moral philosophy, the adjective 'objective' is normally used to describe the foundation or validity of moral principles.

Right. My point is that moral realists, by definition, hold that moral rightness/wrongness depends upon the properties of acts.

excreationist

Just about traffic laws:

Laws aren't necessarily about morality.

See <a href="http://www.ccp.uchicago.edu/grad/Joseph_Craig/kohlberg.htm" target="_blank">Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development</a>.

At the higher stages, people, like Gandhi, might think that it is moral to break certain laws or immoral to obey certain laws. e.g. it could be the law for an officer to kill a defenceless person.

In the middle stages, morality and the law are the same thing. At the lowest stage, things are only wrong if you get caught.

Anyway, since people can have different moralities - some see law and morality as the same thing (e.g. Hitler says it's the law, so it's good to kill Jews, etc) and others disagree.

So remember that laws and morality can sometimes be the same thing for some people, but this isn't so for many people. Therefore laws aren't an "objective moral fact" for everyone since everyone doesn't rely on laws as their sole source of morality.

99Percent

I am going to respond by arguing for free will.

We can all objectively recognize universal morality by acknowledging that every conscious human being has free will (volition).

Simply put, immorality means going against the free will of others, and this is called initiation of violence.

I find it hard if not impossible to reject this objective fact if you still believe in free will. After all moral choices are available precisely because we have free will.

There is also confusion about moral conventions. I don't think it is immoral for example to do whatever you please even if this goes against moral conventions as long as it does not go against the free will of others. Subjectivists seem to confuse moral conventions (subjective morality) with real objective morality.