Koyaanisqatsi

This may not belong here, but it was inspired by Spin's hopelessly hypocritical posts about meat eating: "God" was created by egotists who couldn't stand the fact that their opinions didn't matter and thus the lie of objective morality is nothing more than the fictional desperation of homo-egocentric men.

Morality has always been subjective and always will be subjective, so petulant men who wanted to justify their pious, sanctimonious, self-aggrandizement made up their own "objective source" that they could pretend to quote from in order to prove that their opinions meant something more important to the world than just their own insignificant opinions.

Thus, "God."

That is the sole purpose of the fictional creature; to "back up" somebody's claims of morality so that there is an illusion of authority to their opinions.

Remember when you were a child and you used to proclaim a "truism" only to have people challenge that truism and instead of admitting you didn't know it was true, you'd say something childish like, "I know it's true because that's what my father said?" Exact same dynamic at play with the lie of objective morality and "God."

We've managed to get rid of the fiction (in our community any way) but kept the lie.

[ March 19, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

Mageth

The real nativity scene:

Somewhere in prehistory there was a tribal chieftain who had the brilliant idea that, to strengthen his (or her?) authority over the group, he'd attribute his authority to the sun and the moon. "People do what Oog say, or sun and moon not be happy, no give rain or antelope!" And thus god(s) and religion were born.

Koyaanisqatsi

Precisely. We've figured it out.

Olly olly oxen free! Game's over, guys. Mageth and I figured it out....Hello?

DarkBronzePlant

&lt;Koyannisqatsi and Mageth look around to find themselves surrounded by a large group of applauding infidels&gt;
Welcome to the club, folks!

99Percent

Koyaanisqatsi: Morality has always been subjective and always will be subjective, so petulant men who wanted to justify their pious, sanctimonious, self-aggrandizement made up their own "objective source" that they could pretend to quote from in order to prove that their opinions meant something more important to the world than just their own insignificant opinions.

But can't morality become objective if everyone agrees to a set of moral standards? Of course this would have to be extremely minimal and low denominational, respecting individual liberty to its most possible state.

"Objective" morals made up by what you call sanctimonious individuals were widely adopted not only because people were blind or stupid, but because some of these morals actually worked for a while and made their society prosper although to the detriment to individual liberty and thinking.

IMO, real objective morals are those that all individual rationally and consciously agree to, respecting other individual's freedom and rationality.

[ March 19, 2002: Message edited by: 99Percent ]</p>

tronvillain

Why bother to call it "objective morality" then though? After all, if one person comes along who doesn't agree to the standards, then they aren't any more. Also, even if people agree to the standards that won't mean they agree that it will always be rational for them to follow those standards.

Pomp

99Percent,

But can't morality become objective if everyone agrees to a set of moral standards?

Why would universal agreement establish objectivity? You wouldn't accept this idea in any context other than a discussion of morals so why accept it here?

IMO, real objective morals are those that all individual rationally and consciously agree to, respecting other individual's freedom and rationality.

Is "respecting other individual's freedom and rationality" an additional criterion for establishing an objective moral standard, or is it merely one standard you feel everyone would agree to?

Oh, addressing the OP: I wouldn't say that "objective" moral enforcement is the only reason for the creation of god stories, but it's certainly one reason, and more or less the primary function of such stories these days.

[ March 19, 2002: Message edited by: Pompous Bastard ]</p>

Malaclypse the Younger

99Percent

Deoepnds on your definition of "objectivity". According to my definition, something that is objectively true is true regardless of what people believe.

Universal agreement might possibly be good evidence for objectivity, but we don't even have universal agreement for the objectivity of matter, much less any ethics.

And it is arguable that an ethical proposition that is universally agreed with is unnecessary; if everyone agrees, then there is no point in discussing whether to enforce it.

By "consciously", you are proposing a very subjectivist definition of objectivity, and I'm not sure what you mean by "rationally". Again, according to my definition of "rationally", it means drawing logically valid conclusions from true premises. But what are those true premises? Is holding those premises as true "rational", since they are not themselves logically valid conclusions from true premises?

Your definitions appear to raise more questions than they answer.

Koyaanisqatsi

That kind of agreement is called something else: "The Law" and we already have it.

Bill Snedden

I think I know from where you are coming, given previous discussions, but I think that your goal is more properly called "intersubjective" rather than "objective."

I would agree with Malaclypse's definition; the term "objective" refers to something that exists independently of any observer.

If there really are intersubjective moral principles, it would be objectively true that they exist (just as it is objectively true that I like chocolate), but that would not make them objective in and of themselves.

Regards,

Bill Snedden