Koyaanisqatsi

I think what's being missed here is that the issue is not one of either or.

Empathy and sympathy account for the "feelings" that something is just plain "wrong," but this is grayed by the fact that what a society considers "wrong" is proscribed, not innate.

In other words, labeling something "morally wrong" is nothing more than a judgment call as the result of group psychology that is enforced by the attachment of empathetic/sympathetic feelings generated by the intellectual construct "morally wrong."

In other other words, you're told over and over and over again things like, "We don't believe that" or "We believe that is wrong to do," by your family growing up. This is the indoctrination of just one tier (the immediate tier and therefore most impactful).

A personal example will suffice. When I was growing up, my parents never stated directly that masturbation was morally wrong, but one time when I was six or seven years old, the neighborhood kids were taunting another one and I, joining in, yelled out, "Yeah! Why don't you just go home and play with yourself!"

I meant, of course, that no one wanted to play with him so he should go play alone, but the phrase triggered something completely different in my Father's ears and I was pulled aside and yelled at for saying such a thing.

It was at that moment that I learned what masturbation was and in my Dad's mistaken rage, he said (with vehemence), "Do you know what you just said? Playing with yourself means masturbation and that's not a nice thing!"

As a result, for years later I felt so guilty over my natural curiosity, shall we say, that I literally thought I was causing any bad things that happened the next day because of what I had been doing the night before. If it rained the next day (a common occurrence, by the way, since I grew up in Oregon ) it was because I had masturbated the night before.

So, a complex series of events and associations and misunderstood psychological connections all lead to a subjective morality that felt like an objective "truth" that ultimately (in my mind) affected the entire space-time continuum.

That's patently absurd, yet that's what I believed for many years all because when I was six years old my Dad misunderstood what it was I was saying and his own sense of indoctrinated morality (what you do or do not say in public as well as what to tell a six year old about masturbation) triggered an overreaction that in turn triggered within me a slew of complex associations, starting with, of course, shame (empathy) for what I had inadvertently told the kid next door to go "do" to himself, even though at that age I still didn't know what was so wrong with what I had said or with masturbation, for that matter.

I just knew I has said something "bad" that was being adversely reacted to, thus operant conditioning was triggered.

As you can plainly see, at no point along that event timeline is there anything "objectively immoral" taking place, yet the illusion of objectivity (the notion that little ol' me in my room at night had the power to adversely effect the entire universe just by getting the white out) wrapped up the whole notion of "masturbation" as being objectively immoral for a long time.

It didn't stop me, of course ( ), but I hope the example shows how morality is established and applied.

As for the more veiled argument I sense within the original question (how can subjective morality have any "weight" behind it without a god concept mandating that weight) as you can also plainly see from my example, no such concept was necessary to instill in me what I misperceived as an "objective moral truth;" that masturbation was "wrong."

Many millions of people to this day still consider masturbation to be "morally wrong," by the way, but such a designation is inherently meaningless and only serves as commentary on the way they were brought up, IMO.

[ May 17, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

dk

dk: – The Union in 1860s wasn’t a democracy so your argument fails, and is non sequitur. As I recall the Union and Confederate Armies were populated by military conscription, and the Union offered a $300 buyout. Unless your point is “Might makes Right”, you don’t have a point.
dk: - Christians have only one problem with slavery, the truth sets people free. or from John 8:32 – “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.". In the U.S. slaves were often treated better that freeman, for example in the half of19th Century New Orleans slave owners valued their property, so they employed free Irish immigrants to labor in swamps. The death of a freeman cost nothing because another starving immigrant was getting off the boat, whereas the loss of a slave incurred a sizeable financial penalty. Some Irish Immigrants envied slaves for the relative safety and comfort enjoyed under the cover of slavery, freemen nonetheless profited by the inalienable link between freedom and truth.
dk: - Sure, The New Testament explains the Old Testament like this , “John 1:17 – “For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” In other words freedom and truth are only sustainable through the grace of God.

Koyaanisqatsi

That is the biggest pile of irresponsible horseshit I've ever read here!

You've just proved that both morality and intelligence are subjective.

bd-from-kg

This post is going to be devoted to clearing up a few common red herrings. Later, if I have time, I’ll try to offer a more substantive answer to the original question.

HelenSL:

Well, yes and no.

An objective moral theory says that if a specific act (such as John stealing Mary’s purse just outside a specific Wal-Mart at 10:02:31 on Oct 14, 1995) is wrong for anyone at any time, it is wrong for everyone at all times. That is, if Smith said it would be wrong in 1443 and Jones says it wasn’t wrong in 2537, one of them is objectively wrong. It cannot be “true for Smith” that it would be wrong and also “true for Jones” that it was right.

But an objective theory doesn’t necessarily say that there are universally valid moral rules such that any act that they describe is “wrong”. Thus objective theories do not necessarily say that if John’s theft of Mary’s purse in the example above is “wrong”, Fred’s stealing of Linda’s purse in the same way at the same place an hour later is also “wrong”. Moral rules such as “stealing is always wrong” are called absolute rules, and moral theories that say that an act is wrong if and only if it violates such an absolute rule are called “absolute” theories. It’s possible for a moral theory to be absolute but not objective, or objective but not absolute.

Certainly a morality in which right and wrong are determined by the consensus of the community would be subjective, but it’s hardly true that all non-theistic moralities are of this kind. In fact, very few are. Few people, if any, would agree that, if they find an action morally repugnant but it is sanctioned by the moral consensus of the community they live in, it’s “really” right in spite of the fact that they personally find it wrong. The discussion of slavery in some earlier posts shows how silly a “consensus of the community” theory looks when it is faced with a serious concrete example, so ’nuff said.

David Gould:

Actually it seems to me that you hold an objective morality. Thus, you say:

Presumably you are saying that you agree with “the consensus we have now” on this point. But if so, you are asserting the existence of an objective morality. Otherwise it doesn’t make sense to say that “the consensus we had then was incorrect”. In the absence of an objective morality, what could it mean to say that one consensus is “correct” and another “incorrect”? It doesn’t make sense to say that an opinion is “incorrect” unless it is an opinion about a question that has a “correct” answer. Thus, it makes sense to say that someone who thinks that 2 + 2 = 5 is “incorrect”, but is doesn’t make sense to say that someone who thinks that strawberry milkshakes taste better than chocolate ones is “incorrect”. Subjective moral theories say that moral questions such as “Is slavery wrong” are in the same category as “Do strawberry milkshakes taste better than chocolate ones?” That is, they do not have a “correct” or “incorrect” answer. According to such theories, to say that the opinion about slavery that a person or society in the past had was “incorrect” because you (or your society) disapproves of slavery makes no more sense than saying that medieval societies were wrong in thinking jousting tournaments more enjoyable than baseball games because you (or your society) finds baseball games more enjoyable.

The fact that opinions about a question differ, or have differed over time, doesn’t mean that there is no objective truth about it – i.e., that the matter is subjective. On the contrary, the fact that people perceive themselves to be disagreeing about something is a sure indication that they believe that there is an objective truth about it. Thus, when one person says that strawberry milkshakes are better than chocolate ones and another person says the opposite, they do not imagine that they are disagreeing; they understand that each is expressing a personal preference, and that both of them are presumably right. But when one says that they must turn left at this crossroads to reach Winchester and the other says that they must turn right, they do perceive themselves as disagreeing: it cannot be the Winchester is to the north and also to the south. The location of Winchester, unlike the taste of milkshakes, is objective. Of course, it’s possible to be mistaken as to whether a disagreement is “real” – i.e., whether it’s about an objective question – but the fact that a disagreement exists and is perceived as “real” is evidence that the question involved is objective, not that it’s subjective.

Koyaanisqatsi:

You’re right that many opinions are formed through cultural conditioning. But this has nothing to do with whether a belief formed in this way is a belief about an objective question. Thus, many people believe that Earth has existed for more than a million years, and many others believe that it was created much more recently than that. Both beliefs are in most cases the result of cultural conditioning. It doesn’t follow that there is no objective truth of the matter.

Koyaanisqatsi

We're not talking about a "belief" being formed; we're talking about morallity being formed.

Nor is this analogy valid or applicable to the question at hand.

Let's say for the sake of argument (in keeping with my example) that you believe masturbation is "morally wrong" and I believe it is "morally right" (as in, morally acceptable).

Who is "objectively" right or wrong here? No one, because such labels have no instrinsic meaning in regard to morallity in the manner that they would in your analogy.

And, come to think of it, your analogy is flawed on another level, because of the confusion of the contextual meanings of the words "right" and "wrong."

In your analogy--regarding the age of the Earth--one is neither "right" nor "wrong" per se, one is either "correct" or "incorrect;" a sublte but salient point.

The Earth is as old as the Earth is, so to state, "I believe it is younger than it actually is" is to be incorrect, but this analogy does not likewise apply to the question of whether or not masturbation can be considered "wrong" or "right" in a moral sense.

One cannot say, for example, that masturbation is "correct" or "incorrect."

[ May 17, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

HelenM

Why not??? Why doesn't 'objective morality' have an answer on that one?

Why can it pronounce definitively on slavery but not on masturbation?

love
Helen

Koyaanisqatsi

...because, there is no such thing as "objective morality," which was what my post and example demonstrated...?

It can't and it never did on either one, which was my point.

Consensus and "might making right" is what stoped slavery, but we still have the essence of slavery in this country with absolutely no moral compunction whatsoever, so long as you take a qualitative leap from iron shackles to credit card bills.

Slavery wasn't necessarily about oppression in this country; it was about commerce, a means for free labor borne out of the Bible and the "objective morality" it preached. Slaves were not just a fact of life; they were ordained and approved of by God.

The fact that there are no more slaves (in this country, at least) was the result of one of the bloodiest wars America has ever seen, not because God--the alleged arbiter and mandater of "objective morality"--showed everyone the error of our ways.

We had to murder millions in order to stop slavery, though, lest we all forget, the Civil War itself wasn't ultimately about slavery either! It was about whether or not the States had a right to secede from the Union and Lincoln seeing his power base cut in half and saying, "No way!"

Ironically, what Lincoln did was unconstitutional, because our Constitution quite clearly favors State's rights over National rights, so if you really want to get into this, we're talking a whole different set of perceived and implanted "objective" morality, sistah!

Beside all that, however, how could you possibly say "masturbation is incorrect," unless you're talking about the specific method of somebody attempting to masturbate.

Saying the Earth is 6000 years old, however, is incorrect, which is the distinction I was trying to make.

[ May 17, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

HelenM

Sorry...I'll have to read it carefully...

love
Helen

Koyaanisqatsi

Perhaps I wasn't clear. What I should have said in my first post is that there is no actual "objective morality," but there is definitely a perceived "objective morallity."

That's why whenever we say, "That's just plain wrong in any universe" or similar hyperbole, we aren't actually affirming any kind of universal, objectively "true" standard, we're just shorthanding to, "The majority of people I associate with would agree with me, therefore it's close enough to being 'objective' for me to use this hyperbole to make a point.'"

If you actually deconstruct any and all "morally repugnant acts" (including child rape and murder) you will find either in culture or custom a subjective judgment call that betrays the fact that consensus and "might making right" is usually at the heart of it, but don't make the mistake of ruling out the power of dissent, please.

Argument and the persuasion of one has just as much power to overcome "might makes right," which proves all the more that morality is formed not innate.

vixstile

In these discussions over objective vs. subjective morality, people sometimes use the laws of gravity as an example of something being objectively independent of human opinion and bias. But it is absurd to talk about a physical laws when discussing morally.

We can not disobey the laws of gravity.
We could disobey an objective moral law.

Something being objectively defined as morally wrong, provides no incentive for someone to not behave immorally. You would have to make a very subjecive decision to obey an objective moral law.