Is Morality Subjective?

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Sy Borg
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Re: Is Morality Subjective?

Post by Sy Borg »

There are commonalities between all groups' codes.

No matter what the species, culture or subculture - the morality in a group will concern the exchanges between group members that involve survival, health, resources and reproduction.
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated—Gandhi.
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JamesOfSeattle
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Re: Is Morality Subjective?

Post by JamesOfSeattle »

Morality is both objective and subjective (so everyboy's right! :) )

As for the objective part, I am making these assumptions: 1. Our "sense of morality", i.e., our innate feelings as to how to treat others, evolved according to the standard laws of evolution. 2. Our sense of morality evolved because it provided some improvement in our survivability. 3. Evolution happens because some physical process drives it. Let's call it Process X.

Thus, an action is objectively morally right if it comports with Process X.

Process X, of course, is the second law of thermodynamics. Thus, an action is morally right if it results in an overall increase in entropy. Note: this increase refers to an overall long term effect in entropy. Burning down a house will cause an increase in local entropy, but if everyone did it, there would be less of an increase in entropy in the long term.

On the other hand, morality is subjective because under no circumstances can we determine what action would have a long term effect on entropy. Under most circumstances we have no chance of determining an action's effect on the survivability of our species (nuclear weapons not withstanding). Our best option is adopting a code that has been culturally tested (evolution working at the level of culture) but moderated by our innate, evolved sense of morality.

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Re: Is Morality Subjective?

Post by ArtieE »

Ambauer wrote:So say Hyde clobbers Carew to death in the street. Hyde harms Carew because he sets back Carew's interests (e.g. Carew probably had plans for that night), and Hyde violates Carew's rights (i.e. the right to life, the pursuit of happiness, etc.). So Hyde clobbering Carew to death in the street is morally wrong. On the other hand, stealing someone's pencil is not a harm, or morally wrong, because it is hardly a set back to her/his interests. This is at least a good start toward "objective" morality. Any other ideas of how we could get to objective morality?
Evolution and natural selection are objective processes. When such objective processes evolve instincts like the survival instinct it is automatically objectively immoral to do something that reduces chances of survival. So murder is objectively wrong and immoral. Stealing someone's pencil is also objectively wrong and immoral because if we all stole from each other, no matter how much or how little, we would all reduce our chances of survival. It is a matter of principle, not of how much we steal.
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Re: Is Morality Subjective?

Post by ArtieE »

Spiral Out wrote:Consequentialism, as a moral system, allows for unjustified murder and other crimes.
No it doesn't.
"If that "harmful" something in the murder scenario was the death of the person, then you have thus deemed death itself immoral.

No you haven't. The objective processes of evolution and natural selection evolved a survival instinct so we see murder as wrong and immoral because it causes premature death but our bodies evolved to die within a certain life span so death in itself is not immoral.
In what way is death immoral?

It isn't. Causing premature death is.
What's the difference if someone is killed in their sleep or if they simply die in their sleep?

The difference is that one death was caused prematurely and the other was natural.
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Re: Is Morality Subjective?

Post by Engineer0RQ1 »

I would agree with Verosa that morality is both subjective and objective.

I take the stance that true morality stems from the fundamental structure and nature of mankind. Our intellect posses an inherent duality founded in both the subjective emotional response and objective rational argument.

This can be seen if we grade our response to different events:

Shadowed reality's emotional response when observing the theft of a pencil is mild curiosity followed by intense rational arguments concerning the "harm" done to an individual, the circumstances/social consequences of such behaviour and how the "theft/damage" can be addressed.

The response would have been very different if the pencil had then been used to murder someone or rape them under duress. It would be highly emotional and confused displacing rational argument in favour of highly emotional survival responses perhaps even that most basic of all the fight/flight response.
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Re: Is Morality Subjective?

Post by Belinda »

Morality is part of the culture of belief of all societies. If a group of people lacks a culture of morality the group is not a society but an aggregate of people.

Morality is how a group of people get along together and is mediated by taboos, laws, customs, traditions, arts, and public media.

Some people believe that morality is God-given, or objectively real, and this belief tends to harden social control especially when the moral system is crystallised in an important myth.

With the demise of religious controls we now find that dangerous alternatives to the religious controls appear. Notable among those is the superimposition of nationalistic sentiment upon one of the old- established and religiously -authenticated control systems such as Christianity or Islam. Islam does of course hit the headlines because of the present danger of secular nationalistic and religious combinations undertaken by such as Hamas and ISIL. Nationalistic moral sentiment is new to Islam, and also contravenes the commands of Jesus Christ.
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Re: Is Morality Subjective?

Post by Engineer0RQ1 »

Hello Belinda. Re post 18...... Are you following me around or is this a topic of particular interest?

I understand what you are saying. However I believe that there is a hierarchy involved in morality/ethics as shown below:

With factors increasing due to group size it is,

"Individual"/ "family"/"extended family or clan"/"nation or power group"/"humanity or God|s/truth"

It is hierarchy ultimately based upon higher structure and hence truth.

Would you agree?
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Re: Is Morality Subjective?

Post by Wilson »

Here's a fascinating video, portraying an individual with his own well-defined sense of morality based upon something like, whatever's best for the Earth and best for humanity in general:
How would one argue against his ethical system?

-- Updated October 24th, 2015, 5:44 pm to add the following --

Here's a fascinating video, portraying an individual with his own well-defined sense of morality based upon something like, whatever's best for the Earth and best for humanity in general:
How would one argue against his ethical system?

-- Updated October 24th, 2015, 5:44 pm to add the following --

Sorry about the duplication. Mod, please delete if possible.
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Re: Is Morality Subjective?

Post by JamesOfSeattle »

Wilson, that's certainly an interesting video. Fortunately the logic is nonsense. By the logic presented, homicide is ultimately good for everyone left, until there is not anyone left.

Engineer, I think the hierarchy goes more like. Self/family/community/.../nation/species/ ... /kingdom/life/chemistry/physics

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Re: Is Morality Subjective?

Post by Belinda »

Engineer wrote:
there is a hierarchy involved in morality/ethics as shown below:

With factors increasing due to group size it is,

"Individual"/ "family"/"extended family or clan"/"nation or power group"/"humanity or God|s/truth"

It is hierarchy ultimately based upon higher structure and hence truth.

I don't really know what you mean by "hierarchical" morality. Do you mean that the more power a leader exerts the more the people obey his or her moral strictures , or the more any individual under his or her rule obeys his or her moral strictures? If this is what you mean I agree.

However there is a disconnect between humanity, and God, and the other items in your hierarchy. The disconnect arises because humanity, and God, are universal moral agents whereas individuals, families, tribes, and nations are sects which are often morally opposed to each other. The disconnect is important because universal morality is much to be desired as the only state which can make us stop fighting, killing, stealing from, or exploiting each other. The great religions insofar as they truly echo the sentiments of for instance Jesus, or Muhammad, or poets such as Robert Burns, are universalistic .

Unless we see the disconnect between tribalism and universalism we cannot improve upon human morality.

My previous post was really about tribalism(i.e. nationalism) versus universalism. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is universal in its application. Likewise the moral systems of Jesus and Muhammad.

ArtieE illustrates my point about universal morality:
Stealing someone's pencil is also objectively wrong and immoral because if we all stole from each other, no matter how much or how little, we would all reduce our chances of survival. It is a matter of principle, not of how much we steal.
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Re: Is Morality Subjective?

Post by Engineer0RQ1 »

Hello again Belinda.

Hierarchical morality is the name for an intellectual/engineering concept that I use to get to grips with the intellectual/physical conflict and disconnection we are all constantly observing.

It is based on the idea that the cosmos is an electromechanical system and mankind is a self replicating physical/biological/intellectual subsystem that employs memes to improve it's short chances and genes to maximize its long term survival in that universal conflict known as "The survival of the fittest ".

If we consider our actions in terms of meme groups seeking the best interpretation of reality and hierarchical morality as simply another set of selfish replicators competing for survival in a battle that also compares the individual with the largest group it help me to understand the world around me.

I know it is a materialistic philosophy founded in the idea of replicators and a cosmos where e = m.C.c with mass as the physical replicator but does it make sense to a socialist now?
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Re: Is Morality Subjective?

Post by Ambauer »

Wilson wrote:Here's a fascinating video, portraying an individual with his own well-defined sense of morality based upon something like, whatever's best for the Earth and best for humanity in general:
How would one argue against his ethical system?
I guess one has to view the man's argument in this video from a few different perspectives. First, the man is just as to blame as the mother or as the little boy for the carbon footprint. He also produces everything the little boy does, so if his argument is true, his life is just as harmful as the little boy's. Also, if we take a Kantian view toward this video, I would argue that it would not be good to live in a world where people go around killing other people because of their respective carbon footprints. Because we cannot universalize this maxim, it is unethical.
"The things that are perish into the things from which they come to be..." - Anaximander
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Re: Is Morality Subjective?

Post by Belinda »

Engineer wrote:
If we consider our actions in terms of meme groups seeking the best interpretation of reality and hierarchical morality as simply another set of selfish replicators competing for survival in a battle that also compares the individual with the largest group it help me to understand the world around me.
I'd like to be good at selecting which memes are the good ones and which are the bad ones in any given situation. Some people are good at selecting good memes. The trouble the great trouble with materialistic views is that the concept of good is either absent or it's an epiphenomenon. I don't mean that you personally aren't good but that materialists are good despite total devotion to physicalism and absence of immaterialism. Brain-minds can effect changes in memes and the power of memes.
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Re: Is Morality Subjective?

Post by Engineer0RQ1 »

Hi Belinda

I would suggest that you are as good at selecting the right meme groups relative to immeadiate environment, individual experience, genetic disposition and context as any other individual before acting.

With my concept of hierarchical morality I am seeking to address the only variable;context, namely group size be that a meme group, social group, physical group or intellectual grouping.

Finally could you tell me about your Brain-mind concept.

Over to you.

-- Updated Mon Oct 26, 2015 10:28 pm to add the following --

Hi Belinda

I would suggest that you are as good at selecting the right meme groups relative to immeadiate environment, individual experience, genetic disposition and context as any other individual before acting.

With my concept of hierarchical morality I am seeking to address the only variable;context, namely group size be that a meme group, social group, physical group or intellectual grouping.

Finally could you tell me about your Brain-mind concept.

Over to you.

-- Updated Mon Oct 26, 2015 10:38 pm to add the following --

Not again. Surely it is possible for a website to recognise slow response and impatient operator?
Chris

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Re: Is Morality Subjective?

Post by Sparg »

Morality is completely subjective as is everything in the Universe (big "U" Universe, as in Tao, as in the "all and everything, now before and after"...which are the same anyway). Every thing and every idea as humans know them, are creations...perceptions of the 'people' experiencing the phenomena.

Morality, lungs, hunger, trees, breasts, pumpkin pie, sound, philosophy, all squiggles. All part of us, seen by us and interpreted by us in our own unique way. What is considered good by one may not be considered good and right by another. Lungs? oxygen, gills, photosynthesis/processing CO2...which is "correct"? etc.
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