Is morality objective or subjective?

[LuckyR]

Reply to Lucky R:

I am with you in the broad sense of what you are saying but I think that I detect inbuilt dangers.

OTOH, say I use my understanding to predict future events, if I succeed 100% of the time, I truly understand the issue and can claim that "this" causes "that". That is a fact and true causality.

If you succeed 100% of the time, then that certainly does not mean that you truly understand the issue. For example, the earliest Comet jet airliners flew with remarkable safety until they started plunging from the skies. The ‘100%’ was fine until it wasn’t when metal fatigue started to rear its ugly head. As Richard Feynman (may have) said, "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics". If a scientist achieves 100% in any result, then that virtually guarantees an inadequate sample size or a sampling error. And I can't begin to touch on the pitfalls of trying to associate correlation with causation.

Odd that you should mix complex systems (jet aeroplanes), and quantum mechanics in a comment on the same subject. Metal fatigue was understood long before jets were built. I am not certain that the part that was responsible for the plane crashes was specifically subject to a rigorous metal fatigue prediction. If it was, then it does not violate my post since the prediction was better than pure chance yet not 100% accurate. This I called either incomplete understanding or a complete understanding of part of the issue. OTOH, let's say the part next to it, was subject to a rigorous metal fatigue assay and failed right on schedule. 100% of the time. Well, we pretty much know enough about that particular metal's fatigue at that point to use wording such as: "proof", "fact" and "causality" to describe it's behavior and our understand of it.

As to quantum events, as you know there is uncertainty built into the issue. Therefore 100% accuracy of prediction of single events is not possible. Thus does not fall within the confines of my post, so you are free to substitute anything you want to address that.

[LuckyR]

Let me use a more widely understood example to make my point:

Everyone knows there are hundreds of folks who claim to have a "system" to predict the stock market. What these folks do is look at past performance as well as an every growing amount of ancillary data and look for correlations. Ultimately they come up with a formula that (retrospectively) "explains" or "predicts" PAST performance. Yay! Good for them. Sadly using such formulas prospectively does not yield results anyone would call truly "predictive". Better than chance, perhaps but nowhere near 100% accuracy. Thus everyone agrees that we understand influences on the stock market but do not possess a truly causal understanding of performance.

[Sy Borg]

I'm not sure if there is something wrong with my head of if it's only having a few hours' sleep to rise before dawn in 6C to take bad photos of the lunar eclipse, but I don't understand the disagreement. Everyone seems to be making a fair bit of sense, occasionally just taking different angles. Yes, we can't be too sure about these things but in lieu of knowledge we make assessments.

What is "true"? It's both absolute and provisional, eg. it is true that if you let go of an object it will fall to the ground. Indisputably. It works every time - as long as you are on the surface of the Earth. If you are at the ISS it is true that the object will float. Two ostensibly "conflicting" truths due to provisionality.

[Steve3007]

The lunar eclipse was yesterday evening here, but after weeks of sunshine and clear skies the black thunderclouds rolled in yesterday and completely obscured it from view.

Oh, and I think it's subjective. Thoughts about what actions are right and wrong obviously can't exist outside of the minds that think them.

[Iapetus]

Reply to Felix:

I understand; you can't respond properly to my points. I don't want to have read an essay written by somebody else. It wasn't them who offered me the unworkable example. It was you.

[Iapetus]

Reply to Lucky R:

Odd that you should mix complex systems (jet aeroplanes), and quantum mechanics in a comment on the same subject.

I don’t see why that is at all odd. The ‘complex system’ was an example of something which was considered to be understood but which, in fact, contained an inherent fault. I could have used umpteen different examples. The reference to quantum mechanics was, again, incidental. The point – made by a famous scientist – was that, when we think we understand something, that understanding is often very far from perfect. I didn’t think I would have to explain all of that to you.

Metal fatigue was understood long before jets were built.

To a degree but not entirely. That is why the Comets crashed. The understanding as imperfect. That was the point of my example. One of the crashed Comets was reconstructed in a hangar and fatigue lines were found at the corners (?) of the windows. From then on, aircraft windows were designed to be rounded. That added to the incomplete sum of human knowledge.

If it was, then it does not violate my post since the prediction was better than pure chance yet not 100% accurate.

A determination that a prediction is ‘better than pure chance’ can only be made following an established protocol – usually a statistical test. The result produces a level of probability with inbuilt confidence levels which assume sources of error. The confidence levels are related to sample size. If a scientist achieved results of 100% then her/his peers would always assume a problem with sampling and would suggest a review of the procedure.

But you made the statement that, "if I succeed 100% of the time, I truly understand the issue and can claim that "this" causes "that"". That would be an extremely dangerous assumption to make. In the late 1950s and following scientific procedures, the drug thalidomide was introduced to relieve morning sickness in pregnant women. It was subsequently discovered that this produced a severe risk of birth deformities and the drug was taken off the market in 1961. It was believed that the drug was safe until it was discovered that it wasn’t and there was a delay between these two states. In between there was discovered a correlation. It was only later that a causal relationship was established, after which action was taken.

It was believed initially that thalidomide was ‘safe’. That does not mean that it was 'understood' and subsequent events demonstrated that it was not. A finding of 100% suggests that more work needs to be done, because the exception has not been discovered. If you need more examples, then I can certainly provide them.

As to quantum events, as you know there is uncertainty built into the issue. Therefore 100% accuracy of prediction of single events is not possible. Thus does not fall within the confines of my post, so you are free to substitute anything you want to address that.

Uncertainly, as you say, is built into the issue. But it is built into everything. Scientists assume it. Statistical tests assume it. One of the great values of scientific intervention is that is can often identify those uncertainties.

If your argument was that statistical procedures provide more confidence in our ability to make decisions, then that would be another thing entirely. But that is not what you were saying.

[Iapetus]

Reply to Lucky R:

Ultimately they come up with a formula that (retrospectively) "explains" or "predicts" PAST performance.

You’ve lost me a bit there.

A prediction is about the future. It has to be based on what has gone before because there is nothing else to go on. Some predictions can be extremely accurate because they are based on ‘reliable’ data. The definition of a second in time is related to the ground state of a caesium 133 atom, which has been demonstrated to be as reliable as anything we know of. That does not mean 100% reliable; just the best that we have. It will, in fact, decay eventually but in a ridiculous number of years. If we find a more reliable measure of time, then that may well replace the current measure.

Other predictions may be far less reliable but may still serve a useful purpose. If, for example, a patient with liver disease is told that she will probably not survive until her next birthday without a transplant and that the likelihood of the transplant leading to a survival of two years is 60%, then she may well take such an option. The importance here is not so much the level of the prediction but the confidence that such a prediction is accurate.

Thus everyone agrees that we understand influences on the stock market but do not possess a truly causal understanding of performance.

Everyone does not agree that we understand those influences. If somebody really did understand those influences, then they could control the world. What they might be able to identify is some of the contributory factors, but that is not the same thing. They may also be able to identify how some of those contributory factors work in combination. That does not mean that they understand the stock market. It might give them a competitive edge, which can be significant. Their predictions may be marginally more effective. That does not vaguely approach genuine understanding. Weather forecasters have learned a great deal about influences on the weather but they never claim complete understanding of the interactions. Any prediction is based on probability. Never certainty. Certainly never 100%.

[Iapetus]

Reply to Greta:

What is "true"? It's both absolute and provisional, eg. it is true that if you let go of an object it will fall to the ground. Indisputably. It works every time - as long as you are on the surface of the Earth. If you are at the ISS it is true that the object will float. Two ostensibly "conflicting" truths due to provisionality.

I like your analogy but it helps me to illustrate the problem with ‘absolute’. It may be the case that an object will usually fall to the ground but this is a generalisation and an approximation. Under certain circumstances the observations will change; for example, in a strong magnetic field or in a descending lift. OK; the lift is ‘falling to ground’ but the object may well be observed to ‘float’. Einstein and all that. It doesn’t ‘work every time’. That is the danger in calling it a ‘truth’, other than in the sense that we sort of usually agree on it. Similarly, it is not ‘true’ that the object will always float at the ISS, particularly if the station undergoes a change in orbit. The provisionality inhibits absolute statements.

You could, of course add riders, such as ‘without modifying factors’, as with Newton’s first law of motion. But in that case, what is the point in calling it a ‘truth’ or ‘absolute’?

[Sy Borg]

The lunar eclipse was yesterday evening here, but after weeks of sunshine and clear skies the black thunderclouds rolled in yesterday and completely obscured it from view.

Oh, and I think it's subjective. Thoughts about what actions are right and wrong obviously can't exist outside of the minds that think them.

Murphy strikes again, alas. Ironically we have had incredibly clear skies (brilliant for watching the current daisy chain of planets at present) and the clouds did come here, but just behind the eclipse so we only lost the last five mins or so. On the plus side, since the only sensory aspect of stargazing is visual, you should theoretically be able to borrow the pixels of those with a better view without losing much more than bragging rights ... "I was there!"

Reply to Greta:

What is "true"? It's both absolute and provisional, eg. it is true that if you let go of an object it will fall to the ground. Indisputably. It works every time - as long as you are on the surface of the Earth. If you are at the ISS it is true that the object will float. Two ostensibly "conflicting" truths due to provisionality.

... That is the danger in calling it a ‘truth’, other than in the sense that we sort of usually agree on it. Similarly, it is not ‘true’ that the object will always float at the ISS, particularly if the station undergoes a change in orbit. The provisionality inhibits absolute statements.

You could, of course add riders, such as ‘without modifying factors’, as with Newton’s first law of motion. But in that case, what is the point in calling it a ‘truth’ or ‘absolute’?

Why call it "truth"? The same reason we call things "perfect" and "certain" when neither exists. It's basically shorthand. Without wanting to be Dame Disaster, it is a problem because history tells us that when enough imprecise shorthand terms become the norm, a large collection of unthinking hominids will take on those simplified terms and concepts literally and unquestioningly.

[Iapetus]

Reply to Greta:

I agree entirely about the shorthand. But it is when we get into 'philosophy', and particularly when we get into the realms of dogma, that definitions of 'truth' become a more serious business.

[RustyK4]

Peter, I read your post of July 6th 2018 with great interest. And I also read the longer argument you pointed to.

Unless I have misunderstood your argument, I think that you are assuming that which you wish to prove.

You state – “Morals are rules for how we should treat each other”. I agree that this is in line with modern general thinking. But it flies in the face of more traditional concepts of morals as “ways to live”. Aristotle would call this “Eudaimonia”. More modern thinkers use the word “flourishing”. If morals are indeed interpreted as “ways to live”, then they devolve into rules on how best to achieve “flourishing”. Admittedly, a lot of “flourishing” has to do with how we interact with other people. But not all. More particularly, understanding the rules of “morals” as guides to the “best way to live”, imparts a teleological aspect to the logic of morals that cannot be overlooked.

It is in this passage that you are assuming that which you are attempting to prove – “We can always express a moral rule in the form of an assertion, using the words right and wrong or good and bad. … But this is to use the word true in a non-factual way, usually to emphasise agreement. … Factual assertions describe features of reality, … But moral assertions express judgements about the way we should behave. They are prescriptive rather than descriptive.”

You are here assuming that moral assertions are not truth apt – and that, given the way that you define “objective” and “subjective” in the remainder of your argument, constitutes your assumption that moral assertions are subjective and not objective. The rest of your paper just reaffirms this starting assumption.

However, there is an approach to understanding moral prescriptions that do indeed make them truth-apt, and thus candidates for objectiveness. Consider the hypothetical conditional “If you want the fastest way to get from London to Paris without flying, then you should take the chunnel-train”. If the topic of discourse is getting you quickly from London to Paris, and I offer the assertion “You should take the chunnel-train”, I am expressing a judgement about the way you should behave. I could even offer the assertion “The right thing to do is take the chunnel-train.” Or even “It would be wrong for you to take the channel ferry.” These are all prescriptive assertions, but given the context of discourse, do have value.
If morality has to do with achieving “flourishing” (however you choose to understand that concept), the moral assertions become hypothetical conditional assertions that are indeed truth apt. The physical universe will determine whether the stated judgements are in fact true ways to achieve flourishing.

Which, in turn, links to "values". What is a "value"? And why do we value it? Values are not simply a matter of individual whimsy. We choose values, and value them, because we believe that they will contribute to our own "flourishing". If that is the case, the morals and values are not subjective. They become objective facts of the matter.

[Fooloso4]

RustyK4:

Which, in turn, links to "values". What is a "value"? And why do we value it? Values are not simply a matter of individual whimsy. We choose values, and value them, because we believe that they will contribute to our own "flourishing". If that is the case, the morals and values are not subjective. They become objective facts of the matter.

While I agree with Aristotle’s approach, I do not agree with your conclusion that morals and values are not subjective. The philosophical life may be the best life but it is a way of life of the few not the many. Put differently, if the philosophical life is the best life is only so for the best men. Eudaimonia cannot be separated from the particulars of the individual, not only in terms of external circumstances but in terms of the particulars of character and ability. The life to which I am best suited may not be the life to which you are best suited, although as human beings both ways of life will have a great deal in common.

Further, deliberation regarding what we ought to choose, determined in accord with the facts of the matter and the goal of flourishing, what Aristotle calls phronesis, is not an objective science. It is a matter of practical rather than noetic wisdom. In other words, Aristotle’s ethics does not yield clear, unambiguous, or objective answers to moral questions. That should not be taken as a shortcoming of his ethics but marks a limit of human knowing.

[ThomasHobbes]

Peter, I read your post of July 6th 2018 with great interest. And I also read the longer argument you pointed to.
.... choose values, and value them, because we believe that they will contribute to our own "flourishing". If that is the case, the morals and values are not subjective. They become objective facts of the matter.

You were doing great until the massive non sequitur at the end.
Who the hell is "WE"?

And here we see the device used my moralists through the ages. They impose their own values on others pretending to represent "we".

The human race will flourish if only... people did not have sex before marriage; weaker races were subjected by stronger ones; that women would obey men; war were waged against weaker nations; if only society were divided by class and the wealth and benefits of society were given to those that can best use them ad infinitem......

Well thanks Aristotle, but no thanks.

[anonymous66]

The key to answering this question is the difference between factual and moral assertions – and how this relates to what we call objectivity and subjectivity.

We use the word objective to mean to ‘relying on facts’. And facts are true regardless of what anyone believes or claims to know, and regardless of their source. But all factual assertions are falsifiable, because they assert something about reality that may not be the case. So evidence is needed to justify them.

By contrast, we use the word subjective to mean ‘relying on judgement, belief or opinion’. Judgements can be individual or collective. They can be more or less rationally justifiable. And because they express values, we often refer to such judgements as value judgements or just values.

The difference between objectivity and subjectivity has been called the fact-value distinction. But discussions about specifically moral values are about how we ought to behave, so here the difference has been called the is-ought distinction.

Given this understanding of objectivity and subjectivity, moral assertions are subjective, because they express value judgements, rather than make falsifiable factual claims. And two examples illustrate the distinction.

1 The assertion people eat animals and their products is a fact – a true factual assertion. But the vegan assertion eating animals and their products is wrong expresses a moral judgement, not a fact. The two assertions have completely different functions.

2 That some states execute some criminals is true. But that states should execute some criminals – that execution is morally justifiable – is a judgement. If there were a moral fact of the matter, we could not argue about the judgement.

An argument that objective morality is evidence for the existence of anything – let alone a god – is unsound, because morality is not objective. It is rational to have sound reasons for our moral judgements, such as wanting to promote individual well-being. But they remain judgements, so they are subjective.

Trouble is, the assertion morality is subjective seems wrong and offensive. It seems to mean that whatever someone judges to be morally right or wrong is indeed morally right or wrong – so that anything goes, and moral relativism and anarchy is the result.

But that is to forget the is-ought distinction. To say an action is morally right or wrong is to express a judgement, not to state a fact. So an action is not – and does not become - morally right or wrong just because someone believes it is.

The expressions objective morality and moral fact are contradictions – or they could be called oxymorons. But our moral values and assertions matter deeply to us, so the mistake of believing there are moral facts is easy to explain. It is an understandable misunderstanding.

But, ironically, if there were moral facts, their source would be irrelevant. The assertion this is good because I say – or a god says – it is good has no place in a rational moral debate. An argument from authority is as mistaken for moral as it is for factual assertions. So the theistic argument from objective morality undermines itself.

The full version of this argument is at: http://www.peasum.co.uk/420676773

It seems to me that the answer to the question "Is morality objective or subjective?" is not something that could ever be tested. It is a judgment call. I understand that some people believe that morality is such that it can't be objective. I don't share the same assumptions. It seems to me that moral facts are in the same category as logical facts, physical facts and mathematical facts.

I also like Pojman's argument: it is more likely there is something wrong with person A who commits murder, than it is there is nothing wrong with murder.

Is the OP suggesting that any argument for objective morality could only be a theistic argument? There are quite a few atheists who argue for objective morality- including Thomas Nagel.

[anonymous66]

Maybe this dialogue will help:

Some edits as I felt there was some straw padding within the above dialogue.

A: Is morality objective?
B: Yes

A: How do you know?
B: Because I know it is true that some things are moral and some thing are not... and so do you.
A: But I know my judgements are subjective

B: So when presented with a question about morality, you just flip a coin?
A: No, I make a subjective judgement

B: So when someone does something you think is immoral, you think to yourself, "He must have a different view of morality than I do"?
A: No, I'll probably think, "You bastard", but on reflection, yes, the person obviously subscribes to a different morality.

B: You do admit that you think that some things that people to do are immoral?
A: Of course, as stated, that is my opinion, thus subjective.

I can admit that some people do hold the view expressed above- and that it is consistent with believing that morality is subjective.