Is morality objective or subjective?

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Peter Holmes
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Peter Holmes »

Belindi

And are so-called subjective truths to be identified by their impartiality? I think the expression 'subjective truth' is an oxymoron.
Belindi
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Belindi »

Peter Holmes wrote: August 6th, 2019, 6:56 am Belindi

And are so-called subjective truths to be identified by their impartiality?
Do you know any other way to identify them ? This is the way of science after all.
Peter Holmes
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Peter Holmes »

Belindi

Now I've completely lost track of your argument.

The truth or falsehood of a factual assertion, just like the existence of a state-of-affairs, is independent of judgement, belief or opinion - of subjectivity. And that is the objectivity that science aims for - I agree completely. And this undermines the pretensions of illiberal regimes that promote their own, self-serving versions of truth.

What I don't understand is what a so-called 'subjective truth' looks like. Can you provide an example?
Peter Holmes
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Peter Holmes »

Felix wrote: August 5th, 2019, 5:49 pm
Peter Holmes said: 1. Certainty has nothing to do with the functional difference between facts and opinions - as we use those words.
Nothing to do with it? We are no more certain about facts than we are about opinions?
Peter Holmes said: 2. 'Objective' does mean 'independent of opinion' - at least, in the dictionaries I use.
The word has a few definitions but none of them are that simplistic. Do you mean: Impartial or unbiased, i.e., not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice? Do think that moral and justice systems cannot be impartial?
I've lost track of your argument, for which I apologise.

I thought we were debating the (as I take it) crucial distinction between facts (equivocally 'states-of-affairs' and 'true descriptions of states-of-affairs') and judgements, beliefs or opinions ('opinions' for short). And I thought you reject that distinction. Sorry if I misunderstood.

Certainty refers to a state of mind, a degree of conviction about something - that a state-of-affairs obtains or an assertion is true. And that is a separate issue from whether the state-of-affairs actually obtains or an assertion is actually true.

Your question about 'moral and justice systems' is puzzling. A justice system must (in my opinion) be objective with regard to facts. But moral 'systems' are matters of opinion, and can never be factual.
Peter Holmes
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Peter Holmes »

Felix

'Peter Holmes said: 2. 'Objective' does mean 'independent of opinion' - at least, in the dictionaries I use.
The word has a few definitions but none of them are that simplistic.'

I'm intrigued. Do you have a definition of 'objective' that can show what you mean?
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Belindi »

Peter Holmes wrote:
What I don't understand is what a so-called 'subjective truth' looks like. Can you provide an example?
1.
I was reared as a liberal Protestant and to this day I tend to respect others now dead whose perspectives on truth, ethics, and more are still significant for me.
2.
Today I learned from a recorded memory as written up by someone on this discussion group. Regardless of what other contributors thought about her story it's is an influence into my previous idea on that particular ethical topic.

My truths are peculiar to me (i.e. subjective) and are influenced and shared by certain others.
Peter Holmes
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Peter Holmes »

Belindi

Thanks. It seems we're using the word 'truth' in different ways. What you identify as your 'truths' I'd call beliefs and personal experiences, which are necessarily subjective, and which rightly matter to you, as do mine to me.

But they have no truth-value in the way an assertion such as 'the earth is flat' is either true or false, independent of anyone's opinion.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Belindi »

Peter Holmes wrote: August 6th, 2019, 10:08 am Belindi

Thanks. It seems we're using the word 'truth' in different ways. What you identify as your 'truths' I'd call beliefs and personal experiences, which are necessarily subjective, and which rightly matter to you, as do mine to me.

But they have no truth-value in the way an assertion such as 'the earth is flat' is either true or false, independent of anyone's opinion.
Yes, but if I had been a six year old reared by people whom I respected and who believed the Earth was flat that would be true, for me.

People did generally believe the Earth was flat at one time. Cosmologies are historical.
True, the truths that follow upon the western scientific enlightenment are hugely cumulative."The Earth is flat" is one of those empirical truths few would deny.

I don't think objective empirical truths exist.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Peter Holmes »

Belindi

Okay. I think we're done. I think there's a reality about which true claims can be made. So that 'the earth approximates to an oblate spheroid' is true, and 'the earth is flat' is false - independent of opinion. Thanks for engaging.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

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Peter Holmes wrote: August 6th, 2019, 6:56 amAnd are so-called subjective truths to be identified by their impartiality? I think the expression 'subjective truth' is an oxymoron.
"Subjective truth" or "truth-for-me" is really nothing but belief: what is true for me is what I believe.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Consul
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

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Consul wrote: August 6th, 2019, 1:38 pm"Subjective truth" or "truth-for-me" is really nothing but belief: what is true for me is what I believe.
And what is true for me can certainly be false.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Consul
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

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Peter Holmes wrote: August 6th, 2019, 7:17 amCertainty refers to a state of mind, a degree of conviction about something - that a state-of-affairs obtains or an assertion is true. And that is a separate issue from whether the state-of-affairs actually obtains or an assertion is actually true.
Subjective certainty is independent of truth, but objective certainty is not: If it is objectively certain that p, then p is true.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Consul
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

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Peter Holmes wrote: August 4th, 2019, 11:32 am'Objective' means 'independent of opinion' and so, by extension, 'factual'
What makes the situation complicated is that "objective"/"objectivity" has many meanings:

Objectivity: https://www.iep.utm.edu/objectiv/

Scientific Objectivity: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scie ... jectivity/

"The first understanding of objectivity is perhaps the most common one. It is that an objective judgement is a judgement that is free of prejudice and bias. One might put this by saying that it is a judgement to which any fair-minded person could agree, no matter what views they held." (p. 4)

"The second understanding is that an objective judgement is a judgement which is free of all assumptions and values." (p. 5)

"The third notion of objectivity is focused directly on how we arrive at our views or theories. It is that an objective procedure is one that allows us to decide between conflicting views or theories." (p. 6)

"This is the fourth understanding of objectivity, and in philosophical and scientific discussions from the 18th century onwards, we find a move away from a negative understanding of objectivity as freedom from prejudice or bias, towards the positive idea that objectivity consists in accurate representation." (p. 9)

"There is one final understanding of objectivity that needs to be considered briefly. This is the idea that something is objective if it leads to conclusions which are universally accepted. Part of the motivation for this idea is that when one considers results in the natural sciences, for example, there is a very significant level of agreement, a level of agreement that cuts across cultures, religions, and just about any other kind of cognitive endeavour. But this is at best a test of, or sign of, objectivity, not a definition of what objectivity is." (p. 10)

(Gaukroger, Stephen. Objectivity: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.)

"The famous distinction between objective and subjective is ambiguous between an epistemic sense, where 'epistemic' means having to do with knowledge, and an ontological sense, where 'ontological' means having to do with existence. In the epistemic sense, the distinction between the objective and the subjective is between different types of claims (statements, assertions, beliefs, etc.): epistemically objective claims can be settled as matters of objective fact, the subjective are matters of subjective opinion. For example, the claim that van Gogh died in France is epistemically objective. Its truth or falsity can be settled as a matter of objective fact. The claim that van Gogh was a better painter than Gauguin is epistemically subjective; it is a matter of subjective evaluation. Underlying this epistemic distinction is an ontological distinction between modes of existence. Some entities—mountains, molecules and tectonic plates for example—have an existence independent of any experience. They are ontologically objective. But others—pains, tickles and itches, for example—exist only insofar as they are experienced by a human or animal subject. They are ontologically subjective. I cannot tell you how much confusion has been generated by the failure to distinguish between the epistemic and the ontological senses of the distinction between subjective and objective. …Pains, as I just said, are ontologically subjective. 'But are they epistemically subjective as well?' It is absolutely important to see that that question makes no sense. Only claims, statements, etc. can be epistemically subjective or objective. Often statements about ontologically subjective entities such as pains can be epistemically objective. “Pains can be alleviated by analgesics” is an epistemically objective statement about an ontologically subjective class of entities."

(Searle, John R. Seeing Things As They Are: A Theory of Perception. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. pp. 16-7)
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Consul
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Consul »

Felix wrote: August 4th, 2019, 3:17 pmIf we define opinion as "a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty" than your definition of objective is invalidated because nothing we know is "independent of opinion," i.e., can be known with complete certainty - except perhaps some version of "cogito ergo sum."
Can't logical or mathematical truths be known for certain?
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Consul
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Consul »

Belindi wrote: August 5th, 2019, 2:51 pmThe subjective view of truth is anti-establishment. We find that illiberal regimes do not permit subjective views of truth.
:?:
Objectivism about truth has nothing to do with a political rejection of freedom of belief.

By the way, the view that objective truth and falsity do not exist is self-undermining. For those subscribing to it cannot assert without self-contradiction that it is objectively true that objective truth and falsity do not exist. And if they assert instead that it is subjectively true, "true for them" that objective truth and falsity do not exist, they're saying nothing more than that this is what they believe. But to believe a proposition is to believe that it is true; so, again, the question is whether they believe it to be objectively true that objective truth and falsity do not exist; and again they cannot answer this question in the affirmative without contradicting themselves.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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