What could make morality objective?

[Leontiskos]

Sound or obligatory arguments are always person-specific. If you are able to present an argument to your interlocutor that they believe to be sound, then they must accept the conclusion. That is, they are obliged to accept the conclusion. This is the relevance of the three conditionals I gave above. Each of them illustrate the nature of the obligatory inference. Again, the punch-line is that if you believe an argument is sound then you have an obligation to believe it.

So what's an example? What you are doing right now is an example. You are trying to convince me that morality is not objective. All you are trying to do is present an argument that I agree is sound. You are not trying to convince me that I must accept sound arguments. If we get to the end of this and I say, "Well, I accept that all of the premises of your argument are true, and I also accept that all of your inferential reasoning is valid, but I still reject your conclusion," what would you say? You certainly would not go on arguing. You might say that I am intellectually dishonest, or that I am engaging in bad faith, or that I am not a real philosopher, etc. At root I would be failing my obligation accept truth where it is found. To accept an argument as sound and to reject its conclusion is to fail one's obligation to truth, and the very fact that you are engaging with me presupposes this obligation. If you didn't think I had an obligation to accept sound arguments you would stop engaging immediately.

QED. You're free to accept or reject my argument. There's no obligation. And this is all a red herring anyway.

Do you even know what soundness is? Again, we are not talking about someone who accepts or rejects an argument. We are talking about someone who admits that an argument is sound and then rejects the conclusion. This is contrary to our obligation to truth.

Do you even know what soundness is? It refers to the truth of premises, which is independent from inferential validity. The whole point of classical validity is that, given the truth of the premise or premises, the conclusion is true - whatever anyone thinks about it. This business of an obligation to accept the conclusion is an entirely irrelevant distraction. And I don't understand why you're banging on about it.

No, that is incorrect. A sound argument is one which has true premises and a valid form. True premises are not sufficient to establish soundness.

You have no idea what I've studied, formally or otherwise.

Of course I do. You don't know what a proposition is and you don't know what soundness is. Those are things you learn on the first day of Philosophy 101. Ergo, you haven't completed the first day of Philosophy 101.

I don't know how to argue with people who don't understand these fundamental concepts of philosophy, and therefore I'm not going to.

[Peter Holmes]

QED. You're free to accept or reject my argument. There's no obligation. And this is all a red herring anyway.

Do you even know what soundness is? Again, we are not talking about someone who accepts or rejects an argument. We are talking about someone who admits that an argument is sound and then rejects the conclusion. This is contrary to our obligation to truth.

Do you even know what soundness is? It refers to the truth of premises, which is independent from inferential validity. The whole point of classical validity is that, given the truth of the premise or premises, the conclusion is true - whatever anyone thinks about it. This business of an obligation to accept the conclusion is an entirely irrelevant distraction. And I don't understand why you're banging on about it.

No, that is incorrect. A sound argument is one which has true premises and a valid form. True premises are not sufficient to establish soundness.

You have no idea what I've studied, formally or otherwise.

Of course I do. You don't know what a proposition is and you don't know what soundness is. Those are things you learn on the first day of Philosophy 101. Ergo, you haven't completed the first day of Philosophy 101.

I don't know how to argue with people who don't understand these fundamental concepts of philosophy, and therefore I'm not going to.

Well, the combination of a reading comprehension problem and philosophical constipation makes you an unrewarding interlocutor. So I'll get over the disappointment.

[Belindi]

Peter Holmes wrote:

'God' is no more a proper noun than is 'Fairy', 'Goblin', 'Devil' and so on.

And yet millions of people address God as if that is indeed His name.
I used to ride a little horse called Goblin and that was his name. I doubt not that some individual has been named Fairy.

You are confused because the generic word for supernatural beings is god, and that is the same word as the proper name God.

But I assume the little horse actually existed. And the existence of the thing we name with a proper noun is what matters. The use of a common noun as a proper noun is a linguistic idiom - so, as far as I know, no English speakers refer to the devil as 'Devil' - though, no doubt, real things have been called 'Devil', just as you called the little horse 'Goblin'. You didn't think it was a goblin.

The trick of calling your own god 'God' is pure ideology at work. And that remains true if millions - or billions - of people do it - as they do and have done, referring to different gods - all of them inventions. Do you take seriously Plato's use of the word 'God'? If not, why take seriously any other use of the word? Why insist on it in one context and not any others?

The horse named Goblin did exist for me and in a specialist horsey sort of way for himself. However the horse called Goblin did not exist for you unless by some coincidence the living grass-eating individual known to me as Goblin was present to Peter Holmes of Online Philosophy. Goblin exists no more for anyone. Goblin exists as Absolute Mind which , same as individual minds, is not confined to time and place.

Nothing exists unless thinking brings it out of the wilderness of possibility into the light of consciousness. Ideologies cause people to think ideologically which is bad. But that special badness is beyond the scope of my reply to PH right now.

I am interested in both gods and God and what these mean for others. I am not sure that educating oneself about Platonic Forms is necessary for the layman who is curious about more modern theories of existence.

[Sculptor1]

Peter Holmes wrote:

'God' is no more a proper noun than is 'Fairy', 'Goblin', 'Devil' and so on.

And yet millions of people address God as if that is indeed His name.
I used to ride a little horse called Goblin and that was his name. I doubt not that some individual has been named Fairy.

You are confused because the generic word for supernatural beings is god, and that is the same word as the proper name God.

But I assume the little horse actually existed. And the existence of the thing we name with a proper noun is what matters. The use of a common noun as a proper noun is a linguistic idiom - so, as far as I know, no English speakers refer to the devil as 'Devil' - though, no doubt, real things have been called 'Devil', just as you called the little horse 'Goblin'. You didn't think it was a goblin.

The trick of calling your own god 'God' is pure ideology at work. And that remains true if millions - or billions - of people do it - as they do and have done, referring to different gods - all of them inventions. Do you take seriously Plato's use of the word 'God'? If not, why take seriously any other use of the word? Why insist on it in one context and not any others?

The horse named Goblin did exist for me and in a specialist horsey sort of way for himself. However the horse called Goblin did not exist for you unless by some coincidence the living grass-eating individual known to me as Goblin was present to Peter Holmes of Online Philosophy. Goblin exists no more for anyone. Goblin exists as Absolute Mind which , same as individual minds, is not confined to time and place.

A dead horse is a dead horse. You might want to stop floggin it. Goblin is no more. He has shreded his mortal coil and is now pushing up the daisies - presumably to be eatne by other horses.

Nothing exists unless thinking brings it out of the wilderness of possibility into the light of consciousness. Ideologies cause people to think ideologically which is bad. But that special badness is beyond the scope of my reply to PH right now.

The ideology of "Absolute Mind" which you have swallowed is a bad thing to believe in since it has clearly given you an odd idea about what death is.

I am interested in both gods and God and what these mean for others. I am not sure that educating oneself about Platonic Forms is necessary for the layman who is curious about more modern theories of existence.

Plato is pretty much out of date. His TOF is completely unsustainable coming as it does from a prescientific age of superstition. We know far too much about how thinking works to allow this ideology to persist.
TOF offers nothing for the understanding of "modern theories of existence".

[Peter Holmes]

Peter Holmes wrote:

'God' is no more a proper noun than is 'Fairy', 'Goblin', 'Devil' and so on.

And yet millions of people address God as if that is indeed His name.
I used to ride a little horse called Goblin and that was his name. I doubt not that some individual has been named Fairy.

You are confused because the generic word for supernatural beings is god, and that is the same word as the proper name God.

But I assume the little horse actually existed. And the existence of the thing we name with a proper noun is what matters. The use of a common noun as a proper noun is a linguistic idiom - so, as far as I know, no English speakers refer to the devil as 'Devil' - though, no doubt, real things have been called 'Devil', just as you called the little horse 'Goblin'. You didn't think it was a goblin.

The trick of calling your own god 'God' is pure ideology at work. And that remains true if millions - or billions - of people do it - as they do and have done, referring to different gods - all of them inventions. Do you take seriously Plato's use of the word 'God'? If not, why take seriously any other use of the word? Why insist on it in one context and not any others?

The horse named Goblin did exist for me and in a specialist horsey sort of way for himself. However the horse called Goblin did not exist for you unless by some coincidence the living grass-eating individual known to me as Goblin was present to Peter Holmes of Online Philosophy. Goblin exists no more for anyone. Goblin exists as Absolute Mind which , same as individual minds, is not confined to time and place.

Nothing exists unless thinking brings it out of the wilderness of possibility into the light of consciousness.

This reminds me of Berkeleyan idealism: esse est percipi. And I see no reason to accept the claim that existence depends on the (conscious) perception of existence.

Ideologies cause people to think ideologically which is bad. But that special badness is beyond the scope of my reply to PH right now.

I am interested in both gods and God and what these mean for others. I am not sure that educating oneself about Platonic Forms is necessary for the layman who is curious about more modern theories of existence.

When Plato/Socrates refers to God, this is not referring to a Form, but rather to a god, presumably (usually) Zeus. Like you, I'm interested in what people mean when they talk about gods - and any other supernatural things and events. But the actual existence of those invented things and events is a separate issue - which 'modern theories of existence' haven't sorted out.

[Not_Noah]

In my opinion morality is both objective and subjective depending on what you are looking at. The Divine command theory states that "morality is ultimately based on the commands or character of God." By this definition morality would be considered objective. Also Cultural Relativism states that "ethical and social standards reflect the cultural context from which they are derived." By this definition morality is objective. But think about this religion is based on a cultures social standards from the time that it was founded. Some religions think that eating cows is bad while others don't. The United States has not banned the eating of cows, but they do allow those religions to exist. So in summary, morality is both objective and subjective depending one what you are looking at, whether that be religion or culture.

[Sculptor1]

In my opinion morality is both objective and subjective depending on what you are looking at. The Divine command theory states that "morality is ultimately based on the commands or character of God." By this definition morality would be considered objective.

But that would make it false a posteriori, as any divinely coded set of rules would have to be transparent and not a massive set of contradictions that is evident in the moralities across the globe and through history.
THere is no doubt here that the notion of obejtive morality is false.

Also Cultural Relativism states that "ethical and social standards reflect the cultural context from which they are derived." By this definition morality is objective.

I think that makes it subjective.

But think about this religion is based on a cultures social standards from the time that it was founded. Some religions think that eating cows is bad while others don't. The United States has not banned the eating of cows, but they do allow those religions to exist. So in summary, morality is both objective and subjective depending one what you are looking at, whether that be religion or culture.

SInce your only valid example of an objective morality is empirically false, then that leaves morality in the realm of value judgments which are essentially subjective.

[Peter Holmes]

In my opinion morality is both objective and subjective depending on what you are looking at. The Divine command theory states that "morality is ultimately based on the commands or character of God." By this definition morality would be considered objective.

But divine command and emanation theories of morality are, by definition, subjectivist. Why would there being a creator-god mean that there are moral facts?

[Belindi]

In my opinion morality is both objective and subjective depending on what you are looking at. The Divine command theory states that "morality is ultimately based on the commands or character of God." By this definition morality would be considered objective. Also Cultural Relativism states that "ethical and social standards reflect the cultural context from which they are derived." By this definition morality is objective. But think about this religion is based on a cultures social standards from the time that it was founded. Some religions think that eating cows is bad while others don't. The United States has not banned the eating of cows, but they do allow those religions to exist. So in summary, morality is both objective and subjective depending one what you are looking at, whether that be religion or culture.

Your definitions of divine command theory and cultural relativism are concise and true. However your argument is inconsistent as follows.

Cultural Relativism states that "ethical and social standards reflect the cultural context from which they are derived." By this definition morality is objective.

religion is based on a cultures social standards from the time that it was founded. ------------------------------------morality is both objective and subjective depending one what you are looking at, whether that be religion or culture.

Either cultural values, which include religious standards, are objectively true or they are not objectively true.

[popeye1945]

Moralities are biological extensions of humanity, expressions of human nature manifested in the outer world. Human sensibilities in reaction to the realities of the world but once manifested, they are cause to other entities/humans to react to. Human creations reflect back upon humanity informing humanity of its own psyche health.

[Lagayscienza]

The OP asks: What could make morality objective? I agree with those above who say moral judgements cannot be objective. There are no gods to lay down rules against which to judge behaviour, there are no objective moral facts or properties that exist in some mysterious realm beyond ourselves to which we can refer. Morality starts with us, with our feelings. Our moral sentiments, our core morality, is common to all humanity. It was instilled in us by evolution to promote the survival of our genes. This core morality got us through the Pleistocene. It was a quick and messy solution but it worked well enough to get us through. It can be somewhat modified by religion and culture but, unless we're psychopaths, our core morality generally keeps our behaviour within a range that is tolerated by our communities.

Hume, and a couple of centuries later, Mackie, got it right about morality. Hume's expressivist theory and Mackie's error theory, backed up by evolution by natural selection, explain it. When we state moral opinions we may think we are stating facts but we are in error. We are expressing how we feel.

Hume was consistent throughout his work. For him, our moral judgments are based in our sentiments just as our aesthetic judgments are widely understood to be. Most folks seem to have no problem accepting subjectivity in aesthetics. But they balk at morality being based in subjective feelings. I have been wondering about the reasons for this. So I went back to Hume. And re-reading Hume prompted me to re-read Mackie who had absorbed Hume as well as anyone. In re-reading Mackie, I was trying to get an idea of when an understanding of evolution by natural selection began to inform and influence philosophical ethics. Mackie touched on it but briefly, saying only that human morality needed an evolutionary explanation. As far as I can tell, it was really only in the last two decades of the 20th century that evolutionary insights had any real impact on philosophical ethics. Ruse, Street, Joyce are among contemporary philosophers who ran with evolution.

These days, anyone who undertakes a degree in philosophy will surely be exposed to evolutionary ethics. And yet I read that about half of philosophers remain stuck in the past, still trying to find a way for morality to be objective. However, their millions of contorted pages written on deontology, consequentialism, virtue ethics, etcetera have lead nowhere. None of them has shown how morality could be objective. The IS-OUGHT gap remains unbridgeable. Humean ethics, backed up with an understanding of evolutionary psychology, solves the problem of ethics. Philosophers are highly educated and articulate people and I find their reluctance to embrace Humean ethics, and the insights provided by evolutionary science, hard to fathom.

Is it that they, like ordinary non-philosophical folk find error theory and non-cognitivism in ethics, bolstered by the facts of evolution, just too damned counterintuitive? I imagine religion would also be involved in keeping philosophers in the past, just as it does with the wider population outside of philosophy.

The fact that an error-theoretic and non-cognitivist understanding of ethics is still so counter-intuitive to most people can itself be understood as supporting the evolutionary basis for ethics, and in turn, as support for ethical non-realism. Evolution did such a good job of making us think that there was some objective basis to our moralizing (because of the benefits it conferred) that intelligent people like philosophers and even some scientists are still loath to accept that there are no objective moral facts.

I struggled with this for many years. But once I understood that accepting Hume’s thesis and the insights of evolutionary psychology wouldn’t result in us all becoming depraved cannibalistic serial killers, and that our moral feelings were enough to keep us on an even keel without the need for anything as ontologically and epistemically bizarre as objective moral facts or gods, it really wasn’t so bad. There is no cause for a despairing nihilism. Things can still matter to us.

As far as we know, the brains of beings like us are the only places in the universe where mattering can actually happen. And that makes us kind of special. An understanding that our aesthetic judgements are not objectively true doesn’t mean we can no longer participate in artistic creation or enjoy art. I can go on loving Vincent’s A Starry Night and Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier. Similarly, I can continue thinking that torturing puppies for fun, or murdering innocents, is absolutely never morally ok. We just carry on enjoying art and trying to be good people based on the aesthetic sentiments and core morality instilled in us by evolution. Nothing really changes.

[Good_Egg]

The OP asks: What could make morality objective?
If you ask I agree with those above who say moral judgements cannot be objective. There are no gods to lay down rules against which to judge behaviour, there are no objective moral facts or properties that exist in some mysterious realm beyond ourselves to which we can refer. Morality starts with us, with our feelings. Our moral sentiments, our core morality, is common to all humanity. It was instilled in us by evolution to promote the survival of our genes.

A naive realist might say that murder is objectively wrong, we can know this because every fully-functional human perceives it to be so and therefore we shouldn't do it

What does invoking evolution add to or subtract from this ?

Evolution is a mechanism. An evolutionary explanation says that people believe murder is wrong because tribes that believe that have out-competed the tribes that didn't.

Does that make it any less true that murder is wrong ?

We've evolved to distinguish red from green. Does that weaken in any way the truth of the proposition that red is not green ?

I can continue thinking that torturing puppies for fun, or murdering innocents, is absolutely never morally ok. We just carry on enjoying art and trying to be good people based on the aesthetic sentiments and core morality instilled in us by evolution. Nothing really changes.

Seems like we agree that an evolutionary explanation changes nothing ? But if so, why are you so attached to it ?

An alternative view is that evolution explains away morality. That our moral perceptions are nothing more than a general rule that on average species survival is enhanced by a reluctance to murder.

Which licences exceptionalism. Sets you morally free to murder in any circumstance where species survival is not at issue, for example. If you could murder a person past the age of reproduction, and remain undetected, what's wrong with that ?

If you reduce morality to programming which you can over-ride whenever you think it's in your interests to do so, maybe it's not morality any more ?

That doesn't seem like "changing nothing"...

[Lagayscienza]

The OP asks: What could make morality objective?
If you ask I agree with those above who say moral judgements cannot be objective. There are no gods to lay down rules against which to judge behaviour, there are no objective moral facts or properties that exist in some mysterious realm beyond ourselves to which we can refer. Morality starts with us, with our feelings. Our moral sentiments, our core morality, is common to all humanity. It was instilled in us by evolution to promote the survival of our genes.

A naive realist might say that murder is objectively wrong, we can know this because every fully-functional human perceives it to be so and therefore we shouldn't do it.

I agree that we shouldn't do it. But I can think of many "fully functional humans" who have thought murder was ok. I'm sure you could think of some, too. But there is nothing we can say that can prove that their murdering is objectively wrong. But we don't need to. The good thing is that the vast majority of us abhor murder. We cannot help it. And so we make laws against it and punish those who engage in it. Our subjective moral sentiments are all we need to feel ok about dealing with murders. If you live in a state that still maintains the death penalty, the murderer still gets it in the neck.

What does invoking evolution add to or subtract from this ?

Evolution is a mechanism. An evolutionary explanation says that people believe murder is wrong because tribes that believe that have out-competed the tribes that didn't.

Does that make it any less true that murder is wrong ?

We've evolved to distinguish red from green. Does that weaken in any way the truth of the proposition that red is not green ?

No, the vast majority of us would still see murder as wrong even if we knew nothing about evolution. That was the case for most of our history. Knowing the facts of evolution makes no difference to our moral sentiments. How could it? Our moral sentiments are to a large extent hard wired. If knowing about evolution does not effect out moral sentiments then I wonder why some folks get annoyed when evolution is used to explain the basis of our moralizing.

I can continue thinking that torturing puppies for fun, or murdering innocents, is absolutely never morally ok. We just carry on enjoying art and trying to be good people based on the aesthetic sentiments and core morality instilled in us by evolution. Nothing really changes.

Seems like we agree that an evolutionary explanation changes nothing ? But if so, why are you so attached to it ?

I'm attached to it because it because I believe it is true.

An alternative view is that evolution explains away morality. That our moral perceptions are nothing more than a general rule that on average species survival is enhanced by a reluctance to murder.

Which licences exceptionalism. Sets you morally free to murder in any circumstance where species survival is not at issue, for example. If you could murder a person past the age of reproduction, and remain undetected, what's wrong with that ?

If you reduce morality to programming which you can over-ride whenever you think it's in your interests to do so, maybe it's not morality any more ?

That doesn't seem like "changing nothing"...

It does not explain away morality and it licences nothing. We are bound by our natural moral sentiments. We cannot help it.

[Lagayscienza]

I honestly don't know how a copy of the OP ended two posts above. Could I have hit the wrong key? I don't remember doing that. I hope it doesn't matter. If it matters I'm sure someone will tell me to be more careful. Which I would do if I knew how it happened.

[Good_Egg]

We are bound by our natural moral sentiments. We cannot help it.

First, is it our own moral "sentiments" that you think we are bound by, or our society's ? You've suggested that they could be different.

Second, if we agree that these moral sentiments evolved, how does that fact make them morally binding ?

If your moral sense tells you that murder is wrong, but your reason tells you that this moral sense is nothing but a hardwired mechanism to promote species survival, why should you not over-ride it when species survival is not at stake ? Why not bump off your granny ?