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Is morality subjective or objective?

Visbek said:
"Subjective" and "objective" are the wrong terms to use.

The proper terms are "absolute" vs "relative." If ethics are absolute, then they ought to apply to everyone universally. Relative ethics is often regarded as lacking a persuasive power or authority.



It isn't. Neither does a difference of opinion about ethics prove that morality is relative.

E.g. one person may believe that a bottle of water has a mass of 500g, and another person may believe that same bottle has a mass of 550g. The ability to hold different opinions does not mean something is either relative or subjective.



Well, it can't. But something does not need to be empirical in order to be absolutely true, or objective.

E.g. mathematics is classified as a priori -- its truth or falsity cannot and is not gauged based on empirical judgment or standards.



People who make such claims don't know what philosophers do, and/or take their work for granted. ;)



Welcome to PF ;)



Well, now you're getting into questions of whether people can be persuaded, and that's another matter altogether. ;)

FYI, Simon Blackburn points out in his book Truth: A Guide that realists and non-realists (i.e. absolutists and relativists) often wind up talking past each other. The realists apply the very standards that non-realists reject, thus they're at an impasse.
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Good post. I agree with your points. The stuff I've read refers to "moral objectivism" so perhaps terms of art vary.

The debates on this thread and the sexuality one have quickly reached the point you mention of opposing sides talking past each other. However, I think the subjectivists on this forum are more guilty because most instantly dismiss objectivist arguments as illogical (and then some go for condescension as a result). Imo, they would be on better ground if they didn't accidentally conflate perception and reality and tried arguing more cogently that perception is reality.
 
Anglo-scot said:
I'm new to this sub-forum so apologies if this debate repeats earlier ones.

On various threads in the Sex and Sexuality sub-forum, we have the eternal debate raging between those who believe that morality is objective and those who believe it is subjective. I am 100% on the objective side but am not a professional philosopher, having studied it for a few years in my spare time only, as part of my interest in understanding Christianity and psychology better.

I'm keen to explore the philosophical issues a bit more deeply than is easily possible in the cauldron of discussions about specific sexual issues. I say this by way of explaining my frustrations with the subjectivists whose views seem to be along the following lines:

a) the fact that opinions differ on morality is obvious proof that morality is subjective
b) the objectivity of morality cannot be proved according to the scientific method and therefore must be a myth
c) philosophy and philosophers have little to add to this debate.

Some debaters in that sub-forum bring down the level of debate, imo, by accusing supporters of objective morality of imposing their views on other people and even "lying". One moderator also considers it a mission to make these two points to people proposing traditional Christian moral standpoints.

So my agenda is to flesh out more thoroughly the case for objective morality. Moral subjectivists are more than welcome to challenge.

To add some ideas to the debate, here is an introductory article from Wikipedia about moral realism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_realism

Thanks for reading.
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Very few people on this sub-forum demonstrate any sort of formal knowledge of philosophy. I'm afraid you will find the same low quality of arguments here that you do elsewhere. However, there is a lot of good information out there on the internet. This is, by far, the best freely available philosophy resource I have found: Ethics | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The link is directly to the page on ethics which is really what you are asking about. What you are referring to as "subjectivist" is referred to as "moral relativism" in the field of Philosophy. In a nutshell, moral relativism, like all relativism has been on the ropes for a long time; it's popularity has waned and there's very few proponents left.

The most powerful argument against moral relativism is to take a look at its consequences. If we believe that morality is strictly a human construct then we must conclude that all moral systems are equally valid. This means there aren't cultures that are more moral than others. This sounds good at first. But let's follow this to its conclusion.

Some cultures practice female circumcision, a truly horrific practice that amounts to sexual and physical abuse of infant girls, leaving them scarred for life and unable to enjoy sex for the rest of their lives. According to a relativistic view, we shouldn't encourage cultures that practice this to change their practices. Since female circumcision is in line with their moral views, it's perfectly fine; whose to say our moral view of the value of women is superior? Likewise there are cultures which see no problem with slavery. According to a relativistic moral view, we should not discourage the practice of slavery among such cultures because there's nothing morally superior about our own view of the value of human freedom. Infanticide is another thing we find in many cultures; again...nothing wrong with it according to moral relativists.

A moral relativist should be willing to "bite the bullet" on all of those things. They should be willing to accept that female circumcision, slavery, infanticide, the treatment of women as property and other such reprehensible practices are morally neutral acts that are permissible when done within the right cultural context. A moral relativist should agree that there's no reason for us to try to change societies which accept such things. Furthermore, a moral relitivist should be unable to talk about "human progress" when it comes to morality. Very few people are willing to bite that bullet, thus moral relativism gets diluted very quickly until you end up having to admit that there is such a thing as being "more moral" and thus there is some objective morality.
 
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HowardBThiname said:
Not really. Even the Judeo-Christian history held human sacrifices as valuable -- until they weren't. That make it subjective, dependent upon the era (and culture) in which one lived. Morality is subjective and prone to change.
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Beliefs about what constitute morality will always vary - no 2 people have identical values. But objective morality is something all of us seek after, when we argue with others that our moral beliefs are correct.

I've never heard of human sacrifices being part of mainstream Judeo-Christian practice.

I would hazard a guess that societies which moved on from human sacrifice did so because they were conquered or because they came to a realisation that it was immoral.

Moral decisions are different from person to person and era to era. It does not follow from this that morality is subjective.
 
Anglo-scot said:
Apparently not, if you read academic literature on the subject. I included a link in my OP to an introductory article on Wikipedia.
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I'm no scholar, but I'd posit that morals couldn't exist without the subjectivity of self-awareness and empathy engendered by humans.

Without humans, there are no morals.

Turtles do not experience moral dilemmas.

If morals were objective then it would be no more wrong to kill and eat a human than it would a cow.
 
CrabCake said:
Very few people on this sub-forum demonstrate any sort of formal knowledge of philosophy. I'm afraid you will find the same low quality of arguments here that you do elsewhere. However, there is a lot of good information out there on the internet. This is, by far, the best freely available philosophy resource I have found: Ethics | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The link is directly to the page on ethics which is really what you are asking about. What you are referring to as "subjectivist" is referred to as "moral relativism" in the field of Philosophy. In a nutshell, moral relativism, like all relativism has been on the ropes for a long time; it's popularity has waned and there's very few proponents left.

The most powerful argument against moral relativism is to take a look at its consequences. If we believe that morality is strictly a human construct then we must conclude that all moral systems are equally valid. This means there aren't cultures that are more moral than others. This sounds good at first. But let's follow this to its conclusion. Some cultures practice female circumcision, a truly horrific practice that amounts to sexual and physical abuse of infant girls, leaving them scarred for life and unable to enjoy sex for the rest of their lives. According to a relativistic view, we shouldn't encourage cultures that practice this to change their practices because since it is in line with their moral views, it's perfectly fine, whose to say our moral view of the value of women is superior? Likewise there are cultures which see no problem with slavery. According to a relativistic moral view, we should not discourage the practice of slavery among such cultures because there's nothing morally superior about our own view. Infanticide is another thing we find in many cultures; again...nothing wrong with it according to moral relativists.

A moral relativist should be willing to "bite the bullet" on all of those things. They should be willing to accept that female circumcision, slavery, infanticide, and other such reprehensible practices are morally neutral acts that are permissible when done within the right cultural context and that there's no reason for us to try to change societies which accept such things.
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Great post. I can't "like" it for some reason but would have done. I'll have a look at your link, thanks.
 
Anglo-scot said:
Were they wrong?
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It did nothing to materially further whatever cause caused them to perform the sacrifice, if that answers your question.

However, your post below ...

Anglo-scot said:
On the Aztec human sacrifice issue, most people tend to consider that human sacrifice is wrong, irrespective of era and place. This points to the objectivity of morals.
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... points to the subjectivity of morals, not the objectivity. If human sacrifice were objectively wrong in a moral sense, the Aztec wouldn't have done it, because it would have been against their morals, just as it is now against ours. But it wasn't, so they did, which means that morality isn't objective. At least as it pertains to murder, in this case.
 
Critter7r said:
I'm no scholar, but I'd posit that morals couldn't exist without the subjectivity of self-awareness and empathy engendered by humans.

Without humans, there are no morals.

Turtles do not experience moral dilemmas.

If morals were objective then it would be no more wrong to kill and eat a human than it would a cow.
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It's true that every human perceives things uniquely. It's true also that the morality of human acts is not an ethereal concept which exists outside those human acts. But we can draw the conclusion that there must be something objective about moral rules from our observations that we all share a common human nature and our behaviour and attitudes show so many similarities.
 
Anglo-scot said:
It's true that every human perceives things uniquely. It's true also that the morality of human acts is not an ethereal concept which exists outside those human acts. But we can draw the conclusion that there must be something objective about moral rules from our observations that we all share a common human nature and our behaviour and attitudes show so many similarities.
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Oh please....is it moral or immoral to kill another human being?
 
Critter7r said:
It did nothing to materially further whatever cause caused them to perform the sacrifice, if that answers your question.

However, your post below ...



... points to the subjectivity of morals, not the objectivity. If human sacrifice were objectively wrong in a moral sense, the Aztec wouldn't have done it, because it would have been against their morals, just as it is now against ours. But it wasn't, so they did, which means that morality isn't objective. At least as it pertains to murder, in this case.
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I would disagree. The Aztecs probably believed at least to some extent that human sacrifice was OK. But I believe what they did was wrong, according to objective criteria. There were probably some Aztecs who, in their moments of calm reflection, realised that it was a dodgy practice, but never pursued (or were able to pursue) that truth far enough to change their society.
 
Dragonfly said:
Oh please....is it moral or immoral to kill another human being?
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Your question is a non sequitur from my post. If you didn't understand it, feel free to ask me to clarify.
 
Dragonfly said:
Oh please....is it moral or immoral to kill another human being?
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But that's not the question.

Of course it's immoral to kill another human. But only for certain reasons. For other reasons it's ok. I'm pretty sure everyone in Western civilization will agree that it's immoral to then eat that person, though.

However, the question should be posed, "Is it moral or immoral to kill a human from the perspective of a housefly?".

If the housefly thinks it's immoral to kill your neighbor, then there may be some objectivity involved.
 
Anglo-scot said:
It's true that every human perceives things uniquely. It's true also that the morality of human acts is not an ethereal concept which exists outside those human acts. But we can draw the conclusion that there must be something objective about moral rules from our observations that we all share a common human nature and our behaviour and attitudes show so many similarities.
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Which is all entirely subjective.
 
Anglo-scot said:
I would disagree. The Aztecs probably believed at least to some extent that human sacrifice was OK. But I believe what they did was wrong, according to objective criteria. There were probably some Aztecs who, in their moments of calm reflection, realised that it was a dodgy practice, but never pursued (or were able to pursue) that truth far enough to change their society.
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The Aztec's condoning the practice and you condemning it is the very definition of subjective. If your "objective criteria" were actually objective, the Aztec wouldn't have done it.
 
Anglo-scot said:
Great post. I can't "like" it for some reason but would have done. I'll have a look at your link, thanks.
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Probably because I had edited it while you were reading it. I usually end up re-editing my posts various times before the final version. I like to get rid of run-on sentences and make sure everything says exactly what I mean. The drawback is that I think it does affect "like"s.
 
Critter7r said:
Right. I know.

Murder is morally wrong for most reasons. For others it's ok.

I.E. Morality is subjective.
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I am not sure that is entirely accurate in all cases.

Deciding that a person deserves to die and therefore it is morally justified to kill him is indeed a subjective opinion.
Application of the adopted law resulting in the death penalty can be an entirely objective matter.

It all goes into the components that make up the definitions of subjective and objective. (In case that has not yet been defined. I haven't read the entire thread.)

Objective: judgment that is not influenced by personal feelings or opinions when considering or representing facts.

Subjective: judgment that is based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.
 
RAMOSS said:
Things are permissible or not by common concensus. If you lived alone on an island, then, would morality mean anything?
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Morality isn't majority appeal. It is doing what is right. Yes it would mean something on an island if there were people there.
 
Anglo-scot said:
I'm new to this sub-forum so apologies if this debate repeats earlier ones.

On various threads in the Sex and Sexuality sub-forum, we have the eternal debate raging between those who believe that morality is objective and those who believe it is subjective. I am 100% on the objective side but am not a professional philosopher, having studied it for a few years in my spare time only, as part of my interest in understanding Christianity and psychology better.

I'm keen to explore the philosophical issues a bit more deeply than is easily possible in the cauldron of discussions about specific sexual issues. I say this by way of explaining my frustrations with the subjectivists whose views seem to be along the following lines:

a) the fact that opinions differ on morality is obvious proof that morality is subjective
b) the objectivity of morality cannot be proved according to the scientific method and therefore must be a myth
c) philosophy and philosophers have little to add to this debate.

Some debaters in that sub-forum bring down the level of debate, imo, by accusing supporters of objective morality of imposing their views on other people and even "lying". One moderator also considers it a mission to make these two points to people proposing traditional Christian moral standpoints.

So my agenda is to flesh out more thoroughly the case for objective morality. Moral subjectivists are more than welcome to challenge.

To add some ideas to the debate, here is an introductory article from Wikipedia about moral realism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_realism

Thanks for reading.
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All declarations of objective morality are subjective, the people making the declarations just aren't self aware enough to understand how they have chosen their morality.
 
roguenuke said:
The only two sources we are able to get what is right from are ourselves and others, both of which are subjective sources for morality. There is no objective morality because you cannot prove that what you or anyone else believes is morally right or wrong is really right or wrong. As Excon said, we are talking about actions that we make a biased judgement about, based on a lot of things.
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But morality still it's doing what is right, regardless if it is subjective or not. It is not doing what you are told. That was the point I was making. I was establishing a difference between morality and obedience. Saying what you said and what excon said doesn't really have any relevance to what I was saying.

If you wish to argue about parameters, we can, but I can tell you right now subjective doesn't mean something is meaningless.
 
Anglo-scot said:
I'm new to this sub-forum so apologies if this debate repeats earlier ones.

On various threads in the Sex and Sexuality sub-forum, we have the eternal debate raging between those who believe that morality is objective and those who believe it is subjective. I am 100% on the objective side but am not a professional philosopher, having studied it for a few years in my spare time only, as part of my interest in understanding Christianity and psychology better.

I'm keen to explore the philosophical issues a bit more deeply than is easily possible in the cauldron of discussions about specific sexual issues. I say this by way of explaining my frustrations with the subjectivists whose views seem to be along the following lines:

a) the fact that opinions differ on morality is obvious proof that morality is subjective
b) the objectivity of morality cannot be proved according to the scientific method and therefore must be a myth
c) philosophy and philosophers have little to add to this debate.

Some debaters in that sub-forum bring down the level of debate, imo, by accusing supporters of objective morality of imposing their views on other people and even "lying". One moderator also considers it a mission to make these two points to people proposing traditional Christian moral standpoints.

So my agenda is to flesh out more thoroughly the case for objective morality. Moral subjectivists are more than welcome to challenge.

To add some ideas to the debate, here is an introductory article from Wikipedia about moral realism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_realism

Thanks for reading.
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Morality is both objective and subjective at the same time. At least according to the moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt (who I think has one of the most intuitive and applicable theories out there right now).

Roughly, it works like this:
We have instinctual emotional triggers on key axis like Care/Harm, Fairness/Reciprocity, Loyalty/Group, Purity/Cleanliness, and Authority/Submissiveness. The point of these emotional triggers, as you can see in other primates, is to promote group harmony and survival. This is the purpose of morals in humans as well as other animals, survival, and there is nothing transcendent about it. However, it is objective in that instinctual sense in that it is part of the typical human make up and is pretty much a programmed automatic response lower than consciousness.

It is subjective because those emotional triggers are strongly shaped by environmental factors and upbringing. Purity is a good example, in some cultures, the left hand is unclean and a big nono to use in certain circumstances. In other cultures, the left hand does not matter.

This may strike at your point b above as well.

As far as point c, i think philosophers are barking up entirely the wrong tree in looking for some sort of explanation that is based only on ideas and not scientific observation. Also, if morality ultimately does turn out to be based on emotion, good luck finding logical principals to govern it, the intuitive side of the brain doesn't follow those rules.
 
I definitely believe morality is subjective. Even if every sentient being on the planet agrees on what is moral and it is embedded into our DNA, it is STILL subjective. Morality is still a construct of our mind and doesn't exist separate from it, so it is what our minds say it is. And therefore it is subjective.

And while I don't believe in god, even if there was a supreme God that declared something moral or immoral, it would still be subjective on that god's part.
 
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