Not sure why this got removed from 196lemmy…blahaj.zone but it would be real nice if moderation on Lemmy gave you some sort of notification of what you did wrong. Like an automatic DM or something
Shit meme, so apt for the community, I guess. Patrick represents a guy stating his own morality, which doesn’t oppose the final sentence, meaning this meme doesn’t follow the expected format nor does it have a point whatsoever.
Patrick’s last sentence is still consistent with everything that he said above. He expressed HIS opinion and HIS morals above.
No ethical framework can be truly objective. This is because there is no universal constant that backs any ethical framework. We need universal constants to verify an objective statement. For example, the speed of light is the same in all frames of reference. Also it is measureable. How do you measure the permissibility of an action? We do not know.
In conclusion, Patrick was right when he implied that there was no objectivity in ethics.
I’m seeing this point about moral epistemology a lot in this thread. Of course, philosophers have constructed convincing arguments in favor of different theories (classic ones being virtue ethics, deontology, consequentialism). If you were to take a look at those arguments you might be persuaded to one camp or another.
Also, I find this objection makes more sense for the moral skeptic than the moral relativist. If we really can’t know the moral value of an action, then why settle for saying its based on what humans think? Why not just go all out and say either 1) there is no such thing as moral value or 2) there is moral value but we have no way of knowing what it is.
If we really can’t know the moral value of an action, then why settle for saying its based on what humans think
I never said that we can’t know the moral value of an action. All that I’m saying is that the moral value of an action is dependent on the entity giving the value. Morals cannot exist without beings capable of having morals.
Why not just go all out and say either 1) there is no such thing as moral value or 2) there is moral value but we have no way of knowing what it is.
Because saying either of these two statements would not reflect reality. There IS a thing such as moral value. It’s just not constant for all beings capable of having morals. For the second option, there is no scientific evidence to suggest that there is indeed a universal moral constant. Hence, “knowing” that value goes out of the window.
What? So just because I happen to agree with your stance, I also have to concede that there’s such a thing as objective morality?
Morality is subjective by definition.
People who down vote genuinely believe objective morality is possible, but it’s literally impossible and it’s incredibly obvious and self evident this is true.
It’s only self evident if you accept your own morality is subjective. There are people who think morality is defined by some invisible friend who is right about absolutly everything.
Yea, plus divine commandment theory has so many holes, that it could be a sieve.
“God created this world, hence god defines what is good”. Why?
Let’s even agree to go with the statement above. How would you even verify that an entity was god while writing your commandments? Is it not possible that an organism with superior tech was trolling you?
In a single line, how do you differentiate between God and an imposter?
Just five minutes of thinking can lead to these questions that destroy divine commandment theory. People just refuse to think…
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If objective morality existed, we wouldn’t be arguing about those things since we would all be in the same agreement.
Even “murder is wrong” isn’t objective morally when you ask someone who believes in the death penalty.
Moral judgements are relative, moral truth is not.
Another philosophy “conundrum” solved by your friendly neighborhood Skelator! See you next time!
isn’t moral truth determined by people making moral judgements?
No. Truth is not relative. Interpretation and consensus, neither are truth.
i know truth itself is not relative, so what is moral truth? to me it sounds like saying that following X persons subjective view of morality we can objectively say that Y is bad. this just then makes objectively proving a persons subjective morality a relative truth though, and not an objective truth, because we could express any side of morality, good or bad, objectively, and as you said, truth is not relative and only one truth must exist.
if you’re talking about things like Sam Harris’ definition of morality being a sort of “majority wellbeing”, i’m sure that while we can theoretically allow for the redefinition of morality and make some objective truths regaridng that subjecte moral viewpoint, but as it is not being absolute in the universe and moreso being related to subjective wellbeing of the most amount of living things, i feel that this is still just fulfilling the subjective definitions.
interestingly though, Sam Harris will go on all day about how we can’t redefine free will as being the ability to make choices which all life evidently has in common. just because these choices aren’t ultimately free, he rejects the “compatibilist” redefinition of free will.
I don’t see the contradiction here. Right Person is just asking what Left Person’s beliefs on those matters are, not whether they believe those beliefs are objective.
How is one Patrick agreeing equal to objective truth?
We get it, you want slavery back, therefore viciously beating you to death is morally acceptable because the consensus admits your life has no value.
the logic understander
Honestly it’s more disturbing that you don’t think something can be “bad” unless it’s “objectively bad”. are you a christian?
All 3 would receive a negative response in the last 100 years in different parts of the world. Hell there are plenty of places currently where women can’t vote, slavery is a thing and the government isn’t working toward a better society. Those places wouldn’t exist if those people thought it was morally wrong. Objective morality is definitely not a thing.
That’s exactly the point. For example, people used to think chattel slavery in the US was morally acceptable because they viewed black people as inferior. But today we would say that black people are not inferior and that they were mistaken. The moral relativist would say that slavery was okay to do back then because that’s what the people agreed on. Do you still agree with the moral relativist?
I agree that morals are relative considering there are a ton of people who still believe black people are inferior and also places with slavery.
Something can be morally objective if every single person in the world believes it but I can’t think of a single example of that.
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That would be the case if morals were something we can measure outside the human experience. Unfortunately there is no way to measure if something is moral or not outside how someone feels about it.
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Not really, if absolutely every single human at all stages of life believed it’s morally good to spit in their palm every day that would be an objective moral truth, there would be no subjectivity to it. For morals though no such thing exists.
You don’t need to be able to observe it externally to distinguish it. For example i can say I have a conscious experience and that would be objectively true even though we have a pretty minimal understanding on what that really is or how to measure it.
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That doesn’t mean it does not exist though. It simply means we can’t measure it.
I’m not saying that, just that there’s no outside way of verifying if something is true or not in case of morals. I don’t believe objective morals exist because you can’t find a single moral stance shared among all of humanity not because you can’t measure the truth of that stance.
Is suffering good or bad? I don’t mean that in a specific context, but any type of suffering in itself.
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Do you think pain is real?
I’d assume it got removed because the title didn’t include rule, but the modlogs just calls you unhinged.
Honestly I think I agree with the modlog.
Sam Harris doesn’t like this idea, lol. “morality is wellbeing!”, well then what is wellbeing to a bad person? it’s all relative
Professional philosophers don’t take Sam Harris seriously. He’s a smart guy, but his take on free will is dismissive of established philosophical literature. That is, he could do more to read and then engage with published philosophy; but maybe he doesn’t think he has to since his work isn’t intended for academics.
Sounds an awful lot like groupthink to me. Having differentiating takes is the point of philosophy.
In a sort of snarky way one might even say that studying it defeats the purpose, because of pollution and all that.
So is this meant to be a cryptic argument against objective morality and for less ethical actions? Group consensus and moral relativity can apply to… Idk, the Nazi regime?
OR is this an argument saying we need more people to agree about what is “objectively” moral if we want it to become true? Democratically around consensus?
I imagine this argument has been used in bad faith more than it has been used in good faith.
Patrick here is meant to represent most people who lean towards moral relativism but haven’t thought it through. In their daily lives they think that certain things are obviously bad (e.g., chattel slavery) and they also think that we should work to better our society. But then they also think that there is no such thing as objective good and bad; morality is just relative to some group consensus.
But if moral relativism is true, then you can’t say that slavery is universally bad; slavery was a morally acceptable action for the slave owners because they agreed that black people are inferior. Similarly, there is no motivation to work towards a “better” society, because what we have now is exactly as morally good as anything else we could agree on in the future. The objection is that moral relativism is incompatible with our conception of moral progress as an objective good.
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Moral relativism does not mean you agree with different moral standards, and it does not mean people lack any moral standards
I never said or implied this. I can only infer that you misunderstood what I’m writing. Moral relativism says that an action is good or bad relative to the situation that it’s committed in. So if everyone in a culture thinks female genital mutilation is good, the relativist will argue that is is morally acceptable for those people. But they can’t say that an action is universally right/wrong and, to me, that seems to limit their ability to say that actions done in one context are preferable to actions done in another. I don’t see how that leaves room for moral progress.
Now, you aren’t providing any reasons for your view; you’re stating your view and emphatically claiming I’m wrong. I’m happy to have a dialogue about the subject but you have to, you know, actually give an argument. How do you view the moral relativist position and how is that conception consistent with moral progress?
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First of all I think this was very helpful and was educational for me. But I can also see that people are always making moral objections. Many people did want to abolish slavery for many years before it happened. Doesn’t that standard mean slavery was also morally wrong in a relative way? Or does it only matter what the slaveholder believes about their action?
All versions will agree that morality depends on some group consensus. Different variations of moral relativism could vary by which group consensus matters. To simplify things, let’s imagine a world in which there was only one slave in a society of people who thought slavery was a good thing. In this scenario, the moral relativist would say that slavery is good for this community, because these people agree that slavery is a good thing. Even though the one slave strongly disagrees with everyone in their community.
This is an obvious problem with moral relativism, but people in this thread either think that morality is subjective by definition or think epistemological uncertainty about morality entails moral relativism.
wait until this place hears that killing babies is bad as an objective moral truth
An overwhelming majority of people agree with that, but it doesn’t mean it’s not subjective
Objective != Better/stronger/more true
Just because something is clearly (to any sane human) true doesn’t mean it’s objective. It’s can still be subjective.
An objective moral truth is basically an oxymoron
You can objectively say that humans think certain things are morally bankrupt but you cannot say that certain things are objectively morally bankrupt without specifying according to whom. Morals don’t just float around space. Humans have them because of evolution and society.
I think much confusion here is around the word objective. We seem to be defining it differently. The way I define it, and I think the most idiomatic way to define it, there cannot, by definition, be such a thing as an objective moral truth
Edit: clarification
You can objectively say that humans think certain things are morally bankrupt but you cannot say that certain things are objectively morally bankrupt without specifying according to whom.
This is begging the question in favor of moral relativism. If there are objective facts “floating out there” about math, biology, etcetera, why can’t there be objective facts about morality?
If the answer is that it is difficult to know what the moral facts are: some facts are more difficult to find out than others. Physics didn’t know about the Higgs Boson for centuries and yet here we are. Perhaps philosophy could do the same thing with moral truths in time.
If there are objective facts “floating out there” about math, biology, etcetera, why can’t there be objective facts about morality?
Because the objectivity of statements about math, biology, etc. can be verified by posing a scientific question. In other words, something like 1+1=2 is a testable claim. We have seen no occurrence of 1+1=2. Hence, we can say that “1+1=2” is a law of nature. “Moral truths” are simply not testable.
If the answer is that it is difficult to know what the moral facts are: some facts are more difficult to find out than others. Physics didn’t know about the Higgs Boson for centuries and yet here we are. Perhaps philosophy could do the same thing with moral truths in time
And the Higgs Boson became an “objective statement” only after it was verified. Prior to that, it was just a hypothesis. Do you have any scientific evidence to suggest that there are certain universal moral truths that apply to all humans?
And the Higgs Boson became an “objective statement” only after it was verified. Prior to that, it was just a hypothesis.
We might have two different understanding of what it means for something to be an objective fact. Objective truth/facts/reality exist independently of human understanding. If all the humans got together and decided that the Earth is flat, that wouldn’t make the Earth flat. If scientists had never discovered the Higgs Boson, the particle would still exist.
Alternatively, perhaps you already agree with that and your point is more about the objectivity of statements (i.e., our linguistic acts). And while I disagree with your overall stance on morality, I can see the logic in insisting that our statements about the world be verifiable/falsifiable. Historically, some philosophers held that words that cannot be verified are literally meaningless.
So just to be clear, we can make a distinction between the objectivity of facts (e.g., physical facts, moral facts) and the objectivity (here, justifiability) of our statements about the facts. My stance is that there are objective moral facts. I concede the point that the justifiability of our statements about the moral facts is a difficult problem to solve. But finding the Higgs Boson was also difficult and we humans did it!
so do you disagree with the original post?
Yeah, I don’t think there could exist such a thing as an objective moral truth - per definition.
But what if all women voted in favour for slavery?
I like Matt Dillyhuntys approach to objective morality: he picks a subjective and kind of arbitrary foundation like wellbeing and objectively measures all actions against this foundation.
All of those things are group consensus though. As in there are plenty of examples when group consensus was the other way and those things (slavery, not allowing women to participate in democracy, extreme inequality) were accepted and practiced freely
