Morality is subjective

Sure, i think killing babies is fine and dandy, do you think the same way?

That's the point. It's very unconventional to believe only things you can prove, because you can't prove almost anything.

> can't prove almost anything.
But, I shouldn't. you claim - you prove.

You claim morality is objective.

well it's not objective

>Ok, nice meme. but, can you prove it?
Everyone has a different conception of what morality entails. Some conceptions involve objectivity, others don't.

This thread reminds me of this

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/why-our-children-dont-think-there-are-moral-facts/?_r=0

I'm surprised that even here people are misseducated in philosophy. Or are the ones claiming subjectivism is so certain mostly the historyfags.

Nice try troll

Its as objective as anything else.
Brains are matter, brain-states are determined by the state of the universe in general, you can (in principle) compare brain states on how conducive they are to happiness/wellbeing.
Finding a ideal state is an optimization problem, with all the trappings and problems that entails.

If math is not subjective ("but 1+1+1 equals one to me and thats that!") then neither is morality.

R u sayin f a m there's a instrument tht can measure some kinda basal morality with high accuracy and precision?

You assume that happiness and well being are inherently good. The problem with objective morality isn't the way to get to a goal (for example happiness) but that people have different goals.

>You assume that happiness and well being are inherently good.
Because they are, idiot.

That's only if there is objective morality. You're saying there is objective morality because there is objective morality. Explain why are happinrss and well being inherently good?

Thats what I explained, if math is objective, or if ANYTHING can be objective, then so is morality.

Anyone could say "but 1+1 equals 5, because thats just what it does to me, and you can't disagree because thats just my opinion!". Same with morality. People can simply be wrong, and ignored if they are spouting demonstrably retarded nonsense.

Its not a problem exclusively for morality that someone can come along and just start makin shit up about whats real or not. "But cuttin off peoples clits is totally best!" or "beating your kids is good for them!" is just objectively wrong. It just means you are wanting the wrong things, and are unaware that you could want other things and it would be more rewarding. This is not arbitrary, if you have a human brain there are constraints on what will and will not be conducive to you being content, and to what degree. Its not just randomly different for everyone, like its not arbitrary what food is healthy for you.

You're still just making claims but not presenting evidence. You're right that if happiness is objectively good, then there is objective morality. 5+5 is always 10, but what if the answer you're looking for is 20.

Why do you assume that there is an ideal state of being human? The goal of a collective morality is not necessarily the happiness and well-being of the individuals within it. Strictly speaking, any morality that preserves itself can be argued to be good. Slavery was considered morally sound once, that did not make it objectively good at the time.

I told you, but I'll try again. Happiness is not some weird arbitrary thing, if you are a humanoid ape and have a material brain.
"What if eating 5 apples is healthy, but some people want to eat 20 apples?!" Is that what you're asking?
The reasons people might look for "20" can be valid and correct reasons that will lead to the expected results if they are basing that decision on valid information and valid model of reality. If then someone says "but i want 10 apples though", and they want it for the same purpouse, like making exactly 1 apple pie that needs 20 apples, they can be objectively wrong about what they want.
Same with any psychological benefit of any action or state.
"Good" is not arbitrary, same as "healthy" is not arbitrary. Its not easy to define, and not always clear, but its by no means just completely subjective. Even if someone claims they are healthier when they repeatedly try to drink bleach, they are just objectively wrong, no matter if they disagree on what health is.

That just seems confused about what we're talking here.
>Slavery was considered morally sound once
>that did not make it objectively good at the time
Thats exactly what I mean, people were objectively wrong about what is moral, if it wasn't objectively a good thing to do, or if it objectively caused unneccessary suffering, or if it was based on or justified failures of empathy and compassion.

I get what you're trying to say, but you still haven't explained why happiness is objectively good. Like I said, your explanation works if there is a right answer for "what shoukd humans try to achieve?".

>people were objectively wrong about what is moral, if it wasn't objectively a good thing to do, or if it objectively caused unnecessary suffering

Are you arguing that consequentialism is objective? You seem to bring up issues that have obvious answers when considering which option causes the least suffering/most happiness, but there are a ton of scenarios that can't be definitely answered with consequentialist thinking (without total knowledge).

Also, if we assume that morality is objective, would you assent that there is an ideal moral choice in every situation, and furthermore, and ideal state of being?

There is. A higher state of contentment and wellbeing in general for as many concious beings as possible. There is nothing else to achieve or value.
If by "happiness" you don't just mean delirious manic laughter, but a fulfilling and "good" life.
it doesn't have to be ideal, and there doesn't have to be an ideal life blueprint for morality to work. There are no ideal "blueprints" or values for health. Yet medicine is very much objective and works.
"Happiness", as in moving further away from unnecessary suffering, is what is good. Thats what the word means. Moving towards that is better, moving away from that and closer to needless suffering is worse. If thats not what morality means to you, then you are the "1+1 is three to me" person. There is nothign else that good or bad could apply to.

Where does this morality come from then? Is it an universal law like gravity?

>but there are a ton of scenarios that can't be definitely answered with consequentialist thinking (without total knowledge).
Totally true, same as for health. Its absurdly complicated, and some issues might be unsolvable in principle, or equivalent, or just not worht discerning because they are too close together. There might be true paradoxes in there. But paradoxes don't make anything subjective.

>would you assent that there is an ideal moral choice in every situation, and furthermore, and ideal state of being?
There might be an ideal choice, if there was an ideal state. I don't know if there is an ideal state. Like I don't know how high people should be able to jump to be considered healthy. Health is still objective though, and there are many things that are objectively unhealthy.

I don't see a meaningful question here.

If morality is objective, then I assume it's an outside force that is uninfluenced by humans. If it is created by humans, then it's very hard for them to be wrong about it like you claim.

>Totally true, same as for health. Its absurdly complicated, and some issues might be unsolvable in principle

Okay, but if some choices are "unsolvable", how can there exist an objectively correct choice?

Furthermore, if we assume that we are completely aware of all conceivable consequences of an action, and we make an "objective" choice on the basis that what's "objectively" correct is the choice that will cause the most happiness and the least suffering overall, how shall we then decide what suffering is worth in contrast to happiness? How can we decide if happiness is worth more to people now, or people in the future (like in the case of human experiments)?

I am in agreement with you about a lot of things. We can say that eating healthy is, objectively speaking, generally better than not eating healthy. But this does not imply that morality is objective. For it to be objective, there has to be a set of rules that govern what is right and what is wrong for every being, everywhere. And that's not morality, that's religion.

Is chemistry an outside force? Is there an ideal truth behind chemistry that has to be there for chemistry to work? What are you on about?

If its unsolvable, its still not subjective. THere are unsolvable engineering problems right now, noone claims its an "any solution is valid" scenario.

With human experiments (i assume you mean callous brutal grizzly shit), a consequence is that you will live in a society that does human experiments. What effect does that have on the rest of humanity? A terrible one I think, which is why we don't do it. Which is btw why we do paid human testing that has very small risks for health but benefits in general.
We value human independance more that that. Its just what a human brain does, that is not opinion. If we were an insectoid species in a hive society, where there are literally different classes of beings, we might value things differently, or if there was more at stake, like in a war. It might be a morally lesser evil to do experiments to win out against the nazis for example. Just that our intuition tells us very strongly that we would rather fight some nazis as is than survive and live in a society that can "conscript" you into unvoluntary grizly medical experiments. It would fundamentally devalue life.

>For it to be objective, there has to be a set of rules that govern what is right and what is wrong for every being, everywhere.
No. Why? That is not true for health either. Its generally healthy to eat some bread, but some peopel are allergic, so its not a rule that holds true for everyone always - now what? Nothing. Health is still objective, even if its hard to discern in many cases. It doesn't make the other cases any less clear or objective.

Unless you want to redefine what good is, yes, it is.

Ethics is guide on how to live, with the aim of making people the happiest and the best people possible. So, when they mean "good", they mean that which makes people this way.

I think we're dealing with different definitions of objectively.

>Objectively : Of or relating to something that can be known, or to something that is an object or a part of an object; existing independent of thought or an observer as part of reality.

We're talking about objective morality. The idea behind morality as being something subjective is that it is not an inherent part of reality, but rather a construction of mankind.

For morality to be objective in the way that math is objective, it has to exist independent of man. For it to exist independent of us, it has to be governed by immutable laws.

addendum

>Okay, but if some choices are "unsolvable", how can there exist an objectively correct choice?
I think this becomes obvious if you actually invision a scenario like that. Like you are given two buttons, and you have to press one, and you don't know what either of them do. Would you be morally to blame if one button killed a puppy, and the other one did nothing? No.
But would you be objectively to blame if you just killed a puppy slowly to hear it scream? Yes. Why would the "equal options" scenario invalidate the other choices where you can evaluate the outcome to a high certainty?
Where else would a standard like that possibly apply, and why should it apply to morality?

This is one of the weird confusion points that doesn't make any sense if you think about it, but comes up almost every time. "It has to be perfect, or its subjective". Nothing works like that, no other science is held to that impossible bar.

Laws of nature, yes, same as any other matter. Because our brains-states are generated by our brain, and our brains are matter. So they are not arbitrary, and neither is health, or psychological health (aka happiness or wellbeing or whatever).

Chemistry is studying the reactions of different substances. It is controlled by laws of physics which are uninfluenced by human opinion. I'm just trying to figure out where yiu think these morals come from. Humans? God? Or have they just always been?

There is a difference in what we both are discussing. You have already defined what "good" is while I'm trying to define it.

Where does health come from? If it comes form nothing, is it subjective? Why is it objectively wrong that eating your own entrails till you die is unhealthy? What is the objective ruler for health?

>There is a difference in what we both are discussing. You have already defined what "good" is while I'm trying to define it.

You are trying to redefine it? Why?

So the laws of nature are the laws of morality?
Or did the laws of nature create the laws of morality?
If the laws of nature created the laws of morality, should they not then be able to be altered?

He's not trying to redefine it, it has no objective definition, that's what he's trying to get across.

Good post getting overlooked

Moral value of an action is a consequence of how this universe works, yes, so it is ultimately dependant on how the laws of nature work.
I don't understand the "altered" part.

Chemistry also has no objective definition, you can say chemistry for you is eating dirt, and thats just as valid as any other definition. But that misses the point though. You can call this "good" whatever you want, as long as we are talking about the same thing. If you are not talking about good and bad in terms of suffering and wellbeing, you are talking about chemistry as eating dirt, and are not really in the discussion.
No, its a naive post that just repeates a hundreds of years old confusion.

There are things that are objectively unhealthy and they're again controlled by laws of physics. But morality is different, there's no physical part in it. Healthiness is also not a very good comparison, since it already is the goal. You assume that we should try to achieve happiness but why is it that way? What would control it?

That is equivalent of asking "but why does chemistry care about atoms and how they work? Who controls that?" Achieving happiness(in a very broad sense) is just what we are talking about when we talk about morality and values. If you are talking about something else, you are talking alchemy, or interpretive dance instead of chemistry.

>He's not trying to redefine it, it has no objective definition, that's what he's trying to get across.

In what we are discussing, it does. If you want to redefine the term so that it becomes subjective, it loses any kind of value.

That's exactly what I'm asking. If objective morality exists, why does it value things it does?

>You assume that we should try to achieve happiness but why is it that way?

That's the origin of ethics. What they mean by good is that which leads to happiness.

What would you call good?

I would also call achieving happiness good, but that's just what I think. I don't think there is any outside force or objective laws that humans should obey.

And as I said, thats like asking "if objective chemistry exists, why does it adress how atoms behave?"
I don't understand how that is a meaningful question. Morality in general adresses consequences of actions on wellbeing and suffering of concious creatures. Thats what we call morality. That is the word we use to talk about this specific issue.
The question of "where does that come from" just doesn't come up in any other area of inquiry. Its just not a meaningful question.

So, what exactly do you want to ask here, that you could also aks about some other area of interest?

It's derived from the physical configuration of our bodies in a self-preserving system.

If you approach morality fron that angle then, yes, you are correct. But what you're saying is that morality is what humans should do to achieve happiness when in reality it's what humans should do. You're inserting your opinion in the definition of the word. What I'm trying to say is that for morality to be objective it should be controlled by or be an outside force.

I.. I can just repeat myself here.
If the word "morality" does not translate to you into wellbeing and suffering, you are just talking about something else entirely.
There is no "outside force", its all laws of nature. Its all how our universe is, and how it works and behaves. There is no outside inside distinction that I can see here. Except if you think you are not part of this universe somehow, but thats /x/ territory.
I could say that "chemistry relates to atoms in motion" is just an opinion, and we have no REAL definition of what chemistry is, because no outside force dictates what its supposed to be, we just made that word and that distinction up.
But it still adresses a specific area of investigation into the world, and as long as we agree on that, we can meaningfully talk about it. Otherwise, what the fuck even

I do think that we should minimize suffering but there are surely some questions where we do not agree. In that case one of us would be wrong, assuming there is objective morality. That's where your theory needs an outside force to determine what is "good". I could also just keep asking "why is that good" and eventually you'd have to say "because I think so". That's when morality becomes subjective.

>If the word "morality" does not translate to you into wellbeing and suffering, you are just talking about something else entirely.

It doesn't. It was never about that. Everyone's been trying to tell you.

Math is subjective though. Try convincing a dog that 1+1=2.

You don't need some outside force. You just need to consider the terms as it is.

Wait I think I got it, you want to ask basicly if there is an objectively correct thing to want, or how we would know what we should want.

Like, "should we want to be happy?"

I don't think thats morality, I think thats closer to just definitions.
"we should want to have our wants fulfilled" is the answer here, and I think its as dodgy as the question.
There is nothing else to want but be happy and not suffer or be in pain. What else COULD you want but the fulfilment of your wants? The trick is just to realise how much that entails. Its not hedonism, its realising that you are in a better more fulfilling state of contentment if everyone around you is also happy and you live in a healthy society. Because we are social animals and thats what our brain dictates. Its just the state of things as they are.
"What should we want?" -> if you have wants you want them fulfulled, thats in the definition, there is nothing else to add

No, I wouldn't have to do that, it would be good because it would either reduce suffering in general, or increase wellbeing in general, which is basicly the same thing.

It was literally about whether morality is subjective, see OP.

As I said earlier, IF anything is objective, then so is morality. Whether someone can comprehend it wouldn't change anything.

>IF anything is objective, then so is morality
My point was that nothing is.

No that wasn't your point, thats just your opinion on what your point was etc.
No useful statement or discussion or insight can come from that stance. So.. best of luck or something.

I'm not the one you are arguing with.

Do you think Epictetus and Lindsay Lohan life advices are worth the same? That some human being would be better off listening to Lindsay rather than to Epictetus?

Thinking anything is objective is itself a subjective stance to take. Everything can certainly be objective — through a subjective lens. The better way to evaluate things is not from a subjective-objective dichotomy but from an interconnected relationship between subject-object; more like a polarity.

But my point was that the dog does not speak our language. OUR language. As in math is a part of human language, not a universal one.

"The Sun is larger than the moon" is subjective in your view?

Ask a dog or anything non-human that, see what you get. Each word in every sentence is part of human language. These analyses of the world depend on the human brain.

This is just a load of pseudo-intellectual shit, isn't it?
No matter what you think, the Sun does have a larger mass than the Moon.

Yeah I think when arguments like "but my dog doesn't get it" come into play you're done.

How is it fucking pseudo-intellectual when you CAN'T ASK ANY OTHER ANIMAL ON EARTH these questions? Are you retarded, dude? The questions are posed by humans, in a HUMAN language — case in point, these analyses are subjective, the subject being Human.

"Sun" and "Moon" do not exist in a cockroach's reality.

Doesn't mean the sun is not larger than the moon.

Everything is anything, so its all real. Science!

How can one be larger than the other to a cockroach when they don't exist for the cockroach?

You have mistaken your own brain and the commonality of it within human society to represent universality. But all around us are lower creatures who do not share this supposed "universal" analysis. And some day, we may very well encounter some alien creature with the capacity to analyze beyond ourselves — maybe "Sun" and "Moon" are merely rudimentary depictions within some greater mind's analysis of everything.

I can actually.

It doesn't exist independent of the observers of it. Two different cultures can have two entirely different moral codes. A feral child will not develop a moral code at all unless brought to socialize with enough other humans. Since it exists only in the minds of human beings and is not an immutable feature of the universe it is by definition subjective.

Also kys pls.

You're literally stupid. This is why I hate coming to Veeky Forums

>IF anything is objective, then so is morality
mmmmm no. You don't know what objective means.

The level, sophistication, explanatory, and pedagogical power of a morality is dependent on immense series of data (historical, autobiographical, etc) that is processed by a neurology with variances in things like "acceptable proximity to other agents", etc and then tested against the environment a morality seeks to order.

Intelligence is more important than the good. For without it, the kingdom of the good falls to dust and decay.

And it is far easier for humans to lie to themselves that they are good and that others are bad than it is to ask the simple question and demonstrate before others

"Do my tools work?"

But most human beings are talented at interfacing with other humans, not talented at making sensible hypothesis about reality and testing them out.

Or, maybe the cockroach is a dumbass and the Sun is indeed larger than the Moon, regardless of what the cockroach think.

>Two different cultures can have two entirely different moral codes.
Doesn't mean their moral codes are worth the same.

Yes they are worth the same thing. They're objectively worthless and only have value in the context of society and human experience. Why can't Veeky Forums understand subjectivity?

Of course. But unfortunately we're dealing with that faggot of a bridge named Man. Tribalism is the force that bifurcates morality into a million different special flowers but those possessed most by that instinct will be the ones to most harshly insist that their one special flower is the summit of moral consideration.

But maybe such flowers need such guardians with such chauvinism.

From our perspective the cockroach is a dumbass. The cockroach thinks it's plenty intelligent. And we would be dumbasses in the face of anything higher too.

Not true. Ethics are very important, user.

Aye, but the answer is not being a relativist either.

>From our perspective the cockroach is a dumbass. The cockroach thinks it's plenty intelligent.

I don't know if cockroaches think, but whatever it does, in terms of astronomy, yes, it is a dumbass.

>And we would be dumbasses in the face of anything higher too.

Yes, and?

>Not true. Ethics are very important, user.
It is important... SUBJECTIVELY! Objectively speaking nothing is more important than anything else. Objectively speaking, morality is meaningless. It only gains meaning when tied to the human experience and given a set of goals to achieve by codifying prescribed behaviors. Outside of that it has no meaning whatsoever. Do you understand?

Different societies developed different moral systems.
Morals have changed over time.
Good and evil are relative

Moral codes are hammered in response to biological preferences and experience. But once hammered out, produce a series of behaviors that can be templated onto other human beings and thus our judgement of morality is a judgement of the series of behaviors and responses it provokes at such and when moment.

A morality that preaches carpe diem and a disregard for future-orientation will be conquered by the morality that praises saving and waiting for the right moment to attack.

Of course the main fault with humans is an inner proviclivity, can't really call it a "morality", to create propositional weapons to dislodge propositional structures but without regards to the stability of such a weapon in the larger war space.

In other words, humans like to utter "truths" with far more rapidity to dislodge "lies" or "false truths" than they like consider whether the "truth" can survive sustained scrutiny. Even worse, they get an instant payoff if they half succeed by virtue of signaling tribal alliegane and loyalty.

Humanity is two races. Interfacers-to-Interfacers and Reality interfacers.

What at all does that have to do with what I said?

But user, how that goes against what I said? I'm discussing another thing.

You are arguing for moral relativism.
Which is in my opinion, bunk. Not all moral codes are equivalent.

>Yes, and?
What we think is only objective when we ignore the existence of all other minds.

Calling a moral code "objectively worthless" is missing the point that such codes have a feedback effect with the anticipation, priming, and repition of particular behaviors which alter the practicioner's standing in life and tribal affiliation.

No two codes are worth the same, the expectation is even more ridiculous considering they are forged in the haphazardry of cranial machinery. Even a superior brain can have a DURF moment and crystallize an odd disfigured valuation of life.

user, no matter how much you try to play with words, the Sun is indeed objectively larger than the moon.

That is retardation. That is what meaning MEANS you moron. What the fuck do you think people mean when they use the word? That its a force like gravity, that its imposed on us somehow? Ethics mean something in the only way that anything can mean anything in principle. How are you this confused, fuck..
"but it doesnt REEEAALLYY mean anything.." is horseshit. It really means something if it means something to us, thats the only way anything can mean anything at all, noone uses that word differently.

Yeah, people got morality wrong in the past, same with fucking anything like inhouse plumbing or fuckin medicine. They drilled into peoples heads to let demons out too and boiled piss to get gold. So what? Why does it make morals more or less objective compared to medicine if some idiots are being retarded about it? Who cares?

I'm not arguing that it isn't. But if you acknowledge the existence of other minds, you acknowledge the existence of other realities, i.e. there are no constants.

A better, and more meaningful way, to express that is

"I'd bet my life that the sun is larger than the moon."

Just saying "objectively" and "it is" are formalisms that don't add necessary data. Whereas putting a semblance of skin in the game means that you have an actual investment in this picture of reality and thus "support it" as opposed to being a mere signal repeater.

The Sun is larger than the moon, regardless of the existence of observers.

Sun, moon, and size difference are not existing variables in all minds.

Does anyone take this kind of mental masturbation seriously?

Like I said you don't understand the difference between objectivity and subjectivity. For some reason Veeky Forums has such a huge problem thinking outside of the human experience.

I already said that subjectively it matters a lot. It's a big part of the human experience. Outside of that it doesn't matter at all. So you're right in what you're saying but you fail to see that we're essentially saying the same thing. You are only thinking in human terms rather than absolutes. I'm telling you that in human terms, you are indeed correct. In universal terms all of the attributes of morality break down and it is therefore subjective. The question was to whether or not morality is subjective, not whether or not certain moral codes can produce more amiable results for the humans employing them, and it is subjective, and certain moralities can produce better results for those that employ them. We are literally arguing the same thing and you seem to think that this extra part added on is in some way an argument against my other point.

Pls learn to separate fact from opinion.